Sunday, July 14, 2013

Hakam II - Harith ibn Kalada, al-


Hakam II
Hakam II ( al-Hakam II al-Mustansir ibn ‘Abd al-Rahman III) (Al-Hakam II ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān III) (January 13, 915 - October 16, 976).  Umayyad Caliph of Cordoba (r.961-976).  He enlarged and embellished the Great Mosque of Cordoba, and gradually became the suzerain of all the Christian princes of the north.  In 966, the Normans made a new attempt to land in Spain.  Al-Hakam’s reign was one of the most peaceful and fruitful of the Cordoban dynasty.  

Al-Hakam II succeeded to the Caliphate after the death of his father Abd ar-Rahman III in 961. He secured peace with the Christian kingdoms of northern Iberia, and made use of the stability to develop agriculture through the construction of irrigation works. Economical development was also encouraged through the widening of streets and the building of markets.

He was fond of books and learning, and amassed a vast library with 400,000 books (this was sacked in the Berber siege of Cordoba in 1100). He even sent his agents to purchase 'first edition' books from the Muslim east, such as Kitab al-Aghani (Book of Songs) by Abu al-Faraj al-Isfahani.

During his reign, a massive translation effort was undertaken, and many books were translated from Latin and Greek into Arabic. He formed a joint committee of Arab Muslims and Iberian Mozarab Christians for this task.

His building works included an expansion of the main mosque of Cordoba (962-966), the Mezquita, and the completion of the Royal residence Medina Azahara (976), which Abd ar-Rahman III had begun in 936.

As well, the famous physician, scientist, and surgeon Abu al-Qasim (Abulcasis) was active in Al-Hakam's court during his reign.

Whilst the internal administration was left increasingly to the Vizir Al-Mushafi, General Ghalib was gradually gaining influence as leader of the army. He was chiefly pre-occupied with repulsing the last Norman attacks (966, 971), and with the struggle against the Zirids and the Fatimids in northern Morocco. The Fatimids were defeated in Morocco in 974, while Al-Hakam II was able to maintain the supremacy of the Caliphate over the Christian states of Navarre, Castile and Leon.

In his youth his loves seem to have been entirely homosexual. He was known to have openly kept a male harem. This exclusivity was a problem, since it was essential to produce an heir. A resolution was reached by his taking a concubine who dressed in boys' clothes and was give the masculine name of Jafar.

He was succeeded by his son, Hisham II al-Mu'ayad, who was a nominal ruler under the Hajib (Grand Vizier) al-Mansur Ibn Abi Aamir.

 al-Hakam II al-Mustansir ibn ‘Abd al-Rahman III see Hakam II
Al-Hakam II ibn 'Abd al-Rahman III see Hakam II


Hakim Ata
Hakim Ata (d. 1186).  Turkish saint of Khwarazm and author of popular poems on mystic life.  His works are very popular down to modern times in Turkestan and in the Volga basin.  
Ata, Hakim see Hakim Ata


Hakim bi-amr Allah, al-
Hakim bi-amr Allah, al- (Abu ‘Ali Mansur Tāriqu l-Ḥākim) (Al-Hakim bi Amr al-Lāh - literally "Ruler by Allah's Command") (b.985 - February 12/13, 1021).  Fatimid caliph (r. 996-1021).  He was famous because of his excesses, his cruelty and his persecutions, particularly of the Christians.  The divine character which certain of his supporters attributed to him is an article of faith with the Druzes.  His end has always been a mystery.  {See also Caliphs; Druze; and Fatimids.}

Abu ‘Ali Mansur Tāriqu l-Ḥākim was the sixth Fatimid caliph and 16th Ismaili imam (996–1021).  Born in 985, Abu ‘Ali “Mansur” succeeded his father Abū Mansūr Nizār al-Azīz (975–996) at the age of eleven on October 14, 996 with the caliphal title of al-Hakim Bi-Amr Allah. He was the first Fatimid ruler to be born in Egypt.

Arguably the most controversial member of the Fatimid dynasty, Hakim confronted numerous difficulties and uprisings during his relatively long reign. While he did not lose any important territories in North Africa, the Ismaili communities there were attacked by Sunni fighters led by their influential Maliki jurists. Relations between the Fatimids and the Qarmatians of Bahrain also remained hostile. On the other hand, Hakim’s Syrian policy was successful as he managed to extend Fatimid hegemony to the emirate of Aleppo. Above all, the persistent rivalries between the various factions of the Fatimid armies, especially the Berbers and the Turks, overshadowed the other problems of Hakim’s caliphate.

Initially, Barjawan, his wasita (the equivalent of a vizier, as intermediary between ruler and subjects) acted as the virtual head of the Fatimid state. However, after the latter’s removal in 1000, Hakim held the reins of power in his own hands limiting the authority and terms of office of his wasitas and viziers, of whom there were more than 15 during the remaining 20 years of his caliphate. Also Al-Hakim is a central figure in the history of the Druze religious sect. For much of his reign, Hakim was hostile to religious minorities, most notably demonstrated in his destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.
    
Al-Ḥākim was born in 985. His father, Caliph Abū Mansūr al-‘Azīz bil-Lāh, had two consorts. One was an umm al-walad who is only known by the title as-Sayyidah al-‘Azīziyyah or al-‘Azīzah (d. 995). She was a Melkite Christian whose two brothers were appointed patriarchs of the Melkite Church by Caliph al-‘Azīz. Different sources say either one of her brothers or her father was sent by al-‘Azīz as an ambassador to Sicily.

Al-‘Azīzah is considered to be the mother of Sitt al-Mulk, one of the most famous women in Islamic history, who had a stormy relationship with her half-brother al-Ḥākim and may have had him murdered. Some, such as the Crusader chronicler William of Tyre, claimed that this woman was also the mother of Caliph al-Ḥākim, though most historians dismiss this. William of Tyre went so far as to claim that al-Ḥākim's destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in 1009 was due to his eagerness to disprove taunts that he was a Christian born of a Christian woman. By contrast, the chronicler al-Musabbihi recounts that in 981, al-Ḥākim's Muslim mother sought the aid of an imprisoned Islamic sage named Ibn al-Washa and asked him to pray for her son who had fallen ill. The sage wrote the entire Qur'an in the inner surface of a bowl and bade her wash her son out of it. When al-Ḥākim recovered, she demanded the release of the sage in gratitude. Her request was granted and the sage and his associates were freed from prison.

Besides his son, al-Ḥākim had a daughter named Sitt Misr (d. 1063) who was said to be a generous patroness and of noble and good character.

In 996, al-Ḥākim's father Caliph al-‘Azīz began a trip to visit Syria (which was held by the Fatimid's only by force of arms and was under pressure from both Greeks and Turks). The Caliph fell ill at the beginning of the trip at Bilbeis and lay in sickbed for several days. He suffered from "stone with pains in the bowels." When he felt that his end was nearing he charged Qadi Muhammad ibn an-Nu‘man and General Abū Muhammad al-Hasan ibn ‘Ammar to take care of al-Ḥākim, who was then only eleven. He then spoke to his son.

On the following day he and his new court proceeded from Bilbays to Cairo. His father's body proceeded him. Borne on a camel the dead Caliph’s feet protruded from the litter. They arrived shortly before evening prayer and his father was buried the next evening next to the tomb of his predecessor al-Mu‘īzz. Al-Ḥākim was sworn in by Barjawan, a "white eunuch whom al-‘Azīz had appointed as Ustad's tutor.

Because it had been unclear whether he would inherit his father's position, this successful transfer of power was a demonstration of the stability of the Fatimid dynasty.

Al-Ḥākim's father had intended the eunuch Barjawan to act as regent until he was old enough to rule by himself. Ibn ‘Ammar and the Qadi Muhammad ibn Nu‘man were to assist in the guardianship of the new caliph. Instead, Ibn ‘Ammar (the leader of the Katama party) immediately seized the office of wasīta "chief minister" from ‘Īsa ibn Nestorius. At the time, the office of sifāra "secretary of state" was also combined within that office. Ibn ‘Ammar then took the title of Amīn ad-Dawla - "the one trusted in the empire". This was the first time that the term "empire" was associated with the Fatimid state.

Al-Ḥākim's most rigorous and consistent opponent was the Abbāsid Caliphate in Baghdad, which sought to halt the influence of Ismailism. This competition led to the Baghdad Manifesto of 1011, in which the Abbāsids claimed that the line al-Ḥākim represented did not legitimately descend from ‘Alī.

Al-Ḥākim also struggled with the Qarmatiyya rulers of Bahrain, an island in the Persian Gulf as well as territory in Eastern Arabia. His diplomatic and missionary vehicle was the Ismā'īlī da‘wah "Mission", with its organizational power center in Cairo.

Al-Ḥākim's reign was characterized by a general unrest. The Fatimid army was troubled by a rivalry between two opposing factions, the Turks and the Berbers. Tension grew between the Caliph and his viziers (called wasītas), and near the end of his reign the Druze movement, a religious sect centered around al-Ḥākim, began to form. It was the Druze who first referred to al-Ḥākim as "Ruler by God's Command" and members of that sect are reported to address prayers to al-Ḥākim, whom they regard as "a manifestation of God in His unity."

Alarmed by the expansion of the Fatimid dominion, the ‘Abbasid caliph Al-Qadir adopted retaliatory measures to halt the spread of Ismailism within the very seat of his realm. In particular, in 1011 he assembled a number of Sunni and Twelver Shiite scholars at his court and commanded them to declare in a written document that Hakim and his predecessors lacked genuine Ali and Fatima related ancestry. This so-called Baghdad Manifesto was read out in Friday mosques throughout the ‘Abbasid domains accusing the Fatimids of Jewish ancestry also because of Al-Hakim’s alleged Christian mother he was accused of over sympathizing with non-Muslims and that he gave them more privileges than they should have been given under Islamic rule such accusations where manifested through poetry criticizing the Fatimids and that eventually led to the persecution of non-Muslims from 1007 till 1012. Qadir also commissioned several refutations of Ismaili doctrines, including that written by the Mu‘tazili ‘Ali b. Sa‘id al-Istakri (1013).

Hakim maintained a keen interest in the organization and operation of the Fatimid Ismaili da‘wa (preaching) centered in Cairo. Under his reign it was systematically intensified outside the Fatimid dominions especially in Iraq and Persia. In Iraq, the da‘is concentrated their efforts on a number of local amirs and influential tribal chiefs with whose support they aimed to uproot the Abbasids. Foremost among the Fatimid da‘is of this period operating in the eastern provinces was Hamid al-Din Kirmani, the most accomplished Ismaili theologian-philosopher of the entire Fatimid period. The activities of Kirmani and other da‘is soon led to concrete results in Iraq. In 1010 the ruler of Mosul, Kufa and other towns acknowledged the suzerainty of Hakim.

In the area of education and learning, one of Hakim’s most important contributions was the founding in 1005 of the Dar al-‘ilm (House of Knowledge), sometimes also called Dar al-hikma. A wide range of subjects ranging from the Qur’an and hadith to philosophy and astronomy were taught at the Dar al-‘ilm, which was equipped with a vast library. Access to education was made available to the public and many Fatimid da‘is received at least part of their training in this major institution of learning which served the Ismaili da‘wa (mission) until the downfall of the Fatimid dynasty.

In 1013 he completed the mosque in Cairo begun by his father, the Masjid al-Hākim "Hākim's Mosque" whose official name is "Jame-ul-Anwar".

Hakim made the education of the Ismailis and the Fatimid da‘is a priority. In his time, various study sessions (majalis) were established in Cairo. Hakim provided financial support and endowments for these educational activities. The private ‘wisdom sessions’ (majalis al-hikma) devoted to esoteric Ismaili doctrines and reserved exclusively for initiates, became organized so as to be accessible to different categories of participants. Hakim himself often attended these sessions which were held at the Fatimid palace. The name (majalis al-hikma) is still adopted by the Druze as the name of the building in which their religious assembly and worship is carried.  It is often abbreviated as Majlis (session).

Al-Ḥākim upheld diplomatic relations between the Fatimid Empire and many different countries. Skillful diplomacy was needed in establishing a friendly if not neutral basis of relations with the Byzantine Empire, which had expansionary goals in the early 11th century. Perhaps the farthest reaching diplomatic mission of al-Ḥākim's was to Song Dynasty era China. The Fatimid Egyptian sea captain known as Domiyat traveled to a Buddhist site of pilgrimage in Shandong in the year 1008. It was on this mission that he sought to present to the Chinese Emperor Zhenzong of Song gifts from his ruling Caliph al-Ḥākim. This re-established diplomatic relations between Egypt and China that had been lost during the collapse of the Tang Dynasty in 907.

According to the religious scholar Nissim Dana, al-Ḥākim's relationship with other monotheistic religions can be divided into three separate stages.

From 996 to 1006, when most of the executive functions of the Khalif were performed by his advisors, the Shiite al-Ḥākim behaved like the Shiite khalifs, who he succeeded, exhibiting a hostile attitude with respect to Sunni Muslims, whereas the attitude toward 'People of the Book' – Jews and Christians – was one of relative tolerance, in exchange for the jizya tax.

In 1005, al-Ḥākim ordered a public posting of curses against the first three Caliphs (Abū Bakr, ‘Umār and ‘Uthmān ibn ‘Affān) and against ‘Ā'isha (wife of Muhammad) all for opposing the claim of Muhammad's cousin and son-in-law ‘Alī, who had demanded the position of Caliph for himself and his descendants. The founder of the Umayyad caliphate, Mu‘awiyah I, and others among the Ṣaḥābah of Muhammad were also cursed. After only two years of posting the curses, al-Ḥākim ended the practice. During this era, al-Ḥākim ordered that the inclusion of the phrase as-salāh khayr min an-nawm - "prayer is preferable to sleep", which followed the morning prayer be stopped – he saw it as a Sunni addition. In its place he ordered that ḥayyi ‘alā khayr al-‘amal - "come to the best of deeds" - should be said after the summons was made. He further forbade the use of two prayers – Salāt at-Tarāwih and Salāt ad-Duha as they were believed to have been formulated by Sunni sages.

Al-Hakim disliked the influence of the Christian Church in Jerusalem. He ordered random arrests, executions, and the destruction of churches as early as 1001. His attitude towards Christians grew hostile by 1003 when he ordered a recently built church destroyed and replaced by a mosque and went on to turn two other churches into mosques. In 1004 he decreed that the Christians could no longer celebrate Epiphany or Easter. He also outlawed the use of wine (nabidh) and even other intoxicating drinks not made from grapes (fuqa) to both Muslims and non-Muslims alike. This produced a hardship for both Christians (who used wine in their religious rites) and Jews (who used it in their religious festivals).

In 1005, following the tradition of the caliphate, al-Ḥākim ordered that Jews and Christians follow ghiyār - "the law of differentiation" – in this case, the mintaq or zunnar "belt" and ‘imāmah "turban", both in black. In addition, Jews were to wear a wooden calf necklace and Christians an iron cross. In the public baths, Jews were to replace the calf with a bell. In addition, women of the Ahl al-Kitab had to wear two different colored shoes, one red and one black. These remained in place until 1014.

Al-Ḥākim engaged in other erratic behavior in 1005: he ordered the killing of all the dogs in Egypt and had them discarded in the desert. He also forced the inhabitants of Cairo to work at night and go to bed in the mornings and severely punished anyone caught violating his orders.

Following contemporary Shiite thinking, during this period al-Ḥākim also issued many other rigid restrictive ordinances (sijillat). These included outlawing entrance to a public bath with uncovered loins, forbidding women from appearing in public with their faces uncovered, and closing many clubs and places of entertainment.

From 1007 to 1012, there was a notably tolerant attitude toward the Sunnis and less zeal for Shiite Islam, while the attitude with regard to the 'People of the Book' was hostile. On October 18, 1009, al-Hakim ordered the destruction of the Holy Sepulchre and its associated buildings, apparently outraged by what he regarded as the fraud practiced by the monks in the "miraculous" Descent of the Holy Fire, celebrated annually at the church during the Easter Vigil. Processions were prohibited, and a few years later all of the convents and churches in Palestine were said to have been destroyed or confiscated. It was only in 1042 that the Byzantine Emperor Constantine IX undertook to reconstruct the Holy Sepulchre with the permission of Al-Hakim's successor.

From 1012 to 1021, al-Ḥākim became more tolerant toward the Jews and Christians and hostile toward the Sunnis. Ironically, he developed a particularly hostile attitude with regard to the Muslim Shiites. It was during this period, in the year 1017, that the unique religion of the Druze began to develop as an independent religion based on the revelation (Kashf) of al-Ḥākim as divine.

While it is clear that Hamza ibn Ahmad was the Caliph's chief dāʿī, there are claims that al-Ḥākim believed in his own divinity.

Other scholars disagree with this assertion of direct divinity, particularly the Druze themselves, noting that its proponent was ad-Darazi, who (according to some resources) al-Ḥākim executed for shirk. Letters show that ad-Darazi was trying to gain control of the Muwahhidun movement and this claim was an attempt to gain support from the Caliph, who instead found it heretical.

The Druze find this assertion offensive; they hold ad-Darazi as the first apostate of the sect and their beliefs regarding al-Ḥākim are complex. Following a typical Isma'ili pattern, they place a preeminent teacher at the innermost circle of divinely inspired persons. For the Druze, the exoteric is taught by the Prophet, the esoteric by his secret assistants, and the esoteric of the esoteric by Imām al-Ḥākim.

Confusion and slander by opponents of the Druze were generally left uncorrected as the teachings of the sect are secret and the Druze preferred taqiyya when independence was impossible.

In the final years of his reign, Hakim displayed a growing inclination toward asceticism and withdrew for meditation regularly. On the night of 12/13 February 1021 and at the age of 36, Hakim left for one of his night journeys to the al-Muqattam hills outside of Cairo, and never returned. A search found only his donkey and bloodstained garments. The disappearance has remained a mystery.

Al-Ḥākim was succeeded by his young son Ali az-Zahir under the regency of his sister Sitt al-Mulk.

Abu ‘Ali Mansur Tāriqu l-Ḥākim see Hakim bi-amr Allah, al-
Al-Hakim bi Amr al-Lāh see Hakim bi-amr Allah, al-
"Ruler by Allah's Command" see Hakim bi-amr Allah, al-


Hakim, Muhsin al-
Hakim, Muhsin al- (Muhsin al-Tabataba'i al-Hakim) (1889-1970).  Most widely followed Shi ‘a mujtahid (interpreter of Islamic law) of the 1960s.  Sayyid al-Hakim was born in Najaf, Iraq, into the religiously prominent Tabataba’i family of Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, and Pakistan.  He was trained in Islamic law and theology in Najaf, studying with Ayatollah Muhammad Kazim Yazdi, Ayatollah Muhammad Husayn Na’ini, and others.  Recognized as the leading teacher at the seminaries in Najaf, he became Shiism’s chief authority when Ayatollah Muhammad Husayn Borujerdi of Qom died in 1962.  With the tithes of the faithful, forwarded to him by his clerical representatives around the Shi‘a world, Ayatollah al-Hakim administered the hawzah (theological center) of Najaf and provided for the financial needs of educational centers in Iraq and other countries.  His hallmark was giving mosques and Islamic centers gifts of books and libraries.

Ayatollah al-Hakim was moderate in his theology.  His initiatives were educational, and in his later years, political, as he led Shi‘a clerics in an offensive against communism.  His relations with Iraq’s Hashemite government (1923-1958) were amiable, but Iraq’s subsequent governments he deemed to be religiously illegitimate.  He sought to meet the challenge of secularism through a series of steps aimed at educating Muslims to the need for Islamic standards in government and society and through cooperation with practicing Sunni Muslims.  Among his initiatives were the sponsorship of Jama‘at al-‘Ulama’ (Society of Religious Scholars) and endorsement of Hizb al-Da’wah (Party of the Call [to Islam]), clandestine groups that strove to educate Shi‘as to the need for government that meets minimum Islamic requirements.  To this end, he dispatched politically activist clerics to Lebanon and elsewhere and sanctioned political assertiveness by Shi‘as, a major change from traditional Shi‘a quietism and a major contributor to subsequent political ferment in such countries as Iraq.

Ayatollah al-Hakim opposed the Iraqi Government of ‘Abd al-Karim Qasim (1958-1963) because it was secular and because its land reform involved confiscation of private property, considered to be protected by Islamic law.  Alarmed by the appeal of “atheistic” communism to Muslims, he issued a fatwa (religious proclamation) in 1960 forbidding Shi‘is to have any connection with the Communist Party.  He lent his name to a joint Shi‘a-Sunni political party during the brief period in 1960 when the Iraqi government allowed organized opposition.  He also led the Shi‘a clergy in opposition to the Iraqi governments of ‘Abd al-Salam ‘Arif and ‘Abd al-Rahman ‘Arif (1963-1968), judging them to be sectarian, as well as secular and socialistic.

During the last two years of his life, Ayatollah al-Hakim was tormented by Iraq’s Ba‘thist Government.  In 1969, when he declined to side with the government in its quarrel with the shah of Iran, he was placed under house arrest.  His son Mahdi was sentenced to death and funds belonging to the hawzah were confiscated by the government.  Ayatollah al-Hakim responded with a fatwa forbidding practicing Shi‘as from membership in the Ba‘th party.  

Ayatollah al-Hakim fathered ten sons, many of whom, along with their sons, were executed by the Ba‘th government of Saddam Hussein during the 1980s. 


Hakim, Tawfiq al-
Hakim, Tawfiq al- (Tawfiq el-Hakim) (Tawfik el-Hakim) (Aduu al Mar'a - "Enemy of woman") (October 9, 1898 - July 26, 1987).  Egyptian dramatist and novelist.  Hakim was born in Alexandria.  He was principally a dramatist, but he also exercised a great deal of influence on the development of the Egyptian novel.  As a dramatist, he was influenced by Europeans like Ibsen and Shaw.  He was a master of lines.  He dealt with problems in his dramas and was concerned with identity.  In his early writings, the Pharaonism movement was prevailing in the cultural life of Egypt, claiming that there was an eternal Egypt which did not change even in difficult times.  Hakim dealt with Egyptians, relations and attitudes towards the West, the conflict between the spiritual East and the material West.  Of Hakim’s novels, Diary of a Prosecutor in the Provinces, is considered to be the best.  It is based upon Hakim’s own experiences in public administration.    Hakim’s most famous literary works include: The Return of the Spirit (1933 novel); The People of the Cave (1933 drama); Sharazad (Sherazade - 1934 novel); Diary of a Prosecutor in the Provinces (1937 novel); Pact with Satan (1938 short stories); and A Sparrow from the East (Bird from the East - 1938 novel).

Hakim was viewed as something of a misogynist in his younger years, having written a few misogynistic articles and remaining a bachelor for an unusually long period of time; he was given the laqab (i.e. epithet) of ('Aduu al Mar'a), meaning "Enemy of woman." However, he eventually married and had two children, a son and a daughter. His wife died in 1977; his son died in 1978 in a car accident. He was survived by his daughter after his death in 1987.

A more complete list of his works follows:

    * A Bullet in the Heart, 1926 (Plays)
    * Leaving Paradise, 1926 (Plays)
    * The People of the Cave, 1933 (Play)
    * The Return of the Spirit, 1933 (Novel)
    * Sharazad, 1934 (Play)
    * Muhammad the Prophet, 1936 (Biography)
    * A Man without a Soul, 1937 (Play)
    * Diary of a Prosecutor in the Provinces, 1937 (Novel)
    * Pact with Satan, 1938 (Short stories)
    * A Sparrow from the East, 1938 (Novel)
    * Ash'ab, 1938 (Novel)
    * The Devil's Era, 1938 (Philosophical Stories)
    * My Donkey told me, 1938 (Philosophical Essays)
    * Braxa/The problem of ruling, 1939 (Play)
    * The Dancer of the Temple, 1939 (Short Stories)
    * Pygmalion, 1942
    * Solomon the Wise, 1943
    * Boss Kudrez's Building, 1948
    * King Oedipus, 1949
    * Soft Hands, 1954
    * Isis, 1955
    * The Deal, 1956
    * The Sultan's Dilemma, 1960
    * The Tree Climber, 1966
    * The Fate of a Cockroach, 1966
    * Anxiety Bank, 1967
    * The Return of Consciousness, 1974

Tawfiq el-Hakim see Hakim, Tawfiq al-
Tawfik el-Hakim see Hakim, Tawfiq al-
'Aduu al Mar'a see Hakim, Tawfiq al-
"Enemy of woman"  see Hakim, Tawfiq al-


Hakkari
Hakkari.  Name of a Kurdish tribe and of a Turkish province in the extreme southeast of Turkey. 


Halabi, Burhan al-Din al-
Halabi, Burhan al-Din al- (Burhan al-Din al-Halabi) (d. 1549). Hanafi scholar from Aleppo.  His handbook on Hanafi law met with great success.  It was translated into Turkish and became authoritative in the Ottoman Empire.  
Burhan al-Din al-Halabi see Halabi, Burhan al-Din al-


Halabi, Nur al-Din al-
Halabi, Nur al-Din al- (Nur al-Din al-Halabi) (1567-1635).  Arab author.  He wrote a biography of the Prophet which found a wide circulation and was translated into Turkish.  
Nur al-Din al-Halabi see Halabi, Nur al-Din al-


Halet Efendi
Halet Efendi (Mohamed-Sayd Halet Effendi) (1761—1822).  Ottoman statesman.  He used the Janissaries as an instrument to maintain his influence over the sultan, and for a time controlled nominations to the posts of Grand Vizier and Shaykh al-Islam.  He played a part in the expedition against ‘Ali Pasha Tepedelenli, the governor of Jannina, which provoked the Greek revolt in the Morea in 1821.

Mohamed-Sayd Halet Effendi was an Ottoman Empire Foreign Minister and ambassador to Paris from 1802 to 1806. He was ambassador to the court of Napoleon I in 1806. He was succeeded in this role by Muhib Efendi, who was ambassador from 1806 to 1811.

In 1819, Halet Efendi brought the attention of Sultan Mahmud II to the power-grabbing activities of Ali Pasha in Ottoman Europe. As Mahmud II sent an army against Ali Pasha, the latter responded by encouraging a rebellion against Ottoman power in Greece. These events led to the catastrophic Greek insurrection in 1821. Halet Efendi was thus considered as partly responsible for the rebellion, and was strangled and beheaded in Konya in November 1822.
Efendi, Halet see Halet Efendi
Mohamed-Sayd Halet Effendi see Halet Efendi
Effendi, Mohamed-Sayd Halet see Halet Efendi


Haleti, ‘Azmi-zade Mustafa
Haleti, ‘Azmi-zade Mustafa (‘Azmi-zade Mustafa Haleti) (1570-1631).  Ottoman poet and scholar.  He is considered the master of the quatrain in Turkish literature.  
‘Azmi-zade Mustafa Haleti see Haleti, ‘Azmi-zade Mustafa


Hali
Hali (Khwaja Altaf Husayn Hali) (1837-1914).  Urdu poet.  He revolutionized Urdu poetry by introducing the dynamics of Pan-Islamism and paved the way for Urdu and Indo-Persian political poems.  

Altaf Husayn chose the pen name Hali (“contemporary”), which aptly expressed his deepest concerns.  Born in Panipat, near Delhi, into a respected family, he ran away to Delhi at the age of seventeen and came under the influence of some of the best minds of the time, including the poet Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib.  In 1871, Hali obtained an educational position in Lahore.  Together with Muhammad Husain Azad and a group of liberal British educators, he was active in the Anjuman-e Punjab, a society dedicated to social and literary reform.  During this period, he wrote poetry on patriotic and naturalistic themes.  He returned to Delhi in 1875, became an active supporter of Sayyid Ahmad Khan’s reformist programs, and wrote his famous hortatory long poem Musaddas in 1879.  

Retiring to Panipat in 1887, he wrote his most influential poetry and prose, including his Muqaddama (introduction to his divan, 1894), Yadgar-e Ghalib (a literary biography of the poet, 1897), Hayat-e javed (a biography of Sayyid Ahmad Khan, 1901), and Chup ki dad (1905), a moving poem on the silent suffering and noble qualities of Indian women.  Hali attempted a Western interpretation of the nature of poetry and pleaded for a literature that was socially responsible, realistic, and “natural.”

Khwaja Altaf Husayn Hali see Hali
"contemporary" see Hali


Halima bint Abi Dhu’ayb
Halima bint Abi Dhu’ayb (Halimah bint Abdullah) (Halimah As-Sa'diyah).  Foster mother of the Prophet.  

Halimah bint Abi Dhu'ayb was the foster-mother and wetnurse of the Prophet Muhammad. Halimah and her husband were from the tribe of Sa'd b. Bakr, a subdivision of Hawazin (a large North Arabian tribe or group of tribes). Other transliterations or versions of her name are Halimah bint Abdullah and Halimah As-Sa'diyah.

She died in Cyprus at an old age when she fell from her mule during a siege of Larnaca. She was buried near the salt lake and her grave became a sacred shrine. The shrine, and later the mosque and the whole complex was named after her. According to Shi'a belief, her grave lies in Jannatul Baqi, Madinah (Medina), Saudi Arabia.

Halimah bint Abdullah see Halima bint Abi Dhu’ayb
Halimah As-Sa'diyah see Halima bint Abi Dhu’ayb


Halime, Hadje
Hadje Halime (b. 1930, Salamat, Chad - d. January 7, 2001) was a Chadian activist, educator, and politician called the "mother of the revolution".  Hadjé Halimé Oumar was born in the town of Salamat in 1930 to a mother from Salamat and a father from Abeche. She became involved with the Parti Progressiste Tchadien (PPT) in 1950 while working as a Quranic instructor. She was able to bring in more women who did not know French due to her knowledge of Chadian Arabic. At the time she had only a limited grasp of French. She was particularly close to Gabriel Lisette, the founder of the party, and his wife, Lisette Yéyon. She became responsible for recruiting Northern women following the General Meeting of April 2, 1950.  Halimé harshly criticized the colonial administration's poll tax, and declared that if the PPT secured a victory, the poll tax would be abolished for all despite the platform calling for ending the tax only on women. She declared that Lisette was the undisputed leader of the party, despite the rise of Southern Chadian politician Francois Tombalbaye, and traveled to France on Lisette's urging to meet with the French politician Rene Coty. 


However, in 1959 and 1960, Tombalbaye gained power and Lisette was removed from power.  Halimé became the target of repression soon after independence, unlike her PPT female colleague Kaltouma Nguembang.  As part of a purge of those near to Lisette, Halimé's only son was murdered, and she was arrested in September 1963. At first, she was taken to Massenya in Chari-Baguirmi Region, then to a central prison in Chad's capital of N'Djamena, and finally to a dreaded prison at Kela. At the Kela prison, she was regularly tortured by guards through electrocution while French and Israeli army officers supervised. Her torture resulted in her losing all her fingernails and hair. Despite Tombalbaye wanting Halimé to be killed, a French officer spared her life. In an interview, she stated that only her faith was able to keep her going through the difficult circumstances of torture. She was finally released on April 28, 1975, days after the overthrow of Tombalbaye and his regime. Out of 600 people who were imprisoned during this purge, she was one of only 45 who lived.
Lisette, who had been exiled in France, helped bring her to Paris to receive medical treatment. Halimé spent time in a hospital in Cote d'Ivoire, where the president Felix Houphouet-Boigny mandated that her medical care be free. She later joined the National Liberation Front of Chad or FROLINAT, which was based in Libya. In 1978, she moved to Tripoli and returned to politics. FROLINAT members dubbed her "the mother of the revolution", and the party seized power in 1979. She also began educating girls in Libya and founded an Islamic school, the Rising New Generation, where she taught religion, home economics, and child care. She taught over 3600 girls at the school during her years there.
Halime returned to N'Djamena in 1980 with the Popular Armed Forces (FAP) leader Goukouni Oueddei. She was then the president of the women's faction of FROLINAT. After the election of Hissene Habre in 1982, she left with forces loyal to Oueddeï in Libya. While in Libya, Halimé taught military skills to exiled Chadian women. She returned to Chad in 1991, a year after the overthrow of Habré by Idriss Deby.  Many people told Deby they would support him only if he received the backing of Halimé, which she eventually gave. Shortly after her return, she won a seat in Chad's parliament and served there until 1996.
In 1993, Halime participated in the National Sovereign Conference (CNS), and was one of the most fervent defenders of the Arabic language. In 1994, she created an association called Women Az-Zara. On behalf of the association, she was voted among ten women candidates to be a member of the Higher Council of Transition, staying four years. In June 1996, she ran for parliament as a member of the opposition National Front of Chad party, as it was impossible to run as an independent. She was defeated but maintained the election was rigged. Halimé afterwards cared for orphans whose parents were killed during the Habré regime. She also opened an Arabic school in N'Djamena.
Halime went on six pilgrimages to Mecca in her life, including one last trip in 2000. She died on January 7, 2001.

Halim Hafez
Halim Hafez (Abdul Halim Hafez) (Abd el-Halim Hafez) (Abdel Halim Ismail Shabana) (el-Andaleeb el-Asmar - "The Dark Nightingale") (June 21, 1929 - March 30, 1977).  “Nightingale of the Nile.”  In a society that generally reserves true respect for the old, it surprised everyone when Halim Hafez took over the musical arena in his early twenties to become the golden boy of the nationalist revolution of 1952.  He came at the right time with short patriotic songs that pleased President Nasser as well as the young generation of the day who embraced him as their spokesperson.  By the 1960s his new, short, light songs, with their distinct melodic style, gave way to a partnership with Mohamed Abd el-Wahaab and a return to the long classical form. He was ill with bilharzia almost all his life, and involved the nation in his ongoing fight for good health with a vulnerability that charmed the nation.  For men, he offered a rather camp alternative role in an oppressively masculine society.  His little boy lost image had women crooning to mother him.  He died in 1977, perhaps the last superstar of the great artists’ era.  {See also Nasser.}

Halim Hafez was one of the most popular Egyptian singers and actors not only in Egypt but throughout the Middle East from the 1950s to the 1970s. He is widely considered to be one of the four 'greats' of Egyptian and Arabic music,along with Umm Kulthum, Mohammed Abdel Wahab and Farid Al Attrach. Halim's music is still played on radio daily in Egypt and the Arab world. His name is sometimes written as 'Abd el-Halim Hafez, and he was also sometimes known as el-Andaleeb el-Asmar (the Dark Nightingale).

Halim was born in El-Halawat, in Ash Sharqiyah Governorate, 80 kilometres (50 miles) north of Cairo, Egypt. Halim was the fourth child of Sheikh Ali Ismail Shabana. He had two brothers, Ismail and Mohammed, and one sister, Aliah.  Halim's mother died from complications after giving birth to him, and his father died five months later leaving Abdel Halim and his siblings orphaned at a young age. Abdel Halim was raised by his aunt and uncle in Cairo.

His musical abilities first became apparent while he was in primary school, and his older brother Ismail Shabana was his first music teacher. At the age of 11 he joined the Arabic Music Institute in Cairo and became known for singing the songs of Mohammed Abdel Wahab. He graduated from the Higher Theatrical Music Institute as an oboe player.

While singing in clubs in Cairo, Halim was drafted as a last-minute substitute when singer Karem Mahmoud was unable to sing a scheduled live radio performance in honor of the first anniversary of the 1952 Revolution, on June 18, 1953. Abdel Halim's performance was enormously popular with the live audience, and was heard by Hafez Abd El Wahab, supervisor of musical programming for Egyptian national radio, who decided to support the then unknown singer. Abdel Halim took 'Hafez', Abdel Wahab's first name, as his stage-surname in recognition of his patronage. His songs became so popular that arenas and stadiums could not handle the masses. He later began to perform in deserts, Roman coliseums, and outdoor arenas.

Abdel Halim went on to become one of the most popular singers and actors of his generation, and is considered one of the four greats of Egyptian and Arabic music, along with Umm Kulthum, Mohammed Abdel Wahab and Farid Al Attrach.

Abdel Halim never married, although rumors persist that he was secretly married to actress Soad Hosny for six years.  What is known for certain is that Abdel Halim only truly fell in love once, in his youth. He fell in love with a young woman whose parents refused to allow them to marry. After four years, her parents finally approved, but the girl died of a chronic disease before the wedding. Abdel Halim never recovered from her loss, and dedicated many of his saddest songs to her memory, including Fi Youm, Fi Shahr, Fi Sana (In a Day, a Month, a Year) and the poignant Qariat el-Fingan (The Fortune-teller).

At the age of 11 Abdel Halim contracted Bilharzia — a parasitic water-born disease — and was periodically and painfully afflicted by it. During his lifetime, many artists and commentators accused Abdel Halim of using this to gain sympathy from female fans. His death from the disease put to rest such accusations.

Abdel Halim died on March 30, 1977, a few months short of his 48th birthday, while undergoing treatment for Bilharzia in King's College Hospital, London. His funeral (in Cairo) was attended by millions of people – more than any funeral in Egyptian history except those of President Nasser (1970) and Umm Kulthum (1975). Fourteen women committed suicide on hearing of his death. He is buried in Al Rifa'i Mosque in Cairo.

Abdel Halim's music is still popular across the Arab world, and he is widely regarded as one of the most famous and popular singers in the Arab world. His albums have sold more copies since his death than any other Arab artist except Umm Kulthum.

Abdel Halim Hafez's song Khosara enjoyed international fame in 1999 when producer Timbaland used elements (called "sampling") from it for Jay-Z's song "Big Pimpin'". Two complete bars from "Khosara" were re-recorded, not sampled, and used without permission from the song's producer and copyright holder, Magdi el-Amroussi. However, Jay-Z's use of a re-recording, rather than a sample allowed Jay-Z to avoid paying royalties for the use of the song.

His most famous songs include Ahwak ("I love you"), Khosara ("What a loss"), Gana El Hawa ("Love came to us"), Sawah ("Wanderer"), Zay el Hawa ("It feels like love"), and El Massih ("The Christ"), among the 260 songs that he recorded. His last, and perhaps most famous song, Qariat el-Fingan ("The fortune-teller"), featured lyrics by Nizar Qabbani and music by Mohammed Al-Mougy. He starred in sixteen films, including "Dalilah", which was Egypt's first color motion picture.

Along with Mohammed Abdel Wahab and Magdi el-Amroussi, Abdel Halim was a founder of the Egyptian recording company Soutelphan, which continues to operate to this day as a subsidiary of EMI Arabia. The company was founded in 1961.

In 2006 a feature film about his life, "Haleem", was released starring the late actor Ahmad Zaki in the title role, produced by the Good News Group.

The films of Abdel Halim Hafez include:

    * Lahn El Wafa (The Song of Truth) as Galal
          o Released: March 1, 1955
          o Starring: Abdel Halim Hafez, Shadia
          o Directed by: Ibrahim Amara
    * Ayyamna al-Holwa (Our Beautiful Days) as Ali
          o Released: March 1, 1955
          o Starring: Abdel Halim Hafez, Faten Hamama, Omar Sharif, Ahmed Ramzy
          o Directed by: Helmy Halim
    * Ayam We Layali (Days and Nights)
          o Released: September 8, 1955
          o Starring: Abdel Halim Hafez, Eman
          o Directed by: Henry Barakat
    * Mawed Gharam (Promised Love) as Samir
          o Released: January 3, 1956
          o Starring: Abdel Halim Hafez, Faten Hamama
          o Directed by: Henry Barakat
    * Dalila (Dalila) as Ahmed
          o October 20, 1956
          o Starring: Abdel Halim Hafez, Shadia
          o Directed by: Mohamad Karim
          o Notes: This was the first Egyptian colored movie in Cinemascope.
    * Banat El Yom (The Girls of Today) as Khaled
          o Released: November 10, 1957
          o Starring: Abdel Halim Hafez, Magda, Amal Farid
          o Directed by: Henry Barakat
          o Notes: In this movie, Abdel Halim Hafez the song "Ahwak" for the first time.
    * Fata Ahlami (The Man Of My Dreams)
          o Released: March 7, 1957
          o Starring: Abdel Halim Hafez, Amal Farid
          o Directed by: Helmi Rafleh
    * Alwisada El Khalia (The Empty Pillow) as Salah
          o Released: December 20, 1957
          o Starring: Abdel Halim Hafez, Lubna Abed El Aziz
          o Directed by: Salah Abu Yousef
    * Share' El Hob (Love Street)
          o Released: March 5, 1958
          o Starring: Abdel Halim Hafez, Sabah
          o Directed By: Ez El Deen Zol Faqar
    * Hekayit Hob (A Love Story) as Ahmed Sami
          o Released: January 12, 1959
          o Starring: Abdel Halim Hafez, Mariam Fakher El Deen
          o Directed by: Helmy Halim
    * El Banat Wel Seif (Girls and Summer)
          o Released: September 5, 1960
          o Starring: Abdel Halim Hafez, Suad Husni, Zizi El Badrawi
          o Directed by: Salah Abu Yousef, Ez El Deen Zol Faqar, Fateen Abed El Wahhab
          o Notes: This movie consisted of 3 stories. Abdel Halim Hafez acted in one
    * Yom Men Omri (A Day of My Life) as Salah
          o Released: February 8, 1961
          o Starring: Abdel Halim Hafez, Zubaida Tharwat
          o Directed by: Atef Salem
    * El Khataya (The Sins) as Hussien
          o Released: November 12, 1962
          o Starring: Abdel Halim Hafez, Madiha Yousri, Hasan Yousef, Nadia Lutfi
          o Directed by: Hassan El Imam
          o Songs: Wehyat Alby, Maghroor, Last Adry, Olly Haga, El Helwa
    * Maabodat El Gamahir (The Beloved Diva) as Ibrahim Farid
          o Released: January 13, 1963
          o Starring: Abdel Halim Hafez, Shadia
          o Directed by: Helmy Halim
          o Songs: Haga Ghareeba, Balash Etaab, Last Kalby, Gabbar, Ahebek
    * Abi Foq El Shagara (My Father Atop a Tree) as Adel
          o Released: February 17, 1969
          o Starring: Abdel Halim Hafez, Nadia Lutfi, Mervat Amin
          o Directed by: Hussein Kamal
          o Songs: Ady El Belag, El Hawa Hawaya, Ahdan El Habayeb, Ya Khali El Alb, Gana El Hawa
          o Notes: This was the last film Abdel Halim Hafez acted in.
       

Abdul Halim Hafez see Halim Hafez
Abd el-Halim Hafez see Halim Hafez
Hafez, Halim see Halim Hafez
Hafez, Abdul Halim see Halim Hafez
Hafez, Abd el-Halim see Halim Hafez
“Nightingale of the Nile”   see Halim Hafez


Haliqarnas Baliqcisi
Haliqarnas Baliqcisi (Haliqarnas Baliqcisi - "Fisherman of Halicarnassus") (Cevat Shakir Kabaagacli) (Kabaagacli Cevat Sakir) (b. April 17 1890, Crete - d. October 13 1973, Izmir). Turkish novelist and short story writer.  He labored increasingly to develop the seaport of Bodrum where he had been banished for one of his publications.


Baliqcisi, Haliqarnas see Haliqarnas Baliqcisi
Cevat Shakir Kabaagacli see Haliqarnas Baliqcisi
Kabaagacli, Cevat Shakir see Haliqarnas Baliqcisi
"Fisherman of Halicarnassus" see Haliqarnas Baliqcisi
Kabaagacli Cevat Sakir see Haliqarnas Baliqcisi
Sakir, Kabaagacli Cevat see Haliqarnas Baliqcisi


Hallaj
Hallaj (Abu’l-Mughith al-Hallaj) (Husayn ibn Mansur al-Hallaj) (Mansur al-Hallaj) (Mansūr-e Hallāj) (Abū al-Mughīth Husayn Mansūr al-Hallāj) (c. 858 - March 26, 922).  Arabic speaking mystic theologian of Persian origin.  A monogamist and profoundly faithful to Sunnism, he led a fervently ascetic life.  He made the pilgrimage to Mecca three times and travelled far and wide in the Islamic world.  The main aim of his preaching was to enable everyone to find God within his or her own heart, but he was accused of deception, false miracles, magic and sorcery by Mu‘tazilites, Sufis and Shi ‘is.  According to a hostile account of the grammarians of Basra, he proclaimed: “I am (God) the Truth.”  Having been imprisoned in Baghdad for nine years, he finally was executed.

Al-Hallaj was the most famous and controversial Sufi figure in medieval Islam.  Born in Fars, a cotton-carder -- an hallaj -- by trade, al-Hallaj pursued the mystical path under two spiritual masters, one of whom, Junayd, was lauded for his “sobriety.”  

Al-Hallaj, however, has been viewed as the exemplar of “intoxication,” since he once declared: “Ana’l-Haqq” (“I am Truth!”).  Since “Truth” is one of the names of God, this was considered blasphemy.  

Al-Hallaj traveled widely, performing the pilgrimage -- the hajj -- three times, and making numerous enemies as well as friends in the Muslim communities of Central and Southern Asia.

A book of poetry and one of anecdotes are among the numerous writings ascribed to al-Hallaj.  He never tired of talking about the relationship of love between man and God.  For al-Hallaj, this relationship entails endless suffering, but it also brings a strange kind of joy, known only to the devotee.  

Al-Hallaj became the first Sufi martyr -- the first shahid -- when he was executed by dismemberment, and his corpse was crucified (or hanged) and burned.  Each act of his degradation has become a topic of his subsequent exaltation among Sufi poets, including Jalal ad-Din Rumi, the founder of the “Whirling Dervishes.”
Abu’l-Mughith al-Hallaj see Hallaj
Husayn ibn Mansur al-Hallaj see Hallaj
Mansūr-e Hallāj see Hallaj
Mansur al-Hallaj see Hallaj
Abū al-Mughīth Husayn Mansūr al-Hallāj see Hallaj


Hamad III
Hamad III (Ahmadu ibn Ahmadu) (d. 1862).  Ruler of Macina at the time of its conquest by al-Hajj ‘Umar.  He succeeded his father, Hamad II, as ruler of the theocratic Islamic state of Macina in 1853.  His first concern was to maintain independence from the neighboring Bambara state of Segu, which had formerly controlled Macina.  By the end of the decade, the primary challenge came from the Tukolor imperialist al-Hajj ‘Umar, who was determined to conquer Macina despite Hamad’s protestations that it was already an Islamic state.  Hamad allied with Segu against ‘Umar, but the Tukolor leader conquered them both.  Hamad was killed by ‘Umar in 1862 when Macina fell. Two years later, Macina revolted and ‘Umar was killed by the armies of Hamad’s uncle, Ba Lobbo.
Ahmadu ibn Ahmadu see Hamad III


Hamad Bari
Hamad Bari (Hamadu) (Ahmad ibn Muhammad Lobbo Cisse) (Sekou Ahmadu) (1775-1845).  Leader of the Islamic revolution in Macina (Mali).  He studied under the great Fula revolutionary, ‘Uthman dan Fodio, and participated in ‘Uthman’s jihad at Gobir in northern Nigeria (around 1805).  From his experience, Hamad received inspiration to introduce Islamic reform into his own society.  After leaving ‘Uthman’s homeland he settled in a province of Macina, teaching and amassing followers.  As with other Islamic revolutionaries, much of his support came from Fula less interested in religious reform than in overthrowing the old ruling class or settling local grievances.  When the ruler of Macina moved against him, Hamad fled to his future capital of Hamdullahi.  His flight emulated those of the Prophet Muhammad and ‘Uthman dan Fodio.  At Hamdullahi, in 1818, Hamad proclaimed a jihad.  He was successful in Macina, but failed in his campaigns against the Mossi states.  In 1831, he defeated the Tuareg of Timbuktu, but he never brought that city entirely under control.  He established his administration according to Islamic principles, and ruled what has often been referred to as the most strictly theocratic Islamic state in West Africa.  At his death, he was succeeded by a son, Hamad II (1845-1853).   
Bari, Hamad see Hamad Bari
Hamadu see Hamad Bari
Ahmad ibn Muhammad Lobbo Cisse see Hamad Bari
Cisse, Ahmad ibn Muhammad Lobbo  see Hamad Bari
Sekou Ahmadu see Hamad Bari
Ahmadu, Sekou see Hamad Bari


Hamadhani
Hamadhani (Ahmad Badi‘ al-Zaman al-Hamadhani) (“the Prodigy of the Age”) (Badi al-Zaman) (Badi uz-Zaman - “Wonder of the Age”) (Ahmad ibn al-Husain al-Hamadhani) (967-1007). Arabo-Persian author and letter-writer.  His name is perpetuated by his Sessions, sketches which represent keen observations of everyday life.  They were to serve as a model for almost a thousand years.

Al-Hamadhani was a native of Hamadhan in Persia, but wrote in Arabic.  After a restless youth, al-Hamadhani settled at Herat in Afghanistan under the patronage of Sultan Mahmud of Ghazna.  

Al-Hamadhani and al-Hariri were the great exponents of the literary genre known as the maqama.  The maqama is a kind of short story, or episode, written in rhymed prose, an old literary device much used in the Qur’an.  Al-Hamadhani’s Maqamat represent the adventures of an unscrupulous vagabond, Abu’l-Fath of Alexandria.  In the Maqamat, the narrator continually meets Abu’l-Fath in unexpected situations and finds him earning his living by imposing on good nature and gullibility.  These stories act as a frame for the author’s virtuosity in word manipulation, his use of elaborate figures of speech and his placing of an apposite quotation or allusion.

These Maqamat, not perhaps easy for us to appreciate, constitute the only prose fiction in classical Arabic literature, apart from popular romances such as the Arabian Nights and the Romances of the Bani Hilal and philosophical parables such as those written by Ibn Sina and Ibn Tufail’s Hayy ibn Yaqdhan (“Alive Son of Awake”).  The Maqamat resemble the “picaresque” novel but they are shorter self-contained units, and depend, as has been said, largely upon the author’s skill with language.  
Ahmad Badi‘ al-Zaman al-Hamadhani see Hamadhani
“The Prodigy of the Age”  see Hamadhani
Badi al-Zaman see Hamadhani
Zaman, Badi al- see Hamadhani
“Wonder of the Age” see Hamadhani
Ahmad ibn al-Husain al-Hamadhani see Hamadhani


Hamallah
Hamallah (Hamahu’allah ibn Sharif Muhammad ibn Sidna Omar) (1893-1943).  Founder of the Hamallist Islamic protest movement, one of the most violent anti-colonial episodes in French West Africa.  Hamallah was the son of a Berber trader and a Fula slave woman.  He received a modest Islamic education at Nioro du Sahil in present Mali before becoming a disciple of al-Akhdar, a former member of the Tijani Islamic brotherhood who had been ousted for adopting a different rosary. When al-Akhdar died in 1909, Hamallah became the leader of the movement based at Nioro.

The Tijani brotherhood under the famous revolutionary al-Hajj ‘Umar had been in the forefront of resistance to the French, but after ‘Umar’s defeat the Tijaniyya came to support the colonialists.  Any splinter groups distrusted by the Tijaniyya were also distrusted by the French.  Hamallah’s preaching differed from Tijaniyya orthodoxy in its emphasis on egalitarianism, mysticism and faith, in addition to the different rosary.

Hamallah himself never made anti-French statements nor did he preach in public.  Hamallah’s many followers, however, refused to acknowledge traditional Tijani Islamic leaders and it was those Tijani Islamic leaders who had the ear of the French.

Nevertheless, a 1916 report on the movement by the well-known ethnographer Paul Marty was favorable towards Hamallah.  Meanwhile, Hamallah’s following had spread throughout the western Sudan.  Although Hamallists consciously ignored the colonialists, Hamallah avoided any illegal activity.

In 1925, amid fears of a worldwide Islamic conspiracy, the French authorities deported  Hamallah to Mauritania.  Hamallah’s followers in the French Sudan (Mali), who at the  time were not under the direct control of Hamallah, took a militant stance against the French and the Tijani brotherhood.  Violence erupted. The most violent incident occurred in 1930 at Kaedi, Mauritania, where about thirty people were killed during an assault on the district office.

Hamallah denounced the violence.  Nevertheless, the French relocated Hamallah to the Ivory Coast where it was hoped that his influence would  become dissipated.

Instead of seeing his influence wane, Hamallah became something of a cause celebre.  He won the support of some highly educated Islamic clerics and important Senegalese politicians such as Galandou Diouf and Lamine Gueye.  

Diouf and Gueye intervened on Hamallah’s behalf and Hamallah returned home in 1935.  

In 1940, near Nioro, a Hamallist band apparently led by three of his sons, attacked a camp of Tenwajib pastoralists, a group which had been harassing the Hamillists for many years.  Over four hundred Tenwajib, mainly women and children, were massacred.

In response, the French rounded up six hundred Hamallists, shot thirty-three leaders, including Hamallah’s sons, and imprisoned the rest.  Governor General Boisson deported Hamallah to Algeria, and two years later he was removed to France.  

Hamallah’s deportation did not stem the violence associated with his movement.  In 1941, six Europeans were killed by Hamallists at Bobo Dioulasso (Upper Volta).  Such incidences of violence would continue until 1951.  However, after 1946, a new freedom of political expression in French West Africa permitted the creation of less violent channels of protest, and the Hamallist movement became integrated with the Rassemblement Democratique Africain, the largest anti-colonial party in French West Africa.

As for Hamallah, while in exile in France, Hamallah staged a fast protesting his deportation.  It was complications resulting from this fast which led to Hamallah’s death in 1943.  
Hamahu’allah ibn Sharif Muhammad ibn Sidna Omar see Hamallah
Omar, Hamahu’allah ibn Sharif Muhammad ibn Sidna see Hamallah

Hamama, Faten
Faten Hamama (Arabic: فاتن حمامة‎, Fātan Ḥamāmah, 27 May 1931 – 17 January 2015) was an Egyptian  film and television actress and producer.
She made her screen debut in 1939, when she was only seven years old. Her earliest roles were minor, but her activity and gradual success helped to establish her as a distinguished Egyptian actress. Eventually, and after many successful performances, she was able to achieve stardom. Revered as an icon in Egyptian and Middle Eastern cinema, Hamama substantially helped in improving the cinema industry in Egypt and emphasized the importance of women in cinema and Egyptian society.
After a seven-year hiatus from acting, Hamama returned in 2000 in what was a much anticipated television mini-series, Wajh al-Qamar (وجه القمر, Face of the Moon). In 2000, she was selected as Star of the Century by the Egyptian Writers and Critics organization. In 2007, eight of the films she starred in were included in the top 100 films in the history of Egyptian cinema by the cinema committee of the Supreme Council of Culture in Cairo.
Faten Hamama was born in 1931 to a Muslim lower middle class family in Mansoura, Egypt (according to her birth certificate), but she claimed to have been born in the Abdeen quarter of Cairo. Her father, Ahmed Hamama, worked as a clerk in the Egyptian Ministry of Education and her mother was a housewife. She had an older brother, Muneer, a younger sister, Layla, and a younger brother, Mazhar. Her aspiration for acting arose at an early age. Hamama was influenced by Assia Dagher as a child. When she was six years old, her father took her to the theater to see an Assia Dagher film; when the audience clapped for Assia, Faten told her father she felt they were clapping for her.
When Faten won a children's beauty pageant in Egypt, her father sent her picture to the director Mohammed Karim who was looking for a young female child to play the role of a small girl with the famous actor and musician Mohamed Abdel Wahab in the film Yawm Said (يوم سعيد, Happy Day, 1939). After an audition, Abdel Wahab decided that Faten was the one he was looking for. After her role in the film, people called her "Egypt's own Shirley Temple". The director liked her acting and was impressed with her so much that he signed a contract with her father. Four years later, she was chosen by Kareem for another role with Abdel Wahab in the film Rossassa Fel Qalb (رصاصة في القلب,Bullet in the Heart, 1944) and in another film two years later, Dunya (دنيا, Universe, 1946). After her success, Hamama moved with her parents to Cairo and started her study in the High Institute of Acting in 1946.
Youssef Wahbi, an Egyptian actor and director, recognized the young actress's talent so he offered her a lead role in the 1946 film Malak al-Rahma (ملاك الرحمة, Angel of Mercy). The film attracted widespread media attention, and Hamama, who was only 15 at the time, became famous for her melodramatic role. In 1949, Hamama had roles in three films with Wahbi: Kursi Al-I'etraf (كرسي الاعتراف, Chair of Confession), Al-Yateematain (اليتيمتين, The Two Orphans), and Sït Al-Bayt (ست البيت, Lady of the House). All were successful films.
The 1950s were the beginning of the golden age of the Egyptian cinema industry and Hamama was a big part of it. In 1952 she starred in the film Lak Yawm Ya Zalem (لك يوم يا ظالم, Your Day will Come) which was nominated at the Cannes Film Festival for the Prix International award. She also played lead roles in Yousef Shaheen's Baba Ameen(بابا أمين, Ameen, my Father, 1950) and Sira' Fi Al-Wadi (صراع في الوادي, Struggle in the Valley, 1954) which was a strong nominee in the 1954 Cannes Film Festival for the Prix International award. Hamama is also known for playing the lead role in the first Egyptian mystery film Manzel Raqam 13 (منزل رقم 13, House Number 13). In 1963, she received an award for her role in the political film La Waqt Lel Hob (لا وقت للحب, No Time for Love). Hamama was also able to make it to Hollywood; in 1963 she had a role in the crime film, Cairo.
In 1947, Hamama married actor/director Ezzel Dine Zulficar while filming the Abu Zayd al-Hilali (أبو زيد الهلالي) film. They started a production company which produced the film Maw'ed Ma' Al-Hayat (موعد مع الحياة, Date with Life) in which she starred. This particular film earned her the title of the "lady of the Arabic screen". She divorced Zulficar in 1954. One year later, she married Egyptian film star Omar Sharif.  Hamama continued to act in films directed by her first husband.

In 1954, while filming a Youssef Chahine film, Struggle in the Valley, Hamama refused to have the Egyptian actor Shukry Sarhan as a co-star, and Chahine offered Omar Sharif the role. Omar had just graduated from college then and was working for his father; Hamama accepted him as her co-star. Hamama had never agreed to act any scene involving a kiss in her career, but she shockingly agreed to do so in this film. The two fell in love, and Sharif converted to Islam and married her. This marriage started a new era of Hamama's career as the couple made many films together. Sharif and Hamama were the romantic leads of Ayyamna Al-Holwa (أيامنا الحلوة, Our Sweet Days), Ardh Al-Salam (أرض السلام, Land of Peace), La Anam (لا أنام, Sleepless), and Sayyidat Al-Qasr (سيدة القصر, The Lady of the Palace). Their last film together, before their divorce, was Nahr Al-Hob (نهر الحب, The River of Love) in 1960.

Hamama left Egypt from 1966 to 1971 due to the harassment by Egyptian Intelligence. She had been a supporter of the 1952 Revolution, but later became an opponent of the Free Officers and their oppressive regime.  Consequently, she was forbidden to travel or participate in film festivals. She was only able to leave Egypt after many controversial disputes.
While Hamama was away, then President Gamal Abdel Nasser asked famous writers, journalists and friends to try to convince her to return to Egypt. He called her a "national treasure" and had even awarded her an honorary decoration in 1965. However, she would not return until 1971, after Nasser's death.

Hamama played roles conveying messages of democracy. She often criticized the laws in Egypt in her films. In the 1972 film Imbarotiriyat Meem (إمبراطورية ميم, The Empire of M), Hamama presented a pro-democratic point of view and received an award from the Soviet Union of Women in the Moscow International Festival. Her most significant political film was Oridu Hallan (أريد حلاً, I Want a Solution). In this film, she criticized laws governing marriage and divorce in Egypt. After the film, the Egyptian government abrogated a law that forbade wives from divorcing their husbands, therefore allowing khul'.

As Hamama became older, her acting roles declined and she made fewer films compared to earlier in her career, but nevertheless the films she was able to make tended to be successful. She made her first television appearances in her late career. She starred in the TV mini-series Dameer Ablah Hikmat (ضمير أبلة حكمت, Mrs. Hikmat's Conscience).
After 1993, her career came to a halt. It was not until 2000 that she returned in the successful TV mini-series Wajh ِِal-Qamar which was broadcast on 23 TV channels in the Middle East. In this mini-series, Hamama portrayed and criticized many problems in Egyptian and Middle Eastern society. Despite some criticisms, the mini-series received much praise and acclaim. Hamama was awarded the Egyptian Best TV Actor of the Year and the mini-series won the Best TV Series Award in the Egyptian Radio and Television Festival. 

Before the 1950s, Hamama had leading roles in 30 films, in which she often played the role of a weak, empathetic, poor girl. After the 1950s, Hamama was in search of her real identity and was trying to establish herself as a distinct figure. During this period, her choice of material and roles was somewhat limited. However, film producers soon capitalized on her popularity with audiences in local and Middle Eastern markets and she began to play realistic, strong women, such as in Sira' Fi Al-Wadi (صراع في الوادي,Struggle in the Valley, 1954) where she portrayed a rich man's daughter who, contrary to stereotype, was a realistic woman who helped and supported the poor. In the 1952 film Miss Fatmah (الأستاذة فاطمة), Hamama starred as a law student who believed women were as important as men in society.
In Imbratoriyat Meem (امبراطورية ميم, The Empire of M), she played the role of a widow who takes care of her large family and suffers hardship. Her most influential film was Oridu Hallan (أريد حلا, I Want a Solution) which criticized the laws of marriage and divorce in Egypt. A law in Egypt that forbade khul' ( خلع ) – a divorce initiated by the wife.
Most critics agree that Hamama's most challenging role was in the 1959 film Dua'e Al-Karawan (دعاء الكروان, The Nightingale's Prayer), which was chosen as one of the best Egyptian film productions. It is based on the novel by the same name by the prominent Egyptian writer Taha Hussein. In this film, Hamama played the role of Amnah, a young woman who seeks revenge from her uncle for the honor killing of her sister. After this film, Hamama carefully picked her roles. In 1960, she starred in the film Nahr Hob (نهر حب, Love River) which was based on Leo Tolstoy's well known novel Anna Karenina and in 1961, she played the lead role in the film La Tutf'e al-Shams (لا تطفئ الشمس, Don't Turn Off the Sun) based on the novel by Ihsan Abdel Quddous.

Faten Hamama died on January 17, 2015, aged 83 due to health problems. Her son Tarek Sharif did not state the exact cause of death.

Hamama met director Ezzel Dine Zulficar, while filming Abu Zayd al-Hilali (أبو زيد الهلالى) in 1947, fell in love and wed. The marriage lasted for seven years. They divorced in 1954. The two remained friends, and Hamama continued to star in his films after the divorce. They had one child, a daughter, Nadia Zulficar. In 1954, Hamama chose Omar Sharif to co-star with her in a film. In this film, she uncharacteristically agreed to a romantic scene involving a kiss. During the filming, they fell in love. Sharif converted to Islam and married her. The couple co-starred in many films. However, after nearly two decades together, the couple divorced in 1974; they had one son, Tarek Sharif.
Hamama later married Dr Mohamed Abdel Wahab Mahmoud, an Egyptian physician. They resided in Cairo until her death on January 17, 2015 following a short illness.
Throughout Hamama's career, she received numerous accolades for best actress, and was nominated for the Cannes Film Festival's Prix International for her role in 1950's Your Day Will Come. She received her first award in 1951 for her role in I'm the Past. The country's Ministry of Guidance also awarded her the title of Best Actress in both 1955 and 1961. These were followed by many different awards for best actress from various national and international events. International ones included special awards for acting at the first Tehran International Film Festival in 1972 for her role in The Thin Thread, and in 1977 for her role in Mouths and Rabbits. In 1973, she received the Special Award at the Moscow International Film Festival for her role in Empire M. Other international accolades include the Best Actress awards at the Jakarta Film Festival in 1963 for her role in The Open Door, and at the Carthage Film Festival in 1988 for her role in Bitter Days, Nice Days.

Hamama was also a recipient of the Lebanese Order of Merit in 1984 for her role in The Night of Fatma's Arrest. She was later presented lifetime achievement awards, including one at the Montpellier Mediterranean Film Festival in 1993, and another at the Dubai International Film Festival in 2009. In 2001, the Egyptian Writers and Critics Organization chose her as "Star of the Century" at the Alexandria International Film Festival, honoring  her lengthy career in Egyptian cinema.

Hamas
Hamas. Palestinian Islamist political group, especially active with military actions.  Hamas is not an abbreviation but rather is a nickname which is derived from the Arabic word for “zeal.” The full name Harakatu al-Mujawamati al-Islamiya means Islamic Resistance Movement (or Harakat al-Muqawamah al-Islamiyah -- Movement of Islamic Resistance).

Hamas was the most important Palestinian Islamist organization in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.  It was established in December 1987, at the very beginning of the Palestinian

uprising (intifadah), as the organizational expression of Muslim Brotherhood participation in the anti-Israeli resistance after two decades of Islamic political quietism.  Its armed wing is called ‘Izz al-Din al-Qassam Forces, a reference to the shaykh killed by the British at the beginning of the great Palestinian revolt in 1936.

Until the intifadah, Islam rarely constituted the primary justification for the liberation struggle of the Palestinians.  Rather, this was maintained in the name of Arab or Palestinian nationalism.  “Official” Islam, an integral part of Jordanian authority in the West Bank or an autonomous force in Gaza, was content to preside solely in religious matters.  At the end of the 1970s, however, a new type of Islamic activism appeared.  Claiming the authority of the Muslim Brotherhood and linked with its Egyptian and Jordanian branches, this movement had as its primary preoccupation the re-islamization of society.  This quest was characterized by vigorous preaching in the mosques and also by attacks on unveiled women and the destruction of bars and cinemas.  Some of these new Islamists had a strongly anti-Israeli discourse – Israel is believed to constitute the spearhead of Western aggression against Islam, so the liberation of Palestine is fundamentally a religious question.  Their practice, however, was politically restrained.  The Muslim Brothers refrained from confronting the occupying power and confined their political activities to the struggle against the Palestinian Communist Party.  At this time, Fatah, the main wing of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), and Jordan were happy to encourage the Islamist attacks on the left, and Israel had an interest in encouraging any division among the Palestinians.  Although this political behavior cost the Muslim Brothers political legitimacy in the view of many Palestinians, they managed to establish a large social welfare network in the Gaza Strip under the charismatic coordination of Shaykh Ahmad Yasin, a handicapped schoolmaster.  They also infiltrated the majority of mosques in Gaza and came to control the Islamic University.  In the West Bank, however, the Muslim Brothers failed to establish a network or to find a charismatic leader.  Their only strongholds were in the universities.

With the appearance at the beginning of the 1980s of Islamic Jihad cells – rivaling the Muslim Brotherhood in Islamic activism but fundamentally different in political behavior – Islam became truly integral to the politics of the occupied territories.  Under the leadership of Shaykh ‘Abd al-‘Aziz ‘Awdah, a lecturer at the Islamic University in Gaza, and Dr. Fathi Shiqaqi, a physician from Rafiah on the Egyptian border, various small groups made jihad against Israel in all its forms, including armed struggle, the central religious duty.  In doing so, they claimed the authority of Sayyid Qutb, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood leader executed in 1966, of some Egyptian Islamic Jihad members, and of intellectuals of the Islamic revolution in Iran.  Their activists came either from the ranks of the Muslim Brothers, whose political conduct they criticized, or from the religious wing of Fatah.  In 1986-1987 they engaged in a series of anti-Israeli guerrilla operations.  Although maintaining a very small membership, they thus played an important role in inciting the intifadah.  In the process, Islam regained political legitimacy among the Palestinians for the first time since the 1930s.

Almost spontaneous at the beginning, the uprising very quickly became organized through local and regional committees.  Within this mobilization of the entire Palestinian society, Hamas was created in Gaza at the initiative of Dr. ‘Abd al-‘Aziz al-Rantisi, a physician working at the Islamic University, and of Shaykh Yasin.  This new organization initially attracted Muslim Brothers only on an individual basis.  In February 1988, however, the brotherhood formally adopted Hamas as its “strong arm.”  In its covenant (mithaq) published in August 1988, Hamas explains its anti-Israeli engagement in terms of jihad, now an individual religious duty, and claims continuity with the jihad of the Muslim Brothers since the 1930s.  For Hamas, Israel, the state of the Jews who want the destruction of Islam, cannot legitimately exist, and the military option as embodied in holy jihad is the only one available for the liberation of Palestine.  Hamas presents its relationship with the PLO as that of a relative:  “Can a Muslim abandon his relatives and friends?  Our homeland is one, our disaster is one, our fate is one.”  In spite of this, the seeds of tension with the nationalists remain:  for Hamas, “Palestine is on Islamic waqf (pious endowment) until the end of time.  Neither it nor any part of it may be given up.”  Furthermore, “the Islamicity of Palestine is a part of our religion and whoever gives up on his religion is lost.”  In the name of religion, therefore, Hamas rejects the political program adopted by the PLO when creating the Palestinian state in November 1988.  The PLO had recognized the legitimacy of the Israeli state’s existence and demanded the holding of an international conference under United Nations auspices for the creation of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel.

In 1993, more than five years after its foundation, Hamas could boast an important following, estimated at thirty to forty percent of the population.  This was due in part to growing frustration and despair and to the political legitimacy it had gained by its anti-Israeli commitment, but also to its capacity to mobilize at the same time the most traditional sectors of the society.  In spite of sporadic tensions, general violent confrontation between Hamas and Fatah was avoided.  Hamas denounced the September 13, 1993, breakthrough in which the Israelis and the PLO agreed to limited Palestinian autonomy in Jericho and the Gaza Strip, and Hamas continued to target both Israelis and Palestinian “collaborators.”  The movement was banned by Israel, and its founder Shaykh Yasin and hundreds of its followers were put in jail.

Hamas was never willing to accept any compromise with Israel.  In Article 11 of its Charter, Hamas declares that no party has the right to give up any Palestinian land.  Article 13 of the same Charter posits that jihad is the only solution to the struggle with Israel and that other measures, such as international peace conferences, are “a waste of time and a kind of child’s play.”

The jihad of Hamas has involved actions against moderate Palestinians (especially members of PLO), in addition to attacks on Israelis.

In the charter of Hamas strong sentiments against the Western world and Jews are clearly expressed.  Quotations from the Qur’an are frequently used.  

Hamas is both a social and a militant organization.  Hamas is involved in welfare schemes and education of Palestinians, in vocational training, health care and also with providing jobs to the unemployed.

Hamas also became known for their suicide bombers.  The suicide bombers came from a special branch of Hamas, called the Allotment of the Power of Religion – the ‘Izzu ad-Dini al-Qasam.  Members of this brigade believe that death in the name of Allah is the greatest of deeds.

With the establishment of the Palestinian National Authority in May 1994, Hamas threatened with civil war, and continued with attacks on Israel.  A bomb in a bus in Tel Aviv, where 22 were killed, and the detention of hundreds of Hamas activists by Israel, brought Hamas into the headlines of the world press.

Hamas has a lot of support among Palestinians, even if these numbers go quickly up and down depending on change in social conditions and politics in Palestine.  With the Israeli killings of stone throwing Palestinians in late 2000, Hamas became stronger than ever.   Indeed, with the advent of the new century, Hamas came to be a real threat to the power position of the PLO.

In January 2006, Hamas was successful in the Palestinian parliamentary elections, taking 76 of the 132 seats in the chamber, while the previous ruling Fatah party took 43. After Hamas's election victory, violent and non-violent conflicts arose between Hamas and Fatah. Following the Battle of Gaza in June 2007, elected Hamas officials were ousted from their positions in the Palestinian National Authority government in the West Bank and replaced by rival Fatah members and independents. Hamas retained control of Gaza. On June 18, 2007, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (Fatah) issued a decree outlawing the Hamas militia. Israel then immediately imposed an economic blockade on Gaza, and Hamas launched Qassam attacks on areas of Israel near its border with Gaza.  Hamas rocket attacks ceased following an Egyptian brokered ceasefire that went into effect on June 19, 2008, but rocket attacks by other organizations continued despite action taken by Hamas to prevent them. Two months before the end of the six-month ceasefire the conflict escalated after an Israeli incursion into Gaza on November 4 that killed seven Hamas militants which led to a renewal of Hamas rocket attacks and the 2008–2009 Israel–Gaza conflict began when Israel invaded Gaza in late December, 2008. Israel withdrew its forces from Gaza in mid-January 2009, but has maintained its blockade of Gaza's border and airspace.

Since June 2007, after winning a large majority in the Palestinian Parliament and defeating rival Palestinian party Fatah in a series of violent clashes, Hamas has governed the Gaza portion of the Palestinian Territories. The governments of Canada, the European Union, Israel, Japan, and the United States classify Hamas as a terrorist organization. The United Kingdom and Australia, classify only Hamas' independant military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades as a terrorist organization.


Harakatu al-Mujawamati al-Islamiya  see Hamas.
Islamic Resistance Movement  see Hamas.
Harakat al-Muqawamah al-Islamiyah  see Hamas.
Movement of Islamic Resistance see Hamas.

Hamawi, Yaqut ibn 'Abdullah al-Rumi al-
Yaqut ibn 'Abdullah al-Rumi al-Hamawi (1179–1229) (Arabic: ياقوت الحموي الرومي‎) was an Islamic biographer and geographer renowned for his encyclopedic writings on the Muslim world. "al-Rumi" ("from Rum") refers to his Greek (Byzantine) descent; "al-Hamawi" is taken after Hama, Syria, and ibn-Abdullah is a reference to his father's name, Abdullah. The word yāqūt means ruby or hyacinth.

Yaqut was working as a slave to a trader, Askar ibn Abi Nasr al-Hamawi, who lived in Baghdad, Iraq.  His master taught him accounting and trading and sent him to trade on his behalf. He later freed him of his obligations and that enabled Yaqut to dedicate himself to his scholarly tasks. He was one of the last scholars who had access to the libraries east of the Caspian Sea before the Mongol invasion of Central Asia. Yaqut travelled to the peaceful scholarly city of ancient Merv in present-day Turkmenistan. There Yaqut spent two years in libraries, learning much of the knowledge he would later use in his works. Yaqut spent the last few years of his life in Aleppo and died there.

The works of al-Hamawi include the following:
  • Kitab mu'jam al-buldan (معجم البلدان "Dictionary of Countries")
  • Mu'jam al-udabā', (معجم الأدباء "Dictionary of Writers") written in 1226.
  • al-Mushtarak wadh'ā wal-Muftaraq Sa'qā (المشترک وضعا والمفترق صعقا )

Hamd Allah
Hamd Allah (Hamd Allah al-Mustawfi al-Qazwini) (c.1281-after 1339).  Persian historian and geographer from Qazvin.  His work is important for the period of the Il-Khans.  
Hamd Allah al-Mustawfi al-Qazwini see Hamd Allah
Qazwini, Hamd Allah al-Mustawfi al- see Hamd Allah


Hamdan
Hamdan (Banu Hamdan).  Large Arab tribe of Yemen.  They joined in the attack made on Arabia when Muhammad marched against Mecca.  Many of them are said to have been in ‘Ali’s army in Siffin.

The Banu Hamdan is a well known clan since the 1st millennium B.C.T., it was mentioned in Sabaic inscriptions as qayls of Hashid, who later acquired control over a part of Bakil and finally gave their clan name to a tribal confederation including Hashid and Bakil.
Banu Hamdan see Hamdan


Hamdani
Hamdani (Abu Muhammad al-Hamdani) (Abū Muḥammad al-Ḥasan ibn Aḥmad ibn Ya‘qūb al-Hamdānī)  (Ibn al-Ha’ik) (893-945).  South Arabian scholar, most famous as an antiquarian, genealogist, geographer and poet.  His magnum opus is the encyclopaedic The Crown.

Abū Muḥammad al-Hamdānī was an Arab Muslim geographer, poet, grammarian, historian, and astronomer, from the tribe of Hamdan, western 'Amran/Yemen. He was one of the best representatives of Islamic culture during the last effective years of the Abbasid caliphate.

The biographic data of al-Hamdani is hardly well-known, despite his extensive scientific work. He was held in repute as a grammarian, wrote much poetry, compiled astronomical tables, devoted most of his life to the study of the ancient history and geography of Arabia, and died in prison in San‘a’, Yemen in 945.

His Geography of the Arabian Peninsula (Sifat Jazirat ul-Arab) is by far the most important work on the subject. Much has been written on this work in his various publications on ancient Arabia. The other great work of Hamdani is the Iklil (The Crown) concerning the genealogies of the Himyarites and the wars of their kings in ten volumes.

The works of al-Hamdani include:

    * Sifat Jazirat ul-Arab (Geography of the Arabian Peninsula)
    * Iklil (The Crown)
    * Alaklel al-Hamdani
    * History of Saba
    * Language of Himyar and Najran

Abu Muhammad al-Hamdani see Hamdani
Ibn al-Ha’ik see Hamdani
Abū Muḥammad al-Ḥasan ibn Aḥmad ibn Ya‘qūb al-Hamdānī see Hamdani


Hamdanids
Hamdanids.  Arab dynasty in Mesopotamia (904-1003) and Syria (929-1003).  Their main capitals were Mosul and Aleppo.  Belonging to the Taghlib tribe, their ascent began with the founder of the dynasty, Hamdan ibn Hamdun, who became Abbasid governor in the area of Mardin in 890.  His son, Abdallah (904-929), became governor of Mosul in 906 and ruled Baghdad from 914.  As governors of Mosul and Aleppo with honorary caliphal titles, his sons, Hasan and Ali, became rulers of the Syria-Mesopotamia region.  The brutal Hasan Nasir al-Dawla (929-968) gained increasing independence from the Buyids as ruler of Mosul and Diyarbakr.  He founded the Mosul branch of the dynasty, which ruled until 991. As ruler of Aleppo, his brother, Ali Saif al-Dawla (945-967), was an important conbatant against Byzantium and patron of the arts.  He established the Aleppo branch, which converted to Shi‘ism in 969 and became subordinate to the Fatimids.  These ousted the Hamdanids in 1003.  

The Hamdanid dynasty was a Shi'a Muslim Arab dynasty of northern Iraq (Al-Jazirah) and Syria (890-1004). They claimed to have been descended from the ancient Banu Taghlib Christian tribe of Mesopotamia Anizzah northern Arabia.

The Hamdanid dynasty was founded by Hamdan ibn Hamdun (after whom it is named), when he was appointed governor of Mardin in southeast Anatolia by the Abbasid Caliphs in 890.

His son Abdallah (904-929) was in turn appointed governor of Mosul in northern Iraq (906) and even governed Baghdad (914). His sons were installed as governors in Mosul and Aleppo.

The rule of Hassan Nasir ad-Daula (929-968), governor of Mosul and Diyarbakır, was sufficiently tyrannical to cause him to be deposed by his own family.  However, his lineage still ruled in Mosul, a heavy defeat by the Buyids in 979 notwithstanding, until 990. After this, their area of control in northern Iraq was divided between the Uqailids and the Marwanids.

Ali Saif al-Daula ('Sword of the State') ruled (945-967) Northern Syria from Aleppo, and became the most important opponent of the Byzantine Empire's (Christian) expansion. His court was a center of culture, thanks to its nurturing of Arabic literature.  However, it lost this status after the Byzantine conquest of Aleppo.

To stop the Byzantine advance the Hamdanids put Aleppo under the suzerainty of the Fatimids in Egypt, but in 1003 the Fatimids deposed the Hamdanids anyway.

A list of the Hamdanid rulers reads as follows:

Hamdanids in Al-Jazira

   1. Hamdan ibn Hamdun (868-874)
   2. al-Husayn ibn Hamdan (895-916)
   3. Abdullah ibn Hamdan (906-929)
   4. Nasir ad-Daula (929-967)
   5. Adid ad-Daula (967-980)
   6. Abul Tahir Ibrahim ibn al-Hasan (989-997)
   7. Abu Abdillah al-Husayn ibn al-Hasan (989-997)

Hamdanids in Aleppo

   1. Sayf al-Daula (945-967)
   2. Saad al-Daula (967-991)
   3. Said al-Daula (991-1002)
   4. Abul Hasan Ali (1002–1004)
   5. Abul Ma'ali Sharif (1004–1004)


Hamdanids
Hamdanids.  Name of three families of the Banu Hamdan who ruled over San‘a’ and its dependencies from 1088 to 1175.


Banu Hamdan  see Hamdanids.


Hamdan Qarmat
Hamdan Qarmat Leader of the Carmathian movement in Kufa during the ninth century.  
Qarmat, Hamdan see Hamdan Qarmat.


Hamdi
Hamdi (Hamd Allah Hamdi) (Hamdi Hamdi Abdullah) (1449-1503).  Turkish poet.  Among other works he wrote a mathnawi on the story of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife, treated in a mystical manner.  It became immensely popular.  

Hamdi was a Turkish poet. He wrote several treatises that were primarily religious, and a diwan of poetry. Other works include a mystical biography on the life of Muhammad and a book on physiognomy.  
Hamd Allah Hamdi see Hamdi
Hamdi Hamdi Abdullah see Hamdi
Abdullah, Hamdi Hamdi see Hamdi


Hamdullah Mustawfi
Hamdullah Mustawfi (c.1281-1350).   Persian geographer and historian.  Hamdullah Mustawfi came from a family of Arab origin, long settled at Qazwin, which had produced a succession of high-ranking civil servants.  Hamdullah Mustawfi was promoted to the position of Superintendent of Finances (mustawfi) by the vizier and historian, Rashid al-Din around 1311.  

The three greatest works of Hamdullah Mustawfi are Ta’rikh-i Guzida (“The Select History”), a universal history covering the time period from Creation to the year 1329; Zafar-nama (“The Book of Victory”), an heroic poem of 75,000 couplets intended as a continuation of the Shah-nama of Firdawsi, which relates the history of the Muslim world up to the year 1335; and Nuzhat al-Qulub (“The Delight of Hearts”), a geographical and cosmographical treatise completed in 1340. 

Hamdun ibn al-Hajj
Hamdun ibn al-Hajj or in full Abu al-Fayd Hamdun ibn Abd al-Rahman ibn Hamdun ibn Abd al-Rahman Mohammed ibn al-Hajj al-Fasi al-Sulami al-Mirdasi (1760–1817) was one of the most outstanding scholars of the reign of Mulay Suleiman of Morocco.  He was a committed Tijani Sufi but also an outspoken critic of some of the practices of Sufism in that time. Hamdun ibn al-Hajj was also one of the best known poets of the period and the author of a diwan (Silsilat Dhakhair al-turath al-adabi bi-al-Maghrib). He also wrote a commentary on Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani's Muqaddimaha gloss on Taftazani's treatise on the Mukhtasar and a series of Diwans including a controversial poem dedicated to Amir Sau'ud ibn 'Abd al-'Aziz.


Hamengkubuwana
Hamengkubuwana (Hamengkubuwono).  Name of all sultans of Yogyakarta (Java) since Mangkubumi (Hamengkubuwana I [r.1749-1792]) assumed it in 1755.  His son Hamengkubuwana II (r. 1792-1810, 1811-1812, 1826-1828) contributed to the fall of Yogyakarta to British forces in 1812 by his arbitrary rule, intrigues, and mishandling of relations with Britain.  Among his successors the most noteworthy are Hamengkubuwana V (r. 1822-1826, 1828-1855), a noted patron of literature, and Hamengkubuwana IX, who assumed the throne in 1939 and introduced progressive reforms in Yogyakarta from 1945 onward.  He played a leading role in the revolution (1945-1949) and in national affairs thereafter, eventually serving as vice president of Indonesia (1973-1978).  

Hamengkubuwono I, born Raden Mas Sujana (d. 1792), was the first sultan of Yogyakarta.

Sujana, the Crown Prince, was known as Prince Mangkubumi prior to becoming sultan of Yogyakarta Sultanate. As a son of Sultan Sunan Prabu of Mataram, and brother to Prince Heir Apparent Pakubuwono II of Surakarta, a dispute arose concerning succession to the Mataram throne. Prince Mangkubumi challenged Pakubuwono II who was aided by the Dutch East India Company seeking a more pliant VOC puppet as Central Javanese king. The war that eventuated was known as the Third Succession War in Mataram.

During the war, Prince Mangkubumi was aided by the brilliant and legendary army commander-in-chief Raden Mas Said who fought in a highly effective strategic manner. Mangkubumi won decisive battles at Grobogan, Demak and Bogowonto River. During the War in 1749, Pakubuwono II died and the Crown Prince Mangkubumi became Sultan. At the Battle of Bogowonto River in 1751, the Dutch Army under De Clerck was destroyed by Mangkubumi's forces. Raden Mas Said revolted in dispute with Prince Mangkubumi. The Succession War and revolt of Raden Mas Said ended when the Gyanti Treaty of 1755 was signed in Giyanti- an area east of Surakarta (capital of Matarm Empire). Raden Mas Said was granted Royal Appenages and the title Mangkunegara.

According to the Giyanti Treaty, Mataram was divided into two kingdoms, Surakarta with Pakubuwono III as ruler, and Yogyakarta Sultanate with Prince Mangkubumi as sultan with the title Sri Sultan Hamengkubuwono I Senopati Ing Ngalaga Sayidin Panatagama Kalifatulah. Yogyakarta became capital and a new palace was built with a magnificent water palace in the west of his grounds Taman Sari.

Sultan Hamengkubuwono died in 1792 and was interred in the royal cemetery of Astana Kasuwargan in Imogiri. He was succeeded by Hamengkubuwono II, his son.

*****

Hamengkubuwono IX or HB IX (April 12, 1912 - October 2, 1988) was the first Governor of the Yogyakarta Special Region, the ninth Sultan of the Sultanate of Yogyakarta and the second vice president of Indonesia during Suharto's reign.

Born as Raden Mas Dorodjatun in Sompilan, Ngasem, Yogyakarta to Gusti Pangeran Haryo (Prince) Puruboyo and Raden Ajeng Kustillah, when he was three years old he was named Crown Prince to the Yogyakarta Sultanate after his father ascended to the throne and became Sultan Hamengkubuwono VIII.

Hamengkubuwono IX had a Western education. When he was four, he was sent away to live with a Dutch family. After completing his primary and secondary education in 1931, Hamengkubuwono IX left Indonesia to attend the Leiden University in the Netherlands. There Hamengkubuwono IX took Indonesian studies and economics. He returned to Indonesia in 1939.

With the death of Hamengkubuwono VIII in October 1939, Hamengkubuwono ascended to the throne with a coronation ceremony on March 18, 1940.

His full title was Sampeyan Dalem Ingkang Sinuwun Kanjeng Sultan Hamengkubuwono Senopati Ing Alogo Ngabdurrakhman Sayidin Panotogomo Kholifatullah Ingkang Kaping Songo.

During his coronation speech, Hamengkubuwono recognized his Javanese origins and said "Even though I have tasted Western Education, I am still and will always be a Javanese."

The young Sultan negotiated terms and conditions with the governor, Dr. Lucien Adam, for four months from November 1939 to February 1940. The main points of contention were:

   1. The Sultan did not agree that his prime minister ("Patih Danureja") would also be the Netherlands' employee.
   2. The Sultan did not agree that half of his advisors would be selected by the Netherlands.
   3. The Sultan did not agree that his small army would receive direct orders from the Netherlands' army.

Eventually, the Sultan agreed to the proposal by the government of the Netherlands, after he received an insight that the Netherlands would soon leave Indonesia. In May 1940, the Dutch surrendered to the German Army, and in February 1942, the Netherlands surrendered Indonesia to the invading Japanese army.

During Hamengkubuwono IX's reign, the office of the Sultan adopted a more democratic and decentralized approach. An example of this was the granting of more power to local village chiefs and general modernization of the way in which the court was managed. He also changed the ways in which the Sultanate held its traditional ceremonies, doing away with ceremonies which he considered obsolete.

In 1942, the Dutch Colonial Government in Indonesia was defeated by the Japanese Imperial Army. As the Japanese Imperial Army consolidated their hold on Indonesia, many suggested that Hamengkubuwono IX evacuate himself and seek asylum in Australia or the Netherlands. Hamengkubuwono IX refused this offer, insisting that the Sultan has to stay close to his people in times of crisis. In fact, he saved his people from being sent to Burma to become romusha forced-laborers, by asking the Japanese to allow the building of a water canal (the Kali Mataram).

Directly after the declaration of Indonesian independence on August 17, 1945, Hamengkubuwono IX together with Paku Alam VIII, the Prince of Pakualaman decided to support the newly formed Republic. Hamengkubuwono IX's support was immediately recognized by the Central Government with an appointment to the Life-Governorship of Yogyakarta with Paku Alam VIII as Vice Governor. Yogyakarta's status was also upgraded to that of Special Region. In addition, Hamengkubuwono IX served as Yogyakarta's Military Governor and was also Minister of the State from 1945-49.

The Dutch returned to lay claim to their former colony. Hamengkubuwono IX played a vital role in the resistance. In early 1946, the capital of Indonesia was quietly relocated to Yogyakarta. In that time, the Sultan gave the new government some funds. When Indonesia first sought a diplomatic solution with the Dutch Government, Hamengkubuwono IX was part of the Indonesian delegation.

On December 21, 1948, the Dutch successfully occupied Yogyakarta and arrested Sukarno and Hatta, Indonesia's first President and Vice President. Hamengkubuwono IX did not leave Yogyakarta and continued to serve as Governor. The Dutch intended to make Yogyakarta the capital of the new Indonesian federal state of Central Java and to appoint the sultan as head of state, but Hamengkubuwono refused to cooperate. The Dutch viewed him with suspicion and at one stage began to entertain the idea that Hamengkubuwono IX was either planning to make Yogyakarta a completely autonomous region or setting his eyes on the leadership of the Republic.

In early 1949, Hamengkubuwono IX conceived the idea of a major offensive to be launched against Yogyakarta and the Dutch troops occupying it. The purpose of this offensive was to show to the world that Indonesia still existed and that it was not ready to surrender. The idea was suggested to General Sudirman, the Commander of the Indonesian Army and received his approval. In February 1949, Hamengkubuwono IX had a meeting with then Lieutenant Colonel Suharto, the man chosen by Sudirman to be the field commander for the offensive. After this discussion, preparations were made for the offensive. This involved intensified guerilla attacks in villages and towns around Yogyakarta so as to make the Dutch station more troops outside of Yogyakarta and thin the numbers in the city itself.

On March 1, 1949 at 6 am, Suharto and his troops launched the March 1 General Offensive. The Offensive caught the Dutch by surprise. For his part, Hamengkubuwono IX allowed his palace to be used as a hide out for the troops. For six hours, the Indonesian troops had control of Yogyakarta before finally retreating. The Offensive was a great success, inspiring demoralized troops all around Indonesia and most importantly, caused the United Nations to pressure the Netherlands to recognize Indonesia's independence.

On June 30, 1949 ,the retreating Dutch forces handed over authority over Jogyakarta to Hamengkubuwono.

On December 27, immediately after the transfer of sovereignty was signed by Queen Juliana in Dam Palace in Amsterdam, High Commissioner A. H. J. Lovink transferred his powers to Hamengkubuwono during a ceremony in Koningsplein Palace, later renamed Merdeka Palace.

After Indonesia's independence was recognized by the Dutch Government, Hamengkubuwono IX continued to serve the Republic. In addition to continuing his duties as Governor of Yogyakarta, Hamengkubuwono IX continued to serve in the Indonesian Government as Minister.

Hamengkubuwono IX served as Minister of Defense and Homeland Security Coordinator (1949-1951 and 1953), Vice Premier (1951), Chairman of the State Apparatus Supervision (1959), Chairman of the State Audit Board (1960-1966), and Coordinating Minister for Development while concurrently holding the position of Minister of Tourism (1966). In addition to these positions, Hamengkubuwono IX also served as Chairman of the Indonesian National Sports Committee (KONI) and Chairman of the Tourism Patrons Council.

During the G30S Movement, in the course of which six Generals were kidnapped from their homes and killed, Hamengkubuwono IX was present in Jakarta. That morning, with President Sukarno's location still uncertain, Hamengkubuwono was contacted by Suharto, who was now a Major General and the Commander of Kostrad for advice. Suharto suggested that because Sukarno's whereabouts were unknown, Hamengkubuwono IX should form a provisional Government to help counter the movement. Hamengkubuwono IX rejected the offer and contacted one of Sukarno's many wives who confirmed Sukarno's whereabouts.

After Suharto had received Supersemar in March 1966, Hamengkubuwono IX and Adam Malik joined him in a triumvirate to reverse Sukarno's policies. Hamengkubuwono IX was appointed Minister of Economics, Finance, and Industry and charged with rectifying Indonesia's economic problems. He would hold this position until 1973.

Ever since Mohammad Hatta resigned as Vice-President in December 1956, the position had remained vacant for the rest of Sukarno's time as President. When Suharto was formally elected to the Presidency in 1968 by the People's Consultative Assembly, it continued to remain vacant. Finally in March 1973, Hamengkubuwono IX was elected as Vice President alongside Suharto who had also been re-elected to a 2nd term as President.

Hamengkubuwono IX's election was not a surprise as he was a popular figure in Indonesia. He was also a civilian and his election to the Vice Presidency was hoped to complement Suharto's military background. Despite being officially elected in 1973, it can be said that Hamengkubuwono IX had been the de facto Vice President beforehand as he regularly assumed the leadership of the country whenever Suharto was out of the country. As Vice President, Hamengkubuwono IX was put in charge of welfare and was also given the duty of supervising economic development.

It was expected that the Suharto and Hamengkubuwono IX partnership would be retained for another term. However, Hamengkubuwono IX became disillusioned with Suharto's increasing authoritarianism and the increasing corruption.

These two elements were also recognized by protesters who had demanded that Suharto not stand for another term as President. These protests reached its peak in February 1978, when students of Bandung Technological Institute (ITB) published a book giving reasons as to why Suharto should not be elected President. In response, Suharto sent troops to take over the campus and issued a ban on the book. Hamengkubuwono could not accept what Suharto had done. In March 1978, Hamengkubuwono rejected his nomination as Vice President by the MPR. Suharto asked Hamengkubuwono to change his mind, but Hamengkubuwono continued to reject the offer and cited health as his reason for not accepting the nomination.

Suharto took Hamengkubuwono IX's rejection personally and in his 1989 autobiography would claim credit for conceiving the March 1 General Offensive.

Hamengkubuwono IX had been active with Scouts from the days of the Dutch colonial government and continued to look after the movement once Indonesia became independent. In 1968, Hamengkubuwono IX was elected Head of the national Scout movement. In 1973, Hamengkubuwono IX was also awarded the Bronze Wolf, the only award of distinction of the World Organization of the Scout Movement, awarded by the World Scout Committee for exceptional services to world Scouting.

Hamengkubuwono IX died at the George Washington University Medical Center in the United States on October 1, 1988 and was buried at Imogiri. There is a special museum dedicated to him in the sultan's palace (kraton) in Yogyakarta. He was also given the title National Hero of Indonesia, a distinction for Indonesian patriots. He was replaced by his son, Raden Mas Herdjuno Darpito, who took the name Hamengkubuwono X.

Hamengkubuwono IX never had a Queen Consort during his reign; preferring instead to take four concubines from which he had 21 children.

Hamengkubuwono IX was a fan of wuxia movies and novels. He also enjoyed cooking and headed an unofficial cooking club which included Cabinet Ministers as its members.


Hamengkubuwono see Hamengkubuwana


Hamidi
Hamidi (Ibrahim ibn al-Husayn al-Hamidi) (d.1162).  Second head of the Tayyibi Isma‘ilis in Yemen.  He was succeeded by his son Hatim (d. 1199) and his grandson ‘Ali (d. 1209).
Ibrahim ibn al-Husayn al-Hamidi see Hamidi


Hamka
Hamka (Haji Abdul Malik Karim Amrullah) (b. in Kampung Molek Sungai Batang Maninjau, West Sumatra, February 17, 1908 - d. in Jakarta, July 24, 1981). Indonesian author, ulema, and politician.  "Hamka" is an acronym of Haji Abdul Malik Karim Amrullah.  Hamka was an Indonesian religious scholar and the most prolific of modern Indonesian Islamic writers.  Hamka was born in the small village of Sungai Batang in the Minangkabau region of West Sumatra on February 17, 1908.  His mother came from the adat aristocracy, and his father, Syekh Dr. Abdulkarim Amrullah, a member of a long-established ‘ulama’ family, was a pioneer in the modernist reform movement.  Although his father was the leading teacher of a traditional religious school that soon became a radical reformist school, the famous Sumatra Thawalib, the young Malik was enrolled in the Diniyah School, the first religious school to use the modern system of education, established by Zainuddin Labay el-Junusyah.  Malik was not successful there and transferred in 1922 to Parabek (Bukittinggi), a school run by another modernist ‘alim, Syekh Ibrahim Musa.  Instead of studying the kitabs (Islamic commentaries), he preferred Minangkabau traditional literature.  It was only after he suffered a serious case of smallpox in 1923 that he began in earnest the career of a talented autodidact (self-taught person).  

In 1924, Malik went to Java to visit his older sister, whose husband A. R. Sutan Mansyur was the chairman of the local branch of the Muhammadiyah.  The visit gave him a chance to attend public courses presented by important Muslim leaders.  At the end of 1925, he entered the world of journalism by sending articles to the daily Hindia Baru (The New Indies), edited by Haji Agus Salim, an Islamic political leader.   On his return to Padang Panjang, Malik established the first Muhammadiyah journal, Chatibul ummah.  He soon traveled to Medan and to Mecca in 1927.  The short but intense exposure to the Arab world not only immensely improved his linguistic ability but also introduced him to the treasures of Arabic literature.

On his return to Padang Panjang, he began his career as a writer and adopted the nom de plume of Hamka.  His first book, a Minangkabau novel titled Si Sabariah (A Girl Named Sabariah), was published in 1925.  He regularly sent articles to local journals and published booklets on Minangkabau adapt and Islamic history.  His activities in the Muhammadiyah organization brought him to Makasar (1932-1934), where he published two journals, novels, and a book on Islamic history.  In 1936, he received an offer to become the editor in chief of a new Islamic journal in Medan, Pedoman Masyarakat (Social Compass).  Under his editorship, the journal became one of the most successful in the history of Islamic journalism in Indonesia.  The sojourn in Medan (1936-1945) constituted the most productive years of Hamka’s life.  During this period, he published most of his novels, notably Dibawah lindungan Ka’bah (Under the Shadow of the Ka‘bah, 1936) and Tenggelamnya kapal van der Wijck (The Sinking of the van der Wijck, 1937), as well as his noted books on Islamic ethics and mysticism, including Tasauf Modern (Modern Mysticism, 1939), Lembaga budi (The Realm of Morality, 1939), and Falsafah hidup (The Philosophy of Life, 1940).

At the same time, Hamka was a leading figure in the revolutionary struggle for national independence in West Sumatra from 1945 to 1949.  In 1950, he moved to Jakarta.  Appointed as a high official of the Department of Religious Affairs, Hamka spent most of his time teaching, writing, and editing and publishing the journal Panji Masyarakat (The Banner of the Society).  In 1950, he published a widely acclaimed biography of his father, Ayahku (My Father), which also gives a historical account of Islamic movements in Sumatra, in addition to his four volume memoir Kenang-kenangan hidup and the first volume of the projected four-volume Sedjarah umat Islam (History of the Islamic World).  In 1955, Hamka was elected a member of the Constituent Assembly, representing the Islamic modernist political party, the Masjumi.  His political career ended with the dissolution of the Assembly by President Sukarno.  In 1960, he was elected as “great imam” of al-Azhar Mosque.  Falsely accused of involvement in the attempted murder of the president, he was detained in 1964.  He spent twenty months in the hospital, where he completed the drafts of his thirty-volume Tafsir al-Azhar.

After the fall of Sukarno, Hamka was released and resumed his position as the great imam of al-Azhar Mosque with its prestigious elementary and secondary school.  As the most sought after mubaligh (public speaker) and a popular broadcast personality with books published in Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia, he was undoubtedly the most famous religious scholar in the Malay-speaking world.  In 1975, he accepted the post of chairman of the new government sponsored Indonesian Council of Ulama and was re-elected in 1980 but resigned owing to a political conflict with the minister of religion.  His position, however, had popular support, and congratulatory letters flooded his house.  A few months after the last volume of Tafsir al-Azhar was published, Hamka died on July 21, 1981, leaving ten children.

Hamka wrote more than one hundred books, including fiction, politics, Minangkabau adapt, history and biography, Islamic doctrine, ethics, mysticism, and tafsir.  About twenty of these have enjoyed several reprintings and are still in print.  Several collections of his writings have also been published posthumously.  He received honorary degrees from al-Azhar University in Cairo (1958) and the University Kebangsaan in Kuala Lumpur (1974).  The daily Berita Buana’ named him “Man of the Year” in 1980.  He was also the “spiritual father” of most newly converted Chinese.  

A keen student of history, Hamka not only made the long-forgotten past alive but also never failed to find the moral messages that history held for the present.  His literary works show his concern for the little people and the human sufferings in his transitional society.  His writings on Minangkabau reflect the attitude of a modernist ‘alim toward his beloved matrilineal society.  He offered an influential interpretation of the Indonesian national ideology, the Pancasila, by making its first principle the recognition of the oneness of God (tawhid).  Since his major concern was the maintenance of iman (faith) and ‘aqidah (creed) in changing times, it is understandable that in his Tafsir he often deviates from the traditional Asyhariate school of theology, which is still the foundation of Islamic orthodoxy in Indonesia.  
Haji Abdul Malik Karim Amrullah see Hamka
Amrullah, Haji Abdul Malik Karim see Hamka


Hammadids
Hammadids (Banu Hammad). Dynasty in the Central Maghrib (1008-1152) collateral with the Zirids in Ifriqiya and eastern Algeria.  The founder, Hammad ibn Buluggin I ibn Ziri (r. 1008-1028), severed his relations with the Fatimids of Cairo and transferred his allegiance to the ‘Abbasids of Baghdad.  The Hammadids were a Berber dynasty in Algeria (1008/1015-1152).  Their main capitals were al-Qala (Qalaat Beni Hammad) and, from 1090, Bougie (Bejaia).  The Banu Hammad, branch of the Zirids of North Africa.  Their founder, Hammad ibn Buluggin (1008/1015-1028), was given the town of Ashir near Algiers by his nephew, the controlling Zirid in al-Mansuriya.  In 1008, he founded the main capital of al-Qala and gained independence in 1015 by accepting the authority of the caliphs of Baghdad.  Following various battles, his son, al-Qaid (1028-1045), gained from the Zirids acknowledgment as the independent ruler of Algeria.  Under Buluggin (1046-1062), the Hammadids extended their empire to Morocco (temporary occupation of Fez), under al-Nasir (1062-1088) to Tunisia (as far as Tunis) and from the Bedouins after 1104, the last ruler, Yahya (1121-1152), had to limit his territory to the Algerian coast and in 1152 Bougie passed to the Almohads.  

The Hammadids, an offshoot of the Zirids, were a Berber dynasty who ruled an area roughly corresponding to modern Algeria for about a century and a half (1008-1152), until they were destroyed by the Almohads. Soon after coming to power, they rejected the Ismaili doctrine of the Fatimids, and returned to Maliki Sunnism, acknowledging the Abbasids as rightful Caliphs.

A list of the Hammadid rulers reads as follows:

    * Hammad ibn Buluggin, 1008-1028
    * al-Qaid ibn Hammad, 1028-1045
    * Muhsin ibn Qaid, 1045-1046
    * Buluggin ibn Muhammad ibn Hammad, 1046-1062
    * an-Nasir ibn Alnas ibn Hammad, 1062-1088
    * al-Mansur ibn Nasir, 1088-1104
    * Badis ibn Mansur, 1104
    * Abd al-Aziz ibn Mansur, 1104-1121
    * Yahya ibn Abd al-Aziz, 1121-1152

Banu Hammad see Hammadids


Hammudids
Hammudids.  Refers to a dynasty of the period of the Muluk al-Tawa’if, which reigned over various towns in Muslim Spain from 1016 until 1058.  The Hammudids were rulers of the taifa kingdoms of Malaga and Algeciras (1016/18-1058), rulers of Cordoba 1016-1027.  The Banu Hammud, arabicized Hispano-Berber dynasty, branch of the Idrisids.  Their leader, Ali ibn Hammud (r. 1016-1018), governor of Ceuta in 1013 and leader of the African contingent of the Spanish caliphate, rose to power in Malaga in 1016 and became caliph of Cordoba after the removal of the Umayyads.  Following his murder, his brother al-Qasim (r. 1018-1021 and 1023-1025), governor of Algeciras, Tangier, and Arzila, and his son Yahya (r. 1021-1023 and 1025-1027/35) ruled in dispute with each other in Cordoba and Malaga.  Driven out of Cordoba in 1027, Yahya (d. 1035) and his successors ruled briefly in Malaga and Algeciras, maintaining their position until Malaga fell to the Zirids of Granada and Algeciras to the Abbadids of Seville in 1058.  

The Hammudid dynasty is one of the Alid dynasties of Muslim Berbers in Al-Andalus (i.e. Muslim Iberia, in what is now southern Spain). It is named after their ancestor, Hammud, a descendant of Idris ibn Abdallah, i.e., it is of Idrisid lineage.

The dynasty ruled several principalities (taifas) after the decline of Umayyad Caliphate of Cordoba in early 11th century.  The Hammudid ruled principalities include:

    * Córdoba (1016-1018: Ali ibn Hammud, 1018-1021: al-Qasim, 1021-1022: Yahya al-Mutali, 1022-1023: al-Qasim)
    * Sevilla (1016: al-Qasim)
    * Algeciras (1039–58: al-Qasim and heirs)
    * Málaga (1022-1057: Yahya al-Mutali and heirs).
    * Melilla


Hamza al-Isfahani
Hamza al-Isfahani (c.893-after 961).  Persian philologist and historian.  He is the author of a well-known chronology of pre-Islamic and Islamic dynasties.  He is also described as a Persian nationalist with strong prejudices against the Arabs.
Isfahani, Hamza al- see Hamza al-Isfahani


Hamza Beg
Hamza Beg (Imam Hamza Beg) (d. 1834).  Imam of Dagestan and the leader of the popular politico-religious movement which disturbed the northern Caucasus from 1832 to 1859.  
Imam Hamza Beg see Hamza Beg
Beg, Hamza see Hamza Beg


Hamza Fansuri
Hamza Fansuri (Hamzah Fansuri) (Hamzah Pansuri) (c. 1550-1600 [1608?]).  Indonesian Sufi of the sixteenth century.  Originating from the west coast of Sumatra, he was the author of treatises and poems in Malay.

Hamza Fansuri was probably born at Ayuthaya in Thailand, but his family evidently came from Barus in North Sumatra.  It was in North Sumatra where Hamza Fansuri subsequently settled.  

In his travels, Hamza Fansuri visited Arabia, Iraq, the Malay peninsula and Java.  He was initiated in Baghdad into the Qadiriyyah religious order.  Hamza Fansuri adhered to the so-called Wujudiyyah school of Sufis, who affirm the doctrine of Oneness of Being.

Hamza Fansuri wrote in Malay, but knew Arabic and Persian well.  He was much influenced by Ibn al-Arabi, Jili as well as other classical Sufi writers and poets, among whom are al-Ghazali, Attar, Jalal al-Din Rumi, Sadi and Jami.  

So far as is known, Hamza Fansuri was the first to write a systematic and definitive account of the Sufi doctrines in the Malay language.  By writing about Sufism, Hamza Fansuri introduced Muslim philosophical and mystical terminology into the Malay language.  

Hamza Fansuri is also credited with introducing the poetic verse genre of the ruba’i -- the quatrain -- which in Malay literature became popularly known as the sha’ir.  His ideas have always been very much misunderstood and misrepresented, even up to the present day.  

One of Hamza Fansuri’s most assiduous and potent accusers was Nuruddin Ar-Raniri who wrote several polemical treatises charging Hamza Fansuri with heresy.  In 1637, the works of Hamza Fansuri were ceremonially burned by order of the Sultan of Aceh.  
Hamzah Fansuri see Hamza Fansuri
Fansuri, Hamzah  see Hamza Fansuri
Hamzah Pansuri see Hamza Fansuri
Pansuri, Hamzah see Hamza Fansuri

Hamza ibn ‘Abd al-Muttalib
Hamza ibn ‘Abd al-Muttalib (d. 625).  Paternal uncle of the Prophet.  He became the central figure of a popular romance called The Romance of Amir Hamza, known in Persia, Turkey and Indonesia.  

Hamza ibn ‘Abd al-Muttalib was the paternal uncle of the Islamic prophet, Muhammad. However, he and Muhammad were raised together as they were almost the same age.

Hamza was known as "Lion of God" and "Lion of Paradise" for his bravery. Among the champions of early Islam, few have rivaled his reputation in battle. He was martyred at the Battle of Uhud on March 19, 625 by the Abyssinian slave Wahshy ibn Harb. He was one of the bravest warriors of Islam.

Hamza converted to Islam due to the actions of Amr ibn Hishām, (who is infamous by the name of

Abu Jahl and known for his hostility against the Muslims). Hamza, uncle of Muhammad, had returned to the city of Mecca after a hunting trip in the desert. Upon returning, he soon learned that Abu Jahl, avowed enemy of Islam had heaped abuse and insults upon Muhammad, who had not responded and walked away from where he had sat in the Haram. Outraged, Hamza dashed to the Kaaba, where Abu Jahl sat with other leaders of Mecca and began to beat him with his bow, crying, "Are you going to insult him now, now that I am of his religion and vouch for what he vouches for? Hit me if you can!" As the companions of Abu Jahl warily stood, approaching Hamza, Abu Jahl feebily cried out from the ground, "Let Abu Umarah be, for indeed, I insulted his nephew deeply." And he cowered at the feet of Hamza, while his friends could not meet Hamza’s eyes. As he departed, he kicked sand back at the men, leaving all shocked at what Hamza had just said, none more so than Hamza himself.

Hamza, the son of Shaiba ibn Hashim, was the brother of Abd Allah ibn Abd al Muttalib, Muhammad's father, but he had also been weaned by the same woman, Halimah bint Abi Dhuayb, making him his foster brother as well. The two had grown up together, being just two years apart in age. But as the boys had become young men, they developed different attitudes toward life. Muhammad became thoughtful and concerned with the problems of society, Hamza was not such a contemplative thinker and was comfortable in his status of being part of Meccan elite, though their relationship remained as strong as ever. So it was a conflicted Hamza that witnessed the escalating situation in the city as Muhammad declared the message of Islam. On the one hand, he had absolute faith in the character of his foster brother and nephew, being one of those who had been closest to him for all of his life. Yet some of his most honored values were the respect he held for his family and the traditions they had always followed, his pagan religion among these. So he was indifferent to the controversy, discouraging his peers from worrying about what they saw as a revolution in their midst and not bothering to join them in torturing the defenseless Muslims, while declining Muhammad's invitation to convert to Islam.

The conversion to Islam of Hamza, gave the Muslims much greater strength and better morale among its followers. They were now able to speak and pray in public. Hamza had been one of the most renowned warriors of the Quraysh, known for his solitary hunting expeditions in the desert and his prowess on the battlefield, and was known as the "Lion of the Desert". He became a staunch supporter of Muhammad, enduring the ostracization of the Muslims, and helped him get through the Year of Sorrow, when many of his close relatives died. And he became a trusted advisor after the Hijra, when Muhammad led the fledgling Muslim state in Medina. Hamza advised Muhammad to go on the offensive against those who had driven the Muslims from their homes and seized their property, which Muhammad decided to do by seizing a Quraysh caravan from Mecca at the wells of Badr.

Stories about Hamza's life are collected in the Hamzanama. Hamza is the protagonist of a dastan-goi -- "narrative tales" from Islamic India, where he is portrayed as a larger-than-life hero who fights demons, trades witty remarks with Emperors and fights great wars. It resembles both the Shahnameh and the Ramayana in form.


"Lion of God" see Hamza ibn ‘Abd al-Muttalib
"Lion of Paradise" see Hamza ibn ‘Abd al-Muttalib


Hamza ibn ‘Ali
Hamza ibn ‘Ali (Hamza ibn ‘Alī ibn Aḥmad) (Hamza al-Fatimi - "Hamza the Fatimid") (b.985).  Founder of the Druze religious doctrine of the eleventh century. Of Persian origin, he played a role in the proclamation of the divinity of the Fatimd Caliph al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah. {See also Caliphs; Druze; Fatimids; and Hakim bi-

Hamza ibn ‘Alī ibn Aḥmad was an 11th century Ismaili and founding leader of the Druze sect. He was born in Zozan in Greater Khorasan in Samanid-ruled Persia (modern Khaf, Razavi Khorasan Province, Iran).

Hamza is considered the founder of the Druze sect of Islam and the primary author of the Druze manuscripts.

After spending the first twenty years of his life in Samanid-ruled Persia, Hamza emigrated to Egypt and became known in the Fatimid Government as Hamza al-Fātimī --"Hamza the Fatimid". He arrived in Cairo (modern Egypt) just as the Fatimid Caliph Tāriqu l-Ḥākim built the House of Knowledge, which became one of the main cultural centers of the Fatimid state. In a very short period of time, Hamza became a close associate of al-Ḥākim and the Caliph appointed him Head of Letters and Correspondence.

Hamza took as his headquarters the Raydan Mosque, which was located outside the walls of Cairo. This mosque became the center where Hamza organized a new missionary movement. In May 1017, al-Ḥākim issued a decree naming Hamza the imām of "the Monotheists" (al-Muwahhidūn) immediately after declaring the beginning of the Divine Call. Hamza demonstrated brilliant leadership for four years under al-Ḥākim’s direction.

Al-Ḥākim granted Hamza the freedom to preach this new reformist doctrine openly. Public resistance to Hamza's teachings increased as he spoke against corruption, polygamy, remarriage of divorcees and other social customs as well as his theological disputes with other prominent Ismaili leaders.

During this external resistance, an internal rivalry arose between Hamza and one of his subordinates, ad-Darazī. Ad-Darazī deviated from the essence of the movement’s message and falsified the writings of Hamza to present al-Ḥākim as divine.

Ad-Darazī had hoped that al-Ḥākim would favor him over Hamza, but instead there was public opposition to his teachings. Ad-Darazī then redirected the public’s resistance by declaring that he had acted on Hamza's instructions. Consequently, instead of attacking ad-Darazī, the crowds turned against Hamza and his associates, who were at Ridyan Mosque at the time. Although al-Ḥākim executed ad-Darazī for heresy and repudiated his teachings, many years later observers ironically attributed the Druze doctrine to ad-Darazī and did not mention Hamza at all. After the execution of ad-Darazī and his collaborators, Hamza continued his preaching activities for two more years.

Medieval chroniclers of the time not only failed to make the distinction between Druzes and Darazīs but attributed ad-Darazī’s doctrine to the followers of Hamza and argued that Hakim supported ad-Darazī’s ideas. Other historians have reported that it was Hamza who was subordinate to ad-Darazī, and still others have referred to Hamza and Darazi as the same person: Hamza ad-Darazī. As a consequence, the name “Druze” became synonymous with the reform movement.

Despite the ironic and misleading origins of the sect’s name, the title “Druze” never occurs in the Druze manuscripts of the 11th century. After the execution of Darazi and his collaborators, Hamza continued his preaching activities for two more years.

Many modern scholars have written that Hamza's and ad-Darazī's ideology was the same, which is preaching the literal divinity of al-Ḥākim, whom they say supported their claims. Such uncertainty is caused by the historical ambiguity of that era and the secretive, esoteric aspect of the Druze faith.

During the same year that al-Ḥākim disappeared in 1021, Hamza went into retreat and delegated the third leading figure, Baha'u d-Dīn as-Samuqī ("al-Muqtana Baha’ud-Dīn") to continue the missionary movement. Baha'u d-Dīn continued public preaching with the approval of Hamza, who was in a disclosed location known only to Baha'u d-Dīn and few other missionaries. Preaching was halted after the Druze sect was closed in 1043 by Baha'u d-Dīn.


Hamza ibn ‘Alī ibn Aḥmad see Hamza ibn ‘Ali
Hamza al-Fatimi see Hamza ibn ‘Ali
"Hamza the Fatimid" see Hamza ibn ‘Ali


Hamza ibn Habib
Hamza ibn Habib (d. 772).  One of the “Seven Readers” of the Qur’an.  He was a pupil of Abu Bakr ‘Asim. 


Hanafi, Hasan
Hanafi, Hasan (Hasan Hanafi) (b. 1935). Egyptian reformist thinker and professor of philosophy.  Born of Berber and Bedouin Egyptian ancestry, Hanafi earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy at the University of Cairo in 1956 and a doctorat d’etat at the Sorbonne in 1966.  He taught Arabic at the Ecole des Langues Orientales to supplement a fellowship while he was a graduate student in Paris (1956-1966).  On his return to Egypt, he taught medieval Christian thought and then Islamic philosophy at the University of Cairo, where he continues to be a member of its department of philosophy.  As a visiting professor, he also taught at universities in Belgium (1970), the United States (1971-1975), Kuwait (1979), Morocco (1982-1984), Japan (1984-1985), and the United Arab Emirates (1985), and he was academic consultant at the United Nations University in Tokyo (1985-1987).  

As a student at Khalil Agha Secondary School in Cairo (1948-1952), Hanafi was introduced to the thought and activities of the Society of the Muslim Brothers.  In the summer of 1952, he formally joined the Muslim Brothers and, as a University of Cairo student (1952-1956), fully participated in their movement until they were banned.  His studies and travels overseas broadened his intellectual horizons and helped to deepen his conviction that Islam has a leading role in world culture as a unique program for humanity.  A staunch supporter of the populist ideals of the Egyptian Revolution of 1952, Hanafi believed in a fusion of the populist ideals within a revitalized, reinterpreted Islam in order to form what he called “the Islamic Left” and brought about national unity in Egypt, social and economic justice for the downtrodden masses, a democratic state free from Western domination and Zionist influence, the unification of the Arab world, and the restoration of Islam to a central position in world culture.

Hanafi’s major intellectual contribution is a lifetime project he called Al-turath wa-al-tajdid (Heritage and Renewal).  Apart from his journalistic articles in Arabic – written originally for the general public and later collected in Qadaya mu‘asirah, Dirasat Islamiyah, Dirasat falsafiyah, and Al-din wa al-thawrah fi misr: 1952-1981 – Hanafi was engaged in producing a multi-volume scholarly study.  It reconstructed the Islamic heritage in a new historicist and critical interpretation.  It reassesses Western culture within a de-centering and downsizing critical approach; and it constructed a new hermeneutic of religious culture on a global scale in which Islam is the ideological foundation of a modern humanity liberated from alienation and provided with a comprehensive program of positive action leading to happiness, peace, prosperity, and justice for all.

Hanafi divided his project into three “fronts,” each of which had a theoretical introduction and was planned to be completed in several books.  The fronts are the following: “Our Attitude to the Old Heritage” in seven multi-volume books; “Our Attitude to the Western Heritage,” originally planned to be in five books but later reduced to three; and “Our Attitude to Reality” in three books.

Of these planned works, only some have been published.  Al-turath wa-al-tajdid: Mawqifuna min al-turath al-qadim (Heritage and Renewal: Our Attitude to the Old Heritage) introduced the project and offered a conspectus of its content and direction.  Min al-‘aqidah ila al-thawrah: Muhawalah li-i‘adat bina’ ‘ilm usul al-din (From Doctrine to Revolution:  An Attempt to Rebuild, the Science of Religious Fundamentals) was the first book of the first front.  It was an attempt to reconstruct past Islamic theology, showing on the one hand its rational relation to divine revelation to the historical conditions to which its development succumbed as it tried over the years to consolidate Islamic dogma and to defend its world view against internal sectarian dissension and other religions.  Hanafi argued that human beings and history were at the center of Islamic religious consciousness, and so he integrated the needs of modern Muslims into the Islamic theology he reconstructed, thus creating a liberation theology intended to serve as a revolutionary ideology enabling Muslims to face modern challenges and fight poverty, underdevelopment, coercion, westernization, and alienation.

His most recent work was a hefty tome entitled Muqaddimah fi ‘ilm al-istighrab (Introduction to the Science of Occidentalism) which he offered as a theoretical introduction to the second front of the project and as a temporary substitute for the three books on the Western heritage, while he continued writing the planned volumes of the first front.  In addition to creating the discipline of Occidentalism opposed to Orientalisms and to offer a critical reconstruction of Western culture showing its limitations, its provincialism, and its conditioning by its own circumstances.  Hanafi sees the Western heritage as a historical product in which divine revelation is no longer central, unlike the Islamic heritage that is strongly based on divine revelation recorded in the Qur’an, from which all aspects of Islamic civilization and history flow.  He argued against the claim of Western culture to universality and made great efforts to reduce it to what he believed to be its natural size within world culture.  His analysis of Western consciousness from its beginnings to modern times led to the conclusion that Western consciousness is in crisis and overcome by self-doubt and nihilism, while Islamic consciousness was on the rise to take its rightful place of world leadership, if properly oriented.

Despite Hanafi’s genuine interest in the Muslim masses, he had never gathered a popular following, and his influence was limited to academics, students, and other intellectuals.  The significance of his thought lies in the fact that he has forcefully articulated the modern Muslim need for self assertion.  For him, Muslims were not mere objects of study or manipulation by others; they were subjects in their own right.  Islam, as he had reinterpreted it, is a viable way of life that can and should have a leading role in the world.  
Hasan Hanafi see Hanafi, Hasan

Hanafites
Hanafites (in Arabic, Hanafiyya).  Members of the school of Islamic law named after Abu Hanifa al-Nu‘man ibn Thabit.  The Hanafi school originated in Iraq and was the school adopted by the ‘Abbasid caliphs.  The Hanafi school gained popularity in Transoxania, Khurasan, Afghanistan, India, and China.  In the Mediterranean, the Hanafi school became the school of the Ottoman empire, and is the one generally recognized in its former provinces.  Its method can be characterized as more formal and literalist than some other schools, although it allows greater use of legal stratagems to circumvent positive provisions of the law.

While the school took its name from the Kufan jurist Abu Hanifa, credit for its foundation is generally given to two of his pupils, Abu Yusuf Ya’qub (d. 798), author of a treatise on the tax of non-Muslims, and his better known contemporary Muhammad ibn al-Hasan al-Shaybani (d.805) who wrote a treatise central to the foundation of the school, The Book of Roots, and two works with the designations The Small Collection and The Large Collection.  

Since there is often disagreement among Abu Hanifa, Abu Yusuf, and al-Shaybani, the school is less uniform and coherent in its doctrine

than other schools.  During the period of controversy between the old legal schools and the Traditionists in the second and third Islamic centuries, the school was attacked for its use of the discretionary opinion (ra’y) of individual jurists, but in fact it is only slightly more tolerant on this point than the extreme Hanbalites, who prefer traditions -- hadith -- to juristic reasoning.

The Hanafite school used legal stratagems to circumvent the positive precepts of laws governing such things as interest on loans.  While interest is forbidden, it could be effected by use of the double sale in which the lender would buy the collateral, for an agreed price, and the borrower contracted to repurchase the collateral at a future date for a higher price, the difference between the two prices representing the interest.  In line with this use of stratagems, the Hanafites are more formalistic than either the Hanbalites or the Malikites and do not inquire into the motives of the individual, concentrating instead on the external act.

The Malikites accuse the Hanafites of permitting legal means to achieve illegal ends.  The Hanafites would not inquire into the motives of contracting, consummating, and ending the marriage of a woman to a third party in order to allow remarriage to a former husband after divorce, taking the act as evidence of having fulfilled the requirements of the law.

The Hanafi school originated in Iraq and spread to Syria, Khurasan, Transoxiana, Afghanistan, the Indian subcontinent, Turkish Central Asia and China.  It later became the favorite school of the Saljuqs and of the Ottomans and, as a legacy of Ottoman rule, it has retained official status even in those former Ottoman provinces where the majority of the native Muslim populations follows another school, e.g., in Egypt, Sudan, Jordan, Israel, Lebanon and Syria.

While Hanafi doctrine from the beginning recognized the importance of the Qur’an as an essential source of law, Hanafis were at pains to insist on the indispensability of personal judgment or reason (ijtihad or ra’y) as a tool of juridical elaboration.  The freedom and flexibility that they sought to secure for juridical doctrine were given concrete expression in such concepts as istihsan (juridical preference) and qiyas (analogical reason).  Although these concepts are to be found in Maliki and Shafi’i law, it was the Hanafis who applied them most consistently and extensively.  The Hanafi school, however, did not entirely escape the influence of the traditionist movement, as a consequence of which Hanafis, too, were compelled to concede a larger role to prophetic tradition (hadith) as a source of law.  

While the Hanafi school had its origins in southern Iraq and reflected the legal consensus of that particular region, it rapidly established itself as the dominant school of law in the eastern provinces of the Abbasid empire, thanks in no small measure to the favor shown it by the court in Baghdad.  From Iraq and Persia, the Hanafi school found its way to Central Asia, Afghanistan, and India.  With the penetration of Islam into China, especially from the thirteenth century, the Hanafi school became the dominant legal influence there as well.  In each of these areas, the Hanafi school remains the legal affiliation of the vast majority of Muslims.

In modern times, Hanafi principles have influenced family law by their incorporation into the codes of several of the former Ottoman provinces (e.g., Turkey and Egypt), although, because of the adoption of Western style codes, these cannot still be said to belong to the Hanafi school.
Hanafiyya see Hanafites


Hanbalites
Hanbalites (in Arabic, Hanabila; in singular form, Hanbali).  Followers of the Sunni school of theology, law and morality which grew up from the teaching of Ahmad ibn Hanbal.  Hanbalism is the youngest of the four orthodox schools of law in Sunni Islam and it is based on a system of law and theology decidedly traditionalist in orientation.   Hanbalism recognizes no other sources than the Qur’an and the Sunna of the Prophet.  It is hostile to speculative theology (in Arabic, kalam) and to esoteric Sufism.   

While not rejecting reason altogether as a source of law, the Hanbali school sought vigorously to circumscribe its scope, emphasizing rather the Qur’an and the sunna as the primary sources of law.   Among the Sunni schools of law, Hanbalism was closest to that of the Shafi’is, differing from it mainly in the role assigned to reason. Under the Shi‘a Buyids, Hanbalism became a politico-religious opposition party in Baghdad, contributing decisively to Sunni restoration, as is clear from the works of many Hanbali theologians of this period.  The final two centuries of the caliphate in Baghdad (1061-1258) are the golden age of Hanbalism.  Some of the great Hanbalites of this epoch were ‘Abd al-Rahman ibn al-Jawzi, Ibn Aqil (d. 1120), Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani (d. 1166), and Ibn al-Jauzi (d.1200).  

Under the Bahri Mamelukes, Hanbalism remained very active in Syria and Palestine, the most famous Hanbalite then being Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328).  It lost some of its importance in Syria and Palestine under the Circassian Mamelukes, and was not favored by the Ottomans, who gave pre-eminence to Hanafism.  In the eighteenth century, under Ottoman rule, Shaykh Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab won over to Hanbalism the amir Muhammad ibn Sa‘ud, the founder of the al-Sa‘ud dynasty of Saudi Arabia.   Through the writings of Ibn Taymiyya and the efforts of the Wahhabi movement in the eighteenth century, Hanbali influences made their way to India and Southeast Asia, where even today they continue to be felt.
Hanabila see Hanbalites
Hanbali see Hanbalites


Hanifa, Abu
Hanifa, Abu.  See Abu Hanifa al-Nu‘man.
Abu Hanifa al-Nu‘man see Hanifa, Abu.


Hani’ ibn ‘Urwa al-Muradi
Hani’ ibn ‘Urwa al-Muradi (Ibn al-Hani Urwa Murad) (d. 680).  Yemeni chief who lost his life during the attempt made by ‘Ali’s son al-Husayn to seize power.   
Ibn al-Hani Urwa Murad see Hani’ ibn ‘Urwa al-Muradi


Hansawi
Hansawi (Shaykh Jamal al-Din Hansawi) (1184-1260).  Sufi mystic of the Indian Cishtiyya order.  His Persian diwan is the earliest known poetical work of a Cishti mystic, important for the history of North India in the early thirteenth century.  
Shaykh Jamal al-Din Hansawi see Hansawi
Jamal al-din Hansawi see Hansawi


Harakat al-Tawhid al-Islami
Harakat al-Tawhid al-Islami (Islamic Unification Movement) (Islamic Unity Movement).  Militant Sunni movement which emerged out of the political turmoil of the 1980s in the northern Lebanese port city of Tripoli.  Tawhid, the term by which the movement was popularly known, was formed from a coalition of Islamic and Arab nationalist groups, which included Jund Allah, the Muslim Youth (Pro-Fatah), Popular Resistance, and the Lebanese Arab Movement.  It came to power in the context of the Lebanese civil war in Tripoli through armed insurrection between October 1983 and October 1985.

Tawhid was part of a broader current of radical Islamic movements to emerge in the early 1980s in Lebanon.  The post-1982 period, the year of Israel’s invasion of Lebanon, saw at least eight radical Islamic groups form in Lebanon.  All shared a radical rejection of Lebanese confessional politics and supported the idea of creating an Islamic state.  Although these movements drew on the Sunni and Shi‘a radicalism of the period, the political climate created by the Israeli invasion was an important factor in mobilizing both popular local and international support for these movements.

Civil war and the collapse of the Lebanese state strongly influenced the character of Tawhid’s organization, as they had affected the secular Lebanese parties that preceded it in Tripoli.  Although politically, militarily, communally, and geographically restricted, Tawhid was unique because it was a religious movement in the predominantly Sunni city of Tripoli, projecting a radical Islamic image and explicitly linking itself with the Islamic militancy of the Iranian revolution.

The movement was organized into five districts, each controlled by an “emir.”  These districts coincided with the traditional administrative and clientalist arrangements of the city quarters.  Islamic ideology provided the basis for unity, but administrative responsibilities were shared between the different founding groups, each controlling separate districts.

The movement’s leader, Shaykh Sayyid Sha‘ban, promoted the movement as an ecumenical one for both Lebanese Sunni and Shi‘a Muslims.  The tangible expression of this ecumenism was his membership in the small Lebanese Association of Muslim ‘Ulama’ (Tajummu’) – an organization in which the Sunni ‘ulama’ have accepted the ‘ulama’ as the “heirs of the Prophet” and Ayatollah Khomeini as the leading religious figure of this generation.  Shaykh Sha‘ban’s ecumenical orientation and support for Khomeini’s leadership of Islamic radicalism was tempered by historical theological differences between Sunnism and Shiism.  These included the issue of the recognition by Sunni orthodoxy of all of the Rightly Guided Caliphs and the six Sunni codices of the hadiths as the basis for interpreting the Qur’an.  Shaykh Sha‘ban was also critical of the Iranian rather than Muslim character of Khomeini’s regime in Iran.  He once suggested that the reestablishment of the caliphate in Mecca was a better strategy to achieve Muslim unity.

Tawhid was a millenarian movement whose project was to bring Islamic order to the anarchy of Tripoli and to work toward the formation of an Islamic state.  It was not, however, a broadly populist movement but an expression of the new coalition of local and international forces that controlled northern Lebanon.  It was a politico-military group with an Islamic platform, which achieved power through arms by replacing a secular coalition of Lebanese nationalists and communists.  It borrowed heavily from the revolutionary symbols of the Iranian revolution, including the turbaned, bearded, and armed clergy and the veil.  Some Tawhid clerics even took to riding around Tripoli on horseback as a symbol of their return to the cultural origins of Islam in the first community (the ummah).

Tawhid’s ascent to power in Tripoli and its confinement to the city limits were reflections of the urban concentration of the Sunni population in Lebanon and the political eclipse of the Sunnis as the most powerful Muslim sect during the course of the civil war.  Its most influential political links were not with other Lebanese Sunni communities but with the Shi‘a, especially the radical Shaykh Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah and Hizbullah, as was borne out in the final siege of Tripoli when pro-Iranian radicals in West Beirut kidnapped Soviet diplomats in an effort to halt the Syrian bombardment by political pressure.

The involvement of Sunni clerics in Tawhid represented a radical departure from the traditionally conservative politics of the Lebanese Sunni religious establishment.  Tawhid shaykhs were drawn from a stratum of local community shaykhs who only recently had been incorporated in the Lebanese Sunni religious establishment through the policy of increased bureaucratization and religious education.  This connection made them more dependent economically on the state and exposed them to more militant Islamic thought and politics.

Of particular significance, were their links with radical Egyptian al-Azhar shaykhs, which they first established either as theological students in al-Azhar University or as labor migrants in the Arab world.  There were two predominant al-Azhar networks in northern Lebanon.  At least one Egyptian al-Azhar shaykh from these networks was directly involved in the initial organization of the movement in Tripoli.  The politicization of the Sunni clerics through their international links occurred with the decline of the Sunni religious establishment on the collapse of state authority.  This paralleled a similar process in secular politics whereby international patronage had been substituted for state patronage.

The Islamic program Tawhid sought to implement was limited and piecemeal.  The sale of alcohol was banned, and some shops were destroyed by over-enthusiastic militiamen.  The veil became more common, and a religious tax was imposed on wealthier businessmen to help fund welfare services to the poor.  In practice, however, the Tawhid shaykhs preached individual Islamic moral rectitude as the basis for social transformation and the ultimate realization of an Islamic state.

The military defeat of Tawhid on October 6, 1985, reflected the limited popular base of its support in Tripoli and, perhaps more critically, the change in Syrian attitudes to independent militia rule in Lebanon.  Shaykh Sha‘ban survived the military defeat, but several of the leading shaykhs and many militiamen did not.  The movement was all but destroyed.  
Islamic Unification Movement see Harakat al-Tawhid al-Islami
Islamic Unity Movement see Harakat al-Tawhid al-Islami

Harakat ul-Mujahidin
Harakat ul-Mujahidin (Harkat-ul-Mujahideen- al-Islami)  (HUM).  Formerly part of the Harakat al-Ansar (HUA), the Pakistani-based HUM operates primarily in Kashmir.  Long-time leader of the group, Fazlur Rehman Khalil, in mid-February stepped down.  The popular Kashmiri commander and second in command, Farooq Kashmiri, assumed the reigns.  Khalil, who has been linked to Bin Laden and signed his fatwa in February 1998 calling for attacks on the United States and Western interests, assumed the position of HUM Secretary General.  The HUM is linked to the militant group al-Faran that kidnapped five Western tourists in Kashmir in July 1995.  One was killed in August 1995 and the other four reportedly were killed in December of the same year.  Supporters are mostly Pakistanis and Kashmiris and also include Afghans and Arab veterans of the Afghan war.  The HUM trains its militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan.  

Harakat ul-Mujahidin (abbreviated as HUM) is a Pakistan-based Islamic militant group operating primarily in Kashmir. In 1997, the United States designated HUM a foreign terrorist organization, and in the same year the organization changed its name from Harakat al-Ansar. The group splintered from Harakat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HuJI), a Pakistani group formed in 1980 to fight the Soviet military in Afghanistan.

In 1989, at the end of the Soviet-Afghan war, the group entered Kashmiri politics by use of militants under the leadership of Sajjad Afghani. In 1993, the group merged with Harkat-ul-Jehad-al-Islami to form Harkat-ul-Ansar. Immediately following the merger India arrested three senior members: Nasrullah Mansur Langaryal, chief of the former Harkat-ul Mujahideen in November 1993; Maulana Masood Azhar, General Secretary in February 1994, and Sajjad Afghani (Sajjad Sajid) in the same month in Srinagar.

As a response, HUM carried out several kidnappings in an attempt to free their leaders, all of which failed. Linked to the Kashmiri group al-Faran that kidnapped five Western tourists in Kashmir in July 1995; one, Hans Christian Ostrø, was killed in August 1995 and the other four reportedly were killed in December of the same year. In 1997, the group renamed itself to the original Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, in a response to the United States defining Harkat-ul-Ansar as a terrorist organization. In 1999, Sajjad was killed during a jailbreak which led to the hijacking, by the group, of Indian Airlines Flight 814 in December, which caused the release of Maulana Masood Azhar, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh and Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar. Azhar did not, however, return to the HUM, choosing instead to form the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JEM), a rival terrorist group expressing a more radical line than the HUM.

HUM again came to the attention of the United States after the 9/11 attacks, leading President George W. Bush to ban the group on September 25, 2001.

In mid-February 2000, long-time leader of the group,

Fazlur Rehman Khalil, stepped down as HUM emir, turning the reins over to the popular Kashmiri commander and his second-in-command, Farooq Kashmiri. Khalil assumed the position of HUM Secretary General.

HUM is thought to have several thousand armed supporters located in Pakistani Kashmir, and India's southern Kashmir and Doda regions. HUM used light and heavy machineguns, assault rifles, mortars, explosives, and rockets. HUM lost some of its membership due to defections to the JEM.

HUM was based in Muzaffarabad, Rawalpindi, and several other towns in Pakistan and Afghanistan, but members conduct insurgent and militant activities primarily in Kashmir.

On October 10, 2005, Britain's Home Office banned HUM and fourteen other terrorist groups from operating in the United Kingdom. Under Britain's Terrorism Act 2000, being a member of a HUM became punishable with a 10-year prison term.


HUM see Harakat ul-Mujahidin
Harkat-ul-Mujahideen- al-Islami see Harakat ul-Mujahidin


Harari
Harari. Inside the walls of the old Muslim city of Harar in Ethiopia, its inhabitants evolved a unique pre-industrial urban culture which persisted from the 1500s to recent decades.  Although political and economic changes have dispersed the Harari from their old city, the ethnic group persists in mercantile centers in the region and has representatives in other urban centers throughout much of the world.

Harar had been an independent emirate since 1551, but it underwent a series of conquests beginning with the Ottoman Egyptian occupation from 1876 to 1885.  A brief restoration of the emirate was followed by the defeat of the city’s forces by Ras Makonnen in 1887 and the consequent incorporation of Harar in the expanding empire of Ethiopia.  During the early period of Ethiopian rule, Harar’s taxation and political affairs were managed by the occupiers, but its internal society and economy continued to function.  The erosion of Harari economy began at this time with the confiscation of lands by Ras Makonnen as rewards for his troops.  A much more long-lasting blow was dealt by the opening of the Djibouti-Addis Adaba railway in 1913, which bypassed Harar.  The rise of Addis Adaba and the opening of the interior of Ethiopia during the first half of the twentieth century was a period of increasing stagnation for the old city of Harar.

Harari, who had maintained trading posts on the caravan routes for centuries, began to leave the old city in significant numbers in 1948.  At that time, the newly restored Ethiopian rule of the city (following the Italian Occupation, 1936-1941) was perceived as hopelessly oppressive.  The richer markets of Addis Adaba and Dire Dawa provided sufficient impetus to break the rule that all Harari should raise their families in Harar.  As Harari of means shifted from agriculture to merchandising during the next two decades, this movement of population out of the city slowly gained momentum.  It became a virtual diaspora after the Ethiopian Revolution of 1974.  The already weakened economy of the Harari still residing in the old city, their number now reduced to about 8,000, was vitiated by two major reforms of the revolutionary government.  The Rural Property Act of 1975, which proclaimed a maximum individual landholding of ten hectares (about 25 acres) and which affected a much needed land re-distribution throughout Ethiopia, eradicated the extensive Harari holdings of farms which had been tilled by Oromo tenants.

Also, in 1975, the Urban Property Act restricted the ownership of the number of homes and rooms by individual landlords.  This was designed to eliminate exploitative landlords, particularly in Addis Adaba.  Its effect in Harar, however, was perceived as a cultural disaster.  The reform mandated a redistribution of occupancy without regard to ethnic affiliation.  The Harari found themselves sharing their compounds and sometimes their homes with outsiders, most of them Christian Amharas.  The city had ceased to be either the locale of a comfortable way of life or the sanctuary of Harari culture.  

Despite the dispersal of Harari, the ethnic group continues to thrive, albeit under altered conditions.  Although they are one of Ethiopia’s smallest ethnic groups, they have contributed significantly to the country’s managerial and executive (although not its military) ranks.  In the 1980s, there were several Harari M.D.’s and Ph.D.’s in Ethiopia, and elsewhere.  An Ethiopian ambassador and a cabinet minister were Harari, as was the president of Addis Adaba University. 


Harawi
Harawi (Ilyas Harawi).  Elected president of Lebanon in 1989.
Ilyas Harawi see Harawi


Harbi
Harbi, Abu Ishaq Ibrahim ibn Ishaq al- (Abu Ishaq Ibrahim ibn Ishaq al-Harbi) (9th century).  Author of Al-Hammam and its Manners, a book on the appropriate protocol of bathing in hammams -- bath houses.

During the age of the Roman Empire, the Romans developed a bathing process.  For the Romans, the bath was in an elaborate building complex, complete with a medium heated room or Tepidarium, a hot steam room or Caldarium, and a room with a cold plunge pool or Frigidarium.  In some of the larger baths there were other sections with changing rooms called Apodyterium, a reading room and sports area.  But these bathing centers were for the rich and political elite only.  

With the demise of the Roman Empire, the bathing centers were abandoned. While these baths fell into disrepair as the Roman Empire lay in tatters, on the other side of the Mediterranean the Arabs, who had been under Roman rule in countries like Syria, inherited the tradition of using the bath.  Instead of the waters becoming stagnant as the Romans left, the Arabs and then the Muslims gave them special promotion because of Islam's emphasis on cleanliness, hygiene and good health.  

The bath house, or hammam, was a social place and it ranked high on the list of life's essentials.  The Prophet Muhammad proclaimed that "cleanliness is half the faith."  Hammams then were elaborate affairs with elegant designs, decor and ornamentation.  Under the Mameluke and Ottoman rule, they were especially sumptuous buildings in their rich design and luxurious decorations, furnished with beautiful fountains and decorative pools.

The hammam was, and still is, a unique social setting for Muslim communities, playing an important role in the social activities of the community.  As an intimate space of interaction for various social groups, it brought friends, neighbors, relatives and workers together regularly to undertake the washing ritual in a partying atmosphere.  Group bonds strengthened, friendships rekindled and gossip was swapped.  This therapeutic ritual was carried out by both men and women at separate times, with the women usually bathing in daylight and men in the evening and night.  

The intrigue and sociability at the hammam did not just stop at scrubbing and gossip, as traditionally the setting played a significant role in matchmaking.  In conservative communities such as those of North Africa, women who were looking for suitable brides for their sons would go to the hammam.  Here they had the perfect opportunity to have a closer look at the bride to be and select the most physically fit.   

It is also customary in many parts of the Muslim world for the new bride to be taken with her friends to the hammam, where she is prepared, groomed and adorned in stylized designs with henna, the herbal paste that leaves a reddish/brown color on the hair, hands and feet.  The groom is also escorted there the night before he meets his bride.

The art of bathing in hammams is guided by many rules, such as: men must always be covered in "lower" garments, and women are forbidden to enter if men are present.  Quite a few books have been written about the art of bathing in hammams, including Al-Hammam and its Manners from the 9th century by Abu Ishaq Ibrahim ibn Ishaq al-Harbi.



Hariri, Abu Muhammad al-
Hariri, Abu Muhammad al- (Abu Muhammad al-Hariri) (Abu Muhammed al-Qasim al-HaririMuhammad al-Qasim ibn Ali ibn Muhammad ibn Uthman al-Hariri) (al-Hariri of Basra) (1054–1122).  Arabic poet and philologist.  His best known work is the Sessions, which imitate very closely those of al-Hamadhani, but of which they are no more than a pale reflection.  On the other hand, al-Hariri possessed an unequalled mastery of the Arabic language and a perfect command of its inexhaustible vocabulary.

Al-Hariri was a native of Basra in Iraq where he held a small administrative post.  Al-Hariri produced a volume of 50 maqamat, which, although often longer and more elaborate than those of al-Hamadhani, follow almost exactly the same pattern.  Their hero was another vagabond, Abu Zaid of Saruj.

The maqamat are written in rhymed prose, with interpolated passages of verse, and they are designed principally to exhibit the author’s skill in the manipulation of the Arabic language, the depth of his erudition in all branches of learning, and his adeptness at refined obscurity of allusion.  In all of these al-Hariri’s writing is considered to be superior to that of al-Hamadhani. Al-Hamadhani perhaps tells a better story than al-Hariri, but, in this too, the latter is by no means deficient.  Indeed, al-Hariri’s Maqamat could hardly have remained so populist had they not possessed the power of entertaining as well as that of exercising the learned.   Some commentators have noted that for the better part of seven centuries, the Maqamat of al-Hariri “has been esteemed as, next to the Qur’an, the chief treasure of the Arabic tongue.”

The Maqamat of both al-Hariri and al-Hamadhani are particularly interesting to us as representing a picture of life in a Muslim community in the tenth and twelfth centuries.  
Abu Muhammad al-Hariri see Hariri, Abu Muhammad al-
Abu Muhammed al-Qasim al-Hariri see Hariri, Abu Muhammad al-
Muhammad al-Qasim ibn Ali ibn Muhammad ibn Uthman al-Hariri see Hariri, Abu Muhammad al-
Hariri of Basra, al- see Hariri, Abu Muhammad al-


Hariri, Rafiq
Hariri, Rafiq (Rafik Hariri) (Rafic Baha El Deen Al-Hariri) (November 1, 1944 – February 14, 2005).  Prime Minister of Lebanon from 1992 to 1998 and again from 2000 until his resignation on October 20, 2004.  (1944-2005).   

Hariri was born into a Sunni Muslim family in Sayda.  In 1965, Hariri enrolled as a student of business administration at Beirut Arab University.  He left the university in 1966, reportedly because he lacked sufficient funds to pay tuition.  Hariri emigrated to Saudi Arabia and began working for a construction company.  

In 1969, Hariri established his own construction company, CICONEST, which benefited greatly from the oil boom of Saudi Arabia in the 1970s.  In 1975, the Lebanese Civil War began.  Hariri stayed in Saudi Arabia, but was involved in both help projects in Lebanon, as well as in funding opposing militia groups.

In 1978, Hariri was granted Saudi citizenship as a reward from the royal family for his high quality of entrepreneurial services.  Hariri subsequently purchased the French construction company Oger, and became the largest in the construction sector in the Middle East.  

Hariri’s rise to power in Lebanon has a doubtful background.  He bought support from Syria in the 1980s, and following the end of the Civil War he also bought support from leading politicians in Lebanon.  Soon he had control over most of the reconstruction work, as well as control over Lebanese media:  the radio and television stations, newspapers and magazines.  The Lebanese media typically portrayed Hariri as the economic savior of Lebanon.

In the 1980s, Hariri was ranked one of  the 100 richest men in the world.  By that time, much of his activities were also based in Lebanon.  Aiming at good political relations with Syria, Hariri constructed a new presidential palace in Damascus.  This was, however, not to the liking of Hafiz al-Assad, who soon turned it into a conference center.  

In August of 1987, Hariri tried to buy president Amin Gemayel out of office before the end of this term, and tried also to buy Syrian support for making Johnny Abdo president.  Abdo had promised to make Hariri prime minister in such a case.  However, Gemayel rejected this commitment.

In 1989, according to some sources, Hariri bought support from Lebanese delegates for allowing Syrian control over Lebanon during the reconciliation conference held in At Ta’if, Saudi Arabia.  

In 1990, Hariri returned to Lebanon, where he started a campaign for involvement in the reconstruction process after the end of the civil war.  Hariri donated a mansion to president Elias Hrawi and gave great sums of money to other leading politicians.  

In 1992, President Hrawi appointed Hariri prime minister, hoping that the latter’s influential position in business would help bring the reconstruction process forward.  This appointment occurred after Hariri had expressed his pro-Syrian attitude.  The reactions in Lebanese society to Hariri’s appointment were very positive.  Among Hariri’s first changes was the cutting of income and corporate taxes to ten percent.  Hariri also borrowed billions of dollars to rebuild the infrastructure of Lebanon, in particular the infrastructure of Beirut.  Hariri appointed many of his closest staff members from his own companies as ministers of the government, letting them fill important positions like finance minister (Fouad Siniora) and justice minister (Bahij Tabbara).  

The matter of the economy was one where Hariri had little reason to blame anyone but himself, as Syria gave him wide autonomy in this field when he first became prime minister in 1992.  He focused on rebuilding Beirut instead of the other cities of Lebanon.  He was focused on the financial sector instead of the industries and the agriculture.  According to his own ideology, if the financial sector ran well the rest of the economy would follow.  This did not happen, and through the 1990s Lebanon went into a financial crisis.  

Hariri was both the architect behind the reconstruction work of Beirut, as well as the one profiting most from it.  The work was performed by The Company for the Development and Reconstruction of Beirut’s Central District, in which Hariri was the main shareholder.  The company expropriated lands in exchange for shares, and the Lebanese state paid for the construction work with foreign loans.

In 1994, Hariri was accused of corruption and offered his resignation to the president.  Hrawi refused.  Later in the year, Hariri banned public demonstrations.

In 1995, with the possible start of a general strike, Hariri dispatched the army into the streets to quell the opposition and, in 1996, the Lebanese security forces cracked down on two initiatives for general strikes.  

In 1998, the failure of Hariri’s corrupt economic politics became increasingly evident.  The growth rate had dropped from an annual eight to two percent, and the foreign debt had risen above what Lebanon could handle.  The heir apparent of the Syrian presidency, Bashar al-Assad started a campaign to remove potential opposition to his future presidency.  With this, many of Hariri’s Syrian allies were stripped of their positions in the society.  Bashar soon had Hariri removed from his position and Hariri was replaced by Salim al-Hoss.

In 2000, after the politics of Hoss did not result in increased economic growth in Lebanon, Damascus began transferring its support back to Hariri.  At the parliamentary elections, Hariri received the necessary support to become prime minister for the second time.  Hariri embarked on a policy that involved reform in Lebanon’s bureaucracy and some more independence from the directions of Damascus.  

In his second term in office, Hariri showed more independence towards Syria, which angered the rulers in Damascus.  He also established better contacts with the United States.  It is speculated that Syria wanted to remove him from office, but hesitated as they saw him as important for Lebanon’s economy, and Lebanon’s economy was important for Syria.

Hariri was assassinated on February 14, 2005, in a car bombing, which United Nations investigators later tied to Syrian government officials.  The assassination led to peaceful demonstrations.  The demonstrations culminated in a March 14, 2005 rally in Beirut, Lebanon's capital, in which 1.5 million people -- almost forty percent (40%) of the entire Lebanese population -- participated.  The demonstrators carried placards calling for the immediate withdrawal of Syrian troops and the Syrian intelligence services.  The demonstrators also demanded to know the truth about Hariri's assassination and the assassinations of other political and religious leaders allegedly ordered by Syrian officials.  

The demonstrators achieved their goal on April 26, when Syria withdrew its troops and intelligence services.  Political commentators dubbed the popular movement that forced the withdrawal "the Cedar Revolution," in reference to Lebanon's national symbol, the cedars of Lebanon referred to in the Bible.
Rafik Hariri see Hariri, Rafiq
Rafic Baha El Deen Al-Hariri see Hariri, Rafiq


Harith ibn Jabala, al-
Harith ibn Jabala, al- (529-569).  Most famous king of the Ghassanids.  He was an ally of Byzantium and fought the Persians and their Arab allies, the Lakhmids. 

Harith ibn Kalada, al-
Harith ibn Kalada, al- (Nafi ibn al-Harith bin Kalada al-Thaqafi) (d. 670).  Traditionally considered to be the oldest known Arab physician.  His personality is surrounded by a host of legends.

Nafi ibn al-Harith bin Kalada al-Thaqafi was an Arab physician of the Banu Thaqif and was recommended by the Prophet Muhammad and treated Sa`d ibn Abi Waqqas. When Abu Bakr was dying, he designated his illness as poisoning.

Trained in the Academy of Jundishapur in Persia, he is

reported to have written a book named Dialog in Medicine.

He was half brother of Nufay ibn al-Harith (also known as Abu Bakra bin Kalada al-Thaqafi at-Thaifi).

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