triumphs, remaining constantly with him until the day of his
death. During his last illness the prophet indicated Abu-Bekr
as his successor by desiring him to offer up prayer for the
people. The choice was ratified by the chiefs of the army,
and ultimately confirmed, though Ali, Mahomet's son-in-law,
disputed it, asserting his own title to the dignity. After
a time Ali submitted, but the difference of opinion as to his
claims gave rise to the controversy which still divides the
followers of the prophet into the rival factions of Sunnites and
Shiites. Abu-Bekr had scarcely assumed his new position
(632), under the title Califet-Resul-Allah (successor of the
prophet of God), when he was called to suppress the revolt
of the tribes Hejaz and Nejd, of which the former rejected
Islamism and the latter refused to pay tribute. He encountered
formidable opposition from different quarters, but in every
case he was successful, the severest struggle being that with
the impostor Mosailima, who was finally defeated by Khalid
at the battle of Akraba. Abu-Bekr's zeal for the spread of
the new faith was as conspicuous as that of its founder had
been. When the internal disorders had been repressed and
Arabia completely subdued, he directed his generals to foreign
conquest. The Irak of Persia was overcome by Khalid in a single
campaign, and there was also a successful expedition into
Syria. After the hard-won victory over Mosailima, Omar, fearing
that the sayings of the prophet would be entirely forgotten
when those who had listened to them had all been removed by
death, induced Abu-Bekr to see to their preservation in a written
form. The record, when completed, was deposited with Hafsa,
daughter of Omar, and one of the wives of Mahomet. It was held
in great reverence by all Moslems, though it did not possess
canonical authority, and furnished most of the materials out
of which the Koran, as it now exists, was prepared. When
the authoritative version was completed all copies of Hafsa's
record were destroyed, in order to prevent possible disputes and
divisions. Abu-Bekr died on the 23rd of August 634. Shortly
before his death, which one tradition ascribes to poison,
another to natural causes, he indicated Omar as his successor,
after the manner Mahomet had observed in his own case.
ABU HAMED, a town of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan on the right
bank of the Nile, 345 m. by rail N. of Khartum. It stands
a4 the centre of the great S-shaped bend of the Nile, and
from it the railway to Wadi Halfa strikes straight across
the Nubian desert, a little west of the old caravan route to
Korosko. A branch railway, 138 m. long, from Abu Hamed
goes down the right bank of the Nile to Kareima in the
Dongola mudiria. The town is named after a celebrated
sheikh buried here, by whose tomb travellers crossing the
desert used formerly to deposit all superfluous goods,
the sanctity of the saint's tomb ensuring their safety.
ABU HANIFA AN-NU`MAN IBN THABIT, Mahommedan canon
lawyer, was born at Kufa in A.H. 80 (A.D. 699) of non-Arab
and probably Persian parentage. Few events of his life are
known to us with any certainty. He was a silk-dealer and a
man of considerable means, so that he was able to give his
time to legal studies. He lectured at Kufa upon canon law
(fiqh) and was a consulting lawyer (mufti), but refused
steadily to take any public post. When al-Mansur, however,
was building Bagdad (145--140) Abu Hanifa was one of the
four overseers whom he appointed over the craftsmen (G. Le
Strange, Baghdad during the Abbasid Caliphate, p. 17). In
A.H. 150 (A.D. 767) he died there under circumstances which
are very differently reported. A persistent but apparently
later tradition asserts that he died in prison after severe
beating, because he refused to obey al-Mansur's command to act
as a judge (cadi, qadi.) This was to avoid a responsibility
for which he felt unfit ---a frequent attitude of more pious
Moslems. Others say that al-Mahdi, son of al-Mansur, actually
constrained him to be a judge and that he died a few days
after. It seems certain that he did suffer imprisonment and
beating for this reason, at the hands of an earlier governor
of Kufa under the Omayyads (Ibn Qutaiba, Ma`arif, p.
248). Also that al-Mansur desired to make him judge, but
compromised upon his inspectorship of buildings (so in Tabari).
A late story is that the judgeship was only a pretext with
al-Mansur, who considered him a partisan of the `Alids and
a helper with his wealth of Ibrahim ibn'Abd Allah in his
insurrection at Kufa in 145 (Weil, Geschichte, ii. 53 ff.).
For many personal anecdotes see de Slane's transl. of
Ibn Khalhkan iii. 555 ff., iv. 272 ff. For his place
as a speculative jurist in the history of canon law, see
MAHOMMEDAN LAW. He was buried in eastern Bagdad, where
his tomb still exists, one of the few surviving sites from
the time of ahmansur, the founder. (Le Strange 191 ff.)
See C. Brockelmann, Geschichte, i. 169 ff.; Nawawi's Biogr.
Dict. pp. 698-770: Ibn Hajar al-Haitami's Biography, publ. Cairo,
A.H. 1304; legal bibliography under MAHOMMEDAN LAW) (D. B. MA.)
ABU KLEA, a halting-place for caravans in the Bayuda
Desert, Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. It is on the road from Merawi
to Metemma and 20 m. N. of the Nile at the last-mentioned
place. Near this spot, on the 17th of January 1885, a British
force marching to the relief of General Gordon at Khartum
was attacked by the Mahdists, who were repulsed. On the
19th, when the British force was nearer Metemma, the Mahdists
renewed the attack, again unsuccessfully. Sir Herbert
Stewart, the commander of the British force, was mortally
wounded on the 19th, and among the killed on the 17th was
Col. F. G. Burnaby (see EGYPT, Military Operations.)
ABU-L-`ALA UL-MA.ARRI [Abu-l-`Alaa Ahmad ibn `Abdallah
ibn Sulaiman] (973-1057), Arabian poet and letter-writer,
belonged to the South Arabian tribe Tanukh, a part of which
had migrated to Syria before the time of Islam. He was born
in 973 at Ma'arrat un-Nu`man, a Syrian town nineteen hours'
journey south of Aleppo, to the governor of which it was
subject at that time. He lost his father while he was still
an infant, and at the age of four lost his eyesight owing to
smallpox. This, however, did not prevent him from attending
the lectures of the best teachers at Aleppo, Antioch and
Tripoli. These teachers were men of the first rank, who
had been attracted to the court of Saif-ud-Daula, and their
teaching was well stored in the remarkable memory of the
pupil. At the age of twenty-one Abu-l-'Ala returned to
Ma`arra, where he received a pension of thirty dinars
yearly. In 1007 he visited Bagdad, where he was admitted
to the literary circles, recited in the salons, academies
and mosques, and made the acquaintance of men to whom he
addressed some of his letters later. In 1009 he returned to
Ma`arra, where he spent the rest of his life in teaching and
writing. During this period of scholarly quiet he developed
his characteristic advanced views on vegetarianism, cremation
of the dead and the desire for extinction after death.
Of his works the chief are two collections of his poetry and
two of his letters. The earlier poems up to 1029 are of the
kind usual at the time. Under the title of Saqt uz-Zand they
have been published in Bulaq (1869), Beirut (1884) and Cairo
(1886). The poems of the second collection, known as the
Luzum ma lam ralzann, or the Luzumiy'yat, are written
with the difficult rhyme in two consonants instead of one,
and contain the more original, mature and somewhat pessimistic
thoughts of the author on mutability, virtue, death, &c.
They have been published in Bombay (1886) and Cairo (1889)
. The letters on various literary and social subjects were
published with commentary by Shain Effendi in Beirut (1894),
and with English translation, &c., by prof. D. S. Margoliouth
in Oxford (1898). A second collection of letters, known
as the Risalat ul-Ghufran, was summarized and partially
translated by R. A. Nicholson in the Journal of the Royal
Asiatic Society (1900, pp. 637 ff.; 1902, pp. 75 ff., 337
ff., 813 ff.).
BIBLIOGRAPHY.---C. Rieu, De Abu-l-`Alae
Poetae Arabici vita et carminibus (Bonn, 1843); A. von
Kremer, Uber die philosophischen Gedichte des Abu-l-.Ala
(Vienna, 1888); cf. also the same writer's articles in the
Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenlandischen Gesellschaft
(vols. xxix., xxx., xxxi. and xxxviii.). For his life see the
introduction to D. S. Margoliouth's edition of the letters,
supplemented by the same writer's articles ``Abu-l-`Ala
al-Ma`arri's Correspondence on Vegetarianism'' in the Journal
of the Royal Asiatic Society (1902, pp. 289 ff.). (G. W. T.)
ABU-L-`ATAHIYA [Abu Ishaq Isma`il ibn Qasim
al-`Anazi] (748-828), Arabian poet, was born at Ain ut-Tamar
in the Hijaz near Medina. His ancestors were of the tribe of
Anaza. His youth was spent in Kufa, where he was engaged
for some time in selling pottery. Removing to Bagdad, he
continued his business there, but became famous for his
verses, especially for those addressed to Utba, a slave of
the caliph al-Mahdi. His affection was unrequited, although
al-Mahdi, and after him Harun al-Rashid, interceded for
him. Having offended the caliph, he was in prison for a short
time. The latter part of his life was more ascetic. He died in
828 in the reign of al-Ma`mun. The poetry of Abu-l-'Atahiya
is notable for its avoidance of the artificiality almost
universal in his days. The older poetry of the desert had
been constantly imitated up to this time, although it was
not natural to town life. Abu-l-'Atahiya was one of the
first to drop the old qasida (elegy) form. He was very
fluent and used many metres. He is also regarded as one of
the earliest philosophic poets of the Arabs. Much of his
Poetry is concerned with the observation of common life and
morality, and at times is pessimistic. Naturally, under
the circumstances, he was strongly suspected of heresy.
His poems (Diwan) with life from Arabian sources have
been published at the Jesuit Press in Beirut (1887,
2nd ed. 1888). On his position in Arabic literature
see W. Ahlwardt, Diwan des Abu Nowas (Greifswald,
1861), pp. 21 ff.; A. von Kremer, Culturgeschichte des
Orients (Wien, 1877), vol. ii. pp. 372 ff. (G. W. T.)
ABULPARAJ [Abu-l-Faraj,Ah ibn ul-Husain ul-Isbahani]
(897--967), Arabian scholar, was a member of the tribe of the
Quraish (Koreish) and a direct descendant of Marwan, the last
of the Omayyad caliphs. He was thus connected with the Omayyad
rulers in Spain, and seems to have kept up a correspondence with
them and to have sent them some of his works. He was born in
Ispahan, but spent his youth and made his early studies in
Bagdad. He became famous for his knowledge of early Arabian
antiquities. His later life was spent in various parts of
the Moslem world, in Aleppo with Saif-ud-Daula (to whom he
dedicated the Book of Songs), in Rai with the Buyid vizier
Ibn'Abbad and elsewhere. In his last years he lost his
reason. In religion he was a Shiite. Although he wrote
poetry, also an anthology of verses on the monasteries of
Mesopotamia and Egypt, and a genealogical work, his fame rests
upon his Book of Songs (Kitab ul-Aghani), which gives
an account of the chief Arabian songs, ancient and modern,
with the stories of the composers and singers. It contains
a mass of information as to the life and customs of the early
Arabs, and is the most Valuable authority we have for their
pre-Islamic and early Moslem days. A part of it was published
