MESSALI AL-HAJJ (1898 in Tlemcen, French Algeria – June 3, 1974 in Paris, France), more fully Ahmed Messali al-Hajj and often spelled Messali Hadj, the first Algerian nationalist leader in the twentieth century to call for the complete independence of Algeria from France. Born in Tlemcen, to a lower-middle-class Turkish-Algerian family, Messali attended a Qur’Anic school before being sent to
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FATIMA MERNISSI (b. 1940), Moroccan sociologist and writer. Born in Fez to a middle-class family, Mernissi studied at the Mohammed V University in Rabat and later went to Paris, where she worked briefly as a journalist. She pursued her graduate education in the United States and in 1973 obtained a Ph.D. in sociology from Brandeis University.
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MEDINA. In pre-Islamic times called Yathrib, Medina (Madinah) became Muhammad’s home after the Hijrah. An oasis 275 miles north of Mecca, it was originally an agricultural settlement, with widely scattered palm groves and armed farmsteads; among its inhabitants were both Arabs and Jews. The two groups lived in a complex political association, which began to
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MEDICINE. [This entry comprises two articles. The first considers the roots and development of traditional Islamic medicine and its historic interaction with methods of healing and curing in non-Islamic cultures. The second focuses on medical practices in modern Islamic societies and its relation to Western scientific values. For related discussion, see Natural Sciences.] Traditional Practice
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MECELLE. The Arabic term majallah originally meant a book containing wisdom or, by extension, any kind of writing; its Turkish derivative mecelle refers more specifically to the civil code in force in the Ottoman Empire from AH 1285/1869 CE onward. The Mecelle-1 Ahkam-i Adliye, to cite the work’s full title, covers contracts, torts, and some
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MECCA. A holy site since the beginning of Arab memory of the place, Mecca (Makkah) is the goal of the annual pilgrimage that the Qur’an (2.196-198) requires every Muslim to perform once in a lifetime. Whatever the surmises regarding the origin of its sanctity, the Muslims traced the holiness of its sanctuary back to Adam,
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MAWLID. Derived from the triliteral Arabic root w-l-d, mawlid means “birth.” Al-Mawlid al-Nabawi alSharif, for example, refers to the twelfth day of Rabi’ al-Awwal of the Islamic calendar, believed to be the day of the prophet Muhammad’s birth, and celebrated (except in Saudi Arabia) by Muslims as a holiday marked by popular festivities and state
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MAWLAY. The Arabic word mawlay (also transliterated moulay and mulay) means “my lord” or “my master”; in North Africa it is frequently used in this sense, although the word is pronounced mulay. Various honorific titles are derived from the term mawla in combination with pronominal or adjectival suffixes. Mawla is in turn derived from the
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MAWLAWIYAH. The Turkish Sufi order of the Mawlawlyah (Tk., Mevlevi) is known to Europe as the “Whirling Dervishes” in recognition of its distinctive meditation ritual. It derives its name from Jalal al-Din Rumi known as Mawlana (Mevlana in Turkish, meaning “Our Master”), whose life and writings had a profound influence on the development and ritual
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MAWLA. Derived from wala (“to be close to, be friends with, have power over”), the term mawla (pl., mawali) has entered other languages as a loan word. Through history it has accrued a varied set of meanings, depending largely on whether it is used in the active or passive voice. Therefore, mawla can have the
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