SHALTUT, MAHMUD. (23 April 1893 – 13 December 1963), one of a celebrated number of Azhari shaykhs who undertook the reform of al-Azhar, reversing its decline, which occurred during the nineteenth century, and recapturing its old role as an active participant in Egypt’s educational, cultural, and political destiny. Although best known and esteemed for his
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SHAHADAH. The Islamic witness of faith is, “There is no god but God, and Muhammad is the Apostle of God” (Arabic, la ilaha illa Allah wa-Muhammad rasul Allah). Recitation of the shahddah (literally, “witness”) is the first of the five pillars of Islam. The formula is not in the Qur’an, although the book speaks often
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SHAH. One of the most common titles used by the dynastic rulers of Iran and the Turko-Persian cultural area, shah (Ar. and Pers., shah) when employed by the monarch of a large territory, is often used in a compound form such as padishah (“emperor”) or shahanshah (“king of kings”). However, it can also appear as
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SHAFIQ, DURRIYAH (Doria Shafik; 14 December 1908 – 20 September 1975), Egyptian scholar, teacher, journalist, and feminist activist. The writings and activism of Durriyah Shafiq followed in the secular, democratic tradition of the Egyptian feminists Huda Sha’rawi and Aminah al-Said. Shafiq was educated in Western schools, first in a kindergarten run by Italian nuns and
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The Shafi’i madhhab is one of the four schools of Islamic law in Sunni Islam. It was founded by the Arab scholar Al-Shafi‘i, a pupil of Malik, in the early 9th century. The other three schools of Sunni jurisprudence are Hanafi, Maliki and Hanbali. The Shafi school predominantly relies on the Quran and the Hadiths
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SHADOW OF GOD. The ancient Iranians developed an elaborate concept of sacral kingship. Both Achaemenid (559-33 BCE) and Sassanian (224-651 CE) kings were believed to possess farr-1 izadi (divine grace) and ruled by divine dispensation. A mediator with the divine, the king could bring good fortune to his people. Hence, the perceived omnipotence of the
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SHADHILIYAH. Together with the Rifa’iyah, Qadiriyah, and Ahmadiyah, the Shadhiliyah is one of the four oldest tariqahs (Sufi orders) in the Muslim world. It takes its name from the Moroccan-born Abfi al-Hasan ‘Ali al-Shadhili, whose chain of initiation (silsilah) is traced through Shaykh `Abd al-Salam ibn Mashish to Abfi Madyan al-Ghawth (d. 1126), the patron
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SEXUALITY. In the Muslim world, sexuality is simultaneously more open and more conservative than in other geographic regions. These contradictory aspects result from a confluence of Muslim principles and regional ideologies of gender combined with centuries of cultural modulation. Misrepresentations of Muslim sexuality frequently focus on gender relations. Islamic law recognizes the sexual nature of
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Seveners (Arabic: سبعية) are a branch of Ismā’īlī Shīʻa. They became known as “Seveners” because they believe that Isma’il ibn Jafar was the seventh and the last Imam (hereditary leader of the Muslim community in the direct line of Ali). They believed his son, Muhammad ibn Isma’il, would return and bring about an age of
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SELJUK DYNASTY. A Turkish family of Central Asian origin which ruled much of the eastern Islamic world beginning in the mid-eleventh century, the Seljuks (or Saljuqs, 1038-1194) were converted to Islam in the late tenth century, probably by traveling Sufi missionaries, while still living by the Jaxartes River, on the borders of the ddr al-Islam
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