[1] It has been said to occur occasionally in Europe (Greece and
southern Russia).
[2] E. C. Taylor remarked (_Ibis_, 1859, p. 51), that the buff-backed
heron, _Ardea bubulcus_, was made by the tourists' dragomans to do
duty for the "sacred ibis," and this seems to be no novel practice,
since by it, or something like it, Hasselqvist was misled, and
through him Linnaeus.
[3] The ibis has more than once nested in the gardens of the
Zoological Society in London, and even reared its young there.
[4] For some account of these may be consulted Dr Reichenow's paper
in _Journ. für Ornithologie_ (1877), pp. 143-156; Elliot's in _Proc.
Zool. Society_ (1877), pp. 477-510; and that of Oustalet in _Nouv.
Arch. du Muséum_, ser. 2, vols. i. pp. 167-184.
[5] It is a popular error--especially among painters--that this bird
was the sacred ibis of the Egyptians.
[6] The name "_Ibis_" was selected as the title of an ornithological
magazine, frequently referred to in this and other articles, which
made its first appearance in 1859.
IBLIS, or EBLIS, in Moslem mythology the counterpart of the Christian
and Jewish devil. He figures oftener in the Koran under the name
Shaitan, Iblis being mentioned 11 times, whereas Shaitan appears in 87
passages. He is chief of the spirits of evil, and his personality is
adapted to that of his Jewish prototype. Iblis rebelled against Allah
and was expelled from Paradise. The Koranic legend is that his fall was
a punishment for his refusal to worship Adam. Condemned to death he was
afterwards respited till the judgment day (Koran vii. 13).
See Gustav Weil, _The Bible, the Koran and the Talmud_ (London, 1846).
IBN 'ABD RABBIHI [Abu 'Umar Ahmad ibn Mahommed ibn 'Abd Rabbihi]
(860-940), Arabian poet, was born in Cordova and descended from a freed
slave of Hisham, the second Spanish Omayyad caliph. He enjoyed a great
reputation for learning and eloquence. No diwan of his is extant, but
many selections from his poems are given in the _Yatimat ud-Dahr_, i.
412-436 (Damascus, 1887). More widely known than his poetry is his great
anthology, the _'Iqd ul-Farid_ ("The Precious Necklace"), a work divided
into twenty-five sections, the thirteenth being named the middle jewel
of the necklace, the chapters on either side of this being named after
other jewels. It is an _adab_ book (see ARABIA: _Literature_, section
"Belles Lettres") resembling Ibn Qutaiba's _'Uyun ul-Akhbar_, from which
it borrows largely. It has been printed, several times in Cairo (1876,
1886, &c.). (G. W. T.)
IBN 'ARABI [Muhyiuddin Abu 'Abdallah ibn ul-'Arabi] (1165-1240), Moslem
theologian and mystic, was born in Murcia and educated in Seville. When
thirty-eight he travelled in Egypt, Arabia, Bagdad, Mosul and Asia
Minor, after which he lived in Damascus for the rest of his life. In law
he was a Zahirite, in theology a mystic of the extreme order, though
professing orthodox Ash'arite theology and combating in many points the
Indo-Persian mysticism (pantheism). He claims to have had conversations
with all the prophets past and future, and reports conversations with
God himself. Of his numerous works about 150 still exist. The most
extensive is the twelve-volume _Futuhat ul-Makkiyat_ ("Meccan
Revelations"), a general encyclopaedia of Sufic beliefs and doctrines.
Numerous extracts from this work are contained in Sha'rani's (d. 1565)
manual of Sufic dogma (_Yawaqit_) published several times in Cairo. A
short account of these works is given in A. von Kremer's _Geschichte der
herrschenden Ideen des Islams_, pp. 102-109 (Leipzig, 1868). Another
characteristic and more accessible work of Ibn 'Arabi is the _Fusus
ul-Hikam_, on the nature and importance of the twenty-seven chief
prophets, written in 1230 (ed. Bulaq, 1837) and with the _Commentary_
(Cairo, 1891) of Qashani (d. 1350); cf. analysis by M. Schreiner in
_Journal of German Oriental Society_, lii. 516-525.
Of some 289 works said to have been written by Ibn 'Arabi 150 are
mentioned in C. Brockelmann's _Gesch. der arabischen Litteratur_, vol.
i. (Weimar, 1898), pp. 441-448. See also R. A. Nicholson, _A Literary
History of the Arabs_, pp. 399-404 (London, 1907). (G. W. T.)
IBN ATHIR, the family name of three brothers, all famous in Arabian
literature, born at Jazirat ibn 'Umar in Kurdistan. The eldest brother,
known as MAJD UD-DIN (1149-1210), was long in the service of the amir of
Mosul, and was an earnest student of tradition and language. His
dictionary of traditions (_Kitab un-Nihaya_) was published at Cairo
(1893), and his dictionary of family names (_Kitab ul-Murassa'_) has
been edited by Seybold (Weimar, 1896). The youngest brother, known as
DIYA UD-DIN (1163-1239), served Saladin from 1191 on, then his son,
al-Malik ul-Afdal, and was afterwards in Egypt, Samosata, Aleppo, Mosul
and Bagdad. He was one of the most famous aesthetic and stylistic
critics in Arabian literature. His _Kitab ul-Mathal_, published in Bulaq
in 1865 (cf. _Journal of the German Oriental Society_, xxxv. 148, and
Goldziher's _Abhandlungen_, i. 161 sqq.), contains some very
independent criticism of ancient and modern Arabic verse. Some of his
letters have been published by D. S. Margoliouth "On the Royal
Correspondence of Diya ed-Din el-Jazari" in the _Actes du dixième
congrès international des orientalistes_, sect. 3, pp. 7-21.
The brother best known by the simple name of Ibn Athir was ABU-L-HASAN
'IZZUDDIN MAHOMMED IBN UL-ATHIR (1160-1234), who devoted himself to the
study of history and tradition. At the age of twenty-one he settled with
his father in Mosul and continued his studies there. In the service of
the amir for many years, he visited Bagdad and Jerusalem and later
Aleppo and Damascus. He died in Mosul. His great history, the _Kamil_,
extends to the year 1231; it has been edited by C. J. Tornberg, _Ibn
al-Athiri Chronicon quod perfectissimum inscribitur_ (14 vols., Leiden,
1851-1876), and has been published in 12 vols. in Cairo (1873 and 1886).
The first part of this work up to A.H. 310 (A.D. 923) is an abbreviation
of the work of Tabari (q.v.) with additions. Ibn Athir also wrote a
history of the Atabegs of Mosul, published in the _Recueil des
historiens des croisades_ (vol. ii., Paris); a work (_Usd ul-Ghaba_),
giving an account of 7500 companions of Mahomet (5 vols., Cairo, 1863),
and a compendium (the _Lubab_) of Sam'ani's _Kitab ul-Ansab_ (cf. F.
Wüstenfeld's _Specimen el-Lobabi_, Göttingen, 1835). (G. W. T.)
IBN BATUTA, i.e. ABU ABDULLAH MAHOMMED, surnamed IBN BATUTA (1304-1378),
the greatest of Moslem travellers, was born at Tangier in 1304. He
entered on his travels at twenty-one (1325) and closed them in 1355. He
began by traversing the coast of the Mediterranean from Tangier to
Alexandria, finding time to marry two wives on the road. After some stay
at Cairo, then probably the greatest city in the world (excluding
China), and an unsuccessful attempt to reach Mecca from Aidhab on the
west coast of the Red Sea, he visited Palestine, Aleppo and Damascus. He
then made the pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina, and visited the shrine of
Ali at Mashhad-Ali, travelling thence to Basra, and across the mountains
of Khuzistan to Isfahan, thence to Shiraz and back to Kufa and Bagdad.
After an excursion to Mosul and Diarbekr, he made the _haj_ a second
time, staying at Mecca three years. He next sailed down the Red Sea to
Aden (then a place of great trade), the singular position of which he
describes, noticing its dependence for water-supply upon the great
cisterns restored in modern times. He continued his voyage down the
African coast, visiting, among other places, Mombasa and Quiloa (Kilwa).
Returning north he passed by the chief cities of Oman to New Ormuz
(Hurmuz), which had about 15 years before, c. 1315, been transferred to
its famous island-site from the mainland (Old Ormuz). After visiting
other parts of the gulf he crossed the breadth of Arabia to Mecca,
making the _haj_ for the third time. Crossing the Red Sea, he made a
journey of great hardship to Syene, and thence along the Nile to Cairo.
After this, travelling through Syria, he made a circuit among the petty
Turkish states into which Asia Minor was divided after the fall of the
kingdom of Rum (Iconium). He now crossed the Black Sea to Kaffa, then
mainly occupied by the Genoese, and apparently the first Christian city
he had seen, for he was much perturbed by the bell-ringing. He next
travelled into Kipchak (the Mongol khanate of Russia), and joined the
camp of the reigning khan Mahommed Uzbeg, from whom the great and
heterogeneous _Uzbeg_ race is perhaps named. Among other places in this
empire he travelled to Bolghar (54° 54´ N.) in order to witness the
shortness of the summer night, and desired to continue his travels north
into the "Land of Darkness" (in the extreme north of Russia), of which
wonderful things were told, but was obliged to forego this. Returning to
the khan's camp he joined the cortège of one of the Khatuns, who was a
Greek princess by birth (probably illegitimate) and in her train
travelled to Constantinople, where he had an interview with the emperor
Andronikos III. the Younger (1328-1341). He tells how, as he passed the
city gates, he heard the guards muttering _Sarakinu_. Returning to the
court of Uzbeg, at Sarai on the Volga, he crossed the steppes to
Khwarizm and Bokhara; thence through Khorasan and Kabul, and over the
Hindu Kush (to which he gives that name, its first occurrence). He
reached the Indus, on his own statement, in September, 1333. This
closes the first part of his narrative.
From Sind, which he traversed to the sea and back again, he proceeded to
Multan, and eventually, on the invitation of Mahommed Tughlak, the
reigning sovereign, to Delhi. Mahommed was a singular character, full of
pretence at least to many accomplishments and virtues, the founder of
public charities, and a profuse patron of scholars, but a parricide, a
fratricide, and as madly capricious, bloodthirsty and unjust as
Caligula. "No day did his palace gate fail to witness the elevation of
some abject to affluence and the torture and murder of some living
soul." He appointed the traveller to be kazi of Delhi, with a present of
12,000 silver dinars (rupees), and an annual salary of the same amount,
besides an assignment of village lands. In the sultan's service Ibn
Batuta remained eight years; but his good fortune stimulated his natural
extravagance, and his debts soon amounted to four or five times his
salary. At last he fell into disfavour and retired from court, only to
be summoned again on a congenial duty. The emperor of China, last of the
Mongol dynasty, had sent a mission to Delhi, and the Moor was to
accompany the return embassy (1342). The party travelled through central
India to Cambay and thence sailed to Calicut, classed by the traveller
with the neighbouring Kaulam (Quilon), Alexandria, Sudak in the Crimea,
and Zayton (Amoy harbour) in China, as one of the greatest trading
havens in the world--an interesting enumeration from one who had seen
them all. The mission party was to embark in Chinese junks (the word
used) and smaller vessels, but that carrying the other envoys and the
presents, which started before Ibn Batuta was ready, was wrecked
totally; the vessel that he had engaged went off with his property, and
he was left on the beach of Calicut. Not daring to return to Delhi, he
remained about Honore and other cities of the western coast, taking part
in various adventures, among others the capture of Sindabur (Goa), and
visiting the Maldive Islands, where he became kazi, and married four
wives, and of which he has left the best medieval account, hardly
surpassed by any modern. In August 1344 he left the Maldives for Ceylon;
here he made the pilgrimage to the "Footmark of our Father Adam." Thence
he betook himself to Maabar (the Coromandel coast), where he joined a
Mussulman adventurer, residing at Madura, who had made himself master of
much of that region. After once more visiting Malabar, Canara and the
Maldives, he departed for Bengal, a voyage of forty-three days, landing
at Sadkawan (Chittagong). In Bengal he visited the famous Moslem saint
Shaykh Jalaluddin, whose shrine (_Shah Jalal_ at Silhet) is still
maintained. Returning to the delta, he took ship at Sunarganw (near
Dacca) on a junk bound for Java (i.e. _Java Minor_ of Marco Polo, or
Sumatra). Touching the coast of Arakan or Burma, he reached Sumatra in
forty days, and was provided with a junk for China by Malik al Dhahir, a
zealous disciple of Islam, which had recently spread among the states on
the northern coast of that island. Calling (apparently) at Cambodia on
his way, Ibn Batuta reached China at Zayton (Amoy harbour), famous from
Marco Polo; he also visited Sin Kalan or Canton, and professes to have
been in Khansa (_Kinsay_ of Marco Polo, i.e. Hangchau), and Khanbalik
(_Cambaluc_ or Peking). The truth of his visit to these two cities, and
especially to the last, has been questioned. The traveller's history,
not least in China, singularly illustrates the free masonry of Islam,
and its power of carrying a Moslem doctor over the known world of Asia
and Africa. On his way home he saw the great bird _Rukh_ (evidently,
from his description, an island lifted by refraction); revisited
Sumatra, Malabar, Oman, Persia, Bagdad, and crossed the great desert to
Palmyra and Damascus, where he got his first news of home, and heard of
his father's death fifteen years before. Diverging to Hamath and Aleppo,
on his return to Damascus, he found the Black Death raging, so that two
thousand four hundred died in one day. Revisiting Jerusalem and Cairo he
made the _haj_ a fourth time, and finally reappeared at Fez (visiting
Sardinia _en route_) on the 8th of November 1349, after twenty-four
years' absence. Morocco, he felt, was, after all, the best of countries.
"The _dirhems_ of the West are but little; but then you get more for
them." After going home to Tangier, Ibn Batuta crossed into Spain and
made the round of Andalusia, including Gibraltar, which had just then
stood a siege from the "Roman tyrant Adfunus" (Alphonso XI. of Castile,
1312-1350). In 1352 the restless man started for Central Africa, passing
by the oases of the Sahara (where the houses were built of rock-salt, as
Herodotus tells, and roofed with camel skins) to Timbuktu and Gogo on
the Niger, a river which he calls the Nile, believing it to flow down
into Egypt, an opinion maintained by some up to the date of Lander's
discovery. Being then recalled by his own king, he returned to Fez
(early in 1354) via Takadda, Haggar and Tuat. Thus ended his
twenty-eight years' wanderings which in their main lines alone exceeded
75,000 m. By royal order he dictated his narrative to Mahommed Ibn
Juzai, who concludes the work, 13th of December 1355 (A.D.) with the
declaration: "This Shaykh is the traveller of our age; and he who should
call him the traveller of the whole body of Islam would not exceed the
truth." Ibn Batuta died in 1378, aged seventy-three.
Ibn Batuta's travels have only been known in Europe during the 19th
century; at first merely by Arabic abridgments in the Gotha and
Cambridge libraries. Notices or extracts had been published by Seetzen
(c. 1808), Kosegarten (1818), Apetz (1819), and Burckhardt (1819),
when in 1829 Dr S. Lee published for the Oriental Translation Fund a
version from the abridged MSS. at Cambridge, which attracted much
interest. The French capture of Constantina afforded MSS. of the
complete work, one of them the autograph of Ibn Juzai. And from these,
after versions of fragments by various French scholars, was derived at
last (1858-1859) the standard edition and translation of the whole by
M. Défrémery and Dr Sanguinetti, in 4 vols. See also Sir Henry Yule,
Cathay, ii. 397-526; C. Raymond Beazley, _Dawn of Modern Geography_,
iii. 535-538. Though there are some singular chronological
difficulties in the narrative, and a good many cursory inaccuracies
and exaggerations, there is no part of it except, perhaps, certain
portions of the journeys in north China, which is open to doubt. The
accounts of the Maldive Islands, and of the Negro countries on the
Niger, are replete with interesting and accurate particulars. The
former agrees surprisingly with that given by the only other foreign
resident we know of, Pyrard de la Val, two hundred and fifty years
later. Ibn Batuta's statements and anecdotes regarding the showy
virtues and solid vices of Sultan Muhammad Tughlak are in entire
agreement with Indian historians, and add many fresh details.
(H. Y.; C. R. B.)
IBN DURAID [Abu Bakr Mahommed ibn ul-Hasan ibn Duraid ul-Azdi]
(837-934), Arabian poet and philologist, was born at Basra of south
Arabian stock. At his native place he was trained under various
teachers, but fled in 871 to Oman at the time Basra was attacked by the
negroes, known as the Zanj, under Muhallabi. After living twelve years
in Oman he went to Persia, and, under the protection of the governor,
'Abdallah ibn Mahommed ibn Mikal, and his son, Isma'il, wrote his chief
works. In 920 he went to Bagdad, where he received a pension from the
caliph Moqtadir.
The _Maqsura_, a poem in praise of Ibn Mikal and his son, has been
edited by A. Haitsma (1773) E. Scheidius (1786) and N. Boyesen (1828).
Various commentaries on the poem exist in MS. (cf. C. Brockelmann,
_Gesch. der ar. Lit._, i. 211 ff., Weimar, 1898), The _Jamhara
fi-l-Lugha_ is a large dictionary written in Persian but not printed.
Another work is the _Kitab ul-Ishtiqaq_ ("Book of Etymology"), edited
by F. Wüstenfeld (Göttingen, 1854); it was written in opposition to
the anti-Arabian party to show the etymological connexion of the
Arabian tribal names. (G. W. T.)
IBN FARADI [Abu-l-Walid 'Abdallah ibn ul-Faradi] (962-1012), Arabian
historian, was born at Cordova and studied law and tradition. In 992 he
made the pilgrimage and proceeded to Egypt and Kairawan, studying in
these places. After his return in 1009 he became cadi in Valencia, and
was killed at Cordova when the Berbers took the city.
His chief work is the _History of the Learned Men of Andalusia_,
edited by F. Codera (Madrid, 1891-1892). He wrote also a history of
the poets of Andalusia. (G. W. T.)
IBN FARID [Abu-l-Qasim 'Umar ibn ul-Farid] (1181-1235), Arabian poet,
was born in Cairo, lived for some time in Mecca and died in Cairo. His
poetry is entirely Sufic, and he was esteemed the greatest mystic poet
of the Arabs. Some of his poems are said to have been written in
ecstasies. His diwan has been published with commentary at Beirut, 1887,
&c.; with the commentaries of Burini (d. 1615) and 'Abdul-Ghani (d.
1730) at Marseilles, 1853, and at Cairo; and with the commentary of
Rushayyid Ghalib (19th century) at Cairo, 1893. One of the separate
poems was edited by J. von Hammer Purgstall as _Das arabische hohe Lied
der Liebe_ (Vienna, 1854).
See R. A. Nicholson, _A Literary History of the Arabs_ (London, 1907),
pp. 394-398. (G. W. T.)
IBN GABIROL [SOLOMON BEN JUDAH], Jewish poet and philosopher, was born
at Malaga, probably about 1021. The early part of his troublous life was
spent at Saragossa, but few personal details of it are recorded. His
parents died while he was a child and he was under the protection first
of a certain Jekuthiel, who died in 1039, and afterwards of Samuel
ha-Nagid, the well-known patron of learning. His passionate disposition,
however, embittered no doubt by his misfortunes, involved him in
frequent difficulties and led to his quarrelling with Samuel. It is
generally agreed that he died young, although the date is uncertain. Al
Harizi[1] says at the age of twenty-nine, and Moses b. Ezra[2] about
thirty, but Abraham Zaccuto[3] states that he died (at Valencia) in
1070. M. Steinschneider[4] accepts the date 1058.
His literary activity began early. He is said to have composed poems at
the age of sixteen, and elegies by him are extant on Hai Gaon (died in
1038) and Jekuthiel (died in 1039), each of which was written probably
soon after the death of the person commemorated. About the same time he
also wrote his _'Anaq_, a poem on grammar, of which only 97 lines out of
400 are preserved. Moses ben Ezra says of him that he imitated Moslem
models, and was the first to open to Jewish poets the door of
versification,[5] meaning that he first popularized the use of Arabic
metres in Hebrew. It is as a poet that he has been known to the Jews to
the present day, and admired for the youthful freshness and beauty of
his work, in which he may be compared to the romantic school in France
and England in the early 19th century. Besides his lyrical and satirical
poems, he contributed many of the finest compositions to the liturgy
(some of them with the acrostic "Shelomoh ha-qato"), which are widely
different from the artificial manner of the earlier payyetanim. The best
known of his longer liturgical compositions are the philosophical
_Kether Malkuth_ (for the Day of Atonement) and the _Azharoth_, on the
613 precepts (for _Shebhu'oth_). Owing to his pure biblical style he had
an abiding influence on subsequent liturgical writers.
Outside the Jewish community he was known as the philosopher Avicebron
(Avencebrol, Avicebrol, &c.) The credit of identifying this name as a
medieval corruption of Ibn Gabirol is due to S. Munk, who showed that
selections made by Shem Tobh Palqera (or Falqera) from the Meqor Hayyim
(the Hebrew translation of an Arabic original) by Ibn Gabirol,
corresponded to the Latin _Fons Vitae_ of Avicebron. The Latin version,
made by Johannes Hispalensis and Gundisalvi about one hundred years
after the author's death, had at once become known among the Schoolmen
of the 12th century and exerted a powerful influence upon them, although
so little was known of the author that it was doubted whether he was a
Christian or a Moslem. The teaching of the _Fons Vitae_ was entirely new
to the country of its origin, and being drawn largely from Neoplatonic
sources could not be expected to find favour with Jewish thinkers. Its
distinctive doctrines are: (1) that all created beings, spiritual or
corporeal, are composed of matter and form, the various species of
matter being but varieties of the universal matter, and similarly all
forms being contained in one universal form; (2) that between the primal
One and the intellect (the [Greek: nous] of Plotinus) there is
interposed the divine Will, which is itself divine and above the
distinction of form and matter, but is the cause of their union in the
being next to itself, the intellect, in which Avicebron holds that the
distinction does exist. The doctrine that there is a material, as well
as a formal, element in all created beings was explicitly adopted from
Avicebron by Duns Scotus (as against the view of Albertus Magnus and
Thomas Aquinas), and perhaps his exaltation of the will above the
intellect is due to the same influence. Avicebron develops his
philosophical system throughout quite independently of his religious
views--a practice wholly foreign to Jewish teachers, and one which could
not be acceptable to them. Indeed, this charge is expressly brought
against him by Abraham ben David of Toledo (died in 1180). It is
doubtless this non-religious attitude which accounts for the small
attention paid to the _Fons Vitae_ by the Jews, as compared with the
wide influence of the philosophy of Maimonides.
The other important work of Ibn Gabirol is _Islah al-akhlaq_ (the
improvement of character), a popular work in Arabic, translated into
Hebrew (_Tiqqun middoth ha-nephesh_) by Judah ibn Tibbon. It is widely
different in treatment from the _Fons_, being intended as a practical
not a speculative work.
The collection of moral maxims, compiled in Arabic but best known (in
the Hebrew translation of Judah ibn Tibbon) as _Mibhar ha-peninim_, is
generally ascribed to Ibn Gabirol, though on less certain grounds.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Texts of the liturgical poems are to be found in the
prayer-books: others in Dukes and Edelmann, _Treasures of Oxford_
(Oxford, 1850); Dukes, _Shire Shelomoh_ (Hanover, 1858); S. Sachs,
_Shir ha-shirim asher li-Shelomoh_ (Paris, 1868, incomplete); Brody,
_Die weltlichen Gedichte des ... Gabirol_ (Berlin, 1897, &c.).
"Avencebrolis Fons Vitae" (Latin text) in Clemens Bäumker's _Beiträge
zur Gesch. d. Philosophie_, Bd. i. Hefte 2-4 (Münster, 1892); _The
Improvement of the Moral Qualities_ [Arabic and English] ed. by S. S.
Wise (New York, 1901); _A Choice of Pearls_ [Hebrew and English] ed.
by Ascher (London, 1859).
On the philosophy in general: S. Munk, _Mélanges_ (quoted above);
Guttmann, _Die Philosophie des Sal.-ibn Gabirol_ (Göttingen, 1889); D.
Kaufmann, _Studien über Sal.-ibn Gabirol_ (Budapest, 1899); S.
Horovitz, "Die Psychologie Ibn Gabirols," in the _Jahresbericht des
jüd. theol. Seminars Fränckel'scher Stiftung_ (Breslau, 1900);
Wittmann, "Zur Stellung Avencebrols ..." (in Bäumker's _Beiträge_, Bd.
v. Heft 1, Münster, 1905). (A. Cy.)