Sahaba - Sa'id ibn Sultan

Sahaba
Sahaba (Sahabah) (Ashab).  The Arabic word sahaba means “companions.”  The term sahaba refers to the Companions of the Prophet Muhammad.  Since the time of the second caliph, ‘Umar, and in large part due to his register -- his divan --, the sahaba have occupied the position of highest prestige among Sunni Muslims.  They were the first Meccans to accept Muhammad’s ecstatic utterances as divine revelation and to become members of his community.  To the sahaba are attributed most of the hadith used to gauge the Prophet’s exemplary behavior -- the Sunna.  Ten of them, including the first four caliphs, were promised admission into Paradise -- Janna -- by Muhammad himself. 

Resenting Ali’s exclusion from the caliphate, Shi‘ites curse rather than praise all the sahaba except, of course, Ali.  They therefore reject the six Sunni collections of hadith as deliberate distortions of the Prophet’s conduct and discourse; they rely instead on hadith that omit mention of the sahaba and are traceable to Ali, his immediate family, and his most prominent descendants, the imams.

In Islām, the sahaba were followers of Muḥammad who had personal contact with him, however slight. In fact, any Muslim who was alive in any part of the Prophet’s lifetime and saw him may be reckoned among the Companions. The first four caliphs, who are the saḥāba held in highest esteem among Sunnite Muslims, are part of a group of 10 Companions to whom Muḥammad promised paradise. The muhājirūn (those who followed the Prophet from Mecca to Medina), the anṣār (the Medinese believers), and the badrīyūn (those who fought at the Battle of Badr) are all considered Companions of the Prophet. There are differing accounts of who belonged to the various groups.

The Companions, being eyewitnesses, are the most important sources of Ḥadīth, the record of Muḥammad’s sayings and activities.

Shīʿite Muslims disregard the ṣaḥāba, whom they consider responsible for the loss of the caliphate by the family of ʿAlī.

Some of the Sahaba were:

    * Abu Bakr
    * Umar bin Khattab
    * Uthman bin Affan
    * Ali bin Abu Talib
    * Musab bin Umair
    * Muadh bin Jabal
    * Abu Huraira
    * Hasan bin Ali
    * Husayn ibn Ali
    * Abdur Rahman bin Awf
    * Talha ibn Ubayd-Allah
    * Zubayr ibn al-Awam
    * Sa`d ibn Abi Waqqas
    * Abu Ubaidah ibn al Jarrah
    * Saeed bin Zaid


Sahabah see Sahaba
Ashab see Sahaba

sahib al-khabar
sahib al-khabar. Arabic term which refers to the civil servant in charge of informing the ruler of everything that happens in the district.  The sahib al-khabar is often aided by the sahib al-barid.
khabar, sahib al- see sahib al-khabar.

Sahinkaya, Tahsin

Tahsin Şahinkaya (b. 1925 – d. July 9, 2015) was a Turkish Air Force general. He was Commander of the Turkish Air Force from 1978 to 1983, and previously Secretary-General of the National Security Council (1977-1978). He was one of the five leaders of the 1980 military coup,  and after the coup he was a member of the Presidential Council. 

In 2012, a court case was launched against Şahinkaya and Kenan Evren (President of Turkey from 1980 to 1989) relating to the 1980 military coup. Both were sentenced to life imprisonment on June 18, 2014 by a court in Ankara, the capital of Turkey.

Şahinkaya died at age 90 in the military "Haydarpaşa GATA Hospital" in Istanbul on July 9, 2015. He was interred at Karacaahmet Cemetery on July 11 following a memorial ceremony held at the Turkish First Army headquarters in the Selimiye Barracks and subsequent religious funeral service at the nearby Buyuk Selimiye Mosque in Uskudar. He was survived by his wife Sema, son Serdar, daughter Sevgi Kartal and son-in-law Mustafa Kartal.

Sahir, Jelal
Sahir, Jelal (Jelal Sahir) (b.1883).  Ottoman poet and author.  He actively championed the simplification of the language, but in prosody he adhered strictly to the classical form.  His main theme was women and love, in a noble and ideal way, and with the Turkish constitution he became a champion of women’s rights.
Jelal Sahir see Sahir, Jelal

Sahl al-Tustari, Abu Muhammad
Sahl al-Tustari, Abu Muhammad (Abu Muhammad Sahl al-Tustari) (Abu Muhammed Sahl ibn 'Abd Allah) (b. 818, Shushtar, Iraq - d. 896, Basra, Iraq).  Arab Sunni theologian and mystic.  His Thousand Saying gave rise to the theological school of the Salimiyya.

Sahl al-Tustari was a Persian Muslim scholar and early classical Sufi mystic. He founded the Salimiyah Muslim theological school, which was named after his disciple Muhammad ibn Salim.

Tustari is most famous for his controversial claim that "I am the Proof of God for the created beings and I am a proof for the saints (awliya) of my time" and for his well-known Tafsir, a commentary on and interpretation of the Qur'an.

Sahl Al-Tustari was born in the fortress town of Tustar (Arabic) or Shushtar (Persian) in Khūzestān Province in what is now southwestern Iran.

From an early age he led an ascetic life with frequent fasting and study of the Qur'an and Hadith, the oral traditions, of the Prophet Muhammad. He practiced repentance (tawbah) and, above all, constant remembrance of God (dhikr). This eventually culminated in a direct and intimate rapport with God with whom he considered himself a special friend and one of the spiritual elect.

Tustari was under the direction of the Sufi saint Dhul-Nun al-Misri for a time, and Tustari in his turn was one of the Sufi mystic and later martyr Mansur Al-Hallaj's early teachers. In these early days when the Sufis were becoming established mostly in Baghdad (the capital of modern Iraq), the most notable Sufis of the time elsewhere were: Tustari in southwestern Iran, Al-Tirmidhi in Central Asia and the Malamatiyya or "People of Blame".

An Islamic scholar who commented on and interpreted the Qur'an, Tustari maintained that the Qur'an "contained several levels of meaning", which included the outer or zahir and the inner or batin. Another key idea that he unraveled was the meaning of the Prophet Muhammad's saying "I am He and He is I, save that I am I, and He is He", explaining it "as a mystery of union and realization at the center of the Saint's personality, called the sirr ('the secret'), or the heart, where existence joins Being." Tustari also "was the first to put" the Sufi exercise of remembrance of God, Dhikr, "on a firm theoretical basis."

Tustari maintained that ultimately it became clear to the recollector that the true agent of recollection was not the believer engaged in recollection but God Himself, who commemorated Himself in the heart of the believer. This realization of God's control over the heart led the believer to the state of complete trust in the Divine.


Abu Muhammad Sahl al-Tustari see Sahl al-Tustari, Abu Muhammad
Abu Muhammed Sahl ibn 'Abd Allah see Sahl al-Tustari, Abu Muhammad

Sahl ibn Harun
Sahl ibn Harun. Arab author and poet of the ninth century.  He held high offices in the chancellery at the court of several caliphs.  He was a fanatical adherent of the so-called Shu‘ubiyya. His greatest admirer was his younger contemporary al-Jahiz, and his name often occurs in the Thousand and One Nights. 
Ibn Harun, Sahl see Sahl ibn Harun.

Sahnun, ‘Abd al-Salam
Sahnun, ‘Abd al-Salam (‘Abd al-Salam Sahnun) (Sahnun ibn Sa'id ibn Habib at-Tanukhi) (b. 776-777- d. 854/855).  Maliki jurist from Qayrawan.  He was responsible for the spread of the Maliki school of law in the West, to which his monumental work, called Mudawwana, made a large contribution.

Sahnun ibn Sa'id ibn Habib at-Tanukhi was a jurist in the Maliki school from Qayrawan in modern-day Tunisia.

His original name was 'Abd al Salam. 'Sahnun' was a nickname given to him, meaning a type of sharp bird. This is said to have referred to his quickness of mind. His father was a soldier from Homs in Syria. The family claimed descent from Tanukh, a tribal confederation that originated in the south of the Arabian Peninsula.

In his youth Sahnun studied under the scholars of Qayrawan and Tunis. In particular, he learned from `Ali ibn Ziyad, who had learned from Imam Malik. In 795, he traveled to Egypt to study under other pupils of Malik, who died before Sahnun had the financial means to reach them. Later on, he continued to Medina and studied under other prominent scholars, returning to North Africa in 807.

At the age of 74, Sahnun was appointed Qadi (judge) of North Africa by the Aghlabid emir Muhammad I Abul-Abbas. He had refused the appointment for a year, only accepting after the emir swore to give him a free hand in matters of justice, even if this involved prosecuting members of the emir's family and court. He was known to be scrupulous in his judgments and courteous towards litigants and witnesses, but strict towards the men surrounding the emir. He refused to allow them to send representatives on their behalf in litigation, and refused a request from the emir not to interfere in their illegal ventures.

Sahnun died in Rajab. The men surrounding the emir famously refused to join his funeral prayer, due to his harshness against them. Nonetheless the emir conducted the funeral prayers in person, and the people of Qayrawan were greatly upset by his passing.

Sahnun was known for his strong orthodoxy, even to the point of refusing to pray behind a Mu'tazilite imam. He excluded heretical sects from the mosque, including the Ibadi, Mu'tazilites and others.

Sahnun's greatest contribution to Muslim scholarship was al-Mudawwana, a compendium of the legal opinions of the school of Medina as stated by Imam Malik, after the death of the Imam. The compilation and revision process involved four mujtahid imams of the Maliki school: Asad ibn al Furat (d. 829); Ibn al-Ashab (d. 820); Abu `Abd Allah `Abd al-Rahman Ibn al-Qasim al-`Utaqi, known as Ibn Qasim (d. 807), and Sahnun himself. It is referred to as "al Umm", or "the Mother", of the Maliki school. Sahnun's revision and transmission of the Mudawwana was the major factor in the spread of the Maliki school across the West of the Muslim world.


‘Abd al-Salam Sahnun see Sahnun, ‘Abd al-Salam

Sahrawi
Sahrawi (Saharaui) (Saharaoui) (Saharawi) (Sahraoui) (Saharaui). People of the western Sahara.  They represent the original population in southern Morocco, the region that is internationally recognized as the sovereign state of Western Sahara.

Originally they were nomads, but due to drought, many have sought refuge in towns like Laayoune or emigrated to Morocco or other countries.  Many Sahrawis in Laayoune live under very basic conditions, in refugee camps set up in the middle of the town, while a majority live in normal houses. 

Sahrawis have been invited by Moroccan authorities to join the Moroccan society, and they enjoy the same rights as other citizens, but Moroccan occupation is probably only accepted by a minority of the population.

Their lifestyles are marked by strong families and tribes, and women enjoy an important position in the society.  The Sahrawi men have simple clothes, designed to ward off desert sand and summer heat -- women wear colorful garments.  

The Arabic word Sahrāwī literally means "of Sahara", and should be understood as "inhabitant of the Sahara" (Saharan). There are several transliterations of the word, several of which are used in English:

Western Saharan, pro-independence groups have tended to utilize the term Sahrawi (Saharan) in a manner as to give a nationalist connotation, specific to the Western Sahara Territory. Common Moroccan governmental and popular usage has tended to apply the term somewhat more broadly, to include Hassani speaking Saharan populations in regions under undisputed Moroccan rule, but with similar connotations. It is now routine to describe these same populations as (Moroccan) Sahrawi. The term Sahrawi includes both Beni Hassan, Haratin (dark skinned population) and other groups, and is not confined to nomadic populations.

Nomadic Berbers, mainly of the Sanhaja tribal confederation, inhabited the areas now known as Western Sahara, southern Morocco, Mauritania and western Algeria, before Islam arrived in the 8th century of the Christian calendar. The new faith achieved quick expansion, but Arab immigrants initially only blended superficially with the population, mostly confining themselves to the cities of present-day Morocco and Spain. However, they introduced the camel to the region, revolutionizing the traditional trade routes of North Africa. Caravans transported salt, gold and slaves between North Africa and West Africa, and the control of trade routes became a major ingredient in the constant power struggles between various tribes and sedentary peoples. On more than one occasion, the Berber tribes of Western Sahara/Mauritania would unite behind religious leaders to sweep the surrounding governments from power, then founding dynasties of their own. This was the case with the Almoravid dynasty of Morocco and Andalusia, and several emirates in Mauritania.

In the 11th century, the Arab Beni Hilal and Beni Sulaym tribes emigrated westwards from Egypt (the Fatimid Caliphate) and gained control of most of present-day Morocco, but Western Sahara remained largely unpenetrated by the Arab advances. However, in the early 13th century, the Yemeni Maqil tribes migrated westwards across the entirety of Arabia and northern Africa, to finally settle around today's Morocco. They were badly received by the Zenata Berber descendants of the Merinid dynasty, and among the tribes pushed out of the territory, were the Beni Hassan.

This tribe entered the domains of the Sanhaja, and over the following centuries imposed itself upon them, intermixing with the population in the process. Berber attempts to shake off the rule of Arab warrior tribes occurred sporadically, but assimilation gradually won out, and after the failed Char Bouba uprising (1644–74), the Berber tribes would virtually without exception embrace Arab culture and even claim Arab heritage. The Arabic dialect of the Beni Hassan, Hassaniya, remains the mother-tongue of Western Sahara and Mauritania to this day, and is also spoken in southern Morocco and western Algeria, among affiliated tribes. Berber vocabulary and cultural traits remain common, despite the fact that most if not all of the Sahrawi/Moorish tribes today claim Arab ancestry; several are even claiming to be descendants of Muhammad, so-called sharifian tribes (pl. shurfa or chorfa).

The modern ethnic group is thus an Arab and Berber people inhabiting the westernmost Sahara desert, in the area of modern Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria and, at its core, the Western Sahara (some tribes would also traditionally migrate into northern Mali and Niger, or even further along the Saharan caravan routes). As with most Saharan peoples, the tribes reflect a highly mixed heritage, combining Arab, Berber, and other influences, including black African ethnic and cultural characteristics. The latter were primarily acquired through mixing with Wolof, Soninke and other populations of the southern Sahel, and through the acquisition of slaves by wealthier nomad families.

In pre-colonial times, the Sahara was generally considered bled es-Siba or "the land of dissidence" by the authorities of the established Islamic states of North Africa, such as the Sultan of Morocco and the Deys of Algeria. The Islamic governments of the pre-colonial sub-Saharan empires of Mali and Songhai appear to have had a similar relationship with the tribal territories, which were once the home of undisciplined raiding tribes and the main trade route for the Saharan caravan trade. Central governments had little control over the region, although the Hassaniya tribes would occasionally extend "beya" or allegiance to prestigious rulers, to gain their political backing or, in some cases, as a religious ceremony. The Moorish populations of today's north Mauritania established a number of emirates, claiming the loyalty of several different tribes and through them exercising semi-sovereignty over traditional grazing lands. This could be considered the closest thing to centralized government that was ever achieved by the Hassaniya tribes, but even these emirates were weak, conflict-ridden and rested more on the willing consent of the subject tribes than on any capacity to enforce loyalty.

Modern distinctions drawn between the various Hassaniya speaking Sahrawi-Moorish groups are primarily political, but cultural differences dating from different colonial and post-colonial histories are also apparent. An important divider is whether the tribal confederations fell under French or Spanish colonial rule. France conquered most of North and West Africa largely during the late 19th century. This included Algeria and Mauritania, and, from 1912, Morocco. But Western Sahara and scattered minor parts of Morocco fell to Spain, and were named Spanish Sahara (subdivided into Río de Oro and Saguia el-Hamra) and Spanish Morocco respectively. These colonial intrusions brought the Muslim Saharan peoples under Christian European rule for the first time, and created lasting cultural and political divides between and within existing populations, as well as upsetting traditional balances of power in differing ways.

The Sahrawi-Moorish areas, then still undefined as to exact territorial boundaries, proved troublesome for the colonizers, just as they had for neighboring dynasties in previous centuries. The political loyalty of these populations were first and foremost to their respective tribes, and supra-tribal allegiances and alliances would shift rapidly and unexpectedly. Their nomadic lifestyle made direct control over the territories hard to achieve, as did general lawlessness, an absence of prior central authority, and a widely held contempt for the kind of settled life that the colonizers sought to bring about. Centuries of intra-tribal warfare and raids for loot (ghazzu) guaranteed that the populations were well armed and versed in guerrilla-style warfare. Tribes allied to hostile European powers would now also be considered fair game for cattle raids on those grounds, which tied the struggle against France and Spain into the traditional power play of the nomads, aggravating the internal struggles.

Uprisings and violent tribal clashes therefore took place with increasing frequency as European encroachment increased, and on occasion took the form of anti-European holy war, or Jihad, as in the case of the Ma el-Ainin uprising in the first years of the 20th century. It was not until the 1930s that Spain was able to finally subdue the interior of present-day Western Sahara, and then only with strong French military assistance. Mauritania's raiding Moors had been brought under control in the previous decades, partly through skillful exploitation by the French of traditional rivalries and social divisions between the tribes. In these encounters, the large Reguibat tribe proved especially resistant to the new rulers, and its fighters would regularly slip in and out of French and Spanish territory, similarly exploiting the rivalries between European powers. The last major Reguibat raid took place in 1934, after which the Spanish authorities occupied Smara, finally gaining control over the last unpatroled border territories.

The Sahrawi-Moorish tribes remained largely nomadic until the early to mid-20th century, when Franco-Spanish rivalries (as well as disagreements between different wings of the French colonial regime) managed to impose rigid, if arbitrary, borders on the previously fluid Sahara. The wide-ranging grazing lands of the nomads were split apart, and their traditional economies, based on trans-Saharan caravan trade and raiding of each other and the northern and southern sahel neighbors, were broken. Little attention was paid to existing tribal confederations and zones of influence, when dividing up the Saharan inlands.

French and Spanish colonial governments would gradually, and with varying force, impose their own systems of government and education over these territories, exposing the native populations to differing colonial experiences. The populations in Algeria were subjected to direct French rule, which was organized to enable the massive settlement of French and European immigrants. In Mauritania, they experienced a French non-settler colonial administration which, if light in its demands on the nomads, also deliberately overturned the existing social order, allying itself with lower-ranking marabout and zenaga tribes against the powerful warrior clans of the Hassane Arabs. In southern Morocco, France upheld indirect rule through the sultanate in some areas, while Spain exercised direct administration in others. The Spanish Sahara was treated first as a colony, and later as an overseas province, with gradually tightening political conditions, and, in later years, a rapid influx of Spanish settlers (making Spaniards about 20% of the population in 1975). By the time of decolonization in the 1950s-1970s, Sahrawi tribes in all these different territories had experienced roughly a generation or more of distinct experiences. Often, however, their nomadic lifestyle had guaranteed that they were subjected to less interference than what afflicted sedentary populations in the same areas.

The period of colonization destroyed existing power structures, leaving a confused legacy of contradictory political affiliations, European-drawn borders with little resemblance to ethnic and tribal realities, and the foundations of modern political conflict.

For example, both sides in the Western Sahara conflict (Morocco vs. the Polisario Front) draw heavily on colonial history to prove their version of reality. Proponents of the Greater Morocco ideology point to some Sahrawi tribes calling upon the Moroccan Sultan, who until 1912 remained the last independent Islamic ruler of the area, for assistance against the Europeans. Pro-independence Sahrawis, on the other hand, point out that such statements of allegiance were almost routinely given by various tribal leaders to create short-term alliances, and that other heads of tribes indeed similarly proclaimed allegiance to Spain, to France, to Mauritanian emirates, and indeed to each other; they argue that such arrangements always proved temporary, and that the tribal confederations always maintained de facto independence of central authority, and would even fight to maintain this independence.

The International Court of Justice issued a ruling on the matter in 1975, stating that there had existed ties between the Moroccan Sultan and some (mainly northernly Tekna) tribes in then-Spanish Sahara, but that these ties were not sufficient to abrogate Western Sahara's right to self-determination. The same kind of ruling was issued with regard to Mauritania, where the court found that there were indeed strong tribal and cultural links between the Sahrawis and Mauritanian populations, including historical allegiance to some Moorish emirates, but that these were not ties of a state or government character, and did not constitute formal bonds of sovereignty. Thus, the court recommended the United Nations to continue to pursue self-determination for the Sahrawis, enabling them to choose for themselves whether they wanted Spanish Sahara to turn into an independent state, or to be annexed to Morocco or Mauritania.

The area today referred to as Western Sahara, remains according to the United Nations one of the world's last remaining major non-self governing territories. Morocco controls most of the territory as its Southern Provinces, but the legality of this is not internationally recognized by any country, and disputed militarily by the Polisario Front, an Algerian-backed movement claiming independence for the territory as the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR). After 1991, there was a cease-fire between Morocco and Polisario, but disturbances in Moroccan-held territories as well as the ongoing dispute over the legal status of the territory, guarantees continued United Nations involvement and occasional international attention to the issue.

The Polisario Front was the Western Sahara's national liberation movement, militating for the independence of the Western Sahara after 1973 - originally against Spanish rule, but after 1975 against Mauritania and Morocco and after 1979 against Morocco only. The organization was based in Algeria, where it was responsible for the Tindouf refugee camps. The organization maintained a cease-fire with Morocco after 1991, but continued to strive for the territory's independence as the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) through peaceful negotiations. The Polisario restricted its claims to the colonially-defined Western Sahara, holding no claim to, for example, the Sahrawi-populated Tarfaya Strip in Morocco, or any part of Mauritania.


Saharaui see Sahrawi
Saharaoui see Sahrawi
Saharawi see Sahrawi
Sahraoui see Sahrawi
Saharaui see Sahrawi

Sa’ib, Mirza Muhammad ‘Ali
Sa’ib, Mirza Muhammad ‘Ali (Mirza Muhammad ‘Ali Sa’ib) (1601/1602/1603, Tabriz, Iran - 1677).  One of the most prolific poets of his time.  He is highly praised by critics.

Mīrzā Muḥammad ʿAlī Ṣāʾib, also called Ṣāʾib of Tabriz, or Ṣāʾib of Eṣfahān, was a Persian poet and one of the greatest masters of a form of classical Arabic and Persian lyric poetry characterized by rhymed couplets and known as the ghazel.

Ṣāʾib was educated in Eṣfahān, and in about 1626/27 he traveled to India, where he was received into the court of Shāh Jahān. He stayed for a time in Kabul and in Kashmir, returning home after several years abroad. After his return Shāh ʿAbbas II bestowed upon him the title King of Poets.

Ṣāʾib’s reputation is based primarily on some 300,000 couplets, including his epic poem Qandahār-nāma (“The Campaign Against Qandahār”). His “Indian style” verses reveal an elegant wit, a gift for the aphorism and the proverb, and a keen appreciation of philosophical and intellectual exercise. In addition to his remarkable output of Persian verse, Ṣāʾib wrote poetry in Turkish.



Mirza Muhammad ‘Ali Sa’ib see Sa’ib, Mirza Muhammad ‘Ali
Sa'ib of Tabriz see Sa’ib, Mirza Muhammad ‘Ali
Sa'ib of Esfahan see Sa’ib, Mirza Muhammad ‘Ali
King of Poets see Sa’ib, Mirza Muhammad ‘Ali

Said, Edward
Said, Edward (Edward Said) (Edward Wadie Saïd) (Idwārd Wadīʿ Saʿīd) (Edward William Sa'id) (b. November 1, 1935, Jerusalem, British Mandate of Palestine - d. September 25, 2003, New York City, New York, United States). Palestinian-American literary theorist and advocate for Palestinian rights. Said’s broad fame was principally connected to his book Orientalism, published in 1978, in which he strong criticizes Western social, historical and religious studies of the Middle East and North Africa.  Said accuses Western scientists of often being victims of prejudices, of reducing Oriental cultures and religions in comparison to Western cultures and religions.  In general, Said protests against Western disposition to paint Asia as exotic, different, traditional sensual and fanatic.  Said was educated at Victoria College in Cairo, Mount Hermon School and Princeton and Harvard Universities.

Said was born in 1935 in Jerusalem -- then part of British-ruled Palestine -- and was raised in Egypt before moving to the United States as a student.  He was for many years the leading United States advocate for the Palestinian cause.

Said's writings have been translated into 26 languages and his most influential book, Orientalism was credited with forcing Westerners to re-examine their perceptions of the Islamic world. His work covered a plethora of other subjects from English literature, his academic specialty, to music and culture.  His later books include Musical Elaborations (1991) and Cultural Imperialism (1993).

Many of Said's books -- including The Question of Palestine (1979), Covering Islam (1981), After the Last Sky (1986), and Blaming the Victims (1988) -- were influenced directly by Said's involvement with Palestine.  He was a prominent member of the Palestinian parliament-in-exile for fourteen years before stepping down in 1991. 

A professor at Columbia University for most of his academic career, Said was consistently critical of Israel for what he regarded as mistreatment of the Palestinians.  He prompted a controversy in 2000 when he threw a rock toward an Israeli guardhouse on the Lebanese border.  Columbia did not censure him, saying the stone was not directed at anyone, no law was broken and that his actions were protected by principles of academic freedom.

Said's outspoken stance made him many enemies.  He suffered repeated death threats and, in 1985, he was called a Nazi by the Jewish Defense League and his university office was set on fire.

After the signing of the Oslo peace accords between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Said also criticized Yasser Arafat because he believed the PLO leader had made a bad deal for the Palestinians. 

Edward Wadie Said, sometimes Edward William Said, was a Palestinian American academic, political activist, and literary critic who examined literature in light of social and cultural politics and was an outspoken proponent of the political rights of the Palestinian people and the creation of an independent Palestinian state.

Said’s father, Wadie (William) Ibrahim, was a wealthy businessman who had lived some time in the United States and apparently, at some point, took United States citizenship. In 1947, Wadie moved the family from Jerusalem to Cairo in order to avoid the conflict that was beginning over the United Nations partition of Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab areas. In Cairo, Said was educated in English-language schools before transferring to the exclusive Northfield Mount Hermon School in Massachusetts in the United States in 1951. He attended Princeton University (B.A., 1957) and Harvard University (M.A., 1960; Ph.D., 1964), where he specialized in English literature. He joined the faculty of Columbia University as a lecturer in English in 1963 and in 1967 was promoted to assistant professor of English and comparative literature. His first book, Joseph Conrad and the Fiction of Autobiography (1966), was an expansion of his doctoral thesis. The book examines Conrad’s short stories and letters for the underlying tension of the author’s narrative style; it is concerned with the cultural dynamics of beginning a work of literature or scholarship.

Said was promoted to full professor in 1969, received his first of several endowed chairs in 1977, and in 1978 published Orientalism, his best-known work and one of the most influential scholarly books of the 20th century. In it Said examined Western scholarship of the “Orient,” specifically of the Arab Islamic world (though he was an Arab Christian), and argued that early scholarship by Westerners in that region was biased and projected a false and stereotyped vision of “otherness” on the Islamic world that facilitated and supported Western colonial policy.

Although he never taught any courses on the Middle East, Said wrote numerous books and articles in his support of Arab causes and Palestinian rights. He was especially critical of United States and Israeli policy in the region, and this led him into numerous, often bitter, polemics with supporters of those two countries. He was elected to the Palestine National Council (the Palestinian legislature in exile) in 1977, and, though he supported a peaceful resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he became highly critical of the Oslo peace process between the Palestine Liberation Organization and Israel in the early 1990s.

His books about the Middle East include The Question of Palestine (1979), Covering Islam: How the Media and the Experts Determine How We See the Rest of the World (1981), Blaming the Victims: Spurious Scholarship and the Palestinian Question (1988; co-edited with Christopher Hitchens), The Politics of Dispossession (1994), and Peace and Its Discontents: Essays on Palestine in the Middle East Peace Process (1995). Among his other notable books are The World, the Text, and the Critic (1983), Nationalism, Colonialism, and Literature: Yeats and Decolonization (1988), Musical Elaborations (1991), and Culture and Imperialism (1993). His autobiography, Out of Place (1999), reflects the ambivalence he felt over living in both the Western and Eastern traditions.

In addition to his political and academic pursuits, Said was an accomplished musician and pianist.

Edward Said died at age 67 in the early morning of September 25, 2003, in New York City, after a 12 year-long battle with chronic lymphocytic leukemia. He was survived by his wife of 33 years, Mariam (née Cortas); a son, Wadie, and a daughter, Najla.



Edward Said see Said, Edward
Edward Wadie Saïd see Said, Edward
Idwārd Wadīʿ Saʿīd see Said, Edward
Edward William Sa'id see Said, Edward

Said Halim Pasha, Mehmed
Said Halim Pasha, Mehmed (Mehmed Said Halim Pasha) (Said Halim Pasha</I.) (b. January 18, 1865, Cairo, Egypt - December 6, 1921, Rome, Italy).  Islamic reformer and Ottoman grand vizier (1913-1916).  Born in Cairo, Said Halim was the grandson of Muhammad ‘Ali, the founder of modern Egypt.  At the age of six, he came to Istanbul when his father was exiled by Khedive Ismail.  Tutors taught Said Halim Arabic, Persian, French, and English.  Later he was sent to Switzerland where he read political science.  On his return to Istanbul he was appointed to the Council of State in May 1888 and given the rank of a civil pasha.  He continued to ascend the administrative ladder and gain new honors.

For an independent minded and cosmopolitan intellectual, life under Abdulhamid (r.1876-1908) was suffocating.  Therefore, Said Halim withdrew to his villa on the Bosphorus and devoted his energies to the study of history and religion, concerned as he was about the decline and stagnation of the Muslim world vis-a-vis the West.  An imperial spy denounced him as subversive, and he was exiled to Egypt and Europe.  There he joined the Young Turks, supporting their activities financially.  He returned to Istanbul after constitutional rule was restored in July 1908.

Said Halim became a member of the inner circle of the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) and leader of the Islamist faction.  In December 1908, he was appointed to the senate and the Islamic Education Committee.  He entered the cabinet in January 1912 as president of the Council of State.  In January 1913, during the Balkan wars, he became foreign minister.  He was appointed grand vizier on June 11, 1913, while retaining the foreign ministry.  At a time when the Ottoman government was accused of pursuing a policy of Turkification, its Sadrazam was an ardent Islamist who wrote only in French and Arabic.  The appointment was designed to appease Arab/Islamic sentiment in the empire.  Said Halim resigned on February 3, 1917, but remained in the senate, devoting himself to writing.  The British who occupied Istanbul after the armistice of October 1918 arrested him in March 1919 and deported him to Malta.  Released on April 29, 1921, he went to Rome, where he was assassinated by an Armenian nationalist on December 6, 1921.

Apart from his political role, Said Halim Pasha was also the secularly educated spokesman for the conservative Islamist faction of the Young Turks.  His articles appeared in Sirat-i Mustakim and Sebil urresad, but not in the radical Islam mecmuasi, the organ of the Turkists.  Between 1910and 1921, he wrote influential essays later published in various editions under the title Buhranlarimiz (Our Crises).  Notable among these are “Islamic Fanaticism and its Meaning, and Fanaticism” and “Our Social Crisis” (1916), “Our Crisis of Ideas” (1917), “An Essay on the Decline of Islam” and “Islamization” (1918), and “Political Organization in Islam” (1921).  The last essay was also published in French.

Said Halim was concerned with countering the West’s criticism of Islam.  He argued that Islam was a rational religion that encouraged scientific thought and did not regard science as inimical to faith.  Since the problems of Western society were different from those of Islamic society, he thought it was damaging to imitate and borrow blindly ideas such as constitutionalism.  The world of Islam should find its own traditions and heritage, especially the shari‘a.  As for “Muslim fanaticism,” he argued that the phrase reflected “in reality, not the Muslims’ enmity towards Christians, but the West’s inherent enmity towards the East.”

Said Halim Pasha was one of the signers in Ottoman-German Alliance. Yet, he resigned after the incident of the pursuit of Goeben and Breslau, an event which served to cement the Ottoman-German alliance during World War I. It is claimed that Mehmed V wanted a person in whom he trusted as Vizier, and that he asked Said Halim to stay in his post as long as possible. Said Halim's second term lasted until 1916, made short because of continuous clashes between him and the Committee of Union and Progress, which was the Imperial Government of the Ottoman Empire.

During the military trials of World War I in the Ottoman Empire, he was accused of treason as he had his signature under Ottoman-German Alliance. He was exiled May 29, 1919 to a prison on Malta. He was acquitted from the accusations and set free in 1921 at which time he moved to Sicily. He wanted to return to the Turkish capital, Istanbul in 1921, but this request was rejected. He was assassinated in Rome soon after by agents of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation for his role in the Armenian Genocide.


Mehmed Said Halim Pasha see Said Halim Pasha, Mehmed
Said Halim Pasha see Said Halim Pasha, Mehmed

Sa‘id ibn al-‘As ibn Sa‘id
Sa‘id ibn al-‘As ibn Sa‘id (c.623-678).  Governor of Kufa and Medina.  He was nominated by the Caliph ‘Uthman as a member of the committee to establish a definite text of the Qur’an. 

Sa‘id ibn Sultan
Sa‘id ibn Sultan (Sayyid Sa'id ibn Sultan) (Said bin Sultan Al-Said) (Sa‘id bin Sulṭān) (1791 - October 19, 1856).  Sultan of Muscat and Oman from November 20, 1804 to June 4, 1856.  Member of the Al Bu Sa‘id dynasty and the greatest ruler of the united sultanate of Oman and Zanzibar who ruled 1806 to 1856. Under strong British pressure he restricted the slave trade.  In 1832, he made Zanzibar the capital of his empire.  His greatest achievement was the extension of his African dominions into a commercial empire.  He asserted his authority over the Arab and Swahili colonies from Mogadishu to Cape Delgado, including Mombasa.  In 1854, he ceded the Kuria Muria Islands to Great Britain. 

Born in 1791, Saʿīd succeeded his father jointly with his brother Salīm in 1804, but their cousin Badr immediately usurped the throne. In 1806, Saʿīd assassinated Badr and became virtual sole ruler, though Salīm, a non-entity, had titular status until his death in 1821. Although Europeans frequently called him imam and sultan, Saʿīd himself used the style sayyid. He was never elected to the purely religious office of imam that all his predecessors held.

His earlier years were complicated by family and tribal quarrels, by Anglo-French rivalry in the Indian Ocean, by the expansion of the Wahhābī Muslim puritan movement in Arabia, and by the incessant depredations of the Qawāsim pirates. He developed a small army and a fleet that also served mercantile purposes. His pilgrimage to Mecca in 1824 demonstrated that he had overcome both internal and external enemies and could risk absence from his own land.

At this time, the eastern African coast was divided into numerous small states owing allegiance to Oman because Oman had expelled the Portuguese from the states in 1698. At Saʿīd’s accession, Omani weakness made this allegiance little more than nominal, for at Mombasa the Mazarʾi family had set up a virtually independent dynasty. In 1822 Saʿīd sent an expedition that drove them from Pemba Island. A British naval force occupied Mombasa irregularly from 1824 to 1826, when the action was repudiated by the British government. In 1827 Saʿīd went to assert his authority in person. One effect was greatly to increase the revenues remitted. There ensued a struggle between Saʿīd and the Mazarʾi for Mombasa that ended only in 1837 when, by a ruse, he took some 30 of the enemy captive. All were deported and some were killed. If he preferred peaceable settlements, Saʿīd could show himself as ruthless as any Mamelūke.

Saʿīd first visited Zanzibar in 1828. Shortly thereafter, he acquired the only two properties on which cloves were then grown. He lived to make the islands of Zanzibar and Pemba the largest clove producers in the world. By 1834, it was believed that he intended to transfer his capital from Muscat to Zanzibar, but, until the 1840s, he divided his time more or less equally between them. His interest in East Africa was not simply to gain increased tax revenue.  It was primarily commercial. From the 1820s, caravans from Zanzibar reversed the immemorial system of trade by which African products had been brought to the coast by African caravans. At that time, the Zanzibar caravans, Saʿīd’s among them at latest by 1839, actively sought ivory, slaves, and other products, and a wholly new commercial system was created reaching beyond Lake Tanganyika and into modern Uganda. At a formal level, the transfer of Sa'id's
court and other changes were marked by the establishment in Zanzibar of foreign consulates: United States (1837), Britain (1841), France (1844). These countries, with Germany, became the principal buyers, but Saʿīd also exported goods in his own ships to Arabia and India and, occasionally, to Europe and to the United States. By the 1840s he had made Zanzibar the principal power in eastern Africa and the commercial capital of the western Indian Ocean. There was no false modesty in his remark, “I am nothing but a merchant.” Trade was his predominant interest.

Throughout his reign he was under British pressure to end the slave trade. He told a captain of the Royal Navy that “to put down the slave trade with the Muslims, that is a stone too heavy for me to lift without some strong hand to help me.” By a treaty of collaboration with Britain concluded in 1822, he agreed to forbid his subjects to sell slaves to the subjects of Christian powers. By 1842 the average annual import of slaves was reported as approximately 15,000, some doubtless necessitated by the development of the clove plantations. In 1845 he signed a further treaty with Britain, prohibiting both the export and import of slaves from or into his African dominions. His domestic slaves may have numbered more than 1,000. On his death, his will freed them but not his plantation slaves.

Saʿīd’s commercial empire had no developed system of administration. His government was essentially personal and patriarchal, and he sat daily in public to settle cases and complaints. He depended heavily in his commercial ventures on Indian merchants, whose immigration he encouraged. His naval force was commanded by officers who also traded on his behalf. Saʿīd belonged to the Ibāḍī sect of Islām, which, if puritanical, is notably tolerant of others. A majority of his subjects were Sunnite Muslims, and for them he appointed a special judge.

His daughter Salamah’s Memoirs of an Arabian Princess (1886) gives an intimate portrait of his private life. He left no children by his legal wives, but he maintained some 70 surias, or concubines, chiefly Circassians or Ethiopians, by whom he had 25 sons and an unknown number of daughters. Strict in his habits, lavish in his generosity, he was an affectionate father, taking great pleasure in elaborate family gatherings. He had a patriarchal relationship with his many slaves, whose weddings he sometimes attended. He was a keen horseman and practical seaman. He died at sea in 1856 and was greatly mourned by his subjects. His will divided his dominions between his sons Mājid, who became ruler of Zanzibar, and Thuwayn, who received Muscat and Oman. Saʿīd, wrote the British consul, was “most truly every man’s friend: he wishes to do good to all.”




Sayyid Sa'id ibn Sultan see Sa‘id ibn Sultan
Said bin Sultan Al-Said see Sa‘id ibn Sultan
Sa‘id bin Sulṭān see Sa‘id ibn Sultan