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# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Abu Tammam

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​ABŪ TAMMĀM [Ḥabīb ibn Aus] (807–846), Arabian poet, was, like Buḥturī, of the tribe of Ṭāi (though some say he was the son of a Christian apothecary named Thaddeus, and that his genealogy was forged). He was born in Jāsim (Josem), a place to the north-east of the Sea of Tiberias or near Manbij (Hierapolis). He seems to have spent his youth in Homs, though, according to one story, he was employed during his boyhood in selling water in a mosque in Cairo. His first appearance as a poet was in Egypt, but as he failed to make a living there he went to Damascus and thence to Mosul. From this place he made a visit to the governor of Armenia, who awarded him richly. After 833 he lived mostly in Bagdad, at the court of the caliph Moʽtasim. From Bagdad he visited Khorassan, where he enjoyed the favour of ʽAbdallah ibn Ṭāhir. About 845 he was in Maʽarrat un-Nuʽmān, where he met Buḥturī. He died in Mosul. Abu Tammām is best known in literature as the compiler of the collection of early poems known as the Hamāsa (q.v.). Two other collections of a similar nature are ascribed to him. His own poems have been somewhat neglected owing to the success of his compilations, but they enjoyed great repute in his lifetime, and were distinguished for the purity of their style, the merit of the verse and the excellent manner of treating subjects. His poems (Diwān) were published in Cairo (A.D. 1875).
See Life in Ibn Khallikan’s Biographical Dictionary, trans. by M‘G. de Slane (Paris and London, 1842), vol. i. pp. 348 ff.; and in the Kitāb ul-Aghāni (Book of Songs) of Abulfaraj (Bulaq, 1869), vol. xv. pp. 100-108. (G. W. T.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Abu-l-'Ala ul-Ma'arri

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​ABŪ-L-‛ALĀ UL-MA‛ARRĪ [Abū-l-‛Alā Aḥmad ibn ‛Abdallāh ibn Sulaimān] (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‛mān, 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 Abū-l-‛Alā 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), Beirūt (1884) and Cairo (1886). The poems of the second collection, known as the Luzūm ma lam yalzam, or the Luzūmiyyāt, 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 Risālat ul-Ghufrān, 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, Über die philosophischen Gedichte des Abu-l-‛Ala (Vienna, 1888); cf. also the same writer’s articles in the Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen 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.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Abu-l-Qasim

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​ABŪ-L-QĀSIM [Khalaf ibn ʽAbbās uz-Zahrāwi], Arabian physician and surgeon, generally known in Europe as Abulcasis, flourished in the tenth century at Cordova as physician to the caliph ʽAbdur-Rahmān III. (912–961). No details of his life are known. A part of his compendium of medicine was published in Latin in the 16th century as Liber theoricae nec non practicae Alsaharavii (Augsburg, 1519). His manual of surgery was published at Venice in 1497, at Basel in 1541, and at Oxford Abulcasis de Chirurgia arabice et latine cura Johannis Channing (2 vols. 1778).
For his other works see Carl Brockelmann, Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur (Weimar, 1898), vol. i. pp. 239-240. (G. W. T.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Abu Hamed

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​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 at 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.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Abu Klea

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​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).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Abu Nuwas

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​ABŪ NUWĀS [Abū ʽAlī Hal-asan ibn Hāni'al-Ḥakamī] (c. 756–810), known as Abū Nuwās, Arabian poet, was born in al-Ahwāz, probably about 756. His mother was a Persian, his father a soldier, a native of Damascus. His studies were made in Baṣra under Abū Zaid and Abū ʽUbaida (q.v.), and in Kufa under Khalaf al-Aḥmar. He is also said to have spent a year with the Arabs in the desert to gain purity of language. Settling in Bagdad he enjoyed the favour of Harūn al-Rashīd and al-Amīn, and died there probably about 810. The greater part of his life was characterized by great licentiousness and disregard of religion, but in his later days he became ascetic. Abū Nuwās is recognized as the greatest poet of his time. His mastery of language has led to extensive quotation of his verses by Arabian scholars. Genial, cynical, immoral, he drew on all the varied life of his time for the material of his poems. In his wine-songs especially the manners of the upper classes of Bagdad are revealed. He was one of the first to ridicule the set form of the qasīda (elegy) as unnatural, and has satirized this form in several poems. See I. Goldziher, Abhandlungen zur Arabischen Philologie (Leyden, 1896), i. pp. 145 ff. His poems were collected by several Arabian editors. One such collection (the MS. of which is now in Vienna) contains nearly 5000 verses grouped under the ten headings: wine, hunting, praise, satire, love of youths, love of women, obscenities, blame, elegies, renunciation of the world. His collected poems (Diwān) have been published in Cairo (1860) and in Beirūt (1884). The wine-songs were edited by W. Ahlwardt under the title Diwān des Abu Nowas. 1. Die Weinlieder (Greifswald, 1861).  (G. W. T.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Angle

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​ANGLE (from the Lat. angulus, a corner, a diminutive, of which the primitive form, angus, does not occur in Latin; cognate are the Lat. angere, to compress into a bend or to strangle, and the Gr. ἄγκος, a bend; both connected with the Aryan root ank-, to bend: see Angling), in geometry, the inclination of one line or plane to another. Euclid (Elements, book 1) defines a plane angle as the inclination to each other, in a plane, of two lines which meet each other, and do not lie straight with respect to each other (see Geometry, Euclidean). According to Proclus an angle must be either a quality or a quantity, or a relationship. The first concept was utilized by Eudemus, who regarded an angle as a deviation from a straight line; the second by Carpus of Antioch, who regarded it as the interval or space between the intersecting lines; Euclid adopted the third concept, although his definitions of right, acute, and obtuse angles are certainly quantitative. A discussion of ​these concepts and the various definitions of angles in Euclidean geometry is to be found in W. B. Frankland, The First Book of Euclid’s Elements (1905). Following Euclid, a right angle is formed by a straight line standing upon another straight line so as to make the adjacent angles equal; any angle less than a right angle is termed an acute angle, and any angle greater than a right angle an obtuse angle. The difference between an acute angle and a right angle is termed the complement of the angle, and between an angle and two right angles the supplement of the angle. The generalized view of angles and their measurement is treated in the article Trigonometry. A solid angle is definable as the space contained by three or more planes intersecting in a common point; it is familiarly represented by a corner. The angle between two planes is termed dihedral, between three trihedral, between any number more than three polyhedral. A spherical angle is a particular dihedral angle; it is the angle between two intersecting arcs on a sphere, and is measured by the angle between the planes containing the arcs and the centre of the sphere.
The angle between a line and a curve (mixed angle) or between two curves (curvilinear angle) is measured by the angle between the line and the tangent at the point of intersection, or between the tangents to both curves at their common point. Various names (now rarely, if ever, used) have been given to particular cases:—amphicyrtic (Gr. ἀμφί, on both sides, κυρτός, convex) or cissoidal (Gr. κισσός, ivy), biconvex; xystroidal or sistroidal (Gr. ξυστρίς, a tool for scraping), concavo-convex; amphicoelic (Gr. κοίλη, a hollow) or angulus lunularis, biconcave.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Anglesite

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​ANGLESITE, a mineral consisting of lead sulphate, PbSO$_4$, crystallizing in the orthorhombic system, and isomorphous with barytes and celestite. It was first recognized as a mineral species by Dr Withering in 1783, who discovered it in the Parys copper-mine in Anglesey; the name anglesite, from this locality, was given by F. S. Beudant in 1832. The crystals from Anglesey, which were formerly found abundantly on a matrix of dull limonite, are small in size and simple in form, being usually bounded by four faces of a prism and four faces of a dome; they are brownish-yellow in colour owing to a stain of limonite. Crystals from some other localities, notably from Monteponi in Sardinia, are transparent and colourless, possessed of a brilliant adamantine lustre, and usually modified by numerous bright faces. The variety of combinations and habits presented by the crystals is very extensive, nearly two hundred distinct forms being figured by V. von Lang in his monograph of the species; without measurement of the angles the crystals are frequently difficult to decipher. The hardness is 3 and the specific gravity 6·3. There are distinct cleavages parallel to the faces of the prism {110} and the basal plane {001}, but these are not so well developed as in the isomorphous minerals barytes and celestite.
Anglesite is a mineral of secondary origin, having been formed by the oxidation of galena in the upper parts of mineral lodes where these have been affected by weathering processes. At Monteponi the crystals encrust cavities in glistening granular galena; and from Leadhills, in Scotland, pseudomorphs of anglesite after galena are known. At most localities it is found as isolated crystals in the lead-bearing lodes, but at some places, in Australia and Mexico, it occurs as large masses, and is then mined as an ore of lead, of which the pure mineral contains 68%.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Angler

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​ANGLER, also sometimes called fishing-frog, frog-fish, sea-devil (Lophius piscatorius), a fish well known off the coasts of Great Britain and Europe generally, the grotesque shape of its body and its singular habits having attracted the attention of naturalists of all ages. To the North Sea fishermen this fish is known as the “monk,” a name which more properly belongs to Rhina squatina, a fish allied to the skates. Its head is of enormous size, broad, flat and depressed, the remainder of the body appearing merely like an appendage. The Angler (Lophius piscatorius). The wide mouth extends all round the anterior circumference of the head; and both jaws are armed with bands of long pointed teeth, which are inclined inwards, and can be depressed so as to offer no impediment to an object gliding towards the stomach, but to prevent its escape from the mouth. The pectoral and ventral fins are so articulated as to perform the functions of feet, the fish being enabled to move, or rather to walk, on the bottom of the sea, where it generally hides itself in the sand or amongst sea-weed. All round its head and also along the body the skin bears fringed appendages resembling short fronds of sea-weed, a structure which, combined with the extraordinary faculty of assimilating the colour of the body to its surroundings, assists this fish greatly in concealing itself in places which it selects on account of the abundance of prey. To render the organization of this creature perfect in relation to its wants, it is provided with three long filaments inserted along the middle of the head, which are, in fact, the detached and modified three first spines of the anterior dorsal fin. The filament most important in the economy of the angler is the first, which is the longest, terminates in a lappet, and is movable in every direction. The angler is believed to attract other fishes by means of its lure, and then to seize them with its enormous jaws. It is probable enough that smaller fishes are attracted in this way, but experiments have shown that the action of the jaws is automatic and depends on contact of the prey with the tentacle. Its stomach is distensible in an extraordinary degree, and not rarely fishes have been taken out quite as large and heavy as their destroyer. It grows to a length of more than 5 ft.; specimens of 3 ft. are common. The spawn of the angler is very remarkable. It consists of a thin sheet of transparent gelatinous material 2 or 3 ft. broad and 25 to 30 ft. in length. The eggs in this sheet are in a single layer, each in its own little cavity. The spawn is free in the sea. The larvae are free-swimming and have the pelvic fins elongated into filaments. The British species is found all round the coasts of Europe and western North America, but becomes scarce beyond 60° N. lat.; it occurs also on the coasts of the Cape of Good Hope. A second species (Lophius budegassa) inhabits the Mediterranean, and a third (L. setigerus) the coasts of China and Japan.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Alexander of Aphrodisias

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​ALEXANDER OF APHRODISIAS, pupil of Aristocles of Messene, the most celebrated of the Greek commentators on the writings of Aristotle, and styled, by way of pre-eminence, ὁ ἐξηγητής (“the expositor”), was a native of Aphrodisias in Caria. He came to Athens towards the end of the 2nd century A.D., became head of the Lyceum and lectured on peripatetic philosophy. The object of his work was to free the doctrine from the syncretism of Ammonius and to reproduce the pure doctrine of Aristotle. Commentaries by Alexander on the following works of Aristotle are still extant:—the Analytica, Priora, i.; the Topica; the Meteorologica; the De Sensu; and the Metaphysica, i.-v., together with an abridgment of what he wrote on the remaining books of the Metaphysica. His commentaries were greatly esteemed among the Arabians, who translated many of them. There are also several original writings by Alexander still extant. The most important of these are a work On Fate, in which he argues against the Stoic doctrine of necessity; and one On the Soul, in which he contends that the undeveloped reason in man is material (νοῦς ὑλικός) and inseparable from the body. He argued strongly against the doctrine of immortality. He identified the active intellect (νοῦς ποιητικός), through whose agency the potential intellect in man becomes actual, with God. Several of Alexander’s works were published in the Aldine edition of Aristotle, Venice, 1495–1498; his De Fato and De Anima were printed along with the works of Themistius at Venice (1534); the former work, which has been translated into Latin by Grotius and also by Schulthess, was edited by J. C. Orelli, Zürich, 1824; and his commentaries on the Metaphysica by H. Bonitz, Berlin, 1847. J. Nourisson has treated of his doctrine of fate (De la liberté et du hazard, Paris, 1870). In the early Renaissance his doctrine of the soul’s mortality was adopted by P. Pomponazzi against the Thomists and the Averroists.
See Peripatetics (ad fin.); Alexandrists; Pomponazzi, Pietro; also A. Apelt, “Die schrift d. Alex. v. Aphr.,” Philologus, xlv., 1886; C. Ruelle, “Alex. d’Aphr. et le prétendu Alex. d’Alexandrie," Rev. des études grecques, v., 1892; E. Zeller’s Outlines of Gk. Phil. (Eng. trans., ed. 1905, p.296).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Alexanders

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​ALEXANDERS (botanical name, Smyrnium Olusatrum, natural order Umbelliferae), a stout herbaceous plant with a furrowed, much-branched stem 1-3 ft. high, and large compound leaves with broad sheathing stalks, and broad, cut or lobed segments. The small yellow flowers are borne in compound umbels. The plant is a native of the Mediterranean region, and was formerly cultivated as a pot-herb. It is now found apparently wild in Great Britain and Ireland, growing in waste places, especially near the sea and amongst ruins.
In England the plant is sometimes popularly termed “alisander”; in North America Thaspium aureum is sometimes called “alexanders.” “Alexander’s foot,” botanical name Anacyclus Pyrethrum, is the pellitory of Spain.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Alexander III. (king of Scotland)

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​ALEXANDER III. (1241–1285), king of Scotland, son of Alexander II. by his second wife Mary de Coucy, was born in 1241. At the age of eight years the death of his father called him to the throne. The years of his minority were marked by an embittered struggle for the control of affairs between two rival parties, the one led by Walter Comyn, earl of Menteith, the other by Alan Durward, the justiciar. The former was in the ascendant during the early years of the reign. At the marriage of Alexander to Margaret of England in 1251, Henry III. seized the opportunity to demand from his son-in-law homage for the Scottish kingdom, but the claim was refused. In 1255 an interview between the English and Scottish kings at Kelso resulted in the deposition of Menteith and his party in favour of their opponents. But though disgraced, they still retained great influence; and two years later, seizing the person of the king, they compelled their rivals to consent to the erection of a regency representative of both parties. On attaining his majority in 1262, Alexander declared his intention of resuming the projects on the Western Isles which had been cut short by the death of his father thirteen years before. A formal claim was laid before the Norwegian king Haakon. Not only was this unsuccessful, but next year Haakon replied by a formidable invasion. Sailing round the west coast of Scotland he halted off Arran, where negotiations were opened. These were artfully prolonged by Alexander until the autumn storms should begin. At length Haakon, weary of delay, attacked, only to encounter a terrific storm which greatly damaged his ships. The battle of Largs, fought next day, was indecisive. But even so Haakon’s position was hopeless. Baffled he turned homewards, but died on the way. The Isles now lay at Alexander’s feet, and in 1266 Haakon’s successor concluded a treaty by which the Isle of Man and the Western Isles were ceded to Scotland in return for a money payment, Orkney and Shetland alone being retained. Towards the end of Alexander’s reign, the death of all his three children within a few years made the question of the succession one of pressing importance. In 1284 he induced the Estates to recognize as his heir-presumptive his grand-daughter Margaret, the “Maid of Norway”; and next year the desire for a male heir led him to contract a second marriage. But all such hopes were defeated by the sudden death of the king, who was killed by a fall from his horse in the dark while riding to visit the queen at Kinghorn on the 16th of March 1285.