"The revolt of African slaves in Iraq from 869 to 883 C.E., known as the revolt of the Zanj, was one of the great rebellions of world history and the first major uprising in the history of the African diaspora. The Zanj were black slaves shipped overseas from East Africa to work…
ʿAlī Dede al-Sigetvārī (d. 1007/1598–9), or ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn ʿAlī Dede b. Muṣṭafā al-Bosnawī, also known as al-Sigetvārī, was a shaykh of the Khalwatiyya (a Ṣūfī order founded in medieval Herat) and the author of a number of works in Arabic. He was probably born around the beginning…
ʿAlī b. Muḥammad al-Zanjī (d. 2 Ṣafar 270/11 August 883), known as Ṣāḥib al-Zanj, “Chief of the Zanj,” was the leader of the famous rebellion of black slaves from the coast of East Africa, known as Zanj, who were, from an indefinite date onwards, imported in large numbers into ʿ…
ʿAbd al-Wahhāb b. Abū l-Wahhāb Ilḥāmī (or Ilḥāmī Bābā) (1187–1237/1773–1821) was a Bosnian poet, theologian, and mystic, also known as Abdulvehhab (i. e. ʿAbd al-Wahhāb) Žepčak Ilhamija. Much has been written about him in the Bosnian literature, although few details of his life …
ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Sirrī (1199–1263/1785–1847), an illustrious Bosnian Naqsh-bandī shaykh , was born in Fojnica, a small town to the northeast of Sarajevo, into a family of ʿulamāʾ (his father and grandfather were qāḍī s). He studied at the madrasa of Fojnica under the famous Naqshb…
Ayvaz Dede (Ajvaz-dedo) is a legendary figure who is linked to an annual Muslim pilgrimage, the Ajvatovica, which takes place in June in the village of Prusac, in the present-day Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Ayvaz Dede, or “Grandfather Ayvaz,” is thought to have arrived…