ʿUQBĀ (عقبى). Lit. “End.” A reward or punishment. Hence used to express the life to come either of good or evil. [[PARADISE], [HELL].]
ʿUQBAH (عقبة) IBN ʿĀMIR AL-JUHANĪ. A Companion of great celebrity. He was afterwards Governor of Egypt, where he died, A.H. 58.
UQNŪM (اقنوم), pl. aqānīm. According to Muslim lexicographers, it is “a word which means the root or principle of a thing, and, according to the Naṣārā (Nazarenes), there are three Aqānīm, namely, wujūd (entity or substance), ḥayāt (life), and ʿilm (knowledge); and also, Ab (Father), Ibn (Son), and Rūḥu ʾ-Quds (Holy Spirit); and it is also the name of a book amongst the Nazarenes which treats of these three. (See G͟hiyās̤u ʾl-Lug͟hāt, in loco.) [[TRINITY].]
ʿUQŪBAH (عقوبة). “Punishment; chastisement.” A legal term for punishment inflicted at the discretion of the magistrate. ʿUqūbah shadīdah is severe punishment extending to death. [[TAZIR].]
AL-ʿUQŪLU ʾL-ʿASHARAH (العقول العشرة). Lit. “The Ten Intelligences.” Ten angels who, according to the philosophers, were created by God in the following manner: First, He created one angel; who then created one heaven and one angel, this second angel then created a second heaven and a third angel; and so on until there were created nine heavens and ten angels. The tenth angel then, by the order of God, created the whole world. (See G͟hiyās̤u ʾl-Lug͟hāt, in loco.)
ʿURS (عرس). (1) Marriage festivities, as distinguished from nikāḥ, “the marriage ceremony.” [[MARRIAGE].]
(2) A term also used for the ceremonies observed at the anniversary of the death of any celebrated saint or murshid.
ʿUSHR (عشر), pl. aʿshār and ʿushūr. A tenth or tithe given to the Muslim State or Baitu ʾl-Māl. [[BAITU ʾL-MAL].]
ʿUS̤MĀN (عثمان) IBN ʿAFFĀN. The third K͟halīfah, who succeeded ʿUmar A.H. 23 (A.D. 643), and was slain by Muḥammad, son of Abū Bakr and other conspirators on the 18th of Ẕū ʾl-Ḥijjah, A.H. 35 (June 17th, A.D. 656), aged eighty-two, and having reigned twelve years. He is known amongst Muslims as Ẕū ʾn-Nūrain, “The Possessor of the Two Lights,” because he married two of the Prophet’s daughters, Ruqaiyah and Ummu Kuls̤ūm. His chief merit with regard to the cause of Islām was the second and final revision of the sacred book, which he caused to be made, and of which an exhaustive account has been given in our article on the Qurʾān.
Although Muḥammadan historians distinguish the reigns of the first four K͟halīfahs as founded on faith (dīnī), from those of the later ones, as based on the world and its passions and vanities (dunyawī), it must be admitted that worldly motives entered already largely into the politics of ʿUs̤mān and ʿAlī, as contrasted with Abū Bakr and ʿUmar. ʿUs̤mān, by his weakness and nepotism, ʿAlī by holding aloof with culpable indifference, during the protracted death-struggle of his predecessor, by abetting his murderers in the open field, and by his vacillating spirit, where firmness of purpose was needed, gave rise to those fierce dissensions between rival religious and political parties, which led, for the time being, to the establishment of the Umaiyah dynasty, and eventually caused the division of Islām into the two great sects of the Sunnīs and Shīʿahs.