GENTILES. Arabic Ummī (امى, from umm, “a mother”); pl. ummīyūn, lit. “Ignorant as new-born babes.” Hebrew גּוֹיִם. According to al-Baiẓāwī, all the people of the earth who do not possess a divine Book. In the Qurʾān, the term is specially applied to the idolators of Arabia.
[Sūrah lxii. 2]: “He (God) it is who sent unto the Gentiles a Prophet, amongst them to recite to them His signs and to purify them, and to teach them the Book, the wisdom, although they were before in obvious error.”
GEORGE, St. [[JIRJIS], [AL-KHIZR].]
AL-G͟HĀBAH (الـغـابة). “The desert.” A name given to the open plain near al-Madīnah.
G͟HABN (غبن). Fraud or deceit in sales.
G͟HADDĀR (غدار). A species of demon said to be found on the borders of al-Yaman. [[GENII].]
G͟HADĪR (غدير). A festival of the Shīʿahs on the 18th of the month of Ẕū ʾl-Ḥijjah, when three images of dough filled with honey are made to represent Abū Bakr, ʿUmar, and ʿUs̤mān, which are stuck with knives, and the honey is sipped as typical of the blood of the usurping K͟halīfahs. The festival is named from G͟hadīr, “a pool,” and the festival commemorates, it is said, Muḥammad having declared ʿAlī his successor at G͟hadīr K͟hūm, a watering place midway between Makkah and al-Madīnah.
G͟HAIB (غيب). Lit. “Secret.” The terms G͟haibu ʾl-Huwīyah, “Secret essence,” and al-G͟haibu ʾl-Mut̤laq, “the absolute unknowable,” are used by Ṣūfī mystics to express the nature of God. (ʿAbdu ʾr-Razzāq’s Dict. of Ṣūfī Terms.)
G͟HAIRAH (غيرة). “Jealousy.” Muḥammad is related to have said, “There is a kind of jealousy (g͟hairah) which God likes, and there is a kind of jealousy which he abominates. The jealousy which God likes is when a man has suspicion that his wife or slave girl comes and sits by a stranger; the jealousy which God abominates is when, without cause, a man harbours in his heart a bad opinion of his wife.” (Mishkāt, book xiii. c. xv. pt. 2.)
G͟HAIR-I-MAHDĪ (غير مهدى). Lit. “Without Mahdī.” A small sect who believe that the Imām Mahdī will not reappear. They say that one Saiyid Muḥammad of Jeypore was the real Mahdī, the twelfth Imām, and that he has now gone never more to return. They venerate him as highly as they do the Prophet, and consider all other Muslims to be unbelievers. On the night called Lailatu ʾl-Qadr, in the month of Ramaẓān, they meet and repeat two rakʿah prayers. After that act of devotion is over, they say: “God is Almighty, Muḥammad is our Prophet, the Qurʾān and Mahdī are just and true. Imām Mahdī is come and gone. Whosoever disbelieves this is an infidel.” They are a very fanatical sect. (See Qānūn-i-Islām.)