II.—Amongst the Ṣūfī mystics, the term al-Kīmiyāʾ is used for being satisfied with the things in possession, and not yearning after things which we do not possess. Kīmiyāʾu ʾl-ʿAwām, the alchymistry of the ordinary people, is the exchange of spiritual things for the things which perish. Kīmiyāʾu ʾl-K͟hawāṣṣ, the alchymistry of special people, is the emptying of the heart of everything except God. Kīmiyāʾu ʾs-Saʿādah, the alchymistry of felicity, is the purification of one’s heart from all things that are evil by the attainment of special graces. (ʿAbdu ʾr-Razzāq’s Dict. of Ṣūfī Terms.)
KINĀNAH (كنانة). (1) The name of the ancestor and founder of the Arabian tribe, the Banū Kinānah, the father of an-Naẓr, the grandfather of Fihr, who was surnamed Quraish. [[QURAISH].]
(2) The name of the Jewish chief of K͟haibar who defended the fortress of Qamuṣ against Muḥammad. He was slain by order of the Prophet, who afterwards took Kinānah’s bride, Ṣafīyah, to his home and married her. [[SAFIYAH].]
KINĀYAH (كناية). “A metaphor.” A word used in the science of exegesis, e.g. “Thou art separated,” by which may be meant, “Thou art divorced,” which is called T̤alāqu ʾl-Kināyah, or a divorce in metaphor.
KINDAH (كندة). A tribe of al-Yaman, and the descendants of Ḥimyar. They are admitted to be one of the noblest of the Arab tribes. One of the remarkable descendants of this tribe was al-Kindī the philosopher. [[KINDI].]
AL-KINDĪ (الكندى), the philosopher. Abū Yūsuf Yaʿqūb ibn Isḥāq ibn aṣ-Ṣabbāḥ al-Kindī, who flourished at the court of the K͟halīfah Maʾmūn, A.D. 833, and who translated numerous classical and philosophical works for the Abbaside Government. De Slane says his father Isḥāq was Amīr of al-Kūfah, and his great grandfather was one of the Prophet’s Companions. It was at one time supposed he was a Jew or a convert to the Jewish religion, while others tried to identify him with the author of an Apology for Christianity, entitled Risālatu ʿAbdi ʾl-Masīḥ ibn Isḥāq al-Kindī, in which the writer explains to a Muslim friend his reasons for holding the Christian faith, in preference to Islām, whose acceptance the latter had pressed upon him. But it has been proved that al-Kindī, the philosopher, and al-Kindī, the author of the said treatise, are two distinct persons, although both living at the court of al-Maʾmūn and belonging to the same tribe.
Dr. J. M. Arnold, in his Islām and Christianity, p. 372, says the Risālah, or treatise of al-Kindī, is quoted as a genuine production by the celebrated historian, Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Bīrūnī (died A.H. 430), in one of his works in confirmation of his statement that there were human sacrifices offered up in Arabia prior to the time of Muḥammad.
The Apology of al-Kindī has been rendered into English by Sir William Muir, from an edition in Arabic published by the Turkish Missions Aid Society.
KINDRED. [[INHERITANCE], [MARRIAGE].]
KING. The term used in the Qurʾān for a king is generally malik (ملك), Heb. מֶלֶךְ, e.g. when the Israelites “said to a prophet of theirs, ‘Raise up for us a king.’ ” ([Sūrah ii. 246].)