Encyclopedia of Islam

Further reading: Esin Atil, Kalila wa Dimna: Fables from 

a Fourteenth-Century Arabic Manuscript (Washington, 

D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1981); Farid ud-

Din Attar, The Conference of the Birds, trans. Afkham 

Darbandi and Dick Davis (New York: Penguin, 1984); 

Jonathan Bloom and Sheila Blair, Islamic Arts (London: 

Phaidon Press, 1997); Denys Johnson-Davis, trans., The 

Island of the Animals (Austin: University of Texas Press, 

1994); Annemarie Schimmel, Deciphering the Signs of 

God: A Phenomenological Approach to Islam (Albany: 

State University of New York Press, 1994); Al-Hafiz B. 

K  44  

animals

---

A. Masri, Islamic Concern for Animals (Petersfield, U.K.: 

Athene Trust, 1987).

Ansar

 

(Arabic: helpers)

The Ansar were early converts to i

slam

 from m

edina

who joined in an alliance with m

Uhammad

 and the 

e

migrants

 from m

ecca

 in 622. They were members 

of the Arab Khazraj and Aws tribes, the two domi-

nant tribes in Medina at that time, and they served 

as hosts for the Emigrants. The Ansar participated 

in the battles against Muhammad’s enemies and in 

the early wars of conquest after his death in 632. 

Together with other groups that participated in the 

conquest, they settled in the new garrison towns of 

Kufa in i

raq

 and Fustat (c

airo

) in e

gypt

. They also 

ranked highly on the registries for receiving income 

from newly conquered territories in the Middle 

East. As rivals to the q

Uraysh

 tribe of Mecca, they 

supported the candidacy of a

li

  i

bn

 

abi

  t

alib

 (d. 

661) for the 

caliphate

, and in the eighth century, 

they allied with the Abbasids in their revolt against 

the  U

mayyad

  c

aliphate

. As a tribe, they eventu-

ally blended in with other members of the Muslim 

community, but the name continues to be used for 

mosques and contemporary Muslim organizations.

In Sudan, the Ansar is a significant Islamic 

movement named after the helpers of the Suda-

nese 

mahdi

, Muhammad Ahmad ibn Abd Allah 

(d. 1885), who ruled the country for a short time 

in the 1880s. The Mahdis’ heirs reorganized the 

group into a puritanical religious movement in 

the early 20th century, and it has played a major 

role in modern Sudanese politics to the present 

day. The Ansar name was also used independently 

by radical Islamist guerrilla organizations in i

raq

, 

p

akistan

, and l

ebanon

 in the 1990s and 2000s.

See also 

umma

.