sharif
Use Sharif in a sentence
1590–1600
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2013.
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| a stew of meat, vegetables, potatoes, etc. |
| a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question. |
sherif, shereef or sharif (ʃɛˈriːf) ![[Click for IPA pronunciation guide]](http://static.sfdict.com/dictstatic/g/d/dictionary_questionbutton_default.gif) | |
| —n , pl ashraf | |
| 1. | a descendant of Mohammed through his daughter Fatima |
| 2. | (formerly) the governor of Mecca |
| 3. | an honorific title accorded to any Muslim ruler |
| [C16: from Arabic sharīf noble] | |
| shereef, shereef or sharif | |
| —n | |
| [C16: from Arabic sharīf noble] | |
| sharif, shereef or sharif | |
| —n | |
| [C16: from Arabic sharīf noble] | |
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sharif
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sharif
Arabic title of respect, restricted, after the advent of Islam, to members of Muhammad's clan of Hashim-in particular, to descendants of his uncles al-'Abbas and Abu Talib and of the latter's son 'Ali by Muhammad's daughter Fatimah. In the Hejaz (western coast of Arabia), the title of sharif is said to have been further restricted to the descendants of Hasan, the elder son of 'Ali and Fatimah. Sharifs originally were heads of prominent families in a town. Later they supplied the local semiautonomous rulers of Mecca and Medina, especially when the cities were under the suzerainty of Baghdad and Cairo, while after the establishment of Ottoman rule, the Ottomans normally recognized the senior representative of the sharifs as prince of Mecca.
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