Islam/Mary Russell: A dictionary must be many things: a spellchecker, a quick reference book, a crossword companion and, perhaps most of all, a spider's web of information that traps the unsuspecting browser, taking them from one serendipitous discovery to the next.
"I never knew that," the incredulous reader will say, stumbling on some little-known fact, incomprehensible slang word or curious derivation, squirrelling away their find for the next game of Scrabble or one-upmanship.
And, of course, any dictionary, like Homer, must sometimes nod, omitting a word so obscure or erudite that it is known only to you, the reader, thus enabling you triumphantly to note the omission in the margin.
Oxford University Press has a fine tradition of producing dictionaries and this offering, The Oxford Dictionary of Islam, follows on logically from two previous publications, The Oxford Encyclopaedia of Islam and The Oxford History of Islam. Since Islam is the second fastest growing religion worldwide, this is a timely contribution to the growing body of work, academic and popular, which has appeared since September 11th, 2001.
The editor-in-chief, John L. Esposito, has drawn on the expertise of 109 colleagues - most of them based in US universities, as he is himself - to produce what he calls a basic, brief and inexpensive book, though at £30 for the hardback, the word inexpensive is itself open to interpretation.
Nevertheless, this will be an excellent addition to any bookshelf.
Within its pages, you will find an explanation of the lunar calendar, worth understanding if for no other reason than that Easter is also calculated according to the phases of the moon. Ramadan, therefore, is simply the name for the ninth lunar Islamic month, during which the fourth pillar of wisdom, fasting, is practised.
Two pages are devoted to women in Islam, many of whom, in the time of Muhammad, enjoyed equal status with men. The Prophet's first wife was a highly successful businesswoman and his last wife an authority on medicine, history and rhetoric. Under Wives, we learn that he had 13, together with his concubine, the Koptic slave, Maryam, who bore him a son and, as a result, was released from bondage though not from the Prophet's bed.
The famous as well as the infamous (of the Arab/Muslim world, that is) are listed so that under B we have Bilal, the first muezzin, formerly a black slave, now held in high esteem by African-American Muslims; Belqis, Queen of Sheba; Bin Laden, Osama, militant extremist, opponent of US troops in Saudi Arabia, and much else besides.
There are the poets, visionaries and mystics: Al Marri, who was blind; al Mutanabbi, who led a revolution in the desert; al Rumi, humanist and musician, and Rabiyah, the female mystic slave from Basra.
The Crusades, of course, is always a tricky one - for Christians, not for Muslims. Here, they are characterised as "expeditions by Latin Christians to reconquer the Christian Holy Lands of Syria- Palestine". Francis of Assisi crops up because he was one of the first Europeans to try to convert Muslims to Christianity and Niger figures not on account of the country's rich deposits of uranium but because it is 80 per cent Muslim, Islam having arrived there as long ago as the seventh century.
"Ahl" means people, as in Ahl al Kitab, "the people of the book", in other words Christians and Jews, their books the Bible and the Torah. Ahl also comes into my favourite greeting, Ahlan wa Sahlan, which means, in its long form, why not unsaddle your horse and stay for a bit with the people of this valley? Or, in a word, hello.
And what is missing? An ancient Muslim comic poet called, I think, al Mussidin. I've only heard his name spoken on the radio and hoped to learn something here about him. Answers on a postcard, please.
And then there was the little problem of what to shout out to the Middle East/North African teams during the Special Olympics. "Yullah!" is always useful, but my local halal shop also came up with "Jamil!". In the context of goals scored, points won and fun had by all, it translates as: "What a beaut!" An irreverent but accurate comment, too, on the Oxford Dictionary of Islam.
Mary Russell is a writer and journalist
The Oxford Dictionary of Islam Edited by John L. Esposito. Oxford University Press, 359pp. £30