al-Aṭṭās family - Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE
[Article]
Arai, Kazuhiro
Leiden
Brill
(2,137 words)
The al-ʿAṭṭās family (also spelled "Alatas" in Southeast Asia) traces its origins to the sāda (pl. of sayyid , an honorific for descendants of the prophet Muḥammad) of the Ḥaḍramawt of South Arabia (modern Yemen). From its roots in the eleventh/seventeenth century, the family has grown and spread, most notably to Southeast Asia but also to other parts of Asia and the Arabian Penisula. This family is different from Āl al-Atāsī in Syria. The sobriquet al-ʿAṭṭās (literally, "one who sneezes") is attributed to a miracle in which