shereefian, a.
(ʃəˈriːfɪən)
[f. shereef + -ian.]
1. Of, pertaining to, or designating descent from Muhammad.
| 1936 E. Waugh Waugh in Abyssinia 86 The Emir's family claimed high, Sheriffian descent. 1976 Times Lit. Suppl. 13 Feb. 164/2 No doubt sultans did issue certificates of ‘sherifian’ descent. Ibid. 164/3 The conversion to the specifically ‘sherifian’ idiom of prestigious ancestry. 1977 P. Raymond Matter of Assassination vii. 75 His Sharifian Majesty, exalted of God, received us in his audience chamber. |
2. spec. (With capital initial.) a. Of or pertaining to the Shereef of Morocco.
| 1887 Pall Mall Gaz. 10 Oct. 1/2 Sultan Muley Hassan..came to the Shereefian throne fourteen years ago. 1890 Athenæum 3 May 560/1 Montefiore made his way to Morocco, and obtained from the Sheriffian Sultan the release of the prisoners. 1900 Q. Rev. Oct. 354 The Shareefian dynasty. |
b. Of or pertaining to the Shereef of Mecca. Also as n., a supporter of the Shereef.
| 1921 G. Bell Let. 17 Apr. (1927) II. xx. 590, I am therefore identified as a Sharifian. 1926 T. E. Lawrence Seven Pillars i. xvi. 82 Blood feuds were nominally healed, and really suspended in the Sherifian area. Ibid. ii. xviii. 93 Garland single-handed was teaching the Sherifians how to blow up railways with dynamite. 1929 W. S. Churchill World Crisis V. 462 He came of the Sherifian family which, as guardians of the Holy Places at Mecca, commanded wide veneration throughout the Islamic world. 1935 R. H. Kiernan Lawrence of Arabia viii. 174 He was defeated by the fanatical Wahabis in a fight which resulted in the destruction of a Sherifian force of four thousand men. 1976 Times Lit. Suppl. 30 Apr. 519/2 Correspondence which on the Sharifian side was a continuation of the attempts made before the outbreak of the 1914– 18 War to enlist the services of Great Britain in Sharif Husayn's resistance to the centralizing policy of the Turkish government. Ibid., To these proposals the Sharifians demanded an answer within thirty days. |