Physiognomy (Firāsa)

Physiognomy, (Ar. firāsa) is the discipline using bodily features to assess the character and psychological features of people. Rooted in practices of the pre-Islamic Arab world, it acquired the status of a scientific discipline after the translation movement of the first Abbasid period. The relevance of physiognomy for the Arab-Islamic societies is testified by the wealth of works devoted to it since the third/nine centuries until recent time