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Yemen | The 2011 Yemeni revolution followed other Arab Spring mass protests in early 2011. The uprising was initially against unemployment, economic conditions, and corruption, as well as against the government's proposals to modify the constitution of Yemen so that Saleh's son could inherit the presidency.
In March 2011, police snipers opened fire on a pro-democracy camp in Sana'a, killing more than 50 people. In May, dozens were killed in clashes between troops and tribal fighters in Sana'a. By this point, Saleh began to lose international support. In October 2011, Yemeni human rights activist Tawakul Karman won the Nobel Peace Prize, and the UN Security Council condemned the violence and called for a transfer of power. On 23 November 2011, Saleh flew to Riyadh, in neighbouring Saudi Arabia, to sign the Gulf Co-operation Council plan for political transition, which he had previously spurned. Upon signing the document, he agreed to legally transfer the office and powers of the presidency to his deputy, Vice President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi.
Hadi took office for a two-year term upon winning the uncontested presidential elections in February 2012. A unity government—including a prime minister from the opposition—was formed. Al-Hadi would oversee the drafting of a new constitution, followed by parliamentary and presidential elections in 2014. Saleh returned in February 2012. In the face of objections from thousands of street protesters, parliament granted him full immunity from prosecution. Saleh's son, General Ahmed Ali Abdullah Saleh, continues to exercise a strong hold on sections of the military and security forces.
AQAP claimed responsibility for a February 2012 suicide attack on the presidential palace that killed 26 Republican Guards on the day that President Hadi was sworn in. AQAP was also behind a suicide bombing that killed 96 soldiers in Sana'a three months later. In September 2012, a car bomb attack in Sana'a killed 11 people, a day after a local al-Qaeda leader Said al-Shihri was reported killed in the south.
By 2012, there was a "small contingent of U.S. special-operations troops"—in addition to CIA and "unofficially acknowledged" U.S. military presence—in response to increasing terror attacks by AQAP on Yemeni citizens. Many analysts have pointed out the former Yemeni government role in cultivating terrorist activity in the country. Following the election of President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, the Yemeni military was able to push Ansar al-Sharia back and recapture the Shabwah Governorate.
The central government in Sana'a remained weak, staving off challenges from southern separatists and Houthis as well as AQAP. The Houthi insurgency intensified after Hadi took power, escalating in September 2014 as anti-government forces led by Abdul-Malik al-Houthi swept into the capital and forced Hadi to agree to a "unity" government. The Houthis then refused to participate in the government, although they continued to apply pressure on Hadi and his ministers, even shelling the president's private residence and placing him under house arrest, until the government's mass resignation in January 2015. The following month, the Houthis dissolved parliament and declared that a Revolutionary Committee under Mohammed Ali al-Houthi was the interim authority in Yemen. Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, a cousin of the acting president, called the takeover a "glorious revolution". However, the "constitutional declaration" of 6 February 2015 was widely rejected by opposition politicians and foreign governments, including the United Nations.
Hadi managed to flee from Sana'a to Aden, his hometown and stronghold in the south, on 21 February 2015. He promptly gave a televised speech rescinding his resignation, condemning the coup, and calling for recognition as the constitutional president of Yemen. The following month, Hadi declared Aden Yemen's "temporary" capital. The Houthis, however, rebuffed an initiative by the Gulf Cooperation Council and continued to move south toward Aden. All U.S. personnel were evacuated, and President Hadi was forced to flee the country to Saudi Arabia. On 26 March 2015, Saudi Arabia announced Operation Decisive Storm and began airstrikes and announced its intentions to lead a military coalition against the Houthis, whom they claimed were being aided by Iran and began a force buildup along the Yemeni border. The coalition included the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Jordan, Morocco, Sudan, Egypt, and Pakistan. The United States announced that it was assisting with intelligence, targeting, and logistics. After Hadi troops took control of Aden from Houthis, jihadist groups became active in the city, and some terrorist incidents were linked to them such as Missionaries of Charity attack in Aden on 4 March 2016. In February 2018, Aden was seized by the UAE-backed separatist Southern Transitional Council.
Yemen has been suffering from a famine since 2016 as a result of the civil war. More than 50,000 children in Yemen died from starvation in 2017. Numerous commentators have condemned the Saudi-led coalition's military campaign, including its blockade of Yemen, as genocide. The famine is being compounded by an outbreak of cholera that has affected more than one million people. The Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen and blockade of Yemen have contributed to the famine and cholera epidemic. The UN estimated that by the end of 2021, the war in Yemen would have caused over 377,000 deaths, and roughly 70% of deaths were children under age 5.
On 4 December 2017, deposed strongman and former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, accused of treason, was assassinated by Houthis whilst attempting to flee clashes near rebel-held Sana'a between Houthi and pro-Saleh forces. After losing the support of the Saudi-led coalition, Yemen's President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi resigned, and the Presidential Leadership Council took power in April 2022.
Following the outbreak of the 2023 Israel–Hamas war, the Houthis began to fire missiles at Israel and attack ships off Yemen's coast in the Red Sea, which they say is in solidarity with the Palestinians and aiming to facilitate entry of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip.
In June 2024, the UAE-backed STC were putting pressure to lease the Aden International Port to Abu Dhabi Ports. The move was opposed by the Parliament and the public. A joint statement by 24 members of Shura Council expressed categorical rejection of the lease agreement. Economists said the Emirates was attempting to control the Aden Port and limit its activities, in order to keep its own ports active. Governor of Aden, Tariq Salam also said the lease attempt aims to devalue the Aden Port and take its international maritime status. Aden International Port had ended its agreement to manage two container terminals with Dubai Ports World in 2012, due to economic decline and failure to fulfill commitments. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yemen |
Iraq–United States relations | Relations between the U.S. and Iraq became strained following the overthrow of the Iraqi monarchy on July 14, 1958, which resulted in the declaration of a republican government led by Brigadier Abd al-Karim Qasim. Concerned about the influence of Iraqi Communist Party (ICP) members in Qasim's administration, and hoping to prevent "Ba'athist or Communist exploitation of the situation," President Dwight D. Eisenhower had established a Special Committee on Iraq (SCI) in April 1959 to monitor events and propose various contingencies for preventing a communist takeover of the country. Qasim undertook numerous repressive measures against the communists throughout 1960, and this—combined with the John F. Kennedy administration's belief that Iraq was not important to the broader Cold War—resulted in the disestablishment of the SCI within days of Kennedy's inauguration as president. However, subsequent events would return Iraq to the attention of American officials.
On June 25, 1961, Qasim mobilized troops along the Iraq–Kuwait border, declaring the latter nation "an indivisible part of Iraq" and causing a short-lived "Kuwait Crisis." The U.K.—which had just granted Kuwait independence on June 19 and whose economy was heavily dependent on Kuwaiti oil supplies—responded on July 1 by dispatching 5,000 troops to the country to deter any Iraqi invasion. At the same time, Kennedy briefly dispatched a U.S. Navy task force to Bahrain, and the U.K. (at the urging of the Kennedy administration) brought the dispute to United Nations Security Council, where the proposed resolution was vetoed by the Soviet Union. The situation was finally resolved in October, when the British troops were withdrawn and replaced by a 4,000-strong Arab League force. The Kennedy administration's initially "low-key" response to the stand-off was motivated by the desire to project an image of the U.S. as "a progressive anti-colonial power trying to work productively with Arab nationalism" as well as the preference of U.S. officials to defer to the U.K. on issues related to the Persian Gulf.
Following Kurdish leader Mustafa Barzani's 1958 return to Iraq from exile in the Soviet Union, Qasim had promised to permit autonomous rule in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq, but by 1961 Qasim had made no progress towards achieving this goal. In July 1961, following months of violence between feuding Kurdish tribes, Barzani returned to northern Iraq and began retaking territory from his Kurdish rivals. Although Qasim's government did not respond to the escalating violence, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) sent Qasim a list of demands in August, which included the withdrawal of Iraqi government troops from Kurdish territory and greater political freedom. For the next month, U.S. officials in Iran and Iraq predicted that a war was imminent. Faced with the loss of northern Iraq after non-Barzani Kurds seized control of a key road leading to the Iran–Iraq border in early September and ambushed and massacred Iraqi troops on September 10 and September 12, Qasim finally ordered the systematic bombing of Kurdish villages on September 14, which caused Barzani to join the rebellion on September 19. As part of a strategy devised by Alexander Shelepin in July 1961 to distract the U.S. and its allies from the Soviet Union's aggressive posture in Berlin, the Soviet KGB revived its connections with Barzani and encouraged him to revolt, although Barzani had no intention to act as their proxy. By March 1962, Barzani's forces were in firm control of Iraqi Kurdistan, although Barzani refrained from taking major cities out of fear that the Iraqi government would launch reprisals against civilians. The U.S. refused Kurdish requests for assistance, but Qasim nevertheless castigated the Kurds as "American stooges" while absolving the Soviets of any responsibility for the unrest.
In December 1961, Qasim's government passed Public Law 80, which restricted the British- and American-owned Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC)'s concessionary holding to those areas in which oil was actually being produced, effectively expropriating 99.5% of the IPC concession. U.S. officials were alarmed by the expropriation as well as the recent Soviet veto of an Egyptian-sponsored UN resolution requesting the admittance of Kuwait as a UN member state, which they believed to be connected. Senior National Security Council (NSC) adviser Robert Komer worried that if the IPC ceased production in response, Qasim might "grab Kuwait" (thus achieving a "stranglehold" on Middle Eastern oil production) or "throw himself into Russian arms." At the same time, Komer made note of widespread rumors that a nationalist coup against Qasim could be imminent, and had the potential to "get Iraq back on [a] more neutral keel." Following Komer's advice, on December 30 Kennedy's National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy sent the President a cable from the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, John Jernegan, which argued that the U.S. was "in grave danger [of] being drawn into [a] costly and politically disastrous situation over Kuwait." Bundy also requested Kennedy's permission to "press State" to consider measures to resolve the situation with Iraq, adding that cooperation with the British was desirable "if possible, but our own interests, oil and other, are very directly involved."
In April 1962, the State Department issued new guidelines on Iraq that were intended to increase American influence in the country. Around the same time, Kennedy instructed the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)—under the direction of Archie Roosevelt Jr.—to begin making preparations for a military coup against Qasim. On June 2, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hashim Jawad ordered Jernegan to leave the country, stating that Iraq was also withdrawing its ambassador from Washington in retaliation for the U.S. accepting the credentials of a new Kuwaiti ambassador on June 1, which Iraq had repeatedly warned would result in a downgrading of diplomatic relations. Despite the Iraqi warnings, senior U.S. officials were stunned by the downgrade; Kennedy had not been informed of the likely consequences of accepting the Kuwaiti ambassador. By the end of 1962, a series of major defeats at the hands of Kurdish rebels had severely damaged both the Iraqi army's morale and Qasim's popular support. From September 1962 through February 1963, Qasim repeatedly blamed the "criminal activities" of the U.S. for the battlefield successes of the Kurds, but the State Department rejected requests from the U.S. Chargé d'Affaires in Baghdad, Roy Melbourne, to publicly respond to Qasim's allegations out of fear that doing so would jeopardize the remaining U.S. presence in Iraq. On February 5, 1963, Secretary of State Dean Rusk informed the U.S. embassy in Iraq that the State Department was "considering carefully whether on balance U.S. interests would be served [at] this particular juncture by abandoning [its] policy of avoiding public reaction to Qasim's charges," with the reluctance stemming from the desire to avoid compromising the CIA's "significant intelligence collecting operations": On February 7, State Department executive secretary William Brubeck informed Bundy that Iraq had become "one of the more useful spots for acquiring technical information on Soviet military and industrial equipment and on Soviet methods of operation in nonaligned areas." The CIA had earlier penetrated a top-secret Iraqi-Soviet surface-to-air missile project, which yielded intelligence on the Soviet Union's ballistic missile program. With access to crucial intelligence hanging in the balance, U.S. officials were showing "great reluctance about aggravating Qasim."
After reaching a secret agreement with Barzani to work together against Qasim in January, the anti-imperialist and anti-communist Iraqi Ba'ath Party overthrew and executed Qasim in a violent coup on February 8, 1963. It has long been suspected that the Ba'ath Party collaborated with the CIA in planning and carrying out the coup. Pertinent contemporary documents relating to the CIA's operations in Iraq have remained classified, and modern academia have "remain[ed] divided in their interpretations of American foreign policy toward the February 1963 coup in Iraq." Bryan R. Gibson and Peter Hahn (in separate works) argue that although the U.S. had been notified of two aborted Ba'athist coup plots in July and December 1962, publicly declassified documents do not support claims of direct American involvement in the 1963 coup. On the other hand, Brandon Wolfe-Hunnicutt cites "compelling evidence of an American role," and that publicly declassified documents "largely substantiate the plausibility" of CIA involvement in the coup. Eric Jacobsen, citing the testimony of contemporary prominent Ba'athists and U.S. government officials, states that ample evidence exists of the CIA having assisted the Ba'athists in planning the coup.
Qasim's former deputy Abdul Salam Arif (who was not a Ba'athist) was given the largely ceremonial title of President, while prominent Ba'athist general Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr was named Prime Minister. The most powerful leader of the new government was the secretary of the Iraqi Ba'ath Party, Ali Salih al-Sa'di, who controlled the militant National Guard and organized a massacre of hundreds—if not thousands—of suspected communists and other dissidents in the days following the coup. The Kennedy administration viewed the prospect of an Iraqi shift in the Cold War with cautious optimism. However, U.S. officials were worried that a renewal of conflict with the Kurds could threaten the Iraqi government's survival. While Barzani had released 1,500 Arab prisoners of war as a gesture of good faith, Iraqi Foreign Minister Talib El-Shibib told Melbourne on March 3 that the government was unwilling to consider any concessions beyond cultural autonomy and was prepared to use anti-Barzani Kurds and Arab tribes in northern Iraq to co-opt the Kurds's guerrilla methods. On May 4, Melbourne delivered a message warning Shibib of the U.S. government's "serious apprehensions at [the] trend of events" and urging Iraqi officials to make "serious counter-proposals." Nevertheless, on May 22 al-Bakr bluntly told Melbourne he "could not permit this Kurdish challenge to Iraqi sovereignty to continue [for] much longer." The fighting resumed on June 10, when the Iraqi government—which had amassed 45,000 troops in Iraqi Kurdistan—arrested members of the Kurdish negotiating delegation and declared martial law throughout northern Iraq. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union actively worked to undermine the Ba'athist government, suspending military shipments to Iraq in May, convincing its ally Mongolia to sponsor charges of genocide against Iraq at the UN General Assembly from July to September, and sponsoring a failed communist coup attempt on July 3. The Kennedy administration responded by urging Arab allies of the U.S. to oppose the genocide charge at the UN and by approving a $55 million arms deal for Iraq. Furthermore, "Weldon C. Mathews has meticulously established that National Guard leaders who participated in human rights abuses had been trained in the United States as part of a police program run by the International Cooperation Administration and Agency for International Development." Because, in the words of State Department official James Spain, the "policy of the nationalist Arabs who dominate the Baghdad government does in fact come close to genocide"—as well as a desire to eliminate the Soviets' "Kurdish Card"—the new U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Robert C. Strong, informed al-Bakr of a Barzani peace proposal delivered to the U.S. consul in Tabriz (and offered to convey a response) on August 25. While a Barzani-initiated ceasefire would have allowed the government to claim victory, al-Bakr "expressed astonishment" over American contacts with the Kurds, asking why the message had not been delivered through the Soviets. Wolfe-Hunnicutt argues that the Kennedy administration's provision of military aid to the Ba'athist government, including napalm weapons, emboldened Iraqi hardliners and was counter-productive to the administration's stated preference for a diplomatic settlement to the First Iraqi–Kurdish War. An offer by Iraqi general Hasan Sabri al-Bayati to reciprocate this gesture by sending a Soviet T-54 tank in Iraq's possession to the U.S. embassy in Baghdad for inspection became something of a "scandal" as Bayati's offer had not been approved by al-Bakr, Shibib, or other senior Iraqi officials and was rescinded by the Ba'ath Party leadership after they became aware of it.
The Ba'athist government collapsed in November 1963 over the question of unification with Syria (where a different branch of the Ba'ath Party had seized power in March) and the extremist and uncontrollable behavior of al-Sa'di's National Guard. President Arif, with the overwhelming support of the Iraqi military, purged Ba'athists from the government and ordered the National Guard to stand down; although al-Bakr had conspired with Arif to remove al-Sa'di, on January 5, 1964, Arif removed al-Bakr from his new position as Vice President, fearful of allowing the Ba'ath Party to retain a foothold inside his government. On November 21, 1963, the Kennedy administration determined that because Arif remained the Iraqi head of state, diplomatic relations with Iraq would continue unimpeded. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq%E2%80%93United_States_relations |
Green building | Green architecture also seeks to reduce waste of energy, water and materials used during construction. For example, in California nearly 60% of the state's waste comes from commercial buildings During the construction phase, one goal should be to reduce the amount of material going to landfills. Well-designed buildings also help reduce the amount of waste generated by the occupants as well, by providing on-site solutions such as compost bins to reduce matter going to landfills.
To reduce the amount of wood that goes to landfill, Neutral Alliance (a coalition of government, NGOs and the forest industry) created the website dontwastewood.com. The site includes a variety of resources for regulators, municipalities, developers, contractors, owner/operators and individuals/homeowners looking for information on wood recycling.
When buildings reach the end of their useful life, they are typically demolished and hauled to landfills. Deconstruction is a method of harvesting what is commonly considered "waste" and reclaiming it into useful building material. Extending the useful life of a structure also reduces waste – building materials such as wood that are light and easy to work with make renovations easier.
To reduce the impact on wells or water treatment plants, several options exist. "Greywater", wastewater from sources such as dishwashing or washing machines, can be used for subsurface irrigation, or if treated, for non-potable purposes, e.g., to flush toilets and wash cars. Rainwater collectors are used for similar purposes.
Centralized wastewater treatment systems can be costly and use a lot of energy. An alternative to this process is converting waste and wastewater into fertilizer, which avoids these costs and shows other benefits. By collecting human waste at the source and running it to a semi-centralized biogas plant with other biological waste, liquid fertilizer can be produced. This concept was demonstrated by a settlement in Lübeck Germany in the late 1990s. Practices like these provide soil with organic nutrients and create carbon sinks that remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, offsetting greenhouse gas emission. Producing artificial fertilizer is also more costly in energy than this process. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_building |
Eriba-Marduk | He was described as the son or descendant of Marduk-šakin-šumi, an otherwise unknown individual who one might speculate to have been one of the five unknown kings from the earlier period of interregnum. According to the Dynastic Chronicle, Erība-Marduk was the single member of a dynasty of the Sealand (kurA.AB.BA) and succeeded Marduk-apla-uṣur, the first king clearly identified as Chaldean. He was eventually succeeded by Nabû-šuma-iškun, the sequence of these three kings confirmed by a fragment of an Assyrian Synchronistic Kinglist. There are legal documents dated to his ninth year and to the thirteenth year of his successor, which has led historians to conclude that he must have ascended the throne by 770 BC at the latest, as his successor is known to have ruled until 748 BC. The legal document dated to his ninth year records the sale of a large expanse of grazing land, eqel ša bīt ikkari, "the field of the house of the farmer". The land apparently bordered property belonging to an Aramean sheikh, or nasīku, evidence of permanent settlement rather than opportunistic raiding by this tribal group.
He participated in the Akītu, or new year festival, first in the beginning of the second year of his reign, as his rule extended into northern Babylonia and he suppressed the incursions of nomads around Babylon and Borsippa, restoring fields and orchards to their former owners. His religious devotions included restoring Marduk's throne in the Esagila in Babylon. An inscription of Esarhaddon of Assyria (681–669 BC), relates how part of the temple of Ištar in the Eanna at Uruk, the shrine of the goddess Nanaya originally built by Nazi-Maruttaš in the 13th century, had been restored by Erība-Marduk. Not all restorations, however, were to the liking of his successors. According to the Harran stele of Nabonidus (555–539 BC), his reign witnessed a sacrilegious reform of the cult of Ištar (bēltu ša Uruk, "lady of Uruk"), when the people of Uruk replaced her statue with an unsuitable one, unyoking its team of lions and removing its shrine. This may have been part of a program of suppressing the licentious cults of the goddesses in southern Babylonia.
The only extant royal inscriptions from his reign are two duck-weights endorsed by Erība-Marduk's palace administration, and a part of a solid clay cylinder thought to be commemorating the inauguration of cultic idols, their decoration and transport upstream on the river Euphrates to Uruk. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eriba-Marduk |
Arab citizens of Israel | Palestinian Arabs sat in the state's first parliamentary assembly in 1949. In 2011, 13 of the 120 members of the Israeli Parliament are Arab citizens, most representing Arab political parties, and one of Israel's Supreme Court judges is a Palestinian Arab.
The 2015 elections included 18 Arab members of Knesset. Along with 13 members of the Joint List, there were five Arab parliamentarians representing Zionist parties, which is more than double their number in the previous Knesset.
Some Arab Members of the Knesset, past and present, are under police investigation for their visits to countries designated as enemy countries by Israeli law. This law was amended following MK Mohammad Barakeh's trip to Syria in 2001, such that MKs must explicitly request permission to visit these countries from the Minister of the Interior. In August 2006, Balad MKs Azmi Bishara, Jamal Zahalka, and Wasil Taha visited Syria without requesting nor receiving such permission, and a criminal investigation of their actions was launched. Former Arab Member of Knesset Mohammed Miari was questioned 18 September 2006 by police on suspicion of having entered a designated enemy country without official permission. He was questioned "under caution" for 2.5 hours in the Petah Tikva station about his recent visit to Syria. Another former Arab Member of Knesset, Muhammad Kanaan, was also summoned for police questioning regarding the same trip. In 2010, six Arab MKs visited Libya, an openly anti-Zionist Arab state, and met with Muammar al-Gaddafi and various senior government officials. Gaddafi urged them to seek a one-state solution, and for Arabs to "multiply" in order to counter any "plots" to expel them.
According to a study commissioned by the Arab Association of Human Rights entitled "Silencing Dissent", over the period 1999–2002, eight of nine of the then Arab Knesset members were beaten by Israeli forces during demonstrations. Most recently according to the report, legislation has been passed, including three election laws [e.g., banning political parties], and two Knesset related laws aimed to "significantly curb the minority [Arab population] right to choose a public representative and for those representatives to develop independent political platforms and carry out their duties".
The Knesset Ethics Committee has on several occasions banned Arab MKs that the committee felt were acting outside acceptable norms. In 2016, Hanin Zoabi and Jamal Zahalka were banned from plenary sessions for four months and Basel Ghattas for two months after they had visited families of Palestinian attackers killed by Israeli security forces. Ghattas was again banned for six months in 2017 over charges of having smuggled cell phones to Palestinian prisoners and Zoabi was banned for a week for having called IDF soldiers "murderers."
In 2016, the Knesset passed a controversial law that would allow it to impeach any MK who incites racism or supports armed struggle against Israel. Critics said that the law was undemocratic and would mainly be used to silence Arab MKs. As of 2020, no MK has been impeached by the law. In 2018, the Israeli supreme court of justice rejected arguments that the law would harm specific political parties and ruled that checks and balances within the law serve as sufficient protection against abuse of rights. For example, the law requires 70 Knesset members, 10 of whom must be from the opposition, to petition to the Knesset House Committee, and could only be finalized with a vote of 90 out of 120 MKs in favor of the impeachment. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_citizens_of_Israel |
Kingdom of Galicia | After a period of obscurity, with very little remaining information on the history of this area, or in fact Western Europe in general, the Suebi Kingdom reappears in European politics and history during the second half of the 6th century. This is following the arrival of Saint Martin of Braga, a Pannonian monk dedicated to converting the Suebi to Nicene Christianity and consequently into allegiance with the other Nicene Christian regional powers, the Franks and the Eastern Roman Empire.
Under King Ariamir, who called for the First Council of Braga, the conversion of the Suebi to Nicene Christianity was apparent; while this same council condemned Priscillianism, it made no similar statement on Arianism. Later, King Theodemar ordered an administrative and ecclesiastical division of his kingdom, with the creation of new bishoprics and the promotion of Lugo, which possessed a large Suebi community, to the level of Metropolitan Bishop along with Braga.
Theodemar's son and successor, King Miro, called for the Second Council of Braga, which was attended by all the bishops of the kingdom, from the Briton bishopric of Britonia in the Bay of Biscay, to Astorga in the east, and Coimbra and Idanha in the south. Five of the attendant bishops used Germanic names, showing the integration of the different communities of the country. King Miro also promoted contention with the Arian Visigoths, who under the leadership of King Leovigild were rebuilding their fragmented kingdom which had been ruled mostly by Ostrogoths since the beginning of the 6th century, following the defeat and expulsion of Aquitania by the Franks. After clashing in frontier lands, Miro and Leovigild agreed upon a temporary peace.
The Suebi maintained their independence until 585, when Leovigild, on the pretext of conflict over the succession, invaded the Suebic kingdom and finally defeated it. Audeca, the last king of the Suebi, who had deposed his brother-in-law Eboric, held out for a year before being captured in 585. This same year a nobleman named Malaric rebelled against the Goths, but he was defeated.
As with the Visigothic language, there are only traces of the Suebi tongue remaining, as they quickly adopted the local vulgar Latin. Some words of plausible Suebi origin are the modern Galician and Portuguese words laverca (lark), meixengra or mejengra (titmouse), lobio (vine), escá (a measure, formerly "cup"), groba (ravine), and others. Much more significant was their contribution to names of the local toponymy and onomastics.
The historiography of the Suebi, and of Galicia in general, was long marginalized in Spanish culture, with the first connected history of the Suebi in Galicia being written by a German scholar. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Galicia |
History of the Middle East | In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Middle Eastern rulers tried to modernize their states to compete more effectively with Europe. In the Ottoman Empire, the Tanzimat reforms re-invigorated Ottoman rule and were furthered by the Young Ottomans in the late 19th century, leading to the First Constitutional Era in the Empire that included the writing of the 1876 constitution and the establishment of the Ottoman Parliament. The authors of the 1906 revolution in Persia all sought to import versions of the western model of constitutional government, civil law, secular education, and industrial development into their countries. Throughout the region, railways and telegraph lines were constructed, schools and universities were opened, and a new class of army officers, lawyers, teachers, and administrators emerged, challenging the traditional leadership of Islamic scholars.
This first Ottoman constitutional experiment ended soon after it began, however, when the autocratic Sultan Abdul Hamid II abolished the parliament and the constitution in favor of personal rule. Abdul Hamid ruled by decree for the next 30 years, stirring democratic resentment. The reform movement known as the Young Turks emerged in the 1890s against his rule, which included massacres against minorities. The Young Turks seized power in the 1908 Young Turk Revolution and established the Second Constitutional Era, leading to a pluralist and multiparty elections in the Empire for the first time in 1908. The Young Turks split into two parties, the pro-German and pro-centralization Committee of Union and Progress and the pro-British and pro-decentralization Freedom and Accord Party. The former was led by an ambitious pair of army officers, Ismail Enver Bey (later Pasha) and Ahmed Cemal Pasha, and a radical lawyer, Mehmed Talaat Bey (later Pasha). After a power struggle between the two parties of Young Turks, the Committee emerged victorious and became a ruling junta, with Talaat as Grand Vizier and Enver as War Minister, and established a German-funded modernisation program across the Empire.
Enver Bey's alliance with Germany, which he considered the most advanced military power in Europe, was enabled by British demands that the Ottoman Empire cede their formal capital Edirne (Adrianople) to the Bulgarians after losing the First Balkan War, which the Turks saw as a betrayal by Britain. These demands cost Britain the support of the Turks, as the pro-British Freedom and Accord Party was now repressed under the pro-German Committee for, in Enver's words, "shamefully delivering the country to the enemy" (Britain) after agreeing to the demands to give up Edirne. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Middle_East |
History of coffee | Gabriel de Clieu brought coffee seedlings to Martinique in the Caribbean in 1720. Those sprouts flourished and 50 years later there were 18,680 coffee trees in Martinique enabling the spread of coffee cultivation to Saint-Domingue (Haiti), Mexico and other islands of the Caribbean. The French territory of Saint-Domingue saw coffee cultivated starting in 1734, and by 1788 supplied half the world's coffee. Coffee had a major influence on the geography of Latin America. The French colonial plantations relied heavily on African slave laborers. However, the dreadful conditions that the slaves worked in on coffee plantations were a factor in the soon-to-follow Haitian Revolution. The coffee industry never fully recovered there.: 16
Coffee also found its way to the Isle of Bourbon, now known as Réunion, in the Indian Ocean. The plant produced smaller beans and was deemed a different variety of arabica known as var. Bourbon. The Santos coffee of Brazil and the Oaxaca coffee of Mexico are the progeny of that Bourbon tree. Circa 1727, the King of Portugal sent Francisco de Melo Palheta to French Guiana to obtain coffee seeds to become a part of the coffee market. Francisco initially had difficulty obtaining these seeds, but he captivated the French Governor's wife, and she sent him enough seeds and shoots to commence the coffee industry of Brazil. However, cultivation did not gather momentum until independence in 1822,: 19 leading to the clearing of massive tracts of the Atlantic Forest, first from the vicinity of Rio and later São Paulo for coffee plantations.: 20–24
In 1893, the coffee from Brazil was introduced into Kenya and Tanzania (Tanganyika), not far from its place of origin in Ethiopia, 600 years prior, ending its transcontinental journey.
After the Boston Tea Party of 1773, large numbers of Americans switched to drinking coffee during the American Revolution because drinking tea had become unpatriotic.
Cultivation was taken up by many countries in the latter half of the 19th century, and in almost all of them it involved the large-scale displacement and exploitation of indigenous people. Harsh conditions led to many uprisings, coups and bloody suppressions of peasants.: 33–34 For example, Guatemala started producing coffee in the 1500s but lacked the manpower to harvest the coffee beans. As a result, the Guatemalan government forced indigenous people to work on the fields. This led to a strain in the indigenous and Guatemalan people's relationship that still exists today. A notable exception is Costa Rica where a lack of ready labor prevented the formation of large farms. Smaller farms and more egalitarian conditions ameliorated unrest over the 19th and 20th centuries.
In the 20th century Latin American countries faced a possible economic collapse. Before World War II Europe was consuming large amounts of coffee. Once the war started Latin America lost 40% of its market and was on the verge of economic collapse. Coffee was and is a Latin American commodity. The United States saw this and talked with the Latin American countries and as a result the producers agreed on an equitable division of the U.S. market. The U.S. government monitored this agreement. For the period that this plan was followed the value of coffee doubled, which greatly benefited coffee producers and the Latin American countries.
Brazil became the largest producer of coffee in the world by 1852 and it has held that status ever since. It dominated world production, exporting more coffee than the rest of the world combined, from 1850 to 1950. The period since 1950 saw the widening of the playing field due to the emergence of several other major producers, notably Colombia, Ivory Coast, Ethiopia, and, most recently, Vietnam, which overtook Colombia and became the second-largest producer in 1999 and reached 15% market share by 2011.
Recent additions to the coffee market are lattes, Frappuccinos and other sugary coffee drinks. This has caused coffee houses to be able to use cheaper coffee beans in their coffee. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_coffee |
Mahdawi movement | Mahdavis are followers of Syed Muhammad Jaunpuri who declared himself to be the Mahdi.
The Mahdavis had strictly adhere to the Five Pillars of Islam, Sunnah, and Sharia, while having high respect and reverence for the House of Muhammad and his immediate progeny (Ahl-e-Bayt), the Rashidun Caliphs, and the Companions of Muhammad (Sahaba).
Mahdavis also respect all four schools of Islamic jurisprudence, but widely follow traditions similar to Hanafi jurisprudence.
They offer prayers five times a day led by their Murshids, or spiritual guides; fast during Ramadan; offer special thanks on Dugana Lailat-al-Qadr past midnight between 26 and 27 Ramadan; perform Hajj; and pay Zakat. They also attach great significance to Zikr (remembrance of Allah), after dawn Fajr prayers, and in the evening after Asr prayer.
Syed Muhammad was disturbed by the spiritual and moral degradation of Muslims. He preached a message of non-materialism and spirituality.
Mahdavis follow the seven obligations of sainthood, known as Faraiz-e-Vilayat-e-Muhammadiya. These obligations are: rejection of material lust (Tark-e-Dunya), quest for divine vision (Talab-e-Deedar-e-Ilahi), company of truthfuls and renunciants (Sohbat-e-Sadiqeen), migration (Hijrah) from place to place to avoid materialist lust, retreat and solitude (Uzlat-az-Khalq), resignation to the will of God (Tawakkul), repetition of the names of God (Zikr-e-Ilahi) and distributing tithe (Ushr). Followers of Jaunpuri strictly follow some of these obligations in their day-to-day life. Most of them initiate renunciation in the advanced stage of their lives, after getting retirement from the jobs or by handing over business to their heirs. Their renunciation is in any way not related to celibacy, because almost all of them get married.
Mahdavi community centers are known as Da'iras. Mahdavis engaged in extensive missionary activity.
Mohammad Jaunpuri declared himself to be the Mahdi, and as such a "Caliph of Allah." He claimed to teach the true inner meaning of the Qur'an and strictly adhere to the Sunnah of Muhammad. Jaunpuri's declaration was ignored by the Ulema of Mecca, but after he repeated his declaration in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, he gained a group of followers and established a line of caliphs who led the movement after his death. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahdawi_movement |
History of the State of Palestine | There are conflicting reports about the number of countries that extended their recognition to the proclaimed State of Palestine. In Annex 2 of the Request for the Admission of the State of Palestine to UNESCO from 12 May 1982, several Arab and African countries provided a list of 92 countries allegedly having extended such recognition. In the same document (Corrigendum 1), it is requested that Austria be removed from the list. Namibia is listed even though it was not independent at the time. The list also includes a considerable number of states that ceased to exist during the 1990s, most notably the German Democratic Republic, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Democratic Yemen, People's Republic of Kampuchea (today: Cambodia) and Zaire (today: Democratic Republic of the Congo). On 13 February 2008, The Palestinian Authorities' Minister of Foreign Affairs announced he could provide documents for the recognition of 67 countries in the proclaimed State of Palestine. The existing countries that are known to have extended such recognition include most Arab League nations, most African nations, and several Asian nations, including China and India.
Many countries, including European countries, the United States and Israel recognize the Palestinian Authority established in 1994, as per the Oslo Accords, as an autonomous geopolitical entity without extending recognition to the 1988 proclaimed State of Palestine.
Since the 1996 Summer Olympics, the International Olympic Committee have recognized a separate Palestine Olympic Committee and Palestinian team. Two track & field athletes, Majdi Abu Marahil and Ihab Salama, competed for the inaugural Palestinian team.
Since 1998, football's world governing body FIFA have recognized the Palestine national football team as a separate entity. On 26 October 2008 Palestine played their first match at home, a 1–1 draw against Jordan in the West Bank.
In December 2010-January 2011 Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Bolivia and Paraguay recognized a Palestinian state.
On January 18, 2011, Russia reiterated (first time 1988) its support and recognition of the state of Palestine.
In January 2011, Ireland upgraded the Palestinian delegation in Dublin to the status of a mission.
In July 2011, the Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity Movement organized a protest march in East Jerusalem, with approximately 3,000 people participating, carrying Palestinian flags and repeating slogans in favor of a unilateral declaration of independence by the Palestinian Authority. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_State_of_Palestine |
Arameans | The emergence of the Arameans occurred during the Bronze Age collapse (1200–900 BCE), which saw great upheavals and mass movements of peoples across the Middle East, Asia Minor, the Caucasus, the East Mediterranean, North Africa, Ancient Iran, Ancient Greece and the Balkans and led to the genesis of new peoples and polities across those regions.
The Middle Assyrian Empire (1365–1050 BCE), which had dominated the Near East and Asia Minor since the first half of the 14th century BCE, began to shrink rapidly after the death of Ashur-bel-kala, its last great ruler in 1056 BCE. The Assyrian withdrawal allowed the Arameans and others to gain independence and take firm control of what was then Eber-Nari (now Syria) in the late 11th century BCE.
Some of the major Aramean-speaking city states included Aram-Damascus, Hamath, Bet-Adini, Bet-Bagyan, Bit-Hadipe, Aram-Bet Rehob, Aram-Zobah, Bet-Zamani, Bet-Halupe, and Aram-Ma'akah, as well as the Aramean tribal polities of the Gambulu, Litau and Puqudu. Akkermans and Schwartz noted that in assessing Luwian and Aramean states in ancient Syria, the existing information on the ethnic composition of the regional states in ancient Syria primarily concerns the rulers and so the ethnolingustic situation of the majority of the population of the states is unclear. Furthermore, they mean that the material culture shows no distinctions between states dominated by the Luwians or the Arameans.
Later Biblical sources tell that Saul, David and Solomon (late 11th to 10th centuries) fought against the small Aramean states ranged across the northern frontier of Israel: Aram-Sôvah in the Beqaa, Aram-Bêt-Rehob (Rehov) and Aram-Ma'akah around Mount Hermon, Geshur in the Hauran, and Aram-Damascus. An Aramean king's account dating at least two centuries later, the Tel Dan Stele, was discovered in northern Israel and is famous for being perhaps the earliest non-Israelite extra-biblical historical reference to the Israelite royal dynasty, the House of David. In the early 11th century BCE, much of Israel came under foreign rule for eight years according to the Biblical Book of Judges until Othniel defeated the forces led by Cushan-Rishathaim, who was titled in the Bible as ruler of Aram-Naharaim.
Further north, the Arameans gained possession of post-Hittite Hamath on the Orontes River and were soon to become strong enough to dissociate with the Indo-European-speaking post-Hittite states.
The Arameans, together with the Edomites and the Ammonites, attacked Israel in the early 11th century BCE but were defeated. Meanwhile, Arameans moved to the east of the Euphrates and into Babylonia, where an Aramean usurper was crowned king of Babylon under the name of Adad-apal-iddin.
During the 11th and the 10th centuries BCE, the Arameans conquered Sam'al (modern Zenjirli), also known as Yaudi, the region from Arpad to Aleppo, and renamed it Bît-Agushi,. They also conquered Til Barsip, which became the chief town of Bît-Adini, also known as Beth Eden. North of Sam'al was the Aramean state of Bit Gabbari, which was sandwiched between the post-Hittite states of Carchemish, Gurgum, Khattina, Unqi and the Georgian state of Tabal.
One of their earliest semi-independent kingdoms in northern Mesopotamia was Bît-Bahiâni (Tell Halaf). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arameans |
History of slavery | Barbary Corsairs continued to trade in European slaves into the Modern time-period. Muslim pirates, primarily Algerians with the support of the Ottoman Empire, raided European coasts and shipping from the 16th to the 19th centuries, and took thousands of captives, whom they sold or enslaved. Many were held for ransom, and European communities raised funds such as Malta's Monte della Redenzione degli Schiavi to buy back their citizens. The raids gradually ended with the naval decline of the Ottoman Empire in the late 16th and 17th centuries, as well as the European conquest of North Africa throughout the 19th century.
From 1609 to 1616, England lost 466 merchant ships to Barbary pirates. 160 English ships were captured by Algerians between 1677 and 1680. Many of the captured sailors were made into slaves and held for ransom. The corsairs were no strangers to the South West of England where raids were known in a number of coastal communities. In 1627 Barbary Pirates under command of the Dutch renegade Jan Janszoon (Murat Reis), operating from the Moroccan port of Salé, occupied the island of Lundy. During this time there were reports of captured slaves being sent to Algiers.
Ireland, despite its northern position, was not immune from attacks by the corsairs. In June 1631 Janszoon, with pirates from Algiers and armed troops of the Ottoman Empire, stormed ashore at the little harbor village of Baltimore, County Cork. They captured almost all the villagers and took them away to a life of slavery in North Africa. The prisoners were destined for a variety of fates—some lived out their days chained to the oars as galley slaves, while others would spend long years in the scented seclusion of the harem or within the walls of the sultan's palace. Only two of them ever saw Ireland again.
The Congress of Vienna (1814–15), which ended the Napoleonic Wars, led to increased European consensus on the need to end Barbary raiding. The sacking of Palma on the island of Sardinia by a Tunisian squadron, which carried off 158 inhabitants, roused widespread indignation. Britain had by this time banned the slave trade and was seeking to induce other countries to do likewise. States that were more vulnerable to the corsairs complained that Britain cared more for ending the trade in African slaves than stopping the enslavement of Europeans and Americans by the Barbary States.
In order to neutralise this objection and further the anti-slavery campaign, in 1816 Britain sent Lord Exmouth to secure new concessions from Tripoli, Tunis, and Algiers, including a pledge to treat Christian captives in any future conflict as prisoners of war rather than slaves. He imposed peace between Algiers and the kingdoms of Sardinia and Sicily. On his first visit, Lord Exmouth negotiated satisfactory treaties and sailed for home. While he was negotiating, a number of Sardinian fishermen who had settled at Bona on the Tunisian coast were brutally treated without his knowledge. As Sardinians they were technically under British protection, and the government sent Exmouth back to secure reparation. On 17 August, in combination with a Dutch squadron under Admiral Van de Capellen, Exmouth bombarded Algiers. Both Algiers and Tunis made fresh concessions as a result.
The Barbary states had difficulty securing uniform compliance with a total prohibition of slave-raiding, as this had been traditionally of central importance to the North African economy. Slavers continued to take captives by preying on less well-protected peoples. Algiers subsequently renewed its slave-raiding, though on a smaller scale. Europeans at the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1818 discussed possible retaliation. In 1820 a British fleet under Admiral Sir Harry Neal bombarded Algiers. Corsair activity based in Algiers did not entirely cease until France conquered the state in 1830. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery |
Kuwait University | Kuwait University follows the Credit Hour System (approved hours), with teaching arranged on semester basis, except in the Faculty of Law, which follows the yearly system of continuous teaching, and the Health Sciences Center's faculties.
Academic programs operate on a semester calendar beginning mid-September and finishing at the end of May. Each semester lasts about 15 to 17 weeks. The fall semester commences the second week of September and lasts until the end of December. The spring semester commences at the end of January and lasts until the end of May. Enrollment in the summer program is optional. It lasts eight weeks including the examination period, as approved by the university.
Information resources
Kuwait University Libraries (KUL) information resources contain 526,000 titles/651,000 volumes of Arabic and non-Arabic monographs, reference materials, dissertations and reports. KUL subscribes to 76 databases and E-Books - contain 10,000 titles in various fields - 1645 printed journals (Arabic, non-Arabic) and 783 online journals (Arabic, non-Arabic). In addition, the audio-visual collection consists of approximately 20,000 items including 9800 scientific films, manuscripts collection consists of 1300 original and 22,000 copy. The library catalog (OPAC) includes bibliographic records for the Arabic and foreign books and periodicals of all disciplines.
Students admission process
The Admissions and Registration Deanship regulates the admission process, and is responsible for reviewing students’ applications and determining their admission, based on each program's requirements as established by the faculties and the University Council. The admissions decision is based on an aptitude test administered by the university 3 times a year. The Deanship oversees admitting students from other countries, and whether cultural scholarships will be awarded to them by the university; similarly, the Deanship also determines whether a degree will be awarded by the university.
Admission requirements
Admission is open to students who have successfully completed their secondary education and meet the requirements set forth by the university's admission policy. All admitted students choose the degree program they wish to join and the courses they wish to attend on a full-time basis. Students admitted to the College of Graduate Studies pursue their studies either on full- or part-time basis.
Admission requirements may require students to take an aptitude test prior to being accepted to a faculty; in such instances, admission is determined using the equivalent average system (combining the student's high school grade point average (GPA) with the results of the aptitude test) as a prerequisite for admission to the College of Engineering and Petroleum, Allied Health Sciences, Administrative Sciences, Health Science Center, Life Sciences, and Computing Science and Engineering, or through personalized interviews, as determined by the College of Law, and the College of Education.
Transfer of students
Students may transfer internally from one department or faculty to another; students not currently enrolled may formally apply to transfer from another university to Kuwait University.
Credit system
With the exception of the Faculty of Law, the Faculty of Medicine, and the Faculty of Dentistry, the university follows the credit system, which makes it mandatory for each student to complete a minimum number of credits to qualify for the award of a degree. Students have the option of selecting courses to fulfill their major sheet requirements.
Academic majors and minors
An academic major consists of a group of courses necessary for specialization in a given discipline. An academic minor consists of a number of courses that usually constitute a less demanding specialization, taken in addition to the major.
Graduation time and requirements
Normally it takes eight semesters for students to successfully complete their programs, and to qualify for graduation. However, for the Engineering and Petroleum program, the courses normally last for nine semesters, and for the Architecture program, 10 semesters. The Medical and Dentistry programs require seven years of study to qualify for graduation. The pharmacy program requires 5 years of study. Students are awarded their university degrees upon successfully completing the required credit units.
Honors system
Each faculty maintains a list of its honors students who achieve a grade point average of 3.5 and above. Students who finish their program's requirements within the prescribed period and graduate with a grade point average of 3.67 are awarded an honors degree in recognition of their academic excellence. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuwait_University |
Sennacherib | The discovery of Sennacherib's own inscriptions in the 19th century, in which brutal and cruel acts such as ordering the throats of his Elamite enemies to be slit, and their hands and lips cut off, amplified his already ferocious reputation. Today, many such inscriptions are known, most of them housed in the collections of the Vorderasiatisches Museum in Berlin and the British Museum in London, though many are located throughout the world in other institutions and private collections. Some large objects with Sennacherib's inscriptions remain at Nineveh, where some have even been reburied. Sennacherib's own accounts of his building projects and military campaigns, typically referred to as his "annals", were often copied several times and spread throughout the Neo-Assyrian Empire during his reign. For the first six years of his reign, they were written on clay cylinders, but he later began using clay prisms, probably because they provided a greater surface area.
Letters associated with Sennacherib are fewer in number than those known from his father and the time of his son Esarhaddon; most of them are from Sennacherib's tenure as crown prince. Other types of non-royal inscriptions from Sennacherib's reign, such as administrative documents, economic documents and chronicles, are more numerous. In addition to written sources, many pieces of artwork have also survived from Sennacherib's time, notably the king's reliefs from his palace at Nineveh. They typically depict his conquests, sometimes with short pieces of text explaining the scene shown. First discovered and excavated from 1847 to 1851 by the British archaeologist Austen Henry Layard, the discovery of reliefs depicting Sennacherib's siege of Lachish in the Southwest Palace was the first archaeological confirmation of an event described in the Bible.
The Assyriologists Hormuzd Rassam and Henry Creswicke Rawlinson from 1852 to 1854, William Kennett Loftus from 1854 to 1855 and George Smith from 1873 to 1874 led further excavations of the Southwest Palace. Among the many inscriptions found at the site, Smith discovered a fragmentary account of a flood, which generated much excitement both among scholars and the public. Since Smith, the site has experienced several periods of intense excavation and study; Rassam returned from 1878 to 1882, the Egyptologist E. A. Wallis Budge oversaw excavations from 1889 to 1891, the Assyriologist Leonard William King from 1903 to 1904 and the Assyriologist Reginald Campbell Thompson in 1905 and from 1931 to 1932. The Iraqi Department of Antiquities under the Assyriologist Tariq Madhloom conducted the most recent expeditions from 1965 to 1968. Many of Sennacherib's reliefs are exhibited today at the Vorderasiatisches Museum, the British Museum, the Iraq Museum in Baghdad, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Louvre in Paris.
The traditional negative assessment of Sennacherib as a ruthless conqueror has faded away in modern scholarship. Writing in 1978, Reade assessed Sennacherib as a king who stands out among Assyrian rulers as open-minded and far-sighted and that he was a man "who not only coped effectively with ordinary crises but even turned them to advantage as he created, or attempted to create, a stable imperial structure immune from traditional problems". Reade believes that the collapse of the Assyrian Empire within seventy years of Sennacherib's death can be partly attributed to later kings ignoring Sennacherib's policies and reforms. Elayi, writing in 2018, concluded that Sennacherib was different both from the traditional negative image of him and from the perfect image the king wanted to convey himself through his inscriptions, but that elements of both were true. According to Elayi, Sennacherib was "certainly intelligent, skillful, with an ability of adaptation", but "his sense of piety was contradictory, as, on the one hand, he impiously destroyed the statues of gods and temples of Babylon while, on the other hand, he used to consult the gods before acting and prayed to them". Elayi believes Sennacherib's greatest flaw was "his irascible, vindictive and impatient character" and that he, when emotional, could be pushed to make irrational decisions.
In 2011, a huge slope was discovered in Qasr Shemamok (Kilizu) in Erbil governorate , with a multi-step staircase of very low height, the steps are built of proud bricks, and a cuneiform text was found on one of the proud bricks with which the stairs were built bearing the name of the Assyrian king Sennacherib. During the French excavations, many cuneiform inscriptions were found, most of which bear a text mentioning one of the king's titles, mentioning the construction of wall and a palace in the city. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sennacherib |
Islamic architecture | In West Africa, Muslim merchants played a vital role in the western Sahel region since the 9th century through trans-Saharan trade networks. While the Islamic architecture of this region shares a certain style, a wide variety of materials and local styles are evident across this wide geographic range. In the more arid western Sahara and northern Sahel regions, stone predominates as a building material and is often associated with Berber cultures. In the southern Sahel and savannah regions mud-brick and rammed earth are the main material and is now associated with the most monumental examples of West African Islamic architecture. In some places, like Timbuktu and Oualata, both building materials are used together, with stone constructions either covered or bound with a mud plaster.The earliest mosques discovered in sub-Saharan Africa are at Kumbi Saleh (in present-day southern Mauritania), the former capital of the Ghana Empire. Here, a mosque has been discovered which consisted of a courtyard, a prayer hall, and a square minaret, built in dry stone covered in red mud used as plaster. On both the exterior and interior of the mosque, this plaster was painted with floral, geometric, and epigraphic motifs. A similar stone mosque from the same period has been found at Awdaghust. Both mosques are dated generally between the 9th and 14th centuries. At Kumbi Saleh, locals lived in domed-shaped dwellings in the king's section of the city, surrounded by a great enclosure. Traders lived in stone houses in a section which possessed 12 mosques (as described by Al-Bakri), one centered on Friday prayer.
As Islamization progressed across the region, more variations developed in mosque architecture, including the adoption of traditional local forms not previously associated with Islamic architecture. Under Songhai influence, minarets took on a more pyramidal appearance and became stepped or tiered on three levels, as exemplified by the tower of the mosque–tomb of Askia al-Hajj Muhammad in Gao (present-day Mali). In Timbuktu, the Sankoré Mosque (established in the 14th-15th centuries and rebuilt in the 16th century, with later additions), had a tapering minaret and a prayer hall with rows of arches. The presence of tapering minarets may also reflect cultural contacts with M'zab region to the north, while decoration found at Timbuktu may reflect contacts with Berber communities in what is now Mauritania.
In the earthen (mud) architecture of the region, scholar Andrew Petersen distinguishes two main styles: a "western" style that may have its roots in Djenné (present-day Mali), and an "eastern" style associated with Hausa architecture that may have its roots in Kano (present-day Nigeria). The eastern or Hausa style is generally more plain on the exterior of buildings, but is characterized by diverse interior decoration and the much greater use of wood. Mosques often have prayer halls with pillars supporting flat or slightly domed roofs of wood and mud. An exceptional example is the 19th-century Great Mosque of Zaria (present-day Nigeria), which has parabolic arches and a roof of shallow domes. The western or "Sudan" style is characterized by more elaborate and decorated exterior façades whose compositions emphasize verticality. They have tapering buttresses with cone-shaped summits, mosques have a large tower over the mihrab, and wooden stakes (toron) are often embedded in the walls – used for scaffolding but possibly also for some symbolic purpose.
More hybrid styles also arose further south and on the edge of Islamized areas. In the Fouta Djallon region, in the Guinea Highlands, mosques were built with a traditional rectangular or square layout, but then covered by a huge conical thatched roof which protects from the rain. This type of roof was an existing feature of the traditional circular huts inhabited by the locals, re-adapted to cover new rectangular mosques when the mostly Muslim Fula people settled the region in the 18th century. A good example is the Friday mosque of Dinguiraye in Guinea, built in 1850 (with later restorations). Many others are attested in the same region overlapping with southern Senegal, western Mali, and Burkina Faso.
During the French colonial occupation of the Sahel, French engineers and architects had a role in popularizing a "Neo-Sudanese" style based on local traditional architecture but emphasizing symmetry and monumentality. The Great Mosque of Djenné, which was previously established in the 14th century but demolished in the early 19th century, was rebuilt in 1906–1907 under the direction of Ismaila Traoré and with guidance from French engineers. Now the largest earthen building in sub-Saharan Africa, it served as a model for the new style and for other mosques in the region, including the Grand Mosque of Mopti built by the French administration in 1935. Other 20th-century and more recent mosques in West Africa have tended to replicate a more generic style similar to that of modern Egypt. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_architecture |
Noocracy | Proponents of democracy attempt to show that noocracy is intrinsically unjust on two dimensions, stating its unfairness and bad results. The former states that since people with different income levels and education backgrounds have unequal access to information, the epistocratic legislative body will be naturally composed of citizens with higher economic status, and thus fail to equally represent different demographics of the society. The latter argument is about the policy outcomes; since there will be a demographic overrepresentation and underrepresentation in the noocratic body, the system will produce unjust outcomes, favoring the demographically advantaged group. Brennan defends noocracy against these two criticisms, presenting a rationale for the system.
As a rejection of the unfairness argument put forward by democrats, Brennan argues that the voting electorate in modern democracies is also demographically disproportionate; based on empirical studies, it has been demonstrated that voters coming from privileged background, such as white, middle aged, higher-income men, tend to vote at a higher rate than other demographic groups. Although de jure every group has same right to vote under one person one vote assumption, de facto practices show that privileged people have more influence on election results. As a result, the representatives will not match the demographics of the society either, for which democracy seems to be unjust in practice. With the right of type of noocracy, the unfairness effect can actually be minimized; for instance, enfranchisement lottery, in which a legislative electorate is selected at random by lottery, and then incentivized to become competent to address political issues, illustrates a fair representation methodology thanks to its randomness.
To refute the latter claim, Brennan states that voters do not vote selfishly; in other terms, the advantaged group does not attempt to undermine the interests of the minority group. Therefore, the worry that noocratic bodies that are demographically more skewed towards the advantaged group make decisions in favor of the advantaged one fails. According to Brennan, noocracy can serve in a way that improves the welfare of the overall community, rather than certain individuals. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noocracy |
Assyrian people | As early as the 8th century BC Luwian and Cilician subject rulers referred to their Assyrian overlords as Syrian, a western Indo-European corruption of the original term Assyrian. The Greeks used the terms "Syrian" and "Assyrian" interchangeably to indicate the indigenous Arameans, Assyrians and other inhabitants of the Near East, Herodotus considered "Syria" west of the Euphrates. Starting from the 2nd century BC onwards, ancient writers referred to the Seleucid ruler as the King of Syria or King of the Syrians. The Seleucids designated the districts of Seleucis and Coele-Syria explicitly as Syria and ruled the Syrians as indigenous populations residing west of the Euphrates in contrast to Assyrians who had their native homeland in Mesopotamia east of the Euphrates.
This version of the name took hold in the Hellenic lands to the west of the old Assyrian Empire, thus during Greek Seleucid rule from 323 BC the name Assyria was altered to Syria, and this term was also applied to areas west of Euphrates which had been an Assyrian colony, and from this point the Greeks applied the term without distinction between the Assyrians of Mesopotamia and Arameans of the Levant.
The question of ethnic identity and self-designation is sometimes connected to the scholarly debate on the etymology of "Syria". The question has a long history of academic controversy, but majority mainstream opinion currently strongly favours that Syria is indeed ultimately derived from the Assyrian term Aššūrāyu. Meanwhile, some scholars has disclaimed the theory of Syrian being derived from Assyrian as "simply naive", and detracted its importance to the naming conflict.
Rudolf Macuch points out that the Eastern Neo-Aramaic press initially used the term "Syrian" (suryêta) and only much later, with the rise of nationalism, switched to "Assyrian" (atorêta). According to Tsereteli, however, a Georgian equivalent of "Assyrians" appears in ancient Georgian, Armenian and Russian documents. This correlates with the theory of the nations to the East of Mesopotamia knew the group as Assyrians, while to the West, beginning with Greek influence, the group was known as Syrians. Syria being a Greek corruption of Assyria. The debate appears to have been settled by the discovery of the Çineköy inscription in favour of Syria being derived from Assyria.
The Çineköy inscription is a Hieroglyphic Luwian-Phoenician bilingual, uncovered from Çineköy, Adana Province, Turkey (ancient Cilicia), dating to the 8th century BC. Originally published by Tekoglu and Lemaire (2000), it was more recently the subject of a 2006 paper published in the Journal of Near Eastern Studies, in which the author, Robert Rollinger, lends support to the age-old debate of the name "Syria" being derived from "Assyria" (see Etymology of Syria).
The object on which the inscription is found is a monument belonging to Urikki, vassal king of Hiyawa (i.e., Cilicia), dating to the eighth century BC. In this monumental inscription, Urikki made reference to the relationship between his kingdom and his Assyrian overlords. The Luwian inscription reads "Sura/i" whereas the Phoenician translation reads 'ŠR or "Ashur" which, according to Rollinger (2006), "settles the problem once and for all".
The modern terminological problem goes back to colonial times, but it became more acute in 1946, when with the independence of Syria, the adjective Syrian referred to an independent state. The controversy is not restricted to exonyms like English "Assyrian" vs. "Aramaean", but also applies to self-designation in Neo-Aramaic, the minority "Aramaean" faction endorses both Sūryāyē ܣܘܪܝܝܐ and Ārāmayē ܐܪܡܝܐ, while the majority "Assyrian" faction endorses Āṯūrāyē ܐܬܘܪܝܐ or Sūryāyē. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assyrian_people |
Islamic clothing | Islamic dress in Europe, notably the variety of headdresses worn by Muslim women, has become a prominent symbol of the presence of Islam in western Europe. In several countries the adherence to hijab (an Arabic noun meaning "to cover") has led to political controversies and proposals for a legal ban. The Netherlands government has decided to introduce a ban on face-covering clothing, popularly described as the "burqa ban", although it does not only apply to the Afghan-model burqa. Other countries, such as France and Australia are debating similar legislation, or have more limited prohibitions. Some of them apply only to face-covering clothing such as the burqa, chador, boushiya, or niqab; some apply to any clothing with an Islamic religious symbolism such as the khimar, a type of headscarf (some countries already have laws banning the wearing of masks in public, which can be applied to veils that conceal the face). The issue has different names in different countries, and "the veil" or "hijab" may be used as general terms for the debate, representing more than just the veil itself, or the concept of modesty embodied in hijab.
Although the Balkans and Eastern Europe have indigenous Muslim populations, most Muslims in western Europe are members of immigrant communities. The issue of Islamic dress is linked with issues of migration and the position of Islam in western society. European Commissioner Franco Frattini said in November 2006, that he did not favour a ban on the burqa. This is apparently the first official statement on the issue of prohibition of Islamic dress from the European Commission, the executive of the European Union. The reasons given for prohibition vary. Legal bans on face-covering clothing are often justified on security grounds, as an anti-terrorism measure.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali sees Islam as incompatible with Western values, at least in its present form. She advocates the values of 'Enlightenment liberalism', including secularism and equality of women. For her, the burqa or chador is both a symbol of religious obscurantism and the oppression of women. Western Enlightenment values, in her view, require prohibition, regardless of whether a woman has freely chosen Islamic dress. Islamic dress is also seen as a symbol of the existence of parallel societies, and the failure of integration: in 2006 British Prime Minister Tony Blair described it as a "mark of separation". Visible symbols of a non-Christian culture conflict with the national identity in European states, which assumes a shared (non-religious) culture. Proposals for a ban may be linked to other related cultural prohibitions: the Dutch politician Geert Wilders proposed a ban on hijabs, Islamic schools, new mosques, and non-western immigration.
In France and Turkey, the emphasis is on the secular nature of the state, and the symbolic nature of the Islamic dress. In Turkey, bans apply at state institutions (courts, civil service) and in state-funded education. In 2004, France passed a law banning "symbols or clothes through which students conspicuously display their religious affiliation" (including hijab) in public primary schools, middle schools, and secondary schools, but this law does not concern universities (in French universities, applicable legislation grants students freedom of expression as long as public order is preserved). These bans also cover Islamic headscarves, which in some other countries are seen as less controversial, although law court staff in the Netherlands are also forbidden to wear Islamic headscarves on grounds of 'state neutrality'. An apparently less politicized argument is that in specific professions (teaching), a ban on "veils" (niqab) is justified since face-to-face communication and eye contact are required. This argument has featured prominently in judgements in Britain and the Netherlands after students or teachers were banned from wearing face-covering clothing. The public and political response to such prohibition proposals is complex, since by definition they mean that the government decides on individual clothing. Some non-Muslims, who would not be affected by a ban, see it as an issue of civil liberties, as a slippery slope leading to further restrictions on private life. A public opinion poll in London showed that 75 percent of Londoners support "the right of all persons to dress in accordance with their religious beliefs". In another poll in the United Kingdom by Ipsos MORI, 61 percent agreed that "Muslim women are segregating themselves" by wearing a veil, yet 77 percent thought they should have the right to wear it. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_clothing |
Dassault Rafale | The Rafale's glass cockpit was designed around the principle of data fusion—a central computer selects and prioritises information to display to pilots for simpler command and control. For displaying information gathered from a range of sensors across the aircraft, the cockpit features a wide-angle holographic head-up display (HUD) system, two head-down flat-panel colour multi-function displays (MFDs) as well as a central collimated display. These displays have been strategically placed to minimise pilot distraction from the external environment. Some displays feature a touch interface for ease of human–computer interaction (HCI). A head-mounted display (HMD) remains to be integrated to take full advantage of its MICA missiles. The cockpit is fully compatible with night vision goggles (NVG). The primary flight controls are arranged in a hands-on-throttle-and-stick (HOTAS)-compatible configuration, with a right-handed side-stick controller and a left-handed throttle. The seat is inclined rearwards at an angle of 29° to improve g-force tolerance during manoeuvring and to provide a less restricted external pilot view.
Great emphasis has been placed on pilot workload minimisation across all operations. Among the features of the highly digitised cockpit is an integrated direct voice input (DVI) system, allowing a range of aircraft functions to be controlled by spoken voice commands, simplifying the pilot's access to many of the controls. Developed by Crouzet, the DVI is capable of managing radio communications and countermeasures systems, the selection of armament and radar modes, and controlling navigational functions. For safety reasons, DVI is deliberately not employed for safety-critical elements of the aircraft's operation, such as the final release of weapons.
In the area of life support, the Rafale is fitted with a Martin-Baker Mark 16F "zero-zero" ejection seat, capable of operation at zero speed and zero altitude. An on-board oxygen generating system, developed by Air Liquide, eliminates the need to carry bulky oxygen canisters. The Rafale's flight computer has been programmed to counteract pilot disorientation and to employ automatic recovery of the aircraft during negative flight conditions. The auto-pilot and autothrottle controls are also integrated, and are activated by switches located on the primary flight controls. An intelligent flight suit worn by the pilot is automatically controlled by the aircraft to counteract in response to calculated g-forces. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dassault_Rafale |
Sindh | The British conquered Sindh in 1843. General Charles Napier is said to have reported victory to the Governor General with a one-word telegram, namely "Peccavi" – or "I have sinned" (Latin). The British had two objectives in their rule of Sindh: the consolidation of British rule and the use of Sindh as a market for British products and a source of revenue and raw materials. With the appropriate infrastructure in place, the British hoped to utilise Sindh for its economic potential. The British incorporated Sindh, some years later after annexing it, into the Bombay Presidency. Distance from the provincial capital, Bombay, led to grievances that Sindh was neglected in contrast to other parts of the Presidency. The merger of Sindh into Punjab province was considered from time to time but was turned down because of British disagreement and Sindhi opposition, both from Muslims and Hindus, to being annexed to Punjab.
Later, desire for a separate administrative status for Sindh grew. At the annual session of the Indian National Congress in 1913, a Sindhi Hindu put forward the demand for Sindh's separation from the Bombay Presidency on the grounds of Sindh's unique cultural character. This reflected the desire of Sindh's predominantly Hindu commercial class to free itself from competing with the more powerful Bombay's business interests. Meanwhile, Sindhi politics was characterised in the 1920s by the growing importance of Karachi and the Khilafat Movement. A number of Sindhi pirs, descendants of Sufi saints who had proselytised in Sindh, joined the Khilafat Movement, which propagated the protection of the Ottoman Caliphate, and those pirs who did not join the movement found a decline in their following. The pirs generated huge support for the Khilafat cause in Sindh. Sindh came to be at the forefront of the Khilafat Movement.
Although Sindh had a cleaner record of communal harmony than other parts of India, the province's Muslim elite and emerging Muslim middle class demanded separation of Sindh from Bombay Presidency as a safeguard for their own interests. In this campaign, local Sindhi Muslims identified 'Hindu' with Bombay instead of Sindh. Sindhi Hindus were seen as representing the interests of Bombay instead of the majority of Sindhi Muslims. Sindhi Hindus, for the most part, opposed the separation of Sindh from Bombay. Although Sindh had a culture of religious syncretism, communal harmony and tolerance due to Sindh's strong Sufi culture in which both Sindhi Muslims and Sindhi Hindus partook, both the Muslim landed elite, waderas, and the Hindu commercial elements, banias, collaborated in oppressing the predominantly Muslim peasantry of Sindh who were economically exploited. Sindhi Muslims eventually demanded the separation of Sindh from the Bombay Presidency, a move opposed by Sindhi Hindus.
In Sindh's first provincial election after its separation from Bombay in 1936, economic interests were an essential factor of politics informed by religious and cultural issues. Due to British policies, much land in Sindh was transferred from Muslim to Hindu hands over the decades. Religious tensions rose in Sindh over the Sukkur Manzilgah issue where Muslims and Hindus disputed over an abandoned mosque in proximity to an area sacred to Hindus. The Sindh Muslim League exploited the issue and agitated for the return of the mosque to Muslims. Consequentially, a thousand members of the Muslim League were imprisoned. Eventually, due to panic the government restored the mosque to Muslims. The separation of Sindh from Bombay Presidency triggered Sindhi Muslim nationalists to support the Pakistan Movement. Even while the Punjab and North-West Frontier Province were ruled by parties hostile to the Muslim League, Sindh remained loyal to Jinnah. Although the prominent Sindhi Muslim nationalist G.M. Syed left the All India Muslim League in the mid-1940s and his relationship with Jinnah never improved, the overwhelming majority of Sindhi Muslims supported the creation of Pakistan, seeing in it their deliverance. Sindhi support for the Pakistan Movement arose from the desire of the Sindhi Muslim business class to drive out their Hindu competitors. The Muslim League's rise to becoming the party with the strongest support in Sindh was in large part linked to its winning over of the religious pir families. Although the Muslim League had previously fared poorly in the 1937 elections in Sindh, when local Sindhi Muslim parties won more seats, the Muslim League's cultivation of support from local pirs in 1946 helped it gain a foothold in the province, it didn't take long for the overwhelming majority of Sindhi Muslims to campaign for the creation of Pakistan. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sindh |
Mesopotamia | From Sumerian times, temple priesthoods had attempted to associate current events with certain positions of the planets and stars. This continued to Assyrian times, when Limmu lists were created as a year by year association of events with planetary positions, which, when they have survived to the present day, allow accurate associations of relative with absolute dating for establishing the history of Mesopotamia.
The Babylonian astronomers were very adept at mathematics and could predict eclipses and solstices. Scholars thought that everything had some purpose in astronomy. Most of these related to religion and omens. Mesopotamian astronomers worked out a 12-month calendar based on the cycles of the moon. They divided the year into two seasons: summer and winter. The origins of astronomy as well as astrology date from this time.
During the 8th and 7th centuries BC, Babylonian astronomers developed a new approach to astronomy. They began studying philosophy dealing with the ideal nature of the early universe and began employing an internal logic within their predictive planetary systems. This was an important contribution to astronomy and the philosophy of science and some scholars have thus referred to this new approach as the first scientific revolution. This new approach to astronomy was adopted and further developed in Greek and Hellenistic astronomy.
In Seleucid and Parthian times, the astronomical reports were thoroughly scientific. How much earlier their advanced knowledge and methods were developed is uncertain. The Babylonian development of methods for predicting the motions of the planets is considered to be a major episode in the history of astronomy.
The only Greek-Babylonian astronomer known to have supported a heliocentric model of planetary motion was Seleucus of Seleucia (b. 190 BC). Seleucus is known from the writings of Plutarch. He supported Aristarchus of Samos' heliocentric theory where the Earth rotated around its own axis which in turn revolved around the Sun. According to Plutarch, Seleucus even proved the heliocentric system, but it is not known what arguments he used, except that he correctly theorized on tides as a result of the Moon's attraction.
Babylonian astronomy served as the basis for much of Greek, classical Indian, Sassanian, Byzantine, Syrian, medieval Islamic, Central Asian, and Western European astronomy. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesopotamia |
Salafi movement | Modern Salafists consider the 18th-century scholar Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab and many of his students to have been Salafis. He started a reform movement in the remote, sparsely populated region of Najd. He invited people to Tawhid (monotheism) and advocated purging of practices such as shrine and tomb visitation, which were widespread among Muslims. Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab considered such practices as aspects of idolatry, representative of impurities and inappropriate innovations in Islam which contradicted Tawhid. While Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab stressed on the importance of obedience to sharia, he also obliged Muslims to uphold sharia by reading and following the Scriptures. Like their paragon scholar Ibn Taymiyya, Wahhabis did not believe in blind-adherence (Taqlid) and advocated engaging with the Qur'an and Hadith through Ijtihad (legal reasoning), emphasizing simplicity in religious rituals and practices. Thus, classical-era legal works by Fuqaha were not considered as authoritative as the Scriptures themselves, since the former were human interpretations while the Qur'an is the Universal, Eternal Word of God.
The Salafi movement in Saudi Arabia is the result of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab's reform movement. Unlike other reform movements, Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab and his disciples were also able to secure a religio-political pact with Muhammad Ibn Saud and his House; which enabled them to engage in military expansionism and establish an Islamic state in the Arabian Peninsula. While the mainstream constituency believed in Islamic revival through education and welfare reforms, the militant elements of the movement advocated armed campaigns to eradicate local practices considered as innovation and demolished numerous shrines and tombs of saints (awliya). It is believed that the Wahhabism is a more strict, Saudi form of Salafism, according to Mark Durie, who states that Saudi leaders "are active and diligent" using their considerable financial resources "in funding and promoting Salafism all around the world". Ahmad Moussalli tends to agree with the view that Wahhabism is a subset of Salafism, saying "As a rule, all Wahhabis are salafists, but not all salafists are Wahhabis".
However, many scholars and critics distinguish between the old form of Saudi Salafism (termed as Wahhabism) and the new Salafism in Saudi Arabia. Stéphane Lacroix, a fellow and lecturer at Sciences Po in Paris, also affirmed a distinction between the two: "As opposed to Wahhabism, Salafism refers […] to all the hybridations that have taken place since the 1960s between the teachings of Muhammad bin ‘Abd al-Wahhab and other Islamic schools of thought". Hamid Algar and Khaled Abou El Fadl believe, during the 1960s and 70s, Wahhabism rebranded itself as Salafism knowing it could not "spread in the modern Muslim world" as Wahhabism.
Its largesse funded an estimated "90% of the expenses of the entire faith", throughout the Muslim World, according to journalist Dawood al-Shirian. It extended to young and old, from children's madrasas to high-level scholarship. "Books, scholarships, fellowships, mosques" (for example, "more than 1,500 mosques were built from Saudi public funds over the last 50 years") were paid for. It rewarded journalists and academics, who followed it and built satellite campuses around Egypt for Al Azhar, the oldest and most influential Islamic university. Yahya Birt counts spending on "1,500 mosques, 210 Islamic centres and dozens of Muslim academies and schools" at a cost of around $2–3bn annually since 1975. To put the number into perspective, the propaganda budget of the Soviet Union was about $1bn per annum.
This spending has done much to overwhelm less strict local interpretations of Islam, according to observers like Dawood al-Shirian and Lee Kuan Yew, and has caused the Saudi interpretation (sometimes called "petro-Islam") to be perceived as the correct interpretation – or the "gold standard" of Islam – in many Muslims' minds.
Salafis are sometimes labelled "Wahhabis", often in a derogatory manner by their sectarian opponents. Some Western critics often conflate Wahhabis and Salafis, although numerous Western academics have challenged such depictions. While Wahhabism is viewed as a Salafist movement in Arabian Peninsula that took inspiration from Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab and his successors in the Aal al-Shaykh, the broader Salafist movement have deeper roots across the Muslim World. Often times, other Salafis oppose the stance of Gulf-based Wahhabis on various issues and engage in a variety of political activities. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salafi_movement |
Majorelle Garden | The Majorelle Garden was designed by the French artist, Jacques Majorelle (1886–1962), son of the Art Nouveau ébéniste (cabinet-maker) of Nancy, Louis Majorelle. As a young aspiring painter, Jacques Majorelle was sent to Morocco in around 1917 to convalesce from a serious medical condition. After spending a short time in Casablanca, he travelled to Marrakech and like many of his contemporaries, fell in love with the vibrant colours and street life he found there. After travelling around North Africa and the Mediterranean, he eventually decided to settle permanently in Marrakech.
During his lifetime, Majorelle earned a reputation as a celebrated Orientalist painter. The special shade of bold cobalt blue, inspired by the coloured tiles he had seen around Marrakech and in Berber burnouses, was used extensively in the garden and its buildings and is named after him, bleu Majorelle—Majorelle Blue. Prior to his death, Majorelle patented the colour which carries his name.
In 1923, just four years after his marriage to Andrée Longueville, Majorelle purchased a four-acre plot, situated on the border of a palm grove in Marrakech and built a house in the Mooroccan style. In 1931, he commissioned the architect, Paul Sinoir, to design a Cubist villa for the property. Gradually, he purchased additional land, extending his holding by some 10 acres. In the grounds around the residence, Majorelle began planting a luxuriant garden which would become known as the Jardins Majorelle (Majorelle Garden). The garden became his life's work and he devoted himself to developing it for almost forty years.
The garden proved costly to run and in 1947, Majorelle opened the garden to the public with an admission fee designed to defray the cost of maintenance. At times, he sold off parcels of land to fund the growing garden. Following his divorce in the 1950s, Majorelle was forced to sell the house and land. After this, the garden was neglected and fell into disrepair. The garden and villa were rediscovered in the 1980s, by fashion designers, Yves Saint-Laurent and Pierre Bergé who set about restoring it and saving it. The pair owned the villa until 2008. After Yves Saint Laurent died in 2008 his ashes were scattered in the Majorelle Garden.
Since 2010, the property has been owned by the Foundation Pierre Bergé – Yves Saint Laurent, a French not-for-profit organisation and since 2011 has been managed by the Foundation Jardin Majorelle, a recognized non-profit organization in Marrakech. Pierre Bergé was the director of the Garden's Foundation until his death in September, 2017. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majorelle_Garden |
Boko Haram | In 2012, the U.S. Department of State had an internal debate on whether to place Boko Haram on its list of FTOs (Foreign Terrorist Organizations). The Bureau of Counterterrorism leaned towards designation while the Bureau of African Affairs urged caution. Officials from the Justice Department, the FBI, the CIA, and a number of members of Congress urged the State Department to designate Boko Haram as an FTO. The Nigerian government voiced its opposition to an FTO designation, citing concerns that it would raise Boko Haram's stature and have implications for humanitarian aid in the region where Boko Haram operated. Twenty academic experts on Nigeria signed a letter to the State Department urging it not to designate Boko Haram as an FTO, saying that it would hinder NGO efforts in the region and might legitimize the Nigerian Army's human rights abuses in its efforts to fight Boko Haram.
The U.S. State Department designated Boko Haram and its offshoot Ansaru as terrorist organizations in November 2013, citing Boko Haram's links with AQIM and its responsibility for "thousands of deaths in northeast and central Nigeria over the last several years including targeted killings of civilians". The State Department also cited Ansaru's 2013 kidnapping and execution of seven international construction workers. In the statement it was noted, however, "These designations are an important and appropriate step, but only one tool in what must be a comprehensive approach by the Nigerian government to counter these groups through a combination of law enforcement, political, and development efforts." The State Department had resisted earlier calls to designate Boko Haram as a terrorist group after the 2011 Abuja United Nations bombing. The U.S. government does not believe Boko Haram is currently (2014) affiliated with al Qaeda Central, despite periodic pledges of support and solidarity from its leadership for al-Qaeda, but is particularly concerned about ties between Boko Haram and Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) (including "likely sharing funds, training, and explosive materials").
Efforts to cooperate in freeing the Chibok schoolgirls had faltered, largely due to mutual distrust; the infiltration of the military by Boko Haram meant that U.S. officials were wary of sharing raw intelligence data, and the Nigerian military had failed to supply information that might have aided U.S. drone flights in locating the kidnapped girls. The Nigerian government claims that Boko Haram is "the West Africa branch of the world-wide Al-Qaeda movement" with connections to al-Shabaab in Somalia and AQIM in Mali. The Nigerian government denies having committed human rights abuses in the conflict, and therefore oppose U.S. restrictions on arms sales, which they see as being based on the U.S. mis-application of the Leahy Law due to concerns over human rights in Nigeria. The U.S. had supplied the Nigerian army with trucks and equipment but had blocked the sale of Cobra helicopters. In November 2014 the U.S. State department again refused to supply Cobras, citing concerns over the Nigerian military's ability to maintain and use them without endangering civilians.
On 1 December 2014, the U.S. embassy in Abuja announced that the U.S. had discontinued training a Nigerian battalion at the request of the Nigerian government. A spokesman for the U.S. state department said: "We regret premature termination of this training, as it was to be the first in a larger planned project that would have trained additional units with the goal of helping the Nigerian Army build capacity to counter Boko Haram. The U.S. government will continue other aspects of the extensive bilateral security relationship, as well as all other assistance programs, with Nigeria. The U.S. government is committed to the long tradition of partnership with Nigeria and will continue to engage future requests for cooperation and training".
On 24 September 2015, the White House announced a military aid package for African allies fighting Boko Haram. The package included up to $45 million for training and other support for Benin, Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria. On 14 October 2015, the White House released a statement, in accordance with the War Powers Resolution, announcing the deployment of 300 troops to Cameroon to conduct airborne ISR: "These forces are equipped with weapons for the purpose of providing their own force protection and security, and they will remain in Cameroon until their support is no longer needed."
In October 2015, General David M. Rodriguez, the head of the United States Africa Command, reported that Boko Haram has lost territory, directly contradicting statements which were made by Boko Haram. U.S. efforts to train and share intelligence with regional military forces is credited with helping to push back against Boko Haram, but officials warn that the group remains a grave threat. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boko_Haram |
Umayyad state of Córdoba | Abd al-Rahman III marked his political ascendancy with the creation of a vast and lavish palace-city called Madinat al-Zahra (also spelled and pronounced today as "Medina Azahara"), located just outside Córdoba. Construction began in 936–940 and continued in multiple phases throughout his reign and the reign of his son, Al-Hakam II (r. 961–976). The new city included ceremonial reception halls, a congregational mosque, administrative and government offices, aristocratic residences, gardens, a mint, workshops, barracks, service quarters, and baths.
He also expanded the courtyard (sahn) of Córdoba's Great Mosque and built its first true minaret (a tower from which the call to prayer was issued). The minaret, with a square floor plan, set another precedent that was followed in the architecture of other mosques in the region. Abd ar Rahman III's cultured successor, al-Hakam II, further expanded the mosque's prayer hall, starting in 962. He endowed it with some of its most significant architectural flourishes and innovations, which included interlacing multifoil arches, decorative ribbed domes, and a richly-ornamented mihrab (niche symbolizing the direction of prayer) with Byzantine-influenced gold mosaics.
A much smaller but historically notable work from the late caliphate period is the Bab al-Mardum Mosque (later known as the Church of San Cristo de la Luz) in Toledo, which features a variety of ribbed domes resting on horseshoe arches and an exterior façade with Arabic inscriptions carved in brick. Other monuments from the Caliphate period in al-Andalus include several of Toledo's old city gates, the former mosque (and later monastery) of Almonaster la Real, the Castle of Tarifa, the Castle of Baños de la Encina (near Seville), the Caliphal Baths of Córdoba, and, possibly, the Baths of Jaen.
In the 10th century much of northern Morocco also came directly within the sphere of influence of the Córdoban Caliphate, with competition from the Fatimid Caliphate further east. Early contributions to Moroccan architecture from this period include expansions to the Qarawiyyin and Andalusiyyin mosques in Fes and the addition of their square-shafted minarets, carried out under the sponsorship of Abd al-Rahman III and following the example of the minaret he built for the Great Mosque of Córdoba. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umayyad_state_of_C%C3%B3rdoba |
Mount Lebanon | Mount Lebanon is mentioned in the Old Testament 103 times. King Hiram I of Tyre sent engineers with cedar wood, which was abundant in Mount Lebanon, to build the Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem. Since then, the cedar species known scientifically as Cedrus libani is often associated with Mount Lebanon. The Phoenicians used cedar to build ships in which they sailed the Mediterranean, thus they were the first to establish villages in Mount Lebanon and would live from cutting down cedars and sending them to the coast.
Eusebius records that the Emperor Constantine destroyed a temple of Venus on the summit of Mount Lebanon. After the 5th century AD, Christian monks who were followers of a hermit named Maron, arrived from the Orontes valley in Northern Syria and began preaching their religion to the inhabitants of the northernmost parts of the mountain range. In the late 8th century a group known as the Mardaites (also Jarajima) settled in North Lebanon following the order of the Byzantine Emperor; their mission was to raid Islamic territories in Syria. They merged with the local population, refusing to leave after the emperor struck a deal with the Muslim Caliph of Damascus; thus, they became part of the Maronite society. In 1291 after the fall of Acre, the last crusader outpost in the Levant, remnants of the European settlers who succeeded in escaping capture by the Mamelukes settled in the Northern part of Lebanon and become part of the Maronite society.
Mount Lebanon has been visited and called home by many Muslim ascetics and Sufis since the 7th century, mentioned by many travelers to the region, few of which are known by name such as Shiban al-Muallah and Abbas al-Majnun. In the 10th century, Twelver Shia Muslim communities were likely established in Keserwan and the adjacent area to the north when Shia Islam was in the ascendant in Tripoli and the Islamic world at large. In the 13th century, a significant Shia population dominated Keserwan stretching out as far north as Dinniyeh, where reportedly the Shia feudal lord family, the Hamadas, were entrusted with tax-collection in 1470. Subject to harsh military campaigns and state policies put forth by the Mamluks and Ottomans over the centuries, this Shia population decreased over time and was driven to settle in Southern Lebanon and the Bekaa valley, becoming a small minority in Mount Lebanon by the 19th century.
In the 9th century, tribes from the "Jabal el Summaq" area north of Aleppo in Syria began settling the southern half of the mountain range. These tribes were known as the Tanoukhiyoun and in the 11th century they converted to the Druze faith and ruled the areas of Mount Lebanon stretching from Metn in the north to Jezzine in the south. This entire area became known as the 'Jabal ad-Duruz'. In the early 17th century, Emir Fakhr-al-Din II was entrusted as the main tax-collector and land-assigner in the Druze part of the mountains known as the Chouf. In an effort to re-populate the Chouf after the 1585 Ottoman expedition, Fakhreddine opened the door to Christians and in particular the Maronite settlement of the Chouf and Metn.
Throughout the 18th century and into the 19th century more and more Maronites settled in the Druze regions of the Mount. The Druze viewed these Maronite settlements as a threat to their power in Mount Lebanon and in a series of clashes in the 1840s and 1860s, a miniature civil war erupted in the area resulting in the massacre of thousands of Christians. The Druze won militarily, but not politically, because European powers (mainly France and Britain) intervened on behalf of the Maronites and divided Mount Lebanon into two areas; Druze and Maronite. Seeing their authority decline in Mount Lebanon, a few Lebanese Druze began migrating to the new Jabal ad-Duruz in southern Syria. In 1861, the "Mount Lebanon" autonomous district was established within the Ottoman system, under an international guarantee.
For centuries, the Maronites of the region have been protected by the noble Khazen family, which was endowed the responsibility by Pope Clement X and King Louis XIV and given Cheikh status in return for guarding the princes Fakhr-al-Din II and Younès al-Maani. The Khazen crest reflects the family's special closeness to Mount Lebanon, with snowy mountains and a cedar tree depicted. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Lebanon |
Gaza–Israel conflict | The 2008 Israel–Hamas ceasefire was an Egyptian-brokered six-month Tahdia (an Arabic term for a lull) "for the Gaza area", which went into effect between Hamas and Israel on 19 June 2008. Hamas' obligation was to stop the rocket attacks on Israel. During the initial 5-months of the ceasefire, and after a shaky start during the initial week, these attacks from Gaza decreased significantly for a total of 19 rocket and 18 mortar shell launchings, compared to 1,199 rockets and 1,072 mortar shells in 2008 up to 19 June, a reduction of 98%. Mark Regev, spokesman for the Israeli Prime Minister acknowledged that "there were no Hamas rockets during the ceasefire before November the 4th". Israel's obligation was to cease attacks on Gaza and once the ceasefire held, to gradually begin to ease its punishing blockade of Gaza. The agreement called on Israel to increase the level of goods entering Gaza by 30 percent over the pre-lull period within 72 hours and to open all border crossings and "allow the transfer of all goods that were banned and restricted to go into Gaza" within 13 days after the beginning of the ceasefire. The increase in supplies of food, water, medicine and fuel did improve, but the increase was only to an average of about 20 percent of normal levels, compared to the Hamas compliance in reducing rocket fire by 98%. Two months later the volume of goods arriving was too low to significantly improve living conditions, preventing UNRWA from replenishing its stores. Israel told U.S. officials in 2008 it would keep Gaza's economy "on the brink of collapse".
On 4 November 2008 Israel broke the ceasefire with an attack on Gaza. The Israeli military claimed the target of the raid was a tunnel that they said Hamas was planning to use to capture Israeli soldiers positioned on the border fence 250m away. Hamas officials differed, however, claiming that the tunnel was being dug for defensive purposes, not to capture IDF personnel, according to Dr Robert Pastor (of the Carter Institute), and an IDF official confirmed that fact to him. Hamas replied to the Israeli attack with a barrage of rocket fire. With this incursion into Gaza territory and its non-compliance with the easing of the embargo, Israel had failed to comply with two aspects of the June 2008 ceasefire.
When the six-month truce officially expired on 19 December, Hamas launched 50 to more than 70 rockets and mortars into Israel over the next three days, though no Israelis were injured. On 21 December, Hamas said it was ready to stop the attacks and renew the truce if Israel stopped its "aggression" in Gaza and opened up its border crossings. On 27 and 28 December, Israel implemented Operation Cast Lead against Hamas. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said "We warned Hamas repeatedly that rejecting the truce would push Israel to aggression against Gaza." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza%E2%80%93Israel_conflict |
Jerusalem | In 1517, Jerusalem and its environs fell to the Ottoman Turks, who generally remained in control until 1917. Jerusalem enjoyed a prosperous period of renewal and peace under Suleiman the Magnificent—including the rebuilding of magnificent walls around the Old City. Throughout much of Ottoman rule, Jerusalem remained a provincial, if religiously important centre, and did not straddle the main trade route between Damascus and Cairo. The English reference book Modern history or the present state of all nations, written in 1744, stated that "Jerusalem is still reckoned the capital city of Palestine, though much fallen from its ancient grandeaur".
The Ottomans brought many innovations: modern postal systems run by the various consulates and regular stagecoach and carriage services were among the first signs of modernization in the city. In the mid 19th century, the Ottomans constructed the first paved road from Jaffa to Jerusalem, and by 1892 the railroad had reached the city.
With the annexation of Jerusalem by forces under Muhammad Ali in 1831, foreign missions and consulates began to establish a foothold in the city. In 1836, Ibrahim Pasha, son of Muhammad Ali Pasha, allowed Jerusalem's Jewish residents to restore four major synagogues, among them the Hurva. In the countrywide Peasants' Revolt, Qasim al-Ahmad led his forces from Nablus and attacked Jerusalem, aided by the Abu Ghosh clan, and entered the city on 31 May 1834. The Christians and Jews of Jerusalem were subjected to attacks. Ibrahim's army routed Qasim's forces in Jerusalem the following month.
Ottoman rule was reinstated in 1840. Many Egyptian Muslims remained in Jerusalem and Jews from Algiers and North Africa began to settle in the city in growing numbers. In the 1840s and 1850s, the international powers began a tug-of-war in Palestine as they sought to extend their protection over the region's religious minorities, a struggle carried out mainly through consular representatives in Jerusalem. According to the Prussian consul, the population in 1845 was 16,410, with 7,120 Jews, 5,000 Muslims, 3,390 Christians, 800 Turkish soldiers and 100 Europeans. The volume of Christian pilgrims increased under the Ottomans, doubling the city's population around Easter time.In the 1860s, new neighbourhoods began to develop outside the Old City walls to house pilgrims and relieve the intense overcrowding and poor sanitation inside the city. The Russian Compound and Mishkenot Sha'ananim were founded in 1860, followed by many others that included Mahane Israel (1868), Nahalat Shiv'a (1869), German Colony (1872), Beit David (1873), Mea Shearim (1874), Shimon HaZadiq (1876), Beit Ya'aqov (1877), Abu Tor (1880s), American-Swedish Colony (1882), Yemin Moshe (1891), and Mamilla, Wadi al-Joz around the turn of the century. In 1867 an American Missionary reports an estimated population of Jerusalem of 'above' 15,000, with 4,000 to 5,000 Jews and 6,000 Muslims. Every year there were 5,000 to 6,000 Russian Christian Pilgrims. In 1872 Jerusalem became the centre of a special administrative district, independent of the Syria Vilayet and under the direct authority of Istanbul called the Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem.
The great number of Christian orphans resulting from the 1860 civil war in Mount Lebanon and the Damascus massacre led in the same year to the opening of the German Protestant Syrian Orphanage, better known as the Schneller Orphanage after its founder. Until the 1880s there were no formal Jewish orphanages in Jerusalem, as families generally took care of each other. In 1881 the Diskin Orphanage was founded in Jerusalem with the arrival of Jewish children orphaned by a Russian pogrom. Other orphanages founded in Jerusalem at the beginning of the 20th century were Zion Blumenthal Orphanage (1900) and General Israel Orphan's Home for Girls (1902). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerusalem |
Dried fruit | Fruits can be dried whole (e.g., grapes, berries, apricot, plum), in halves, or as slices (e.g., mango, papaya, kiwi). Alternatively, they can be chopped after drying (e.g., dates), made into pastes, or concentrated juices. The residual moisture content can vary from small (3–8%) to substantial (16–18%), depending on the type of fruit. Fruits can also be dried in puree form, as fruit leather, or as a powder by spray or drum drying. They can be freeze dried. Fresh fruit is frozen and placed in a drying chamber under a vacuum. Heat is applied, and water evaporates from the fruit while it is still frozen". The fruit becomes very light and crispy and retains much of its original flavor. Dried fruit is widely used by the confectionery, baking, and sweets industries. Food manufacturing plants use dried fruits in various sauces, soups, marinades, garnishes, puddings, and food for infants and children.
As ingredients in prepared food, dried fruit juices, purées, and pastes impart sensory and functional characteristics to recipes:
The high fiber content provides water-absorbing and water-binding capabilities.
Organic acids such as sorbitol act as humectants, provide dough and batter stability, and control water activity.
Fruit sugars add sweetness, humectancy, and surface browning, and control water activity.
Fruit acids, such as malic acid and tartaric acid, contribute to flavor enhancement.
The high drying and processing temperatures, the intrinsic low pH of the fruit, and the low water activity (moisture content) in dried fruit make them a stable food.
Sulfur dioxide is used as an antioxidant in some dried fruits to protect their color and flavor. For example, in golden raisins, dried peaches, apples, and apricots, sulfur dioxide is used to keep them from losing their light color by blocking browning reactions that darken fruit and alter their flavor. Over the years, sulfur dioxide and sulfites have been used by many populations for a variety of purposes. Sulfur dioxide was first employed as a food additive in 1664, and was later approved for such use in the United States as far back as the 1800s.
Sulfur dioxide, while harmless to healthy individuals, can induce asthma when inhaled or ingested by sensitive people. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) estimates that one out of every hundred people is sulfite-sensitive, and about 5% of asthmatics are also at risk of suffering an adverse reaction. Given that about 10% of the population suffers from asthma, this figure translates to 0.5% of the whole population with potential for sulfite-sensitivity. These individuals make up the subgroup of greatest concern and are largely aware of the need to avoid sulfite-containing foods. Consequently, the FDA requires food manufacturers and processors to disclose the presence of sulfiting agents in concentrations of at least 10 parts per million.
In Taipei, Taiwan, a 2010 city health survey found one-third of tested dried fruit products failed health standard tests, most having excessive amounts of sodium cyclamate, some at levels 20 times higher than the legal limit.
Turkey exported 1.5 billion dollars of dried fruit in 2021 and became the world's largest exporter of dried fruit. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dried_fruit |
Jewish exodus from the Muslim world | In March 1950, Iraq reversed their earlier ban on Jewish emigration to Israel and passed a law of one-year duration allowing Jews to emigrate on the condition of relinquishing their Iraqi citizenship. According to Abbas Shiblak, many scholars state that this was a result of American, British and Israeli political pressure on Tawfiq al-Suwaidi's government, with some studies suggesting there were secret negotiations. According to Ian Black, the Iraqi government was motivated by "economic considerations, chief of which was that almost all the property of departing Jews reverted to the state treasury" and also that "Jews were seen as a restive and potentially troublesome minority that the country was best rid of." Israel mounted an operation called "Operation Ezra and Nehemiah" to bring as many of the Iraqi Jews as possible to Israel.
The Zionist movement at first tried to regulate the amount of registrants until issues relating to their legal status were clarified. Later, it allowed everyone to register. Two weeks after the law went into force, the Iraqi interior minister demanded a CID investigation over why Jews were not registering. A few hours after the movement allowed registration, four Jews were injured in a bomb attack at a café in Baghdad.
Immediately following the March 1950 Denaturalisation Act, the emigration movement faced significant challenges. Initially, local Zionist activists forbade the Iraqi Jews from registering for emigration with the Iraqi authorities, because the Israeli government was still discussing absorption planning. However, on 8 April, a bomb exploded in a Jewish cafe in Baghdad, and a meeting of the Zionist leadership later that day agreed to allow registration without waiting for the Israeli government; a proclamation encouraging registration was made throughout Iraq in the name of the State of Israel. However, at the same time immigrants were also entering Israel from Poland and Romania, countries in which Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion assessed there was a risk that the communist authorities would soon "close their gates", and Israel therefore delayed the transportation of Iraqi Jews. As a result, by September 1950, while 70000 Jews had registered to leave, many selling their property and losing their jobs, only 10000 had left the country. According to Esther Meir-Glitzenstein, "The thousands of poor Jews who had left or been expelled from the peripheral cities, and who had gone to Baghdad to wait for their opportunity to emigrate, were in an especially bad state. They were housed in public buildings and were being supported by the Jewish community. The situation was intolerable." The delay became a significant problem for the Iraqi government of Nuri al-Said (who replaced Tawfiq al-Suwaidi in mid-September 1950), as the large number of Jews "in limbo" created problems politically, economically and for domestic security. "Particularly infuriating" to the Iraqi government was the fact that the source of the problem was the Israeli government.
As a result of these developments, al-Said was determined to drive the Jews out of his country as quickly as possible. On 21 August 1950 al-Said threatened to revoke the license of the company transporting the Jewish exodus if it did not fulfill its daily quota of 500 Jews, and in September 1950, he summoned a representative of the Jewish community and warned the Jewish community of Baghdad to make haste; otherwise, he would take the Jews to the borders himself.
Two months before the law expired, after about 85000 Jews had registered, a bombing campaign began against the Jewish community of Baghdad. The Iraqi government convicted and hanged a number of suspected Zionist agents for perpetrating the bombings, but the issue of who was responsible remains a subject of scholarly dispute. All but a few thousand of the remaining Jews then registered for emigration. In all, about 120000 Jews left Iraq.
According to Gat, it is highly likely that one of Nuri as-Said's motives in trying to expel large numbers of Jews was the desire to aggravate Israel's economic problems (he had declared as such to the Arab world), although Nuri was well aware that the absorption of these immigrants was the policy on which Israel based its future. The Iraqi Minister of Defence told the U.S. ambassador that he had reliable evidence that the emigrating Jews were involved in activities injurious to the state and were in contact with communist agents.
Between April 1950 and June 1951, Jewish targets in Baghdad were struck five times. Iraqi authorities then arrested 3 Jews, claiming they were Zionist activists, and sentenced two — Shalom Salah Shalom and Yosef Ibrahim Basri—to death. The third man, Yehuda Tajar, was sentenced to 10 years in prison. In May and June 1951, arms caches were discovered that allegedly belonged to the Zionist underground, allegedly supplied by the Yishuv after the Farhud of 1941. There has been much debate as to whether the bombs were planted by the Mossad to encourage Iraqi Jews to emigrate to Israel or if they were planted by Muslim extremists to help drive out the Jews. This has been the subject of lawsuits and inquiries in Israel.
The emigration law was to expire in March 1951, one year after the law was enacted. On 10 March 1951, 64000 Iraqi Jews were still waiting to emigrate, the government enacted a new law blocking the assets of Jews who had given up their citizenship, and extending the emigration period.
The bulk of the Jews leaving Iraq did so via Israeli airlifts named Operation Ezra and Nehemiah with special permission from the Iraqi government. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_exodus_from_the_Muslim_world |
History of India | The Kingdom of Mysore in southern India expanded to its greatest extent under Hyder Ali and his son Tipu Sultan in the later half of the 18th century. Under their rule, Mysore fought series of wars against the Marathas and British or their combined forces. The Maratha–Mysore War ended in April 1787, following the finalising of treaty of Gajendragad, in which Tipu Sultan was obligated to pay tribute to the Marathas. Concurrently, the Anglo-Mysore Wars took place, where the Mysoreans used the Mysorean rockets. The Fourth Anglo-Mysore War (1798–1799) saw the death of Tipu. Mysore's alliance with the French was seen as a threat to the British East India Company, and Mysore was attacked from all four sides. The Nizam of Hyderabad and the Marathas launched an invasion from the north. The British won a decisive victory at the Siege of Seringapatam (1799).
Hyderabad was founded by the Qutb Shahi dynasty of Golconda in 1591. Following a brief Mughal rule, Asif Jah, a Mughal official, seized control of Hyderabad and declared himself Nizam-al-Mulk of Hyderabad in 1724. The Nizams lost considerable territory and paid tribute to the Maratha Empire after being routed in multiple battles, such as the Battle of Palkhed. However, the Nizams maintained their sovereignty from 1724 until 1948 through paying tributes to the Marathas, and later, being vassals of the British. Hyderabad State became a princely state in British India in 1798.
The Nawabs of Bengal had become the de facto rulers of Bengal following the decline of Mughal Empire. However, their rule was interrupted by Marathas who carried out six expeditions in Bengal from 1741 to 1748, as a result of which Bengal became a tributary state of Marathas. On 23 June 1757, Siraj ud-Daulah, the last independent Nawab of Bengal was betrayed in the Battle of Plassey by Mir Jafar. He lost to the British, who took over the charge of Bengal in 1757, installed Mir Jafar on the Masnad (throne) and established itself to a political power in Bengal. In 1765 the system of Dual Government was established, in which the Nawabs ruled on behalf of the British and were mere puppets to the British. In 1772 the system was abolished and Bengal was brought under the direct control of the British. In 1793, when the Nizamat (governorship) of the Nawab was also taken away, they remained as mere pensioners of the British East India Company.
In the 18th century, the whole of Rajputana was virtually subdued by the Marathas. The Second Anglo-Maratha War distracted the Marathas from 1807 to 1809, but afterward Maratha domination of Rajputana resumed. In 1817, the British went to war with the Pindaris, raiders who were fled in Maratha territory, which quickly became the Third Anglo-Maratha War, and the British government offered its protection to the Rajput rulers from the Pindaris and the Marathas. By the end of 1818 similar treaties had been executed between the other Rajput states and Britain. The Maratha Sindhia ruler of Gwalior gave up the district of Ajmer-Merwara to the British, and Maratha influence in Rajasthan came to an end. Most of the Rajput princes remained loyal to Britain in the Revolt of 1857, and few political changes were made in Rajputana until Indian independence in 1947. The Rajputana Agency contained more than 20 princely states, most notable being Udaipur State, Jaipur State, Bikaner State and Jodhpur State.
After the fall of the Maratha Empire, many Maratha dynasties and states became vassals in a subsidiary alliance with the British. With the decline of the Sikh Empire, after the First Anglo-Sikh War in 1846, under the terms of the Treaty of Amritsar, the British government sold Kashmir to Maharaja Gulab Singh and the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir, the second-largest princely state in British India, was created by the Dogra dynasty. While in eastern and north-eastern India, the Hindu and Buddhist states of Cooch Behar Kingdom, Twipra Kingdom and Kingdom of Sikkim were annexed by the British and made vassal princely state.
After the fall of the Vijayanagara Empire, Polygar states emerged in Southern India; and managed to weather invasions and flourished until the Polygar Wars, where they were defeated by the British East India Company forces. Around the 18th century, the Kingdom of Nepal was formed by Rajput rulers. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_India |
Fidel Castro | With favourable trade from the Soviet bloc ended, Castro publicly declared that Cuba was entering a "Special Period in Time of Peace". Petrol rations were dramatically reduced, Chinese bicycles were imported to replace cars, and factories performing non-essential tasks were shut down. Oxen began to replace tractors; firewood began being used for cooking and electricity cuts were introduced that lasted 16 hours a day. Castro admitted that Cuba faced the worst situation short of open war, and that the country might have to resort to subsistence farming. By 1992, Cuba's economy had declined by over 40% in under two years, with major food shortages, widespread malnutrition and a lack of basic goods. Castro hoped for a restoration of Marxism–Leninism in the USSR but refrained from backing the 1991 coup in that country. When Gorbachev regained control, Cuba-Soviet relations deteriorated further, and Soviet troops were withdrawn in September 1991. In December, the Soviet Union was officially dissolved as Boris Yeltsin abolished the Soviet Communist Party and introducing a capitalist multiparty democracy. Yeltsin despised Castro and developed links with the Miami-based Cuban American National Foundation. Castro tried improving relations with the capitalist nations. He welcomed Western politicians and investors to Cuba, befriended Manuel Fraga and took a particular interest in Margaret Thatcher's policies in the UK, believing that Cuban socialism could learn from her emphasis on low taxation and personal initiative. He ceased support for foreign militants, refrained from praising FARC on a 1994 visit to Colombia and called for a negotiated settlement between the Zapatistas and Mexican government in 1995. Publicly, he presented himself as a moderate on the world stage.
In 1991, Havana hosted the Pan American Games, which involved construction of a stadium and accommodation for the athletes; Castro admitted that it was an expensive error, but it was a success for Cuba's government. Crowds regularly shouted "Fidel! Fidel!" in front of foreign journalists, while Cuba became the first Latin American nation to beat the US to the top of the gold-medal table. Support for Castro remained strong, and although there were small anti-government demonstrations, the Cuban opposition rejected the exile community's calls for an armed uprising. In August 1994, Havana witnessed the largest anti-Castro demonstration in Cuban history, as 200 to 300 young men threw stones at police, demanding that they be allowed to emigrate to Miami. A larger pro-Castro crowd confronted them, who were joined by Castro; he informed media that the men were anti-socials misled by the US. The protests dispersed with no recorded injuries. Fearing that dissident groups would invade, the government organized the "War of All the People" defence strategy, planning a widespread guerrilla warfare campaign, and the unemployed were given jobs building a network of bunkers and tunnels across the country.
Castro believed in the need for reform if Cuban socialism was to survive in a world now dominated by capitalist free markets. In October 1991, the Fourth Congress of the Cuban Communist Party was held in Santiago, at which a number of important changes to the government were announced. Castro would step down as head of government, to be replaced by the much younger Carlos Lage, although Castro would remain the head of the Communist Party and commander-in-chief of the armed forces. Many older members of government were to be retired and replaced by their younger counterparts. A number of economic changes were proposed, and subsequently put to a national referendum. Free farmers' markets and small-scale private enterprises would be legalized in an attempt to stimulate economic growth, while US dollars were also made legal tender. Certain restrictions on emigration were eased, allowing more discontented Cuban citizens to move to the United States. Further democratization was to be brought in by having the National Assembly's members elected directly by the people, rather than through municipal and provincial assemblies. Castro welcomed debate between proponents and opponents of the economics reforms—although over time he began to increasingly sympathise with the opponent's positions, arguing that such reforms must be delayed.
Castro's government diversified its economy into biotechnology and tourism, the latter outstripping Cuba's sugar industry as its primary source of revenue in 1995. The arrival of thousands of Mexican and Spanish tourists led to increasing numbers of Cubans turning to prostitution; officially illegal, Castro refrained from cracking down on prostitution in Cuba, fearing a political backlash. Economic hardship led many Cubans toward religion, both in the form of Roman Catholicism and Santería. Although long thinking religious belief to be backward, Castro softened his approach to religious institutions and religious people were permitted for the first time to join the Communist Party. Although he viewed the Roman Catholic Church as a reactionary, pro-capitalist institution, Castro organized a visit to Cuba by Pope John Paul II for January 1998; it strengthened the position of both the Cuban Church and Castro's government.
In the early 1990s Castro embraced environmentalism, campaigning against global warming and the waste of natural resources and accusing the US of being the world's primary polluter. In 1994 a ministry dedicated to the environment was established, and new laws established in 1997 that promoted awareness of environmental issues throughout Cuba and stressed the sustainable use of natural resources. By 2006, Cuba was the world's only nation which met the United Nations Development Programme's definition of sustainable development, with an ecological footprint of less than 1.8 hectares per capita and a Human Development Index of over 0.8. Castro also became a proponent of the anti-globalization movement, criticizing US global hegemony and the control exerted by multinationals. Castro maintained his strong stance against apartheid, and at the 26 July celebrations in 1991, he was joined onstage by Nelson Mandela, recently released from prison. Mandela praised Cuba's involvement in battling South Africa during the Angolan Civil War and thanked Castro personally. Castro later attended Mandela's inauguration as President of South Africa in 1994. In 2001, Castro attended the Conference Against Racism in South Africa at which he lectured on the global spread of racial stereotypes through US film. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fidel_Castro |
Bosaso | Bosaso is traversed by a 750-kilometre (470 mi) north–south highway. It connects major cities in the northern part of the country, such as Galkayo and Garowe, with towns in the south. In June 2012, the Puntland Highway Authority (PHA) launched an upgrade and repair project on the large thoroughfare between Bosaso and Garowe. The transportation body also began rehabilitation work in October 2012 on the central artery linking the city with Qardho. Additionally, plans are in the works to construct new roads connecting littoral towns in the region to the main highway. In June 2014, Puntland President Abdiweli Mohamed Ali along with Bosaso Mayor Hassan Abdallah Hassan and other state officials also inaugurated a new 5.9-kilometre (3.7 mi) paved road in the city. The construction project leads to the Bosaso seaport, and was completed in conjunction with UNHABITAT. According to Ali, his administration plans to invest at least 23 million Euros in contributions from international partners in similar road infrastructure development initiatives.
The city has a major seaport, the Port of Bosaso. It was constructed during the mid-1980s by the Siad Barre administration for annual livestock shipments to the Middle East. In January 2012, a renovation project was launched, with KMC contracted to upgrade the Bosaso Port's harbor. The initiative's first phase saw the clean-up of unwanted materials from the dockyard and was completed within the month. The second phase involves the reconstruction of the port's adjoining seabed, with the objective of accommodating larger ships.
Besides its busy seaport, Bosaso has a major airport, the Bender Qassim International Airport. In 2008, the Puntland government signed a multimillion-dollar deal with Dubai's Lootah Group, a regional industrial group operating in the Middle East and Africa. According to the agreement, the first phase of the investment is worth Dhs170m ($46.28m) and will see a set of new companies established to operate, manage and build Bosaso's free trade zone and sea and airport facilities. The Bosaso Airport Company is slated to develop the airport complex to meet international standards, including a new 3.4-kilometre (2.1 mi) runway, main and auxiliary buildings, taxi and apron areas, and security perimeters. In December 2014, the foundation stone for a new runway was also laid at the airport. The China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation is now slated to upgrade the airport's existing gravel runway, pave it with asphalt, and convert it from 1.8 to 2.65 km (1.12 to 1.65 miles) in accordance with the code 4C operations clause. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosaso |
Mass media in Lebanon | The history of publishing in Lebanon dates back to 1610 when the first printing press was established at the Convent of Saint Anthony of Qozhaya in the Kadisha Valley, making its first publication, Qozhaya Psalter -the Bible's book of psalms, which was in both Syriac and Arabic, the first publication in the Middle East. One of the first Arabic-script, printing presses in the region was founded in 1734 at The Convent of St. John in Khinshara where it remained in operation until 1899.
In the second half of the nineteenth century, Beirut had become not only a multi-religious, commercial center but also an intellectual one, especially after the establishment of two private, higher education institutes, the American University of Beirut in 1864 and the Saint Joseph University in 1875, and it was this period that marked the emergence of Beirut's prolific press. Lebanese publishers and journalists, along with Syrians, also played a major role in establishing the Egyptian press in the nineteenth century.
After independence, Beirut emerged as the epicenter of publishing in the Arab world, characterized by free and liberal media and literary scenes. In the 1940s, Beirut was home to 39 newspapers, as well as 137 periodicals and journals that were published in three languages. Beirut also hosted the first book fair in the Arab world in 1956. By the early sixties, there were close to a hundred publishers and more than 250 printing presses in Lebanon. Armenian publications also flourished in Beirut, with over 44 publications, including dailies and periodicals. In 1962 the press law came into effect which was introduced by President Fuad Chebab. As of September 2013, the law still regulates printed media in the country.
Authors from Syria, Palestine and elsewhere in the Arab world found refuge in Lebanon's free and liberal publishing industry. Lebanon's press became a huge industry despite the country's small size and has remained a haven for Arabic publishing. The establishment of modern printing presses and sophisticated book distribution channels made Beirut a regional publishing leader, and gave the Lebanese publishers a dominant role in Arab publishing. Lebanon hosts annually two important regional publishing events, the Beirut Book Fair and the Beirut Francophone Book Fair. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_media_in_Lebanon |
Kufic | Ornamental Kufic became an important element in Islamic art as early as the eighth century for Quranic headings, numismatic inscriptions and major commemorative writings. The Kufic script is inscribed on textiles, coins, lusterware, building and so on. Coins were very important in the development of the Kufic script. In fact, "the letter strokes on coins, had become perfectly straight, with curves tending toward geometrical circularity by 86", observes Alain George. As an example, Kufic is commonly seen on Seljuk coins and monuments and on early Ottoman coins. Its decorative character led to its use as a decorative element in several public and domestic buildings constructed prior to the Republican period in Turkey. Also, the current flag of Iraq (2008) also includes a kufic rendition of the takbir.
Similarly, the flag of Iran (1980) has the takbir written in white square kufic script a total of 22 times on the fringe of both the green and red bands. Kufic inscriptions were important in the emergence of textiles too, often functioning as decoration in the form of tiraz bands. According to Maryam Ekhtiar, "tiraz inscriptions were written in Kufic or floriated Kufic script, and later, in naskhi or throughout the islamic world". Those inscriptions include the name of God or the ruler. As an example, the inscription inside the Dome of the Rock is written in Kufic. Throughout the text, we can notice the calligraphic line created by the reed pen which is usually a steady stroke with various thicknesses based on the changes in direction of the movement that has created it. Square or geometric Kufic is a very simplified rectangular style widely used for tiling. In Iran sometimes entire buildings are covered with tiles spelling sacred names like those of God, Muhammad and Ali in square Kufic, a technique known as banna'i. Moreover, there is "Pseudo-Kufic", also "Kufesque", which refers to imitations of the Kufic script, made in a non-Arabic context, during the Middle Ages or the Renaissance: "Imitations of Arabic in European art are often described as pseudo-Kufic, borrowing the term for an Arabic script that emphasizes straight and angular strokes, and is most commonly used in Islamic architectural decoration". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kufic |
Taliban | Until his death in 2013, Mullah Mullah Omar was the supreme commander of the Taliban. Mullah Akhtar Mansour was elected as his replacement in 2015, and following Mansour's killing in a May 2016 US drone strike, Mawlawi Hibatullah Akhundzada became the group's leader.
The Taliban initially enjoyed goodwill from Afghans weary of the warlords' corruption, brutality, and incessant fighting.
This popularity was not universal, particularly among non-Pashtuns.
In 2001, the Taliban, de jure, controlled 85% of Afghanistan. De facto the areas under its direct control were mainly Afghanistan's major cities and highways. Tribal khans and warlords had de facto direct control over various small towns, villages, and rural areas.
Rashid described the Taliban government as "a secret society run by Kandaharis ... mysterious, secretive, and dictatorial." They did not hold elections, as their spokesman explained:
The Sharia does not allow politics or political parties. That is why we give no salaries to officials or soldiers, just food, clothes, shoes, and weapons. We want to live a life like the Prophet lived 1400 years ago, and jihad is our right. We want to recreate the time of the Prophet, and we are only carrying out what the Afghan people have wanted for the past 14 years.
They modelled their decision-making process on the Pashtun tribal council (jirga), together with what they believed to be the early Islamic model. Discussion was followed by a building of a consensus by the "believers". Before capturing Kabul, there was talk of stepping aside once a government of "good Muslims" took power, and law and order were restored.
As the Taliban's power grew, decisions were made by Mullah Omar without consulting the jirga and without consulting other parts of the country. He visited the capital, Kabul, only twice while in power. Instead of an election, their leader's legitimacy came from an oath of allegiance ("Bay'ah"), in imitation of the Prophet and the first four Caliphs. On 4 April 1996, Mullah Omar had "the Cloak of the Prophet Mohammed" taken from its shrine for the first time in 60 years. Wrapping himself in the relic, he appeared on the roof of a building in the center of Kandahar while hundreds of Pashtun mullahs below shouted "Amir al-Mu'minin!" (Commander of the Faithful), in a pledge of support. Taliban spokesman Mullah Wakil explained:
Decisions are based on the advice of the Amir-ul Momineen. For us consultation is not necessary. We believe that this is in line with the Sharia. We abide by the Amir's view even if he alone takes this view. There will not be a head of state. Instead there will be an Amir al-Mu'minin. Mullah Omar will be the highest authority, and the government will not be able to implement any decision to which he does not agree. General elections are incompatible with Sharia and therefore we reject them.
The Taliban were very reluctant to share power, and since their ranks were overwhelmingly Pashtun they ruled as overlords over the 60% of Afghans from other ethnic groups. In local government, such as Kabul city council or Herat, Taliban loyalists, not locals, dominated, even when the Pashto-speaking Taliban could not communicate with the roughly half of the population who spoke Dari or other non-Pashtun tongues. Critics complained that this "lack of local representation in urban administration made the Taliban appear as an occupying force." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban |
Kingdom of Galicia | In 1556, Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, abdicated the throne and divided his realm between his brother Ferdinand I of Habsburg, and his son Philip II. In practice this resulted in the disappearance of the European empire of the Habsburgs and the idea of a universal Catholic monarchy. Ferdinand was declared Holy Roman Emperor and king of Hungary and Bohemia, while Philip inherited the Netherlands, Naples and Sicily, the Crown of Aragon and Castile, including the Kingdom of Galicia.
The 42-year reign of Philip II was characterized from the beginning by wars of expansion—against the Netherlands, France, England, Portugal and the Ottoman Empire. Stretching across the Atlantic and northern Europe these wars had disastrous consequences for Galicia's society and economy.
With his private crusade against the Lutherans, the Catholic monarch prevented the participation of the Kingdom of Galicia in the three most important revolutionary processes of the age: the Reformation, the opening up of the New World, and the Scientific revolution. In 1562, Philip II deployed the Holy Office, via the Spanish Inquisition, in the Kingdom of Galicia, after the failure of Charles V's attempts to do so due to the opposition of the Galician clergy.
The Inquisition was an instrument of cultural and religious repression without precedent, which began operating in Portugal from 1575, led by the Castilian Inquisitor Quijano del Mercado. The Inquisition's stated aim was to prevent the "contamination" of the Kingdom of Galicia by the reformist ideas of the Lutherans, which arrived in Galicia via English, Dutch and French traders. This situation also had serious commercial consequences, as merchant ships could not dock without the Inquisition's approval, and sailors believed to be heretics could be burned at the stake. The Inquisition even went as far as proposing the closure of all Galician seaports to avoid religious contamination. Such measures eventually exceeded the patience of the inhabitants of cities like A Coruña, which requested the end of inquisitorial activity at the seaport in 1589 due to the effect on maritime traffic.
Philip II's reign saw the continuation of the expulsion of the Jews begun on May 30, 1492, linguistic persecution (from 1566 the adoption of Castilian was enforced, and the use of Arabic was punished by the Crown), and religious persecutions effectively constituted ethnic cleansing. For example, in Alpujarra in the Kingdom of Granada in 1568, led by self-proclaimed king Muhammad ibn Umayya, Philip ordered the forced dispersal of 80,000 Granadian Muslims throughout the realm, and the introduction of Christians in their place. Thousands of Galician families were sent to Granada for that purpose between the years 1572–77, with many of them dying in the process.
Although Spain generally militarized in order to conduct its war against the Netherlands—used primarily to garner support for the Crown—Galicia was left relatively undefended, a result of the prior dismantling of the Galician strongholds. Thus, in 1580 the Board of the Kingdom of Galicia requested troops from Philip in order to defend the coast, just months after a recruitment drive had taken place. However, although Phillip assented, these troops were not used to protect Galicia, but instead to attack Portugal, in an attempt to add it to Phillip's empire.
Despite claims to the contrary, the military campaign against Portugal was not carried out by professional soldiers billeted at A Coruña, Ferrol, or Baiona, and was not paid for by the crown, but was rather conducted by ill-equipped peasant troops, and paid for by Galician nobles such as Pedro Fernandes de Castro II, the Count of Monterrei, Gaspar de Zúñiga e Azevedo, and others. The war against England (1585–1604), motivated by the traditional English support of Portugal and Holland, also had disastrous consequences for the Kingdom of Galicia. This was due to both the disruption of trade relations with northern Europe, which since the Middle Ages had provided enormous wealth to the kingdom, and to England's constant operations in the region, staged in order to end Phillip's maritime expeditions, such as the Spanish Armada in 1588.
The outcome of all this was the complete ruin of Galician villages such as Ferrol, where the civilians were driven from their homes by Philip's soldiers, who seized all their crops and property, and drove the fishermen into forced labor. Towns like A Coruña also suffered constant attacks by the English fleet, such as that led by Francis Drake in 1589, with the cities being protected by civilian troops and folk heroes, such as María Pita. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Galicia |
Israeli occupation of the West Bank | The official "Master Plan for the Development of Samaria and Judea to the year 2010" (1983) foresaw the creation of a belt of concentrated Jewish settlements linked to each other and Israel beyond the Green line while disrupting the same links joining Palestinian towns and villages along the north–south highway, impeding any parallel ribbon development for Arabs and leaving the West Bankers scattered, unable to build up larger metropolitan infrastructure, and out of sight of the Israeli settlements. The result has been called a process of "enclavization", ghettoization, typified most visibly by the enclosure of Qalqilya in a concrete wall, or what Ariel Sharon called the Bantustan model, an allusion to the apartheid system, and one which many argue, makes Israel's occupational policies not dissimilar, despite different origins, from the South African model. In particular it bears comparison to the policies applied in South Africa to the Transkei, a policy that may have a broader geopolitical reach, if the Yinon Plan is to be taken as an indication of Israeli policy. The World Bank argued in 2009 that creating economic islands in the West Bank and Gaza is a developmental dead-end that would only imperil the construction of an economically unified and viable Palestinian state.
One observed function of the Separation Barrier is to seize large swathes of land thought important for future settlement projects, notoriously in the case of the area of Susya absorbing land worked by Bedouin herders with proven Ottoman title to the terrain. The construction, significantly inspired by the ideas of Arnon Soffer to "preserve Israel as an Island of Westernization in a Crazy Region", had as its public rationale the idea of defending Israel against terroristic attacks, but was designed at the same time to incorporate a large swathe of West Bank Territory, much of it private Palestinian land: 73% of the area marked for inclusion into Israel was arable, fertile, and rich in water, formerly constituting the "breadbasket of Palestine".
Had the barrier been constructed along the Green Line with the same purpose it would have run 313 kilometres, instead of 790 kilometres, and have cost far less than the $3.587 billion the extended wall is estimated to cost (2009). The disparity arises from the government's decision to rope in dozens of settlements west of the barrier. That it remains unfinished is said to be due to pressure from settler lobbies opposed to a completion that would restrict the further expansion of settlements or cut them off from Israel, as with Gush Etzion. There are only 12 gates through the 168 kilometres of the wall surrounding East Jerusalem, of which in theory four allow access to West Bankers who manage to obtain a permit. A whole generation of West Bankers have never seen the city, or the Haram al Sharif, a denial of international law stipulating the right of access to sites of worship. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_occupation_of_the_West_Bank |
Muslim world | The best known work of fiction from the Islamic world is One Thousand and One Nights, a compilation of folk tales from Sanskrit, Persian, and later Arabian fables. The concept had been influenced by a pre-Islamic Persian prototype Hezār Afsān (Thousand Fables) that relied on particular Indian elements. It reached its final form by the 14th century; the number and type of tales have varied from one manuscript to another. This work has been very influential in the West since it was translated in the 18th century, first by Antoine Galland. Imitations were written, especially in France. Various characters from this epic have themselves become cultural icons in Western culture, such as Aladdin, Sinbad the Sailor and Ali Baba.
An example of Arabic poetry and Persian poetry on romance is Layla and Majnun, dating back to the Umayyad era in the 7th century. It is a tragic story of undying love. Ferdowsi's Shahnameh, the national epic of Greater Iran, is a mythical and heroic retelling of Persian history. Amir Arsalan was also a popular mythical Persian story.
Ibn Tufayl (Abubacer) and Ibn al-Nafis were pioneers of the philosophical novel. Ibn Tufail wrote the first Arabic novel Hayy ibn Yaqdhan (Philosophus Autodidactus) as a response to Al-Ghazali's The Incoherence of the Philosophers, and then Ibn al-Nafis also wrote a novel Theologus Autodidactus as a response to Ibn Tufail's Philosophus Autodidactus. Both of these narratives had protagonists (Hayy in Philosophus Autodidactus and Kamil in Theologus Autodidactus) who were autodidactic feral children living in seclusion on a desert island, both being the earliest examples of a desert island story. However, while Hayy lives alone with animals on the desert island for the rest of the story in Philosophus Autodidactus, the story of Kamil extends beyond the desert island setting in Theologus Autodidactus, developing into the earliest known coming of age plot and eventually becoming the first example of a science fiction novel.
Theologus Autodidactus, written by the Arabian polymath Ibn al-Nafis (1213–1288), deals with various science fiction elements such as spontaneous generation, futurology, the end of the world and doomsday, resurrection, and the afterlife. Rather than giving supernatural or mythological explanations for these events, Ibn al-Nafis attempted to explain these plot elements using the scientific knowledge of biology, astronomy, cosmology and geology known in his time. Ibn al-Nafis' fiction explained Islamic religious teachings via science and Islamic philosophy. Translations of Ibn Tufail's Philosophus Autodidactus appeared in Latin (1671), English (1708), German, and Dutch. These European-language translations may have later inspired Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe and Robert Boyle's The Aspiring Naturalist. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_world |
Iman (Islam) | In a hadith, the Islamic prophet Muhammad defined iman as "an acknowledgement in the heart, a voicing with the tongue, and an activity with the limbs." Faith is confidence in a real truth. When people have confidence, they submit themselves to that truth. It is not sufficient just to know the truth, but the recognition of the heart should be expressed by the tongue which is the manifestation of intelligence and at last to reflect this confidence in their activities.
Hamiduddin Farahi, while explaining the meaning of iman in his exegesis, wrote:
The root of imān isinn. It is used in various shades of meaning. One of its derivatives is mu'min, which is among the noble names of Allah because He gives peace to those who seek His refuge. This word is also an ancient religious term. Hence the certitude which exists with humility, trust and all the conditions and corollaries of adherence to a view is called imān and he who professes faith in Allah, in His signs and His directives and submits himself to Him and is pleased with all His decisions is a mu'min.
The definition of iman according to Ahl al-Sunnah wa'l-Jama'ah is:
Giving recognition with the heart, saying with the tongue, and doing with the limbs; it increases with obedience and decreases with sins.
Ibn 'Abd al-Barr said:The people of jurisprudence and hadith are unanimous that Iman is speech and action, and there is no action except with the intention.
Al-Shafi'i said in Kitab al-Umm:[A]nd the consensus was from the sahabas, and the Tabi'een. After them, we realized that Iman is saying and doing, and intention is one of the three, those are not sufficient alone without the others.
Muhammad bin Ismail bin Muhammad bin Al-Fadl Al-Taymi Al-Asbhani said:And Iman in the language of the law is ratification with the heart, and action with the limbs.
Sufyan ibn 'Uyaynah said:Iman is saying and deed, it increases and decreases.
Al-Ash'ari said:They are unanimously agreed that Iman (recognition) increases with obedience and decreases with sins, and its deficiency does not mean that we doubt about what we are commanded to believe in, nor our ignorance of it, because that is Kufr or rejection from the religion, instead it is a decrease in the rank of knowledge or mind and an increase in our sayings, similar to that, the weight of our obedience and the obedience of the Prophet (may God bless him and grant him peace) differs, even if we are all performing our duty. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iman_(Islam) |
Wahhabism | Original Salafiyya and its intellectual heritage were not hostile to competing Islamic legal traditions. However, critics argue that as Salafis aligned with Saudi promoted neo-Wahhabism, religious concessions for Saudi political patronage distorted the early thrust of the renaissance movement. The early Salafiyya leaders like Muhammad ibn 'Ali al-Shawkani (d. 1250–1835), Ibn al-Amir Al-San'ani (d.1225–1810), Muhammad Rashid Rida (d. 1354–1935), etc. advocated for Ijtihad (independent legal research) of Scriptures to solve the new contemporary demands and problems faced by Muslims living in a modern age through a pragmatic, juristic path faithful to the rich Islamic tradition. However, as other Salafi movements got increasingly sidelined by the Saudi-backed neo-Wahhabi Purists; the legal writings that were made easily accessible to the general public became often rigidly literalist and intolerant of the wider Sunni legal tradition, limited to a selective understanding of the Hanbalite works of Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Qayyim.
The Syrian-Albanian Salafi Muhaddith Muhammad Nasir al-Din al-Albani (d.1999) publicly challenged the foundational methodologies of the neo-Wahhabite establishment. According to Albani, although Wahhabis doctrinally professed exclusive adherence to the Qur'an, the Hadith, and the Ijma of Salaf al-salih; in practice they almost solely relied on Hanbali jurisprudence for their fatwas—acting therefore as undeclared partisans of a particular madhab. As the most prominent scholar who championed anti-madhab doctrines in the 20th century, Albani held that adherence to a madhab was a bid'ah (religious innovation). Albani went as far as to castigate Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab as a "Salafi in creed, but not in Fiqh". He strongly attacked Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab on several points; claiming that the latter was not a mujtahid in fiqh and accused him of imitating the Hanbali school. Albani's outspoken criticism embarrassed the Saudi clergy, who finally expelled him from the Kingdom in 1963 when he issued a fatwa permitting women to uncover their face, which ran counter to Hanbali jurisprudence and Saudi standards.
In addition, Albani would also criticise Muhammad Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab for his weakness in hadith sciences. He distinguished between Salafism and Wahhabism, criticizing the latter while supporting the former. He had a complex relationship to each movement. Although he praised Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab in general terms for his reformist efforts and contributions to the Muslim Ummah, Albani nonetheless censured his later followers for their harshness in Takfir.: 68 : 220
In spite of this, Albani's efforts at hadith revivalism and his claims of being more faithful to the spirit of Wahhabism than Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab himself; made the former's ideas highly popular amongst Salafi religious students across the World, including Saudi Arabia. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wahhabism |
Muammar Gaddafi | Idris' government was increasingly unpopular by the latter 1960s; it had exacerbated Libya's traditional regional and tribal divisions by centralizing the country's federal system to take advantage of the country's oil wealth. Corruption and entrenched systems of patronage were widespread throughout the oil industry. Arab nationalism was increasingly popular, and protests flared up following Egypt's 1967 defeat in the Six-Day War with Israel; Idris' administration was seen as pro-Israeli due to its alliance with the Western powers. Anti-Western riots broke out in Tripoli and Benghazi, while Libyan workers shut down oil terminals in solidarity with Egypt. By 1969, the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was expecting segments of Libya's armed forces to launch a coup. Although claims have been made that they knew of Gaddafi's Free Officers Movement, they have since claimed ignorance, stating that they were instead monitoring Abdul Aziz Shalhi's Black Boots revolutionary group. Shalhi, who effectively served as Idris' chief of staff, and his brother Omar were the sons of Idris' former chief advisor Ibrahim Shalhi, who had been murdered by Queen Fatima's nephew in the fall of 1954. After their father's assassination, they became the favorites of Idris.
In mid-1969, Idris travelled abroad to spend the summer in Turkey and Greece amid widespread rumors of an abdication or a British-backed coup by the Shalhi brothers on 5 September. Gaddafi's Free Officers, recognizing this as their last chance to preempt the Shelhis in overthrowing the monarchy, initiated "Operation Jerusalem". If Gaddafi's Free Officers had not preempted the Shelhis, they would have almost certainly been defeated by the combined forces of Abdul Aziz Shelhi, the deputy commander of Libya's army, and the prominent families in Cyrenaica that supported the Shelhi family. On 1 September, Gaddafi's Free Officers occupied airports, police depots, radio stations, and government offices in Tripoli and Benghazi. Gaddafi took control of the Berka barracks in Benghazi, while Umar Muhayshi occupied Tripoli barracks and Jalloud seized the city's anti-aircraft batteries. Khweldi Hameidi took over the Tripoli radio station and was sent to arrest crown prince Sayyid Hasan ar-Rida al-Mahdi as-Sanussi and force him to relinquish his claim to the throne. They met no serious resistance and wielded little violence against the monarchists.
Once Gaddafi removed the monarchical government, he announced the foundation of the Libyan Arab Republic. Addressing the populace by radio, he proclaimed an end to the "reactionary and corrupt" regime, "the stench of which has sickened and horrified us all". Due to the coup's bloodless nature, it was initially labelled the "White Revolution", although was later renamed the "One September Revolution" after the date on which it occurred. Gaddafi insisted that the Free Officers' coup represented a revolution, marking the start of widespread change in the socio-economic and political nature of Libya. He proclaimed that the revolution meant "freedom, socialism, and unity", and over the coming years implemented measures to achieve this. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muammar_Gaddafi |
Ming dynasty | After the flourishing of science and technology in the Song dynasty, the Ming dynasty perhaps saw fewer advancements in science and technology compared to the pace of discovery in the Western world. In fact, key advances in Chinese science in the late Ming were spurred by contact with Europe. In 1626 Johann Adam Schall von Bell wrote the first Chinese treatise on the telescope, the Yuanjingshuo (Far Seeing Optic Glass); in 1634 the Chongzhen Emperor acquired the telescope of the late Johann Schreck (1576–1630). The heliocentric model of the solar system was rejected by the Catholic missionaries in China, but Johannes Kepler and Galileo Galilei's ideas slowly trickled into China starting with the Polish Jesuit Michael Boym (1612–1659) in 1627, Adam Schall von Bell's treatise in 1640, and finally Joseph Edkins, Alex Wylie, and John Fryer in the 19th century. Catholic Jesuits in China would promote Copernican theory at court, yet at the same time embrace the Ptolemaic system in their writing; it was not until 1865 that Catholic missionaries in China sponsored the heliocentric model as their Protestant peers did. Although Shen Kuo (1031–1095) and Guo Shoujing (1231–1316) had laid the basis for trigonometry in China, another important work in Chinese trigonometry would not be published again until 1607 with the efforts of Xu Guangqi and Matteo Ricci. Ironically, some inventions which had their origins in ancient China were reintroduced to China from Europe during the late Ming; for example, the field mill.
By the 16th century the Chinese calendar was in need of reform. Although the Ming had adopted Guo Shoujing's Shoushi calendar of 1281, which was just as accurate as the Gregorian calendar, the Ming Directorate of Astronomy failed to periodically readjust it; this was perhaps due to their lack of expertise since their offices had become hereditary in the Ming and the Statutes of the Ming prohibited private involvement in astronomy. A sixth-generation descendant of the Hongxi Emperor, the "Prince" Zhu Zaiyu (1536–1611), submitted a proposal to fix the calendar in 1595, but the ultra-conservative astronomical commission rejected it. This was the same Zhu Zaiyu who discovered the system of tuning known as equal temperament, a discovery made simultaneously by Simon Stevin (1548–1620) in Europe. In addition to publishing his works on music, he was able to publish his findings on the calendar in 1597. A year earlier, the memorial of Xing Yunlu suggesting a calendar improvement was rejected by the Supervisor of the Astronomical Bureau due to the law banning private practice of astronomy; Xing would later serve with Xu Guangqi in reforming the calendar (Chinese: 崇禎暦書) in 1629 according to Western standards.
When the Ming founder Hongwu came upon the mechanical devices housed in the Yuan dynasty's palace at Khanbaliq—such as fountains with balls dancing on their jets, self-operating tiger automata, dragon-headed devices that spouted mists of perfume, and mechanical clocks in the tradition of Yi Xing (683–727) and Su Song (1020–1101)—he associated all of them with the decadence of Mongol rule and had them destroyed. This was described in full length by the Divisional Director of the Ministry of Works, Xiao Xun, who also carefully preserved details on the architecture and layout of the Yuan dynasty palace. Later, European Jesuits such as Matteo Ricci and Nicolas Trigault would briefly mention indigenous Chinese clockworks that featured drive wheels. However, both Ricci and Trigault were quick to point out that 16th-century European clockworks were far more advanced than the common time keeping devices in China, which they listed as water clocks, incense clocks, and "other instruments ... with wheels rotated by sand as if by water" (Chinese: 沙漏). Chinese records—namely the Yuan Shi—describe the 'five-wheeled sand clock', a mechanism pioneered by Zhan Xiyuan (fl. 1360–80) which featured the scoop wheel of Su Song's earlier astronomical clock and a stationary dial face over which a pointer circulated, similar to European models of the time. This sand-driven wheel clock was improved upon by Zhou Shuxue (fl. 1530–58) who added a fourth large gear wheel, changed gear ratios, and widened the orifice for collecting sand grains since he criticized the earlier model for clogging up too often.
The Chinese were intrigued with European technology, but so were visiting Europeans of Chinese technology. In 1584, Abraham Ortelius (1527–1598) featured in his atlas Theatrum Orbis Terrarum the peculiar Chinese innovation of mounting masts and sails onto carriages, just like Chinese ships. Gonzales de Mendoza also mentioned this a year later—noting even the designs of them on Chinese silken robes—while Gerardus Mercator (1512–1594) featured them in his atlas, John Milton (1608–1674) in one of his famous poems, and Andreas Everardus van Braam Houckgeest (1739–1801) in the writings of his travel diary in China.
The encyclopedist Song Yingxing (1587–1666) documented a wide array of technologies, metallurgic and industrial processes in his Tiangong Kaiwu encyclopedia of 1637. This includes mechanical and hydraulic powered devices for agriculture and irrigation, nautical technology such as vessel types and snorkeling gear for pearl divers, the annual processes of sericulture and weaving with the loom, metallurgic processes such as the crucible technique and quenching, manufacturing processes such as for roasting iron pyrite in converting sulphide to oxide in sulfur used in gunpowder compositions—illustrating how ore was piled up with coal briquettes in an earthen furnace with a still-head that sent over sulfur as vapor that would solidify and crystallize—and the use of gunpowder weapons such as a naval mine ignited by use of a rip-cord and steel flint wheel.
Focusing on agriculture in his Nongzheng Quanshu, the agronomist Xu Guangqi (1562–1633) took an interest in irrigation, fertilizers, famine relief, economic and textile crops, and empirical observation of the elements that gave insight into early understandings of chemistry.
There were many advances and new designs in gunpowder weapons during the beginning of the dynasty, but by the mid to late Ming the Chinese began to frequently employ European-style artillery and firearms. The Huolongjing, compiled by Jiao Yu and Liu Bowen sometime before the latter's death on 16 May 1375 (with a preface added by Jiao in 1412), featured many types of cutting-edge gunpowder weaponry for the time. This includes hollow, gunpowder-filled exploding cannonballs, land mines that used a complex trigger mechanism of falling weights, pins, and a steel wheellock to ignite the train of fuses, naval mines, fin-mounted winged rockets for aerodynamic control, multistage rockets propelled by booster rockets before igniting a swarm of smaller rockets issuing forth from the end of the missile (shaped like a dragon's head), and hand cannons that had up to ten barrels.
Li Shizhen (1518–1593)—one of the most renowned pharmacologists and physicians in Chinese history—belonged to the late Ming period. His Bencao Gangmu is a medical text with 1,892 entries, each entry with its own name called a gang. The mu in the title refers to the synonyms of each name. Inoculation, although it can be traced to earlier Chinese folk medicine, was detailed in Chinese texts by the sixteenth century. Throughout the Ming dynasty, around fifty texts were published on the treatment of smallpox. In regards to oral hygiene, the ancient Egyptians had a primitive toothbrush of a twig frayed at the end, but the Chinese were the first to invent the modern bristle toothbrush in 1498, although it used stiff pig hair. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ming_dynasty |
Mosque of the Andalusians | The mosque was not modified again until the early 13th century, during the Almohad period. Muhammad al-Nasir (ruled 1199–1213), the fourth Almohad caliph, took a greater interest in Fez than his predecessors, in particular by fortifying the city. According to al-Jazna'i, when the caliph was informed that the Mosque of the Andalusians needed repairs, he ordered its restoration and expansion.: 10 Construction occurred between 1203 and 1207, and the mosque's anaza was installed in 1209.: 11 Terrasse remarked that this long period, as well as the relatively homogenous fabric of the current building (which has brick pillars instead of stone columns), suggests that the mosque was almost entirely reconstructed at this time. Additionally, the mosque's current qibla alignment appears to be different from the alignment of its 10th-century minaret, suggesting that the latter is still aligned with the mosque's older orientation.: 189
In addition to expanding the mosque's layout, the Almohad reconstruction added a monumental northern gate, a fountain, a new entrance for the women's prayer hall, and an apartment for the imam located on a floor above the women's prayer hall.: 10 An ablutions house, or dar al-wudu, was also built across the street, similar in form to another dar al-wudu built at the same time for the Qarawiyyin Mosque. In order to supply water for this ablutions facility, and perhaps because the water of the Oued Masmouda was judged too polluted (since it crossed a large part of the city before reaching the mosque), Al-Nasir also created a new water channel to bring water from outside the city directly to the mosque.: 11–12 The façade of the tall northern gate is decorated with zellij tiles and an elaborate canopy of carved wood, though these were likely restored at a later time and little of the Almohad decoration remains today.: 21 Scholar Georges Marçais praised the architecture as a masterpiece of Moroccan architectural style.
Lastly, Al-Nasir's also restored the mosque's old minbar. Once again, rather than replacing the minbar entirely, the Almohads opted to restore and reuse the old one. Most of the minbar, especially its sides, were covered with new wooden panels decorated in the Moorish style of this period, strongly influenced by Andalusi craftsmanship. The upper back panel, however, which featured inscriptions from the 10th-century Umayyad restoration, was preserved in place, perhaps indicating a certain respect the Almohads held for the former Caliphate of Cordoba.: 39–40 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosque_of_the_Andalusians |
Spread of Islam | Islamic influence first came to be felt in the Indian subcontinent during the early 7th century with the advent of Arab traders. Arab traders used to visit the Malabar region, which was a link between them and the ports of South East Asia to trade even before Islam had been established in Arabia. According to Historians Elliot and Dowson in their book The History of India as told by its own Historians, the first ship bearing Muslim travelers was seen on the Indian coast as early as 630 CE. The first Indian mosque is thought to have been built in 629 CE, purportedly at the behest of an unknown Chera dynasty ruler, during the lifetime of Muhammad (c. 571–632) in Kodungallur, in district of Thrissur, Kerala by Malik Bin Deenar. In Malabar, Muslims are called Mappila.
In Bengal, Arab merchants helped found the Port of Chittagong. Early Sufi missionaries settled in the region as early as the 8th century.
H. G. Rawlinson, in his book Ancient and Medieval History of India (ISBN 978-81-86050-79-8), claims the first Arab Muslims settled on the Indian coast in the last part of the 7th century. This fact is corroborated, by J. Sturrock in his South Kanara and Madras Districts Manuals, and also by Haridas Bhattacharya in Cultural Heritage of India Vol. IV.
The Arab merchants and traders became the carriers of the new religion and they propagated it wherever they went. It was, however, the subsequent expansion of the Muslim conquest in the Indian subcontinent over the next millennia that established Islam in the region.
Embedded within these lies the concept of Islam as a foreign imposition and Hinduism being natural condition of the natives who resisted, resulting in the failure of the project to Islamicize the Indian subcontinent is highly embroiled with the politics of the partition and communalism in India. Considerable controversy exists as to how conversion to Islam came about in the Indian subcontinent. These are typically represented by the following schools of thought:
Conversion was a combination, initially by violence, threat or other pressure against the person.
As a socio-cultural process of diffusion and integration over an extended period of time into the sphere of the dominant Muslim civilization and global polity at large.
A related view is that conversions occurred for non-religious reasons of pragmatism and patronage such as social mobility among the Muslim ruling elite or for relief from taxes
Was a combination, initially made under duress followed by a genuine change of heart
That the bulk of Muslims are descendants of migrants from the Iranian plateau or Arabs.
Muslim missionaries played a key role in the spread of Islam in India with some missionaries even assuming roles as merchants or traders. For example, in the 9th century, the Ismailis sent missionaries across Asia in all directions under various guises, often as traders, Sufis and merchants. Ismailis were instructed to speak to potential converts in their own language. Some Ismaili missionaries traveled to India and employed effort to make their religion acceptable to the Hindus. For instance, they represented Ali as the tenth avatar of Vishnu and wrote hymns as well as a mahdi purana in their effort to win converts. At other times, converts were won in conjunction with the propagation efforts of rulers. According to Ibn Batuta, the Khaljis encouraged conversion to Islam by making it a custom to have the convert presented to the Sultan who would place a robe on the convert and award him with bracelets of gold. During Delhi Sultanate's Ikhtiyar Uddin Bakhtiyar Khilji's control of the Bengal, Muslim missionaries in India achieved their greatest success, in terms of number of converts to Islam.
The Mughal Empire, founded by Babur, a direct descendant of Timur and Genghis Khan, was able to conquer almost the entirety of South Asia. Although religious tolerance was seen during the rule of emperor Akbar's, the reign under emperor Aurangzeb witnessed the full establishment of Islamic sharia and the re-introduction of Jizya (a special tax imposed upon non-Muslims) through the compilation of the Fatawa-e-Alamgiri. The Mughals, already suffering a gradual decline in the early 18th century, was invaded by the Afsharid ruler Nader Shah. The Mughal decline provided opportunities for the Maratha Empire, Sikh Empire, Mysore Kingdom, Nawabs of Bengal and Murshidabad and Nizams of Hyderabad to exercise control over large regions of the Indian subcontinent. Eventually, after numerous wars sapped its strength, the Mughal Empire was broken into smaller powers like Shia Nawab of Bengal, the Nawab of Awadh, the Nizam of Hyderabad, and the Kingdom of Mysore, which became the major Asian economic and military power on the Indian subcontinent. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spread_of_Islam |
Caliphate | In the immediate aftermath of the death of Muhammad, a gathering of the Ansar (natives of Medina) took place in the Saqifah (courtyard) of the Banu Sa'ida clan. The general belief at the time was that the purpose of the meeting was for the Ansar to decide on a new leader of the Muslim community among themselves, with the intentional exclusion of the Muhajirun (migrants from Mecca), though this has later become the subject of debate.
Nevertheless, Abu Bakr and Umar, both prominent companions of Muhammad, upon learning of the meeting became concerned of a potential coup and hastened to the gathering. Upon arriving, Abu Bakr addressed the assembled men with a warning that an attempt to elect a leader outside of Muhammad's own tribe, the Quraysh, would likely result in dissension as only they can command the necessary respect among the community. He then took Umar and another companion, Abu Ubaidah ibn al-Jarrah, by the hand and offered them to the Ansar as potential choices. He was countered with the suggestion that the Quraysh and the Ansar choose a leader each from among themselves, who would then rule jointly. The group grew heated upon hearing this proposal and began to argue among themselves. Umar hastily took Abu Bakr's hand and swore his own allegiance to the latter, an example followed by the gathered men.
Abu Bakr was near-universally accepted as head of the Muslim community (under the title of caliph) as a result of Saqifah, though he did face contention as a result of the rushed nature of the event. Several companions, most prominent among them being Ali ibn Abi Talib, initially refused to acknowledge his authority. Ali may have been reasonably expected to assume leadership, being both cousin and son-in-law to Muhammad. The theologian Ibrahim al-Nakha'i stated that Ali also had support among the Ansar for his succession, explained by the genealogical links he shared with them. Whether his candidacy for the succession was raised during Saqifah is unknown, though it is not unlikely. Abu Bakr later sent Umar to confront Ali to gain his allegiance, resulting in an altercation which may have involved violence. However, after six months the group made peace with Abu Bakr and Ali offered him his fealty. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caliphate |
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps | Since 15 April 2019, the United States, which opposes the activities of Sepah, considers the IRGC as a terrorist organization, which some top CIA and Pentagon officials reportedly opposed. On 8 April, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tweeted in Hebrew that America's terrorist designation was the fulfillment of "another important request of mine." This designation was criticized by a number of governments including Turkey, Iraq and China as well as the Islamic Consultative Assembly, Iran's parliament, in which members wore IRGC uniforms in protest.
On 29 April 2019, United States Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Michael Mulroy said Iran posed five threats. The first was Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon. The second was to maritime security in the Straits of Hormuz and the Bab al-Mandab, because a substantial portion of energy trade and commercial goods go through those areas. The third was because of their support to proxies and terrorist organizations, including Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria, Houthis in Yemen, some Hashd al-Shaabi in Iraq and safe-harboring senior al-Qaeda leaders in Iran. The fourth was Iranian made ballistic missiles sent to Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen for use against Saudi Arabia and to Syria with Hezbollah to use against Israel. Cyber is the fifth threat and a growing concern. He also said that the terrorist designation did not grant any additional authorities to the Department of Defense and that they were not asking for any.
The IRGC has never been designated as a terrorist organization by the United Nations, although the UNSCR 1929 had its assets frozen (this was lifted in 2016). Since 2010, the European Union has imposed broad sanctions on the IRGC and many of its members, without designating it as a terrorist organization.
Although Saudi Arabia and Bahrain already designated the IRGC as a terrorist organisation, several countries such as Australia are examining the possibility to designate the group as well (Canada already outlawed Quds Force in 2012). On 3 October 2022, in reaction to the death of Mahsa Amini and the persecution of protestors in the protests that ensued, Canada officially sanctioned the IRGC. Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly announced sanctions targeting 9 entities, including the Morality Police and the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security, and 25 individuals, that include high-ranking officials and members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. These individuals include IRGC Commander-in-Chief Major General Hossein Salami, and Esmail Qaani, commander of the Quds Force of the IRGC. On 7 October, the Canadian government expanded the sanctions, banning 10,000 members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps from entering the country permanently, which represents the top 50% of the organization's leadership. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau added that Canada plans to expand the sanctions against those most responsible for Iran's "egregious behavior". Canadian Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland added that Iran was a "state sponsor of terror", and that "it is oppressive, theocratic and misogynist; The IRGC leadership are terrorists, the IRGC is a terrorist organization".
According to Arab News, a 2020 report by the "Tony Blair Institute for Global Change" said that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is an "institutionalized militia" that "uses its vast resources to spread a 'mission of jihad' through an 'ideological army' of recruits and proxies". In 2022, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that the IRGC is "probably the most designated organisation – one way or another – in the world among the organisations that we designate, including the foreign terrorist organisation designation".
In January 2023, it was reported that the United Kingdom was preparing to declare the IRGC a terrorist organization; this did not subsequently occur.
On 18 January 2023, the European Parliament passed an amendment proposed by the ECR Group, to call for the EU and its member states to include the IRGC on the EU's terrorist list.
On 19 June 2024, Canada designated the IRGC as a terrorist organization under the nation's Criminal Code. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Revolutionary_Guard_Corps |
Nahda | Through the 19th century and early 20th centuries, a number of new developments in Arabic literature started to emerge, initially sticking closely to the classical forms, but addressing modern themes and the challenges faced by the Arab world in the modern era. Francis Marrash was influential in introducing French romanticism in the Arab world, especially through his use of poetic prose and prose poetry, of which his writings were the first examples in modern Arabic literature, according to Salma Khadra Jayyusi and Shmuel Moreh. In Egypt, Ahmad Shawqi (1868–1932), among others, began to explore the limits of the classical qasida, although he remained a clearly neo-classical poet. After him, others, including Hafez Ibrahim (1871–1932) began to use poetry to explore themes of anticolonialism as well as the classical concepts. In 1914, Muhammad Husayn Haykal (1888–1956) published Zaynab, often considered the first modern Egyptian novel. This novel started a movement of modernizing Arabic fiction.
A group of young writers formed Al-Madrasa al-Ḥadītha ('The New School'), and in 1925 began publishing the weekly literary journal Al-Fajr (The Dawn), which would have a great impact on Arabic literature. The group was especially influenced by 19th-century Russian writers such as Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy and Gogol. At about the same time, the Mahjari poets further contributed from America to the development of the forms available to Arab poets. The most famous of these, Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931), challenged political and religious institutions with his writing, and was an active member of the Pen League in New York City from 1920 until his death. Some of the Mahjaris later returned to Lebanon, such as Mikhail Naimy (1898–1989).
Jurji Zaydan (1861–1914) developed the genre of the Arabic historical novel. May Ziadeh (1886–1941) was also a key figure in the early 20th century Arabic literary scene.
Aleppine writer Qustaki al-Himsi (1858–1941) is credited with having founded modern Arabic literary criticism, with one of his works, The researcher's source in the science of criticism.
An example of modern poetry in classical Arabic style with themes of Pan-Arabism is the work of Aziz Pasha Abaza. He came from Abaza family which produced notable Arabic literary figures including Fekry Pasha Abaza, Tharwat Abaza, and Desouky Bek Abaza, among others.[5][6] | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nahda |
April 2018 missile strikes against Syria | A Syrian government offensive to recapture the rebel-held Eastern Ghouta suburb began in February 2018. The offensive was condemned by Western media and human rights organizations for its reportedly brutal humanitarian consequences. By the beginning of April, Douma was one of the last rebel enclaves remaining in the region, with rebel group Jaysh al-Islam in control of the city. Russian and Syrian state media reported a deal between the rebel group and Russia to hand over Douma to government control. Other news agencies reported members of the rebel group claiming a deal had not been brokered and that Jaysh al-Islam would not surrender Douma. What followed was a suspected chemical attack carried out in the Syrian city of Douma on 7 April 2018, with at least 70 people reported killed. One pro-opposition source said that a thousand people suffered from the effects. The Jaysh al-Islam rebel group, which controlled Douma at the time, along with several medical, monitoring, and activist groups, including the pro-rebel White Helmets (Syria Civil Defence), all reported that two Syrian Air Force Mi-8 helicopters had dropped barrel bombs. The bombs were filled with chlorine gas and possibly sarin. The World Health Organization said it received reports from partner agencies that some 500 people arrived at health facilities showing "signs and symptoms consistent with exposure to toxic chemicals." On 6 July 2018, the OPCW produced an interim report stating that chlorine residues had been found at the two attack sites, although no organophosphorous nerve agents or their degradation products were detected.
As with previous incidents, France, the United Kingdom, the United States, and other nations accused the Syrian government of being responsible for the use of chemical weapons. Russia and Iran, the Syrian government's main allies, denied chemical weapons had been used, claiming it was a false flag operation. Russia has said video of the chemical attack was staged by members of the White Helmets. Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) said that the Saudi Arabian-backed Jaysh al-Islam was making "chemical attack fabrications in an exposed and failed attempt to obstruct advances by the Syrian Arab Army".
In May 2017, French President Emmanuel Macron said the use of chemical weapons in Syria would be a red line requiring immediate reprisal. France and the United States cited positive urine and blood samples collected as proof of chlorine being used in Douma.
In the early hours of 9 April 2018, an airstrike was conducted against Tiyas Military Airbase in Syria. The United States denied launching the airstrike, and an Israeli spokeswoman declined to comment. On 10 April, an emergency United Nations Security Council meeting was held where competing solutions were presented on how to handle the response to the chemical attack; all were eventually vetoed by Russia. By 11 April, Western nations began to consider military action in Syria, seeking a "strong joint response." On the same day, the Syrian government said it invited the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to investigate the sites of the attacks. "Syria is keen on cooperating with the OPCW to uncover the truth behind the allegations that some western sides have been advertising to justify their aggressive intentions," said SANA, quoting an official source in the Foreign Ministry. Russia denied chemical weapons were used, and on 13 April, blamed Britain for staging the event in order to provoke US airstrikes.
By 12 April, British Prime Minister Theresa May had ordered Royal Navy submarines in the Mediterranean to move within cruise missile range of Syria by the end of the week. British military sources later told The Times that days before the missile strikes a British Astute-class submarine armed with Tomahawk missiles and approaching within firing range of Syrian military targets was chased by "one, and possibly two" Russian Kilo-class submarines from the Russian Navy base at Tartus. The Russian submarines were supported by two frigates and an antisubmarine aircraft, while the British submarine was assisted by a US Navy P-8 Poseidon patrol aircraft. Ultimately, no British submarine took part in the strikes. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_2018_missile_strikes_against_Syria |
Hellenistic period | During the Hellenistic period, Judea became a frontier region between the Seleucid Empire and Ptolemaic Egypt and therefore was often the frontline of the Syrian wars, changing hands several times during these conflicts. Under the Hellenistic kingdoms, Judea was ruled by the hereditary office of the High Priest of Israel as a Hellenistic vassal. This period also saw the rise of a Hellenistic Judaism, which first developed in the Jewish diaspora of Alexandria and Antioch, and then spread to Judea. The major literary product of this cultural syncretism is the Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Bible from Biblical Hebrew and Biblical Aramaic to Koiné Greek. The reason for the production of this translation seems to be that many of the Alexandrian Jews had lost the ability to speak Hebrew and Aramaic.
Between 301 and 219 BC the Ptolemies ruled Judea in relative peace, and Jews often found themselves working in the Ptolemaic administration and army, which led to the rise of a Hellenized Jewish elite class (e.g. the Tobiads). The wars of Antiochus III brought the region into the Seleucid empire; Jerusalem fell to his control in 198 BC and the Temple was repaired and provided with money and tribute. Antiochus IV Epiphanes sacked Jerusalem and looted the Temple in 169 BC after disturbances in Judea during his abortive invasion of Egypt. Antiochus then banned key Jewish religious rites and traditions in Judea. He may have been attempting to Hellenize the region and unify his empire and the Jewish resistance to this eventually led to an escalation of violence. Whatever the case, tensions between pro- and anti-Seleucid Jewish factions led to the 174–135 BC Maccabean Revolt of Judas Maccabeus (whose victory is celebrated in the Jewish festival of Hanukkah).
Modern interpretations see this period as a civil war between Hellenized and orthodox forms of Judaism. Out of this revolt was formed an independent Jewish kingdom known as the Hasmonean dynasty, which lasted from 165 BC to 63 BC. The Hasmonean dynasty eventually disintegrated in a civil war, which coincided with civil wars in Rome. The last Hasmonean ruler, Antigonus II Mattathias, was captured by Herod and executed in 37 BC. In spite of originally being a revolt against Greek overlordship, the Hasmonean kingdom and also the Herodian kingdom which followed gradually became more and more hellenized. From 37 BC to 4 BC, Herod the Great ruled as a Jewish-Roman client king appointed by the Roman Senate. He considerably enlarged the Temple (see Herod's Temple), making it one of the largest religious structures in the world. The style of the enlarged temple and other Herodian architecture shows significant Hellenistic architectural influence. His son, Herod Archelaus, ruled from 4 BC to AD 6 when he was deposed for the formation of Roman Judea. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellenistic_period |
Hanbali school | Abu Bakr al-Khallal (d.311 AH) – Jurist responsible for the school's early codification.
Al-Hasan ibn 'Ali al-Barbahari (d. 329 A.H.), an Iraqi traditionist and a jurist, author of the book Sharh al-Sunnah (disputed).
Ibn Battah al-Ukbari (d. 387 A.H.), an Iraqi theologian and jurisconsult, author of the book Al-Ibaanah.
Abū 'Abdullāh Muhammad Ibn Manda (d. 395 A.H.), hadīth master, biographer and historian from Isfahan.
Al-Qadi Abu Ya'la (d. 458 A.H.)
Ibn Aqil (d. 513 A.H.)
Awn ad-Din ibn Hubayra (d. 560 A.H.)
Abdul Qadir Gilani (d. 561 A.H.)
Abu-al-Faraj Ibn Al-Jawzi (d. 597 A.H.) – A famous jurist, exegete, critic, preacher and a prolific author, with works on nearly all subjects.
Hammad al-Harrani (d. 598A.H.) – A jurist, critic and preacher who lived in Alexandria under the reign of Salahudin.
Abd al-Ghani al-Maqdisi (d. 600 A.H.) – A prominent hadith master from Damascus and the nephew of Ibn Qudamah.
Ibn Qudamah (d. 620A.H.) – One of the major Hanbali authorities and the author of the profound and voluminous book on Law, al-Mughni, which became popular amongst researchers from all juristic backgrounds. One of two individuals referred to as Shaykh al-Islām within the Hanbali school.
Diya al-Din al-Maqdisi (d. 643 A.H.)
Ibn Hamdan, Ahmad al-Harrani (d. 695 A.H.) - A jurist and judge born and raised in Harran and later practised in Cairo
Taqi al-Din Ibn Taymiyah (d. 728 A.H.) – A well-known figure in Islamic history, known by his friends and foes for his expertise and controversial views in Islamic sciences.
Ibn Muflih al Maqdisi (d. 763 A.H.)
Ibn al-Qayyim (d. 751 A.H.) – The closest companion and a student of Ibn Taymiyah, also a respected jurist in his own right.
Ibn Rajab (d. 795 A.H.) – A prominent jurist, traditionist, ascetic and preacher, who authored several important works, largely commenting upon famous collections of traditions.
Mar'ī al-Karmī (d. 1033 A.H.) - The main jurist of Hanbali Madhhab of his time in Al-Azhar University, Egypt and authority from the later generation of Hanbali Scholars. He was a scholar, the most knowledgeable person, a researcher, an interpreter of the Qur’an, a narrator of Hadith, an Islamic jurist, al-Usuli, a grammarian and one of the most prominent Hanbalis in Egypt.
al-Bahūtī (d. 1051 A.H.) - The leading jurist of Hanabilah of his time in Egypt and authority from the later generation of Hanbali Scholars.
Muhammad ibn Abd-al-Wahhab – A controversial Hanbali jurist and traditionalist, patronym of the Wahhabi movement.
Ibn Humaid (d. 1295 A.H.) – A Hanbali jurist, traditionist, and historian.
Abd al-Aziz ibn Baz (d. 1419 A.H.) – Former Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia.
Ibn al-Uthaymeen (d. 1421 A.H.) – A leading jurist, grammarian, linguist, and a popular preacher.
Abdullah Ibn Jibrin – A leading scholar of Saudi Arabia and was a former member of the Permanent Committee for Islamic Research and Fataawa in Saudi Arabia.
Saleh Al-Fawzan – A well-known scholar and prolific author in Saudi Arabia. He is currently a member of the Permanent Committee.
Abdul Rahman Al-Sudais – The leading imam and khateeb of the Grand mosque chief of the presidency of Haramain Committee, Saudi Arabia.
Saud Al-Shuraim – The former Imam and Khatib of the Grand Mosque Mecca and a professor of Islamic law at Umm al-Qura University. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanbali_school |
Middle Eastern theatre of World War I | On 2 January, Süleyman Askeri Bey assumed the Iraq Area Command. Enver Pasha realised the mistake of underestimating the importance of the Mesopotamian campaign. The Ottoman Army did not have any other resources to move to this region, as an attack on Gallipoli was imminent. Süleyman Askeri Bey sent letters to Arab sheiks in an attempt to organise them to fight against the British.
On 3 January, at the Battle of Qurna, Ottoman forces tried to retake the city of Basra. They came under fire from Royal Navy vessels on the river Euphrates, while British troops managed to cross the river Tigris. Judging that Basra's earthworks were too strong to be taken, the Ottomans surrendered the town of Al-Qurnah and retreated to Kut.
On 6 January, the Third Army headquarters found itself under fire. Hafiz Hakki Pasha ordered a total retreat at the Battle of Sarikamish. Only 10% of the army managed to retreat to its starting position. Enver gave up command of the army. During this conflict, Armenian detachments challenged the Ottoman operations at the critical times: "the delay enabled the Russian Caucasus Army to concentrate sufficient force around Sarikamish".
The British and France asked Russia to relieve the pressure on Western front, but Russia needed time to organise its forces. The operations in the Black Sea gave them the chance to replenish their forces; also the Gallipoli Campaign drew many Ottoman forces from the Russian and other fronts. In March 1915, the Ottoman Third army received reinforcements amounting to a division from the First and Second Armies.
On 19 February, a strong Anglo-French fleet, including the British battleship HMS Queen Elizabeth, bombarded artillery positions along the coast around the Dardanelles. Admiral Sackville Carden sent a cable to Churchill on 4 March, stating that the fleet could expect to arrive in Constantinople within fourteen days. On 18 March the first major attack was launched. The fleet, comprising 18 battleships and an array of cruisers and destroyers, sought to target the narrowest point of the Dardanelles where the straits are just a mile wide.
The Bouvet exploded in mysterious circumstances, causing it to capsize with its entire crew aboard. Minesweepers, manned by civilians and under constant fire from Ottoman guns, retreated leaving the minefields largely intact. The battleship HMS Irresistible and battlecruiser HMS Inflexible both sustained critical damage from mines, although there was confusion during the battle whether torpedoes were to blame. The battleship HMS Ocean, sent to rescue the Irresistible, was itself mined and both ships eventually sank. The French battleships Suffren and Gaulois were also badly damaged. The losses prompted the Allies to cease any further attempts to force the straits by naval power alone.
In February, General Yudenich was promoted to command the Russian Caucasus Army, replacing Aleksandr Zakharevich Myshlayevsky. On 12 February, the commander of the Ottoman Third Army, Hafiz Hakki Pasha, died of typhus and was replaced by Brigadier General Mahmut Kamil Paşa. Kamil undertook the task of putting the depleted Third Army in order.
The Ottoman Empire tried to seize the Suez Canal in Egypt with the First Suez Offensive, and they supported the recently deposed Abbas II of Egypt, but were defeated by the British in both aims.
January–March 1915 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Eastern_theatre_of_World_War_I |
Hulegu Khan | Hulegu had fourteen wives and concubines with at least 21 issues with them:
Principal wives:
Guyuk Khatun (died in Mongolia before reaching Iran) – daughter of Toralchi Güregen of the Oirat tribe and Checheikhen Khatun
Jumghur (died en route to Iran in 1270s)
Bulughan agha – married Jorma Güregen, son of Jochi (from Tatar tribe, brother of Nukdan khatun) and Chechagan Khatun, daughter of Temüge (Otchi Noyon)
Qutui Khatun – daughter of Chigu Noyan of Khongirad tribe and Tümelün behi (daughter of Genghis khan and Börte)
Takshin (d. 12 September 1270 of urinary incontinence)
Tekuder (1246–1284)
Todogaj Khatun – married to Tengiz Güregen, married secondly to Sulamish his son, married thirdly to Chichak, son of Sulamish
Yesunchin Khatun (d. January/February 1272) – a lady from the Suldus tribe
Abaqa (1234–1282)
Dokuz Khatun, daughter of Uyku (son of Toghrul) and widow of Tolui
Öljei Khatun – half-sister of Guyuk, daughter of Toralchi Güregen of the Oirat tribe
Möngke Temür (b. 23 October 1256, d. 26 April 1282)
Jamai Khatun – married Jorma Güregen after her sister Bulughan's death
Manggugan Khatun – married firstly to her cousin Chakar Güregen (son of Buqa Timur and niece of Öljei Khatun), married secondly to his son Taraghai
Baba Khatun – married to Lagzi Güregen, son of Arghun Aqa
Concubines:
Nogachin Aghchi, a lady from Cathay; from camp of Qutui Khatun
Yoshmut – Viceroy of Arran and Shirvan
Tubshin – Viceroy of Khorasan during Abaqa's reign
Tuqtani (or Toqiyatai) Egechi (d. 20 February 1292) – sister of Irinjin, niece of Dokuz Khatun
Boraqchin Agachi, from camp of Qutui Khatun
Taraghai (died by lightning strike on his way to Iran in 1260s)
Baydu
Eshil – married to Tuq Temür and then his brother (son of Abdullah Aqa, a general of Abaqa)
Arighan Agachi (d. 8 February 1265) – daughter of Tengiz Güregen; from camp of Qutui Khatun
Ajai (d. February 1265) – Viceroy of Anatolia during reign of Abaqa and of Georgia during reign of Arghun
Ildar (executed by Ghazan in 1296)
Ajuja Agachi, a lady from China or Khitans, from camp of Dokuz Khatun
Qonqurtai (executed on 18 January 1284 by Tekuder)
Yeshichin Agachi, a lady from the Kür'lüüt tribe; from camp of Qutui Khatun
Yesüder – Viceroy of Khorasan during Abaqa's reign
A daughter (married to Esen Buqa Güregen, son of Noqai Yarghuchi)
Khabash – posthumous son
El Agachi – a lady from the Khongirad tribe; from camp of Dokuz Khatun
Hulachu (executed by Arghun in October 1289)
Suleiman (executed with his father)
Kuchuk (died in infancy after a long illness)
Khoja (died in infancy)
Qutluq Buqa (died in infancy)
3 daughter
Shiba'uchi (d. Winter 1282)
Irqan Agachi (Tribe unknown)
Taraghai Khatun – married to Taghai Timur (renamed Musa) of Khongirad (son of Shigu Güregen) and Temülun Khatun (daughter of Genghis Khan)
Mangligach Agachi (Tribe unknown)
Qutluqqan Khatun – married firstly to Yesu Buqa Güregen, son of Urughtu Noyan of the Dörben tribe, married secondly Tukel, son of Yesu Buqa
A concubine from Qutui Khatun's camp:
Toqai Timur (d. 1289)
Qurumushi
Hajji | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hulegu_Khan |
Akkadian literature | The following gives the better-known extant works, excluding lexical and synonym lists.
Abnu šikinšu
• Adad-nārārī I Epic
• Adad-šuma-uṣur Epic
• Adapa and Enmerkar
• Adapa and the South Wind
• Advice to a Prince
• Agushaya Hymn
• Alamdimmû
• Aluzinnu text
• Ardat-lili
• Asakkū marṣūtu
• Ašipus' Almanac (or Handbook)
• At the cleaners
• Atra-ḫasīs
• Autobiography of Adad-guppī
• Autobiography of Kurigalzu
• Autobiography of Marduk
• Babylonian Almanac
• Babylonian King List
• Babylonian Theodicy
• Bārûtu
• Birth legend of Sargon
• Bīt mēseri
• Bīt rimki
• Bīt salā’ mê
• Bullussa-rabi’s Hymn to Gula
• Catalogue of Texts and Authors
• Chronicle of Early Kings
• Chronicle of the Market Prices
• Chronicle of reign of Šulgi
• Chronicle P
• Code of Hammurabi
• Consecration of a priest
• Counsels of a Pessimist
• Counsels of Wisdom
• Crimes and Sacrileges of Nabu-šuma-iškun
• Curse of Akkad
• Cuthean Legend of Naram-Sin
• Dialogue between a Man and His God
• Dialogue of Pessimism
• Dingir.šà.dib.ba
• Donkey Disputation
• Dream of Kurigalzu
• Dynastic Chronicle
• Dynastic Prophecy
• Dynasty of Dunnum (Harab Myth)
• Eclectic Chronicle
• Edict of Ammi-Saduqa
• Egalkura spells
• Elegies Mourning the Death of Tammuz
• Enlil and Sud
• Enuma Anu Enlil
• Enûma Eliš
• Epic of Anzu
• Epic of Gilgameš
• Epic of the Kassite period
• Epic of Nabû-kudurrī-uṣur
• Epic of the plague-god Erra (Erra and Išum)
• Etana
• Fable of the Fox
• Fable of the Riding-donkey
• Fable of the Willow
• Girra and Elamatum
• Great Prayer to Šamaš
• Great Prayer to Nabû
• Great Revolt Against Naram-Sin
• Harem Edicts
• Hemerology for Nazi-Maruttaš
• Hymn to Ištar (“Ištar 2”)
• Hymn to Ninurta as Savior
• Hymn to the Queen of Nippur
• Ḫulbazizi
• Inana's Ascent
• Iqqur Ipuš
• Iškar Zaqīqu
• Ištar’s hell ride
• Kalûtu catalogue
• KAR 6
• Kataduggû
• Kedor-laomer texts
• Kettledrum rituals
• King of Battle (šar tamḫāri)
• Ki'utu
• Labbu myth
• Lamaštu
• Lament of a Sufferer with a Prayer to Marduk
• Laws of Eshnunna
• Lipšur litanies
• Ludlul bēl nēmeqi
• Maqlû
• Marduk's Address to the Demons
• Marduk Prophecy
• Middle Assyrian Laws
• Mîs-pî
• Moon god and the cow
• Mukīl rēš lemutti
• MUL.APIN
• Muššu'u
• Na'id-Šihu Epic
• Nabonidus Chronicle
• Namburbi
• Namerimburrudû
• Neo-Babylonian Laws
• Nergal and Ereškigal
• New year ritual-Akitu procession
• Nigdimdimmû
• Ninurta-Pāqidāt's Dog Bite
• Nissaba and the Wheat
• Ox and the Horse
• Palm and Vine
• Pazuzu
• Poor Man of Nippur
• Prophecy A
• Qutāru
• Recipes against Antašubba
• Religious Chronicle
• Royal inscription of Simbar-Šipak
• Sag-gig-ga-meš (Muruṣ qaqqadi)
• Sakikkū
• Salmānu-ašarēdu III Epic
• Synchronistic History
• A Syncretistic Hymn to Ištar
• Șēru šikinšu
• Šammu šikinšu
• Šar Pūḫî
• Šà.zi.ga
• Series of Ox and Horse
• Series of the Fox
• Series of Ox and Horse
• Series of the Poplar
• Series of the Spider
• Šēp lemutti
• Story of the Poor, Forlorn Wren
• Šu'ila
• Šulgi Prophecy
• Šumma ālu
• Šumma amēlu kašip
• Šumma immeru
• Šumma Izbu
• Šumma liptu
• Šumma sinništu qaqqada rabât
• Šurpu
• Tākultu ritual texts
• Tamarisk and Palm
• Tamītu Oracles
• Tašritu hemerology
• Tukulti-Ninurta Epic
• Tu-ra kìlib-ba
• The therapeutic series UGU (Šumma amēlu muḫḫašu umma ukāl)
• Uruhulake of Gula
• Uruk King List
• Uruk Prophecy
• Ušburruda
• Utukkū Lemnūtu
• Verse Account of Nabonidus
• Vision of the Netherworld
• Walker Chronicle
• Weidner Chronicle
• Zimri-Lim Epic
• Zi-pà incantations
• Zisurrû (Sag-ba Sag-ba)
• Zu-buru-dabbeda | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akkadian_literature |
Yamhad | The era of Abba-El I's successors is poorly documented, and by the time of Yarim-Lim III in the mid-17th century BC, the power of Yamhad declined due to internal dissent. Yarim-Lim III ruled a weakened kingdom, and although he imposed Yamhadite hegemony over Qatna, the weakening was obvious as Alalakh had become all but independent under the self-declared king Ammitakum. In spite of this regression, the king of Yamhad remained the strongest king of the Syrian states, as he was referred to as a Great King by the Hittites, the diplomatic equal of the Hittite king.
The rise of the Hittite kingdom in the north posed the biggest threat to Yamhad, although Yarim-Lim III and his successor Hammurabi III were able to withstand the aggressions of the Hittite king Hattusili I through alliances with the Hurrian principalities. Hattusili chose not to attack Halab directly and began with conquering Yamhad's vassals and allies, starting with Alalakh in the second year of his Syrian campaigns c. 1650 BC (Middle chronology) or slightly later. Hattusili then turned to attack the Hurrians in Urshu northeast of Halab, and won in spite of military support from Halab and Carchemish for the Hurrians. The Hittite king then defeated Yamhad in the battle of Mount Atalur, and sacked Hassum along with several other Hurrian cities in the sixth year of his Syrian wars. After many campaigns, Hattusili I finally attacked Halab during the reign of Hammurabi III. The attack ended in a defeat, the wounding of the Hittite king and his later death c. 1620 BC. Hattusili's campaigns considerably weakened Yamhad, causing it to decline in status: the monarch ceased to be styled a Great King.
Hattusili was succeeded by his grandson Mursili I, who conquered Halab c. 1600 BC and destroyed Yamhad as a major power in the Levant. Mursili then left for Babylon and sacked it, but was assassinated upon his return to his capital Hattusa, and his empire disintegrated. Halab was rebuilt and the kingdom expanded to include Alalakh again. The reestablished kingdom was ruled by kings of whom nothing but their names is known; the first is Sarra-El, who might have been the son of Yarim-Lim III. The last king of the dynasty to rule as king of Halab was Ilim-Ilimma I, whose reign ended c. 1524 when he was killed during a rebellion orchestrated by king Parshatatar of Mitanni who annexed Halab. Ilim-Ilimma's son, Idrimi, fled to Emar then conquered Alalakh c. 1517 BC. Seven years following his conquest of Alalakh, Idrimi made peace with Mitanni and was acknowledged as a vassal, and allowed to control Halab, though he had to relocate the dynasty's residence to Alalakh and relinquish the title of "King of Halab"; the use of the name Yamhad also ended. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamhad |
Iraqi conflict | In February 2006, unknown assailants bombed the minarets of al-Askari Mosque in Samarra, which is regarded as a holy site by Twelver Shi'ites. While no group claimed responsibility, U.S. military and Iraqi Transitional government officials attributed the attacks to Sunni militants linked to Al-Qaeda in Iraq. The incident set off a wave of Shi'a assaults against Sunnis followed by Sunni counterattacks. The conflict escalated over the next several months until by 2007, the National Intelligence Estimate described the situation as having elements of a civil war.
In 2008 and 2009, during the Sunni Awakening and following a surge in US soldiers stationed in the country, violence declined dramatically. However, low-level strife continued to plague Iraq until the U.S. withdrawal in late 2011.
In October 2006, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the Iraqi government estimated that more than 370,000 Iraqis had been displaced since the 2006 bombing of the al-Askari Mosque, bringing the total number of Iraqi refugees to more than 1.6 million. By 2008, the UNHCR raised the estimate of refugees to a total of about 4.7 million (~16% of the population). The number of refugees estimated abroad was 2 million (a number close to CIA projections) and the number of internally displaced people was 2.7 million. The estimated number of orphans across Iraq has ranged from 400,000 (according to the Baghdad Provincial Council), to five million (according to Iraq's anti-corruption board). A UN report from 2008 placed the number of orphans at about 870,000. The Red Cross stated in 2008 that Iraq's humanitarian situation was among the most critical in the world, with millions of Iraqis forced to rely on insufficient and poor-quality water sources.
According to the Failed States Index, produced by Foreign Policy magazine and the Fund for Peace, Iraq was one of the world's top 5 unstable states from 2005 to 2008. A poll of top U.S. foreign policy experts conducted in 2007 showed that over the next 10 years, just 3% of experts believed the U.S. would be able to rebuild Iraq into a "beacon of democracy" and 58% of experts believed that Sunni–Shiite tensions would dramatically increase in the Middle East.
Two polls of Americans conducted in 2006 found that between 65% and 85% believed Iraq was in a civil war. However, a similar poll of Iraqis conducted in 2007 found that 61% did not believe that they were in a civil war. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_conflict |
Al-Shabaab (militant group) | Foreign recruitment peaked in the period between 2011 and 2013, which was also the period in which the phenomenon received the most attention. The 2006 Ethiopian invasion of Somalia attracted foreign volunteers to al-Shabaab's cause, and, as of 2010, al-Shabaab included an estimated 200–300 foreign fighters, not including a further 1,000 ethnic Somalis from the diaspora. In subsequent years, al-Shabaab recruitment became a concern for the governments of both the United Kingdom and the United States. At a security conference in London in 2010, the former head of MI5, Jonathan Evans, said that "a significant number of U.K. residents" were training with al-Shabaab; the precise number of British recruits was estimated at between 50 and 100 persons. There was also evidence that the group had received funding from Somali residents in Britain. Between 2012 and 2013, several British citizens faced control orders or even criminal charges related to association with al-Shabaab.
Sweden, Denmark, Canada, and the United States similarly encountered evidence of citizens' affiliation with al-Shabaab. In the United States, the U.S. Senate Homeland Security Committee heard as early as 2009 – from Michael Leiter, director of the National Counterterrorism Center – that American and other foreign fighters were being recruited and trained by al-Shabaab. In 2011, the House Committee on Homeland Security reported that more than 40 Muslim Americans and 20 Canadians had fought with al-Shabaab, and that at least 15 of those volunteers had been killed in Somalia. Later that year, a U.S. military official told the New York Times that about 30 U.S. citizens were al-Shabaab fighters. This was a resumption of an earlier trend of al-Shabaab recruitment among Americans, which previously had peaked in 2007–08. Also in 2011, two Somali Americans in Minnesota were convicted of illegally financing al-Shabaab. By mid-2013, observers believed that recruitment of U.S. citizens had subsided.
In general, foreign activity in al-Shabaab has decreased, first, and perhaps most importantly, because the Syrian civil war became the focal point for foreign jihadist recruitment networks. Other factors, however, are more specific to al-Shabaab. One factor was the group's internal struggle of 2011–2013: as tensions between Somali and non-Somali members increased, Godane scapegoated the foreigners as the cause of the group's disunity and, during his 2013 purge, executed various foreign recruits (see above). In addition to serving as a disincentive to foreign fighters, this shift reduced the influence of the group's remaining foreign leaders. Moreover, whereas the ascendancy of Godane and his faction had partly internationalized al-Shabaab, in subsequent years, al-Shabaab became (re-)"domesticated": as it made territorial gains, its attention was increasingly consumed by local governance and the management of clan dynamics, activities in which foreign fighters – frequently mistrusted by local populations – lacked utility and influence. As the conflict, and al-Shabaab's priorities, became more localized and clan-based, they also held less appeal for foreign fighters themselves. Foreign fighters also attracted the counterterrorism efforts of foreign countries, and were sometimes suspected of disloyalty and spying by their Somali peers. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Shabaab_(militant_group) |
Shirvanshahs | The first line of the Shirvanshahs were the Yazidids (also known as the Mazyadids), descended from Yazid ibn Mazyad al-Shaybani (died 801), a member of the Banu Shayban tribe that was dominant in the region of Diyar Bakr in the northern Jazira. He was twice appointed the governor of Arminiya by the Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid (r. 786–809). During his second tenure, his domain also included Azerbaijan, Shirvan and Darband. The first Yazidi to use the title of Shirvanshah was Yazid's grandson Haytham ibn Khalid in 861, who was also the first Yazidi to specifically govern only Shirvan. By using this title, the Yazidids showed their adherence to ancient Iranian ideals.
The Arab Hashimid family in Darband played a major role in the history of the Yazidids. They often intermarried, and the Yazidids also occasionally managed to gain control over Darband, sometimes through the appeal of rebels. By the time of the composition of the 10th-century geography book Hudud al-'Alam in 982, the domain of the Shirvanshahs had increased. It now comprised the minor principalities north of the Kur River, including Layzan and Khursan, whose titulature (Layzanshah and Khursanshah respectively) the Shirvanshahs had assumed. From the reign of Yazid ibn Ahmad (r. 991–1027) onward, there is a moderately complete collection of coins minted by the Shirvanshahs. Due to the culturally Persian environment they lived in, the Yazidi family had slowly become Persianized. Intermarriage with the native families of the eastern part of the South Caucasus—which may have included the historic ruling line of the former Shirvani capital of Shabaran—probably contributed to this.
Starting with the Shirvanshah Manuchihr I (r. 1027–1034), their names became almost completely Persian instead of Arabic, such as Manuchihr, Qubad and Faridun. The family now preferred to use names from national Iranian history and also claimed to be descended from pre-Islamic, Sasanian-era figures such as Bahram Gur (r. 420–438) or Khosrow I Anushirvan (r. 531–579). The allure of a Sasanian heritage now outweighed memories of ancestry from the Banu Shayban. This process is comparable to how the originally Arab Rawadid dynasty in Azerbaijan became Kurdish due to the Kurdish environment they lived in.
Records regularly mention battles between the Shirvanshahs and the "infidel" inhabitants of the central Caucasus, including the Alans, the people of Sarir, and the Christian Georgians and Abkhazians. In 1030, Manuchihr I was defeated near Baku by invading Rus, who then advanced into Arran. There they sacked the city of Baylaqan and then left for the Byzantine Empire. Not long afterwards, the eastern part of the Southern Caucasus became vulnerable to Oghuz raids through northern Iran. Because of his fear of the Oghuz, the Shirvanshah Qubad (r. 1043–1049) had in 1045 to surround his capital of Shamakhi/Yazidiya with iron gates and a robust stone wall.
In 1066/67, Shirvan was attacked twice by the Turkic commander Qarategin, who ravaged the environment of Baku and Maskat. The Shirvanshah Fariburz I (r. 1063–1096) was soon forced to acknowledge the suzerainty of the Seljuk ruler Alp Arslan (r. 1063–1072), who at that time was near Arran following his Georgian campaign. Fariburz I had to pay a large yearly tribute of 70,000 gold dinars, which would later be lowered to 40,000. Soon after this event, the coins of Fariburz I cite not only the Abbasid caliph, but also the Seljuk ruler Malik-Shah I (r. 1072–1092) as his overlords. Armenian-American historian Dickran Kouymjian argues that Fariburz I must have used Byzantine or Seljuk coins to pay the tribute, as there is currently no proof of gold coin mints in the Caucasus around this period. Fariburz I managed to retain a considerable amount of power until his death in 1094, which was followed by a dynastic strife over the throne.
Another Seljuk invasion of Shirvan took place during the reign of Mahmud II (r. 1118–1131), which the Georgians capitalized on by attacking Shamakhi and Darband. In the mid 12th-century, Shirvan was more or less a Georgian protectorate. For some time, Shakki, Qabala and Muqan was under direct control by the Bagrationi kings of Georgia, who even occasionally used the title of Shirvanshah. The Shirvanshah and Bagrationi family also agreed to make political marriages to become allies. Due to these developments, the Shirvanshahs shifted their focus towards the Caspian Sea, several times enlarging their borders as far as Darband.
Later on, the names and family ties of the Shirvanshahs become exceedingly convoluted and uncertain in sources, with Munejjim-bashi providing an incomplete record of them, starting with Manuchihr III (r. 1120 – after 1160). Sources now start referring to the Yazidi family as the "Kasranids" or "Khaqanids". Besides using the title of Shirvanshah, Manuchihr III also used the title of Khāqān-e Kabir ("Great Khan"), which was the inspiration behind the takhallus (pen name) of his eulogist, Khaqani. Numismatic evidence demonstrates that the Shirvanshahs served as Seljuk vassals in the 12th century until the reign of the last Seljuk ruler, Toghrul III (r. 1176–1194). Following that, only the names of the caliphs are shown on their coins. During the rule of Akhsitan I (r. after 1160 – 1197–1203/04), the royal residence was moved from Shamakhi to Baku, after the former was seized by the Eldiguzid ruler Qizil Arslan (r. 1186–1191). This marked the beginning of Baku's rise as a major city, though it remains uncertain if Akhsitan later moved back to Shamakhi. Nevertheless, Baku is known to have later served as the capital of the Shirvanshahs. At the start of the 13th century, the Shirvanshahs conquered Darband, seemingly putting an end to its ruling dynasty, the Maliks of Darband.
In 1225, the Shirvanshah Garshasp I (r. after 1203 – 1233/34) was ordered by the Khwarazmshah Jalal al-Din Mangburni (r. 1220–1231) to pay a tribute identical to the one the Fariburz I had paid Malik-Shah I. The Shirvanshahs soon became subjects of the Mongol Empire (1206–1368), whose rulers they mentioned on their coins. The title of Shirvanshah was not shown on their coins, but the name of the ruling Shirvanshah remained. The Shirvanshahs were later under the suzerainty of the Ilkhanate (1256–1335), a period in which no coins from Shirvan have been found. The Shirvanshahs were also sometimes under the rule of the Golden Horde.
Following the collapse of the Ilkhanate, the Shirvanshah kingdom was once again to able to rule autonomously, under the rule of Kayqubad I and then later his son Kavus I. However, during the reign of the latter, the Shirvanshah kingdom came under the rule of the Jalayirid Sultanate (1335–1432). Kavus I died in 1372/73 and was succeeded by his son Hushang, who was killed by his subjects in 1382, thus marking the end of the Yazidi/Kasranid line. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirvanshahs |
OPEC | In early March 2020, OPEC officials presented an ultimatum to Russia to cut production by 1.5% of world supply. Russia, which foresaw continuing cuts as American shale oil production increased, rejected the demand, ending the three-year partnership between OPEC and major non-OPEC providers. Another factor was weakening global demand resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. This also resulted in 'OPEC plus' failing to extend the agreement cutting 2.1 million barrels per day that was set to expire at the end of March. Saudi Arabia, which has absorbed a disproportionate amount of the cuts to convince Russia to stay in the agreement, notified its buyers on 7 March that they would raise output and discount their oil in April. This prompted a Brent crude price crash of more than 30% before a slight recovery and widespread turmoil in financial markets.
Several pundits saw this as a Saudi-Russian price war, or game of chicken which cause the "other side to blink first". Saudi Arabia had in March 2020 $500 billion of foreign exchange reserves, while at that time Russia's reserves were $580 billion. The debt-to-GDP ratio of the Saudis was 25%, while the Russian ratio was 15%. Another remarked that the Saudis can produce oil at as low a price as $3 per barrel, whereas Russia needs $30 per barrel to cover production costs. "To Russia, this price war is more than just about regaining market share for oil," one analyst claims. "It’s about assaulting the Western economy, especially America’s." In order to ward of from the oil exporters price war which can make shale oil production uneconomical, US may protect its crude oil market share by passing the NOPEC bill. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia, represented by Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, maintains a conciliatory stance towards the U.S. shale industry. He clarified that harming this sector was never their intention, stating, "I made it clear that it was not on our radar or our intention to create any type of damage to their industry... they will rise again from the ashes and thrive and prosper." He also noted that Saudi Arabia is looking forward to a time when U.S. producers thrive once again in a market with higher oil demand."
In April 2020, OPEC and a group of other oil producers, including Russia, agreed to extend production cuts until the end of July. The cartel and its allies agreed to cut oil production in May and June by 9.7 million barrels a day, equal to around 10% of global output, in an effort to prop up prices, which had previously fallen to record lows. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OPEC |
Copts in Egypt | Religious freedom in Egypt is hampered to varying degrees by discriminatory and restrictive government policies. Coptic Christians, being the largest religious minority in Egypt, are also negatively affected. Copts have faced increasing marginalization after the 1952 coup d'état led by Gamal Abdel Nasser. Until recently, Christians were required to obtain presidential approval for even minor repairs in churches. Although the law was eased in 2005 by handing down the authority of approval to the governors, Copts continue to face many obstacles and restrictions in building new churches. These restrictions do not apply for building mosques.
The Coptic community has been targeted with hate crimes by Islamic extremists. The most significant was the 2000–01 El Kosheh attacks, in which Muslims and Christians were involved in bloody inter-religious clashes following a dispute between a Muslim and a Christian. "Twenty Christians and one Muslim were killed after violence broke out in the town of el-Kosheh, 440 kilometres (270 mi) south of Cairo". International Christian Concern reported that in February 2001, Muslims burned a new Egyptian church and the homes of 35 Christians, and that in April 2001 a 14-year-old Egyptian Christian girl was kidnapped because her parents were believed to be harboring a person who had converted from Islam to Christianity.
In 2006, one person attacked three churches in Alexandria, killing one person and injuring 5–16. The attacker was not linked to any organisation and described as "psychologically disturbed" by the Ministry of Interior. In May 2010, The Wall Street Journal reported increasing waves of mob attacks by Muslims against Copts. Despite frantic calls for help, the police typically arrived after the violence was over. The police also coerced the Copts to accept "reconciliation" with their attackers to avoid prosecuting them, with no Muslims convicted for any of the attacks. In Marsa Matrouh, a Bedouin mob of 3,000 Muslims tried to attack the city's Coptic population, with 400 Copts having to barricade themselves in their church while the mob destroyed 18 homes, 23 shops and 16 cars.
Journalist John R. Bradley writing around 2008 noted that
" ... other longstanding Coptic complaints include the under-representation of Christians in the police, judiciary, armed forces, civil service, government, and education system. There is also a virtual ban on access to state-controlled radio and television. One oft-cited example of official discrimination is a law that, until recently, required personal presidential approval to carry out even simple church repairs, such as fixing a toilet and which was blamed for delays of more than a decade in the issuing of permits to build churches. Mubarak eased the law in 2005, delegating such responsibility to local governors."
Members of U.S. Congress have expressed concern about "human trafficking" of Coptic women and girls who are victims of abductions, forced conversion to Islam, sexual exploitation and forced marriage to Muslim men.
Boutros Boutros-Ghali was a Copt who served as Egypt's foreign minister under President Anwar Sadat. During Mubarak regime, there were two Copts serving on Egypt's governmental cabinet: Finance Minister Youssef Boutros Ghali and Environment Minister Magued George. There was also one Coptic governor out of 25, that of the upper Egyptian governorate of Qena, and the first Coptic governor in a few decades. In addition, Naguib Sawiris, an extremely successful businessman, is a Copt who lived in Egypt during that era. In 2002, under the Mubarak government, Coptic Christmas (January 7) was recognized as an official holiday. However, many Copts continue to complain of being minimally represented in law enforcement, state security and public office, and of being discriminated against in the workforce on the basis of their religion.
Copts are unrepresented and marginalized in Egyptian politics, bureaucracy, and society. Minorities at Risk reports that there are no Christian governors, university presidents, or deans in the country. Official and unofficial discrimination against Copts occurs in forms such as disadvantages in education and the judicial system, violence from Islamic militants, and restrictions on religious activity and expression.
While freedom of religion is guaranteed by the Egyptian constitution, according to Human Rights Watch, "Egyptians are able to convert to Islam generally without difficulty, but Muslims who convert to Christianity face difficulties in getting new identity papers and some have been arrested for allegedly forging such documents." The Coptic community, however, takes pains to prevent conversions from Christianity to Islam due to the ease with which Christians can often become Muslim. Public officials, being conservative themselves, intensify the complexity of the legal procedures required to recognize the religion change as required by law. Security agencies will sometimes claim that such conversions from Islam to Christianity (or occasionally vice versa) may stir social unrest, and thereby justify themselves in wrongfully detaining the subjects, insisting that they are simply taking steps to prevent likely social troubles from happening. In 2007, a Cairo administrative court denied 45 citizens the right to obtain identity papers documenting their reversion to Christianity after converting to Islam. However, in February 2008 the Supreme Administrative Court overturned the decision, allowing 12 citizens who had reverted to Christianity to re-list their religion on identity cards, but they will specify that they had adopted Islam for a brief period of time.
The Egyptian Census of 1897 reported the percentage of Non-Muslims in Urban Provinces as 14.7% (13.2% Christians, 1.4% Jews). The Egyptian Census of 1986 reported the percentage of Non-Muslims in Urban Provinces as 6.1% (5.7% Christians, 0% Jews). The decline in the Jewish representation is interpreted through the creation of the state of Israel, and the subsequent emigration of the Egyptian Jews. There is no explanation for a 55% decline in the percentage of Christians in Egypt. It has been suggested that Egyptian censuses held after 1952 have been politicized to under-represent the Christian population.
In August 2013, following the 3 July 2013 Coup and clashes between the military and Morsi supporters, there were widespread attacks on Coptic churches and institutions in Egypt by Morsi supports.
According to at least one Egyptian scholar (Samuel Tadros), the attacks are the worst violence against the Coptic Church since the 14th century.
USA Today reported that "forty churches have been looted and torched, while 23 others have been attacked and heavily damaged". The Facebook page of the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party was "rife with false accusations meant to foment hatred against Copts", according to journalist Kirsten Powers. The Party's page claimed that the Coptic Church had declared "war against Islam and Muslims" and that "The Pope of the Church is involved in the removal of the first elected Islamist president. The Pope of the Church alleges Islamic Sharia is backwards, stubborn, and reactionary." On August 15, nine Egyptian human rights groups under the umbrella group "Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights", released a statement saying, In December … Brotherhood leaders began fomenting anti-Christian sectarian incitement. The anti-Coptic incitement and threats continued unabated up to the demonstrations of June 30 and, with the removal of President Morsi … morphed into sectarian violence, which was sanctioned by … the continued anti-Coptic rhetoric heard from the group's leaders on the stage … throughout the sit-in. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copts_in_Egypt |
Najda ibn Amir al-Hanafi | Political differences emerged between Najda and Nafi, leading the former to defect and return to the Yamama, where the Kharijites were led by Abu Talut Salim ibn Matar. Abu Talut had seized Jawn al-Khadarim, a massive agricultural tract in the Yamama that was previously owned by the Banu Hanifa but seized by the Umayyad caliph Mu'awiya I (r. 661–680), and distributed among his followers its lands and the 4,000 slaves Mu'awiya had sent to till the lands. In 685, Najda and his retinue intercepted at Jabala a Mecca-bound caravan from Basra and distributed the loot among his Kharijite partisans in Jawn al-Khadarim, whom he also advised to continue utilizing the slaves they captured to work the fields after they had been freed from this labor. His actions and advice brought him distinction among the Kharijites of the Yamama and when he proposed to be their leader, he gained their unanimous support, including from Abu Talut, who stepped down. Thenceforth, the Kharijite movement in Arabia at the time was named the Najdat after Najda.
Not long after he became leader, Najda launched a raid against the Banu Ka'b, a branch of the Banu Amir, in Bahrayn (eastern Arabia) and landed a heavy blow to them at the Battle of Dhu'l-Majaz, seizing the corn and dates that the Banu Ka'b had looted from a nearby market. Najda's victory signaled the start of a series of victories that would ultimately give him control over most of Arabia to the detriment of Ibn al-Zubayr, who proved incapable of confronting the Kharijites. In 686, he returned to Bahrayn, this time attacking the Banu Abd al-Qays tribe, which opposed the Kharijites. With the assistance of the Azd tribe, he slew or captured many Abd al-Qays tribesmen in Qatif, where he headquartered himself afterward. Najda's increasing strength and control of Bahrayn and the Yamama threatened the contiguity of Ibn al-Zubayr's caliphate by blocking the routes between his headquarters in Mecca and his key province of Basra. Ibn al-Zubayr's son, the governor of Basra, Hamza, attempted to rollback Najda's gains in Bahrayn by dispatching against the Kharijites a 14,000-strong army led by Abd Allah ibn Umayr al-Laythi. However, Najda and his men ambushed and scattered the Zubayrid force in 686.
After his victory against the Zubayrid army, Najda dispatched his lieutenant Atiyya ibn al-Aswad al-Hanafi to capture Oman from its chieftains Abbad ibn Abd Allah al-Julandi and his sons Sa'id and Sulayman. Atiyya succeeded, held the region for a few months then left it to his deputy, a certain Abu'l-Qasim, but the latter was soon after killed by Sa'id and Sulayman, who with local support recaptured Oman. Ties between Najda and Atiyya became frayed, possibly as a result of the former's unequal distribution of pay and communications with the Umayyad caliph, Abd al-Malik, who controlled Syria and Egypt. By 687, Najda had conquered northern Bahrayn, forcing the Banu Tamim of Kazima to pay tribute. In the ensuing months, he entered Sana'a in Yemen and sent his deputy Abu Fudayk to Hadramawt; both places gave their allegiance to Najda and paid him tribute. By dint of these territorial gains, Najda became more powerful in Arabia than Ibn al-Zubayr, whose power in the peninsula was thereafter confined to the Hejaz (western Arabia). Najda's growing influence prompted Abd al-Malik, who was preoccupied with domestic and external crises, to appeal for Najda's support and recognition of his caliphate. Abd al-Malik offered the Kharijite leader the formal governorship of the Yamama and a pardon for the bloodshed and financial losses he caused in Arabia if he would recognize Abd al-Malik as caliph. Najda rejected the offer, but maintained friendly relations with the Umayyad caliph. Abd al-Malik achieved his goal, according to historian Abd al-Ameer Dixon, who held that by approaching Najda, Abd al-Malik sought either win him over and temporarily utilize him against Ibn al-Zubayr or, should be unsuccessful in this regard, to at least drive a wedge between Najda and his partisans.
Najda led his partisans to the Hajj pilgrimage in Mecca in June 687, attending alongside the partisans of Ibn al-Zubayr and Abd al-Malik. According to Dixon, this demonstrated Ibn al-Zubayr powerlessness to prevent Najda from entering his capital city and that "Najda was equal in power" at the time to both Abd al-Malik and Ibn al-Zubayr. At the conclusion of the Hajj, Najda attempted to head north to capture Medina, but abandoned the campaign out of religious concerns; Medina's pro-Zubayrid defenders had made preparations to resist such an attack and their leader, Abd Allah ibn Umar, was held in high regard by the Kharijites. Instead, Najda approached Ta'if, near Mecca, where its leader 'Amir ibn Urwa ibn Mas'ud al-Thaqafi gave Najda his allegiance. Najda relocated to nearby Tabala, assigned al-Haruq al-Hanafi governor of Ta'if, Sarat and Tabala (all in the Hejaz), and charged Sa'd al-Talayi' to collect tribute from the Banu Hilal tribe of Najran, before returning to his headquarters in Bahrayn. Upon his return to Bahrayn, he ordered that food provisions destined for Mecca and Medina be blocked to pressure Ibn al-Zubayr; he rescinded the order following appeals by pious individuals, notably Abd Allah ibn Abbas. At the peak of Najda's power, divisions among his Kharijite partisans ultimately led to his downfall. Domestic opposition regarding Najda's friendly ties to Abd al-Malik, unequal distribution of military pay and favorable treatment to his associates despite their religious offenses culminated with Abu Fudayk killing Najda in Bahrayn in 691/92. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Najda_ibn_Amir_al-Hanafi |
A-Group culture | The A-Group makers left behind a number of cemeteries, with each necropolis containing around fifty graves. Most of what is known about this culture has been gleaned from these tombs, over 3,000 of which have been excavated. The burials are of two kinds: a more common oval pit, and a similar pit featuring a lateral funerary niche. Skeletons found within these graves were observed to be physically akin to their peers in Upper Egypt. The specimens typically had straight hair of a black or dark brown hue. On average, the men were 169.9 cm in height and the women stood around 155.5 cm. Some individuals were wrapped in leather and positioned on reed mats. All of the tombs contained various burial items, including personal ornaments, utensils and ceramics.
According to a study of Nubian dental affinities by Joel Irish (2005), traits characterising Late Paleolithic samples from Nubia are common in recent populations south of the Sahara, whereas traits shared by Final Neolithic and later Nubians more closely emulate those found among groups originating to the north, i.e. in Egypt and, to a diminishing degree, greater North Africa, West Asia, and Europe. Irish concluded that “genetic discontinuity, in the form of population replacement or swamping of an indigenous gene pool, occurred in Nubia sometime after the late Pleistocene".
In 2007, Strouhal et al described the physical features of ancient A-Group Nubians as "Caucasoid" which were "not distinguishable from the contemporary Predynastic Upper Egyptians of the Badarian and Nagadian cultures" based in reference to previous anthropological studies from 1975 and 1985.
Dental trait analysis of A-Group fossils found affinities with populations inhabiting Northeast Africa the Nile valley, and East Africa. Among the sampled populations, the A-Group people were nearest to the Kerma culture bearers and Kush populations in Upper Nubia and to Ethiopians, followed by the Meroitic, X-Group and Christian period inhabitants of Lower Nubia and the Kellis population in the Dakhla Oasis, as well as C-Group and Pharaonic era skeletons excavated in Lower Nubia and ancient Egyptians (Naqada, Badari, Hierakonpolis, Abydos and Kharga in Upper Egypt; Hawara in Lower Egypt).
In 2020, Kanya Godde analysed a series of crania which included two Egyptian (predynastic Badarian and Naqada series), a series of A-Group Nubians, and a Bronze Age series from Lachish, Palestine. The two pre-dynastic series had strongest affinities, followed by closeness between the Naqada and the Nubian series. Further, the Nubian A-Group plotted nearer to the Egyptians, and the Lachish sample placed more closely to Naqada than Badari. According to Godde, the spatial-temporal model applied to the pattern of biological distances explains the more distant relationship of Badari to Lachish than Naqada to Lachish as gene flow will cause populations to become more similar over time. Overall, both Egyptian samples included were more similar to the Nubian series than to the Lachish series.
Excavations at an A-Group cemetery in Qustul yielded an old incense burner, which was adorned with Ancient Egyptian royal iconography. However, further research established the antecedence of the predynastic Egyptian regalia:
The earliest known examples of Egyptian royal iconography, such as, e.g., the representation of the Red Crown on a late Naqada I (c. 3500 BC) pottery vessel from Abydos or the triumphal scenes in the painting from Hierakonpolis Tomb 100 (c. 3400-3300 BC) are much older than the Qustul censer. It seems thus that it was the Qustul rulers who adopted symbols of royal authority developed in Egypt and not vice versa.
More recent and broader studies have determined that the distinct pottery styles, differing burial practices, different grave goods and the distribution of sites all indicate that the Naqada people and the Nubian A-Group people were from different cultures. Kathryn Bard further states that "Naqada cultural burials contain very few Nubian craft goods, which suggests that while Egyptian goods were exported to Nubia and were buried in A-Group graves, A-Group goods were of little interest further north."
Nubian excavations in Serra East found that the bodies buried in the A-Group cemeteries would lay on either side with their head facing south or east. Similar to that of a curled-up position, their hands could be found near the face and their legs folded-in upwards. Leather wrappings were also found in the burials as a means of clothing and bags. However, this leather wrapping was not typically found in more lavish cemeteries, such as Cemetery L at Qustul. As for distinct pottery styles, decorative vessels were more likely to be found in larger tombs at Qustul, whereas simpler burial arrangements contained ripple-burnished or simple vessels. However, the archaeological cemeteries at Qustul are no longer available for excavations since the flooding of Lake Nasser.
According to David Wengrow, the A-Group polity of the late 4th millenninum BC is poorly understood since most of the archaeological remains are submerged underneath Lake Nasser.
Frank Yurco stated that depictions of pharonic iconography such as the royal crowns, Horus falcons and victory scenes were concentrated in the Upper Egyptian Naqada culture and A-Group Nubia. He further elaborated that:"Egyptian writing arose in Naqadan Upper Egypt and A-Group Nubia, and not in the Delta cultures, where the direct Western Asian contact was made, further vititates the Mesopotamian-influence argument".
Oshiro Michinori argued, in reference to the A-Group culture, that the external influence from Nubia on the formation of Ancient Egypt in the pre-dynastic period to the dynasty period predates influence from eastern Mesopotamia. He notes an increase in the appreciation of the contribution of Nubia in the south to Ancient Egyptian culture at the time of his writing. According to him, chiefs of the same cultural level as Upper Egyptian powers existed in Lower Nubia and exhibited pharaonic iconography before the unification of Egypt. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-Group_culture |
Islamic flag | Before the advent of Islam, banners as tools for signaling had already been employed by the pre-Islamic Arab tribes and the Byzantines. Early Muslim army naturally deployed banners for the same purpose. Early Islamic flags, however, greatly simplified its design by using plain color, due to the Islamic prescriptions on aniconism. According to the Islamic traditions, the Quraysh had a black banner and a white-and-black banner. It further states that Muhammad had a banner in white nicknamed "the Young Eagle" (Arabic: العقاب, al-ʿuqāb); and a flag in black, said to be made from his wife Aisha's head-cloth. This larger flag was known as the "Banner of the Eagle" (Arabic: الراية العقاب, romanized: al-rāyat al-ʿuqāb), as well as the "Black Banner" (Arabic: الراية السوداء, romanized: al-rāyat as-sawdāʾ). In the Islamic tradition, Muhammad used the white flag to represent both the leader of the Muslim army and the Muslim state. Other examples are the prominent Arab military commander 'Amr ibn al-'As using a red banner, and the Khawarij rebels using a red banner as well. Banners of the early Muslim armies in general, however, employed a variety of colors, both singly and in combination.
The Umayyad Caliphate, which ruled the largest geographical extent of the medieval Islamic Empire, adopted white flags. During the Abbasid Revolution, the Abbasids incorporated the Black Standard based on the early Islamic eschatological saying that "a people coming from the East with black banners" would herald the arrival of the messianic figure Mahdi. The Shiite Alids chose the color of white to distinguish themselves from the Abbasids, but also adopted green flags. Thus in 817, when the Abbasid caliph al-Ma'mun adopted the Alid Ali al-Ridha as his heir apparent, he also changed the dynastic color from black to green. The change was reverted when al-Ma'mun had Ali killed, and returned to Baghdad in 819. The Abbasids continued to use black as their dynastic color. However, their caliphal banner was made of white silk with the Quranic inscriptions. The white color was then adopted, in deliberate opposition to the Abbasids, by the Ismaili Shiite Fatimid Caliphate, and cemented the association of black and white with Sunni and Shia respectively. It was also used by the Almohads. The Fatimid caliphal banner was decorated in red and yellow, sometimes emblazoned with the picture of a lion. Early Muslim rulers are generally not known to have used emblems of a distinctly dynastic, religious, or personal nature. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_flag |
United Arab Republic | Instead of a federation of two Arab peoples, as many Syrians had imagined, the UAR turned into a state completely dominated by Egyptians. Syrian political life was also diminished, as Nasser demanded all political parties in Syria to be dismantled. In the process, the strongly centralized Egyptian state imposed Nasser's socialistic political and economic system on weaker Syria, creating a backlash from the Syrian business and army circles, which resulted in the Syrian coup of September 28, 1961, and the end of the UAR. According to Elie Podeh, "... this unity scheme was successful in consolidating the shaky Syrian identity. In fact, once the Syrians lost their independence they suddenly realized that they did indeed possess a different identity than the Egyptians."
Despite the economic difficulties, what truly produced the demise of the UAR was Nasser's inability to find a suitable political system for the new regime. Given his socialist agenda in Egypt, the Ba'ath should have been his natural ally, but Nasser was hesitant to share power. Though Amer allowed some liberalization of the economy in order to appease Syrian businessmen, his decision to rig the elections of the National Union (the single party which replaced the Ba'ath), with the help of Colonel Abdul Hamid Sarraj (a Syrian army official and Nasser sympathizer), antagonized Ba'athist leaders. The Ba'ath Party won only five percent of the seats on the higher committees, while the more traditional conservative parties won a significant majority. Sarraj was appointed the head of the National Union in Syria, and by the spring of 1960 had replaced Amer as the chair of the Syrian Executive Council. Under Sarraj Syria was ruled by a repressive security force designed to suppress all opposition to the regime.
The immense increases in public sector control were accompanied by a push for centralization. In August 1961 Nasser abolished regional governments in favour of one central authority, which operated from Damascus February through May and from Cairo for the rest of the year. As a part of this centralization, Sarraj was relocated to Cairo, where he found himself with little real power. September 15, 1961, Sarraj returned to Syria, and after meeting with Nasser and Amer resigned from all his posts on September 26.
Without any close allies to watch over Syria, Nasser was unaware of the growing unrest of the military. On September 28 a group of officers staged a coup and declared Syria's independence from the UAR. Though the coup leaders were willing to renegotiate a union under terms they felt would put Syria on an equal footing with Egypt, Nasser refused such a compromise. He initially considered sending troops to overthrow the new regime, but chose not to once he was informed that the last of his allies in Syria had been defeated. In speeches that followed the coup, Nasser declared he would never give up his goal of an ultimate Arab union. However, he would never again achieve such a tangible victory toward this goal. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Arab_Republic |
Isaaq genocide | The government started a program of creating paramilitary groups among the Ogaden refugees as well as conscripting them into the national army, it also encouraged the creation of armed militia groups among members of the Darod (the clan of Siad Barre). The Somali Army managed the training of both groups, and costs incurred including any expenditure for their arms and equipment, radio communications and fuel came from the army's budget.
One of the militias formed by the Ogaden refugees was the WSLF, officially created to fight Ethiopia and "reclaim ethnic Somali territory" in Ethiopia but it was used primarily against local Isaaq civilians and nomads. A Human Rights Watch's Africa Watch report states "The WSLF was ostensibly being trained to fight Ethiopia to regain the Ogaden, but, in fact, terrorized the Isaak civilian population living in the border region, which came to fear them more than the Ethiopian army. Killing, rape and looting became common."
As for the looting, the Ogaden refugees from Ethiopia ransacked homes that were vacated by Isaaq civilians out of clan hatred. The Isaaqs entrepreneurial disposition was also a factor of the large-scale looting, which the Ogadenis saw as 'undeserved':
In northern Somalia, the Isaaq clans confronted a massive influx of Ogadeni refugees from eastern Ethiopia whom Siyad encouraged to loot property, attack people, and destabilize cities. An instrument of oppression, the Ogadenis and the regular Somali army were viewed as alien forces sent to oppress the Isaaq. Clan animosity intersected with class hatred as rural Ogadeni clansmen harassed Isaaq entrepreneurs with a visceral hatred, convinced that their wealth and urban commodities were undeserved. The Isaaq tell hilarious, but pathetic stories about Ogadenis who stole modern household appliances from homes in Hargeisa, Borama and Burao, then retreated with their “trophies” to use them in the remote pasture lands devoid of electricity.
As the WSLF, supported by the Barre regime, continued to attack and commit atrocities against the Isaaq, a delegation was sent to meet President Barre in 1979 to request making a stop to WSLF abuses. In spite of promises made to the Isaaq elders the violence against civilians and nomads by WSLF continued.
The continued abuse of WSLF and the government's indifference to the suffering of Isaaq civilians and nomads prompted many Isaaq army officers to desert the army with a view to creating their own armed movement to fight Ethiopia, one that would also intimidate the WSLF and discourage further violence against Isaaq civilians. Their new movement, supported and financed by Isaaqs, was named Afraad (the fourth unit) and became operational in 1979. The Isaaq movement of Afraad immediately came into conflict with the Ogaden clan's faction of WSLF in the form of a number of bloody encounters between the two groups. Afraad's objective was to push the WSLF out of their strongholds (Isaaq territory) whereas the WSLF responded by retaliating further against Isaaq civilians living in the border region.
The situation was further exacerbated by the appointment of Mohamed Hashi Gani, a cousin of President Siad Barre and fellow Marehan Darod, as the military commander of the northern regions with headquarters in Hargeisa in 1980. Gani's rule was especially harsh against Isaaq, he removed them from all key economic positions, seized their properties and placed the northern regions under emergency laws. He also ordered the transfer of Afraad away from the border region, giving the WSLF complete control of the border region, thus leaving Isaaq nomads in the area without any protection against WSLF violence.
A United Nations inspection team that visited the area in 1988 reported that the Ethiopian refugees (Ogaden) were carrying weapons supplied by the Somali Army. The UN team reported that, with the Somali Army's encouragement, the Ogadeni refugees carried out extensive looting in several northern towns. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaaq_genocide |
LGBT rights in Egypt | During the rule of Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian government did not support LGBT-rights legislation at home and objected to attempts, starting in the 1990s, to have the United Nations include LGBT-rights within its human rights mission. While the Mubarak regime did not support LGBT rights, it did not enact an obvious ban on homosexuality or cross-dressing in the criminal code.
Criminal sanctions against gay and bisexual men tended to arise not from the penal code itself, but from a supplemental law, enacted in 1961, to combat prostitution.
The law against prostitution also bans "debauchery", even if the act did not involve trafficking or prostitution.
Egyptian courts interpreted the ban on debauchery to criminalize homosexual relations between consenting adults. Repeat offenders of the law can face even harsher punishment for what the law views as "habitual debauchery".
In addition to the law on prostitution, other public morality or order-based laws gave the police and judges significant leeway to jail or fine gay and bisexual men. While arrests had been periodically occurring under these laws for decades, a more systematic crackdown appeared to have begun in the early part of the twenty-first century.
Beginning in 2000, under Hosni Mubarak, these laws were used to engage in a more sophisticated and systematic crackdown on gay or bisexual men, or indeed anyone deemed by the government to be supportive of LGBT rights.
In 2000, police arrested an Egyptian gay couple and charged them with, "violation of honor by threat" and "practising immoral and indecent behavior". Their lawyer asked that the charges be dropped because homosexuality was not a crime, but the judge refused on the grounds that two men had in fact "offended" religious and moral standards. The incident became a media sensation, promoting various public figures to view homosexuality as a product of Western decadence and demand that the government execute homosexuals or send them to mental institutions to be reformed.
Within a year, the Egyptian government began a public crackdown on Egyptian gay men by raiding private parties, arresting the guests and charging them under the Prostitution and Debauchery law. This crackdown also saw the "Public Order and Public Morals" code being increasingly used to criminalize the sexuality of gay and bisexual men. The code, originally enacted in the 1990s to punish westernized students and liberal intellectuals, was now being used to punish gay and bisexual men.
The first of these raids was at a Cairo boat party, where all fifty-two gay men were arrested and charged with violating these vague public morality laws. The "Cairo 52" were arrested and tried on the original Prostitution and Debauchery law, as well as the newer Public Order and Public Morality code.
The impact of these laws on gay and bisexual men were brought to the world's attention by the Human Rights Watch.
It was during this time that Human Rights Watch published a report on the laws used by the Egyptian government to criminalize homosexuality, the history of the laws, use of torture against gay and bisexual men by the police, and how such laws violate international human rights standards.
The Cairo 52 were defended by international human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International. However, they had no organized internal support, pleaded innocent, and were tried under the state security courts. Members of the German parliament and the French President called upon the Egyptian government to respect the human rights of its LGBT citizens. Twenty-three of the defendants were sentenced to prison with hard labor, while the others were acquitted. More men have been arrested in various raids on homosexuals, although foreigners tend to be released quickly.
In many recent situations, men are being arrested for meeting or attempting to meet other adult men through various Internet chatrooms and message boards. Trans and gender non conforming people are also harassed this way. One such case, on 20 June 2003, when an Israeli tourist in Egypt was jailed for homosexuality for about fifteen days before he was eventually released and allowed to return home. On 24 September 2003, police set up checkpoints at both sides of the Qasr al-Nil Bridge, which spans the Nile in downtown Cairo and is a popular place for adult men to meet other men for sex, and arrested 62 men for homosexuality.
In 2004, a seventeen-year-old private university student received a 17 years' sentence in prison, including two years' hard labor, for posting a personal profile on a gay dating site.
The Egyptian government's response to the international criticism was either to deny that they were persecuting LGBT people or to defend their policies by stating that homosexuality is a moral perversion.
In 2009, Al Balagh Al Gadid, a weekly Egyptian newspaper was banned, and two of its reporters were jailed for printing a news article that accused high-profile Egyptian actors Nour El Sherif, Khaled Aboul Naga and Hamdi El Wazir of being involved in a sexual prostitution sex ring and in bribing government agents to cover up their involvement. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Egypt |
World religions | Many scholars of religion have resisted efforts to challenge the paradigm, and as of 2016 was reported as still being widespread in university introductory courses to the study of religion. Many instructors feel that explaining the critique of the world religions paradigm to undergraduate students would be difficult, as the critique would be too complex for many of them to understand. Its continued use has also been defended by the claim that it is what undergraduate students expect and that it mirrors what they will have been taught at school.
Some scholars have argued for the rejection of the world religions paradigm altogether; Cotter and Robertson presented the argument that "the continued uncritical use of the WRP fosters a breeding ground for relativistic navel-gazing which has no place in the contemporary research university". Owen was of the view that "as long as it continues to employ the World Religions paradigm as a default approach (even after deconstructing it), religious studies will fail in its humanistic task" because it will simply be engaging in "knowledge transfer" and not "critically engaging" with "culture and knowledge". One alternative framework that some scholars use to teach about religion is the "lived religion" paradigm, which places emphasis not on distinct religious traditions but on individual experiences and practices. Another alternative is the "material religion" framework which focuses on examining religion through material culture and physical objects. Owen noted that, in her experience, many students display an "initial resistance to alternatives" as they are expecting the world religions paradigm. She cited the example of her introductory course at Leeds Trinity University College, which was constructed on thematic lines rather than according to the world religions paradigm, and which induced feelings of panic among many undergraduates.
Many scholars who are critical of the world religions paradigm find themselves having to teach it as part of introductory courses for undergraduate students. Some spent much of a course teaching the concept and then several sessions after this deconstructing it. Some scholars have suggested that even when students are taught using the world religions paradigm, it could be a good means of encouraging them to think critically about category formation. The scholar Steven W. Ramey for instance advocated teaching the paradigm in a manner that makes it clear that it is a "constructed discourse". Similarly, Baldrick-Morrone, Graziano, and Stoddard suggested that teaching undergraduates about the world religious paradigm helps to explain to students how "classification is a social act". They noted that students could leave such a course not only knowing more about the specific religious traditions included in the world religions category, but that they would also leave "knowing how to better interrogate the world around them". To avoid promoting the paradigm's portrayal of different religious traditions as rigid, homogenous categories, the scholar Teemu Taira suggested introducing ethnographic case studies into the class to better explain the realities of people's lives and uses of religious traditions. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_religions |
Zoroastrianism | According to the Zoroastrian creation myth, there is one universal, transcendent, all-good, and uncreated supreme creator deity Ahura Mazda, or the "Wise Lord" (Ahura meaning "Lord" and Mazda meaning "Wisdom" in Avestan). Zoroaster keeps the two attributes separate as two different concepts in most of the Gathas yet sometimes combines them into one form. Zoroaster also proclaims that Ahura Mazda is omniscient but not omnipotent. Ahura Mazda existed in light and goodness above, while Angra Mainyu, (also referred to in later texts as "Ahriman"), the destructive spirit/mentality,
existed in darkness and ignorance below. They have existed independently of each other for all time, and manifest contrary substances. In the Gathas, Ahura Mazda is noted as working through emanations known as the Amesha Spenta and with the help of "other ahuras". These divine beings called Amesha Spentas, support him and are representative and guardians of different aspects of creation and the ideal personality. Ahura Mazda is immanent in humankind and interacts with creation through these bounteous/holy divinities. In addition to these, He is assisted by a league of countless divinities called Yazatas, meaning "worthy of worship." Each Yazata is generally a hypostasis of a moral or physical aspect of creation. Asha, is the main spiritual force which comes from Ahura Mazda. It is the cosmic order and is the antithesis of chaos, which is evident as druj, falsehood and disorder, that comes from Angra Mainyu. The resulting cosmic conflict involves all of creation, mental/spiritual and material, including humanity at its core, which has an active role to play in the conflict. The main representative of Asha in this conflict is Spenta Mainyu, the creative spirit/mentality. Ahura Mazda then created the material and visible world itself in order to ensnare evil. He created the floating, egg-shaped universe in two parts: first the spiritual (menog) and 3,000 years later, the physical (getig). Ahura Mazda then created Gayomard, the archetypical perfect man, and Gavaevodata, the primordial bovine.
While Ahura Mazda created the universe and humankind, Angra Mainyu, whose very nature is to destroy, miscreated demons, evil daevas, and noxious creatures (khrafstar) such as snakes, ants, and flies. Angra Mainyu created an opposite, evil being for each good being, except for humans, which he found he could not match. Angra Mainyu invaded the universe through the base of the sky, inflicting Gayomard and the bull with suffering and death. However, the evil forces were trapped in the universe and could not retreat. The dying primordial man and bovine emitted seeds, which were protect by Mah, the Moon. From the bull's seed grew all beneficial plants and animals of the world and from the man's seed grew a plant whose leaves became the first human couple. Humans thus struggle in a two-fold universe of the material and spiritual trapped and in long combat with evil. The evils of this physical world are not products of an inherent weakness but are the fault of Angra Mainyu's assault on creation. This assault turned the perfectly flat, peaceful, and daily illuminated world into a mountainous, violent place that is half night. According to Zoroastrian cosmology, in articulating the Ahuna Vairya formula, Ahura Mazda made the ultimate triumph of good against Angra Mainyu evident. Ahura Mazda will ultimately prevail over the evil Angra Mainyu, at which point reality will undergo a cosmic renovation called Frashokereti and limited time will end. In the final renovation, all of creation—even the souls of the dead that were initially banished to or chose to descend into "darkness"—will be reunited with Ahura Mazda in the Kshatra Vairya (meaning "best dominion"), being resurrected to immortality. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroastrianism |
Al-Farabi | Al-Farabi spent most of his scholarly life in Baghdad. In the autobiographical passage preserved by Ibn Abi Usaybi'a, al-Farabi stated that he had studied logic, medicine and sociology with Yuhanna ibn Haylan up to and including Aristotle's Posterior Analytics, i.e., according to the order of the books studied in the curriculum, al-Farabi was claiming that he had studied Porphyry's Eisagoge and Aristotle's Categories, De Interpretatione, Prior and Posterior Analytics. His teacher, Yuhanna bin Haylan, was a Nestorian cleric. This period of study was probably in Baghdad, where al-Mas'udi records that Yuhanna died during the reign of al-Muqtadir (295-320/908-32). In his Appearance of Philosophy (Fī Ẓuhūr al-Falsafa), al-Farabi tells us: Philosophy as an academic subject became widespread in the days of the Ptolemaic kings of the Greeks after the death of Aristotle in Alexandria until the end of the woman’s reign [i.e., Cleopatra’s]. The teaching of it continued unchanged in Alexandria after the death of Aristotle through the reign of thirteen kings ... Thus it went until the coming of Christianity. Then the teaching came to an end in Rome while it continued in Alexandria until the king of the Christians looked into the matter. The bishops assembled and took counsel together on which parts of [philosophy] teaching were to be left in place and which were to be discontinued. They formed the opinion that the books on logic were to be taught up to the end of the assertoric figures [Prior Analytics, I.7] but not what comes after it, since they thought that would harm Christianity. Teaching the rest [of the logical works] remained private until the coming of Islam when the teaching was transferred from Alexandria to Antioch. There it remained for a long time until only one teacher was left. Two men learned from him, and they left, taking the books with them. One of them was from Harran, the other from Marw. As for the man from Marw, two men learned from him..., Ibrahim al-Marwazi and Yuhanna ibn Haylan. [Al-Farabi then says he studied with Yuhanna ibn Haylan up to the end of the Posterior Analytics].He was in Baghdad at least until the end of September 942, as recorded in notes in his Mabādeʾ ārāʾ ahl al-madīna al-fāżela. He finished the book in Damascus the following year (331), i.e., by September 943). He also lived and taught for some time in Aleppo. Al-Farabi later visited Egypt, finishing six sections summarizing the book Mabādeʾ, in Egypt in 337/July 948 – June 949 when he returned to Syria, where he was supported by Sayf al-Dawla, the Hamdanid ruler. Al-Mas'udi, writing barely five years after the fact (955-6, the date of the composition of the Tanbīh), says that al-Farabi died in Damascus in Rajab 339 (between 14 December 950 and 12 January 951). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Farabi |
First Iraqi–Kurdish War | By early 1960, it became apparent that Qasim would not follow through with his promise of regional autonomy. As a result, the KDP began to agitate for regional autonomy. In the face of growing Kurdish dissent, as well as Barzani's personal power, Qasim began to incite the Barzanis historical enemies, the Bradost and Zebari tribes, which led to intertribal warfare throughout 1960 and early 1961.
By February 1961, Barzani had defeated the pro-government forces and consolidated his position as leader of the Kurds. At this point, Barzani ordered his forces to occupy and expel government officials from all Kurdish territory. This was not received well in Baghdad, and as a result, Qasim began to prepare for a military offensive against the north to return government control of the region. Meanwhile, in June 1961, the KDP issued a detailed ultimatum to Qasim outlining Kurdish grievances and demanded rectification. Qasim ignored the Kurdish demands and continued his planning for war. It was not until September 10, when an Iraqi army column was ambushed by a group of Kurds, that the Kurdish revolt truly began. In response to the attack, Qasim lashed out and ordered the Iraqi Air Force to indiscriminately bomb Kurdish villages, which ultimately served to rally the entire Kurdish population to Barzani's standard.
Kurdish villages were targeted by United States supplied munitions consisting napalm bombs numbering 1,000 and 4,000 other bombs which were given by the United States to the Ba'athist government in Baghdad to use against the Kurds. Entire Kurdish villages and livestock were incinerated by the napalm bombs. The decision to supply napalm and other weapons to the Ba'athist was backed by American President Kennedy. Napalm bombs were also sold to Iraq by the United Kingdom. French Ambassador Bernard Dorin witnessed a girl in Iraqi Kurdistan whose face was burned off by the UK made bombs.
After the failure of the Syrian political union with Egypt in 1961, Syria was declared an Arab Republic in the interim constitution. On 23 August 1962, the government conducted a special population census only for the province of Jazira which was predominantly Kurdish. As a result, around 120,000 Kurds in Jazira were arbitrarily categorized as aliens. In addition, a media campaign was launched against the Kurds with slogans such as Save Arabism in Jazira! and Fight the Kurdish threat!. These policies coincided with the beginning of Barzani's uprising in Iraqi Kurdistan and discovery of oilfields in the Kurdish inhabited areas of Syria. In June 1963, Syria took part in the Iraqi military campaign against the Kurds by providing aircraft, armoured vehicles and a force of 6,000 soldiers. Syrian troops crossed the Iraqi border and moved into the Kurdish town of Zakho in pursuit of Barzani's fighters.
The Kurdish uprising received material support from Iran and Israel—both of them wishing to weaken Iraq. Israel regarded the Iraqi military as a possible threat in case of renewed fighting between Israel and Jordan and Syria. Iraqi forces had participated in the 1948 Arab invasion of Israel and Iraq was the only Arab participant in that war who refused to sign ceasefire agreements with Israel. Since then Iraq had on a number of occasions threatened to send forces to assist Jordan against Israel during rounds of border fighting between the two. Therefore, the Israelis wished to keep the Iraqis occupied elsewhere. Another Israeli interest was Kurdish assistance for Jews still living in Iraq to escape through Kurdish territory to Israel. Iran wished to strengthen its own political and military position vis-à-vis Iraq—the only other regional power in the Persian Gulf—and perhaps wring certain territorial concessions from Iraq in return for ceasing support of the Kurds (this was achieved in 1975, during the Second Iraqi-Kurdish War, but it is not clear when the idea was originally conceived).
In November 1963, after considerable infighting amongst the civilian and military wings of the Ba'athists, they were ousted by Abdul Salam Arif in a coup. Then, after another failed offensive on Kurds, Arif declared a ceasefire in February 1964, which provoked a split among Kurdish urban radicals on one hand and Peshmerga forces, led by Barzani on the other. Barzani agreed to the ceasefire and fired the radicals from the party. Following the unexpected death of Arif, whereupon he was replaced by his brother, Abdul Rahman Arif, the Iraqi government launched a last-ditch effort to defeat the Kurds. This campaign failed in May 1966, when Barzani forces thoroughly defeated the Iraqi Army at the Battle of Mount Handrin, near Rawanduz. At this battle, it was said that the Kurds slaughtered an entire Iraqi brigade. Recognizing the futility of continuing this campaign, Rahamn Arif announced a 12-point peace program in June 1966, which was not implemented due to the overthrow of Abdul Rahman Arif in a 1968 coup by the Baath Party.
The Ba'ath government restarted a campaign to end the Kurdish insurrection, which stalled in 1969. This can be partly attributed to the Shah of Iran supplying the Kurds with weapons and ammunition. With Iranian help the Kurds decisively defeated the Iraqi advance.
The internal power struggle in Baghdad also greatly hindered Iraqi progress. Moreover, the Soviet Union pressured the Iraqis to come to terms with Barzani. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Iraqi%E2%80%93Kurdish_War |
Kingdom of Jerusalem | The failure of the Second Crusade had dire long-term consequences for the kingdom. The West was hesitant to send large-scale expeditions; for the next few decades, only small armies came, headed by minor European nobles who desired to make a pilgrimage. The Muslim states of Syria were meanwhile gradually united by Nur ad-Din, who defeated the Principality of Antioch at the Battle of Inab in 1149 and gained control of Damascus in 1154. Nur ad-Din was extremely pious and during his rule the concept of jihad came to be interpreted as a kind of counter-crusade against the kingdom, which was an impediment to Muslim unity, both political and spiritual.
In Jerusalem, the Crusaders were distracted by a conflict between Melisende and Baldwin III. Melisende continued to rule as regent long after Baldwin came of age. She was supported by, among others, Manasses of Hierges, who essentially governed for her as constable; her son Amalric, whom she set up as Count of Jaffa; Philip of Milly; and the Ibelin family. Baldwin asserted his independence by mediating disputes in Antioch and Tripoli, and gained the support of the Ibelin brothers when they began to oppose Manasses' growing power, thanks to his marriage to their widowed mother Helvis of Ramla. In 1153 Baldwin had himself crowned as sole ruler, and a compromise was reached by which the kingdom was divided in two, with Baldwin taking Acre and Tyre in the north and Melisende remaining in control of Jerusalem and the cities of the south. Baldwin was able to replace Manasses with one of his own supporters, Humphrey II of Toron. Baldwin and Melisende knew that this situation was untenable. Baldwin soon invaded his mother's possessions, defeated Manasses, and besieged his mother in the Tower of David in Jerusalem. Melisende surrendered and retired to Nablus, but Baldwin appointed her his regent and chief advisor, and she retained some of her influence, especially in appointing ecclesiastical officials. In 1153, Baldwin launched an offensive against Ascalon, the fortress in the south from which Fatimid Egyptian armies had continually raided Jerusalem since the foundation of the kingdom. The fortress was captured and was added to the County of Jaffa, still in the possession of his brother Amalric. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Jerusalem |
Sculpture | Renaissance sculpture proper is often taken to begin with the famous competition for the doors of the Florence Baptistry in 1403, from which the trial models submitted by the winner, Lorenzo Ghiberti, and Filippo Brunelleschi survive. Ghiberti's doors are still in place, but were undoubtedly eclipsed by his second pair for the other entrance, the so-called Gates of Paradise, which took him from 1425 to 1452, and are dazzlingly confident classicizing compositions with varied depths of relief allowing extensive backgrounds. The intervening years had seen Ghiberti's early assistant Donatello develop with seminal statues including his Davids in marble (1408–09) and bronze (1440s), and his Equestrian statue of Gattamelata, as well as reliefs. A leading figure in the later period was Andrea del Verrocchio, best known for his equestrian statue of Bartolomeo Colleoni in Venice; his pupil Leonardo da Vinci designed an equine sculpture in 1482 The Horse for Milan, but only succeeded in making a 24-foot (7.3 m) clay model which was destroyed by French archers in 1499, and his other ambitious sculptural plans were never completed.
The period was marked by a great increase in patronage of sculpture by the state for public art and by the wealthy for their homes; especially in Italy, public sculpture remains a crucial element in the appearance of historic city centres. Church sculpture mostly moved inside just as outside public monuments became common. Portrait sculpture, usually in busts, became popular in Italy around 1450, with the Neapolitan Francesco Laurana specializing in young women in meditative poses, while Antonio Rossellino and others more often depicted knobbly-faced men of affairs, but also young children. The portrait medal invented by Pisanello also often depicted women; relief plaquettes were another new small form of sculpture in cast metal.
Michelangelo was an active sculptor from about 1500 to 1520, and his great masterpieces including his David, Pietà, Moses, and pieces for the Tomb of Pope Julius II and Medici Chapel could not be ignored by subsequent sculptors. His iconic David (1504) has a contrapposto pose, borrowed from classical sculpture. It differs from previous representations of the subject in that David is depicted before his battle with Goliath and not after the giant's defeat. Instead of being shown victorious, as Donatello and Verocchio had done, David looks tense and battle ready. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sculpture |
Hizb ut-Tahrir | Along with the establishment of an Islamic State, Hizb ut-Tahrir's other main principle/objective is the enforcement of shariah law to regulate all aspects of human life— politics, economics, sciences, and ethics. The law will be based upon fair interpretations of the Qur'an, the Sunnah, consensus of the companions (Ijma al-Sahaba), and legitimate analogies (Qiyas) drawn from those three sources. The Islamic state will not "adopt a particular" Madhhab (school of fiqh). According to Forum 18 News Service, it was told by an HT representative that "the only true Muslims" are those who adhere to one of the four Sunni madhhabs, and "those who depart" the four "would be considered as apostates and liable to punishment according to Islamic law".
Regarding traditional hudud penal code, the HT text Concepts of Hizb ut-Tahrir describes their abandonment as part of the "misinterpret[ation of] the Islamic rules to adapt them to contemporary life" that started in the late 19th century. In a HT video on how Muslims should answer criticism of the "harsh" punishments of hudud, HT member Taji Mustafa argues chopping off hands and feet "are a huge deterrent" to crime. HT texts state adultery should be punished by stoning and pre-marital sex by lashing, and apostasy from Islam by death. "Brigandage" and murder would be punished by execution, crucifixion or amputation. That use of the punishments of 'chopping off' of hands for theft and stoning to death for adultery would become law in the HT caliphate was confirmed in a 2009 interview of Tayyib Muqeem, an HT leader.
Non-Muslims would be subject to the same laws and in addition would be subject to special taxes—the poll tax of jizya and the land tax of Kharaj. Men and women are to be segregated in public except when absolutely necessary according to HT Draft Constitution. A women's body may not be revealed, "apart from her face and hands". This was also reaffirmed by HT leader Tayyib Muqeem in a 2009 interview – "Every woman would have to cover up." (See below for regulations for non-Muslims and women.)
According to founder an-Nabhan, one of the benefits of the caliphate is that in its court system, there has never been "even one case ... settled according to other than the Islamic Shari'ah rules", although this is disputed by historians.
Unlike many court systems the caliphate would have no courts of appeal or cessation. "If the judge pronounced a sentence, it would become binding, and the sentence of another judge would not under any circumstances reverse it." (However, if circumstantial evidence changed, a judge could reverse a decision.) | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hizb_ut-Tahrir |
2011–2012 Jordanian protests | On 13 June, the motorcade of King Abdullah II was attacked with stones and bottles by protesters in the city of Tafileh, although this was later denied, a royal official stating that they were enthusiastically greeted. Some indication is that this was actually an outbreak of violence between the Darak (Jordanian Gendarmerie) and local unemployed protesters. It is alleged that the local mayor caused the Darak to force back the protesters not wanting his city to look bad, the protesters replied with stones and empty bottles. The King is alleged to have been 12 km away.
On 17 June, youth groups and activists will protest calling on greater reforms, which the kingdom has dismissed for 2–3 years, including the election of a prime minister and cabinet.
A rare outbreak of violence marred protests in Amman on 15 July, with police beating journalists and protesters alike. The Public Security Directorate offered a mixed response, accepting full responsibility for the violence and promising compensation to journalists who suffered injuries or damage to equipment, but blaming demonstrators for instigating hostilities.
On 16 July, a more peaceful demonstration took place.
An Al Jazeera correspondent covering a protest on 20 July had a mixed reaction to the way security forces handled the situation, noting that while police and gendarmes respected all attendees' freedom of speech and acted quickly and effectively to prevent clashes between pro-reform demonstrators and government supporters, police also did nothing to prevent verbal harassment and intimidation of the former group by vocal loyalists.
In Amman, on 29 July, around 3,000 Muslim Brotherhood activists at the demonstration raised their right hand and took an oath to continue peaceful protests until their demands for political reform in the kingdom are met.
On 14 August, clashes erupted between government loyalists and pro-reform demonstrators in a street protest in Karak after midnight.
After a lull in September, protests started again on 7 October, when former prime minister Ahmad Obeidat led over 2000 people in a march outside the Grand Husseini Mosque in central Amman. There were also marches in the cities of Karka, Tafileh, Maan, Jerash and Salt.
There was a further march on 15 October, as part of the global "Occupy" movement, which was held in the northern city of Salhub, which is located 50 kilometers (32 miles) from the Jordanian capital Amman. A counter-protest attacked the marchers, hurling stones and firing their guns into the air. The next day, a memorandum signed by 70 out of 120 lawmakers was presented to the royal palace demanding that the prime minister and the cabinet be sacked. Much to the surprise of the opposition in the country, the king almost immediately complied, naming Awn Shawkat Al-Khasawneh to head the new government the next day.
Riots took place in the several cities and towns in mid November, most notably in Ramtha, which lasted three days and was sparked by the death in custody of Najem Azaizeh in Salt, which continued on and off for weeks and the towns of Qatraneh and Jafr.
Also, the trial of nearly 100 protesters indicted the previous April began, and much from the capital Amman were arrested for corruption.
In December, there were protests in Amman, and riots in the northeastern cities of Mafraq and Qatraneh.
On 24 December, protesters gathered outside of the prime minister's office to protest the treatment of protesters by the security forces the previous day in Mafraq. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011%E2%80%932012_Jordanian_protests |
Ahl-i Hadith | The Wahhabi movement was a revivalist movement that emerged in the Arabian Peninsula in the 18th century, and shared reformist, traditionalist heritage of Ahl-i Hadith. During the late 19th century, Wahhabi scholars would establish contacts with Ahl-i-Hadith and many Wahhabi students would travel to South Asia to study under the Ahl-i-Hadith ulama, and later became prominent scholars in the Arabian Wahhabi establishment.
Both the Wahhabis and Ahl-i-Hadith shared a common creed, opposed Sufi practices such as visiting shrines, seeking aid (istigatha) from dead 'Awliya (Islamic saints), etc. Both the movements revived the teachings of the medieval Sunni theologian and jurist, Ibn Taymiyya, whom they considered as "Shaykh al-Islam". With the resources of Muslim principality of Bhopal at his disposal, Muhaddith Nawab Siddiq Hasan Khan became a strong advocate the Ahl-i-Hadith cause in India. Suffering from the instabilities of 19th-century Arabia, many Wahhabi ulema would make their way to India and study under Ahl-i-Hadith patronage. Prominent Saudi scholars like Hamad ibn 'Atiq would make correspondence with Siddiq Hasan Khan; requesting him to send various classical works, due to scarcity of classical treatises amongst the 19th-century Najdi scholars. He would send his eldest son, Sa'd ibn Atiq, to India to study under Siddiq Hasan Khan as well as Sayyid Nazir Hussain for over nine years. Sa'd ibn Atiq would become a major scholarly authority in the Third Saudi State. He was appointed by Ibn Saud as the qadi of Riyadh as well as the Imam of Grand Mosque of Riyad giving him great influence in the educational system. Amongst his students was Abd al-Aziz Ibn Baz, who was highly influenced by the Indian Ahl-i-Hadith. Another son of Sa'd Ibn Atiq as well as other prominent Najdi scholars from Al Ash-Shaykh would study with the Indian Ahl-i-Hadith during the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Ahl-i Hadith leader Nawab Sīddïq Hasān Khán (1832–1890 C.E/ 1248–1307 A.H) nevertheless strongly objected to the usage of the term "Wahhabi"; viewing it as a restrictive regional term primarily rooted in geography and also considered the term to be politically manipulative. According to him, labelling the exponents of Tawhid as "Wahhabi" was wrong since it symbolised a form of regionalism that went against Islamic universalism. Khan argues that the term has contradicting, unrelated and narrow localised connotations across different parts of the World. Khan pointed out that the term had been turned by the British Raj into a political pejorative phrase; abusing its name to castigate its dissidents of being aligned with the movement of Ibn 'Abd-al-Wahhab of Arabia, (with which British empire had fought various wars) and that the colonial authorities in had applied it to a wide range of anti-colonial Islamic reform movements. He distanced himself as well as the Indian Muslim public from this label, writing:To call those Indian Muhammadans who do not worship tombs and pirs and prohibit people from unlawful acts by the name Wahabi is entirely false for several reasons: In the first place they do not represent themselves as such, on the contrary they call themselves Sunnis. If there was anything of Wahabism in their creed they would call themselves by that name and should not resent the epithet. Those who worship one God object to being called Wahabis in the Abd al-Wahhab kind of way not only because of his belonging to a different nation and all its politics, but because they consider God as the ruler and protector of the whole world and this [universalist] stance is blunted if they are said to be followers of a territorially rooted Abd al-Wahhab."
In 1931, Ahl-i-Hadith scholar Shaykh Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Dehlawi, founded the Dar-ul-Hadith institute, which would later be attached to the Islamic University of Medina. It encouraged the study of Hadith across Hejaz and paved the way for Muhammad Nasiruddin al-Albani and his Muhaddith factions in the 1960s. With the support of Saudi Grand Mufti Ibn Baz, culminating in the consolidation of the contemporary Salafi Manhaj. Ibn Baz, who was highly influenced by Ahl-i-Hadith, shared the passion for revival of Hadith sciences. After the establishment of Third Saudi State and oil boom, the Saudi Sheikhs would repay their debts by supporting Ahl-i-Hadith through finances as well as mass publications. Mufti Muhammad ibn Ibrahim's teachers also included students of Ahl-i-Hadith scholars and he too made efforts to support the South Asian Ahl-i-Hadith cause. After Mufti Muhammad, Ibn Baz as the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia would greatly support the movement. Prominent Ahl-i-Hadith scholars such as Shaykh Abdul Ghaffar Khan would be appointed to teach in Saudi Universities. His famous students included Safar al-Hawali and Muqbil bin Hadi al-Wadi'i. With Saudi patronage, a vast Ahl-i-Hadith networks were expanded in South Asia, experiencing a phenomenal increase from 134 in 1988 to 310 in 2000 (131 percent) and currently number around 500. According to Pakistani estimates 34,000 students studied under Ahl-i-Hadith madrassas in 2006 compared to 18,800 in 1996. Ahl-i-Hadith has had remarkable success in converting Muslims from other schools of thought. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahl-i_Hadith |
Abdel Khalek Sarwat Pasha | The Nessim Cabinet was formed without a program and applied himself to changing the draft constitution to suit the King's interest. These changes included the removal of an article stating that the people are the source of powers. Half of the Senate was now to be appointed by the King. The president of the Senate was to be appointed by the King, rather than jointly by King and Cabinet. In addition, it gave the King the power to dissolve the two chambers. Furthermore, and after Britain pressured the King, the Nessim Cabinet agreed to remove the two Sudan clauses. These changes to the original draft prepared by the Committee of the thirty, were kept secret during the Nessim Cabinet. The cabinet resigned on 5 February 1923, having lasted 68 days.
After a failed attempt to get Adly to form a new cabinet, one was formed more than a month later, on 15 March 1923, by Yehia Ibrahim Pasha, the Chief Judge and who had also been a member in the Nessim cabinet. It was an administrative cabinet without a program. As the Ibrahim Government started to look at the constitution, the previous changes prepared by Nessim started to leak. Many objections were then voiced, among which were objections from the Committee of the Thirty, which had worked on the original draft proposed by Sarwat to the King a few months earlier. The Liberal Constitutional Party, with its some if its founders being members of the Committee of the Thirty, became one of the few supporters of the return to the original version of the constitution drafted by that committee. As for the Wafd, it found itself in a difficult position, unwilling to accept the Nessim version, but unable politically to agree with the Committee of the Thirty, which it opposed at the time. (Ramdan 1, p.391). Prime Minister Ibrahim proposed the formation of a constituent assembly to redraft the constitution. This was not politically possible and the Constitution was promulgated on 19 April 1923 “according to the draft prepared by the Committee on the Constitution with the two clauses related to the Sudan deleted”. The Ibrahim Cabinet resigned on the same day, having governed for a month and half only. Eleven days later, on 30 April 1923, the Elections Law was enacted. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdel_Khalek_Sarwat_Pasha |
Muhammad al-Baqir | Al-Baqir had several distinguished disciples in Kufa, where Jabir al-Ju'fi was his main representative. Jabir is the authority for some traditions in Umm al-kitab, which parallels Infancy Gospel of Thomas in gnostic Christology. In its "Apocalypse of Jabir," al-Baqir confides to Jabir how the cosmos were created, how men descended to this world, and how they can gain deliverance from it. Some have accused Jabir of extremism (ghuluw) and his reliability is debated in Shia circles. Risalat al-Ju'fi is said to contain Jabir's views about Isma'ilism.
Zurara ibn A'yan was already a prominent traditionist and theologian before joining al-Baqir's circle. Zurara apparently disagreed with al-Baqir about some theological issues. For instance, unlike al-Baqir, Zurara argued that there is no intermediate state between a believer and a nonbeliever. By some accounts, Zurara later fell out with al-Sadiq, but perhaps the imam distanced himself from Zurara only in public to save the latter from persecution.
Aban ibn Taghlib was another associate of al-Baqir and later of al-Sadiq. An outstanding jurist, Aban was authorized by al-Baqir to issue legal rulings for the public. Despite his Shia tendencies, Aban's traditions have been cited in Sunni sources.
Abu Basir al-Asadi is among the consensus companions of al-Baqir and al-Sadiq, that is, those whose traditions are generally accepted in Shia circles. Muhammad ibn Muslim, another close associate of al-Baqir and al-Sadiq, was a prominent jurist and traditionist, who is said to have transmitted some thirty thousand traditions from al-Baqir. Fudayl ibn Yasar was another favorite of al-Baqir and al-Sadiq, whom the latter apparently compared to Salman al-Farsi, the famous companion of the Islamic prophet. Abu al-Qasim al-Ijli and Abu Basir al-Muradi, both notable jurists and traditionists, were associates of al-Baqir and al-Sadiq. Abu Hamza al-Thumali and Abu Khalid al-Kabuli, were two followers of al-Baqir and earlier of al-Sajjad. In particular, some traditions narrated by Abu Hamza are of miraculous nature.
Al-Kumayt ibn Zayd al-Asadi was a poet supporter of al-Baqir, praised by him for laudatory poems about the Ahl al-Bayt. Kumayt's Hashimiyyat, in praise of the Ahl al-Bayt, is indeed considered among the earliest evidence for the doctrine of imamate, and perhaps the earliest dateable reference to the Ghadir Khumm. Likely to avoid persecution, Kumayt also occasionally wrote in praise of the Umayyads.
Mu'min al-Taq was another follower of al-Baqir, who wrote and debated about imamate. Ibn Mundhir was a close disciple of al-Baqir and the principal transmitter of Tafsir al-Baqir He later supported Zayd's rebellion and founded the Jarudiyya, the Zaydi sect closest in doctrine to Twelver Shi'ism. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_al-Baqir |
Islamic Golden Age | The ninth and tenth centuries saw a flowering of Arabic music. Philosopher and esthete Al-Farabi, at the end of the ninth century, established the foundations of modern Arabic music theory, based on the maqammat, or musical modes. His work was based on the music of Ziryab, the court musician of Andalusia. Ziryab was a renowned polymath, whose contributions to western civilization included formal dining, haircuts, chess, and more, in addition to his dominance of the world musical scene of the ninth century.
The Sumerians and Akkadians, the Greeks, and the Persians all used math to create notes used on lutes and lyres and other stringed instruments. Using the idea that a plucked or bowed string produces a note, they noticed the difference in tone when a string is stopped. "The great discovery" was hearing the double octave, that halving a string produces a note one octave above the string. Written as a ratio 2:1.
They measured the ratios of string lengths on one side and the other of where the string was pressed, creating ratios. Those ratios allowed them to compare sounds, for example third intervals, fourths, fifths. They were able to tune one string against another in those intervals on lutes, lyres, harps, zithers. Lutes gave them the further ability to create those intervals on a single string, by adding frets at mathematically spaced distances, based on the ratios. Unlike modern instruments, where frets may be permanently fixed into the neck, as on a guitar, the older instruments used gut strings tied around the neck for frets, and this made their instruments adjustable. Early musicians could tune their instruments to different modes. Lute players could tune the strings to different intervals, and could further adjust the frets for the modes.
The mixing cultures of Central Asia and Arabia produced several thinkers who wrote about music, including something about the lute in their works, including Al-Kindi (c. 801 – c. 873), Ziryab (789–857), Al-Farabi (c. 872 – c. 950), Avicenna (c. 980 – 1037), and Safi al-Din al-Urmawi (1216–1294). They wrote in Arabic, what had become the useful lingua-Franca of their time, and took part in Muslim society and culture. However they were brought up in Central Asia.
The Arabs had a musical scale, described by al-Farabi, in use by some through the 13th century A.D. That tanbar scale, which divided the string into "40 equal parts" may have been a leftover from Babylon and Assyria. However, the Arabs traded with and conquered the Persians, and they adopted Persian scales for their lutes, just as they adopted Persian short-necked lutes.
Ziryab moved from Baghdad to al-Andalus, where he set up a school of music and was one of the first to add a fifth string or course to oud, "between 822 and 852). Al-Andalus, where he settled would become a center of musical instrument development for Europe.
Al-Kindi was a polymath who wrote as many as 15 music-related treatises. He was among the first to apply Greek musical theory to Central Asian-Arabian short lutes. He added semi-tones between the nut and the first string. He also added a fifth string to his oud in the east, as Ziryab had done in the west.
Al-Farabi "fully incorporated the works of Aristoxenus and Ptolemy into his theory of tetrachords", and wrote among books in many subjects, the Kitab al-Musiqa al-Kabir, the Major Book of Music, in which he detailed how to tune an oud, using mathematical ratios. He gave instruction for both 10 frets and 12, telling where to place the tied (and moveable) gut-string frets on the neck. His way of tuning allowed a "12-fret 'ud tuning — which results ... 'double-octave' scale", with 22 notes in each octave. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Golden_Age |
Salafi movement | The Salafi thought seeks the re-orientation of Fiqh (Islamic Jurisprudence) away from Taqlid (adherence to the legal precedent of a particular Madhhab) and directly back to the Prophet, his Companions and the Salaf. This preferred return to the pure way of the Prophet is termed "Ittiba" (following the Prophet by directly referring to the Scriptures). In legal approach, Salafis are divided between those who, in the name of independent legal judgement (ijtihad), reject strict adherence (taqlid) to the four schools of law (madhahib) and others who remain faithful to these.
Although Muhammad Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab (d. 1792 C.E/ 1206 A.H) had personally rejected the practice of Taqlid, Wahhabi scholars favoured following the Hanbali madhhab and generally permit Taqlid in following Fatwas (juristic legal opinions) and encourages following the madhhabs. While they doctrinally condemned Taqlid and advocated Ijtihad, historically the Wahhabi legal practice was grounded mostly within the confines of Hanbali school, until recently. The doctrinal rejection of Taqlid by Wahhabis would lead to subsequent emergence of prominent Wahhabi ulema such as Sa'd ibn 'Atiq, Abd al-Rahman al-Sa'dii, Ibn 'Uthaymin, Ibn Baz, etc.; who would depart significantly from Hanbali law.
Other Salafi movements, however, believe that taqlid is unlawful and challenge the authority of the legal schools. In their perspective, since the madhhabs emerged after the era of Salaf al-Salih (pious predecessors); those Muslims who follow a madhhab without directly searching for Scriptural evidences would get deviated. These include the scholars of Ahl-i Hadith movement, Muhammad Nasir Al-Din al-Albani (d. 2000), Muḥammad Ḥayāt al-Sindhī (d. 1163), Ibn 'Amir al-Ṣanʿānī (d. 1182), al-Shawkānī (d. 1250), etc.; who completely condemn taqlid (imitation), rejecting the authority of the legal schools, and oblige Muslims to seek religious rulings (fatwa) issued by scholars exclusively based on the Qur’an and Hadith; with no intermediary involved. The Ahl-i Hadith ulema would distinguish themselves from the Wahhabis who followed the Hanbali school while they considered themselves as following no particular school. In contemporary era, al-Albani and his disciples, in particular, would directly criticise Wahhabis on the issue of Taqlid due to their affinity towards the Hanbali school and called for a re-generated Wahhabism purified of elements contrary to doctrines of the Salaf.
Other Salafi scholars like Sayyid Rashid Rida (d. 1935) follow a middle course, allowing the layperson to do Taqlid only when necessary, obliging him to do Ittiba when the Scriptural evidences become known to him. Their legal methodology rejects partisanship to the treatises of any particular schools of law, and refer to the books of all madhhabs. Following Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Qayyim, these scholars accept the rich literary heritage of Sunni Fiqh and consider the literature of the four Sunni law-schools as beneficial resources to issue rulings for the contemporary era. At the far end of the spectrum, some Salafis hold that adhering to taqlid is an act of shirk (polytheism).
Contemporary Salafis generally discard the practice of adhering to the established rulings of any particular Madhhab, condemning the principle of Taqlid (blind imitation) as a bid'ah (innovation) and are significantly influenced by the legal principles of the Zahirite school, historically associated with anti-madhhab doctrines that opposed the canonization of legal schools. Early Zahirite scholar Ibn Hazm's condemnation of Taqlid and calls to break free from the interpretive system of the canonized schools by espousing a Fiqh directly grounded on Qura'n and Hadith; have conferred a major impact on the Salafiyya movement. Salafi legalism is most often marked by its departure from the established rulings (mu'tamad) of the four Sunni madhahib, as well as frequently aligning with Zahirite views mentioned by Ibn Hazm in his legal compendium Al-Muhalla. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salafi_movement |
Seyyed Hossein Nasr | According to Seyyed Hossein Nasr, "man contains within himself many levels of existence", that "the Western tradition" synthesises in the ternary "spirit, soul, and body (pneuma, psychē, and hylē or spiritus, anima, and corpus". "The human spirit is an extension and reflection of the Divine Spirit", it coincides with the "intellect" and "resides at the center of the spiritual heart" of the human being. Nasr always uses the word "intellect" in "its original sense of intellectus (nous)" and not "of reason (ratio)", which is only its "reflection" and which "is identified with the analytical functions of the mind"; "the intellect is the light of the sacred shining upon our minds".
The intellect, which "is the root and the center of consciousness" is also "the source of inner illumination and intellection", which Nasr, following Guénon, also calls "intellectual intuition", and that implies an "illumination of the heart and the mind of man", making possible a "knowledge of an immediate and direct nature, [...] tasted and experienced", which extends to "certain aspects of reality" up to "the Absolute Reality". The human intellect is "the subjective pole of the Word or of the Logos – the universal Intellect – by which all things were made and which constitutes the source of objective revelation, that is to say, formal and established religion". For Nasr, in the vast majority of cases, this "inner revelation", or intellection, cannot become operative except by virtue of an external revelation which provides an objective cadre for it and enables it to be spiritually efficacious", hence the necessity of faith and spiritual practices associated with the realization of the virtues, with the aid of the grace issuing from each revelation.
Huston Smith summarises in an analysis of Nasr's works, that Nasr contends it is "God who knows Himself" through man. For Nasr, indeed, "discrimination between the Real and the unreal terminates in the awareness of the nondual nature of the Real, the awareness which is the heart of gnosis and which represents not human knowledge but God's knowledge of Himself", consciousness which is at the same time "the goal of the path of knowledge and the essence of scientia sacra". Nasr contends that this wisdom, which corresponds – beyond salvation -– to deliverance from the bonds of all limitation, "is present in the heart of all traditions", whether it be the Hindu Vedanta, Buddhism, the Jewish Kabbalah, the Christian metaphysics of an Eckhart or an Erigena, or Sufism. It alone "is able to solve certain apparent contradictions and riddles in sacred texts".
Through such sacred knowledge, man ceases to be what he appears to be to become what he really is in the eternal now and what he has never ceased to be. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seyyed_Hossein_Nasr |
Religion | Friedrich Schleiermacher in the late 18th century defined religion as das schlechthinnige Abhängigkeitsgefühl, commonly translated as "the feeling of absolute dependence".
His contemporary Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel disagreed thoroughly, defining religion as "the Divine Spirit becoming conscious of Himself through the finite spirit."
Edward Burnett Tylor defined religion in 1871 as "the belief in spiritual beings". He argued that narrowing the definition to mean the belief in a supreme deity or judgment after death or idolatry and so on, would exclude many peoples from the category of religious, and thus "has the fault of identifying religion rather with particular developments than with the deeper motive which underlies them". He also argued that the belief in spiritual beings exists in all known societies.
In his book The Varieties of Religious Experience, the psychologist William James defined religion as "the feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude, so far as they apprehend themselves to stand in relation to whatever they may consider the divine". By the term divine James meant "any object that is godlike, whether it be a concrete deity or not" to which the individual feels impelled to respond with solemnity and gravity.
Sociologist Émile Durkheim, in his seminal book The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, defined religion as a "unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things". By sacred things he meant things "set apart and forbidden—beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community called a Church, all those who adhere to them". Sacred things are not, however, limited to gods or spirits. On the contrary, a sacred thing can be "a rock, a tree, a spring, a pebble, a piece of wood, a house, in a word, anything can be sacred". Religious beliefs, myths, dogmas and legends are the representations that express the nature of these sacred things, and the virtues and powers which are attributed to them.
Echoes of James' and Durkheim's definitions are to be found in the writings of, for example, Frederick Ferré who defined religion as "one's way of valuing most comprehensively and intensively". Similarly, for the theologian Paul Tillich, faith is "the state of being ultimately concerned", which "is itself religion. Religion is the substance, the ground, and the depth of man's spiritual life."
When religion is seen in terms of sacred, divine, intensive valuing, or ultimate concern, then it is possible to understand why scientific findings and philosophical criticisms (e.g., those made by Richard Dawkins) do not necessarily disturb its adherents. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion |
John the Baptist | After the earliest images showing the Baptism of the Lord follow ones with St John shown as an ascetic wearing camel hair, with a staff and scroll inscribed (in Western art) "Ecce Agnus Dei", or bearing a book or dish with a lamb on it.
The Baptist is very often shown on altarpieces designed for churches dedicated to him, where the donor was named for him or where there was some other patronage connection. John the Baptist is the patron saint of Florence and has often been depicted in the art of that city, and also frequently appears in baptistries, which are very often dedicated to him. Major works depicting St John the Baptist can be found in the Florence Baptistery, including the mosaics on the vault, the bronze doors by Andrea Pisano, and the great silver altar now in the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo.
A number of narrative scenes from his life were often shown on the predella of altarpieces dedicated to John, and other settings, notably in the frescoes by Giotto for the Peruzzi Chapel in the church of Santa Croce, the large series in grisaille fresco in the Chiostro dello Scalzo, which was Andrea del Sarto's largest work, and the frescoed Life by Domenico Ghirlandaio in the Tornabuoni Chapel, all in Florence. There is another important fresco cycle by Filippo Lippi in Prato Cathedral. These include the typical scenes: the Annunciation to Zechariah; John's birth; his naming by his father; the Visitation; John's departure for the desert; his preaching in the desert; the Baptism of Christ; John before Herod; the dance of Herod's stepdaughter, Salome; his beheading; and the daughter of Herodias Salome carrying his head on a platter.
His birth, which unlike the Nativity of Jesus allowed a relatively wealthy domestic interior to be shown, became increasingly popular as a subject in the late Middle Ages, with depictions by Jan van Eyck in the Turin-Milan Hours and Ghirlandaio in the Tornabuoni Chapel being among the best known. His execution, a church feast-day, was often shown, and by the 15th century scenes such as the dance of Salome became popular; sometimes, as in an engraving by Israhel van Meckenem, the interest of the artist is clearly in showing the life of Herod's court, given contemporary dress, as much as the martyrdom of the saint. The execution was usually by a swordsman, with John kneeling in prayer, Salome often standing by with an empty platter, and Herod and Herodias at table in a cut-through view of a building in the background.
Salome bearing John's head on a platter equally became a subject for the Power of Women group: a Northern Renaissance fashion for images of glamorous but dangerous women (Delilah, Judith and others). It was often painted by Lucas Cranach the Elder and engraved by the Little Masters. When the head is brought to the table by Salome, Herod may be shown as startled, if not disgusted, but Herodias is usually not. These images remained popular into the Baroque, with Carlo Dolci painting at least three versions. John preaching, in a landscape setting, was a popular subject in Dutch art from Pieter Brueghel the Elder and his successors. The isolated motif of the severed head, often on its platter, was a frequent image, often in sculpture, from the late Middle Ages onwards, known as Ioannes in disco (Latin for "John on a plate").
As a child (of varying age), he is sometimes shown from the 15th century in family scenes from the life of Christ such as the Holy Family, the Presentation of Christ, the Marriage of the Virgin and the Holy Kinship. In the Baptism of Christ his presence was obligatory. Leonardo da Vinci's two versions of the Virgin of the Rocks were influential in establishing a Renaissance fashion for variations on the Madonna and Child which included John. Raphael in particular painted many compositions of the subject, such as the Alba Madonna, La belle jardinière, the Garvagh Madonna, the Madonna della seggiola, and the Madonna dell'Impannata, which are among his best-known works.
John was also often shown by himself as an adolescent or adult, usually already wearing his distinctive dress and carrying a long thin wooden cross – another theme influenced by Leonardo, whose equivocal composition, with the camel-skin dress, was developed by Raphael, Titian and Guido Reni among many others. Often he is accompanied by a lamb, especially in the many Early Netherlandish paintings which needed this attribute as he wore normal clothes, or a red robe over a not very clearly indicated camel skin. Caravaggio painted an especially large number of works depicting John, from at least five largely nude youths attributed to him, to three late works on his death – the great Execution in Malta, and two sombre Salomes with his head, one in Madrid, and one in London.
Amiens Cathedral, which holds one of the alleged heads of the Baptist, has a biographical sequence in polychrome relief, dating from the 16th century. This includes the execution and the disposal of the saint's remains, which according to legend were burnt in the reign of Julian the Apostate (4th century) to prevent pilgrimages.
A remarkable Pre-Raphaelite portrayal is Christ in the House of His Parents by John Everett Millais. Here the Baptist is shown as a child, wearing a loin covering of animal skins, hurrying into Joseph's carpenter shop with a bowl of water to join Mary, Joseph, and Mary's mother Anne in soothing the injured hand of Jesus. Artistic interest enjoyed a considerable revival at the end of the 19th century with Symbolist painters such as Gustave Moreau and Puvis de Chavannes (National Gallery, London). Oscar Wilde's play Salome was illustrated by Aubrey Beardsley, giving rise to some of his most memorable images. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_the_Baptist |
Islamic philosophy | Al-Dinawari (828–896), considered the founder of Arabic botany for his Book of Plants, discussed plant evolution from its birth to its death, describing the phases of plant growth and the production of flowers and fruit.
Ibn Miskawayh's al-Fawz al-Asghar and the Brethren of Purity's Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity (The Epistles of Ikhwan al-Safa) developed theories on evolution that possibly had an influence on Charles Darwin and his inception of Darwinism, but has at one time been criticized as overenthusiastic.
[These books] state that God first created matter and invested it with energy for development. Matter, therefore, adopted the form of vapour which assumed the shape of water in due time. The next stage of development was mineral life. Different kinds of stones developed in course of time. Their highest form being mirjan (coral). It is a stone which has in it branches like those of a tree. After mineral life evolves vegetation. The evolution of vegetation culminates with a tree which bears the qualities of an animal. This is the date-palm. It has male and female genders. It does not wither if all its branches are chopped but it dies when the head is cut off. The date-palm is therefore considered the highest among the trees and resembles the lowest among animals. Then is born the lowest of animals. It evolves into an ape. This is not the statement of Darwin. This is what Ibn Maskawayh states and this is precisely what is written in the Epistles of Ikhwan al-Safa. The Muslim thinkers state that ape then evolved into a lower kind of a barbarian man. He then became a superior human being. Man becomes a saint, a prophet. He evolves into a higher stage and becomes an angel. The one higher to angels is indeed none but God. Everything begins from Him and everything returns to Him.
English translations of the Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity were available from 1812, while Arabic manuscripts of the al-Fawz al-Asghar and The Epistles of Ikhwan al-Safa were also available at the University of Cambridge by the 19th century. These works likely had an influence on 19th-century evolutionists, and possibly Charles Darwin.
In the 14th century, Ibn Khaldun further developed the evolutionary ideas found in the Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity. The following statements from his 1377 work, the Muqaddimah, express evolutionary ideas:
We explained there that the whole of existence in (all) its simple and composite worlds is arranged in a natural order of ascent and descent, so that everything constitutes an uninterrupted continuum. The essences at the end of each particular stage of the worlds are by nature prepared to be transformed into the essence adjacent to them, either above or below them. This is the case with the simple material elements; it is the case with palms and vines, (which constitute) the last stage of plants, in their relation to snails and shellfish, (which constitute) the (lowest) stage of animals. It is also the case with monkeys, creatures combining in themselves cleverness and perception, in their relation to man, the being who has the ability to think and to reflect. The preparedness (for transformation) that exists on either side, at each stage of the worlds, is meant when (we speak about) their connection.
Plants do not have the same fineness and power that animals have. Therefore, the sages rarely turned to them. Animals are the last and final stage of the three permutations. Minerals turn into plants, and plants into animals, but animals cannot turn into anything finer than themselves.
Numerous other Islamic scholars and scientists, including the polymaths Ibn al-Haytham and Al-Khazini, discussed and developed these ideas. Translated into Latin, these works began to appear in the West after the Renaissance and may have influenced Western philosophy and science. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_philosophy |
Byzantine art | Two events were of fundamental importance to the development of a unique, Byzantine art. First, the Edict of Milan, issued by the emperors Constantine I and Licinius in 313, allowed for public Christian worship, and led to the development of a monumental, Christian art. Second, the dedication of Constantinople in 330 created a great new artistic centre for the eastern half of the Empire, and a specifically Christian one. Other artistic traditions flourished in rival cities such as Alexandria, Antioch, and Rome, but it was not until all of these cities had fallen - the first two to the Arabs and Rome to the Goths - that Constantinople established its supremacy.
Constantine devoted great effort to the decoration of Constantinople, adorning its public spaces with ancient statuary, and building a forum dominated by a porphyry column that carried a statue of himself. Major Constantinopolitan churches built under Constantine and his son, Constantius II, included the original foundations of Hagia Sophia and the Church of the Holy Apostles.
The next major building campaign in Constantinople was sponsored by Theodosius I. The most important surviving monument of this period is the obelisk and base erected by Theodosius in the Hippodrome which, with the large silver dish called the Missorium of Theodosius I, represents the classic examples of what is sometimes called the "Theodosian Renaissance". The earliest surviving church in Constantinople is the Basilica of St. John at the Stoudios Monastery, built in the fifth century.
Due to subsequent rebuilding and destruction, relatively few Constantinopolitan monuments of this early period survive. However, the development of monumental early Byzantine art can still be traced through surviving structures in other cities. For example, important early churches are found in Rome (including Santa Sabina and Santa Maria Maggiore), and in Thessaloniki (the Rotunda and the Acheiropoietos Basilica).
A number of important illuminated manuscripts, both sacred and secular, survive from this early period. Classical authors, including Virgil (represented by the Vergilius Vaticanus and the Vergilius Romanus) and Homer (represented by the Ambrosian Iliad), were illustrated with narrative paintings. Illuminated biblical manuscripts of this period survive only in fragments: for example, the Quedlinburg Itala fragment is a small portion of what must have been a lavishly illustrated copy of 1 Kings.
Early Byzantine art was also marked by the cultivation of ivory carving. Ivory diptychs, often elaborately decorated, were issued as gifts by newly appointed consuls. Silver plates were another important form of luxury art: among the most lavish from this period is the Missorium of Theodosius I. Sarcophagi continued to be produced in great numbers. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_art |
2011 Bahrain Grand Prix | In April 2011, the race organisers released a statement stating that "normal life has returned to Bahrain" and that they were hopeful that they could host the race later in the year. On 2 May 2011, Bernie Ecclestone extended the deadline on rescheduling the race to 3 June.
At a meeting of the World Motor Sport Council (WMSC) on 3 June, FIA members unanimously voted to reinstate the Bahrain Grand Prix to the calendar on the planned date of 30 October, with the Indian Grand Prix moved from that date to 11 December. The decision was controversial, with Mercedes team principal Ross Brawn stating that a December finale was unacceptable, while human rights interest groups and activists criticised the FIA for the reinstatement in light of the ongoing political upheaval in the country. Red Bull Racing driver Mark Webber expressed his concerns over the human rights conditions and stated that he would have hoped for the sport to have taken a firmer stance on the affair. Several other drivers expressed a willingness to race on the condition that their safety could be guaranteed amid reports that widespread protests were being planned for the day of the race.
A petition to boycott the race received 300,000 signatories. In response to this, FIA president Jean Todt promised that the sport's governing body would monitor the situation in Bahrain carefully, leaving open the possibility of a cancellation should the country deteriorate ahead of the race, while commercial rights holder Bernie Ecclestone called for a second vote to take place, restoring the Indian Grand Prix to its original October date and moving the Bahrain Grand Prix back to the season finale in December. According to former FIA president Max Mosley, the rescheduling of the race would require the unanimous agreement of the teams. It had been reported that the Formula One Teams Association (FOTA) was opposed to rescheduling the race to 30 October on logistical grounds, but were willing to discuss an end-of-season berth for the race instead.
On 8 June, Ecclestone stated that he felt the race would not go ahead because the FIA had overlooked article 66 of the Sporting Code, which states that "no amendments can be made to the arrangements for a championship after entries open without the agreement of all competitors." The FIA later asked Ecclestone to submit a new calendar proposal after they were informed by FOTA that holding the Bahrain Grand Prix on 30 October was "impractical". On 9 June, organisers for the Bahrain Grand Prix officially abandoned their bid to return to the calendar. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Bahrain_Grand_Prix |
Arabic | There are a number of different standards for the romanization of Arabic, i.e. methods of accurately and efficiently representing Arabic with the Latin script. There are various conflicting motivations involved, which leads to multiple systems. Some are interested in transliteration, i.e. representing the spelling of Arabic, while others focus on transcription, i.e. representing the pronunciation of Arabic. (They differ in that, for example, the same letter ي is used to represent both a consonant, as in "you" or "yet", and a vowel, as in "me" or "eat".)
Some systems, e.g. for scholarly use, are intended to accurately and unambiguously represent the phonemes of Arabic, generally making the phonetics more explicit than the original word in the Arabic script. These systems are heavily reliant on diacritical marks such as "š" for the sound equivalently written sh in English. Other systems (e.g. the Bahá'í orthography) are intended to help readers who are neither Arabic speakers nor linguists with intuitive pronunciation of Arabic names and phrases.
These less "scientific" systems tend to avoid diacritics and use digraphs (like sh and kh). These are usually simpler to read, but sacrifice the definiteness of the scientific systems, and may lead to ambiguities, e.g. whether to interpret sh as a single sound, as in gash, or a combination of two sounds, as in gashouse. The ALA-LC romanization solves this problem by separating the two sounds with a prime symbol ( ′ ); e.g., as′hal 'easier'.
During the last few decades and especially since the 1990s, Western-invented text communication technologies have become prevalent in the Arab world, such as personal computers, the World Wide Web, email, bulletin board systems, IRC, instant messaging and mobile phone text messaging. Most of these technologies originally had the ability to communicate using the Latin script only, and some of them still do not have the Arabic script as an optional feature. As a result, Arabic speaking users communicated in these technologies by transliterating the Arabic text using the Latin script.
To handle those Arabic letters that cannot be accurately represented using the Latin script, numerals and other characters were appropriated. For example, the numeral "3" may be used to represent the Arabic letter ⟨ع⟩. There is no universal name for this type of transliteration, but some have named it Arabic Chat Alphabet or IM Arabic. Other systems of transliteration exist, such as using dots or capitalization to represent the "emphatic" counterparts of certain consonants. For instance, using capitalization, the letter ⟨د⟩, may be represented by d. Its emphatic counterpart, ⟨ض⟩, may be written as D. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic |
Trans-Saharan slave trade | Paul Lovejoy estimates that around 6 million black slaves were transported across the Sahara between the years 650 AD and 1500 AD. The trans-Saharan slave trade, established in Antiquity, continued during the Middle Ages. Following the early 8th-century conquest of North Africa, Arabs, Berbers, and other ethnic groups ventured into Sub-Saharan Africa first along the Nile Valley towards Nubia, and also across the Sahara towards West Africa. They were interested in the trans-Saharan trade, especially in slaves, as there was a constant demand for slaves in the eastern Arab nations and Constantinople. The Muslim slave traders distinguished themselves from the peoples on the other side of the Sahara, referring to these African populations as Zanj or Sudan meaning "black".
Arabs would routinely acquire slaves through violent raiding, followed by capturing them and sending them on dangerous forced marches across the Sahara to slave markets where they would be treated as chattel i.e. as personal property that can be bought and sold. In North Africa, the main slave markets were in Morocco, Algiers, Tripoli and Cairo. Sales were held in public places such as souks. During the era of the Fatimid Caliphate (909–1171), the majority of slaves were Europeans taken along European beaches during conflicts.
Aside from raiding, slaves could also be obtained by purchasing them from local black rulers. The 9th century Arab historian Ya'qubi states:
They [the Arabs] export black slaves...belonging to the Mira, Zaghawa, Maruwa, and other black races who are near to them and whom they capture. I hear that the black kings sell blacks, without pretext and without war.
Indeed, few African rulers would resist the slave trade, while many chiefs would become middlemen in the trafficking, rounding up members of nearby villages to be sold to visiting merchants. The 12th century Arab geographer al-Idrisi noted that black Africans would also participate in slave raiding stating that:
The people of Lemlem are perpetually being invaded by their neighbors, who take them as slaves... and carry them off to their own lands to sell them by the dozens to the merchants. Every year great numbers of them are sent off to the Western Maghreb.
Al-Idrisi would also describe the different methods Muslim merchants would use to enslave blacks, recording that some would "steal the children of the Zanj using dates...lure them with dates and lead them from place to place, until they seize them, take them out of the country and transport them to their own countries". In 1353, the Berber explorer Ibn Battuta would record accompanying a trade caravan to Morocco which carried 600 black female slaves who were to be used as domestic servants and concubines. When Battuta visited the ancient African kingdom of Mali he recounted that the local inhabitants vied with each other in the number of slaves and servants they had, and was himself given a slave boy as a "hospitality gift."
The routes taken by slave caravans transporting slaves depended on their destination. Slaves headed to Egypt would be carried by boat down the Nile and slaves headed to Arabia would be sent to ports on the Red Sea such as Suakin and Assab. Slaves headed to North Africa would have to take the Saharan trade routes which had been in use since around 1000 BC. These include routes such as the ones from Tripoli–Ghadames–Ghat–Hoggar–Gao connecting modern-day Libya to Nigeria, the Tripoli-Fezzan-Bornu route, connecting Libya to areas of what are today Chad, Niger, and Cameroon, and the east–west route connecting Egypt to Ghana, Mali, and Songhai. Kanem–Bornu–Zawila was another route to North Africa as the Kanem–Bornu Empire in the eastern part of Niger was an active part of the trans-Saharan slave trade for centuries, and the trade formed the basis of the empire's prosperity.
Passage through the Sahara required the expertise of ethnic groups whose lifestyles were uniquely adapted for survival in scorching, arid environments, namely the local Berber tribes and the foreign Bedouins from Arabia. For example, the Tuareg and others who are indigenous to Libya facilitated, taxed and partly organized the trade from the south along the trans-Saharan trade routes. Various nomadic peoples played critical roles as guards, guides, and camel drivers. As a result, they were granted autonomy and treated as allies by governments of North Africa. Oases were vital waystations for caravans and those such as Awjila, Ghadames, and Kufra in Libya allowed both north–south and east–west travel. Even with expert help the passage could still prove deadly to merchants and slaves. Sometimes whole caravans of thousands of people could disappear without a trace.
The goods exchanged in the trans-Saharan slave trade varied. In the 10th century, the Muslim scholar Mutahhar ibn Tahir al-Maqdisi described the trade between the Islamic world and Africa as consisting of food and clothing being imported into Africa while slaves, gold, and coconuts were exported out of Africa. Later, the 16th century Andalusian writer Leo Africanus wrote that traders from Morocco would bring horses, European cloth, clothing, sugar, books, and brass vessels to Sudan in order to exchange them for slaves, civets and gold. According to Africanus, the sultan of Bornu would accept payment for slaves only in horses, with an exchange rate of up to one slave per twenty horses.
The range of tasks given to slaves was varied and included servile labor utilized for "irrigation, pastoralism, mining, transport, public works, proto-industry, and construction." In general black slaves were used as laborers, servants and eunuchs. Some female slaves could be used for labor, but most would be used for domestic chores and concubinage. Eunuchs, who were around seven times more expensive than non-castrated males could be used as harem guards, administrators, tutor, secretaries, commercial agents, and even concubines. Due to strictures within Islamic law, slaves would not usually be castrated within Muslim territory and therefore would be castrated before being sent across the Sahara. Sometimes slaves were castrated after purchase in North African slave markets. Conditions within the mining industry were notoriously harsh especially the salt mines of Basra where tens of thousands of black slaves toiled in extremely miserable conditions living on insufficient amounts of food. This poor treatment led to the bloody Zanj Rebellion or "black revolution". Ya'qubi records that both male and female slaves were employed in the copper mines of Upper Egypt. The Qarmatian Republic of eastern Arabia is said to have employed 30,000 blacks slaves to perform all difficult labor. Some black slaves served in the military forces of North Africa. For example, the Zirid dynasty used black slaves imported from Sudan via Zawila.
In some instances, Christians in Africa would acquiesce to Muslims demands that they be provided with slaves. In 641 AD during the treaty known as the Baqt was signed establishing an agreement between the Nubian Christian state of Makuria and the new Muslim rulers of Egypt, in which the Nubians agreed to give Muslim traders more privileges of trade in addition to sending 442 slaves every year to Cairo as tribute. This treaty remained intact for 600 years all while the slave trade within Nubia continued unimpeded.
In the Muslim culture of the Middle Ages, blackness became increasingly identified with slavery. This was justified by appeals to a specific interpretation of the biblical story of Curse of Ham that posited Ham had been cursed by Noah in two ways, the first, the turning of his skin black, and the second, that his descendants would be doomed to slavery. Muslim slave traders would use this as a pretext to enslave blacks, including black Muslims. In the late 14th century, a black king of Bornu wrote a letter to the sultan of Egypt complaining of the continual slave raids perpetrated by Arab tribesmen, which were devastating his lands and resulting in the mass enslavement of the black Muslim population of the region. In Al-Andalus, the area of medieval Iberia under Islamic control, black Muslims could be legally held as slaves. This all occurred despite the orthodox Muslim jurist position that no Muslim, regardless of race, could be enslaved. Even as late as the 19th century, many of the common people in Islamic society still believed that enslavement based on skin color, rather than based on religion, was approved by the religious laws of Islam.
In 1416, al-Maqrizi told how pilgrims coming from Takrur (near the Senegal River) brought 1,700 slaves with them to Mecca. In the late 16th century, access to slaves in the areas of the former Songhai Empire in West Africa were cut off due to the anarchy in the area caused by the Moroccan armies' invasion of Songhai headed by al-Mansur. This necessitated the substitution of the former Songhai route with the Benghazi–Wadai route and others through Sudan. After Europeans had settled in the Gulf of Guinea, the trans-Saharan slave trade became less important.
Arabs were sometimes made into slaves in the trans-Saharan slave trade. In Mecca, Arab women were sold as slaves according to Ibn Butlan, and certain rulers in West Africa had slave girls of Arab origin. According to al-Maqrizi, slave girls with lighter skin were sold to West Africans on hajj. Ibn Battuta met an Arab slave girl near Timbuktu in Mali in 1353. Battuta wrote that the slave girl was fluent in Arabic, from Damascus, and her master's name was Farbá Sulaymán. Besides his Damascus slave girl and a secretary fluent in Arabic, Arabic was also understood by Farbá himself. The West African states also imported highly trained slave soldiers.
Under the Saadi dynasty, Morocco's sugar industry was dependent on black African slave labor. According to Paul Berthier, the need for slave labor on Moroccan sugar plantations was a major reason for the 16th century Saadian invasion of the Songhai Empire. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Saharan_slave_trade |
Umayyad state of Córdoba | Upon rising to power, Abd al-Rahman I initially resided in several palace-villas on the outskirts of Cordoba, most notably one called ar-Ruṣāfa. Ar-Ruṣāfa may have originally been a Roman villa or a Roman-Visigothic estate which was taken over and adapted by a Berber chieftain named Razin al-Burnusi who accompanied the original Muslim invasion by Tariq ibn Ziyad earlier that century. After a failed plot against him in 784, Abd al-Rahman I moved his residence definitively to the site of the Alcázar in the city. He and his successors built and continuously developed the Alcázar into the official royal residence and seat of power in Al-Andalus. Abd al-Rahman II was responsible for improving the water supply for both the city and the palace gardens. He may have also built the Albolafia and other norias (waterwheels) along the Guadalquivir River.
In 785, Abd al-Rahman I founded the Great Mosque of Cordoba, one of the most important monuments of the architecture of the western Islamic world. The mosque was notable for its vast hypostyle hall composed of rows of columns connected by double tiers of arches (including horseshoe arches on the lower tier) composed of alternating red brick and light-colored stone. The mosque was subsequently expanded by Abd al-Rahman II in 836, who preserved the original design while extending its dimensions. The mosque was again embellished with new features by his successors Muhammad I, Al-Mundhir, and Abdallah. One of the western gates of the mosque, known as Bab al-Wuzara' (today known as Puerta de San Esteban), dates from the 9th century expansion and is often noted as an important prototype of later Moorish architectural forms and motifs.
The palaces and the Great Mosque in Cordoba were linked via a high covered passage (sabbat) which was raised over the street between them, allowing the caliph direct access to the maqsurah area of the mosque via a corridor behind the qibla wall. The first sabbat was built by the Umayyad emir Abdallah (r. 888–912) for security reasons and was later replaced by al-Hakam II when the latter expanded the mosque.: 21
The original Great Mosque of Seville, also known as the Ibn Addabas Mosque, was either built or enlarged by Abd al-Rahman II c. 830. It is now occupied by the Collegiate Church of the Divine Savior (Iglesia Colegial del Salvador), which preserves minor remains of the mosque. In Mérida, following a violent revolt, Abd al-Rahman II also built a fortress, now known as the Alcazaba of Mérida, which was later re-used by the Knights of Santiago and remains standing today. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umayyad_state_of_C%C3%B3rdoba |
Marwan I | After Mu'awiya died in 680, Husayn ibn Ali, Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr and Abd Allah ibn Umar, all sons of prominent Qurayshite companions of Muhammad with their own claims to the caliphate, continued to refuse allegiance to Mu'awiya's chosen successor Yazid. Marwan, the leader of the Umayyad clan in the Hejaz, advised al-Walid ibn Utba, then governor of Medina, to coerce Husayn and Ibn al-Zubayr, both of whom he considered especially dangerous to Umayyad rule, to accept the caliph's sovereignty. Husayn answered al-Walid's summons, but refused to pledge allegiance to Yazid because he considered him to be a transgressor against the Quran and the Prophet’s teachings. Husayn left Madina and was called to the city of Kufa. He sent his cousin, Muslim ibn Aqil, as an emissary to the city. Muslim wrote a letter to Husayn that stated that the people welcomed him. The people of Kufa shortly betrayed Muslim after the letter was sent to Husayn. Ibn Ziyad, the governor of Kufa, had Muslim executed.
Husayn learnt that Muslim was killed. He changed his course towards the east and intended to leave peacefully to avoid conflict. He was stopped by Yazid’s forces and was brutally killed at the Battle of Karbala.
Meanwhile, Ibn al-Zubayr avoided al-Walid's summons and escaped to Mecca, where he rallied opposition to Yazid from his headquarters in the Ka'aba, Islam's holiest sanctuary where violence was traditionally banned. In the Islamic traditional anecdotes relating Yazid's response, Marwan warns Ibn al-Zubayr not to submit to the caliph; Wellhausen considers these variable traditions to be unreliable. In 683, the people of Medina rebelled against the caliph and assaulted the local Umayyads and their supporters, prompting them to take refuge in Marwan's houses in the city's suburbs where they were besieged. In response to Marwan's plea for assistance, Yazid dispatched an expeditionary force of Syrian tribesmen led by Muslim ibn Uqba to assert Umayyad authority over the region. The Umayyads of Medina were afterward expelled and many, including Marwan and the Abu al-As family, joined Ibn Uqba's expedition. In the ensuing Battle of al-Harra in August 683, Marwan led his horsemen through Medina and launched a rear assault against the Medinese defenders fighting Ibn Uqba in the city's eastern outskirts. Despite its victory over the Medinese, Yazid's army retreated to Syria in the wake of the caliph's death in November. On the Syrians' departure, Ibn al-Zubayr declared himself caliph and soon gained recognition in most of the Caliphate's provinces, including Egypt, Iraq and Yemen. Marwan and the Umayyads of the Hejaz were expelled for a second time by Ibn al-Zubayr's partisans and their properties were confiscated. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marwan_I |
Assyrian people | The Assyrians initially experienced periods of religious and cultural freedom interspersed with periods of severe religious and ethnic persecution after the 7th century Muslim conquest of Persia. Assyrians contributed to Islamic civilizations during the Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates by translating works of Greek philosophers to Syriac and afterward to Arabic. They also excelled in philosophy, science (Masawaiyh, Eutychius of Alexandria, and Jabril ibn Bukhtishu) and theology (such as Tatian, Bardaisan, Babai the Great, Nestorius, and Thomas of Marga) and the personal physicians of the Abbasid Caliphs were often Assyrians, such as the long-serving Bukhtishu dynasty. Many scholars of the House of Wisdom were of Assyrian Christian background.
Indigenous Assyrians became second-class citizens (dhimmi) in a greater Arab Islamic state. Those who resisted Arabization and conversion to Islam were subject to severe religious, ethnic, and cultural discrimination and had certain restrictions imposed upon them. Assyrians were excluded from specific duties and occupations reserved for Muslims. They did not enjoy the same political rights as Muslims, and their word was not equal to that of a Muslim in legal and civil matters. As Christians, they were subject to payment of a special tax, the jizya.
They were banned from spreading their religion further or building new churches in Muslim-ruled lands, but were expected to adhere to the same laws of property, contract, and obligation as the Muslim Arabs. They could not seek the conversion of a Muslim, a non-Muslim man could not marry a Muslim woman, and the child of such a marriage would be considered a Muslim. They could not own an enslaved Muslim and had to wear different clothing from Muslims to be distinguishable. In addition to the jizya tax, they were required to pay the kharaj tax on their land, which was heavier than the jizya. However, they were protected, given religious freedom, and to govern themselves according to their own laws.
As non-Islamic proselytising was punishable by death under Sharia, the Assyrians were forced into preaching in Transoxiana, Central Asia, India, Mongolia and China where they established numerous churches. The Church of the East was considered to be one of the major Christian powerhouses in the world, alongside Latin Christianity in Europe and the Byzantine Empire (Greek Orthodoxy).
From the 7th century AD onwards, Mesopotamia saw a steady influx of Arabs, Kurds and other Iranian peoples, and later Turkic peoples. Assyrians were increasingly marginalized, persecuted and gradually became a minority in their homeland. Conversion to Islam was a result of heavy taxation, which also resulted in decreased revenue from their rulers. As a result, the new converts migrated to Muslim garrison towns nearby.
Assyrians remained dominant in Upper Mesopotamia as late as the 14th century, and the city of Assur was still occupied by Assyrians during the Islamic period until the mid-14th century when the Muslim Turco-Mongol ruler Timur conducted a religiously motivated massacre against Assyrians. After, no records of Assyrians remained in Assur according to the archaeological and numismatic record. From this point, the Assyrian population was dramatically reduced in their homeland.
From the 19th century, after the rise of nationalism in the Balkans, the Ottomans started viewing Assyrians and other Christians on their eastern front as a potential threat. The Kurdish Emirs sought to consolidate their power by attacking Assyrian communities, which were already well-established there. Scholars estimate that tens of thousands of Assyrians in the Hakkari region were massacred in 1843 when Bedr Khan Beg, the emir of Bohtan, invaded their region. After a later massacre in 1846, western powers forced the Ottomans into intervening in the region, and the ensuing conflict destroyed the Kurdish emirates and reasserted the Ottoman power in the area. The Assyrians were subject to the massacres of Diyarbakır soon after.
Being culturally, ethnically, and linguistically distinct from their Muslim neighbors in the Middle East—the Arabs, Persians, Kurds, Turks—the Assyrians have endured much hardship throughout their recent history as a result of religious and ethnic persecution by these groups. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assyrian_people |
Abrahamic religions | Judaism and Samaritanism commands that males be circumcised when they are eight days old, as does the Sunnah in Islam. Despite its common practice in Muslim-majority nations, circumcision is considered to be sunnah (tradition) and not required for a life directed by Allah. Although there is some debate within Islam over whether it is a religious requirement or mere recommendation, circumcision (called khitan) is practiced nearly universally by Muslim males.
Today, many Christian denominations are neutral about ritual male circumcision, not requiring it for religious observance, but neither forbidding it for cultural or other reasons. Western Christianity replaced the custom of male circumcision with the ritual of baptism, a ceremony which varies according to the doctrine of the denomination, but it generally includes immersion, aspersion, or anointment with water. The Early Church (Acts 15, the Council of Jerusalem) decided that Gentile Christians are not required to undergo circumcision. The Council of Florence in the 15th century prohibited it. Paragraph #2297 of the Catholic Catechism calls non-medical amputation or mutilation immoral. By the 21st century, the Catholic Church had adopted a neutral position on the practice, as long as it is not practised as an initiation ritual. Catholic scholars make various arguments in support of the idea that this policy is not in contradiction with the previous edicts. The New Testament chapter Acts 15 records that Christianity did not require circumcision. The Catholic Church currently maintains a neutral position on the practice of non-religious circumcision, and in 1442 it banned the practice of religious circumcision in the 11th Council of Florence. Coptic Christians practice circumcision as a rite of passage. The Eritrean Orthodox Church and the Ethiopian Orthodox Church calls for circumcision, with near-universal prevalence among Orthodox men in Ethiopia.
Many countries with majorities of Christian adherents in Europe and Latin America have low circumcision rates, while both religious and non-religious circumcision is widely practiced in many predominantly Christian countries and among Christian communities in the Anglosphere countries, Oceania, South Korea, the Philippines, the Middle East and Africa. Countries such as the United States, the Philippines, Australia (albeit primarily in the older generations), Canada, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Equatorial Guinea, Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, and many other African Christian countries have high circumcision rates. Circumcision is near universal in the Christian countries of Oceania. In some African and Eastern Christian denominations male circumcision is an integral or established practice, and require that their male members undergo circumcision. Coptic Christianity and Ethiopian Orthodoxy and Eritrean Orthodoxy still observe male circumcision and practice circumcision as a rite of passage. Male circumcision is also widely practiced among Christians from Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, Israel, and North Africa. (See also aposthia.)
Male circumcision is among the rites of Islam and is part of the fitrah, or the innate disposition and natural character and instinct of the human creation.
Circumcision is widely practiced by the Druze, the procedure is practiced as a cultural tradition, and has no religious significance in the Druze faith. Some Druses do not circumcise their male children, and refuse to observe this "common Muslim practice".
Circumcision is not a religious practice of the Bahá'í Faith, and leaves that decision up to the parents. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abrahamic_religions |
Safa Khulusi | Khulusi was born in Baghdad, the son of a lawyer. His mother died when he was four years old. His family originates from Khanaqin. His grandfather resettled the family in Baghdad where he served as an officer in the Ottoman army, but was killed during the military withdrawal from Mesopotamia at the end of World War I.
Khulusi was inspired to pursue a literary career from an early age by his uncle, the novelist and poet Abdul-Majid Lutfi. Khulusi travelled to London in 1935 on an academic scholarship, living there until the latter stages of World War II and insisting on staying in the city during The Blitz. He returned to Iraq late in the war.
An Arab nationalist, Khulusi turned down an offer of a ministerial position in the post-war British administration of Iraq. Instead, he divided his time between Britain and Iraq, establishing an academic career in both countries. His first novel Nifous Maridha (Sick Souls) was published in 1941, when he was 24 years old. His first academic post was as a lecturer in Arabic Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London University. During his tenure (1945–50) he completed a PhD in Arabic literature in 1947. In 1951 he was appointed as Professor of Arabic at the University of Baghdad. He also served as head of the Arabic Department at Al-Mustansiriya University.
In 1959, Khulusi married Sabiha Al-Dabbagh (1922–1998), one of the first women to graduate as a medical doctor in Iraq. Following postgraduate training in the United States she returned to practice in Baghdad, where she was introduced to Khulusi. She later became a regular contributor to health programmes on the Arabic section of the BBC World Service and a campaigner for women's health in the Middle East. The couple had two children, a son and a daughter.
Khulusi's work mediated modern European and American developments in scholarship. He extended the academic tradition of comparative literature, publishing Dirasat fi al-Adab al-Muqarin wa al-Mathahib al-Adabia (Studies in Comparative Literature and Western Literary Schools) in 1957, and al-Tarjama al-Tahlilia (Analytical Translation) in the same year. Although concentrating on literary and historical scholarship, Khulusi also published novels, short stories and poetry during this period. In addition, he translated modern Iraqi literature into English, publishing a number of translations of the work of Atika Wahbi Al-Khazraji. In Oxford in 1972, he became one of the editors of the Concise Oxford English-Arabic Dictionary of Current Usage which sought to match new developments in both languages. He later published A Dictionary of Contemporary Idiomatic Usage. His books Fann al-Tarjama (The Art of Translation) and Fann al-Taqti' al-Shi'ri wa al-Qafia (The Art of Poetry: Composition and Prosody) were widely read and went through many editions. He was also a regular broadcaster on the BBC's Arabic service and a presenter of cultural programmes on Iraqi television.
While participating in the Arabic literary revival Khulusi attempted to remain ‘neutral’ in the unstable politics of the era. In 1958 the king Faisal II of Iraq and his family were overthrown in a violent revolution. One of their executioners was an army officer who had been one of Khulusi's students. Many years later, when Khulusi met the man again and questioned him on his role in the king's death, the former student answered "all I did was remember Palestine, and the trigger on the machine-gun just set itself off". During Saddam Hussein's regime Khulusi spent most of his time in England where he enjoyed a greater freedom of expression in his writing, returning to Iraq for a couple of months a year to avoid the English winter. On one such visit, he explained to a friend who asked why he didn't remain in Baghdad permanently, "Our roots are here, but it's there that we flower best."
Khulusi was a devout Muslim. He was one of a group of scholars who assisted in the academic and religious reformation of the madrasas in Najaf. Khulusi was elected Chairman of the National Muslim Education Council of the UK. He sought to improve Islamic education, while also supporting co-operation between faiths. He also defended traditions of tolerance within Islam. He wrote widely for Muslim publications. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safa_Khulusi |
Raqqa | In the year 639 or 640, the city fell to the Muslim conqueror Iyad ibn Ghanm. Since then, it has been known by the Arabic name al-Raqqah, or "the morass", after its marshy surroundings at the time. At the surrender of the city, the Christian inhabitants concluded a treaty with Ibn Ghanm that is quoted by al-Baladhuri. The treaty allowed them freedom of worship in their existing churches but forbade the construction of new ones. The city retained an active Christian community well into the Middle Ages (Michael the Syrian records 20 Syriac Orthodox (Jacobite) bishops from the 8th to the 12th centuries), and it had at least four monasteries, of which the Saint Zaccheus Monastery remained the most prominent one. The city's Jewish community also survived until at least the 12th century, when the traveller Benjamin of Tudela visited it and attended its synagogue. At least during the Umayyad period, the city was also home to a small Sabian pagan community.
Ibn Ghanm's successor as governor of Raqqa and the Jazira, Sa'id ibn Amir ibn Hidhyam, built the city's first mosque. The building was later enlarged to monumental proportions, measuring some 73 by 108 metres (240 by 354 feet), with a square brick minaret added later, possibly in the mid-10th century. The mosque survived until the early 20th century, being described by the German archaeologist Ernst Herzfeld in 1907, but has since vanished. Many companions of Muhammad lived in Raqqa.
In 656, during the First Fitna, the Battle of Siffin, the decisive clash between Ali and the Umayyad Mu'awiya took place about 45 kilometres (28 mi) west of Raqqa. The tombs of several of Ali's followers (such as Ammar ibn Yasir and Uwais al-Qarani) are in Raqqa and have become sites of pilgrimage. The city also contained a column with Ali's autograph, but it was removed in the 12th century and taken to Aleppo's Ghawth Mosque.
The Islamic conquest of the region did not disrupt the existing trade routes too much, and new Byzantine coins continued to make their way into Raqqa until about 655–8. The Byzantine government may have seen the area as just temporarily in rebellion. Byzantine coinage probably continued to circulate until at least the 690s, if not even longer.
Raqqa appears to have remained an important regional center under Umayyad rule. The Umayyads invested in agriculture in the region, expanding the amount of irrigated farmland and setting the stage for an "economic blossoming" during and after their rule.
The strategic importance of Raqqa grew during the wars at the end of the Umayyad Caliphate and the beginning of the Abbasid Caliphate. Raqqa lay on the crossroads between Syria and Iraq and the road between Damascus, Palmyra and the temporary seat of the caliphate Resafa, al-Ruha'. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raqqa |
Middle Persian | It has also been pointed out that the Pahlavi spelling does not express the 3rd century lenitions, so the letters p, t, k and c express /b/, /d/, /ɡ/ and /z/ after vowels, e.g. šp' for šab 'night' and hc for az 'from'. The rare phoneme /ɣ/ was also expressed by the same letter shape as k (however, this sound value is usually expressed in the transliteration). Similarly, the letter d may stand for /j/ after a vowel, e.g. pʾd for pāy 'foot' – this is no longer apparent in Book Pahlavi due to the coincidence of the shapes of the original letters y, d and g, but is already clearly seen in Inscriptional and Psalter Pahlavi. Indeed, it even appears to have been the general rule word-finally, regardless of the word's origins, although modern transliterations of words like xwadāy (xwtʾd) and mēnōy (mynwd) do not always reflect this analogical / pseudo-historical spelling. Final īy was regularly written yd. In the same way, (w)b may also correspond to a w in the pronunciation after a vowel. The fortition of initial /j/ to /d͡ʒ/ (or /ʒ/) is not reflected either, so y can express initial /d͡ʒ/, e.g. yʾm for ǰām 'glass' (while it still expresses /j/ in the learned word yzdt' for yazd 'god').
Some even earlier sound changes are not consistently reflected either, such as the transition of /θ/ to /h/ in some words (in front of /r/ this reflex is due to Parthian influence, since the Middle Persian reflex should have been /s/). In such words, the spelling may have s or, in front of r – t. For example, gāh 'place, time' is spelt gʾs (cf. Old Persian gāθu) and nigāh '(a) look' is spelt nkʾs; šahr 'country, town' is spelt štr' (cf. Avestan xsaθra) and mihr 'Mithra, contract, friendship' is spelt mtr'. In contrast, the Manichaean spellings are gʾh, ngʾh, šhr, myhr. Some other words with earlier /θ/ are spelt phonetically in Pahlavi, too: e.g. gēhān, spelt gyhʾn 'material world', and čihr, spelt cyhl 'face'. There are also some other cases where /h/ is spelt /t/ after p: ptkʾl for pahikār 'strife', and /t/ may also stand for /j/ in that position: ptwnd for paywand 'connection'.
There are some other phoneme pairs besides /j/ and /d͡ʒ/ that are not distinguished: h (the original Aramaic ḥ) may stand either for /h/ or for /x/ (hm for ham 'also' as well as hl for xar 'donkey'), whereas the use of original Aramaic h is restricted to heterograms (transliterated E in MacKenzie's system, e.g. LGLE for pāy 'foot'). Not only /p/, but also the frequent sound /f/ is expressed by the letter p, e.g. plhw' for farrox 'fortunate'. While the original letter r is retained in some words as an expression of the sound /r/, especially in older frequent words and Aramaeograms (e.g. štr' for šahr 'country, town', BRTE for duxt 'daughter'), it is far more common for the letter l to have that function, as in the example plhw' for farrox. In the relatively rare cases where l does express /l/, it can be marked as ɫ. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Persian |
Chess | There are several ways a game can end in a draw:
Stalemate: If the player to move has no legal move, but is not in check, the position is a stalemate, and the game is drawn.
Dead position: If neither player is able to checkmate the other by any legal sequence of moves, the game is drawn. For example, if only the kings are on the board, all other pieces having been captured, checkmate is impossible, and the game is drawn by this rule. On the other hand, if both players still have a knight, there is a highly unlikely yet theoretical possibility of checkmate, so this rule does not apply. The dead position rule supersedes the previous rule which referred to "insufficient material", extending it to include other positions where checkmate is impossible, such as blocked pawn endings where the pawns cannot be attacked.
Draw by agreement: In tournament chess, draws are most commonly reached by mutual agreement between the players. The correct procedure is to verbally offer the draw, make a move, then start the opponent's clock. Traditionally, players have been allowed to agree to a draw at any point in the game, occasionally even without playing a move. More recently efforts have been made to discourage short draws, for example by forbidding draw offers before move thirty.
Threefold repetition: This most commonly occurs when neither side is able to avoid repeating moves without incurring a disadvantage. In this situation, either player can claim a draw; this requires the players to keep a valid written record of the game so that the claim can be verified by the arbiter if challenged. The three occurrences of the position need not occur on consecutive moves for a claim to be valid. The addition of the fivefold repetition rule in 2014 requires the arbiter to intervene immediately and declare the game a draw after five occurrences of the same position, consecutive or otherwise, without requiring a claim by either player. FIDE rules make no mention of perpetual check; this is merely a specific type of draw by threefold repetition.
Fifty-move rule: If during the previous 50 moves no pawn has been moved and no capture has been made, either player can claim a draw. The addition of the seventy-five-move rule in 2014 requires the arbiter to intervene and immediately declare the game drawn after 75 moves without a pawn move or capture, without requiring a claim by either player. There are several known endgames where it is possible to force a mate but it requires more than 50 moves before a pawn move or capture is made; examples include some endgames with two knights against a pawn and some pawnless endgames such as queen against two bishops. Historically, FIDE has sometimes revised the fifty-move rule to make exceptions for these endgames, but these have since been repealed. Some correspondence chess organizations do not enforce the fifty-move rule.
Draw on time: In games with a time control, the game is drawn if a player is out of time and no sequence of legal moves would allow the opponent to checkmate the player.
Draw by resignation: Under FIDE Laws, a game is drawn if a player resigns and no sequence of legal moves would allow the opponent to checkmate that player. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess |
Sufism | Historically, Sufis have often belonged to "orders" known as tariqa (pl. ṭuruq) – congregations formed around a grand master wali who will trace their teaching through a chain of successive teachers back to the Islamic prophet Muhammad.
Within the Sufi tradition, the formation of the orders did not immediately produce lineages of master and disciple. There are few examples before the eleventh century of complete lineages going back to the Prophet Muhammad. Yet the symbolic importance of these lineages was immense: they provided a channel to divine authority through master-disciple chains. It was through such chains of masters and disciples that spiritual power and blessings were transmitted to both general and special devotees.
These orders meet for spiritual sessions (majalis) in meeting places known as zawiyas, khanqahs or tekke.
They strive for ihsan (perfection of worship), as detailed in a hadith: "Ihsan is to worship Allah as if you see Him; if you can't see Him, surely He sees you." Sufis regard Muhammad as al-Insān al-Kāmil, the complete human who personifies the attributes of Absolute Reality, and view him as their ultimate spiritual guide.
Sufi orders trace most of their original precepts from Muhammad through Ali ibn Abi Talib, with the notable exception of the Naqshbandi order, who trace their original precepts to Muhammad through Abu Bakr. However, it was not necessary to formally belong to a tariqa. In the Medieval period, Sufism was almost equal to Islam in general and not limited to specific orders.(p24)
Sufism had a long history already before the subsequent institutionalization of Sufi teachings into devotional orders (tariqa, pl. tarîqât) in the early Middle Ages. The term tariqa is used for a school or order of Sufism, or especially for the mystical teaching and spiritual practices of such an order with the aim of seeking ḥaqīqah (ultimate truth). A tariqa has a murshid (guide) who plays the role of leader or spiritual director. The members or followers of a tariqa are known as murīdīn (singular murīd), meaning "desirous", viz. "desiring the knowledge of knowing God and loving God".
Over the years, Sufi orders have influenced and been adopted by various Shi'i movements, especially Isma'ilism, which led to the Safaviyya order's conversion to Shia Islam from Sunni Islam and the spread of Twelverism throughout Iran.
Prominent tariqa include the Ba 'Alawiyya, Badawiyya, Bektashi, Burhaniyya, Chishti, Khalwati, Kubrawiya, Madariyya, Mevlevi, Muridiyya, Naqshbandi, Nimatullahi, Qadiriyya, Qalandariyya, Rahmaniyya, Rifa'i, Safavid, Senussi, Shadhili, Suhrawardiyya, Tijaniyyah, Uwaisi and Zahabiya orders. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sufism |
Kingdom of Kush | Taharqa and his Judean allies initially defeated the Assyrians at Ashkelon when war broke out in 674 BC. The relatively small Assyrian force had first defeafed Canaanite and Arab tribes in the region and then immediately marched at great speed on Ashkelon, leaving them exhausted. However, in 671 BC, the Assyrian King Esarhaddon started the Assyrian conquest of Egypt with a larger and better prepared force. The Assyrians advanced rapidly and decisively. Memphis was taken, and Taharqa fled to Nubia, while his heir and other family members were taken to the Assyrian capital Nineveh as prisoners. Esarhaddon boasted how he "deported all Aethiopians from Egypt, leaving not one to pay homage to me" However, the native Egyptian vassal rulers installed by Esarhaddon as puppets were unable to effectively retain full control of the entire country, and Taharqa was able to regain control of Memphis. Esarhaddon's 669 BC campaign to once more eject Taharqa was abandoned when Esarhaddon died in Harran on the way to Egypt, leaving Esarhaddon's successor, Ashurbanipal the task. He defeated Taharqa, driving his forces back into Nubia, and Taharqa died in Napata soon after in 664 BC.: 121
Taharqa's successor, Tantamani sailed north from Napata, through Elephantine, and to Thebes with a large army, where he was "ritually installed as the king of Egypt." From Thebes, Tantamani began his attempt at reconquest and regained control of a part of southern Egypt as far as Memphis from the native Egyptian puppet rulers installed by the Assyrians. Tantamani's dream stele states that he restored order from the chaos, where royal temples and cults were not being maintained. After defeating Sais and killing Assyria's vassal, Necho I, in Memphis, "some local dynasts formally surrendered, while others withdrew to their fortresses.": 185 Tantamani proceeded north of Memphis, invading Lower Egypt and, besieged cities in the Delta, a number of which surrendered to him. The Assyrians, who had maintained only a small military presence in the north, then sent a large army southwards in 663 BC. Tantamani was decisively routed, and the Assyrian army sacked Thebes to such an extent it never truly recovered. Tantamani was chased back to Nubia, but he continued to try and assert control over Upper Egypt until c. 656 BC. At this date, a native Egyptian ruler, Psamtik I son of Necho, placed on the throne as a vassal of Ashurbanipal, took control of Thebes. The last links between Kush and Upper Egypt were severed after hostilities with the Saite kings in the 590s BC.: 121–122 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Kush |
Qatar Investment Authority | Qatar Investment Authority's affiliation with Qatar Islamic Bank (16.67%) raises concerns about the extent to which the sovereign wealth fund may be or have been involved in some of the bank's activities. In a September 2015 piece, the Consortium Against Terrorist Finance (CATF) discussed the Sharia-compliant financial giant's correspondents and posited that several QIB's correspondents "have controversial histories of affiliation with or support of terrorist or extremist activities". According to US Department of States country reports on terrorism 2019, the Qatari government drafted new AML/CFT legislation, which was finalized and passed into law on 11 September 2019. This legislation included the country forming National Anti-Terrorism Committee. The NATC is tasked with formulating Qatar's Counter Terrorism policy, ensuring inter agency coordination, fulfilling Qatar's obligations to counter terrorism under international conventions, and participating in multilateral conferences on terrorism. According to this reporting, U.S. officials met regularly with the chairman of the NATC to discuss implementation of the CT MOU and overall CT cooperation.
Also, the Qatar State Security Bureau (SSB) maintained an aggressive posture toward monitoring internal terrorism-related activities. Qatar is also a member of the Defeat-ISIS Coalition's CIFG and the TFTC. The country co-hosted a high-level event promoting the power of sport to prevent and counter terrorist radicalization and recruitment on the margins of UN General Assembly in September 2019.
There has also been findings regarding counter terrorism measure taken by Qatar in the report published by United Nations on 27 March 2022, during the Fourth High-Level Strategic Dialogue between the State of Qatar & the United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism (UNOCT) where the two bodies discussed strategic priorities and collaboration for effective United Nations support to Member States on counter-terrorism. The two sides reaffirmed their strong partnership and discussed opportunities for further collaboration against terrorism. The State of Qatar is the second largest contributor to the United Nations Trust Fund for Counter-Terrorism out of a total 35 other donors. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatar_Investment_Authority |
Dubai Police Force | Dubai Police developed the Dubai Police Volunteering Platform as a community outreach program to encourage safety, security, and social well-being. The platform gives people and organizations the chance to contribute their time, talents, and resources in support of the goal of the Dubai Police, which is to improve public safety and security.
Volunteers can take part in a variety of activities through the Dubai Police Volunteering Platform, including:
• Offering assistance during significant events and emergencies
• Participating in crime prevention initiatives.
• Assisting with community outreach and awareness campaigns.
• Providing translation services for locals and visitors who don't speak Arabic.
The projects and activities that volunteers want to participate in the community can also be suggested by them.
Individuals and organizations have to register on the platform's website, go through the requisite training, and pass background checks before they can join in the Dubai Police Volunteering Platform.
Volunteers participation during the COVID-19 Pandemic
By enlisting volunteers to assist Dubai Police in managing the crisis and safeguarding public safety, the Dubai Police Volunteering Platform played a significant role throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Here are some instances of contributions made by volunteers:
1. Assisting frontline personnel: Dubai Police volunteers have assisted frontline personnel by distributing PPE and sanitizing public spaces.
2. Assisting with public education efforts: Volunteers have assisted with public education initiatives to inform people of the significance of adhering to COVID-19 norms and principles.
3. implementing COVID-19 rules: Dubai Police has received help from volunteers in implementing COVID-19 rules, which include social distance and wearing masks in public.
4. Performing translations to public: To ensure that everyone has access to crucial information about COVID-19: volunteers with language abilities have assisted to provide translation services for residents and tourists who do not speak Arabic.
5. Supporting vulnerable groups: Volunteers have delivered necessities and offered assistance with everyday tasks to vulnerable groups like the elderly and the people of determination.
In general, the Dubai Police Volunteering Platform has played a key role in enlisting the community's aid in supporting Dubai Police's activities throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Together, volunteers and law enforcement officials have contributed to protecting the safety of the general public and the health of both residents and visitors in Dubai. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dubai_Police_Force |
Hammam | In the 11th century the Seljuk Empire conquered much of Anatolia from the Byzantine Empire, eventually leading to the complete conquest of the remnants of the old empire in the 15th century. During those centuries of war, peace, alliance, trade and competition, these intermixing cultures (Eastern Roman, Islamic Persian and Turkic) had tremendous influence on each other.
Later the Ottomans became prolific patrons of hammams. Since they were social centres as well as baths, they were built in almost every city across their European, Asian, and African territories. The Ottomans were thus responsible for introducing hammams to much of eastern and central Europe, where many still exist today in various states of restoration or disrepair. Such Turkish baths are found as far as Bosnia and Herzegovina, Greece, and Hungary. Many early Ottoman hammams survive in Bursa and Edirne, as well as in Eastern Europe and Anatolia, but hammams became even more numerous and architecturally ambitious in Constantinople (Istanbul), thanks to its royal patronage, its large population and its access to plentiful water. The city's Greek inhabitants had retained a strong Eastern Roman bath culture, with the Baths of Zeuxippus constituting one early example. Ottoman architects expanded on the experience of Byzantine architects to create particularly well-balanced designs with greater symmetry and regularity in the arrangement of space than could be seen in hammams in other parts of the Muslim world. Some of the city's oldest monumental hammams are the Tahtakale Hamam (probably built right after 1454), the Mahmut Pasha Hamam (built in 1466), and the Bayezid II Hamam (built some time between 1500 and 1507). The monumental hammams designed by the 16th-century Ottoman architect Mimar Sinan (1489–1588), such as the Çemberlitaş Hamamı, the Süleymaniye Hamam (in the complex of the Süleymaniye Mosque), and the Haseki Hürrem Sultan Hamam, are major examples of hammams that were built later in the era of classical Ottoman architecture. When Sultan Mustafa III issued a decree halting the construction of new public baths in the city in 1768, it seems to have resulted in an increase in the number of private hammams among the wealthy and the elites, especially in the Bosphorus suburbs where they built luxurious summer homes.
In Iran, many examples of hammams survive from the Safavid period (16th–18th centuries) onward, with the historic city of Isfahan in particular containing many examples. The spread of Muslim rule in the Indian subcontinent also introduced hammams to this region, with many examples surviving in Mughal architecture (16th–19th centuries). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hammam |
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