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Muslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula | The historian al-Tabari transmits a tradition attributed to Caliph Uthman, who stated that the road to Constantinople was through Hispania, "Only through Spain can Constantinople be conquered. If you conquer [Spain] you will share the reward of those who conquer [Constantinople]". The conquest of Hispania followed the conquest of the Maghreb. Walter Kaegi says Tabari's tradition is dubious and argued that conquest of the far western reaches of the Mediterranean Sea was motivated by military, political and religious opportunities. He considers that it was not a shift in direction due to the Muslims failing to conquer Constantinople in 678.
Precisely what happened in Iberia in the early 8th century is uncertain. There is one contemporary Christian source, the Chronicle of 754, which ends that year and is regarded as reliable but often vague. There are no contemporary Muslim accounts, and later Muslim compilations, such as that of Al-Maqqari from the 17th century, reflect later ideological influence. Roger Collins writes that the paucity of early sources means that detailed specific claims need to be regarded with caution.
The Umayyads took control of Hispania from the Visigoths, who had ruled for roughly 300 years. At the time of the conquest, the Visigothic upper class was beginning to fracture and had many problems with succession and maintaining power. That was partially because the Visigoths were only 1–2% of the population, which made it difficult to maintain control over a rebellious population.
The ruler at the time was King Roderic but the manner of his ascent to the throne is unclear. There are accounts of a dispute with Achila II, son of his predecessor Wittiza. Later regnal lists, which cite Achila and omit Roderic, are consistent with the contemporary account of civil war. Numismatic evidence suggests a division of royal authority, with several coinages being struck, and that Achila II remained king of the Tarraconsense (the Ebro basin) and Septimania until circa 713. The nearly-contemporary Chronicle of 754 describes Roderic as a usurper who earned the allegiance of other Goths by deception, and the less reliable late-9th-century Chronicle of Alfonso III shows a clear hostility towards Oppa, bishop of Seville (or Toledo) and probably a brother of Wittiza, who appears in an unlikely heroic dialogue with Pelagius.
There is also a story of Julian, count of Ceuta, whose wife or daughter was raped by Roderic and who sought help from Tangier. However, these stories are not included in the earliest accounts of the conquest.
Musa ibn Nusayr's first reconnaissance missions to Hispania returned with reports of "great splendor and beauty", which increased Muslim desires to invade Hispania. During one of the multiple raids in 710, the Muslims "made several inroads into the mainland, which produced a rich spoil and several captives, who were so handsome that Musa and his companions had never seen the like of them".
According to Ahmad al-Maqqari’s chronicle, written 900 years later, the natives of Hispania viewed the Berbers in a similar way as the Byzantines viewed the Arabs, as barbarians, and feared an invasion by them.
Whenever some of the scattered tribes of Berbers inhabiting along the northern coast of Africa happened to approach the sea shore, the fears and consternation of the Greeks [Iberians] would increase, they would fly in all directions for fear of the threatened invasion, and their dread of the Berbers waxed so greatly that it was instilled into their nature, and became in after times a prominent feature in their character. On the other side, the Berbers having been made acquainted with this ill-will and hatred of the people of Andalus towards them, hated and envied them the more, this being in a certain measure the reason why even a long time afterwards a Berber could scarcely be found who did not most cordially hate an Andalusian [people of Spanish/Christian descent], and vice versa, only that Berbers being more in want of Andalusians than these are of them | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_conquest_of_the_Iberian_Peninsula |
The Martian (film) | When Weir wrote the novel The Martian, he strove to present the science correctly and used reader feedback to get it right. When Scott began directing the film, he also sought to make it realistic and received help from James L. Green, the Director of the Planetary Science Division at NASA's Science Mission Directorate. Green put together teams to answer scientific questions that Scott asked. Green said, "The Martian is reasonably realistic", though he said the film's hazardous dust storm, despite reaching speeds of 120 miles per hour (190 km/h), would in reality have weak force. Green also found the NASA buildings in the film to be more stylish than the functional ones NASA actually uses. Film critics picked up the point that the Martian winds could amount to "barely a light breeze" in their reviews, and screenwriter Goddard agreed the winds had to be considerably exaggerated in order to set up the situation that sets the story in motion.
The process used by the character Watney to produce water was accurate and is being used by NASA for a planned Martian rover. The radioisotope thermoelectric generator was also appropriately used for heat. When his rations begin to run low, Watney builds an improvised garden using Martian soil and the crew's feces as a fertilizer. However, Martian soil has since been found to be toxic to both plant and animal life, although it is believed that microbial organisms have the potential to live on Mars.
Time magazine criticized another duct tape based repair: "When a pressure leak causes an entire pod on Watney’s habitat to blow up, he patches a yawning opening in what's left of the dwelling with plastic tarp and PSA duct tape." Such a repair would not work in an average Martian temperature of −60 °C (−76 °F).
While Martian gravity is less than 40% of Earth's, director Scott chose not to depict the gravitational difference, finding the effort less worthwhile to put on screen than zero gravity. Scott said the heavy spacesuits would weigh the main character enough to make up for not showing the partial gravity. The climate of Mars is also cold enough that it would make Watney's initial plan to disable the rover's heater immediately impractical, since the average temperature is −80 °F (−62 °C); it is cold enough on Mars for carbon dioxide snow to fall at the poles in winter. However, this issue is almost immediately brought up, and is the reason for the plan failing.
The plot key to the eventual rescue plan is gravity assist, a well-known practice that has been used on a number of robotic planetary exploration missions and served as a backup strategy on manned Apollo missions. It would have been one of the first approaches that everyone within NASA would have considered, but in the film, only one JPL astrodynamicist argues for sending the Ares mission back to Mars using gravity assist rather than having a separate mission to rescue Watney.
Ed Finn, director of the Center for Science and the Imagination at Arizona State University, said, "What this story does really well is imagine a near-future scenario that doesn't push too far off where we are today technically." British physicist Brian Cox said, "The Martian is the best advert for a career in engineering I've ever seen." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Martian_(film) |
American University of Beirut | There are three museums at AUB: the Archaeological Museum, the Geology Museum, and the Natural History Museum.
The Archaeological Museum is the third oldest museum in the Near East. Its collection includes more than 16,000 objects and 10,000 coins and features pottery, prehistoric flint tools, bronze figurines, Phoenician and classical sculptures and bas-reliefs, Egyptian alabaster vases from Byblos, hairpins, and musical instruments. The museum has conducted excavations in Lebanon and Syria. The Society of the Friends of the AUB Museum organizes lectures, exhibits, and activities for children.
The Geology Museum includes rocks, minerals, and fossils from around the world. It is an important resource for AUB students and researchers and for students from other universities and schools in Lebanon.
The Natural History Museum houses a unique collection that represents the biodiversity of the area. It is especially well known for the Post Herbarium, which includes 63,000 specimens.
AUB's Archives and Special Collections includes important documents related to the founding of the Syrian Protestant College in 1866 and also many materials (documents, maps, photographs, etc.) of interest to scholars of Lebanon and the region including the Beirut Codex, a New Testament in Syriac, dating back to the ninth or tenth century; the E. W. Blatchford Collection (photographs of the Middle East, Europe, and North Africa taken between 1880 and 1900); and political and cultural posters dating back to the 1940s.
The American University of Beirut has embarked upon a new initiative (AUB Art Galleries and Collections) to play an active role in promoting fine and contemporary art in the region.
The very first step taken in this new direction coincided with the generous donation of Samir Saleeby to AUB. The Rose and Shaheen Saleeby Collection includes paintings by artists of different generations, ranging from Khalil Saleeby (1870–1928) and Cesar Gemayal (1898–1958) to Omar Onsi (1901–1969) and Saliba Douaihy (1912–1994). It also features works by Haidar Hamaoui (b. 1937), Chucrallah Fattouh (b. 1956), and Robert Khoury (b. 1923). The Saleeby donation is the cornerstone upon which AUB will establish a comprehensive collection of modern and contemporary art from the region.
The new initiative commenced with the launching of new art spaces located in and around AUB campus: the Rose and Shaheen Saleeby Museum in Sidani Street and the Byblos Bank Art Gallery, in Ada Dodge Hall (on campus).
The AUB curates the Palestinian Oral History Archive (POHA), a Oral history preservation project. Other notable Palestinian oral history archives are the Palestinian Oral History Map, Columbia University's Oral History Project in New York, Duke University's Palestinian Oral History Project, the Palestinian Rural History Project, Palestine Remembered, and Zochrot. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_University_of_Beirut |
Roman Egypt | The worship of Egypt's rulers was interrupted entirely by the fall of the Ptolemaic dynasty, who together with their predecessor Alexander the Great had been worshipped with an Egypto-Hellenistic ruler cult.: 98 After the Roman conquest of Egypt, Augustus instituted a new Roman imperial cult in Egypt.: 98 Formally, the "Roman people" (Latin: populus Romanus) were now collectively the ruler of Egypt; emperors were never crowned pharaoh in person in the traditional way, and there is no evidence that the emperors were systematically incorporated into the traditional pantheons worshipped by the traditional priesthoods.: 435 Instead, the image of Augustus was identified with Zeus Eleutherios (Greek: Ἐλευθέριος, lit. "liberator"), and modelled on the example of Alexander the Great, who was said to have "liberated" Egypt from the old pharaohs.: 435 Nevertheless, in 27 BC there was at Memphis, as was traditional, a high priest of Ptah appointed under Augustus's authority as the senior celebrant of the Egyptian ruler cult and referred to as a "priest of Caesar".: 435 Augustus had been honoured with a cult in Egypt before his death, and there is evidence that Nero was worshipped while still living, as was Hadrian in particular.: 437 While alive however, the emperor was usually honoured with offerings to the various gods "for his health" (Latin: pro salute); usually, only after the emperor's death was he deified and worshipped as a god.: 437 A letter of Claudius written to the Alexandrians in 41 AD rejects the offer of a cult of himself, permitting only divine honours such as statues and reserving cult worship for the deified Augustus.: 438 For juridical purposes, the imperial oath recalling Ptolemaic precedent had to be sworn in the name or "fortune" (tyche) of the emperor: "I swear by Caesar Imperator, son of God, Zeus Eleutherios, Augustus".: 437
The official cult was superintended by the archiereus for Alexandria and All Egypt (ἀρχιερεὺς Ἀλεξανδρίας καὶ Αἰγύπτου πάσης, archiereùs Alexandrías kaì Aigyptou pásēs), who was procurator in charge of Egypt's temples and responsible for the worship of the imperial deities and of Serapis throughout the country.: 95, 98 As with the praefectus Aegypti, the archiereus of Alexandria and All Egypt was a Roman citizen and probably appointed from the equestrian class.: 95 The official cult in Egypt differed from that in other provinces; the goddess Roma, closely associated with the Roman Senate, was not introduced by Augustus, since as an imperial province Egypt lay beyond the reach of the Senate's powers (imperium).: 98 The archiereus for Alexandria and All Egypt was appointed by the emperor.: 95 The high priest's full title ("high priest of the gods Augusti and the Great Serapis and the one who is responsible for the temples of Egypt and the whole country") indicates that the cult of Serapis was closely connected with the worship of the emperors and that both were overseen by the same Roman official.: 94–95
An archiereus existed in each of the nomoi; drawn from the local elite through the liturgy system, these high priests were responsible for the maintenance of the imperial temples and cults in their mētropoleis.: 98 These officials, in place since the mid-1st century AD at latest, was each known as the "high priest of the Lords Augusti and all the gods" (ἀρχιερεὺς τῶν κυρίων Σεβαστῶν καὶ θεῶν ἁπάντων, archiereùs tōn kuríōn Sebastōn kaì theōn apántōn) or the "high priest of the city" (ἀρχιερεὺς τῆς πόλεως, archiereùs tēs póleōs), and was responsible mainly for the organization of the imperial cult, since the traditional local cults already had their own priesthoods.: 92–93 Though imposed by the Roman state and overseen from the provincial capital, the imperial cult was locally organized, though direct imperial control is also attested for the cult at Alexandria.: 98 : 438 Throughout Egypt, sacrificial altars dedicated to the worship of the deified emperor Augustus (Koinē Greek: Σεβαστός, romanized: Sebastós, lit. 'Venerable') were set up in dedicated temples (sebasteia or caesarea).: 86, 98 Each sebasteion or caesareum had administrative functions as well as organizing the local cult of the emperor.: 86 Nevertheless, there is scant evidence that the worship of the emperors was common in private settings, and the Alexandrians were frequently hostile to the emperors themselves.: 98
The form of the imperial cult established in the reign of Augustus, which may have been largely focused on the deified first emperor himself, continued until the reign of Constantine the Great.: 437 The widow of the emperor Trajan, the augusta Plotina, was deified after her death by Hadrian.: 14 At Dendera, in a temple dedicated to Aphrodite, the late empress was identified with the Egyptian goddess Hathor, the first instance of a member of the imperial family – besides the emperor himself – being integrated into the Egyptian pantheon.: 14 Unlike the royal cult of the Ptolemaic dynasty, whose festivals were celebrated according to the Egyptian calendar, the imperial cult days, such as the emperors' birthdays (Koinē Greek: ἡμέραι σεβασταί, romanized: hēmérai sebastaí, lit. 'venerable days'), fell according to the Roman calendar.: 438 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Egypt |
Ayyubid dynasty | In 1164, Nur al-Din dispatched Shirkuh to lead an expeditionary force to prevent the Crusaders from establishing a strong presence in an increasingly anarchic Egypt. Shirkuh enlisted Ayyub's son, Saladin, as an officer under his command. They successfully drove out Dirgham, the vizier of Egypt, and reinstated his predecessor Shawar. After being reinstated, Shawar ordered Shirkuh to withdraw his forces from Egypt, but Shirkuh refused, claiming it was Nur al-Din's will that he remain. Over the course of several years, Shirkuh and Saladin defeated the combined forces of the Crusaders and Shawar's troops, first at Bilbais, then at a site near Giza, and in Alexandria, where Saladin would stay to protect while Shirkuh pursued Crusader forces in Lower Egypt.
Shawar died in 1169 and Shirkuh became vizier, but he too died later that year. After Shirkuh's death, Saladin was appointed vizier by the Fatimid caliph al-Adid because there was "no one weaker or younger" than Saladin, and "not one of the emirs obeyed him or served him", according to medieval Muslim chronicler Ibn al-Athir. Saladin soon found himself more independent than ever before in his career, much to the dismay of Nur al-Din who attempted to influence events in Egypt. He permitted Saladin's elder brother, Turan-Shah, to supervise Saladin in a bid to cause dissension within the Ayyubid family and thus undermining its position in Egypt. Nur al-Din satisfied Saladin's request that he be joined by his father Ayyub. However, Ayyub was sent primarily to ensure that Abbasid suzerainty was proclaimed in Egypt, which Saladin was reluctant to undertake due to his position as the vizier of the Fatimids. Although Nur al-Din failed to provoke the Ayyubids into rivalry, the extended Ayyubid family, particularly a number of local governors in Syria, did not entirely back Saladin.
Saladin consolidated his control in Egypt after ordering Turan-Shah to put down a revolt in Cairo staged by the Fatimid army's 50,000-strong Nubian regiments. After this success, Saladin began granting his family members high-ranking positions in the country and increased Sunni Muslim influence in Shia Muslim-dominated Cairo by ordering the construction of a college for the Maliki school of jurisprudence of Sunni Islam in the city, and another for the Shafi'i school, to which he belonged, in al-Fustat. In 1171, al-Adid died and Saladin took advantage of this power vacuum, effectively taking control of the country. Upon seizing power, he switched Egypt's allegiance to the Baghdad-based Abbasid Caliphate which adhered to Sunni Islam. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayyubid_dynasty |
Anglo-Egyptian conquest of Sudan | The fall of Dongola was a shock to the Khalifa and his followers in Omdurman, as it immediately placed their capital under threat. They thought it was likely that Kitchener would attack by striking across the desert from Korti to Metemma, as the Nile Expedition had done in 1885. The Khalifa therefore directed Osman Azraq to hold Abu Klea and Wad Bishara to hold Metemma with a force of Ja'alin. He also ordered Osman Digna in eastern Sudan and his commanders in Kordofan and other regions to bring their forces in to Omdurman, strengthening its defences with some 150,000 additional fighters. This concentrated the Mahdist forces in the capital and the northern approaches, down the Nile to Berber. Aware that Kitchener had a substantial river force which had by now passed up the second cataract into the Dongola Reach, the Khalifa sought to prevent it steaming further upriver by blocking the sixth cataract at the Shabluka gorge, which was the last river obstacle before Omdurman. To this end forts were built at the northern end of the gorge, and the paddle-steamer Bordein carried guns and supplies upriver.
Kitchener did not advance on Omdurman after taking Dongola, and by May 1897 the Khalifa's forces from Kordofan had increased the size of his forces to the point where he felt able to take a more offensive stance. He therefore decided to advance the Kordofan army down the river to Metemma, in Ja'alin country. The loyalty of the Ja'alin to the Mahdist state had weakened as the Egyptian army advanced, and they were particularly unwilling to have a large army quartered with them. Their chief, Abdallah wad Saad, therefore wrote to Kitchener on 24 June, pledging the loyalty of his people to Egypt and asking for men and weapons to assist them against the Khalifa. Kitchener sent 1,100 Remington rifles and ammunition, but they did not arrive in time to help the Ja'alin defend Metemma from the Khalifa's army, which arrived on 30 June and stormed the town, killing wad Saad and driving his surviving followers away.
For Kitchener, much of 1897 was taken up extending the railway to Abu Hamed. The town was taken on 7 August and the railway reached it on 31 October. Even before this river strongpoint was secured, Kitchener ordered his gunboats to proceed upriver past the fourth cataract. With help from the local Shayqiyya, the attempt began on 4 August, but the current was so strong that the gunboat El Teb could not be hauled over the rapids, and capsized. However the Metemma made the passage safely on 13 August, the Tamai on 14, and on 19 and 20 August the new gunboats Zafir, Fateh and Nasir also passed the cataract.
The sudden advance of the river force and uncertainty about whether he would be reinforced by the Kordofan Army prompted the Mahdist commander in Berber, Zeki Osman, to abandon the town on 24 August, and it was occupied by the Egyptians on 5 September. The overland route from Berber to Suakin was now reopened, meaning that the Egyptian army could be reinforced and resupplied by river, by rail and by sea. As the Red Sea area returned its loyalty to Egypt, an Egyptian force also marched from Suakin to retake Kassala, which had been temporarily occupied by the Italians since 1893. The Italians ceded control on Christmas Day.
For the remainder of the year Kitchener extended the railway line forward from Abu Hamad, built up his forces in Berber, and fortified the north bank of the confluence with the Atbarah River. Meanwhile, the Khalifa strengthened the defences of Omdurman and Metemma and prepared an attack on the Egyptian positions while the river was low and the gunboats could neither retreat below the fifth cataract nor advance above the sixth. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Egyptian_conquest_of_Sudan |
Armenian Quarter | The Ottomans tolerated the presence of non-Muslim, Dhimmi, communities including the Christian Armenians. There was religious tolerance and an Ottoman administration existed to sort out religious differences between the rival Christian churches and Muslims. Israeli historians Kark and Oren-Nordheim wrote in 2001: "The Armenian Quarter, although Christian, represented a distinct ethnic group with its particular language and culture, intent on retaining separate identity and unity, minimizing the contacts with Arabs and the Ottoman authorities for fear of persecution." Many members of the Armenian community in Jerusalem spoke Arabic, in addition to Armenian.
In 1538, the current walls of Jerusalem were completed on the orders of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. These walls, along with the internal walls built by the Armenians, determined the outline of the quarter. In the 1562–63 record, only 189 Armenians were counted, whereas 640 were counted by the Ottomans in 1690, an increase of 239%. According to the chronicler Simeon Lehatsi only some twelve Armenian families lived in Jerusalem in 1615–16. The significant increase in the population in 1690 is attributed to urbanization experienced by the Armenians and other Christians. Thus Armenians came to make up 22.9% of Jerusalem's Christians by 1690, becoming the second largest Christian community.
In the 19th century, most of the Armenian and Christian quarters had "European-style gable roofs" as opposed to the domes preferred in the Muslim and Jewish quarters. In 1833 the Armenians established the city's first printing press. A seminary was opened in 1857. In 1855 the first photographic workshop in Jerusalem was founded in the Armenian Quarter. Schools for boys (1840) and girls (1862) were united in 1869 under the name Holy Translators' School and became the first coeducational school in Jerusalem.
In 1854 Karl Marx reported 350 Armenians in Jerusalem. In 1883, 102 Armenian families (8%) constituted the third largest Christian community in the Old City after the Greek Orthodox and Catholic (Latin) communities. Besides these residents, in the same year, 46 Armenian priests and monks and 55 servicemen lived within the St. James Monastery. According to the 1905 Ottoman census in the Old City, the Armenian Quarter had a population of 382, of which Armenians (121) comprised less than one-third (31.7%). Jews (127) made up 33.2%, other Christians (94) 24.6% and Muslims (40) 10.5%. The Jews, who numbered a little more than the Armenians, inhabited the eastern part of the Armenian Quarter, which in the second half of the nineteenth century, became the western part of the Jewish Quarter. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_Quarter |
Barbary Wars | When the war broke out between America and Britain in 1812, the regent on the British throne, George IV, sent a letter to Dey Haji Ali Pasha (1809-1815) confirming to him the bonds of friendship that united the two countries and declaring his country's readiness to defend Algiers against every aggressor as long as these ties remained. By that he intended to win over Algiers to Britain against America, or at least convince Algiers to adopt a position of neutrality. Thus, the countries of Europe and the United States of America failed to ally against the countries of the Islamic Maghreb and Algiers in particular, and the matter so remained until the Napoleonic Wars ended in 1815. James Madison recommended that Congress declare the "existence of a state of war between the United States and the Dey and Regency of Algiers." While Congress did not formally declare a state of war, they did pass legislation, enacted on March 3, 1815, that authorized the president to use the U.S. Navy, "as judged requisite by the President" to protect the "commerce and seamen" of the United States on the "Atlantic Ocean, the Mediterranean and adjoining seas." Congress also authorized the president to grant the U.S. Navy the ability to seize all vessels and goods belonging to Algiers. The legislation also authorized the president to commission privateers for the same purpose.
During the reign of the Dey Omar Pasha (1815-1817), American-Algerian relations worsened when the Dey began to demand an increase in the annual tribute. The Americans went to Algiers to fight under Commodore Stephen Decatur, which culminated in the Battle off Cape Gata and the death of the famous corsair captain Raïs Hamidou. A letter to the dey followed on April 12, 1815 informing him of America's decision to enter into war against him and giving him the choice between peace and war after reminding him of the horrors of war and the advantages of peace and understanding. In the year 1816, Dey Omar answered this letter and offered America the renewal of the previous treaty concluded during the reign of Hassan Pasha (1791-1798). Madison answered him on August 21 and asked him to resume negotiations. These were renewed and ended with a peace agreement in favor of America. The dey was forced to pay $10,000 in compensation and to renounce all that America had been paying him. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbary_Wars |
Egyptology | Egyptology's modern history begins with the invasion of Egypt by Napoleon Bonaparte in the late 18th century. The Rosetta Stone was discovered in 1799. The study of many aspects of ancient Egypt became more scientifically oriented with the publication of Mémoires sur l'Égypte in 1800 and the more comprehensive Description de l'Egypte between 1809 and 1829. These recorded Egyptian flora, fauna, and history—making numerous ancient Egyptian source materials available to Europeans for the first time. The British captured Egypt from the French and gained the Rosetta Stone in 1801, the Greek script of which was translated by 1803. In 1822, the corresponding Egyptian hieroglyphs were deciphered by Jean-François Champollion, marking the beginning of modern Egyptology. With increasing knowledge of Egyptian writing, the study of ancient Egypt was able to proceed with greater academic rigour. Champollion, Thomas Young and Ippolito Rosellini were some of the first Egyptologists of wide acclaim. The German Karl Richard Lepsius was an early participant in the investigations of Egypt—mapping, excavating and recording several sites.
English Egyptologist Flinders Petrie (1853–1942) introduced archaeological techniques of field preservation, recording, and excavation to the field. Many highly educated amateurs also travelled to Egypt, including women such as Harriet Martineau and Florence Nightingale. Both of these left accounts of their travels, which revealed learned familiarity with all of the latest European Egyptology. Howard Carter's 1922 discovery of the tomb of 18th Dynasty King Tutankhamun brought a greater understanding of Egyptian relics and wide acclaim to the field.
In the modern era, the Ministry of State for Antiquities controls excavation permits for Egyptologists to conduct their work. The field can now use geophysical methods and other applications of modern sensing techniques.
In June 2000, the European Institute for Underwater Archaeology (IEASM), directed by Franck Goddio, in cooperation with the Egyptian Ministry for Antiquities discovered the ancient sunken city of Thonis-Heracleion in today's Abu Qir Bay. The statues of a colossal King and Queen are on display at the Grand Egyptian Museum. Other discovered artefacts are exhibited at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina and Alexandria National Museum (ANM). The excavations are documented through several publications
In March 2017, the Egyptian-German team of archaeologists unearthed an eight-meter 3,000-year-old statue that included a head and a torso thought to depict Pharaoh Ramses II. According to Khaled El-Enany, the Egyptian Antiquities Minister, the statue was more likely thought to be King Psammetich I. Excavators also revealed an 80 cm-long part of a limestone statue of Pharaoh Seti II while excavating the site.
In August 2017, archaeologists from the Ministry of Antiquities announced the discovery of five mud-brick tombs at Bir esh-Shaghala, dating back nearly 2,000 years. Researchers also revealed worn masks gilded with gold, several large jars and a piece of pottery with unsolved ancient Egyptian writing on it.
In November 2017 (25 October 2000), the Egyptian mission in cooperation with the European Institute for Underwater Archaeology announced the discovery of 2,000-year-old three sunken shipwrecks dated back to the Roman Era in Alexandria's Abu Qir Bay.
The sunken cargo included a royal head of crystal perhaps belong to the commander of the Roman armies of "Antonio", three gold coins from the era of Emperor Octavius Augustus, large wooden planks and pottery vessels.
In April 2018, the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities announced the discovery of the head of the bust of Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius at the Temple of Kom Ombo in Aswan during work to protect the site from groundwater.
In April 2018, the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities announced the discovery of the shrine of god Osiris- Ptah Neb, dating back to the 25th dynasty in the Temple of Karnak in Luxor. According to archaeologist Essam Nagy, the material remains from the area contained clay pots, the lower part of a sitting statue and part of a stone panel showing an offering table filled with a sheep and a goose which were the symbols of the god Amun.
In July 2018, German-Egyptian researchers' team head by Ramadan Badry Hussein of the University of Tübingen reported the discovery of an extremely rare gilded burial mask that probably dates from the Saite-Persian period in a partly damaged wooden coffin in Saqqara. The last time a similar mask was found was in 1939. The eyes were covered with obsidian, calcite, and black hued gemstone possibly onyx. "The finding of this mask could be called a sensation. Very few masks of precious metal have been preserved to the present day, because the tombs of most Ancient Egyptian dignitaries were looted in ancient times." said Hussein.
In July 2018, archaeologists led by Zeinab Hashish announced the discovery of a 2,000-year-old 30-ton black granite sarcophagus in Alexandria. It contained three damaged skeletons in red-brown sewage water. According to archaeologist Mostafa Waziri, the skeletons looked like a family burial with a middle-aged woman and two men. Researchers also revealed a small gold artifact and three thin sheets of gold.
In September 2018, a sandstone sphinx statue was discovered at the temple of Kom Ombo. The statue, measuring approximately 28 cm (11 in) in width and 38 cm (15 in) in height, likely dates to the Ptolemaic Dynasty.
In September 2018, several dozen cache of mummies dating 2,000 years back were found in Saqqara by a team of Polish archaeologists led by Kamil Kuraszkiewicz from the Faculty of Oriental Studies of the University of Warsaw.
In November 2018, an Egyptian archaeological mission located seven ancient Egyptian tombs at the ancient necropolis of Saqqara containing a collection of scarab and cat mummies dating back to the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties. Three of the tombs were used for cats, some dating back more than 6,000 years, while one of four other sarcophagi was unsealed. With the remains of cat mummies were unearthed gilded and 100 wooden statues of cats and one in bronze dedicated to the cat goddess Bastet. In addition, funerary items dating back to the 12th Dynasty were found besides the skeletal remains of cats.
In mid-December 2018, the Egyptian government announced the discovery at Saqqara of a previously unknown 4,400-year-old tomb, containing paintings and more than fifty sculptures. It belongs to Wahtye, a high-ranking priest who served under King Neferirkare Kakai during the Fifth Dynasty. The tomb also contains four shafts that lead to a sarcophagus below.
According to the Al-Ahram, in January 2019, archaeologists headed by Mostafa Waziri revealed a collection of 20 tombs dated back to the Second Intermediate Period in Kom Al-Khelgan. The burials contained the remains of animals, amulets, and scarabs carved from faience, round and oval pots with handholds, flint knives, broken and burned pottery. All burials included skulls and skeletons in the bending position and were not very well-preserved.
In April 2019, archaeologists discovered 35 mummified remains of Egyptians in a tomb in Aswan. Italian archaeologist Patrizia Piacentini, professor of Egyptology at the University of Milan, and Khaled El-Enany, the Egyptian minister of antiquities reported that the tomb where the remains of ancient men, women and children were found, dates back to the Greco-Roman period between 332 BC and 395 AD. While the findings assumed belonging to a mother and a child were well preserved, others had suffered major destruction. Beside the mummies, artefacts including painted funerary masks, vases of bitumen used in mummification, pottery and wooden figurines were revealed. Thanks to the hieroglyphics on the tomb, it was detected that the tomb belongs to a tradesman named Tjit.
On 13 April 2019, an expedition led by a member of the Czech Institute of Egyptology, Mohamed Megahed, discovered a 4,000-year-old tomb near Egypt's Saqqara Necropolis in Saqqara. Archaeologists confirmed that the tomb belonged to an influential person named Khuwy, who lived in Egypt during the 5th Dynasty. "The L-shaped Khuwy tomb starts with a small corridor heading downwards into an antechamber and from there a larger chamber with painted reliefs depicting the tomb owner seated at an offerings table", reported Megahed. Some paintings maintained their brightness over a long time in the tomb. Mainly made of white limestone bricks, the tomb had a tunnel entrance generally typical for pyramids. Archaeologists say that there might be a connection between Khuwy and pharaoh because the mausoleum was found near the pyramid of Egyptian Pharaoh Djedkare Isesi, who ruled during that time.
In July 2019, ancient granite columns and a smaller Greek temple, treasure-laden ships, along with bronze coins from the reign of Ptolemy II, pottery dating back to the third and fourth centuries BC were found at the sunken city of Heracleion. The investigations were conducted by Egyptian and European divers led by underwater archaeologist Franck Goddio. They also uncovered the ruins of the city's main temple off of Egypt's north coast.
In September 2019, archaeologists announced the discovery of a 2,200-year-old temple believed to belong to the Ptolemy IV Philosopher of the Ptolemaic Kingdom in Kom Shakau village of Tama township. Researchers also revealed limestone walls carved with inscriptions of Hapi, the Nile god, and inscriptions with fragments of text featuring the name of Ptolemy IV.
In May 2020, Egyptian-Spanish archaeological mission head by Esther Ponce uncovered a unique cemetery dating back to the 26th Dynasty (so-called the El-Sawi era) at the site of ancient Oxyrhynchus. Archaeologists found tombstones, bronze coins, small crosses, and clay seals inside eight Roman-era tombs with domed and unmarked roofs.
On 3 October 2020, Khalid el-Anany, Egypt's tourism and antiquities minister announced the discovery of at least 59 sealed sarcophagi with mummies more than 2,600 years old in Saqqara. Archaeologists also revealed the 20 statues of Ptah-Soker and a carved 35-centimeter tall bronze statue of god Nefertem.
On 19 October 2020, the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities announced the discovery of more than 2,500 years of colorful, sealed sarcophagi in Saqqara. The archaeological team unearthed gilded, wooden statues and more than 80 coffins.
In November 2020, archaeologists unearthed more than 100 delicately painted wooden coffins and 40 funeral statues. The sealed, wooden coffins, some containing mummies, date as far back as 2,500 years. Other artifacts discovered include funeral masks, canopic jars and amulets. According to Khaled el-Anany, tourism and antiquities minister, the items date back to the Ptolemaic dynasty. One of the coffins was opened and a mummy was scanned with an X-ray, determining it was most likely a man about the age of 40.
In January 2021, the Tourism and Antiquities Ministry announced the discovery of more than 50 wooden sarcophagi in 52 burial shafts which date back to the New Kingdom period and a 13 ft-long papyrus that contains texts from the Book of the Dead. Archaeologists led by Zahi Hawass also found the funerary temple of Naert and warehouses made of bricks in Saqqara.
In January 2021, Egyptian-Dominican researchers led by Kathleen Martinez have announced the discovery of 2,000-year-old ancient tombs with golden tongues dating to the Greek and Roman periods at Taposiris Magna. The team also unearthed gold leaf amulets in the form of tongues placed for speaking with God Osiris afterlife. The mummies were depicted in different forms: one of them was wearing a crown, decorated with horns, and the cobra snake at the forehead and the other was depicted with gilded decorations representing the wide necklace.
A team of archaeologists led by Zahi Hawass also found the funerary temple of Naert or Narat and warehouses made of bricks in Saqqara. Researchers also revealed that Narat's name engraved on a fallen obelisk near the main entrance. Previously unknown to researchers, Naert was a wife of Teti, the first king of the sixth dynasty.
In February 2021, archaeologists from the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities announced the discovery of a Ptolemaic period temple, a Roman fort, an early Coptic church and an inscription written in hieratic script at an archaeological site called Shiha Fort in Aswan. According to Mostafa Waziri, the crumbling temple was decorated with palm leaf carvings and an incomplete sandstone panel that described a Roman emperor. According to researcher Abdel Badie, generally, the church with about 2.1 meters width contained oven that were used to bake pottery, four rooms, a long hall, stairs, and stone tiles.
In April 2021, Egyptian archeologists announced the discovery of 110 burial tombs at the Koum el-Khulgan archeological site in Dakahlia Governorate. 68 oval-shaped tombs of them dated back to the Predynastic Period and 37 rectangular-shaped tombs were from Second Intermediate Period. Rest of them dated back to the Naqada III period. The tombs also contained the remains of adults and a baby (buried in a jar), a group of ovens, stoves, remnants of mud-brick foundations, funerary equipment, cylindrical, pear-shaped vessels and a bowl with geometric designs.
In September 2021, archaeologists announce the discovery of ritualistic tools used in religious rituals at the ancient site of Tel al-Fara in the Kafr El-Sheikh Governorate. Remains included a limestone pillar depicting goddess Hathor, some incense burners with the head of the god Horus. Hossam Ghanim, said: "The mission also discovered a huge building of polished limestone from the inside, representing a well for holy water used in daily rituals".
In May 2022, the discovery of the nearly 4,300-year-old tomb of an ancient Egyptian high-ranked person who handled royal, sealed documents of pharaoh was announced at Saqqara, Egypt. According to University of Warsaw's Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology, the elaborately decorated tomb belonged to a man named Mehtjetju who served as a priest and an inspector of the royal property. Kamil O. Kuraszkiewicz, expedition director stated that Mehtjetju most likely lived at about the same time, at some point during the reigns of the first three rulers of the Sixth Dynasty: Teti, Userkare and Pepy I.
In June 2022, archaeologists from The Cairo Ministry of Antiquities announced the discovery of an alabaster bust of Alexander the Great as well as molds and other materials for creating amulets for warriors and for statues of Alexander the Great.
In July 2022, archaeologists from the Prague's Charles University led by Miroslav Bárta discovered the robbed tomb of an ancient Egyptian military official named Wahibre-mery-Neith and a scarab in Giza's Abusir necropolis 12 km southeast of the Pyramids of Giza. He commanded battalions of non-local soldiers and likely lived in the late 26th and early 27th dynasties, around 500 BC, according to the Egyptian Antiquities Ministry. The tomb's main well was about 6 meters deep and it was divided into separate parts by narrow bridges cut into the natural rock. Inside the main well there was a smaller and deeper shaft which contained two sarcophagi one inside the other where Wahibre-mery-Neith was buried. The external sarcophagus was made of white limestone while the internal coffin was made out of basalt rock measures 2.30 meters long and 1.98 meters wide. The inner sarcophagus contained an inscription from the 72nd chapter of the Egyptian Book of Dead said Marslav Barta.
In August 2022, archaeologists from the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw announced the discovery of a 4,500-year-old temple dedicated to the Egyptian sun god Ra. The recently discovered sun temple was made from mud bricks and was about 60 meters long by 20 m wide. According to Massimiliano Nuzzolo, co-director of the excavation, storage rooms and other rooms may have been served for cultic purposes and the walls of the building were all plastered in black and white. The L-shaped entrance portico had two limestone columns and was partly made of white limestone. Dozens of well-preserved beer jars and several well-made and red-lined vessels, seal impressions, including seals of the pharaohs who ruled during the fifth and sixth dynasties were also uncovered. One of the earliest seals might belonged to pharaoh Shepseskare, who ruled Egypt before Nyuserre. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptology |
East African campaign (World War II) | On the Italian declaration of war on 10 June 1940, East Africa Force (Lieutenant-General Douglas Dickinson) comprised two East African brigades of the King's African Rifles organised as a Northern Brigade and a Southern Brigade with a reconnaissance regiment, a light artillery battery and the 22nd Mountain Battery Royal Indian Artillery (RIA). By March 1940, the KAR strength had reached 883 officers, 1,374 non-commissioned officers and 20,026 African other ranks. Wavell ordered Dickinson to defend Kenya and to pin down as many Italian troops as possible. Dickinson planned to defend Mombasa with the 1st East African Infantry Brigade and to deny a crossing of the Tana River and the fresh water at Wajir with the 2nd East African Infantry Brigade.
Detachments were to be placed at Marsabit, Moyale and at Turkana near Lake Rudolf (now Lake Turkana), an arc 850 mi (1,370 km) long. The Italians were thought to have troops at Kismayo, Mogadishu, Dolo, Moyale and Yavello, which turned out to be colonial troops and bande, with two brigades at Jimma, ready to reinforce Moyale or attack Lake Rudolf and then invade Uganda. By the end of July, the 3rd East African Infantry Brigade and the 6th East African Infantry Brigade had been formed. A Coastal Division and a Northern Frontier District Division had been planned but then the 11th (African) Division and the 12th (African) Division were created instead.
On 1 June, the first South African unit arrived at the port of Mombasa in Kenya and by the end of July, the 1st South African Infantry Brigade Group had arrived. On 13 August, the 1st South African Division was formed and by the end of 1940, about 27,000 South Africans were in East Africa, in the 1st South African Division, the 11th (African) Division and the 12th (African) Division. Each South African brigade group consisted of three rifle battalions, an armoured car company and signal, engineer and medical units. By July, under the terms of a war contingency plan, the 2nd (West Africa) Infantry Brigade, from the Gold Coast (Ghana) and the 1st (West Africa) Infantry Brigade from Nigeria, were provided for service in Kenya by the Royal West African Frontier Force (RWAFF). The 1st (West African) Brigade, the two KAR brigades and some South African units, formed the 11th (African) Division. The 12th (African) Division had a similar formation with the 2nd (West African) Brigade.
At dawn on 17 June, the Rhodesians supported a raid by the SDF on the Italian desert outpost of El Wak in Italian Somaliland about 90 mi (140 km) north-east of Wajir. The Rhodesians bombed and burnt down thatched mud huts and generally harassed Italian troops. Since the main fighting at that time was against Italian advances towards Moyale in Kenya, the Rhodesians concentrated there. On 1 July, an Italian attack on the border town of Moyale, on the edge of the Ethiopian escarpment, where the tracks towards Wajir and Marsabit meet, was repulsed by a company of the 1st KAR and reinforcements were moved up. The Italians carried out a larger attack by about four battalions on 10 July, after a considerable artillery bombardment and after three days the British withdrew unopposed. The Italians eventually advanced to water holes at Dabel and Buna, nearly 62 mi (100 km) inside Kenya but lack of supplies prevented a further advance. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_African_campaign_(World_War_II) |
Aram (region) | The Arameans appear to have displaced the earlier Semitic Amorite (Aḫlamū) populations of ancient Syria during the period from 1100 BC to 900 BC, which was a Dark Age for the entire Near East, North Africa, Caucasus, Mediterranean regions, with great upheavals and mass movements of people. The early history of the Arameans is tied to that of the Aḫlamū and Sutû who were already known in the Late Bronze Age and who seem to have played a role in the period's demise. The Arameans rose to be the prominent group amongst the Ahlamu, and from c. 1200 BC on, the Amorites disappeared from the pages of history and the term Ahlamu underwent a semantic shift, becoming an accepted term for Aramean. From then on, the region that they had inhabited became known as Aram and Eber-Nari.
The Arameans emerged in a region which was largely under the domination of the Middle Assyrian Empire (1365–1050 BC) and quickly posed a threat to the Assyrian polity which was largely located west of the Euphrates. In order to nullify this threat, Tiglath-Pileser I (1115–1077 BC) of Assyria performed many campaigns in Aramean territory, although the numerous campaigns that the Assyrian records recorded that he took indicate that Assyrian military campaigns were unsuccessful at exercising power or dominance over the Arameans. Some scholars believe that the Arameans took Nineveh in this time. In the 11th century BC, Assyria fell into decline which may have been caused by the incursions of the emerging Arameans, allowing the Arameans to establish a string of states across the Levant and make notable expansions into Assyrian territory in this time such as in the Khabur Valley. During the period 1050 – 900 BC Arameans came to dominate most of what is now Syria but was then called Eber-Nari and Aramea.
Two medium-sized Aramaean kingdoms, Aram-Damascus and Hamath, along with several smaller kingdoms and independent city-states, developed in the region during the early first millennium BCE. The most notable of these were Bit Adini, Bit Bahiani, Bit Hadipe, Aram-Rehob, Aram-Zobah, Bit-Zamani, Bit-Halupe and Aram-Ma'akah, as well as the Aramean tribal polities of the Gambulu, Litau and Puqudu.
There was some synthesis with neo Hittite populations in northern Syria and south central Anatolia, and a number of small so called Syro-Hittite states arose in the region, such as Tabal. The east Mediterranean coast was largely dominated by Phoenician city states such as Tyre, Sidon, Berytus and Arvad.
With the advent of the Neo Assyrian Empire, the region was invaded on several occasions, since the middle of the 9th century, and finally fell under the control of Assyrian kings during the second half of the 8th century BCE. Large numbers of people living in the region were deported into Assyria, Babylonia and elsewhere. A few steles that name kings of this period have been found, such as the 8th-century Zakkur stele. The Assyrians and Babylonians themselves adopted a Mesopotamian form of Aramaic, known as Imperial Aramaic in the 8th century BC, when Tiglath-pileser III made it the lingua franca of his vast empire. The Neo Aramaic dialects still spoken by the indigenous Assyrians and Mandeans of northern Iraq, south east Turkey, north east Syria and north west Iran, descend from this language.
The Neo Assyrian Empire was riven by unremitting civil war from 626 BC onward, weakening it severely, and allowing it to be attacked and destroyed by a coalition of its former vassals between 616 and 605 BCE. The region of Aram was subsequently fought over by the Neo-Babylonian Empire and Egyptians, the latter of whom had belatedly come to the aid of their former Assyrian overlords. The Babylonians prevailed and Aram became a part of the Neo-Babylonian Empire (612–539 BC) where it remained named Eber-Nari.
The Persian Achaemenid Empire (539–332 BC) overthrew the Babylonians and conquered the region. They retained the Imperial Aramaic introduced by the Assyrians, and the name of Eber-Nari.
In 332 BC the region was conquered by the Greek ruler, Alexander the Great. Upon his death in 323 BC this area became part of the Greek Seleucid Empire, at which point Greek replaced the Assyrian introduced Imperial Aramaic as the official language of Empire, as were the names Eber-Nari and Aramea. This area and other parts of the former Assyrian Empire to the east (including Assyria itself) were renamed Syria (Seleucid Syria), a 9th-century BC Hurrian, Luwian and Greek corruption of Assyria (see Etymology of Syria and Name of Syria), which had for centuries until this point referred specifically to the land of Assyria and the Assyrians, which in modern terms actually covered the northern half of Iraq, north east Syria, south east Turkey and the north western fringes of Iran, and not the bulk of modern Syria and Lebanon and its largely Aramean and Phoenician inhabitants.
It is from this period that the later Syria vs Assyria naming controversy arises, the Seleucids confusingly applied the name not only to the Mesopotamian land of Assyria itself, but also to the lands west of Euphrates which had never been part of Assyria itself, but merely Aramean, Phoenician, Neo-Hittite and Sutean inhabited colonies. When they lost control of Assyria itself to the Parthians, the name Syria survived but was dislocated from its original source, and was applied only to the land west of Euphrates that had once been part of the Assyrian empire, while Assyria-proper went back to being called Assyria (and also Athura/Assuristan). However, this situation led to both Assyrians and Arameans being dubbed Syrians and later Syriacs in Greco-Roman culture.
This area, by now called Syria, was fought over by Seleucids and Parthians during the 2nd century BCE, and later still by the Romans and Sassanid Persians. Palmyra, a powerful Aramean kingdom arose during this period,
and for a time it dominated the area and successfully resisted Roman and Persian attempts at conquest. The region eventually came under the control of the Byzantine Empire. Christianity began to take hold from the 1st to 3rd centuries AD, and the Aramaic language gradually supplanted Canaanite in Phoenecia and Hebrew in Palestine.
In the mid-7th century AD the region fell to the Arab Islamic conquest. Aramaic survived among a sizable portion of the population of Syria, who resisted Arabization. However, the native Western Aramaic of the Aramean Christian population of Syria is spoken today by only a few thousand people, the majority having now adopted the Arabic language. Mesopotamian Eastern Aramaic, which still contains a number of loanwords from the Akkadian, as well as structural similarities, still survives among the majority of ethnically distinct Assyrians, who are mainly based in northern Iraq, north-eastern Syria, south-eastern Turkey and north-western Iran. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aram_(region) |
Bronze Age | In Great Britain, the Bronze Age is considered to have been the period from around 2100 to 750 BC. Migration brought new people to the islands from the continent. Tooth enamel isotope research on bodies found in early Bronze Age graves around Stonehenge indicates that at least some of the migrants came from the area of modern Switzerland. Another example site is Must Farm near Whittlesey, host to the most complete Bronze Age wheel ever to be found. The Beaker culture displayed different behaviours from earlier Neolithic people, and cultural change was significant. Integration is thought to have been peaceful, as many of the early henge sites were seemingly adopted by the newcomers. The rich Wessex culture developed in southern Britain at this time. Additionally, the climate was deteriorating; where once the weather was warm and dry it became much wetter as the Bronze Age continued, forcing the population away from easily defended sites in the hills and into the fertile valleys. Large livestock farms developed in the lowlands and appear to have contributed to economic growth and inspired increasing forest clearances. The Deverel-Rimbury culture began to emerge in the second half of the Middle Bronze Age (c. 1400–1100 BC) to exploit these conditions. Devon and Cornwall were major sources of tin for much of western Europe and copper was extracted from sites such as the Great Orme mine in northern Wales. Social groups appear to have been tribal but with growing complexity and hierarchies becoming apparent.
The burials, which until this period had usually been communal, became more individual. For example, whereas in the Neolithic a large chambered cairn or long barrow housed the dead, Early Bronze Age people buried their dead in individual barrows (commonly known and marked on modern British Ordnance Survey maps as tumuli), or sometimes in cists covered with cairns.
The greatest quantities of bronze objects in England were discovered in East Cambridgeshire, with the most important finds recovered in Isleham (more than 6500 pieces).
Alloying of copper with zinc or tin to make brass or bronze was practised soon after the discovery of copper itself. One copper mine at Great Orme in North Wales, reached a depth of 70 metres. At Alderley Edge in Cheshire, carbon dating has established mining at around 2280 to 1890 BC (95% probability). The earliest identified metalworking site (Sigwells, Somerset) came much later, dated by globular urn-style pottery to approximately the 12th century BC. The identifiable sherds from over 500 mould fragments included a perfect fit of the hilt of a sword in the Wilburton style held in Somerset County Museum. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronze_Age |
Middle Assyrian Empire | Under the warrior-kings Adad-nirari I (r. c. 1305–1274 BC), Shalmaneser I (r. c. 1273–1244 BC) and Tukulti-Ninurta I (r. c. 1243–1207 BC), Assyria began to realize its aspirations of becoming a significant regional power. Though the other powers of the Ancient Near East, such as Egypt, the Hittites and Babylonia, had at first been reluctant to view the new Assyrian kingdom as their equal, from the time of Adad-nirari I onwards, when Assyria grew to take the place of Mitanni, its status as one of the major kingdoms became undeniable. Adad-nirari I was the first Assyrian king to march against the remnants of the Mitanni kingdom and the first Assyrian king to include lengthy narratives of his campaigns in his royal inscriptions. Adad-nirari early in his reign defeated Shattuara I of Mitanni and forced him to pay tribute to Assyria as a vassal ruler. Given that the Assyrian army extensively plundered and destroyed portions of Mitanni during this campaign, it is unlikely that there at this point were any plans to outright annex and consolidate the Mitanni lands. Sometime later, Shattuara's son Wasashatta rebelled against the Assyrians, though was defeated by Adad-nirari who, as punishment, annexed several cities alongside the Khabur river. At Taite, a former Mitanni capital, Adad-nirari constructed a royal palace for himself.
The primary focus of Adad-nirari was the conquest and/or pacification of Babylonia. Not only did Babylonia present a more immediate threat, but conquering southern Mesopotamia would also be more prestigious. Through military focus on Babylonian border towns, such as Lubdi and Rapiqu, it is clear that Adad-nirari's ultimate goal was to subdue the Babylonians and achieve hegemony over all of Mesopotamia. Adad-nirari's temporary occupations of Lubdi and Rapiqu were met with an attack by the Babylonian king Nazi-Maruttash, though Adad-nirari defeated him at the Battle of Kār Ištar c. 1280 BC and the Assyro-Babylonian border was redrawn in Assyria's favor. Under Adad-nirari's son Shalmaneser I, Assyrian campaigns against its neighbors and equals intensified. According to his own inscriptions, Shalmaneser conquered eight countries (likely minor states) in the first year of his reign. Among the sites captured was the fortress Arinnu, which Shalmaneser razed to the ground and turned into dust. Some of the dust from Arinnu was collected and symbolically brought back to Assur.
After the new Mitanni king Shattuara II rebelled against Assyrian authority, assisted by the Hittites, further campaigns were conducted against Mitanni in order to suppress the resistance. Shalmaneser's campaign against Mitanni was a great success; the Mitanni capital of Washukanni was sacked and, realizing that the Mitanni lands were clearly not controllable through allowing the local rulers to continue to govern as vassals, the kingdom's lands were with some reluctance annexed into the Assyrian kingdom. The lands were not annexed directly into the royal domains, but rather placed under the rule of a viceroy who bore the title of grand vizier and king of Hanigalbat. The first such ruler was Shalmaneser's brother, Ibashi-ili, whose descendants later continued to occupy the position. This arrangement, placing the Mitanni lands under the rule of a lesser branch of the royal family, suggests that the Assyrian elites in the heartland had only a marginal interest in the new conquests. Though Shalmaneser boasted of brutal acts against the defeated Mitanni armies, in one inscription claiming to have blinded over 14,000 prisoners of war, he was also one of the first Assyrian kings to take prisoners in the first place instead of simply executing captured enemies. Adad-nirari was also a great builder; among his most significant construction projects was the construction of the city of Nimrud, a highly significant site in later Assyrian history.
Under Shalmaneser, the Assyrians also conducted significant campaigns against the Hittites. Already in the time of Adad-nirari, Assyrian envoys had been treated poorly at the court of the Hittite king Mursili III. When Mursili's successor Hattusili III reached out to Shalmaneser in an attempt to forge an alliance, probably due to recent losses against Egypt, he was insultingly rejected and called a "substitute of a great king". The strained relations between the two empires sometimes erupted into war; Shalmaneser warred several times against Hittite vassal states in the Levant. The hostilities reached their zenith under Shalmaneser's son and successor Tukulti-Ninurta I, who defeated the Hittites at the Battle of Nihriya c. 1237 BC. The Hittite defeat at Nihriya marked the beginning of the end of their influence in northern Mesopotamia. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Assyrian_Empire |
2008 Lebanon conflict | In May 2008, the tensions between the pro-government and opposition parties escalated when the cabinet announced a series of security decisions. Tensions began with revelations on Friday May 2 made by Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblatt, a key politician in the ruling March 14 alliance. He announced that a remote-controlled camera had been set up in a container park overlooking Beirut international airport's runway 17, which was frequently being used by March 14 politicians. In March 14 circles, fear was that the monitoring could be used for a possible attack on its leaders, as Lebanon had faced a series of political assassinations in recent times. Although Jumblatt did not accuse the party directly, he made clear that he thought March 8's Hezbollah was behind the monitoring system's installment. Hezbollah dismissed the accusations, calling the allegation a product of Jumblatt's imagination and saying that those who leveled them were scaremongering and simply parroting a US campaign against it and other groups which are resisting Israel. In addition to the monitoring system, Jumblatt stated that Hezbollah had laid down a fiber optic telecommunication network connecting its powerbase in Dahiya in South Beirut with cities and towns in South and East Lebanon in predominantly Shiite areas. Although this was known to the government, it was now claimed that the network was being extended to the predominantly Christian and Druze areas of Mount Lebanon.
In its response to these allegations, the Lebanese cabinet announced that it regarded the telecommunication network and the monitoring system as a breach of law, undermining the state's sovereignty and the security of its citizens. Therefore, it declared that the matter would be referred not only to the Lebanese judicial system, but also to the Arab League and the United Nations. In addition to infringing state sovereignty, the network was regarded by the government as an infringement on public funds since it claimed that it competes with its own and used the Lebanese infrastructure. The cabinet announced that it would uproot the telecommunication network and also ordered the removal of Brigadier General Wafic Shkeir, head of security at Beirut's international airport and considered to be sympathetic to Hezbollah and Amal, on account of failing to deal with the monitoring system. These moves severely antagonized Hezbollah, bringing tensions between the March 8 and March 14 coalitions to a boiling point. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Lebanon_conflict |
Fountain | Paris fountains in the 20th century no longer had to supply drinking water - they were purely decorative; and, since their water usually came from the river and not from the city aqueducts, their water was no longer drinkable. Twenty-eight new fountains were built in Paris between 1900 and 1940; nine new fountains between 1900 and 1910; four between 1920 and 1930; and fifteen between 1930 and 1940.
The biggest fountains of the period were those built for the International Expositions of 1900, 1925 and 1937, and for the Colonial Exposition of 1931. Of those, only the fountains from the 1937 exposition at the Palais de Chaillot still exist. (See Fountains of International Expositions).
Only a handful of fountains were built in Paris between 1940 and 1980. The most important ones built during that period were on the edges of the city, on the west, just outside the city limits, at La Défense, and to the east at the Bois de Vincennes.
Between 1981 and 1995, during the terms of President François Mitterrand and Culture Minister Jack Lang, and of Mitterrand's bitter political rival, Paris Mayor Jacques Chirac (Mayor from 1977 until 1995), the city experienced a program of monumental fountain building that exceeded that of Napoleon Bonaparte or Louis Philippe. More than one hundred fountains were built in Paris in the 1980s, mostly in the neighborhoods outside the center of Paris, where there had been few fountains before These included the Fontaine Cristaux, homage to Béla Bartók by Jean-Yves Lechevallier (1980); the Stravinsky Fountain next to the Pompidou Center, by sculptors Niki de Saint Phalle and Jean Tinguely (1983); the fountain of the Pyramid of the Louvre by I.M. Pei, (1989), the Buren Fountain by sculptor Daniel Buren, Les Sphérades fountain, both in the Palais-Royal, and the fountains of Parc André-Citroën. The Mitterrand-Chirac fountains had no single style or theme. Many of the fountains were designed by famous sculptors or architects, such as Jean Tinguely, I.M. Pei, Claes Oldenburg and Daniel Buren, who had radically different ideas of what a fountain should be. Some were solemn, and others were whimsical. Most made little effort to blend with their surroundings - they were designed to attract attention.
Fountains built in the United States between 1900 and 1950 mostly followed European models and classical styles.
The Samuel Francis Dupont Memorial Fountain, in Dupont Circle, Washington D.C., was designed and created by Henry Bacon and Daniel Chester French, the architect and sculptor of the Lincoln Memorial, in 1921, in a pure neoclassical style.
The Buckingham Fountain in Grant Park in Chicago was one of the first American fountains to use powerful modern pumps to shoot water as high as 150 feet (46 meters) into the air.
The Fountain of Prometheus, built at the Rockefeller Center in New York City in 1933, was the first American fountain in the Art-Deco style.
After World War II, fountains in the United States became more varied in form. Some, like Ruth Asawa's Andrea (1968) and the Vaillancourt Fountain (1971), both located in San Francisco, were pure works of sculpture. Other fountains, like the Frankin Roosevelt Memorial Waterfall (1997), by architect Lawrence Halprin, were designed as landscapes to illustrate themes. This fountain is part of the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial in Washington D.C., which has four outdoor "rooms" illustrating his presidency. Each "room" contains a cascade or waterfall; the cascade in the third room illustrates the turbulence of the years of the World War II. Halprin wrote at an early stage of the design; "the whole environment of the memorial becomes sculpture: to touch, feel, hear and contact - with all the senses."
The end of the 20th century the development of high-shooting fountains, beginning with the Jet d'eau in Geneva in 1951, and followed by taller and taller fountains in the United States and the Middle East. The highest fountain today in the King Fahd's Fountain in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
It also saw the increasing popularity of the musical fountain, which combined water, music and light, choreographed by computers. (See Musical fountain below). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fountain |
Bronze Age | Bronze Age collapse theories have described aspects of the end of the Bronze Age in this region. At the end of the Bronze Age in the Aegean region, the Mycenaean administration of the regional trade empire followed the decline of Minoan primacy. Several Minoan client states lost much of their population to famine and pestilence. This would indicate that the trade network may have failed, preventing the trade that would previously have relieved such famines and prevented illness caused by malnutrition. It is also known that in this era, the breadbasket of the Minoan empire—the area north of the Black Sea—also suddenly lost much of its population and thus probably some capacity to cultivate crops. Drought and famine in Anatolia may have also led to the Aegean collapse by disrupting trade networks, therefore preventing the Aegean from accessing bronze and luxury goods.
The Aegean collapse has been attributed to the exhaustion of the Cypriot forests causing the end of the bronze trade. These forests are known to have existed in later times, and experiments have shown that charcoal production on the scale necessary for the bronze production of the late Bronze Age would have exhausted them in less than fifty years.
The Aegean collapse has also been attributed to the fact that as iron tools became more common, the main justification for the tin trade ended, and that trade network ceased to function as it did formerly. The colonies of the Minoan empire then suffered drought, famine, war, or some combination of the three, and had no access to the distant resources of an empire by which they could easily recover.
The Thera eruption occurred c. 1600 BC, 110 km (68 mi) north of Crete. Speculation includes that a tsunami from Thera (more commonly known today as Santorini) destroyed Cretan cities. A tsunami may have destroyed the Cretan navy in its home harbour, which then lost crucial naval battles; so that in the LMIB/LMII event (c. 1450 BC) the cities of Crete burned and the Mycenaean civilization took Knossos over. If the eruption occurred in the late 17th century BC (as most chronologists now believe) then its immediate effects belong to the Middle to Late Bronze Age transition, and not to the end of the Late Bronze Age, but it could have triggered the instability that led to the collapse first of Knossos and then of Bronze Age society overall. One such theory highlights the role of Cretan expertise in administering the empire, post-Thera. If this expertise was concentrated in Crete, then the Mycenaeans may have made political and commercial mistakes in administering the Cretan empire.
Archaeological findings, including some on the island of Thera, suggest that the centre of the Minoan civilization at the time of the eruption was actually on Thera rather than on Crete. According to this theory, the catastrophic loss of the political, administrative and economic centre due to the eruption, as well as the damage wrought by the tsunami to the coastal towns and villages of Crete precipitated the decline of the Minoans. A weakened political entity with a reduced economic and military capability and fabled riches would have then been more vulnerable to conquest. Indeed, the Santorini eruption is usually dated to c. 1630 BC, while the Mycenaean Greeks first enter the historical record a few decades later, c. 1600 BC. The later Mycenaean assaults on Crete (c. 1450 BC) and Troy (c. 1250 BC) would have been a continuation of the steady encroachment of the Greeks upon the weakened Minoan world. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronze_Age |
Petra | Pliny the Elder and other writers identify Petra as the capital of the Nabataean Kingdom and the centre of their caravan trade. Enclosed by towering rocks and watered by a perennial stream, Petra not only possessed the advantages of a fortress, but controlled the main commercial routes which passed through it to Gaza in the west, to Bosra and Damascus in the north, to Aqaba and Leuce Come on the Red Sea, and across the desert to the Persian Gulf.
The Nabataeans worshipped Arab gods and goddesses during the pre-Islamic era as well as a few of their deified kings. One, Obodas I, was deified after his death. Dushara was the primary male god accompanied by his three female deities: Al-‘Uzzā, Allat and Manāt. Many statues carved in the rock depict these gods and goddesses. New evidence indicates that broader Edomite, and Nabataean theology had strong links to Earth-Sun relationships, often manifested in the orientation of prominent Petra structures to equinox and solstice sunrises and sunsets.
A stele dedicated to Qos-Allah 'Qos is Allah' or 'Qos the god', by Qosmilk (melech: king) is found at Petra (Glueck 516). Qos is identifiable with Kaush (Qaush) the God of the older Edomites. The stele is horned and the seal from the Edomite Tawilan near Petra identified with Kaush displays a star and crescent (Browning 28), both consistent with a moon deity. It is conceivable that the latter could have resulted from trade with Harran (Bartlett 194). There is continuing debate about the nature of Qos (qaus: bow) who has been identified both with a hunting bow (hunting god) and a rainbow (weather god) although the crescent above the stele is also a bow.
Nabataean inscriptions in Sinai and other places display widespread references to names including Allah, El and Allat (god and goddess), with regional references to al-Uzza, Baal and Manutu (Manat) (Negev 11). Allat is also found in Sinai in South Arabian language. Allah occurs particularly as Garm-'allahi: "god decided" (Greek Garamelos) and Aush-allahi: "gods covenant" (Greek Ausallos). We find both Shalm-lahi "Allah is peace" and Shalm-allat, "the peace of the goddess". We also find Amat-allahi "she-servant of god" and Halaf-llahi "the successor of Allah".
Recently, Petra has been put forward as the original direction of Muslim prayer, the Qibla, by some that the earliest mosques faced Petra, not Jerusalem or Mecca. This view is also shared by Abdullah Hashem, the self-proclaimed Qa'im of the Ahmadi Religion of Peace and Light. However, others have challenged the notion of comparing modern readings of Qiblah directions to early mosques’ Qiblahs as they claim early Muslims could not accurately calculate the direction of the Qiblah to Mecca and so the apparent pinpointing of Petra by some early mosques may well be coincidental.
The Monastery, Petra's largest monument, dates from the 1st century BC. It was dedicated to Obodas I and is believed to be the symposium of Obodas the god. This information is inscribed on the ruins of the Monastery (the name is the translation of the Arabic Ad Deir).
The Temple of the Winged Lions is a large temple complex dated to the reign of King Aretas IV (9 BC–40 AD). The temple is located in Petra's so-called Sacred Quarter, an area situated at the end of Petra's main Colonnaded Street consisting of two majestic temples, the Qasr al-Bint and, opposite, the Temple of the Winged Lions on the northern bank of Wadi Musa.
Christianity found its way to Petra in the 4th century AD, nearly 500 years after the establishment of Petra as a trade centre. The start of Christianity in Petra started primarily in 330 AD when the first Christian Emperor of Rome took over, Constantine I, otherwise known as Constantine The Great. He began the initial spread of Christianity throughout the Roman Empire. Athanasius mentions a bishop of Petra (Anhioch. 10) named Asterius. At least one of the tombs (the "tomb with the urn"?) was used as a church. An inscription in red paint records its consecration "in the time of the most holy bishop Jason" (447). After the Islamic conquest of 629–632, Christianity in Petra, as of most of Arabia, gave way to Islam. During the First Crusade Petra was occupied by Baldwin I of the Kingdom of Jerusalem and formed the second fief of the barony of Al Karak (in the lordship of Oultrejordain) with the title Château de la Valée de Moyse or Sela. It remained in the hands of the Franks until 1189. It is still a titular see of the Catholic Church.
According to Arab tradition, Petra is the spot where Musa (Moses) struck a rock with his staff and water came forth, and where Moses' brother, Harun (Aaron), is buried, at Mount Hor, known today as Jabal Haroun or Mount Aaron. The Wadi Musa or "Wadi of Moses" is the Arab name for the narrow valley at the head of which Petra is sited. A mountaintop shrine of Moses' sister Miriam was still shown to pilgrims at the time of Jerome in the 4th century, but its location has not been identified since. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petra |
Aramaic | Like other Semitic languages, Aramaic employs a number of derived verb stems, to extend the lexical coverage of verbs. The basic form of the verb is called the ground stem, or G-stem. Following the tradition of mediaeval Arabic grammarians, it is more often called the Pə‘al פעל (also written Pe‘al), using the form of the Semitic root פע״ל P-‘-L, meaning "to do". This stem carries the basic lexical meaning of the verb.
By doubling of the second radical, or root letter, the D-stem or פעל Pa‘‘el is formed. This is often an intensive development of the basic lexical meaning. For example, qəṭal means "he killed", whereas qaṭṭel means "he slew". The precise relationship in meaning between the two stems differs for every verb.
A preformative, which can be -ה ha-, -א a-, or -ש ša-, creates the C-stem or variously the Hap̄‘el, Ap̄‘el or Šap̄‘el (also spelt הפעל Haph‘el, אפעל Aph‘el, and שפעל Shaph‘el). This is often an extensive or causative development of the basic lexical meaning. For example, טעה ṭə‘â means "he went astray", whereas אטעי aṭ‘î means "he deceived". The Šap̄‘el שפעל is the least common variant of the C-stem. Because this variant is standard in Akkadian, it is possible that its use in Aramaic represents loanwords from that language. The difference between the variants הפעל Hap̄‘el and אפעל Ap̄‘el appears to be the gradual dropping of the initial ה h sound in later Old Aramaic. This is noted by the respelling of the older he preformative with א aleph.
These three conjugations are supplemented with three further derived stems, produced by the preformative -הת hiṯ- or -את eṯ-. The loss of the initial ה h sound occurs similarly to that in the form above. These three derived stems are the Gt-stem, התפעל Hiṯpə‘el or אתפעל Eṯpə‘el (also written Hithpe‘el or Ethpe‘el), the Dt-stem, התפעּל Hiṯpa‘‘al or אתפעּל Eṯpa‘‘al (also written Hithpa‘‘al or Ethpa‘‘al), and the Ct-stem, התהפעל Hiṯhap̄‘al, אתּפעל Ettap̄‘al, השתפעל Hištap̄‘al or אשתפעל Eštap̄‘al (also written Hithhaph‘al, Ettaph‘al, Hishtaph‘al, or Eshtaph‘al). Their meaning is usually reflexive, but later became passive. However, as with other stems, actual meaning differs from verb to verb.
Not all verbs use all of these conjugations, and, in some, the G-stem is not used. In the chart below (on the root כת״ב K-T-B, meaning "to write"), the first form given is the usual form in Imperial Aramaic, while the second is Classical Syriac.
In Imperial Aramaic, the participle began to be used for a historical present. Perhaps under influence from other languages, Middle Aramaic developed a system of composite tenses (combinations of forms of the verb with pronouns or an auxiliary verb), allowing for narrative that is more vivid. Aramaic syntax usually follows the order verb–subject–object (VSO). Imperial (Persian) Aramaic, however, tended to follow a S-O-V pattern (similar to Akkadian), which was the result of Persian syntactic influence. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aramaic |
Dhofar War | In the 1970 Omani coup d'état on 23 July 1970, Said bin Taimur was deposed and went into exile in London. He was replaced by his son, Qaboos bin Said, who immediately instigated major social, educational and military reforms. Qaboos was well educated, first in Salalah by an old Arab scholar and then at Sandhurst, after which he was commissioned into the Cameronians, a regiment of the British Army. He then completed his education sitting in on councils, attending committee meetings and visiting industry and administrative centres in Britain before returning to Oman. His "five point plan" involved:
A general amnesty to all those of his subjects who had opposed his father;
An end to the archaic status of Dhofar as the Sultan's private fief and its formal incorporation into Oman as the "southern province";
Effective military opposition to rebels who did not accept the offer of amnesty;
A vigorous nationwide programme of development;
Diplomatic initiatives with the aims of having Oman recognised as a genuine Arab state with its own legal form of government, and isolating the PDRY from receiving support from other Arab states.
Within hours of the coup, British Special Air Service (SAS) soldiers were flown into Oman to further bolster the counterinsurgency campaign. They identified four main strategies that would assist the fight against the PFLOAG:
Civil administration and a hearts and minds campaign;
Intelligence gathering and collation;
Veterinary assistance;
Medical assistance.
The military commanders on the ground (rather than the UK Ministry of Defence) suggested the implementation of a "hearts and minds" campaign, which would be put into operation primarily by a troop (25 men) from the SAS. The British government (then under Conservative leader Edward Heath) supported this unconventional approach to the counterinsurgency campaign. It approved the deployment of 20 personnel of the British Royal Engineers, who would aid in the construction of schools and health centres, and drilled wells for the population of Dhofar. Royal Army Medical Corps Field Surgical Teams and some Royal Air Force medical teams would also operate out of Salalah hospital, in order to open a humanitarian front in the conflict. The British government additionally provided monetary support for the creation of the Dhofar Development Programme, whose aim was to wrest support from the PFLOAG through the modernisation of Dhofar. The operation was almost a carbon copy of a system that had proved successful in the Malayan Emergency some twenty years previously.
To assist in the civil development and coordinate it with the military operations, the command structure in Dhofar was reorganised, with the newly appointed Wāli or civilian governor (Braik bin Hamoud) being given equal status to the military commander of the Dhofar Brigade (Brigadier Jack Fletcher to 1972, Brigadier John Akehurst from that date).
A major effort was made to counter rebel propaganda and induce the Dhofari population to support the government. In particular, appeals were made to Islam and to traditional tribal values and customs, against the rebels' secular or materialist teachings. A significant outlet for government propaganda was the many inexpensive Japanese transistor radios which were sold cheaply or distributed free to jibalis who visited Salalah and other government-held towns to sell firewood or vegetables. Although the PFLOAG could also broadcast propaganda by radio, the Government's propaganda was factual and low-key, while that of the rebels, broadcast by Radio Aden, was soon perceived to be exaggerated and stereotyped.
On 27 December 1970 Sultan Qaboos gave an interview to Al Khaleej and commented on the situation in Dhofar saying:
This crisis developed in the past, but its after-effects still exist. And on the very first day [of assuming power] we addressed ourselves to the discontented there, and extended our hand to them saying that what they were complaining about regarding the absence of liberties and services, such as education and health, would end; that it was up to them to come forward and demonstrate their goodwill; that we should co-operate together and that defects inherited from the past needed full time on our part to cope with them. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhofar_War |
Husayn ibn Ali | Husayn had a white face and sometimes wore a green turban and sometimes a black turban. He would travel with the poor or invite them to his house and feed them. Mu'awiya said about Husayn that he and his father Ali were not deceitful, and Amr ibn al-As considered him the most beloved of the earthlings to the people of heaven.
According to the Encyclopedia of Islam, one of the moral characteristics of Husayn is Tolerance, humility, eloquence, and finally traits that can be deduced from his behavior, such as despising death, hatred of a shameful life, pride, and the like. In many narrations, the resemblance of Husayn and his brother to Muhammad is mentioned, and each of them is likened to half of their grandfather's behavior.
Husayn is described as looking like his grandfather, Muhammad, though not as much as his older brother, Hasan. According to Madelung, Husayn was similar to his father, Ali, while Hasan had the temperament of Muhammad and criticized the policies of his father, Ali. Madelung cites the fact that Hasan named two of his sons Muhammad and did not name any of them Ali and that Husayn named two of his four sons Ali and did not name either Muhammad as proof of this claim.
Rasool Jafarian considers the narrations in which Husayn is like Ali and Hasan is like Muhammad to be fake; According to him, the image presented in these narrations could have been used to destroy the image of Ali and Ashura and to be useful to those who were in favor of Uthman tendencies. According to the Shia scholar, Muhammad Husayn Tabatabai, the opinion of some commentators about the difference in taste between Hasan and Husayn is misplaced; Because despite not swearing allegiance to Yazid, Husayn, like his brother, spent ten years in Mu'awiya's rule and never opposed it. Mohammad Emadi Haeri believes that Husayn is considered to be similar to Muhammad in most sources, and in one narration the most similar to him. There is also a narration that Ali considers Hussein to be the most similar person in terms of behavior.
Husayn was known for his generosity in Medina, and he freed his slaves and maids if they saw any good behavior. There is a narration that Mu'awiyah sent a maid to Husayn with a lot of property and clothes. When the maid recited verses from the Qur'an and a poem about the instability of the world and the death of man, Husayn set her free and gave her property. Once one of Husayn's slaves did something wrong. But after the slave recited the verse "وَالْعافینَ عَنِ النَّاس", Husayn forgave him and after that the slave recited the verse "وَلَلَّهُ یُحِبُّ الْمُحسسِينَ" and Husayn released the slave because of this. There is a narration that Husayn gave the property and goods that he inherited before receiving them. Husayn gave his children's teacher a large sum of money and clothes; While acknowledging that this does not compensate for the value of the teacher's work. A Levantine man once cursed Husayn and Ali, but Husayn forgave him and treated him with kindness. It is said that the place of the food bags that Husayn carried for the poor was obvious on his body on the day of Ashura. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Husayn_ibn_Ali |
Tassili n'Ajjer | The rock formation is an archaeological site, noted for its numerous prehistoric parietal works of rock art, first reported in 1910, that date to the early Neolithic era at the end of the last glacial period during which the Sahara was a habitable savanna rather than the current desert. Although sources vary considerably, the earliest pieces of art are presumed to be 12,000 years old. The vast majority date to the ninth and tenth millennia BP or younger, according to OSL dating of associated sediments. The art was dated by gathering small fragments of the painted panels that had dried out and flaked off before being buried. Among the 15,000 engravings so far identified, the subjects depicted are large wild animals including antelopes and crocodiles, cattle herds, and humans who engage in activities such as hunting and dancing. These paintings are some of the earliest by Central Saharan artists, and occur in the largest concentration at Tassili. Although Algeria is relatively close to the Iberian Peninsula, the rock art of Tassili n'Ajjer evolved separately from that of the European tradition. According to UNESCO, "The exceptional density of paintings and engravings...have made Tassili world famous."
Similar to other Saharan sites with rock art, Tassili can be separated into five distinct traditions: Archaic (10,000 to 7500 BCE), Round Head (7550 to 5050 BCE), Bovidian or Pastoral (4500 to 4000 BCE), Horse (from 2000 BCE and 50 CE), and Camel (1000 BCE and onward).
The Archaic period consists primarily of wild animals that lived in the Sahara during the Early Holocene. These works are attributed to hunter-gather peoples, consisting of only etchings. Images are primarily of larger animals, depicted in a naturalistic manner, with the occasional geometric pattern and the human figure. Usually, the humans and animals are depicted within the context of a hunting scene.
The Round Head Period is associated with specific stylistic choices depicting humanoid forms and is well separated from the Archaic tradition even though hunter-gatherers were the artists for both. The art consists mainly of paintings, with some of the oldest and largest exposed rock paintings in Africa; one human figure stands over five meters and another at three and a half meters. The unique depiction of floating figures with round, featureless heads and formless bodies appear to be floating on the rock surface, hence the "Round Head" label. The occurrence of these paintings and motifs are concentrated in specific locations on the plateau, implying that these sites were the center of ritual, rites, and ceremonies. Most animals shown are mouflon and antelope, usually in static positions that do not appear to be part of a hunting scene.
The Bovidian/Pastoral period correlates with the arrival of domesticated cattle into the Sahara and the gradual shift to mobile pastoralism. There is a notable and visual difference between the Pastoral period and the earlier two periods, coinciding with the aridification of the Sahara. There is increased stylistic variation, implying the movement of different cultural groups within the area. Domesticated animals such as cattle, sheep, goats, and dogs are depicted, paralleling the zooarchaeological record of the area. The scenes reference diversified communities of herders, hunters with bows, as well as women and children, and imply a growing stratification of society based on property.
The following Horse traditions correspond with the complete desertification of the Sahara and the requirement for new travel methods. The arrival of horses, horse-drawn chariots, and riders are depicted, often in mid-gallop, and is associated more with hunting than warfare. Inscriptions of Libyan-Berber script, used by ancestral Berber peoples, appear next to the images, however, the text is completely indecipherable.
The last period is defined by the appearance of camels, which replaced donkeys and cattle as the main mode of transportation across the Sahara. The arrival of camels coincides with the development of long-distance trade routes used by caravans to transport salt, goods, and enslaved people across the Sahara. Men, both mounted and unmounted, with shields, spears, and swords are present. Animals including cows and goats are included, but wild animals were crudely rendered.
Although these periods are successive the timeframes are flexible and are consistently being reconstructed by archaeologists as technology and interpretation develop. The art had been dated by archaeologists who gathered fallen fragments and debris from the rock face.
A notable piece common in academic writing is the "Running Horned Woman," also known as the "Horned Goddess," from the round head period. The image depicts a female figure with horns in midstride; dots adorn her torso and limbs, and she is dressed in fringed armbands, a skirt, leg bands, and anklets. According to Arisika Razak, Tassili's Horned Goddess is an early example of the "African Sacred Feminine." Her femininity, fertility, and connection to nature are emphasized while the Neolithic artist superimposes the figure onto smaller, older figures. The use of bull horns is a common theme in later round head paintings, which reflects the steady integration of domesticated cattle into Saharan daily life. Cattle imagery, specifically that of bulls, became a central theme in not only at Tassili, but at other nearby sites in Libya. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tassili_n%27Ajjer |
Coat of arms of Jordan | The emblem was officially described in a notification issued by the Council of Ministers in 1982.
The Royal Hashemite Crown represents the monarchy of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and is composed of five arches with beaded design, fanning out from beneath its pinnacle and attached to the base with a relief design recalling rubies and emeralds. On top of the base rest five lotus flowers, denoting purity. The Royal Hashemite Crown is adorned at the top by the tip of a spear that represents the Hashemite banner. The Royal Hashemite Crown rests on the sash that represents the Royal Hashemite Throne. The crimson velvet sash, lined with white silk, signifies sacrifice and purity. The sash is trimmed in a fringe of golden threads and gathered on either side with golden tasselled cords to reveal a white silk lining.
The two flags represent the flag of the Great Arab Revolt. The length of each is double its width and each is divided horizontally into three equal parts: the upper black panel, the middle green panel and the lower white panel. The crimson triangle occupies the front. Its base is equal to the width of the flag while its length is equal to half that of the flag. The eagle symbolises power, fortitude and loftiness. Its colours signify the banner and turban of the Islamic prophet, Muhammad. The eagle stands on the globe, its wings touching the flags on both ends. The eagle's head faces its right. The blue globe signifies the emergence of Islamic civilisation.
In the coat of arms appears Arab weaponry. A bronze shield is decorated with a chrysanthemum, a common motif in Arab art and architecture. The shield is placed in front of the globe, symbolising the defence of the right. Golden swords and spears, bows and arrows protrude from either side of the shield and the globe. Encircling the shield from its base are three ears of wheat on the right and a palm frond to the left. They are attached to the ribbon of the Al Nahda First Order Medal.
The medal of Al Nahda First Order is suspended from the centre of the ribbon. A yellow ribbon placed across the ribbon of the Supreme Order of the Renaissance, is composed of three parts inscribed with phrases, as follows: "Abdullah I ibn Al Hussein Bin Aoun (Aoun, the great-grandfather of Sharif Al Hussein Bin Ali)" on the right, "King of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan" in the middle and "He who seeks support and guidance from God" on the left. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coat_of_arms_of_Jordan |
April 2018 missile strikes against Syria | French President Emmanuel Macron said in a statement on 14 April that France's "red line has been crossed", referring to the previous attacks on Douma.
While announcing the strikes, UK Prime Minister Theresa May said there was "no practicable alternative to the use of force" to deal with the Syrian government's use of chemical weapons. Opposition politicians condemned the strikes, with many questioning May's decision to press ahead without obtaining parliamentary approval first. Leader of the Opposition Jeremy Corbyn called the strikes "legally questionable", said "Bombs won't save lives or bring about peace", although some of his party's MPs backed the strikes. He also said that "while much suspicion rightly points to the Assad government", other groups had carried out similar attacks and weapons inspectors must continue their investigation.
US President Donald Trump announced the strikes in a televised address, arguing they were part of the effort to stop Assad from using chemical weapons, and said the US was "prepared to sustain this response" until this was achieved. Dana W. White, The Pentagon Chief Spokesperson, said "this operation does not represent a change in US policy or an attempt to depose the Syrian regime". The New York Times reported the reactions initially broke among partisan lines, with members of the Republican Party—the party of President Donald Trump—being generally supportive while the Democrats were generally critical. Republicans Tom Cotton and Orrin Hatch praised the strikes. Other US lawmakers, in particular Democrats, although generally supportive of a limited strike to punish Assad for using banned chemical weapons, criticized the Trump administration for not seeking Congressional approval and for not having a "coherent Syria Strategy". Democratic senator Tim Kaine re-emphasized his long-held belief that the military intervention without Congressional authorization and long-term strategy are "illegal" and "reckless".
On 19 April, at a Pentagon press briefing, American Director of the Joint Staff Lt. Gen. Kenneth McKenzie affirmed that Russian air defenses - which included advanced S-400 missile systems - were active but did not engage any missiles during the operation. "Russian air defenses were energized. They were scanning. They had a mainstay [sic] air defense aircraft up. They did not choose to engage, so I cannot speculate about why they did or did not do that," McKenzie stated, while denying that any missiles were shot down by Syrian air defenses. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_2018_missile_strikes_against_Syria |
Almohad Caliphate | In 1212, the Almohad Caliph Muhammad 'al-Nasir' (1199–1214), the successor of al-Mansur, after an initially successful advance north, was defeated by an alliance of the three Christian kings of Castile, Aragón and Navarre at the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in the Sierra Morena. The battle broke the Almohad advance, but the Christian powers remained too disorganized to profit from it immediately.
Before his death in 1213, al-Nasir appointed his young ten-year-old son as the next caliph Yusuf II "al-Mustansir". The Almohads passed through a period of effective regency for the young caliph, with power exercised by an oligarchy of elder family members, palace bureaucrats and leading nobles. The Almohad ministers were careful to negotiate a series of truces with the Christian kingdoms, which remained more-or-less in place for next fifteen years (the loss of Alcácer do Sal to the Kingdom of Portugal in 1217 was an exception).
In early 1224, the youthful caliph died in an accident, without any heirs. The palace bureaucrats in Marrakesh, led by the wazir Uthman ibn Jam'i, quickly engineered the election of his elderly grand-uncle, Abd al-Wahid I 'al-Makhlu', as the new Almohad caliph. But the rapid appointment upset other branches of the family, notably the brothers of the late al-Nasir, who governed in al-Andalus. The challenge was immediately raised by one of them, then governor in Murcia, who declared himself Caliph Abdallah al-Adil. With the help of his brothers, he quickly seized control of al-Andalus. His chief advisor, the shadowy Abu Zayd ibn Yujjan, tapped into his contacts in Marrakesh, and secured the deposition and assassination of Abd al-Wahid I, and the expulsion of the al-Jami'i clan.
This coup has been characterized as the pebble that finally broke al-Andalus. It was the first internal coup among the Almohads. The Almohad clan, despite occasional disagreements, had always remained tightly knit and loyally behind dynastic precedence. Caliph al-Adil's murderous breach of dynastic and constitutional propriety marred his acceptability to other Almohad sheikhs. One of the recusants was his cousin, Abd Allah al-Bayyasi ("the Baezan"), the Almohad governor of Jaén, who took a handful of followers and decamped for the hills around Baeza. He set up a rebel camp and forged an alliance with the hitherto quiet Ferdinand III of Castile. Sensing his greater priority was Marrakesh, where recusant Almohad sheikhs had rallied behind Yahya, another son of al-Nasir, al-Adil paid little attention to them. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almohad_Caliphate |
Arab citizens of Israel | After the 1967 Six-Day War, Arab citizens were able to contact Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip for the first time since the establishment of the state. This along with the lifting of military rule, led to increased political activism among Arab citizens.
In 1974, a committee of Arab mayors and municipal councilmen was established which played an important role in representing the community and pressuring the Israeli government. This was followed in 1975 by the formation of the Committee for the Defense of the Land, which sought to prevent continuing land expropriations. That same year, a political breakthrough took place with the election of Arab poet Tawfiq Ziad, a Maki member, as mayor of Nazareth, accompanied by a strong communist presence in the town council. In 1976, six Arab citizens of Israel were killed by Israeli security forces at a protest against land expropriations and house demolitions. The date of the protest, 30 March, has since been commemorated annually as Land Day.
The 1980s saw the birth of the Islamic Movement. As part of a larger trend in the Arab World, the Islamic Movement emphasized moving Islam into the political realm. The Islamic movement built schools, provided other essential social services, constructed mosques, and encouraged prayer and conservative Islamic dress. The Islamic Movement began to affect electoral politics particularly at the local level.
Many Arab citizens supported the First Intifada and assisted Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, providing them with money, food, and clothes. A number of strikes were also held by Arab citizens in solidarity with Palestinians in the occupied territories.
The years leading up to the Oslo Accords were a time of optimism for Arab citizens. During the administration of Yitzhak Rabin, Arab parties played an important role in the formation of a governing coalition. Increased participation of Arab citizens was also seen at the civil society level. However, tension continued to exist with many Arabs calling for Israel to become a "state of all its citizens", thereby challenging the state's Jewish identity. In the 1999 elections for prime minister, 94% of the Arab electorate voted for Ehud Barak. However, Barak formed a broad left-right-center government without consulting the Arab parties, disappointing the Arab community. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_citizens_of_Israel |
Humayun's Tomb | After his death on 27 January 1556, Humayun's body was first buried in his palace in Purana Quila at Delhi. Thereafter it was taken to Sirhind, in Punjab by Khanjar Beg and, in 1558, it was seen by Humayun's son, the then Mughal Emperor, Akbar. Akbar subsequently visited the tomb in 1571, when it was about to be completed.
The tomb of Humayun was built by the orders of his first wife and chief consort, Empress Bega Begum (also known as Haji Begum). Construction began in 1565 and was completed in 1572; it cost 1.5 million rupees, paid entirely by the Empress. Bega Begum had been so grieved over her husband's death that she had thenceforth dedicated her life to a sole purpose: the construction of a memorial to him that would be the most magnificent mausoleum in the Empire, at a site near the Yamuna River in Delhi. According to Ain-i-Akbari, a 16th-century detailed document written during the reign of Akbar, Bega Begum supervised the construction of the tomb after returning from Mecca and undertaking the Hajj pilgrimage.
According to Abd al-Qadir Bada'uni, one of the few contemporary historians to mention construction of the tomb, it was designed by the Persian architect Mirak Mirza Ghiyas (also referred to as Mirak Ghiyathuddin), who was selected by the Empress and brought from Herat (northwest Afghanistan); he had previously designed several buildings in Herat, Bukhara (now Uzbekistan), and others elsewhere in India. Ghiyas died before the structure was completed and it was completed by his son, Sayyed Muhammad ibn Mirak Ghiyathuddin.
An English merchant, William Finch, who visited the tomb in 1611, describes rich interior furnishing of the central chamber (in comparison to the sparse look today). He mentions the presence of rich carpets, as well as a shamiana, a small tent above the cenotaph, which was covered with a pure white sheet, and with copies of the Quran in front along with Humayun's sword, turban and shoes.
The fortunes of the once famous Charbagh (Four-gardens) made of four squares separated by four promenades, radiating from a central reflection pool. It spread over 13 hectares surrounding the monument, changed repeatedly over the years after its construction. The capital had already shifted to Agra in 1556, and the decline of the Mughals accelerated the decay of the monument and its features, as the expensive upkeep of the garden proved impossible. By the early 18th century, the once lush gardens were replaced by vegetable garden of people who had settled within the walled area. However, the capture of the last Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar during the Indian Rebellion of 1857 together with the premises, and his subsequent sentencing to exile, along with execution of his three sons, meant that the monument's worst days lay ahead, as the British took over Delhi completely. In 1860, the Mughal design of the garden was replanted to a more English garden-style, with circular beds replacing the fours central water pools on the axial pathways and trees profusely planted in flowerbeds. This fault was corrected in the early 20th century, when on Viceroy Lord Curzon's orders the original gardens were restored in a major restoration project between 1903 and 1909, which also included lining the plaster channels with sandstone; a 1915 planting scheme added emphasis to the central and diagonal axis by lining it with trees, though some trees were also planted on the platform originally reserved for tents.
In 1882, the official curator of ancient monuments in India published his first report, which mentioned that the main garden was let out to various cultivators; amongst them till late were the royal descendants, who grew cabbage and tobacco in it.
In Ronaldshay's biography of Lord Curzon a letter is quoted from Lord Curzon to his wife in April 1905: "You remember Humayun's tomb? I had the garden restored, the water channels dug out and refilled and the whole place restored to its pristine beauty. I went to England last summer and, the eye of the master being away, the whole place has been allowed to revert. The garden has been let to a native and is now planted with turnips and the work of four years is thrown away! I shall drive out there, and woe betide the deputy commissioner whose apathy has been responsible."
During the Partition of India, in August 1947 the Purana Qila together with Humayun's Tomb, became major refugee camps for Muslims migrating to the newly founded Pakistan, and was later managed by the government of India. These camps stayed open for about five years, and caused considerable damage not only to the extensive gardens, but also to the water channels and the principal structures. The camps were raided many times by jathas which caused vandalism to occur during the early partition days in 1947. Eventually, to avoid vandalism, the cenotaphs within the mausoleum were encased in brick. In the coming years, the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) took on responsibility for the preservation of heritage monuments in India, and gradually the building and its gardens were restored. Until 1985, four unsuccessful attempts were made to reinstate the original water features.
An important phase in the restoration of the complex began around 1993, when the monument was declared a World Heritage Site. This brought new interest to its restoration, and a detailed research and excavation process began under the aegis of the Aga Khan Trust and the ASI. This culminated in 2003, when much of the complex and gardens were restored, with the historic fountains running once again after several centuries of disuse. The restoration has been a continuous process ever since, with subsequent phases addressing various aspects and monuments of the complex. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humayun%27s_Tomb |
Islamic history of Yemen | Commins, David (2010). "Saudi Arabia, southern Arabia and the Gulf states from the First World War". In Robinson, Francis (ed.). The New Cambridge History of Islam, Volume 5: The Islamic World in the Age of Western Dominance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 451–480. ISBN 978-0-521-83826-9.
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Haykel, Bernard (2010). "Western Arabia and Yemen during the Ottoman period". In Fierro, Maribel (ed.). The New Cambridge History of Islam, Volume 2: The Western Islamic World, Eleventh to Eighteenth Centuries. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 436–450. ISBN 978-0-521-83957-0.
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Safavid Iran | Almost simultaneously with the emergence of the Safavid Empire, the Mughal Empire, founded by the Timurid heir Babur, was developing in South-Asia. The Mughals adhered (for the most part) to a tolerant Sunni Islam while ruling a largely Hindu population. After the death of Babur, his son Humayun was ousted from his territories and threatened by his half-brother and rival, who had inherited the northern part of Babur's territories. Having to flee from city to city, Humayun eventually sought refuge at the court of Tahmāsp in Qazvin in 1543. Tahmāsp received Humayun as the true emperor of the Mughal dynasty, despite the fact that Humayun had been living in exile for more than fifteen years. After Humayun converted to Shiʻi Islam (under extreme duress), Tahmāsp offered him military assistance to regain his territories in return for Kandahar, which controlled the overland trade route between central Iran and the Ganges. In 1545 a combined Iranian–Mughal force managed to seize Kandahar and occupy Kabul. Humayun handed over Kandahar, but Tahmāsp was forced to retake it in 1558, after Humayun seized it on the death of the Safavid governor.
Humayun was not the only royal figure to seek refuge at Tahmasp's court. A dispute arose in the Ottoman Empire over who was to succeed the aged Suleiman the Magnificent. Suleiman's favourite wife, Hürrem Sultan, was eager for her son, Selim, to become the next sultan. But Selim was an alcoholic and Hürrem's other son, Bayezid, had shown far greater military ability. The two princes quarrelled and eventually Bayezid rebelled against his father. His letter of remorse never reached Suleiman, and he was forced to flee abroad to avoid execution. In 1559 Bayezid arrived in Iran where Tahmasp gave him a warm welcome. Suleiman was eager to negotiate his son's return, but Tahmasp rejected his promises and threats until, in 1561, Suleiman compromised with him. In September of that year, Tahmasp and Bayezid were enjoying a banquet at Tabriz when Tahmasp suddenly pretended he had received news that the Ottoman prince was engaged in a plot against his life. An angry mob gathered and Tahmasp had Bayezid put into custody, alleging it was for his own safety. Tahmasp then handed the prince over to the Ottoman ambassador. Shortly afterwards, Bayezid was killed by agents sent by his own father. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safavid_Iran |
History of Bahrain | Bahrain was referred to by the ancient Greeks as Tylos, the centre of pearl trading, when the Greek admiral, Nearchus, first visited there. Nearchus was serving under Alexander the Great, who overthrew the ruling tribe of Al Hamar.
Nearchus is believed to have been the first of Alexander's commanders to visit Bahrain, and he found a verdant land that was part of a wide trading network. He recorded: "That in the island of Tylos, situated in the Persian Gulf, are large plantations of cotton tree, from which are manufactured clothes called sindones, with very different degrees of value, some being costly, others less expensive. The use of these is not confined to India, but extends to Arabia." The Greek historian, Theophrastus, states that many of the islands were covered in these cotton trees and that Tylos was famous for exporting walking canes engraved with emblems that were customarily carried in Babylon.
It is not known whether Bahrain was part of the Seleucid Empire, although the archaeological site at Qalat Al Bahrain has been proposed as a Seleucid base in the Persian Gulf. Alexander had planned to settle the eastern shores of the Persian Gulf with Greek colonists, and although it is not clear that this happened on the scale he envisaged, Tylos was very much part of the Hellenised world: the language of the upper classes was Greek (although Aramaic was in everyday use). Local coinage shows a seated Zeus, who may have been worshiped there as a syncretised form of the Arabian sun-god Shams. Tylos was also the site of Greek athletics contests.
Strabo, the Greek historian, geographer and philosopher mentioned that the Phoenicians came from Eastern Arabia where they have similar gods, cemeteries and temples. This theory was accepted by the 19th-century German classicist Arnold Heeren who said that: "In the Greek geographers, for instance, we read of two islands, named Tyrus or Tylos, and Arad, Bahrain, which boasted that they were the mother country of the Phoenicians, and exhibited relics of Phoenician temples". The people of Tyre, Lebanon in particular have long maintained Persian Gulf origins, and the similarity in the words "Tylos" and "Tyre" has been commented upon. Later classicist theories were proposed prior to modern archaeological excavations which revealed no disruption of Phoenician societies between 3200 B.C. and 1200 B.C.
Herodotus's account (written c. 440 BC) refers to the Phoenicians originating from Eastern Arabia. (History, I:1). According to the Persians best informed in history, the Phoenicians began the quarrel. These people, who had formerly dwelt on the shores of the Erythraean Sea (the eastern part of the Arabia peninsula), having migrated to the Mediterranean and settled in the parts which they now inhabit, began at once, they say, to adventure on long voyages, freighting their vessels with the wares of Egypt and Assyria...
The name Tylos is thought to be a Hellenisation of the Semitic, Tilmun (from Dilmun). The term Tylos was commonly used for the islands until Ptolemy's Geographia when the inhabitants are referred to as 'Thilouanoi'. Some place names in Bahrain go back to the Tylos era, for instance, the residential suburb of Arad in Muharraq, is believed to originate from "Arados", the ancient Greek name for Muharraq island.
With the waning of Seleucid Greek power, Tylos was incorporated into Characene or Mesenian, the state founded in what today is Southern Iraq by Hyspaosines in 127BC. A building inscriptions found in Bahrain indicate that Hyspoasines occupied the islands, (and it also mentions his wife, Thalassia). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Bahrain |
Twelver Shi'ism | In Shia theology Ismah means "impeccability", "immunity to sin" and "infallibility. " When Ismah is attributed to human beings, the concept means "the ability of avoiding acts of disobedience, in spite of having the power to commit them, " As in Prophets and Imams, Ismah is a Divine grace realized by God's preservation of the infallible, first by endowing them with pure constitution then, following in order, by blessing them with great excellences, giving them firm will against opponents, sending tranquility down upon them (as-Sakinah), and preserving their hearts and minds from sin.
According to the theology of Twelvers, the successor of Muhammad is an infallible human individual who not only rules over the community with justice, but also is able to keep and interpret the Sharia and its esoteric meaning. The words and deeds of Muhammad and the imams are a guide and model for the community to follow; therefore, they must be free from error and sin, and must be chosen by divine decree, or nass, through Muhammad.
According to Twelvers the Islamic prophet Muhammad, his daughter Fatima Zahra; and the Twelve Imams are considered to be infallible under the theological concept of Ismah. Accordingly, they have the power to commit sin but are able to avoid doing so by their nature The Infallibles are believed to follow only God's desire in their actions, because of their supreme righteousness, consciousness, and love for God. They are also regarded as being immune to error: in practical matters, in calling people to religion, and in the perception of divine knowledge. Shias believe that the Fourteen Infallibles are superior to the rest of creation, as well as to the other major prophets.
From historical viewpoint, Wilferd Madelung claims that the purification of Ahl al-Bayt—the family of Muhammad—is guaranteed by the verse of purification in the Qur'an. Donaldson in his argument believed that the development of the Shi'ite theology in the period between the death of Muhammad and the disappearance of the Twelfth Imam originates the concept of Ismah which adds to its importance. Ann Lambton claims that neither the term nor the concept of Ismah is in the Qur'an or in canonical Sunni hadith. It was apparently first used by the Imamiyyah, perhaps during the beginning of the second century of the Islamic calendar in which they maintained that the Imam must be immune from sin (ma'sum). According to Hamid Algar, the concept Ismah is encountered as early as the first half of the second century of the Islamic calendar. The Shia scholars of the fourth and the fifth centuries of the Islamic calendar defined the infallibility of Muḥammad and the Twelve Imams in an increasingly stringent form until the doctrine came to exclude their commission of any sin or inadvertent error, either before or after they assumed office. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelver_Shi%27ism |
Zoroastrianism | Zoroastrianism has survived into the modern period, particularly in India, where the Parsis are thought to have been present since about the 9th century.
Today Zoroastrianism can be divided in two main schools of thought: reformists and traditionalists. Traditionalists are mostly Parsis and accept, beside the Gathas and Avesta, also the Middle Persian literature and like the reformists mostly developed in their modern form from 19th century developments. They generally do not allow conversion to the faith and, as such, for someone to be a Zoroastrian they must be born of Zoroastrian parents. Some traditionalists recognize the children of mixed marriages as Zoroastrians, though usually only if the father is a born Zoroastrian. Not all Zoroastrians identify with either school and notable examples are getting traction including Neo-Zoroastrians/Revivalists, which are usually reinterpretations of Zoroastrianism appealing towards Western concerns, and centering the idea of Zoroastrianism as a living religion and advocate the revival and maintenance of old rituals and prayers while supporting ethical and social progressive reforms. Both of these latter schools tend to center the Gathas without outright rejecting other texts except the Vendidad.
From the 19th century onward, the Parsis gained a reputation for their education and widespread influence in all aspects of society. They played an instrumental role in the economic development of the region over many decades; several of the best-known business conglomerates of India are run by Parsi-Zoroastrians, including the Tata, Godrej, Wadia families, and others.
For a variety of social and political factors the Zoroastrians of the Indian subcontinent, namely the Parsis and Iranis, have not engaged in conversion since at least the 18th century. Zoroastrian high priests have historically opined there is no reason to not allow conversion which is also supported by the Revayats and other scripture though later priests have condemned these judgements. Within Iran, many of the beleaguered Zoroastrians have been also historically opposed or not practically concerned with the matter of conversion. Currently though, The Council of Tehran Mobeds (the highest ecclesiastical authority within Iran) endorses conversion but conversion from Islam to Zoroastrianism is illegal under the laws of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Though the Armenians share a rich history affiliated with Zoroastrianism (that eventually declined with the advent of Christianity), reports indicate that there were Zoroastrians in Armenia until the 1920s.
At the request of the government of Tajikistan, UNESCO declared 2003 a year to celebrate the "3000th anniversary of Zoroastrian culture", with special events throughout the world. In 2011, the Tehran Mobeds Anjuman announced that for the first time in the history of modern Iran and of the modern Zoroastrian communities worldwide, women had been ordained in Iran and North America as mobedyars, meaning women assistant mobeds (Zoroastrian clergy). The women hold official certificates and can perform the lower-rung religious functions and can initiate people into the religion.
The current Zoroastrian population is said be around 100,000 to 200,000 and reportedly declining. However, further studies are needed to confirm this, as numbers have also been rising in some areas, such as Iran. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroastrianism |
History of slavery | Within the British Empire, the Massachusetts courts began to follow England when, in 1772, England became the first country in the world to outlaw the slave trade within its borders (see Somerset v Stewart) followed by the Knight v. Wedderburn decision in Scotland in 1778. Between 1764 and 1774, seventeen slaves appeared in Massachusetts courts to sue their owners for freedom. In 1766, John Adams' colleague Benjamin Kent won the first trial in the present-day United States to free a slave (Slew vs. Whipple).
The Republic of Vermont allowed the enslavement of children in its constitution of 1777 suggesting that people "ought not" enslave adults, but there was no enforcement of this suggestion. Vermont entered the United States in 1791 with the same constitutional provisions. Through the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 under the Congress of the Confederation, slavery was prohibited in the territories north west of the Ohio River. In 1794, Congress banned American vessels from being used in the slave trade, and also banned the export of slaves from America to other countries. However, little effort was made to enforce this legislation. The slave ship owners of Rhode Island were able to continue in trade, and the USA's slaving fleet in 1806 was estimated to be nearly 75% as large as that of Britain, with dominance of the transportation of slaves into Cuba.: 63 By 1804, abolitionists succeeded in passing legislation that ended legal slavery in every northern state (with slaves above a certain age legally transformed to indentured servants). Congress passed an Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves as of 1 January 1808; but not the internal slave trade.
Despite the actions of abolitionists, free blacks were subject to racial segregation in the Northern states. While the United Kingdom did not ban slavery throughout most of the empire, including British North America till 1833, free blacks found refuge in the Canadas after the American Revolutionary War and again after the War of 1812. Refugees from slavery fled the South across the Ohio River to the North via the Underground Railroad. Midwestern state governments asserted States Rights arguments to refuse federal jurisdiction over fugitives. Some juries exercised their right of jury nullification and refused to convict those indicted under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.
After the passage of the Kansas–Nebraska Act in 1854, armed conflict broke out in Kansas Territory, where the question of whether it would be admitted to the Union as a slave state or a free state had been left to the inhabitants. The radical abolitionist John Brown was active in the mayhem and killing in "Bleeding Kansas." The true turning point in public opinion is better fixed at the Lecompton Constitution fraud. Pro-slavery elements in Kansas had arrived first from Missouri and quickly organized a territorial government that excluded abolitionists. Through the machinery of the territory and violence, the pro-slavery faction attempted to force the unpopular pro-slavery Lecompton Constitution through the state. This infuriated Northern Democrats, who supported popular sovereignty, and was exacerbated by the Buchanan administration reneging on a promise to submit the constitution to a referendum—which would surely fail. Anti-slavery legislators took office under the banner of the newly formed Republican Party. The Supreme Court in the Dred Scott decision of 1857 asserted that one could take one's property anywhere, even if one's property was chattel and one crossed into a free territory. It also asserted that African Americans could not be federal citizens. Outraged critics across the North denounced these episodes as the latest of the Slave Power (the politically organized slave owners) taking more control of the nation. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery |
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Zinc | Zinc makes up about 75 ppm (0.0075%) of Earth's crust, making it the 24th most abundant element. It also makes up 312 ppm of the solar system, where it is the 22nd most abundant element. Typical background concentrations of zinc do not exceed 1 μg/m3 in the atmosphere; 300 mg/kg in soil; 100 mg/kg in vegetation; 20 μg/L in freshwater and 5 μg/L in seawater. The element is normally found in association with other base metals such as copper and lead in ores. Zinc is a chalcophile, meaning the element is more likely to be found in minerals together with sulfur and other heavy chalcogens, rather than with the light chalcogen oxygen or with non-chalcogen electronegative elements such as the halogens. Sulfides formed as the crust solidified under the reducing conditions of the early Earth's atmosphere. Sphalerite, which is a form of zinc sulfide, is the most heavily mined zinc-containing ore because its concentrate contains 60–62% zinc.
Other source minerals for zinc include smithsonite (zinc carbonate), hemimorphite (zinc silicate), wurtzite (another zinc sulfide), and sometimes hydrozincite (basic zinc carbonate). With the exception of wurtzite, all these other minerals were formed by weathering of the primordial zinc sulfides.
Identified world zinc resources total about 1.9–2.8 billion tonnes. Large deposits are in Australia, Canada and the United States, with the largest reserves in Iran. The most recent estimate of reserve base for zinc (meets specified minimum physical criteria related to current mining and production practices) was made in 2009 and calculated to be roughly 480 Mt. Zinc reserves, on the other hand, are geologically identified ore bodies whose suitability for recovery is economically based (location, grade, quality, and quantity) at the time of determination. Since exploration and mine development is an ongoing process, the amount of zinc reserves is not a fixed number and sustainability of zinc ore supplies cannot be judged by simply extrapolating the combined mine life of today's zinc mines. This concept is well supported by data from the United States Geological Survey (USGS), which illustrates that although refined zinc production increased 80% between 1990 and 2010, the reserve lifetime for zinc has remained unchanged. About 346 million tonnes have been extracted throughout history to 2002, and scholars have estimated that about 109–305 million tonnes are in use. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zinc |
Metropolitan Museum of Art | The New York State Legislature granted the Metropolitan Museum of Art an Act of Incorporation on April 13, 1870, "for the purpose of establishing and maintaining in said City a Museum and Library of Art, of encouraging and developing the Study of the Fine Arts, and the application of Art to manufacture and natural life, of advancing the general knowledge of kindred subjects, and to that end of furnishing popular instruction and recreations". This legislation was supplemented later by the 1893 Act, Chapter 476, which required that its collections "shall be kept open and accessible to the public free of all charge throughout the year". The founders included businessmen and financiers, among them Theodore Roosevelt Sr., the father of Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th president of the US, as well as leading artists and thinkers of the day, who wanted to open a museum to bring art and art education to the American people. Also instrumental in the founding of the museum was Henry Gurdon Marquand, who donated an important part of his collection of Old Masters paintings to the fledgling institution. The Marquand family maintained a diverse interest in art based philanthropy, having donated large sums of money to Princeton University, as well as establishing Southport's Pequot Library, a special collections institution.
The museum first opened on February 20, 1872, housed in a building located at 681 Fifth Avenue. John Taylor Johnston, a railroad executive whose personal art collection seeded the museum, served as its first president, and the publisher George Palmer Putnam came on board as its founding superintendent. The artist Eastman Johnson acted as co-founder of the museum, as did landscape painter Frederic Edwin Church. Various other industrialists, artists, and scientists of the age served as co-founders, including Howard Potter, Salem Howe Wales, and Henry Gurdon Marquand. Marquand's donated works are known as the Marquand Collection. The former Civil War officer, Luigi Palma di Cesnola, was named as its first director. He served from 1879 to 1904. Under their guidance, the Met's holdings, initially consisting of a Roman stone sarcophagus and 174 mostly European paintings, quickly outgrew the available space. In 1873, occasioned by the Met's purchase of the Cesnola Collection of Cypriot antiquities, the museum decamped from Fifth Avenue and took up residence at the Mrs. Nicholas Cruger Mansion also known as the Douglas Mansion (James Renwick, 1853–54, demolished 1928) at 128 West 14th Street. However, these new accommodations proved temporary, as the growing collection required more space than the mansion could provide. It moved into the current building in 1880. Between 1879 and 1895, the museum created and operated a series of educational programs, known as the Metropolitan Museum of Art Schools, intended to provide vocational training and classes on fine arts. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Museum_of_Art |
Najdi Arabic | Najdi Arabic exhibits a number of discourse particles whose main function is to mark different tenses and aspects, including the perfective, imperfective, and progressive aspects. These speech particles "form a link between the time of occurrence of the verb and a point of reference not concurrent with it". cites six "relative time markers":
[d͡zid] ('already')
[ʕaːd] ('still, anymore')
[maː ʕaːd] ('no longer, no more')
[baʕad] ('still')
[maː baʕad] ('not yet')
[taww-] ('just')
Most of these discourse particles are preverbal, yet a few of them can show up in non-verbal sentences. These discourse particles have a number of features when they show up in speech:
The particle [taww] occurs with the perfective and active particle and is almost always followed by a personal pronoun suffix.
A few of these particles are not pre-verbal, i.e, they can show up with non-verbal sentences.
Their function is similar, "setting the time of occurrence of the situation referred to by the sentence in relation to a point of reference".
The particles [ʕaːd] and [baʕad] can sometimes have a suffix in the affirmative.
The particle [maː ʕaːd] occurs with the perfective and imperfective.
The particles [ʕaːd] and [baʕad] occur with the imperfective and the active participle.
The particle [maː baʕad] occurs with the perfective.
The following examples illustrate the use of these discourse particles in Najdi Arabic:
[ʕaːd]
[maʕaːd]
[baʕad]
[maː baʕad]
[taww]
In addition to these, [d͡zid] ('already') may occur before the main verb to convey that something has been done but is no longer the case (equivalent to the experiential perfect in English). There are a number of meanings of [d͡zid] depending on context:
'had done' when occurring with a past reference point
'has done' when occurring with a present reference point
'already' when the action has actually occurred previously to the time of utterance
'never' with a negative sentence that has a present reference point
'ever' with an interrogative sentence with a present reference point.
The following examples illustrate the use of the particle [d͡zid]:
In addition, the progressive aspect is marked by the particle [qaʕid] ('to sit'). The particle [qaʕid] surfaces with a verb in the imperfective aspect but cannot surface with a verb in the perfective aspect, as shown in the following two sentences:
The progressive aspect in Najdi Arabic (as well as other dialects is expressed by the imperfective form of the verb, often preceded by the active particle [qaʕid].Holes (1990) The following examples to illustrate the use of [qaʕid] to express the progressive aspect: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Najdi_Arabic |
Muammar Gaddafi | On 2 March 1977, the General People's Congress adopted the "Declaration on the Establishment of the Authority of the People" at Gaddafi's behest. Dissolving the Libyan Arab Republic, it was replaced by the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya (Arabic: الجماهيرية العربية الليبية الشعبية الاشتراكية, al-Jamāhīrīyah al-‘Arabīyah al-Lībīyah ash-Sha‘bīyah al-Ishtirākīyah), a "state of the masses" conceptualized by Gaddafi. A new, all-green banner was adopted as the country's flag. Officially, the Jamahiriya was a direct democracy in which the people ruled themselves through the 187 Basic People's Congresses (BPCs), where all adult Libyans participated and voted on national decisions. These then sent members to the annual General People's Congress, which was broadcast live on television. In principle, the People's Congresses were Libya's highest authority, with major decisions proposed by government officials or with Gaddafi himself requiring the consent of the People's Congresses. Gaddafi became General Secretary of the GPC, although he stepped down from this position in early 1979 and appointed himself "Leader of the Revolution".
Although all political control was officially vested in the People's Congresses, in reality Libya's existing political leadership continued to exercise varying degrees of power and influence. Debate remained limited, and major decisions regarding the economy and defence were avoided or dealt with cursorily; the GPC largely remained "a rubber stamp" for Gaddafi's policies. On rare occasions, the GPC opposed Gaddafi's suggestions, sometimes successfully; notably, when Gaddafi called on primary schools to be abolished, believing that homeschooling was healthier for children, the GPC rejected the idea. In other instances, Gaddafi pushed through laws without the GPC's support, such as when he desired to allow women into the armed forces. At other times, he ordered snap elections when it appeared that the GPC would enact laws he opposed. Gaddafi proclaimed that the People's Congresses provided for Libya's every political need, rendering other political organizations unnecessary; all non-authorized groups, including political parties, professional associations, independent trade unions, and women's groups, were banned. Despite these restrictions, St. John noted that the Jamahiriya system still "introduced a level of representation and participation hitherto unknown in Libya".
With preceding legal institutions abolished, Gaddafi envisioned the Jamahiriya as following the Qur'an for legal guidance, adopting sharia law; he proclaimed "man-made" laws unnatural and dictatorial, only permitting Allah's law. Within a year he was backtracking, announcing that sharia was inappropriate for the Jamahiriya because it guaranteed the protection of private property, contravening The Green Book's socialism. His emphasis on placing his own work on a par with the Qur'an led conservative clerics to accuse him of shirk, furthering their opposition to his regime. In July 1977, a border war broke out with Egypt, in which the Egyptians defeated Libya despite their technological inferiority. The conflict lasted one week before both sides agreed to sign a peace treaty that was brokered by several Arab states. Both Egypt and Sudan had aligned themselves with the US, and this pushed Libya into a strategic, although not political, alignment with the Soviet Union. In recognition of the growing commercial relationship between Libya and the Soviets, Gaddafi was invited to visit Moscow in December 1976; there, he entered talks with Leonid Brezhnev. In August 1977, he visited Yugoslavia, where he met its leader Josip Broz Tito, with whom he had a much warmer relationship. He also enjoyed a warm relationship with Romanian leader Nicolae Ceaușescu. According to Romanian spy chief Ion Mihai Pacepa, Gaddafi once exclaimed to Ceaușescu, "My brother! You are my brother for the rest of my life!" After Pacepa defected to the US in July 1978, Gaddafi and Yasser Arafat contributed $1 million each to Ceaușescu's $4 million bounty on Pacepa. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muammar_Gaddafi |
Iraq Museum | A few days later, agents of the FBI were sent to Iraq to search for stolen Museum property. UNESCO organized an emergency meeting of antiquities experts on April 17, 2003, in Paris to deal with the aftermath of the looting and its effects on the global art and antiquities market.
On April 18, 2003, the Baghdad Museum Project was formed in the United States with a proposal to assure the Iraq Museum every possibility of the eventual safe return of its collection, even if that is to take hundreds of years. Rather than focus only on law enforcement and the current antiquities market, the group set its mission as being to (1) establish a comprehensive online catalog of all cultural artifacts in the museum's collection, (2) create a virtual Baghdad Museum that is accessible to the general public over the Internet, (3) build a 3D collaborative workspace within the virtual Baghdad Museum for design and fundraising purposes, and (4) establish a resource center within the virtual Baghdad Museum for community cultural development. Various ancient items believed looted from the museum have surfaced in neighboring countries on their way to the United States, Israel, Europe, Switzerland, and Japan, and even on eBay.
On May 7, 2003, U.S. officials announced that nearly 40,000 manuscripts and 700 artifacts belonging to the Iraq Museum in Baghdad were recovered by U.S. Customs agents working with museum experts in Iraq. Some looters had returned items after promises of rewards and amnesty, and many items previously reported missing had actually been hidden in secret storage vaults prior to the outbreak of war. On June 7, 2003, the U.S. occupation authorities announced that world-famous treasures of Nimrud were preserved in a secret vault in the Iraqi Central Bank. The artifacts included necklaces, plates, gold earrings, finger and toe rings, bowls and flasks. But, around 15,000 and the tiny items including some of the most valuable artifacts on the antiquities markets remain missing.
The museum has been protected since its looting, but archaeological sites in Iraq were left almost entirely unprotected by coalition forces, and there has been massive looting, starting from the early days of the warfare and between summer 2003 and the end of 2007. Estimates are that 400–600,000 artifacts have been plundered. Iraqi sculptor Mohammed Ghani Hikmat spearheaded efforts by the Iraqi artist community to recover artworks looted from the museum. Approximately 150 of Hikmat's pieces were stolen from the museum alone. Hikmat's group has only recovered approximately 100 of the museum's works, as of September 2011.
United States Marine Colonel, and Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Matthew Bogdanos led the search for these stolen artifacts for over five years from 2003. Up to the year 2006 approximately 10,000 artifacts were recovered through his efforts. Antiquities recovered include the Warka Vase and the Mask of Warka.
The Oriental Institute (Chicago) took the very first and most outstanding initiative to inform the rest of the world about the ransacking of the Iraqi Museum's collection during the US-led invasion of Iraq. The institute set up a new webpage (named Lost Treasures from Iraq) on its website on April 15, 2003, just a few days after this plundering, sending a worldwide message about the lost, stolen, or probably “status unknown” artifacts. In addition, the website created a mass mailing list (“IraqiCrisis”) about the lost items from the Iraq Museum. However, the pertinent webpage about the looted Mesopotamian artifacts from the Iraq Museum was last updated on April 10, 2008, and then archived. The website seems to not update its information after then. Gradually, many artifacts which were labeled by the Lost Treasure from Iraq website as stolen or status unknown were found to be on display at museums inside Iraq for several years before the US-led invasion of Iraq. In addition, many others were still safe at the Iraq Museum and were not pillaged. This reflects prominent miscommunication and/or disconnection between the pertinent bodies responsible for the storage, registration, and display of these artifacts. As of December 16, 2022, the databases of the Iraq Museum on the Lost Treasures from Iraq appear not to be updated after April 14, 2008, to correct this. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Museum |
Ghardaïa | The M'Zab valley, in limestone plateau, was inscribed under the UNESCO Heritage List, is a unique conglomeration of five cities confined in area of 75 km² situated 600 km to the south of Algiers, the capital of Algeria.
The original architecture of the semi desert valley is dated to early 11th century. It is ascribed to the Ibadis, with their cultural identity originally traced to the Maghreb; they had their capital at Tahert as an Ibadi Kingdom. They were forced to leave Tahert consequent to a devastating fire in 909 (it is reported that destruction was caused by the founder of the (Shi'ite) Fatimid Dynasty). They first moved to Sedrata and finally to the M'Zab valley. They settled in five fortified villages located on rocky outcrops, known locally as “Kosars”, although they could have lived in one larger village encompassing all the five. The habitation was planned with meticulous details to precise layouts defined by set principles of community living within a defensive environment. Ghardaïa's foundation has been dated to 1048 or 1053.
Each village was planned in a diverse topography comprising a small island, a ridge, a hilltop, a peak and a recess. The villages were fortified in such a manner that they were inaccessible to the nomadic groups. The five villages set up with identical planning concepts were Ghardaïa, Melika, Beni Isguen, Bou Noura and El Atteuf. The identical “miniature citadels”, as they are termed, each had their own mosque with minaret functioning as watch towers, and the houses built around the mosque in concentric circles and surrounded by a high walls (extending up to the ramparts). The buildings together gave the feel of a fortress to each village. The mosque also provided for storage of grains and arms for defence.
However, during the summer season the inhabitants migrated to a "citadel" outside the fortified villages, in an informal setting of artificial palm grove, a cemetery and a mosque.
The ksar was created in 476/1085 by two tribes : the Aoulad Ammi-Aïssa and the Aoulad Ba-Slimane. Each tribe contained different fractions, a specific area and a cemetery. Ghardaïa is the richest city of the M'Zab Vallée. It already had a dynamic commercial and craft activity. On the social aspect, it is the only Ksar, along with Melika, that housed not only Ibadites Berbers, but also Malekits Arabs and a Jewish community until the Algerian Independence.
To build the Ksar, the founders of Ghardaïa, a small group of people, under a Cheikh, chose a hill 200m south of the M'Zab Oued for defensive purposes. Farther west, they created a palm grove for subsistence farming. The Ksar of Ghardaïa, as it is today, did not appear in one time. According to the public agency in charge of protecting the M'Zab Heritage, Ghardaïa has seen four phases of evolution until 1882, when it was annexed by the French army. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gharda%C3%AFa |
Multi-National Force – Iraq | Denmark – By December 21, 2007 Denmark's main contribution to the Multinational Force in Iraq, a 55-member air force contingent based in Basra, had been completely withdrawn. Their task had been to operate a unit of four helicopters in support of British and Iraqi forces until December, following the withdrawal of the original contingent in July 2007. The so-called Dancon/Irak mission consisted of 430 troops operating under UK command (South-East Iraq), and included military police involved in the training of local security forces as well as infantry. They were based south of Basra at "Camp Danevang".
A number of troops remain in Baghdad, Iraq, where they train Iraqi forces under the NATO Training Mission – Iraq, but NTM-I is not part of the Multinational Force. Under the Iraqi Law agreed December 16, 2008 the NATO Training Mission seems to be treated as the remaining non-US foreign contingents and will withdraw during 2009.
A separate unit of 35 troops temporarily served under UNAMI.
On February 21, 2007 Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen had announced that the withdrawal of Danish 'combat' troops in Iraq would be completed by August 2007, however, on July 26, 2007, it was reported that 250 of the Danish troops had already withdrawn, at least two weeks ahead of schedule. The Danish government repeatedly guaranteed that its forces would remain as long as the Iraqi government requested. On April 28, 2007 the Danish military reported that it was in the process of temporarily deploying an unspecified number of special forces to "resolve a special problem". Denmark has lost seven soldiers in Iraq; one to friendly fire, one in a vehicle accident, and five to hostile incidents, while several more have been wounded. In early 2006, the Iraqi insurgency released a statement calling for more attacks on the Danish army in the retaliation to the Danish cartoon controversy.
Slovakia – On January 27, 2007 Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico announced that all but 11 of the 110 Slovak troops (primarily engaged in destroying ordnance) operating under the US-led Coalition had been transferred from Diwaniya in Iraq to Kuwait. They arrived home the following month. The remaining troops were sent to perform liaison duties at the Multinational Forces HQ in Baghdad: nine were withdrawn in stages, while the last two returned by the end of the year. Four Slovak soldiers were killed by mortars and roadside bombs during their deployment in Iraq. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-National_Force_%E2%80%93_Iraq |
Persian carpet | The technically more advanced, stationary vertical looms are used in villages and town manufactures. The more advanced types of vertical looms are more comfortable, as they allow for the weavers to retain their position throughout the entire weaving process. The Tabriz type of vertical loom allows for weaving of carpets up to double the length of the loom, while there is no limit to the length of the carpet that can be woven on a vertical roller beam loom. In essence, the width of the carpet is limited by the length of the loom beams.
There are three general types of vertical looms, all of which can be modified in a number of ways: the fixed village loom, the Tabriz or Bunyan loom, and the roller beam loom.
The fixed village loom (dar sabet) is used mainly in Iran and consists of a fixed upper beam and a moveable lower or cloth beam which slots into two sidepieces. The correct tension of the warps is obtained by driving wedges into the slots. The weavers work on an adjustable plank which is raised as the work progresses.
The Tabriz loom (dar Tabriz), named after the city of Tabriz, is used in Northwestern Iran. The warps are continuous and pass around behind the loom. Warp tension is obtained with wedges. The weavers sit on a fixed seat and when a portion of the carpet has been completed, the tension is released and the carpet is pulled down and rolled around the back of the loom. This process continues until the rug is completed, when the warps are severed and the carpet is taken off the loom.
The roller beam loom (dar gardan, "roller loom") is used in larger Turkish manufactures, but is also found in Persia and India. It consists of two movable beams to which the warps are attached. Both beams are fitted with ratchets or similar locking devices. Once a section of the carpet is completed, is rolled on to the lower beam. On a roller beam loom, any length of carpet can be produced. In some areas of Turkey several rugs are woven in series on the same warps, and separated from each other by cutting the warps after the weaving is finished.
The Iranian names for the parts of the loom are:
sardar, the upper beam (horizontal, equivalent to the warp beam)
zirdar, the lower beam (horizontal, equivalent to the breast beam, especially when the fell is wrapped around it )
rasto, the right post (upright); sometimes used for both posts
chapro, the right post (upright)
kaju of koji
huf or haf
goveh, the wedges regulating the height of the zirdar to tension the warp.
takhteh alvar, weaver's bench, which may be adjustable in height.
A horizontal loom also has four pegs to hold it in the ground. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_carpet |
Al-Azhar Mosque | Saladin, who overthrew the Fatimids in 1171, was hostile to the Shi’ite principles of learning propounded at al-Azhar during the Fatimid Caliphate, and under his Ayyubid dynasty the mosque suffered from neglect. Congregational prayers were banned by Sadr al-Din ibn Dirbass, appointed qadi by Saladin. The reason for this edict may have been Shāfi‘ī teachings that proscribe congregational prayers in a community to only one mosque, or mistrust of the former Shi'a institution by the new Sunni ruler. By this time, the much larger al-Hakim Mosque was completed; congregational prayers in Cairo were held there.
In addition to stripping al-Azhar of its status as congregational mosque, Saladin also ordered the removal from the mihrab of the mosque a silver band on which the names of the Fatimid caliphs had been inscribed. This and similar silver bands removed from other mosques totaled 5,000 dirhems. Saladin did not completely disregard the upkeep of the mosque and according to al-Mufaddal one of the mosque's minarets was raised during Saladin's rule.
The teaching center at the mosque also suffered. The once well stocked library at al-Azhar was neglected, and manuscripts of Fatimid teachings that were held at al-Azhar were destroyed. The Ayyubid dynasty promoted the teaching of Sunni theology in subsidized madrasas (schools) built throughout Cairo. Student funding was withdrawn, organized classes were no longer held at the mosque, and the professors that had prospered under the Fatimids were forced to find other means to earn their living.
Al-Azhar nevertheless remained the seat of Arabic philology and a place of learning throughout this period. While official classes were discontinued, private lessons were still offered in the mosque. There are reports that a scholar, possibly al-Baghdadi, taught a number of subjects, such as law and medicine, at al-Azhar. Saladin reportedly paid him a salary of 30 dinars, which was increased to 100 dinars by Saladin's heirs. While the mosque was neglected by Saladin and his heirs, the policies of the Sunni Ayyubid dynasty would have a lasting impact on al-Azhar. Educational institutions were established by Sunni rulers as a way of combating what they regarded as the heretical teachings of Shi'a Islam. These colleges, ranging in size, focused on teaching Sunni doctrine, had an established and uniform curriculum that included courses outside of purely religious topics, such as rhetorics, math, and science. No such colleges had been established in Egypt by the time of Saladin's conquest. Saladin and the later rulers of the Ayyubid dynasty would build twenty-six colleges in Egypt, among them the Salihiyya Madrasa.
Al-Azhar eventually adopted Saladin's educational reforms modeled on the college system he instituted, and its fortunes improved under the Mamluks, who restored student stipends and salaries for the shuyūkh (teaching staff). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Azhar_Mosque |
Fazlur Rahman Malik | Fazlur Rahman did not call himself a feminist when he was alive, and people don’t usually outright label him as a feminist. However, some feminists, such as Amina Wadud and Sa’diyyah Shaikh, have claimed to have inspired or influenced by Fazlur Rahman’s ideas. Also, some feminists, such as Tamara Sonn, imply that Fazlur-Rahman’s thoughts contributed to Islamic feminism. By combining Fazlur-Rahman and Ricoeur’s ideas, Jeenah argues that an Islamic Feminist Hermeneutic approach should be used to interpret the Qur’an. Fazlur-Rahman’s ideas are represented in the word feminist in the Islamic Feminist Hermeneutic approach since Fazlur-Rahman’s ideas of equal rights can be seen as feminist.
Raja Bahlul emphasizes Fazlur-Rahman's contextual approach to interpreting legal proceedings from the Qur’an. Bahlul argues that a legal procedure in the Qur’an may become irrelevant, due to drastic social changes compared to the time of the creation of the Qur’an. An example of a legal preceding that may no longer be relevant is verse 2:282, which says two female witnesses are the equivalent of one male witness. Rahman argues that two female witnesses are equivalent to one male witness, because they are not used to being witnesses and may need each other to remember details. But Rahman also says that as more women become witnesses, they will get used to the experience and no longer need another female to help them remember the event. Thus, Bahlul uses Fazlur-Rahman to show that its possible to have feminist ideas within Islamic ideas without choosing one over the other.
Tamara Sonn looks at Fazlur Rahman’s ideas on Islamic reform and how he influenced Azizah al-Hibri, to show Fazlur-Rahman's contribution to Islamic feminism. Fazlur-Rahman often said that the Qur’an “is not a legal document” to emphasize that there are few things in the Qur’an that are not up for interpretation. Fazlur-Rahman argues that the reader must keep in mind the context the Qur’an was made in to be able to interpret specific rules to general rules that can be applied to modern situations. Al-Hibri agrees with Fazlur-Rahman that specific rules are not up for interpretation, such as worship practices, and general rules must be interpreted. Fazlur-Rahman saw polygyny in the Qur’an as something that occurred under specific circumstances, such as the Prophets, polygyny was becoming less common and monogamy becoming the norm. Fazlur-Rahman was neither for nor against polygyny, but the context in which it happens was most essential to him. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fazlur_Rahman_Malik |
Sennacherib | Sargon II's death in the battle and the disappearance of his body inspired rebellions across the Assyrian Empire. Sargon had ruled Babylonia since 710 BC, when he defeated the Chaldean tribal chief Marduk-apla-iddina II, who had taken control of the south in the aftermath of the death of Sargon's predecessor Shalmaneser V in 722 BC. Like his immediate predecessors, Sennacherib took the ruling titles of both Assyria and Babylonia when he became king, but his reign in Babylonia was less stable. Unlike Sargon and previous Babylonian rulers, who had proclaimed themselves as shakkanakku (viceroys) of Babylon, in reverence for the city's deity Marduk (who was considered Babylon's formal "king"), Sennacherib explicitly proclaimed himself as Babylon's king. Furthermore, he did not "take the hand" of the Statue of Marduk, the physical representation of the deity, and thus did not honor the god by undergoing the traditional Babylonian coronation ritual.
In angry response to this disrespect, revolts a month apart in 704 or 703 BC overthrew Sennacherib's rule in the south. First, a Babylonian by the name of Marduk-zakir-shumi II took the throne, but Marduk-apla-iddina, the same Chaldean warlord who had seized control of the city once before and had warred against Sennacherib's father, deposed him after just two or four weeks. Marduk-apla-iddina rallied large portions of Babylonia's people to fight for him, both the urban Babylonians and the tribal Chaldeans, and he also enlisted troops from the neighboring civilization of Elam, in modern-day south-western Iran. Though assembling all these forces took time, Sennacherib reacted slowly to these developments, which allowed Marduk-apla-iddina to station large contingents at the cities of Kutha and Kish.
Portions of the Assyrian army were away in Tabal in 704 BC. Because Sennacherib might have considered a two-front war too risky, Marduk-apla-iddina was left unchallenged for several months. In 703 BC, after the Tabal expedition had been completed, Sennacherib gathered the Assyrian army at Assur, often used as a mustering spot for campaigns against the south. The Assyrian army, led by Sennacherib's chief commander, launched an unsuccessful attack on the coalition forces near the city of Kish, bolstering the legitimacy of the coalition. However, Sennacherib also realized that the anti-Assyrian forces were divided and led his entire army to engage and destroy the portion of the army encamped at Kutha. Thereafter, he moved to attack the contingent at Kish, winning this second battle as well. Fearing for his life, Marduk-apla-iddina had already fled the battlefield. Sennacherib's inscriptions state that among the captives taken after the victory was a stepson of Marduk-apla-iddina and brother of an Arab queen, Yatie, who had joined the coalition.
Sennacherib then marched on Babylon. As the Assyrians appeared on the horizon, Babylon opened its gates to him, surrendering without a fight. The city was reprimanded, suffering a minor sack, though its citizens were unharmed. After a brief period of rest in Babylon, Sennacherib and the Assyrian army then moved systematically through southern Babylonia, where there was still organized resistance, pacifying both the tribal areas and the major cities. Sennacherib's inscriptions state that over two hundred thousand prisoners were taken. Because his previous policy of reigning as king of both Assyria and Babylonia had evidently failed, Sennacherib attempted another method, appointing a native Babylonian who had grown up at the Assyrian court, Bel-ibni, as his vassal king of the south. Sennacherib described Bel-ibni as "a native of Babylon who grew up in my palace like a young puppy". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sennacherib |
Religion in Bahrain | Government policy and practice contribute to the generally free practice of religion. Members of other religious groups who practice their faith privately do so without interference from the Government and are permitted to maintain their own places of worship and display the symbols of their religion, such as crosses and statues of deities and saints. The Government funds all official religious institutions, including Shi'a and Sunni mosques, Shi'a ma`tams (religious community centers), Shi'a and Sunni waqfs (religious endowments), and the religious courts, which represent both the Ja'afari (Shi'a) and Maliki (Sunni) schools of Islamic jurisprudence. The Government permits public religious events, most notably the large annual commemorative marches by Shi'a Muslims during the Islamic months of Ramadan and Muharram.
Converts to Islam from other religious groups were not uncommon, especially in cases of marriage between Muslim men and non-Muslim women. These converts were normally welcomed into the Muslim community. On the other hand, converts from Islam to other religious groups were not well tolerated by society. It was reported that families and communities often shunned these individuals and sometimes subjected converts to physical abuse. Some of these converts believed it necessary to leave the country permanently.
During the 2011–2012 Arab Spring uprising and crackdown against Shia protest in Bahrain, "dozens" of Shia mosques have been leveled by the government according to a report in McClatchy newspapers. According to Shiite leaders interviewed by the reporter, work crews have often arrived "in the dead of night, accompanied by police and military escorts", to demolish the mosques, and in many cases, have hauled away the buildings' rubble before townspeople awake so as to leave no trace. Sheikh Khalid bin Ali bin Abdulla al Khalifa, the minister of justice and Islamic affairs for Bahrain, defended the demolitions stating: "These are not mosques. These are illegal buildings." However the McClatchy reporter found that photos taken of several mosques before their destruction by the government "showed they were well maintained, decades-old structures."
The MOJIA has repeatedly denied an operating license to a congregation of the Baháʼí Faith, and it refuses to recognize the congregation; the Baháʼí community continued to gather and worship freely without government interference. While the MOJIA views the Baháʼí Faith as an inauthentic offshoot of Islam and blasphemous, some other government ministries included Baháʼí as a religion choice in "drop-down" computer menus for citizens applying for certain government documents.
Bibles and other Christian publications are displayed and sold openly in local bookstores that also sell Islamic and other religious literature. Churches also sell Christian materials, including books, music, and messages from Christian leaders, openly and without restriction. Religious tracts of all branches of Islam, cassettes of sermons delivered by Muslim preachers from other countries, and publications of other religions are readily available. In recent years, the Ministry of Interior has made efforts to reform hiring practices and has increased the hiring of Shi'a citizens. In 2005 a Christian church with more than 1,000 members filed an application with the Ministry of Social Development to form a second parish. The diocese assigned a temporary priest to serve members of the second parish; however, he only stayed 4 months, due to visa restrictions. The new parish applied for a three-year resident visa for a permanent priest. By the close of the reporting period, government officials still had not notified church leaders of a final decision on the request to allow a second parish or to grant a resident visa for a permanent priest. Further requests by church officials for information went unanswered. There were no reports of religious prisoners or detainees in the country.
In February 2011, the tensions between the Sunni ruling minority and the Shi'a majority spilled over into street protests which was violently suppressed by police forces, resulting in multiple civilian deaths. McClatchy Newspapers/csmonitor.com reported that as of mid-May 2011, Authorities have held secret trials where protesters have been sentenced to death, arrested prominent mainstream opposition politicians, jailed nurses and doctors who treated injured protesters, seized the health care system that had been run primarily by Shiites, fired 1,000 Shiite professionals and canceled their pensions, detained students and teachers who took part in the protests, beat and arrested journalists, and forced the closure of the only opposition newspaper.
Unnamed U.S. officials interviewed by McClatchy expressed concern over "vindictive" Sunni leadership in Bahrain and stated that the Obama administration was "deeply worried about Bahrain's rapid downward spiral." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Bahrain |
History of the Quran | The New Abbasid Style (NS) began at the end of the 9th century C.E. and was used for copying the Quran until the 12th centuries, and maybe even as late as the 13th century. Unlike manuscripts copied in Early Abbasid scripts, NS manuscripts had vertical formats.
During this time, Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi (died 786) devised a tashkil system to replace that of Abu al-Aswad. His system has been universally used since the early 11th century, and includes six diacritical marks: fatha (a), damma (u), kasra (i), sukun (vowel-less), shadda (double consonant), madda (vowel prolongation; applied to the alif).
Another central figure during this time was Abu Bakr b. Mujāhid (died 324/936). His goal was to restrict the number of reliable readings and accept only those based on a fairly uniform consonantal text. He chose seven well-known Quran teachers of the 2nd/8th century and declared that their readings all had divine authority, which the others lacked. He based this on the popular ḥadith in which Muhammad says the Quran was revealed to him in "seven aḥruf". During this time there was strong Quranic traditions in Kufa, Baṣra, Medina, Damascus, and Mecca. Due to this, Ibn Mujāhid selected one reading each for Medina, Mecca, Baṣra, and Damascus – those of Nafi‘ (died 169/785), Ibn Kathir (died 120/737), Abu ʿAmr (died 154/770), and IbnʿAmir (died 118/736), respectively – and three for Kūfa, those of ʿAsim (died 127/744), Ḥamza (died 156/772), and al-Kisaʾi (died 189/804). His attempt to limit the number of canonical readings to seven was not acceptable to all, and there was strong support for alternative readings in most of the five cities. In the present day the most common reading that is in general use is that of 'Aasim al-Kufi through Hafs.
The 11th-century eastern Quranic manuscript contains the 20th juz' (section) of a Quran that originally consisted of 30 parts. The arrangement into 30 parts corresponds to the number of days in the month of Ramadan, during which the Muslim is obliged to fast and to read through the whole of the Quran. Other sections or fragments of this magnificent manuscript lie scattered in various collections all over the world. A Turkish note ascribes the Quran to the hand of the Caliph Ali, Muhammad's cousin and son-in-law, and thus demonstrates the high significance of this manuscript. The text is written in Eastern Kufic, a monumental script that was developed in Iran in the late 10th century. The writing and the illumination of the manuscript bear witness to the great artistic skills of the calligrapher and the illustrator. The manuscript is at the Bavarian State Library in Munich, Germany. Out of seven complete or nearly complete semi-Kufic Qurans from before the end of the eleventh century, four contain a verse count. Although a small sample, it does suggest that the use of a verse count was a prevalent and quite deeply rooted practice in semi-Kufic Qurans between ca. 950 and ca. 1100.
Abu Ali Muhammad ibn Muqla (died 940), an accomplished calligrapher from Baghdad, was also a prominent figure at this time. He became vizir to three Abbasid caliphs and is credited with developing the first script to obey strict proportional rules. Ibn Muqla's system was used in the development and standardization of the Quranic script, and his calligraphic work became the standard way of writing the Quran. However it was later perfected by Ibn al-Bawwab (d. 1022), the master calligrapher who continued Muqla's tradition. Muqla's system became one of the most popular styles for transcribing Arabic manuscripts in general, being favoured for its legibility. The eleventh century Quran is one of the earliest dated manuscripts in this style.
This "new style" is defined by breaks and angular forms and by extreme contrasts between the thick and thin strokes. The script was initially used in administrative and legal documents, but then it replaced earlier Quranic scripts. It is possible that it was easier to read than the early 'Abbasid scripts, which differ greatly from current writing. Economic factors may also have played a part because while the "new style" was being introduced, paper was also beginning to spread throughout the Muslim world, and the decrease in the price of books triggered by the introduction of this new material seems to have led to an increase in its demand. The "new style" was the last script to spread throughout the Muslim world before the introduction of printing. It remained in use until the 13th century, at which point it was restricted to titles only.: 177 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Quran |
Aten | Aten was extensively worshipped as a solar deity during the reign of Amenhotep III where it was depicted as a falcon-headed god like Ra. While Aten was the preeminent creator deity of a pantheon of ancient Egyptian gods under Amenhotep III, it was not until his successor that Aten would be the only god acknowledged via state worship. During the reign of Amenhotep III's successor, Amenhotep IV, the Aten became the sole god of the Egyptian state religion, and Amenhotep IV changed his name to Akhenaten to reflect his close link with the supreme deity. The sole worship of Aten can be referred to as Atenism. Many of the core principles of Atenism were recorded in the capital city Akhenaten founded and moved his dynastic government to, Akhetaten, referred to as either Amarna, El-Amarna, or Tell el-Amarna by modern scholars.
In Atenism, night is a time to fear. Work is done best when the sun, and thus Aten, is present. The Aten created all countries and people, and cares for every creature. According to the inscriptions, the Aten created a Nile river in the sky (rain) for the Syrians. The rays of the sun disk only holds out life to the royal family, and because of this non-royals receives life from Akhenaten and Nefertiti, later Neferneferuaten, in exchange for loyalty to the Aten. In inscriptions, like the Hymn to the Aten and the King, the Aten is depicted as caring for the people through Akhenaten, placing the royal family as intermediaries for the worship of the Aten. There is only one known instance of the Aten talking.
In the Hymn to Aten, a love for humanity and the Earth is depicted in Aten's mannerisms:
"Aten bends low, near the earth, to watch over his creation; he takes his place in the sky for the same purpose; he wearies himself in the service of the creatures; he shines for them all; he gives them sun and sends them rain. The unborn child and the baby chick are cared for; and Akhenaten asks his divine father to 'lift up' the creatures for his sake so that they might aspire to the condition of perfection of his father, Aten."
Akhenaten represented himself as the son of Aten, mirroring many of his predecessors' claims of divine birth and their positions as the embodiment of Horus. Akhenaten positioned himself as the only intermediary who could speak to Aten, emphasizing the dominance of Aten as the preeminent deity. This has led to discussion of whether Atenism should be considered a monotheistic religion, and thus making it one of the first examples of monotheism.
Aten is both a unique deity and a continuation of the traditional idea of a sun-god in ancient Egyptian religion, deriving a lot of the concepts of power and representation from the earlier solar deities like Ra, but building on top of the power Ra and many of his contemporaries represents. Aten carried absolute power in the universe, representing the life-giving force of light to the world as well as merging with the concept and goddess Ma'at to develop further responsibilities for Aten beyond the power of light itself. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aten |
Nobel Peace Prize | Each year, the Norwegian Nobel Committee specifically invites qualified people to submit nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize. The statutes of the Nobel Foundation specify categories of individuals who are eligible to make nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize. These nominators are:
Members of national assemblies and governments and members of the Inter-Parliamentary Union
Members of the Permanent Court of Arbitration and the International Court of Justice at the Hague
Members of Institut de Droit International
Academics at the professor or associate professor level in history, social sciences, philosophy, law, and theology, university rectors, university directors (or their equivalents), and directors of peace research and international affairs institutes
Previous recipients, including board members of organizations that have received the prize
Present and past members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee
Former permanent advisers to the Norwegian Nobel Institute
The working language of the Norwegian Nobel Committee is Norwegian; in addition to Norwegian the committee has traditionally received nominations in French, German, and English, but today most nominations are submitted in either Norwegian or English. Nominations must usually be submitted to the committee by the beginning of February in the award year. Nominations by committee members can be submitted up to the date of the first Committee meeting after this deadline.
In 2009, a record 205 nominations were received, but the record was broken again in 2010 with 237 nominations; in 2011, the record was broken once again with 241 nominations. The statutes of the Nobel Foundation do not allow information about nominations, considerations, or investigations relating to awarding the prize to be made public for at least 50 years after a prize has been awarded. Over time, many individuals have become known as "Nobel Peace Prize Nominees", but this designation has no official standing, and means only that one of the thousands of eligible nominators suggested the person's name for consideration. Indeed, in 1939, Adolf Hitler received a satirical nomination from a member of the Swedish parliament, mocking the (serious but unsuccessful) nomination of Neville Chamberlain. Nominations from 1901 to 1971 have been released in a database. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Peace_Prize |
Coffeehouse | The first coffeehouse in England was set up on the High Street in Oxford in 1650–1651 by "Jacob the Jew". A second competing coffee house was opened across the street in 1654, by "Cirques Jobson, the Jew" (Queen's Lane Coffee House).
In London, the earliest coffeehouse was established by Pasqua Rosée in 1652.
Anthony Wood observed of the coffee houses of Oxford in his Life and Times (1674) "The decay of study, and consequently of learning, are coffee houses, to which most scholars retire and spend much of the day in hearing and speaking of news". The proprietor was Pasqua Rosée, the servant of a trader in goods from the Ottoman Empire named Daniel Edwards, who imported the coffee and assisted Rosée in setting up the establishment there.
From 1670 to 1685, the number of London coffeehouses began to increase, and they also began to gain political importance due to their popularity as places of debate. English coffeehouses were significant meeting places, particularly in London. By 1675, there were more than 3,000 coffeehouses in England. The coffeehouses were great social levelers, open to all men and indifferent to social status, and as a result associated with equality and republicanism. Entry gave access to books or print news. Coffeehouses boosted the popularity of print news culture and helped the growth of various financial markets including insurance, stocks, and auctions. Lloyd's of London had its origins in a coffeehouse run by Edward Lloyd, where underwriters of ship insurance met to do business. The rich intellectual atmosphere of early London coffeehouses was available to anyone who could pay the sometimes one penny entry fee, giving them the name of 'Penny Universities'.
Though Charles II later tried to suppress London coffeehouses as "places where the disaffected met, and spread scandalous reports concerning the conduct of His Majesty and his Ministers", the public still flocked to them. For several decades following the Restoration, the wits gathered around John Dryden at Will's Coffee House, in Russell Street, Covent Garden. As coffeehouses were believed to be areas where anti-government gossip could easily spread, Queen Mary and the London City magistrates tried to prosecute people who frequented coffeehouses as they were liable to "spread false and seditious reports". William III's privy council also suppressed Jacobite sympathizers in the 1680s and 1690s in coffeehouses as these were the places that they believed harbored plotters against the regimes.
By 1739, there were 551 coffeehouses in London; each attracted a particular clientele divided by occupation or attitude, such as Tories and Whigs, wits and stockjobbers, merchants and lawyers, booksellers and authors, men of fashion or the "cits" of the old city center. According to one French visitor, Antoine François Prévost, coffeehouses, "where you have the right to read all the papers for and against the government", were the "seats of English liberty".
Jonathan's Coffee House in 1698 saw the listing of stock and commodity prices that evolved into the London Stock Exchange. Lloyd's Coffee House provided the venue for merchants and shippers to discuss insurance deals, leading to the establishment of Lloyd's of London insurance market, the Lloyd's Register classification society, and other related businesses. Auctions in salesrooms attached to coffeehouses provided the start for the great auction houses of Sotheby's and Christie's.
In Victorian England, the temperance movement set up coffeehouses (also known as coffee taverns) for the working classes, as a place of relaxation free of alcohol, an alternative to the public house. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffeehouse |
History of hospitals | In the 18th century, under the influence of the Age of Enlightenment, the modern hospital began to appear, serving only medical needs and staffed with trained physicians and surgeons. The nurses were untrained workers. The goal was to use modern methods to cure patients. They provided more narrow medical services, and were founded by the secular authorities. A clearer distinction emerged between medicine and poor relief. Within the hospitals, acute cases were increasingly treated alone, and separate departments were set up for different categories of patient.
The voluntary hospital movement began in the early 18th century, with hospitals being founded in London by the 1710s and 20s, including Westminster Hospital (1719) promoted by the private bank C. Hoare & Co and Guy's Hospital (1724) funded from the bequest of the wealthy merchant, Thomas Guy. Other hospitals sprang up in London and other British cities over the century, many paid for by private subscriptions. St. Bartholomew's in London was rebuilt in 1730, and the London Hospital opened in 1752.
These hospitals represented a turning point in the function of the institution; they began to evolve from being basic places of care for the sick to becoming centres of medical innovation and discovery and the principal place for the education and training of prospective practitioners. Some of the era's greatest surgeons and doctors worked and passed on their knowledge at the hospitals. They also changed from being mere homes of refuge to being complex institutions for the provision of medicine and care for sick. The Charité was founded in Berlin in 1710 by King Frederick I of Prussia as a response to an outbreak of plague.
The concept of voluntary hospitals also spread to Colonial America; the Bellevue Hospital opened in 1736, Pennsylvania Hospital in 1752, New York Hospital in 1771, and Massachusetts General Hospital in 1811. When the Vienna General Hospital opened in 1784 (instantly becoming the world's largest hospital), physicians acquired a new facility that gradually developed into one of the most important research centres.
Another Enlightenment era charitable innovation was the dispensary; these would issue the poor with medicines free of charge. The London Dispensary opened its doors in 1696 as the first such clinic in the British Empire. The idea was slow to catch on until the 1770s, when many such organizations began to appear, including the Public Dispensary of Edinburgh (1776), the Metropolitan Dispensary and Charitable Fund (1779) and the Finsbury Dispensary (1780). Dispensaries were also opened in New York 1771, Philadelphia 1786, and Boston 1796.
Across Europe medical schools still relied primarily on lectures and readings. In the final year, students would have limited clinical experience by following the professor through the wards. Laboratory work was uncommon, and dissections were rarely done because of legal restrictions on cadavers. Most schools were small, and only Edinburgh, Scotland, with 11,000 alumni, produced large numbers of graduates. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_hospitals |
French Algeria | Since the capture of Algiers in 1516 by the Ottoman admirals, brothers Ours and Hayreddin Barbarossa, Algeria had been a base for conflict and piracy in the Mediterranean basin. In 1681, Louis XIV asked Admiral Abraham Duquesne to fight the Berber pirates. He also ordered a large-scale attack on Algiers between 1682 and 1683 on the pretext of assisting and rescuing enslaved Christians, usually Europeans taken as captives in raids. Again, Jean II d'Estrées bombarded Tripoli and Algiers from 1685 to 1688. An ambassador from Algiers visited the Court in Versailles, and a treaty was signed in 1690 that provided peace throughout the 18th century.
During the Directory regime of the First French Republic (1795–99), the Bacri and the Busnach, Jewish merchants of Algiers, provided large quantities of grain for Napoleon's soldiers who participated in the Italian campaign of 1796. But Bonaparte refused to pay the bill, claiming it was excessive. In 1820, Louis XVIII paid back half of the Directory's debts. The Dey, who had loaned the Bacri 250,000 francs, requested the rest of the money from France.
The Dey of Algiers was weak politically, economically, and militarily. Algeria was then part of the Barbary States, along with today's Tunisia; these depended on the Ottoman Empire, then led by Mahmud II but enjoyed relative independence. The Barbary Coast was the stronghold of Berber pirates, who carried out raids against European and American ships. Conflicts between the Barbary States and the newly independent United States of America culminated in the First (1801–05) and Second (1815) Barbary Wars. An Anglo-Dutch force, led by Admiral Lord Exmouth, carried out a punitive expedition, the August 1816 bombardment of Algiers. The Dey was forced to sign the Barbary treaties, because the technological advantage of U.S., British, and French forces overwhelmed the Algerians' expertise at naval warfare.
Following the conquest under the July monarchy, France referred to the Algerian territories as "French possessions in North Africa". This was disputed by the Ottoman Empire, which had not given up its claim. In 1839 Marshal General Jean-de-Dieu Soult, Duke of Dalmatia, first named these territories as "Algeria". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Algeria |
Islamism | During the Cold War, particularly during the 1950s, during the 1960s, and during most of the 1970s, the U.S. and other countries in the Western Bloc occasionally attempted to take advantage of the rise of Islamic religiousity by directing it against secular leftist/communist/nationalist insurgents/adversaries, particularly against the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc states, whose ideology was not just secular but anti-religious.
In 1957, U.S. President Eisenhower and senior U.S. foreign policy officials, agreed on a policy of using the communists' lack of religion against them: "We should do everything possible to stress the 'holy war' aspect" that has currency in the Middle East.
During the 1970s and sometimes later, this aid sometimes went to fledgling Islamists and Islamist groups that later came to be seen as dangerous enemies. The US spent billions of dollars to aid the mujahideen Muslim Afghanistan enemies of the Soviet Union, and non-Afghan veterans of the war (such as Osama bin Laden) returned home with their prestige, "experience, ideology, and weapons", and had considerable impact.
Although it is a strong opponent of Israel's existence, Hamas, officially founded in 1987, traces its origins back to institutions and clerics which were supported by Israel in the 1970s and 1980s. Israel tolerated and supported Islamist movements in Gaza, with figures like Ahmed Yassin, as Israel perceived them preferable to the secular and then more powerful al-Fatah with the PLO.
Egyptian President Anwar Sadat – whose policies included opening Egypt to Western investment (infitah); transferring Egypt's allegiance from the Soviet Union to the United States; and making peace with Israel—released Islamists from prison and welcomed home exiles in tacit exchange for political support in his struggle against leftists. His "encouraging of the emergence of the Islamist movement" was said to have been "imitated by many other Muslim leaders in the years that followed." This "gentlemen's agreement" between Sadat and Islamists broke down in 1975 but not before Islamists came to completely dominate university student unions. Sadat was later assassinated and a formidable insurgency was formed in Egypt in the 1990s. The French government has also been reported to have promoted Islamist preachers "in the hope of channeling Muslim energies into zones of piety and charity." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamism |
Fez, Morocco | After Morocco regained its independence in 1956, many of the trends begun under colonial rule continued and accelerated. Much of Fez's bourgeois classes moved to the growing metropolises of Casablanca and the capital, Rabat.: 26 : 40 The Jewish population was particularly depleted, either moving to Casablanca or emigrating to countries like France, Canada, and Israel. Although the population of the city grew, it did so only slowly up until the late 1960s, when the pace of growth finally accelerated.: 216 Throughout this period Fez nonetheless remained the country's third largest urban center.: 26 : 216 Between 1971 and 2000, the population of the city roughly tripled from 325,000 to 940,000, making it the second largest city in Morocco.: 376 The Ville Nouvelle became the locus of further development, with new peripheral neighbourhoods–with inconsistent housing quality–spreading outwards around it. In 1963 the University of Al-Qarawiyyin was reorganized as a state university, while a new public university, Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University, was founded in 1975 in the Ville Nouvelle. In 1981, the old city, consisting of Fes el-Bali and Fes Jdid, was classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Social inequalities and economic precarity were accentuated during the repressive reign of King Hassan II and the period known as the Years of Lead (roughly 1975–1990).: 170 Fez was strongly affected by unemployment and lack of housing. Austerity measures led to several riots and uprisings across other cities during the 1980s. On December 14, 1990, a general strike was called and led to protests and rioting by university students and youths in Fez. Buildings were burned and looted, including the Hôtel des Mérinides, a luxury hotel overlooking Fes el-Bali and dating to the time of Lyautey. Thousands were arrested and at least five were killed. The government promised to investigate and raise wages, though some of these measures were dismissed by the opposition.: 377
Today Fez remains a regional capital and one of Morocco's most important cities. Many of the former notable families of Fez still make up a large part of the country's political elite. It is also a major tourism destination due to its historical heritage. In recent years efforts have been underway to restore and rehabilitate the old medina, ranging from the restoration of individual monuments to attempts to rehabilitate the Fez River. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fez,_Morocco |
Sharia | Ijtihad lit. 'physical' or 'mental effort' refers to independent reasoning by an expert in Islamic law, or exertion of a jurist's mentality in finding a solution to a legal question in contrast with taqlid (conformity to precedent ijtihad). According to theory, ijtihad requires expertise in the Arabic language, theology, religious texts, and principles of jurisprudence (usul al-fiqh), and is not employed where authentic and trusted texts (Qur'an and hadith) are considered unambiguous with regard to the question, or where there is an existing scholarly consensus (ijma). An Islamic scholar who perform ijtihad is called "mujtahid".
Throughout the first five Islamic centuries, ijtihad continued to practise amongst Sunni Muslims. The controversy surrounding ijtihad started with the beginning of the twelfth century. By the 14th century, Islamic Fiqh prompted leading Sunni jurists to state that the main legal questions had been addressed and then ijtihad was gradually restricted. In the modern era, this gave rise to a perception amongst Orientalist scholars and sections of the Muslim public that the so-called "gate of ijtihad" was closed at the start of the classical era.
Starting from the 18th century, Islamic reformers began calling for abandonment of taqlid and emphasis on ijtihad, which they saw as a return to Islamic origins. The advocacy of ijtihad has been particularly associated with Islamic Modernism and Salafiyya movements. Among contemporary Muslims in the West there have emerged new visions of ijtihad which emphasize substantive moral values over traditional juridical undertandings.
Shia jurists did not use the term ijtihad until the 12th century. With the exception of Zaydis, the early Imami Shia were unanimous in censuring Ijtihad in the field of law (Ahkam) until the Shiite embrace of various doctrines of Mu'tazila and classical Sunnite Fiqh. After the victory of the Usulis who based law on principles (usul) over the Akhbaris ("traditionalists") who emphasized on reports or traditions (khabar) by the 19th century, Ijtihad would become a mainstream Shia practice.
The classical process of ijtihad combined these generally recognized principles with other methods, which were not adopted by all legal schools, such as istihsan (juristic preference), istislah (consideration of public interest) and istishab (presumption of continuity).
Considering that, as a rule, there was a hierarchy and power ranking among the sources of Sharia; for example, a subcategory or an auxiliary source will not be able to eliminate a provision clearly stated in the main source or prohibit a practice that was not prohibited though it was known and practiced during the prophetic period. If we look at an example such as the abolition of the validity of Mut'a marriage, is touched upon in the Quran 4:24, and not prohibited (Sunnis translate the words used in the relevant verse with terms used to describe the ordinary marriage event) according to Sunnis is banned by Muhammad towards the end of his lifetime, and according to Shiites, by Omar, "according to his own opinion" and reliying on power. The Shiite sect did not accept the jurisprudence of Omar, whose political and religious authority they rejected from the beginning. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharia |
Doha | In 2001, Qatar became the first country in the Middle East to hold a women's tennis tournament with the inauguration of its Qatar Ladies Open tournament. Doha also hosts International Tennis Federation (ITF) ladies tournaments. Since 2008, the Sony Ericsson Championships (equivalent to the ATP's season-ending Championships) has taken place in Doha, in the Khalifa International Tennis Complex, and features record prize money of $4.45 million, including a check of $1,485,000 for the winner, which represents the largest single guaranteed payout in women's tennis.
Doha hosted the 15th Asian Games, held in December 2006, spending a total of $2.8 billion for its preparation. The city also hosted the 3rd West Asian Games in December 2005. Doha was expected to host the 2011 Asian Indoor Games; but the Qatar Olympic Committee cancelled the event.
The city submitted a bid for the 2016 Olympics. On June 4, 2008, the city was eliminated from the shortlist for the 2016 Olympic Games. On August 26, 2011, it was confirmed that Doha would bid for the 2020 Summer Olympics. Doha however failed to become a Candidate City for the 2020 Games.
The MotoGP motorcycling grand prix of Doha is held annually at Losail International Circuit, located just outside the city boundaries. The city is also the location of the Grand Prix of Qatar for the F1 Powerboat World Championship, annually hosting a round in Doha Bay. Beginning in November 2009, Doha has been host of The Oryx Cup World Championship, a hydroplane boat race in the H1 Unlimited season. The races take place in Doha Bay.
In April 2012 Doha was awarded both the 2014 FINA World Swimming Championships and the 2012 World Squash Championships. The fourth World Mindsports Championships took place in Doha from August 19 to August 27, 2017, with the participation of more than 1,000 competitors.
In 2014, Qatar was selected as the host of the 2019 World Athletics Championships, which is the seventeenth edition of the IAAF World Athletics Championships. Doha won the bid to host the event over Barcelona and Eugene.
In 2020, Doha hosted the Qatar ExxonMobil Open, which received the Tournament of the Year award in the 250 category from the 2019 ATP Awards. The tournament won the award for the third time in five years.
Doha will host the 2030 Asian Games. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doha |
Qatari art | Five main art movements emerged in the country by the late 20th century: surrealism, realism, expressionism, abstract art, and calligraphy.
In 1986, Qatar University established its Art Education Department. In the beginning, the program did not have many participants, but it gradually became a more popular field of study over time. The initial 1986 class only had two women students. This increased to eight in 1987 and eventually exceeded 20 female students a few years later. The curriculum included both theoretical courses (covering education, art history, and criticism) and practical courses focused on various art forms (drawing, painting, ceramics, design).
A member of the ruling family, Hassan bin Mohamed bin Ali Al Thani, has been an instrumental figure in developing Qatar's modern art industry since the 1980s. Among his art-related activities was establishing his own museum which doubled as a residency space for Doha-based artists in 1994, and establishing the Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art in 2010 to which he donated his entire art collection, which he had begun assembling in 1986.
In 1998, Department of Culture and Arts was integrated into the newly established National Council for Culture, Arts and Heritage.
The early 2000s saw a significant increase in female artistic talent in Qatar. Many women artists, such as Nadia Al-Mudihki, Amal Al-Atham, and Hanadi Darwish, assumed leadership roles in art centers. Hanadi Darwish, for example, is a plastic artist who became the chairwoman of the Girls Creativity Center, which is under the supervision Ministry of Youth. These centers provided emerging women artists with opportunities for artistic development through various training centers and international courses.
When a quartet comprising Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, and Egypt severed all ties with and imposed a blockade of Qatar on 5 June 2017, Qatari artist Ahmed Al-Maadheed created an illustration known as Tamim Almajd (2017), which translates to "Tamim the Glorious". A simple black and white sketch of Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, beneath which is the text "Tamim Almajd" in the style of Arabic calligraphy, the illustration has become symbolic of Qatari nationalism. During the diplomatic spat, the image was displayed prominently on buildings, in media and art in Qatar. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatari_art |
Middle East | Middle Eastern economies range from being very poor (such as Gaza and Yemen) to extremely wealthy nations (such as Qatar and UAE). Overall, as of 2007, according to the CIA World Factbook, all nations in the Middle East are maintaining a positive rate of growth.
According to the International Monetary Fund, the three largest Middle Eastern economies in nominal GDP in 2023 were Saudi Arabia ($1.062 trillion), Turkey ($1.029 trillion), and Israel ($539 billion). Regarding nominal GDP per capita, the highest ranking countries are Qatar ($83,891), Israel ($55,535), the United Arab Emirates ($49,451) and Cyprus ($33,807). Turkey ($3.573 trillion), Saudi Arabia ($2.301 trillion), and Iran ($1.692 trillion) had the largest economies in terms of GDP PPP. When it comes to GDP PPP per capita, the highest-ranking countries are Qatar ($124,834), the United Arab Emirates ($88,221), Saudi Arabia ($64,836), Bahrain ($60,596) and Israel ($54,997). The lowest-ranking country in the Middle East, in terms of GDP nominal per capita, is Yemen ($573).
The economic structure of Middle Eastern nations are different in the sense that while some nations are heavily dependent on export of only oil and oil-related products (such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Kuwait), others have a highly diverse economic base (such as Cyprus, Israel, Turkey and Egypt). Industries of the Middle Eastern region include oil and oil-related products, agriculture, cotton, cattle, dairy, textiles, leather products, surgical instruments, defence equipment (guns, ammunition, tanks, submarines, fighter jets, UAVs, and missiles). Banking is also an important sector of the economies, especially in the case of UAE and Bahrain.
With the exception of Cyprus, Turkey, Egypt, Lebanon and Israel, tourism has been a relatively undeveloped area of the economy, in part because of the socially conservative nature of the region as well as political turmoil in certain regions of the Middle East. In recent years, however, countries such as the UAE, Bahrain, and Jordan have begun attracting greater numbers of tourists because of improving tourist facilities and the relaxing of tourism-related restrictive policies.
Unemployment is notably high in the Middle East and North Africa region, particularly among young people aged 15–29, a demographic representing 30% of the region's total population. The total regional unemployment rate in 2005, according to the International Labour Organization, was 13.2%, and among youth is as high as 25%, up to 37% in Morocco and 73% in Syria. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_East |
Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab | Upon his expulsion from 'Uyayna, Ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab was invited to settle in neighboring Diriyah by its ruler Muhammad ibn Saud Al Muqrin. After some time in Diriyah, Ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab concluded his second and more successful agreement with a ruler. Ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab and Muhammad bin Saud agreed that, together, they would bring the Arabs of the peninsula back to the "true" principles of Islam as they saw it. According to the anonymous author of Lam al-Shihab (Brilliance of the Meteor), when they first met, Ibn Saud declared:"This oasis is yours, do not fear your enemies. By the name of God, if all Nejd was summoned to throw you out, we will never agree to expel you."
Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab replied:"You are the settlement's chief and wise man. I want you to grant me an oath that you will perform jihad against the unbelievers. In return, you will be imam, leader of the Muslim community and I will be leader in religious matters."
The agreement was confirmed with a mutual oath of loyalty (bay'ah) in 1744. Once Al-Sa'ud made Dir'iyya a safe haven, Wahhabis from other towns took refuge. These included dissenters from Ibn Mu'ammar clan who had sworn allegiance to Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab. The nucleus of Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab's supporters all across Najd retreated to Dir'iyyah and formed the vanguard of the insurgency launched by Al-Saud against other towns.
From a person who started his career as a lone activist, Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab would become the spiritual guide of the nascent Emirate of Muhammad ibn Saud Al-Muqrin. Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab would be responsible for religious matters and Ibn Saud in charge of political and military issues. This agreement became a "mutual support pact" and power-sharing arrangement between the Aal Saud family, and the Aal ash-Sheikh and followers of Ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab, which had remained in place for nearly 300 years, providing the ideological impetus to Saudi expansion. Reviving the teachings of Ibn Taymiyya, the Muwaḥḥidūn (Unitarian) movement emphasized strict adherence to Qur'an and Sunnah; while simultaneously championing the conception of an Islamic state based on the model of early Muslim community in Medina. Meanwhile, it's Muslim and Western opponents derogatorily labelled the movement as the "Wahhābiyyah" ( anglicised as "Wahhabism" ). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_ibn_Abd_al-Wahhab |
History of Bahrain (1783–1971) | Unlike regular tribal councils, the ruler had a supreme council known as diwan and used physical coercion to collect tax or whatever they wanted from people. In the words of Khuri (1980) the ruler was "the 'government' without offices, the 'administration' without bureaucracy [and] the 'state' without public delegation or consent, standardized law or equity." The autonomy of the ruler was not much different in terms of quality from that of other sheikhs (members of Al Khalifa family) who controlled an estate, except that he had higher quantity of resources and assets. The Ruler controlled all ports and markets, and many estates including Manama and Muharraq, the two largest cities of the country. The administration apparatus at Manama and Muharraq was headed by a high ranking fidawi known as emir and composed of thirty other fidawis. In Riffa, where Sunni Arab tribes lived, the emir was an Al Khalifa member.
There was no distinction between the ruler's private income and public revenue, instead all public revenues including taxes and rentals were considered private earnings of the ruler. Much of the revenue was spent on ruler's retinue and so little or none at all on infrastructure such as schools and roads, and when it occurred, it was thought of as a personal act of charity. Distant relatives of the ruler were assigned to manage his estates and his brothers and sons were given their own estates in order to avoid internal conflicts. Government-related jobs were exclusive to the Sunnis whereas market-related were confined to the Shia and foreigners. The ruler and most sheikhs lived in Muharraq city and none lived in the Shia villages. Their fidawis and council members followed them wherever they lived.
Fidawis were the military arm of the authority; their main job was to execute sheikhs orders via physical coercion. They were composed of Baluchis, African slaves and Sunni Arabs whose tribal origin could not be traced. They had sticks and were authorized to interrogate, arrest and punish those deemed wrongdoers. Fidawis arbitrary way of handling law and order was complained about by Bahrainis. Fidawis were also responsible for claiming forced labor, known as sukhra (Arabic: السخرة) in which they would round up a random group of adult males from public places such as the market and then assign them using force to a specific task. The men would not be freed until they complete the task, which usually did not require skillful labor and could be finished in no more than two days (e.g. construction). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Bahrain_(1783%E2%80%931971) |
Upper Egypt | The main city of prehistoric Upper Egypt was Nekhen. The patron deity was the goddess Nekhbet, depicted as a vulture.
By approximately 3600 BC, Neolithic Egyptian societies along the Nile based their culture on the raising of crops and the domestication of animals. Shortly thereafter, Egypt began to grow and increase in complexity. A new and distinctive pottery appeared, related to the Levantine ceramics, and copper implements and ornaments became common. Mesopotamian building techniques became popular, using sun-dried adobe bricks in arches and decorative recessed walls.
In Upper Egypt, the predynastic Badari culture was followed by the Naqada culture (Amratian), closely related to the Lower Nubian; other northeast African populations and some tropical African groups. Also, the proto-dynastic kings emerged from the Naqada region. Excavations at Hierakonpolis (Upper Egypt) found archaeological evidence of ritual masks similar to those used further south of Egypt, and obsidian linked to Ethiopian quarry sites.
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 Lower Nubia. He further elaborated that "Egyptian writing arose in Naqadan Upper Egypt and A-Group Lower Nubia, and not in the Delta cultures, where the direct Western Asian contact was made, further vititates the Mesopotamian-influence argument".
Similarly, Christopher Ehret, historian and linguist, stated that the cultural practice of sacral chiefship and kingship which emerged in Upper Egypt in the fourth millennium had originated centuries earlier in Nubia and the Middle Nile south of Egypt. He based this judgement on supporting, archaeological and comparative ethnographic evidence.
According to bioarchaeologist Nancy Lovell, the morphology of ancient Egyptian skeletons gives strong evidence that "In general, the inhabitants of Upper Egypt and Nubia had the greatest biological affinity to people of the Sahara and more southerly areas" but exhibited local variation in an African context.
S. O. Y. Keita, a biological anthropologist also reviewed studies on the biological affinities of the Ancient Egyptian population and characterised the skeletal morphologies of predynastic southern Egyptians as a "Saharo-tropical African variant". Keita had also added that whilst Egyptian society became more socially complex and biologically varied, the "ethnicity of the Niloto-Saharo-Sudanese origins did not change".
These cultural advances paralleled the political unification of towns of the upper Nile River, or Upper Egypt, while the same occurred in the societies of the Nile Delta, or Lower Egypt. This led to warfare between the two new kingdoms. During his reign in Upper Egypt, King Narmer defeated his enemies on the delta and became sole ruler of the two lands of Upper and Lower Egypt, a sovereignty which endured throughout Dynastic Egypt. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_Egypt |
Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict | Saudi Arabia and Iran have sought to extend their influence in Bahrain for decades. While the majority of Muslims in Bahrain are Shia, the country is ruled by the Sunni Al Khalifa family – who are widely viewed as being subservient to the Saudi government. Iran claimed sovereignty over Bahrain until 1970, when Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi abandoned claims after negotiations with the United Kingdom. The Iranian Revolution led to resumed interest in Bahraini affairs. In 1981, the front organization Islamic Front for the Liberation of Bahrain led a failed coup attempt to install a Shia theocratic regime led by Hadi al-Modarresi. Since then, the government has accused Iran of supporting terrorist plots within its borders.
Sunni states have long feared that Iran might stir up unrest among regional Shia minority populations, especially in Bahrain. Bahrain government's stability depends heavily on Saudi support. The island is connected to Saudi Arabia by the 25 kilometer King Fahd Causeway, and its proximity to Saudi Arabia's oil-rich, the Saudi Shia minority in Eastern Province is viewed by Riyadh as a security concern. Any political gains by the Shia in Bahrain are seen by the Saudis as gains for Iran.
In response to the Arab Spring in 2011, the GCC governments sought to maintain their power through social reform, economic handouts, and violent repression. Member states also distributed a share of their combined oil wealth to Bahrain and Oman to maintain stability. Saudi-led GCC forces quickly intervened in support of the government of Bahraini to put down the anti-government uprising in Bahrain.
The Bahraini government publicly blamed Iran for the protests, but an independent commission established by King Hamad rejected the claim, instead highlighting human rights abuses committed in the crackdown. The protests, along with the Iran nuclear deal, strained Bahrain's relationship with the United States. Bahrain has sought closer ties with Russia as a result, but this has been limited due to Saudi Arabia's alliance with the US.
Following the onset of the Arab Winter, Bahrain accused Iran of orchestrating several domestic incidents as part of a campaign to destabilize the country. Tehran denied all allegations and accused the government of Bahrain of blaming its own internal problems on Iran after every incident. In August 2015, authorities in Bahrain arrested five suspects over a bombing in Sitra. Officials linked the attacks to the Revolutionary Guard and Hezbollah, although Iran denied any involvement. In January 2016, Bahrain joined Saudi Arabia in cutting diplomatic ties with Tehran following the attacks on Saudi diplomatic missions in Iran. In November 2017, Bahrain called an explosion on its main oil pipeline "terrorist sabotage" linked to Iran, drawing a rebuke from Tehran. Saudi Arabia also referred to the incident as an "attack on the pipeline". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Saudi_Arabia_proxy_conflict |
Nimrod | Historians, Orientalists, Assyriologists and mythographers have long tried to find links between the Nimrod of biblical texts and real historically attested figures in Mesopotamia. No king named Nimrod or with a similar name appears anywhere on any pre-biblical, extra-biblical or historic Sumerian, Akkadian, Assyrian or Babylonian king list, nor does the name Nimrod appear in any other writings from Mesopotamia itself or its neighbours in any context whatsoever during the Bronze Age, Iron Age or pre-Christian Classical Age.
Since the city of Akkad was destroyed and lost with the destruction of its Empire in the period 2200–2154 BC (long chronology), the much later biblical stories mentioning Nimrod seem to recall the late Early Bronze Age. The association with Erech (Sumero-Akkadian Uruk), a city that lost its prime importance around 2000 BC as a result of struggles between Isin, Ur, Larsa and Elam, also attests the early provenance of the stories of Nimrod. Several Mesopotamian ruins were given Nimrod's name by invading 8th-century AD Muslim Arabs, including the ruins of the Assyrian city of Kalhu (the biblical Calah), which contrary to biblical claims was in reality built by Shalmaneser I (1274–1244 BC)
A number of attempts to connect him with historical figures have been made without any success.
The Christian Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea as early as the early 4th century, noting that the Babylonian historian Berossus in the 3rd century BC had stated that the first king after the flood was Euechoios of Chaldea (in reality Chaldea was a small state historically not founded until the late 9th century BC), identified him with Nimrod. George Syncellus (c. 800) also had access to Berossus, and he too identified the also historically unattested Euechoios with the biblical Nimrod.
More recently, Sumerologists have suggested additionally connecting both this Euechoios, and the king of Babylon and grandfather of Gilgamos who appears in the oldest copies of Aelian (c. 200 AD) as Euechoros, with the name of the founder of Uruk known from cuneiform sources as Enmerkar.
In 1920, J. D. Prince also suggested a possible link between the Lord (Ni) of Marad and Nimrod. He mentioned how Dr. Kraeling was now inclined to connect Nimrod historically with Lugal-Banda, a mythological Sumerian king mentioned in Poebel, Historical Texts, 1914, whose seat was at the city Marad.
According to Ronald Hendel the name Nimrod is probably a much later polemical distortion of the Semitic Assyrian god Ninurta, a prominent god in Mesopotamian religion who had cult centers in a number of Assyrian cities such as Kalhu, and also in Babylon, and was a patron god of a number of Assyrian kings, and that 'Cush' is a mistranslation of Kish, a Mesopotamian city. Nimrod's imperial ventures described in Genesis may be based on the conquests of the Assyrian king Tukulti-Ninurta I.
Julian Jaynes also indicates Tukulti-Ninurta I (a powerful king of the Middle Assyrian Empire) as the inspiration for Nimrod.
Alexander Hislop, in his tract The Two Babylons (1853), identified Nimrod with Ninus (also unattested anywhere in Mesopotamian king lists), who according to Greek mythology was a Mesopotamian king and husband of Queen Semiramis, with a whole host of deities throughout the Mediterranean world, and with the Persian Zoroaster. The identification with Ninus follows that of the Clementine Recognitions; the one with Zoroaster, that of the Clementine Homilies, both works part of Clementine literature. Hislop attributed to Semiramis and Nimrod the invention of polytheism and, with it, goddess worship, and that their incestuous male offering was Tammuz. He also claimed that the Catholic Church was a millennia-old secret conspiracy, founded by Semiramis and Nimrod to propagate the pagan religion of ancient Babylon. Grabbe and others have rejected the book's arguments as based on a flawed understanding of the texts, but variations of them are accepted among some groups of evangelical Protestants.
There was a historical Assyrian queen Shammuramat in the 9th century BC, in reality the wife of Shamshi-Adad V, whom Assyriologists have identified with Semiramis, while others make her a later namesake of a much earlier (again, historically unattested) Semiramis.
In David Rohl's theory, Enmerkar, the Sumerian founder of Uruk, was the original inspiration for Nimrod, because the story of Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta bears a few similarities to the legend of Nimrod and the Tower of Babel, and because the -KAR in Enmerkar means "hunter". Additionally, Enmerkar is said to have had ziggurats built in both Uruk and Eridu, which Rohl postulates was the site of the original Babel.
Others have attempted to conflate Nimrod with Amraphel, a supposed king in Mesopotamia, but yet again, one who is himself historically unattested in Mesopotamian records.
George Rawlinson believed Nimrod was Belus, based on the fact Babylonian and Assyrian inscriptions bear the names Bel-Nibru. The word Nibru in the East Semitic Akkadian language of Akkad, Assyria and Babylonia comes from a root meaning to 'pursue' or to make 'one flee', and as Rawlinson pointed out not only does this closely resemble Nimrod's name but it also perfectly fits the description of Nimrod in Genesis 10:9 as a great hunter. The Belus-Nimrod equation or link is also found in many old works such as Moses of Chorene and the Book of the Bee. Nibru, in the Sumerian language, was the original name of the city of Nippur.
Joseph Poplicha wrote in 1929 about the identification of Nimrod in the first dynasty or Uruk.
More recently, Yigal Levin (2002) suggests that the fictional Nimrod was a recollection of Sargon of Akkad and also of his grandson Naram-Sin, with the name "Nimrod" derived from the latter. He argues that:
The biblical Nimrod, then, is not a total counterpart of any one historical character. He is rather the later composite Hebrew equivalent of the Sargonid dynasty: the first, mighty king to rule after the flood. Later influence modified the legend in the Mesopotamian tradition, adding such details as the hero's name, his territory and some of his deeds, and most important his title, "King of Kish". The much later editors of the Book of Genesis dropped much of the original story and mistakenly misidentified and mistranslated the Mesopotamian Kish with the "Hamitic" Cush, there being no ancient geographical, ethnic, linguistic, cultural, genetic or historical connection between Cush (in modern northern Sudan) and Mesopotamia. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nimrod |
Agriculture in Jordan | Although the agricultural sector's share of GNP declined in comparison with other sectors of the economy, farming remained economically important and production grew in absolute terms. Between 1975 and 1985, total production of cereals and beans rose by almost 150 percent, and production of vegetables rose by more than 200 percent, almost all of the increase occurring between 1975 and 1980. Production of certain cash export crops, such as olives, tobacco, and fruit, more than quadrupled. Because farming had remained labor-intensive, by one estimate about 20 percent to 30 percent of the male work force continued to depend on farming for its livelihood.
Even with increased production, the failure of agriculture to keep pace with the growth of the rest of the economy, however, resulted in an insufficient domestic food supply. Jordan thus needed to import such staples as cereals, grains, and meat. Wheat imports averaged about 350,000 tons (12.9 million bushels) per year, ten to twenty times the amount produced domestically. Red meat imports cost more than JD30 million per year, and onion and potato imports cost between JD3 million and JD4 million per year. Between 1982 and 1985, the total food import bill averaged about JD180 million per year, accounting for more than 15 percent of total imports during the period. At the same time, cash crop exports—for example, the export of 7,000 metric tons of food to Western Europe in 1988—generated about JD40 million per year, yielding a net food deficit of JD140 million. One emerging problem in the late 1980s was the erosion of Jordan's traditional agricultural export market. The wealthy oil-exporting states of the Arabian Peninsula, concerned about their "food security," were starting to replace imports from Jordan with food produced domestically at costs far higher than world market prices, using expensive desalinated water.
Jordan's population growth has increased the demand for food. However, Jordan imports the vast majority of its basic food crops, including nearly 100% of cereals. The agriculture sector has been growing and has doubled its share of GDP from 2-4% in the past 5 years the main driven by domestic demand. One significant challenge for the Agriculture sector is that while it provides just 19% of Jordan's food requirements and employs only 1.8% of Jordan's workforce, it withdraws 65% of
Jordan's freshwater resources. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_Jordan |
Sabah (singer) | Sabah emerged in a period when the field of Arab singers included many notable talents, such as Umm Kulthum (1898-1975), Nagat El Saghira (born 1938), Warda Al-Jazairia (1939–2012), Shadia (1931–2017), Fairuz (born 1934), among others.
Sabah began singing at a young age and released her first song in Lebanon in 1940 at the age of 13. In the early 1940s, she was invited to Egypt by actress and producer Assia Dagher. Sabah acted alongside Dagher in her first movie, El-Qalb Luh Wahid (The Heart Has Its Reasons), released in 1945, which brought her regional fame. She then became widely known by her character's name, Sabah, which means "morning" in Arabic. Sabah also acquired several affectionate nicknames, including "Chahroura" ("songbird"), "Ustura" ("legend"), "Shams Al Shamoos" ("The Sun of the Suns"), and "Sabbouha," a diminutive of Sabah.
Among Sabah's most popular films were The Night is Ours (1949), My Father Deceived Me (1951), That's What Love Is (1961), Soft Hands (1963), Three Women (1968), Paris and Love (1972), and The Second Man (1959), where she played a cabaret singer seeking to avenge her brother's death at the hands of a smuggling ring.
In the 1990s, Sabah and her former husband, Fadi Lubnan (Kuntar), produced a documentary about her life. Titled The Journey of My Life (مشوار حياتي), the documentary aired on Future Television.
Throughout her music career, Sabah recorded over 3,000 songs, collaborating with numerous renowned Egyptian composers, including the late Mohammed Abdel Wahab. She specialized in the Lebanese folk tradition known as mawal, and among her most famous songs were "Zay el-Assal" ("Your Love is Like Honey on my Heart") and "Akhadou el-Reeh" ("They Took the Wind"). Sabah released more than 50 albums and appeared in 98 films. Known for her youthful spirit and vibrant performances, she became a symbolic figure of the "belle époque" and the "joie de vivre" in the Levant and the Arab world. Despite the Lebanese civil war, she continued to sing at weddings in Lebanon.
Until 2009, Sabah performed in concerts and on television, including appearances on programs like Star Academy. She collaborated closely with singer Rola Saad in remaking some of her previous hits, such as "Yana Yana". The accompanying video, which pays tribute to Sabah as "the notorious diva", received significant airplay on Arabic music channels. Additionally, Sabah hosted the TV show Akher Man Yalam on 31 May 2010.
During the 2011 Beiteddine Art Festival, a performance was staged that retraced Sabah's journey as a singer and movie star. Rouwaida Attieh played the title role, alongside more than 40 singers and dancers, paying tribute to Sabah's contributions.
In 2010, Sabah retired from public life due to health reasons, which resulted in paralysis affecting one of her arms and legs. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabah_(singer) |
First Crusade | The crusader army, without Baldwin and Tancred, had marched on to Antioch, situated midway between Constantinople and Jerusalem. Described in a letter by Stephen of Blois as "a city very extensive, fortified with incredible strength and almost impregnable", the idea of taking the city by assault was a discouraging one to the crusaders. Hoping rather to force a capitulation, or find a traitor inside the city—a tactic that had previously seen Antioch change to the control of the Byzantines and then the Seljuk Turks—the crusader army began a siege on 20 October 1097. Antioch was so large that the crusaders did not have enough troops to fully surround it, and as a result it was able to stay partially supplied. The subsequent Siege of Antioch has been called the "most interesting siege in history."
By January the attritional eight-month siege led to hundreds, or possibly thousands, of crusaders dying of starvation. Adhemar believed this to have been caused by their sinful nature, and rituals of fasting, prayer, alms-giving and procession were undertaken. Women were expelled from the camp. Many deserted, including Stephen of Blois. Foraging systems eased the situation, as did supplies from Cicilia and Edessa, through the recently captured ports of Latakia and St Symeon. In March a small English fleet arrived with supplies. The Franks benefited from disunity in the Muslim world and the possibility that they mistakenly believed the crusaders to be Byzantine mercenaries. The Seljuk brothers, Duqaq of Syria and Ridwan of Aleppo, dispatched separate relief armies in December and February that, had they been combined, would probably have been victorious.
After these failures, Kerbogha raised a coalition from southern Syria, northern Iraq and Anatolia with the ambition of extending his power from Syria to the Mediterranean. His coalition first spent three weeks attempting to recapture Saruj, a decisive delay.
Bohemond persuaded the other leaders that, if Antioch fell, he would keep it for himself and that an Armenian commander of a section of the city's walls had agreed to allow the crusaders to enter.
Stephen of Blois had deserted, and his message to Alexios that the cause was lost persuaded the Emperor to halt his advance through Anatolia at Philomelium before returning to Constantinople. (Alexios' failure to reach the siege would be used by Bohemond to rationalise his refusal to return the city to the Empire as promised.)
The Armenian Firouz helped Bohemond and a small party enter the city on 2 June and open a gate, at which point horns were sounded, the city's Christian majority opened the other gates and the crusaders entered. In the sack, they killed most of the Muslim inhabitants and many Christian Greeks, Syrians and Armenians in the confusion.
On 4 June the vanguard of Kerbogha's 40,000-strong army arrived surrounding the Franks. From 10 June for 4 days waves of Kerbogha's men assailed the city walls from dawn until dusk. Bohemond and Adhemar barred the city gates to prevent mass desertions and managed to hold out. Kerbogha then changed tactics to try to starve the crusaders out. Morale inside the city was low and defeat looked imminent but a peasant visionary called Peter Bartholomew claimed the apostle St, Andrew came to him to show the location of the Holy Lance that had pierced Christ on the cross. This supposedly encouraged the crusaders but the accounts are misleading as it was two weeks before the final battle for the city. On 24 June the Franks sought terms for surrender that were refused. On 28 June 1098 at dawn, the Franks marched out of the city in four battle groups to engage the enemy. Kerbogha allowed them to deploy with the aim of destroying them in the open. However, the discipline of the Muslim army did not hold and a disorderly attack was launched. Unable to overrun a bedraggled force they outnumbered two-to-one, Muslims attacking the Bridge Gate fled through the advancing main body of the Muslim army. With very few casualties the Muslim army broke and fled the battle.
Stephen of Blois was in Alexandretta when he learned of the situation in Antioch. It seemed like their situation was hopeless so he left the Middle East, warning Alexios and his army on his way back to France. Because of what looked like a massive betrayal, the leaders at Antioch, most notably Bohemond, argued that Alexios had deserted the Crusade and thus invalidated all of their oaths to him. While Bohemond asserted his claim to Antioch, not everyone agreed (most notably Raymond of Toulouse), so the crusade was delayed for the rest of the year while the nobles argued amongst themselves. When discussing this period, a common historiographical viewpoint advanced by some scholars is that the Franks of northern France, the Provençals of southern France, and the Normans of southern Italy considered themselves separate nations, creating turmoil as each tried to increase its individual status. Others argue that while this may have had something to do with the disputes, personal ambition among the Crusader leaders might be just as easily blamed.
Meanwhile, a plague broke out, killing many in the army, including the legate Adhemar, who died on 1 August. There were now even fewer horses than before, and worse, the Muslim peasants in the area refused to supply the crusaders with food. Thus, in December, following the Siege of Ma'arrat al-Numan, some historians described the first occurrence of cannibalism among the crusaders, even though this account does not appear in any contemporary Muslim chronicle. At the same time, the minor knights and soldiers had become increasingly restless and threatened to continue to Jerusalem without their squabbling leaders. Finally, at the beginning of 1099, the march restarted, leaving Bohemond behind as the first Prince of Antioch. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Crusade |
Marriage | Islam also commends marriage, with the age of marriage being whenever the individuals feel ready, financially and emotionally.
In Islam, polygyny is allowed while polyandry is not, with the specific limitation that a man can have no more than four legal wives at any one time and an unlimited number of female slaves as concubines who may have rights similar wives, with the exception of not being free unless the man has children with them, with the requirement that the man is able and willing to partition his time and wealth equally among the respective wives and concubines (this practice of concubinage, as in Judaism, is not applicable in contemporary times and has been deemed by scholars as invalid due to shifts in views about the role of slavery in the world).
For a Muslim wedding to take place, the bridegroom and the guardian of the bride (wali) must both agree on the marriage. Should the guardian disagree on the marriage, it may not legally take place. If the wali of the girl is her father or paternal grandfather, he has the right to force her into marriage even against her proclaimed will, if it is her first marriage. A guardian who is allowed to force the bride into marriage is called wali mujbir.
From an Islamic (Sharia) law perspective, the minimum requirements and responsibilities in a Muslim marriage are that the groom provide living expenses (housing, clothing, food, maintenance) to the bride, and in return, the bride's main responsibility is raising children to be proper Muslims. All other rights and responsibilities are to be decided between the husband and wife, and may even be included as stipulations in the marriage contract before the marriage actually takes place, so long as they do not go against the minimum requirements of the marriage.
In Sunni Islam, marriage must take place in the presence of at least two reliable witnesses, with the consent of the guardian of the bride and the consent of the groom. Following the marriage, the couple may consummate the marriage. To create an 'urf marriage, it is sufficient that a man and a woman indicate an intention to marry each other and recite the requisite words in front of a suitable Muslim. The wedding party usually follows but can be held days, or months later, whenever the couple and their families want to; however, there can be no concealment of the marriage as it is regarded as public notification due to the requirement of witnesses.
In Shia Islam, marriage may take place without the presence of witnesses as is often the case in temporary Nikah mut'ah (prohibited in Sunni Islam), but with the consent of both the bride and the groom. Following the marriage, they may consummate their marriage. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage |
Madinat al-Zahra | The palaces housed the caliph's household, including a large number of concubines. The residents were served by a large body of slaves, including eunuchs, of mostly European origin. The city also contained a throne hall or audience chamber (the Salón Rico), government offices, workshops that produced luxury objects, the residences of high officials, and – on the lower levels of the city – markets and residential districts for the common workers. The city had a manager, a judge, and a police chief. Under the cultured caliph Al-Hakam II in particular, there was also a library which by some accounts contained hundreds of thousands of volumes in Arabic, Greek, and Latin. The main congregational mosque and one or more small neighbourhood mosques provided religious services.
The palaces were furnished with silks, tapestries, and various luxury objects. Many objects produced in the caliph's official workshops were given as gifts and have made their way into the collections of museums and Christian cathedrals. Among the wonders reported by historical chronicles about the palaces, Al-Maqqari described a domed hall in the palace which contained a pool of liquid mercury which reflected light and could be stirred to create dazzling ripples of light, although the location of this hall has not been found by modern archeologists.
The new caliphate also developed an increasingly elaborate culture of court protocols around the figure of the caliph. Lavish festivals and receptions were hosted to impress foreign ambassadors. The organisation of the city seems to have included a specific path to be followed by foreign guests and dignitaries on their way to the caliph's audience chamber, which was fronted by gardens and pools with vistas over the rest of the city and the valley below. The caliph himself would appear seated at the back and center of his audience chamber, surrounded by courtiers and officials, with the architecture designed to focus on his position. While the caliph increasingly took on an air of aloofness during this period, the protocols did not evolve to the point of hiding him completely from view – by contrast with the Fatimid caliphs in Africa, who were kept hidden behind a veil.
Various members of the caliph's family, or other wealthy elites, also built their own villas and palaces in the countryside around Cordoba during this period of prosperity in the 10th century. This was a tradition which had existed since the early days of the Emirate and possibly derived from the Roman villa tradition. The caliph even kept some family members in such villas in order to distance them from the center of power in Madinat al-Zahra, providing them with a generous stipend so they wouldn't cause trouble. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madinat_al-Zahra |
Enamelled glass | Glass is enamelled by mixing powdered glass, either already coloured (more usual) or clear glass mixed with the pigments, with a binder such as gum arabic that gives a thick liquid texture allowing it to be painted with brushes. Generally the desired colours only appear when the piece is fired, adding to the artist's difficulties. As with enamel on metal, gum tragacanth may be used to make sharp boundaries to the painted areas. The paint is applied to the vessel, which has already been fully formed; this is called the "blank" . Once painted, the enamelled glass vessel needs to be fired at a temperature high enough to melt the applied powder, but low enough that the vessel itself is only "softened" sufficiently to fuse the enamel with the glass surface, but not enough to deform or melt the original shape (unless this is desired, as it may be). The binding and demarcating substances burn away.
Until recent centuries the enamel firing was done holding the vessel in a furnace on a pontil (long iron rod), with the glassmaker paying careful attention to any changes in the shape. Many pieces show two pontil marks on the base, where the pontil intruded on the glass, showing it had been on the furnace twice, before and after the enamels were applied. Modern techniques, in use since the 19th century, use enamels with a lower melting point, enabling the second firing to be done more conveniently in a kiln.
In fact some glassmakers allowed for a deforming effect in the second firing, which lowered and widened the shape of the vessel, sometimes very greatly, by making blanks that were taller and more narrow than the shape they actually wanted. The enamels leave a layer of glass projecting very slightly over the original surface, the edges of which can be felt by running a finger over the surface. Enamelled glass is often used in combination with gilding, but lustreware, which often produces a "gold" metallic coating is a different process. Sometimes elements of the "blank", such as handles, may only be added after the enamel paints, during the second firing.
Glass is sometimes "cold painted" with enamel paints that are not fired; often this was done on the underside of a bowl, to minimize wear on the painted surface. This was used for some elaborate Venetian pieces in the early 16th century, but the technique is "famously impermanent", and pieces have usually suffered badly from the paint falling off the glass.
Some modern techniques are much simpler than historic ones. For instance, there now exist glass enamel pens. Mica may also be added for sparkle. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enamelled_glass |
Roger Bacon | Bacon has been credited with a number of alchemical texts.
The Letter on the Secret Workings of Art and Nature and on the Vanity of Magic (Epistola de Secretis Operibus Artis et Naturae et de Nullitate Magiae), also known as On the Wonderful Powers of Art and Nature (De Mirabili Potestate Artis et Naturae), a likely-forged letter to an unknown "William of Paris," dismisses practices such as necromancy but contains most of the alchemical formulae attributed to Bacon, including one for a philosopher's stone and another possibly for gunpowder. It also includes several passages about hypothetical flying machines and submarines, attributing their first use to Alexander the Great. On the Vanity of Magic or The Nullity of Magic is a debunking of esoteric claims in Bacon's time, showing that they could be explained by natural phenomena.
He wrote on the medicine of Galen, referring to the translations of Avicenna. He believed that the medicine of Galen belonged to an ancient tradition passed through Chaldeans, Greeks and Arabs. Although he provided a negative image of Hermes Trismegistus, his work was influenced by the Renaissance Hermetic thought. Bacon's endorsement of Hermetic philosophy is evident, as his citations of the alchemical literature known as the Secretum Secretorum made several appearances in the Opus Majus. The Secretum Secretorum contains knowledge about the Hermetic Emerald Tablet, which was an integral component of alchemy, thus proving that Bacon's version of alchemy was much less secular, and much more spiritual than once interpreted. The importance of Hermetic philosophy in Bacon's work is also evident through his citations of classic Hermetic literature such as the Corpus Hermeticum. Bacon's citation of the Corpus Hermeticum, which consists of a dialogue between Hermes and the pagan deity Asclepius, proves that Bacon's ideas were much more in line with the spiritual aspects of alchemy rather than the scientific aspects. However, this is somewhat paradoxical as what Bacon was specifically trying to prove in the Opus Majus and subsequent works, was that spirituality and science were the same entity. Bacon believed that by using science, certain aspects of spirituality such as the attainment of "Sapientia" or "Divine Wisdom" could be logically explained using tangible evidence. Bacon's Opus Majus was first and foremost, a compendium of sciences which he believed would facilitate the first step towards "Sapientia". Bacon placed considerable emphasis on alchemy and even went so far as to state that alchemy was the most important science. The reason why Bacon kept the topic of alchemy vague for the most part, is due to the need for secrecy about esoteric topics in England at the time as well as his dedication to remaining in line with the alchemical tradition of speaking in symbols and metaphors. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Bacon |
Mortuary temple of Hatshepsut | The earliest modern visitor to the temple was Richard Pococke, an English traveller, in 1737. He was followed by François Jollois and Renée Edouard Devilliers, two members of Napoleon Bonaparte's expedition, in 1798. The earliest archaeological findings were made around 1817 by Giovanni Battista Belzoni and Henry William Beechey, who scavenged the site for artefacts to present to Henry Salt, the British consul. Another visitor to the site, in 1823–1825, Henry Westcar is credited with the earliest printed reference to the name Deir el-Bahari. In the following decades John Gardner Wilkinson, Jean-François Champollion and Karl Richard Lepsius each visited the site. The earliest significant excavations took place in the 1850s and 60s under Auguste Mariette. Under his supervision the remains of the monastery of Saint Phoibammon were destroyed and the shrines to Hathor and Anubis as well as the south colonnade of the middle terrace were revealed. During the Egypt Exploration Fund's (EEF) expedition, under Édouard Naville and his assistant Howard Carter, from 1893–1906, the entire temple was excavated. The seven volumes of Naville's work form a fundamental source of information for the temple. In 1911–1936, the Metropolitan Museum of Art (MMA) funded excavation works under the direction of Herbert E. Winlock. In 1925–1952, a team led by Émile Baraize for the Egyptian Antiquities Service reconstructed significant portions of the temple. Since 1961, the Polish Center of Mediterranean Archeology (PCMA) of Warsaw University in Cairo has been engaged in restoration and consolidation efforts at the site.
The Polish-Egyptian Archaeological and Conservation Expedition was established by Kazimierz Michałowski, after he was approached by the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA). The project was originally constrained to reconstructing the third terrace, but, since 1967, the mission has included the entire temple. The project is presently directed by Patryk Chudzik. The site is being gradually opened to tourism. Since 2000, the festival courtyard, upper terrace, and the coronation portico have been open to visitors. In 2015, the solar cult court and, in 2017, the sanctuary of Amun were also opened to visitation. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortuary_temple_of_Hatshepsut |
Muammar Gaddafi | The early 80s saw economic trouble in Libya; from 1982 to 1986, annual oil revenues dropped from $21 to $5.4 billion. Focusing on irrigation projects, 1983 saw construction start on Libya's largest and most expensive infrastructure project, the Great Man-Made River; although designed to be finished by the end of the decade, it remained incomplete at the start of the 21st century. Military spending increased, while other administrative budgets were cut. Foreign debt rose, and austerity measures were introduced to promote self-reliance; in 1985 there was a mass deportation of foreign workers, mostly Egyptian and Tunisian. Domestic threats continued to plague Gaddafi; in May 1984, his Bab al-Azizia home was unsuccessfully attacked by a militia—linked to the NFSL or Muslim Brotherhood—and in the aftermath 5,000 dissidents were arrested. In spring 1985, members of the military tried to assassinate Gaddafi twice. The first was a plot by conservative officers to assassinate him at a villa on the outskirts of Tripoli; the second was an assault on his convoy. In November 1985, Colonel Hassan Ishkal, the third most powerful man in Libya, head of the military region of Sirte, died in a suspicious car accident. Ishkal's death was attributed to Jalloud, Khalifa Hunaysh or Gaddafi.
Libya had long supported the FROLINAT militia in neighbouring Chad, but FROLINAT became divided over its ties to Libya in 1976. In January 1978, the anti-Libya faction within FROLINAT, led by Hissène Habré, switched sides and allied with Chadian President Félix Malloum. Meanwhile, the pro-Libya faction within FROLINAT, led by Goukouni Oueddei, renamed itself People's Armed Forces (FAP). In December 1980, Gaddafi reinvaded Chad at the request of the FAP-controlled GUNT government to aid in the civil war; in January 1981, Gaddafi suggested a political merger. The Organisation of African Unity (OAU) rejected this and called for a Libyan withdrawal, which came in November 1981. The civil war resumed, and Libya sent troops back in.
In 1982, the GUNT government was overthrown by Habré's forces and Oueddei fled to Libya, where Gaddafi provided him with arms to continue to guerrilla war against Habré. In November 1984, Gaddafi met with French President François Mitterrand; both agreed to withdraw from Chad. Oueddei broke with Gaddafi in 1985 due to the former's intentions to negotiate a truce with Habré. Consequently, he was placed under house arrest by Gaddafi and allegedly arrested by Libyan police and shot in the stomach. Oueddei survived the shooting and fled to Algeria, but continued to claim he and Gaddafi enjoyed a good relationship. When Gaddafi ordered the remnant of GUNT to attack Habré in February 1986 in violation of his agreement with Mitterrand, France launched Operation Épervier, which escalated into the Toyota War. Libya suffered a humiliating defeat as it was completely expelled from Chad and its commander Khalifa Haftar captured, along with 600-700 Libyan soldiers. Gaddafi disavowed Haftar and the other prisoners; one possible contributing factor to this repudiation may have been that Gaddafi had signed an agreement to withdraw Libyan forces, and Haftar's operations had been in violation of this. An embittered Haftar then joined the anti-Gaddafi National Front for the Salvation of Libya, became a CIA asset, and was given refuge in the US.
Many African nations were tired of Libya's interference in their affairs; by 1980, nine African states had severed diplomatic relations, while in 1982 the OAU cancelled its scheduled conference in Tripoli to prevent Gaddafi gaining chairmanship. Some African states, such as Jerry Rawlings's Ghana and Thomas Sankara's Burkina Faso, had warm relations with Libya during the 1980s.
Proposing political unity with Morocco, in August 1984, Gaddafi and Moroccan monarch Hassan II signed the Oujda Treaty, forming the Arab–African Union; such a union was considered surprising due to the political differences and longstanding enmity that existed between the two. In a sign of warming relations, Gaddafi promised to stop funding the Polisario Front and Hassan II extradited former RCC member Umar Muhayshi to Libya, where he was immediately killed. But relations deteriorated, particularly due to Morocco's friendship with the US and Israel; in August 1986, Hassan abolished the union. Angered by the snub, Gaddafi plotted with Abu Nidal to assassinate Hassan in 1987, but the plot was aborted.
In 1981, the new US president, Ronald Reagan, pursued a hardline approach to Libya, viewing it as a puppet regime of the Soviet Union. Gaddafi played up his commercial relationship with the Soviets, revisiting Moscow in 1981 and 1985, and threatening to join the Warsaw Pact. The Soviets were nevertheless cautious of Gaddafi, seeing him as an unpredictable extremist. In August 1981, the US staged military exercises in the Gulf of Sirte – an area which Libya claimed. The US shot down two Libyan Su-22 planes which were on an intercept course. Closing down Libya's embassy in Washington, Reagan advised US companies operating in Libya to reduce Americans stationed there. In December 1981, the White House claimed Gaddafi had dispatched a hit squad to assassinate Reagan, allegedly led by Carlos the Jackal, who had been living in Libya under Gaddafi's protection after the 1975 OPEC siege. Secretary of State Alexander Haig, Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, Counselor to the President Edwin Meese, chief of staff James Baker, and deputy chief of staff Michael Deaver were considered potential targets and given special security. US ambassador to Italy Maxwell M. Rabb, who was Jewish, was urgently recalled due to threats against his life. Gaddafi denied the allegations. Gaddafi was accused of having ties to the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Factions, which had murdered US military attaché Charles R. Ray and Israeli diplomat Yacov Barsimantov in Paris. In March 1982, the US implemented an embargo of Libyan oil, and in January 1986 ordered all US companies to cease operating in the country, although several hundred workers remained when the Libyan government doubled their pay. In spring 1986, the US Navy again performed exercises in the Gulf of Sirte; the Libyan military retaliated, but failed as the US sank Libyan ships. Diplomatic relations also broke down with the UK, after Libyan diplomats were accused in the killing of Yvonne Fletcher, a British policewoman stationed outside their London embassy, in April 1984.
In 1980, Gaddafi hired former CIA agent Edwin P. Wilson, living in Libya as a fugitive from US justice, to plot the murder of an anti-Gaddafi Libyan graduate student at Colorado State University named Faisal Zagallai. Zagallai was shot in the head in October 1980, in Fort Collins, Colorado by a former Green Beret and associate of Wilson named Eugene Tafoya. Zagallai survived the attack and Tafoya was convicted of third-degree assault and conspiracy to commit assault. Wilson was lured back to the US and sentenced to 32 years due to his ties to Gaddafi. In 1984, Gaddafi publicly executed Al-Sadek Hamed Al-Shuwehdy, an aeronautical engineer studying in the US.
After the US accused Libya of orchestrating the 1986 Berlin discotheque bombing, in which two US soldiers died, Reagan decided to retaliate. The CIA was critical of the move, believing Syria was a greater threat and that an attack would strengthen Gaddafi's reputation; however, Libya was recognized as a "soft target". Reagan was supported by the UK, but opposed by other European allies, who argued it contravened international law. In Operation El Dorado Canyon, orchestrated on 15 April 1986, US military planes launched air-strikes, bombing military installations, killing around 100 Libyans, including civilians. One target had been Gaddafi's home. Himself unharmed, two of Gaddafi's sons were injured, and he claimed his adopted daughter Hanna was killed, although her existence has since been questioned. Gaddafi retreated to the desert to meditate. There were sporadic clashes between Gaddafists and army officers who wanted to overthrow the government. Although the US was condemned internationally, Reagan received a popularity boost at home. Publicly lambasting US imperialism, Gaddafi's reputation as an anti-imperialist was strengthened domestically and across the Arab world, and, in June 1986, he ordered the names of the month to be changed in Libya. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muammar_Gaddafi |
Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan | With threats in Syria and the Jazira neutralized, Abd al-Malik was free to focus on the reconquest of Iraq. While Mus'ab had been bogged down fighting Kharijite rebels and contending with disaffected Arab tribesmen in Basra and Kufa, Abd al-Malik was secretly contacting and winning over these same Arab nobles. Thus, by the time Abd al-Malik led the Syrian army into Iraq in 691, the struggle to recapture the province was virtually complete. Command of the army was held by members of his family, his brother Muhammad leading the vanguard and Yazid I's sons Khalid and Abd Allah leading the right and left wings, respectively. Many Syrian nobles held reservations about the campaign and counseled Abd al-Malik not to participate in person. Nonetheless, the caliph was at the head of the army when it camped opposite Mus'ab's forces at Maskin, along the Dujayl Canal. In the ensuing Battle of Maskin, most of Mus'ab's forces, many of whom were resentful at the heavy toll he had exacted on al-Mukhtar's Kufan partisans, refused to fight and his leading commander, Ibn al-Ashtar, fell at the beginning of hostilities. Abd al-Malik invited Mus'ab to surrender in return for the governorship of Iraq or any other province of his choice, but the latter refused and was killed in action.
Following his victory, Abd al-Malik received the allegiance of Kufa's nobility and appointed governors to the Caliphate's eastern provinces. Afterward, he dispatched a 2,000-strong Syrian contingent to subdue Ibn al-Zubayr in the Hejaz. The commander of the expedition, al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf, had risen through the ranks and would become a highly competent and efficient supporter of the caliph. Al-Hajjaj remained encamped for several months in Ta'if, east of Mecca, and fought numerous skirmishes with Zubayrid loyalists in the plain of Arafat. Abd al-Malik sent him reinforcements led by his mawlā, Tariq ibn Amr, who had earlier captured Medina from its Zubayrid governor. In March 692, al-Hajjaj besieged Ibn al-Zubayr in Mecca and bombarded the Ka'aba, the holiest sanctuary in Islam, with catapults. Though 10,000 of Ibn al-Zubayr's supporters, including his sons, eventually surrendered and received pardons, Ibn al-Zubayr and a core of his loyalists held out in the Ka'aba and were killed by al-Hajjaj's troops in September or October. Ibn al-Zubayr's death marked the end of the civil war and the reunification of the Caliphate under Abd al-Malik. In a panegyric that the literary historian Suzanne Stetkevych asserts was intended to "declare" and "legitimize" Abd al-Malik's victory, the caliph's Christian court poet al-Akhtal eulogized him on the eve or aftermath of Ibn al-Zubayr's fall as follows:
To a man whose gifts do not elude us, whom God has made victorious, so let him in his victory long delight!
He who wades into the deep of battle, auspicious his augury, the Caliph of God through whom men pray for rain.
When his soul whispers its intention to him it sends him resolutely forth, his courage and his caution like two keen blades.
In him the common weal resides, and after his assurance no peril can seduce him from his pledge.
— Al-Akhtal (640–708), Khaffat al-qaṭīnu ("The tribe has departed")
After his victory, Abd al-Malik aimed to reconcile with the Hejazi elite, including the Zubayrids and the Alids, the Umayyads' rivals within the Quraysh. He relied on the Banu Makhzum, another Qurayshite clan, as his intermediaries in view of the Umayyad family's absence in the region due to their exile in 683. Nevertheless, he remained wary of the Hejazi elite's ambitions and kept a vigilant eye on them through his various governors in Medina. The first of these was al-Hajjaj, who was also appointed governor of Yemen and the Yamama (central Arabia) and led the Hajj pilgrim caravans of 693 and 694. Though he maintained peace in the Hejaz, the harshness of his rule led to numerous complaints from its residents and may have played a role in his transfer from the post by Abd al-Malik. A member of the Makhzum and Abd al-Malik's father-in-law, Hisham ibn Isma'il, was ultimately appointed. During his tenure in 701–706 he was also known for brutalizing Medina's townspeople. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abd_al-Malik_ibn_Marwan |
Second Punic War | The Roman Republic had been aggressively expanding in the southern Italian mainland for a century and had conquered peninsular Italy south of the Arno River by 270 BC, after the Pyrrhic War when the Greek cities of southern Italy (Magna Graecia) submitted. During this period of Roman expansion, Carthage, with its capital in what is now Tunisia, had come to dominate southern Iberia, much of the coastal regions of North Africa, the Balearic Islands, Corsica, Sardinia and the western half of Sicily.
By 264 BC Carthage was the dominant external power on Sicily, and Carthage and Rome were the preeminent powers in the western Mediterranean. Relationships were good, the two states had several times declared their mutual friendship and there were strong commercial links. According to the classicist Richard Miles Rome's expansionary attitude after southern Italy came under its control combined with Carthage's proprietary approach to Sicily caused the two powers to stumble into war more by accident than design. The immediate cause of the First Punic War was the issue of control of the independent Sicilian city state of Messana (modern Messina). In 264 BC Carthage and Rome went to war.
The war was fought primarily on Sicily and its surrounding waters; the Romans also unsuccessfully invaded North Africa in 256 BC. It was the longest continuous conflict and the greatest naval war of antiquity, with immense materiel and human losses on both sides. In 241 BC, after 23 years of war, the Carthaginians were defeated. Under the Roman-dictated Treaty of Lutatius Carthage ceded its Sicilian possessions to Rome. Rome exploited Carthage's distraction during the Truceless War against rebellious mercenaries and Libyan subjects to break the peace treaty and annex Carthaginian Sardinia and Corsica in 238 BC. Under the leadership of Hamilcar Barca, Carthage defeated the rebels in 237 BC.
With the suppression of the rebellion, Hamilcar understood that Carthage needed to strengthen its economic and military base if it were to confront Rome again; Carthaginian possessions in Iberia (modern Spain and Portugal) were limited to a handful of prosperous coastal cities in the south and Hamilcar took the army which he had led in the Truceless War to Iberia in 237 BC and carved out a quasi-monarchical, autonomous state in southern and eastern Iberia. This gave Carthage the silver mines, agricultural wealth, manpower, military facilities such as shipyards, and territorial depth to stand up to future Roman demands with confidence. Hamilcar ruled as a viceroy and was succeeded by his son-in-law, Hasdrubal, in 229 BC and then his son, Hannibal, in 221 BC.
In 226 BC the Ebro Treaty was agreed with Rome, specifying the Ebro River as the northern boundary of the Carthaginian sphere of influence. At some time during the next six years Rome made a separate agreement with the city of Saguntum, which was situated well south of the Ebro. In 219 BC a Carthaginian army under Hannibal besieged Saguntum, and after eight months captured and sacked it. Rome complained to the Carthaginian government, sending an embassy headed by Quintus Fabius Maximus to its senate with peremptory demands. When these were rejected Rome declared war in the spring of 218 BC.
Since the end of the First Punic War Rome had also been expanding, especially in the area of north Italy either side of the River Po known as Cisalpine Gaul. Roman attempts to establish towns and farms in the region from 232 BC led to repeated wars with the local Gallic tribes, who were finally defeated in 222. In 218 the Romans pushed even further north, establishing two new towns, or "colonies", on the Po and appropriating large areas of the best land. Most of the Gauls resented this intrusion. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Punic_War |
Almohad Caliphate | In 1212, the Almohad Caliph Muhammad 'al-Nasir' (1199–1214), the successor of al-Mansur, after an initially successful advance north, was defeated by an alliance of the three Christian kings of Castile, Aragón and Navarre at the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in the Sierra Morena. The battle broke the Almohad advance, but the Christian powers remained too disorganized to profit from it immediately.
Before his death in 1213, al-Nasir appointed his young ten-year-old son as the next caliph Yusuf II "al-Mustansir". The Almohads passed through a period of effective regency for the young caliph, with power exercised by an oligarchy of elder family members, palace bureaucrats and leading nobles. The Almohad ministers were careful to negotiate a series of truces with the Christian kingdoms, which remained more-or-less in place for next fifteen years (the loss of Alcácer do Sal to the Kingdom of Portugal in 1217 was an exception).
In early 1224, the youthful caliph died in an accident, without any heirs. The palace bureaucrats in Marrakesh, led by the wazir Uthman ibn Jam'i, quickly engineered the election of his elderly grand-uncle, Abd al-Wahid I 'al-Makhlu', as the new Almohad caliph. But the rapid appointment upset other branches of the family, notably the brothers of the late al-Nasir, who governed in al-Andalus. The challenge was immediately raised by one of them, then governor in Murcia, who declared himself Caliph Abdallah al-Adil. With the help of his brothers, he quickly seized control of al-Andalus. His chief advisor, the shadowy Abu Zayd ibn Yujjan, tapped into his contacts in Marrakesh, and secured the deposition and assassination of Abd al-Wahid I, and the expulsion of the al-Jami'i clan.
This coup has been characterized as the pebble that finally broke al-Andalus. It was the first internal coup among the Almohads. The Almohad clan, despite occasional disagreements, had always remained tightly knit and loyally behind dynastic precedence. Caliph al-Adil's murderous breach of dynastic and constitutional propriety marred his acceptability to other Almohad sheikhs. One of the recusants was his cousin, Abd Allah al-Bayyasi ("the Baezan"), the Almohad governor of Jaén, who took a handful of followers and decamped for the hills around Baeza. He set up a rebel camp and forged an alliance with the hitherto quiet Ferdinand III of Castile. Sensing his greater priority was Marrakesh, where recusant Almohad sheikhs had rallied behind Yahya, another son of al-Nasir, al-Adil paid little attention to them. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almohad_Caliphate |
Al-Biruni | Of the 146 books written by al-Bīrūnī, 95 are devoted to astronomy, mathematics, and related subjects like mathematical geography. He lived during the Islamic Golden Age, when the Abbasid Caliphs promoted astronomical research, because such research possessed not only a scientific but also a religious dimension: in Islam worship and prayer require a knowledge of the precise directions of sacred locations, which can be determined accurately only through the use of astronomical data.
In carrying out his research, al-Biruni used a variety of different techniques dependent upon the particular field of study involved.
His major work on astrology is primarily an astronomical and mathematical text; he states: "I have begun with Geometry and proceeded to Arithmetic and the Science of Numbers, then to the structure of the Universe and finally to Judicial Astrology [sic], for no one who is worthy of the style and title of Astrologer [sic] who is not thoroughly conversant with these for sciences." In these earlier chapters he lays the foundations for the final chapter, on astrological prognostication, which he criticises. In a later work, he wrote a refutation of astrology, in contradistinction to the legitimate science of astronomy, for which he expresses wholehearted support. Some suggest that his reasons for refuting astrology relate to the methods used by astrologers being based upon pseudoscience rather than empiricism and also to a conflict between the views of the astrologers and those of the orthodox theologians of Sunni Islam.
He wrote an extensive commentary on Indian astronomy in the Taḥqīq mā li-l-Hind mostly translation of Aryabhatta's work, in which he claims to have resolved the matter of Earth's rotation in a work on astronomy that is no longer extant, his Miftah-ilm-alhai'a ("Key to Astronomy"):
[T]he rotation of the earth does in no way impair the value of astronomy, as all appearances of an astronomic character can quite as well be explained according to this theory as to the other. There are, however, other reasons which make it impossible. This question is most difficult to solve. The most prominent of both modern and ancient astronomers have deeply studied the question of the moving of the earth, and tried to refute it. We, too, have composed a book on the subject called Miftah-ilm-alhai'a (Key to Astronomy), in which we think we have surpassed our predecessors, if not in the words, at all events in the matter.
In his major astronomical work, the Mas'ud Canon, Biruni observed that, contrary to Ptolemy, the Sun's apogee (highest point in the heavens) was mobile, not fixed. He wrote a treatise on the astrolabe, describing how to use it to tell the time and as a quadrant for surveying. One particular diagram of an eight-geared device could be considered an ancestor of later Muslim astrolabes and clocks. More recently, Biruni's eclipse data was used by Dunthorne in 1749 to help determine the acceleration of the Moon, and his data on equinox times and eclipses was used as part of a study of Earth's past rotation. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Biruni |
Yemeni revolution | Head of the ruling party's foreign affairs committee and the Advisor to the Prime Minister, H.E Dr. Mohammed Abdul Majeed Qubaty
Head of the finance committee of parliament Fathi Tawfiq Abdulrahim
Deputy Ministry of Culture (Yemen) Sam Yahya Al-Ahmar
Deputy Ministry of Youth and Sports (Yemen) Hashid Abdullah al-Ahmar
MP Ali Al-Imrani, from Al Bayda' Governorate
Businessman Nabil Al-Khameri
Ministry of Tourism (Yemen)] Nabil Hasan al-Faqih, from his post and the ruling party
Minister of Culture and Yemeni Shura Council member Abdulwahab al-Rawhani, from the ministry and council
Ambassador to Russia Dr. Mohammed Saleh Ahmed Al-Helali
Party's central committee member Jalal Faqira who also heads the political science department at Sanaʽa University
Assistant Secretary General of the Cabinet Mohammad Sewar
Head of the state news agency and a ruling party member Nasr Taha Mustafa
Ambassador to Lebanon Fayçal Amine Abourrass
Mohamed Saleh Qara'a, a prominent member of the ruling party
Human Rights Ministry (Yemen) Huda al-Baan, from her post and the ruling party
Undersecretary at the Human Rights Ministry Ali Taysir
Representative to the Arab League Abdel-Malik Mansour
Ambassador to Algeria Jamal Awadh Nasser (denied by the government)
Ambassador to Belgium Abdul-Wali al-Shameri
Ambassador to Canada Khalid Bahah
Ambassador to China Marwan Abdullah Abdulwahab Noman (denied by the government)
Ambassador to Czech Republic Salem Yahya Alkharejah
Ambassador to Egypt Abdul-Wali al-Shameri
Ambassador to Indonesia Abdulwahed Mohamed Fara
Ambassador to Iraq Abdul-Wali al-Shameri
Ambassador to Jordan Shaea Muhssin
Ambassador to Kuwait Dr.Khaled Sheikh
Ambassador to Oman Ahmad Daifallah Al-Azeib
Ambassador to Pakistan Abdu Ali Abdul Rahman
Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Mohammed Ali al-Ahwal
Ambassador to Spain Salim Yahya al-Kharega; (denied by the government)
Ambassador to Syria Abdel-Wahhab Tawaf
Ambassador to Qatar Yahya Hussain Al-Aarashi
Ambassador to the United Nations Abdullah al-Saidi
Chargé d'affaires to Tunisia
Major General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar (Ali Mohsen Saleh), head of the North Western Military Zone, and three of his brigadiers:
Brigadier Mohammed Ali Mohsen, head of the Eastern Division
Brigadier Hameed Al-Qushaibi, head of brigade 310 in Omran area
Brigadier Nasser Eljahori, head of brigade 121
Sixty officers of the province of Hadramout and fifty officers from the Ministry of Interior
Abdallah al-Qahdi, a senior military general from Aden | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yemeni_revolution |
Sharifian Caliphate | After the Caliphate was abolished by the Turkish Grand National Assembly, Hussein was proclaimed as Caliph. The accounts on the official date and proceedings vary, some place the beginning of the Caliphate on 3 March 1924, when Hussein would have declared himself Caliph at his son Abdullah's winter camp in Shunah, Transjordan. Other accounts, such as a Reuters dispatch, instead set the date as March 7, 1924, and describe Hussein bin Ali being elected as a caliph by Muslims from "Mesopotamia, Transjordan, and Hejaz." He visited numerous scholars during this period, traveling within his territories. Thus, on March 10, 1924, he visited the Supreme Islamic Council in Jerusalem, at the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Under the presidency of Amin al-Husseini and Al-Taji, they discussed the matter. Finally, they proclaimed a document of allegiance to the caliphate of Hussein bin Ali, in which they stated:We, the muftis, judges, dignitaries, and representatives of the Palestinian land, the people of authority and contract, pledge our allegiance to His Majesty, the Hashemite King of the Arabs, Hussein bin Ali bin Awn al-Hashemi, with the Islamic caliphate, on the condition that the matter is conducted through consultation, as commanded by Allah Almighty. It is also conditioned that no actions contradict the public interest of Muslims, and that decisions regarding the affairs of Palestine, its government structure, and its opinions are made only with the consent of its people.
A third counting of the official date takes place when he received the homage of the majority of the Arab population in Amman as the caliph, on March 11, 1924. On March 12, 1924, he received the allegiance of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, according to Arabic newspaper al-Rihlat. Finally, a fourth version places the date on Friday, March 14, 1924, when Hussein was evidently enthroned as caliph in Baghdad during the Friday prayer. In any case, all sources agree on a date in March 1924, shortly after the abolition of the Ottoman caliphate by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.
The Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Rai also assigns the date of the caliphate to March 1924 and mentions the proclamation made by Hussein in Amman, followed by a pledge of allegiance from the Muslims. In it, they declared:The act of the Ankara government abolishing the caliphate prompted the distinguished religious scholars of the holy sites of Mecca and Medina, as well as those of Al-Aqsa Mosque and the surrounding countries, to surprise us and compel us to pledge allegiance with great enthusiasm to the grand leadership and the grand caliphate. This was in lieu of observing religious rituals and the fasting prescribed by clear legislation, due to the inadmissibility for Muslims to remain without an imam for more than three days, as explicitly stated in the recommendations of the venerable Farouk [= nickname of ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb].He also started a program of restorations of religious buildings, starting with the mosques of Palestine, most notably the al-Aqsa mosque, for which he funded 26,672 liras. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharifian_Caliphate |
Saudis | According to scholar Bernard Lewis, the Saudi Arabian policy of excluding non-Muslims from permanent residence in the country is a continuation of an old and widely accepted Muslim policy.
The classical Arabic historians tell us that in the year 20 after the hijra (Muhammad's move from Mecca to Medina), corresponding to 641 of the Christian calendar, the Caliph Umar decreed that Jews and Christians should be removed from Arabia to fulfill an injunction the Prophet uttered on his deathbed: "Let there not be two religions in Arabia." The people in question were the Jews of the oasis of Khaybar in the north and the Christians of Najran in the south.
[The hadith] was generally accepted as authentic, and Umar put it into effect. ... Compared with European expulsions, Umar's decree was both limited and compassionate. It did not include southern and southeastern Arabia, which were not seen as part of Islam's holy land. ... the Jews and Christians of Arabia were resettled on lands assigned to them – the Jews in Syria, the Christians in Iraq. The process was also gradual rather than sudden, and there are reports of Jews and Christians remaining in Khaybar and Najran for some time after Umar's edict.
But the decree was final and irreversible, and from then until now the holy land of the Hijaz has been forbidden territory for non-Muslims. According to the Hanbali school of Islamic jurisprudence, accepted by both the Saudis and the declaration's signatories, for a non-Muslim even to set foot on the sacred soil is a major offense. In the rest of the kingdom, non-Muslims, while admitted as temporary visitors, were not permitted to establish residence or practice their religion.
While Saudi Arabia does allow non-Muslims to live in Saudi Arabia to work or do business, they may not practice religion publicly. According to the government of the United Kingdom:
The public practice of any form of religion other than Islam is illegal; as is an intention to convert others. However, the Saudi authorities accept the private practice of religions other than Islam, and you can bring a Bible into the country as long as it is for your personal use. Importing larger quantities than this can carry severe penalties.
Saudi Arabia still gives citizenship to people from other countries. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudis |
Modernism | Art historians have suggested various dates as starting points for modernism. Historian William Everdell argued that modernism began in the 1870s when metaphorical (or ontological) continuity began to yield to the discrete with mathematician Richard Dedekind's (1831–1916) Dedekind cut and Ludwig Boltzmann's (1844–1906) statistical thermodynamics. Everdell also believed modernism in painting began in 1885–1886 with post-Impressionist artist Georges Seurat's development of Divisionism, the "dots" used to paint A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. On the other hand, visual art critic Clement Greenberg called German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) "the first real modernist", although he also wrote, "What can be safely called modernism emerged in the middle of the last century—and rather locally, in France, with Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867) in literature and Manet in painting, and perhaps with Gustave Flaubert (1821–1880), too, in prose fiction. (It was a while later, and not so locally, that modernism appeared in music and architecture)." The poet Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du mal (The Flowers of Evil) and the author Flaubert's Madame Bovary were both published in 1857. Baudelaire's essay "The Painter of Modern Life" (1863) inspired young artists to break away from tradition and innovate new ways of portraying their world in art.
Beginning in the 1860s, two approaches in the arts and letters developed separately in France. The first was Impressionism, a school of painting that initially focused on work done not in studios, but outdoors (en plein air). Impressionist paintings attempted to convey that human beings do not see objects, but instead see light itself. The school gathered adherents despite internal divisions among its leading practitioners and became increasingly influential. Initially rejected from the most important commercial show of the time, the government-sponsored Paris Salon, the Impressionists organized yearly group exhibitions in commercial venues during the 1870s and 1880s, timing them to coincide with the official Salon. In 1863, the Salon des Refusés, created by Emperor Napoleon III, displayed all of the paintings rejected by the Paris Salon. While most were in standard styles, but by inferior artists, the work of Manet attracted attention and opened commercial doors to the movement. The second French school was symbolism, which literary historians see beginning with Charles Baudelaire and including the later poets Arthur Rimbaud (1854–1891) with Une Saison en Enfer (A Season in Hell, 1873), Paul Verlaine (1844–1896), Stéphane Mallarmé (1842–1898), and Paul Valéry (1871–1945). The symbolists "stressed the priority of suggestion and evocation over direct description and explicit analogy," and were especially interested in "the musical properties of language."
Cabaret, which gave birth to so many of the arts of modernism, including the immediate precursors of film, may be said to have begun in France in 1881 with the opening of the Black Cat in Montmartre, the beginning of the ironic monologue, and the founding of the Society of Incoherent Arts.
The theories of Sigmund Freud (1856–1939), Krafft-Ebing and other sexologists were influential in the early days of modernism. Freud's first major work was Studies on Hysteria (with Josef Breuer, 1895). Central to Freud's thinking is the idea "of the primacy of the unconscious mind in mental life", so that all subjective reality was based on the interactions between basic drives and instincts, through which the outside world was perceived. Freud's description of subjective states involved an unconscious mind full of primal impulses, and counterbalancing self-imposed restrictions derived from social values.: 538
The works of Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) were another major precursor of modernism, with a philosophy in which psychological drives, specifically the "will to power" (Wille zur macht), were of central importance: "Nietzsche often identified life itself with 'will to power', that is, with an instinct for growth and durability." Henri Bergson (1859–1941), on the other hand, emphasized the difference between scientific, clock time and the direct, subjective human experience of time.: 131 His work on time and consciousness "had a great influence on 20th-century novelists" especially those modernists who used the "stream of consciousness" technique, such as Dorothy Richardson, James Joyce, and Virginia Woolf (1882–1941). Also important in Bergson's philosophy was the idea of élan vital, the life force, which "brings about the creative evolution of everything.": 132 His philosophy also placed a high value on intuition, though without rejecting the importance of the intellect.: 132
Important literary precursors of modernism included esteemed writers such as Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821–1881), whose novels include Crime and Punishment (1866) and The Brothers Karamazov (1880); Walt Whitman (1819–1892), who published the poetry collection Leaves of Grass (1855–1891); and August Strindberg (1849–1912), especially his later plays, including the trilogy To Damascus 1898–1901,A Dream Play (1902) and The Ghost Sonata (1907). Henry James has also been suggested as a significant precursor to modernism in works as early as The Portrait of a Lady (1881). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modernism |
Ottoman architecture | During the reign of Mahmud II (r. 1808–1839) the Empire style, a Neoclassical style which originated in France under Napoleon, was introduced into Ottoman architecture. This marked a trend towards increasingly direct imitation of Western styles, particularly from France. The Tanzimat reforms that began in 1839 under Abdülmecid I sought to modernize the Ottoman Empire with Western-style reforms. In the architectural realm, this resulted in the dominance of European architects and Ottoman architects with European training. Among these, the Balyans, an Ottoman Armenian family, succeeded in dominating imperial architecture for much of the century. They were joined by European architects such as the Fossati brothers, William James Smith, and Alexandre Vallaury. After the early 19th century, Ottoman architecture was characterized by an eclectic architecture which mixed or borrowed from multiple styles. The Balyans, for example, commonly combined Neoclassical or Beaux-arts architecture with highly eclectic decoration. As more Europeans arrived in Istanbul, the neighbourhoods of Galata and Beyoğlu (or Pera) took on very European appearances.A number of mosques built in the 19th century reflect these trends, such as the Ortaköy Mosque and the Pertevniyal Valide Mosque in Istanbul. The Tanzimat reforms also granted Christians and Jews the right to freely build new centers of worship, which resulted in new constructions, renovations, and expansions of churches and synagogues. Most of these followed the same eclecticism that prevailed in the rest of Ottoman architecture of the 19th century.
Many palaces, residences, and leisure pavilions were built in the 19th century, most of them in the Bosphorus suburbs of Istanbul. The most significant is the Dolmabahçe Palace, constructed for Sultan Abdülmecit between 1843 and 1856. It replaced the Topkapı Palace as the official imperial residence of the sultan. The palace consists mainly of a single building with monumental proportions, which represented a radical rejection of traditional Ottoman palace design. The style of the palace is fundamentally Neoclassical but is characterized by a highly eclectic decoration that mixes Baroque motifs with other styles.
Various new types of monuments were also introduced to Ottoman architecture during this era. For example, clock towers rose to prominence over the 19th century. The construction of railway stations was a feature of Ottoman modernisation reflecting the new infrastructure changes within the empire. The most famous example is the Sirkeci Railway Station, built in 1888–1890 as the terminus of the Orient Express. It was designed in an Orientalist style by German architect August Jasmund (also spelled "Jachmund"). In the Beyoğlu district of Istanbul, Parisian-style shopping arcades appeared in the 19th century. Some consisted of a small courtyard filled with shops and surrounded by buildings, while others were simply a passage or alley (pasaj in Turkish) lined with shops, sometimes covered by a glass roof. Other commercial building types that appeared in the late 19th century included hotels and banks.
A local interpretation of Orientalist fashion steadily arose in the late 19th century, initially used by European architects such as Vallaury. This trend combined "neo-Ottoman" motifs with other motifs from wider Islamic architecture. The eclecticism and European imports of the 19th century eventually led to the introduction of Art Nouveau, especially after the arrival of Raimondo D'Aronco in the late 19th century. D'Aronco came at the invitation of Sultan Abdülhamid II and served as chief court architect between 1896 and 1909. Istanbul became a new center of Art Nouveau and a local flavour of the style developed. The new style was most prevalent in the new apartment buildings being built in Istanbul at the time.
The final period of architecture in the Ottoman Empire, developed after 1900 and in particular after the Young Turks took power in 1908–1909, is what was then called the "National Architectural Renaissance" and since referred to as the First national architectural movement of Turkish architecture. The approach in this period was an Ottoman Revival style, a reaction to influences in the previous 200 years that had come to be considered "foreign", such as Baroque and Neoclassical architecture, and was intended to promote Ottoman patriotism and self-identity. This was an entirely new style of architecture, related to earlier Ottoman architecture in rather the same manner was other roughly contemporaneous revivalist architectures related to their stylistic inspirations. New government-run institutions that trained architects and engineers, established in the late 19th century and further centralized under the Young Turks, became instrumental in disseminating this "national style". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_architecture |
Child marriage | Child marriage, as defined by UNICEF, is observed in the United States. The UNICEF definition of child marriage includes couples who are formally married, or who live together as a sexually active couple in an informal union, with at least one member – usually the girl – being less than 18 years old. The latter practice is more common in the United States, and it is officially called cohabitation. According to a 2010 report by the United States' National Center for Health Statistics, 2.1% of all girls in the 15–17 age group were either in a child marriage or in an informal union. In the age group of 15–19, 7.6% of all girls in the United States were formally married or in an informal union. The child marriage rates were higher for certain ethnic groups and states. In Hispanic groups, for example, 6.6% of all girls in the 15–17 age group were formally married or in an informal union, and 13% of the 15–19 age group were. Over 350,000 babies are born to teenage mothers every year in the United States, and over 50,000 of these are second babies to teen mothers.
Laws regarding child marriage vary in the different states of the United States. Generally, children 16 and over may marry with parental consent, with the age of 18 being the minimum in all but two states to marry without parental consent. However, all states but 12 have exceptions for child marriage within their laws, and although those under 16 generally require a court order in addition to parental consent, when those exceptions are taken into account, four states have no minimum age requirement.
Until 2008, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints practiced child marriage through the concept of "spiritual marriage" as soon as it was possible for girls to bear children, as part of its polygamy practice, but laws have raised the age of legal marriage in response to criticism of the practice. In 2007, church leader Warren Jeffs was convicted of being an accomplice to statutory rape of a minor due to arranging a marriage between a 14-year-old girl and a 19-year-old man. In March 2008, officials of the state of Texas believed that children at the Yearning For Zion Ranch were being married to adults and were being abused. The state of Texas removed all 468 children from the ranch and placed them into temporary state custody. After the Austin's 3rd Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court of Texas ruled that Texas acted improperly in removing them from the YFZ Ranch, the children were returned to their parents or relatives. In 2008, the Church changed its policy in the United States to no longer marry individuals younger than the local legal age.
In 2018, Delaware became the first state to ban child marriage without exceptions, followed by New Jersey the same year. Pennsylvania and Minnesota ended child marriage in 2020, followed by Rhode Island and New York in 2021, Massachusetts in 2022, Vermont, Connecticut, and Michigan in 2023 and Washington and Virginia in 2024. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_marriage |
Indian Ocean | Among the tropical oceans, the western Indian Ocean hosts one of the largest concentrations of phytoplankton blooms in summer, due to the strong monsoon winds. The monsoonal wind forcing leads to a strong coastal and open ocean upwelling, which introduces nutrients into the upper zones where sufficient light is available for photosynthesis and phytoplankton production. These phytoplankton blooms support the marine ecosystem, as the base of the marine food web, and eventually the larger fish species. The Indian Ocean accounts for the second-largest share of the most economically valuable tuna catch. Its fish are of great and growing importance to the bordering countries for domestic consumption and export. Fishing fleets from Russia, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan also exploit the Indian Ocean, mainly for shrimp and tuna.
Research indicates that increasing ocean temperatures are taking a toll on the marine ecosystem. A study on the phytoplankton changes in the Indian Ocean indicates a decline of up to 20% in the marine plankton in the Indian Ocean, during the past six decades. The tuna catch rates have also declined 50–90% during the past half-century, mostly due to increased industrial fisheries, with the ocean warming adding further stress to the fish species.
Endangered and vulnerable marine mammals and turtles:
80% of the Indian Ocean is open ocean and includes nine large marine ecosystems: the Agulhas Current, Somali Coastal Current, Red Sea, Arabian Sea, Bay of Bengal, Gulf of Thailand, West Central Australian Shelf, Northwest Australian Shelf and Southwest Australian Shelf. Coral reefs cover c. 200,000 km2 (77,000 sq mi). The coasts of the Indian Ocean includes beaches and intertidal zones covering 3,000 km2 (1,200 sq mi) and 246 larger estuaries. Upwelling areas are small but important. The hypersaline salterns in India covers between 5,000–10,000 km2 (1,900–3,900 sq mi) and species adapted for this environment, such as Artemia salina and Dunaliella salina, are important to bird life.
Coral reefs, sea grass beds, and mangrove forests are the most productive ecosystems of the Indian Ocean — coastal areas produce 20 tones of fish per square kilometre. These areas, however, are also being urbanised with populations often exceeding several thousand people per square kilometre and fishing techniques become more effective and often destructive beyond sustainable levels while the increase in sea surface temperature spreads coral bleaching.
Mangroves covers 80,984 km2 (31,268 sq mi) in the Indian Ocean region, or almost half of the world's mangrove habitat, of which 42,500 km2 (16,400 sq mi) is located in Indonesia, or 50% of mangroves in the Indian Ocean. Mangroves originated in the Indian Ocean region and have adapted to a wide range of its habitats but it is also where it suffers its biggest loss of habitat.
In 2016, six new animal species were identified at hydrothermal vents in the Southwest Indian Ridge: a "Hoff" crab, a "giant peltospirid" snail, a whelk-like snail, a limpet, a scaleworm and a polychaete worm.
The West Indian Ocean coelacanth was discovered in the Indian Ocean off South Africa in the 1930s and in the late 1990s another species, the Indonesian coelacanth, was discovered off Sulawesi Island, Indonesia. Most extant coelacanths have been found in the Comoros. Although both species represent an order of lobe-finned fishes known from the Early Devonian (410 mya) and though extinct 66 mya, they are morphologically distinct from their Devonian ancestors. Over millions of years, coelacanths evolved to inhabit different environments — lungs adapted for shallow, brackish waters evolved into gills adapted for deep marine waters. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Ocean |
2019 Egyptian protests | Starting on 2 September 2019, Mohamed Ali (also: Aly), an Egyptian construction contractor living in exile in Spain, claimed on online social networks that he had worked in the construction industry for 15 years under army contracts, building five villas for colleagues of Sisi and a palace for Sisi in a military camp. Ali accused Sisi of wasting public funds and "[taking] low-level corruption to a new level". Ali's videos outline specific incidents and directly accuse well-known military individuals, including Major-Generals Kamel al-Wazir and Essam al-Kholy. Egyptian authorities ran a media campaign attacking Ali. According to Said and Mamdouh writing in Mada Masr, the governmental campaign "did not refute the substance of [Ali's] claims."
After the first week of wide circulation of Ali's videos, Sisi denied the allegations at a session of the "National Youth Conference. Sisi stated that "all the intelligence agencies told me please do not talk about it. ... I told them, what's between me and the people is trust." Within a few hours of Sisi's speech, Ali posted two hours of new videos, referring to Sisi's son Mahmoud and the Sinai insurgency.
Mosaad Abu Fagr, a Sinai activist in exile, then released two videos in which he claimed that the Egyptian authorities refused an offer by North Sinai tribal leaders to remove the terrorist cells within a few weeks, and that he was asked by the tribal leaders to publish that information. Abu Fagr stated that Sisi cooperated with drug smugglers and dealers instead of working with the tribes and that Sisi and his son Mahmoud have business interests in smuggling between the Sinai and the Gaza Strip. Abu Fagr also accused the Egyptian security forces of the "wiping out of entire villages" along the border with Gaza.
Lawyer Mohamed Hamdy Younes stated that he would request the Attorney-General to investigate Ali's accusations. He was then arrested and charged with belonging to a terrorist organisation. Former army officer and lawyer Ahmed Sarhan circulated a video supporting most of Ali's claims, calling for Younes to be released and making new accusations against people close to Sisi. Sarhan's video was viewed half a million times.
A masked man circulated a video claiming that he had sensitive information about Sisi, that Ali's videos contain "factual information about the corruption in the upper ranks of the Armed Forces" and that "the events happening" constitute "retaliation" by the Mukhabarat against Military Intelligence, which was headed by Sisi until 2012. In another video, a masked man claiming to be an intelligence officer stated that Sisi changed commanders frequently in order to avoid any becoming too powerful and that Sisi coordinated intelligence information closely with Israel. Former Air Force pilot Hany Sharaf and former state security officer Hesham Sabry then circulated videos highly critical of Sisi.
Wael Ghonim, who played a key online role in sparking the 2011 Egyptian revolution and lives in the United States, posted videos similar to the others, adding claims that Sisi's son Mahmoud played a strong role in managing Egyptian "daily politics". A representative of the Egyptian Embassy in Washington, D.C. telephoned Ghonim, asking him to stop criticising the Egyptian authorities, in exchange for which he would receive a payment and a guarantee to be able to "return to Egypt safely". Ghonim refused, and a few days later Ghonim's brother Hazem was arrested in Cairo. Ghonim interpreted this as a kidnapping in revenge for Ghonim having refused to remain silent.
Ali was described in mid-September by Mohamed Elmasry of the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies as being "probably the most popular man in Egypt" with millions of viewers of his online videos and millions of people using Ali's anti-Sisi hashtags. Elmasry described Ali as "a legitimate threat to the el-Sisi government."
On 21 September, following the previous day's protests, Ali called for a "million-man march" to fill all the "major squares" in Egypt on the following Friday, 27 September. Ali stated, "This is a people's revolution... We have to link up together as one... and organise going down to the major squares." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Egyptian_protests |
Étoile Sportive du Sahel | In February 2013, former Cameroon coach Denis Lavagne was appointed to lead the team to qualify for the playoff phase of the local championship and competed for the last round before finishing in third place. In fact, ESS was champions in the first half of the last round. And despite the team exceeded JSM Béjaïa in the first round, the team failed to qualify for the semi-finals of the 2013 CAF Confederation Cup after losing to CS Sfaxien and Stade Malien. As for the 2012 Tunisian Cup, which was completed in 2013, ES Sahel won it after beating CS Sfaxien 1–0 to be the first trophy they have won in the last five years.
In December 2013, Frenchman Roger Lemerre was hired to lead the team. He won the 2014 Tunisian Cup for the second time in the final after beating CS Sfaxien in the final. The team signed with Serbian Dragan Cvetković, who did not stay in office more than a month after the catastrophic results of the 2014 CAF Confederation Cup by finishing last in the group to be replaced by coach Faouzi Benzarti.
The team finished the season in second place of the local championship after an arbitration dispute led to the refusal of the team management to play the game of CS Hammam-Lif. However, the team won the local cup after beating Stade Gabèsien 4–3 in the final to win the trophy for the third time. As for the continent, the team played in the 2015 CAF Confederation Cup, surpassing Moroccan Raja Casablanca in the first round as they qualified for the semi-finals after passing Stade Malien and its compatriot Espérance and winning Al Ahly of Egypt and then beat Zamalek in the semi-finals in a match 5–1 for ESS before going beyond Orlando Pirates in the final to win the first African title since 2008 dedicated to his return to Africa and become the most capped CAF Cup team with 4 titles.
This African title win allowed ESS to play in the 2016 CAF Super Cup against TP Mazembe, but the team lost 2–1. Locally, the team won the league after nine years to collect 77 points. The team was eliminated from the quarterfinals of the Cup after a defeat against Espérance 1–0 and in the same year the team was unable to qualify for the group stage from the African Champions League after defeating Enyimba narrowly 4–3 to qualify for the 2016 CAF Confederation Cup, which was close to the maintenance of the title after the qualification the semi-final, surpassing in the Group FUS Rabat, Kawkab Marrakech and Al Ahly of Tripoli before coming out in front of TP Mazembe in the semi-finals. After nearly three years at the helm of the team, Faouzi Benzarti and the team management were separated for financial reasons to go to Espérance de Tunis.
The team's managing director appointed the former coach of TP Mazembe, Hubert Velud to coach the team, leaving the quarter-finals of the Cup against CS Hammam-Lif on penalties before coming in second place in the league after competing with Espérance in the last round. Continentally, The team managed to move beyond the group stage of the African Champions League, bypassing the two teams of Sudan: Al-Hilal and Al-Merrikh, and to beat Al Ahli Tripoli in the quarter-finals 2–0 to qualify for the semi-finals of the tournament for the first time in 10 years where they won the competition. But ESS lost to Al-Ahly 7–3 to get out of the competition and the dismissal of the French coach Velud. Most of the members of the administration, such as Ziad Jaziri and Hussein Jenayah, resigned.
With the arrival of Algerian coach Kheïreddine Madoui, the team reached the final of the Tunisian Cup before losing to the Club Africain 4–1 in addition to the end of the season in third place despite the equal points with Club Africain before the deduction is based on direct confrontations. After that, Chiheb Ellili was hired but he did not stay much after the Champions League exit to Espérance in the quarterfinals with difficulty. The Belgian coach Georges Leekens did not survive because of the unconfirmed results in the Tunisian league. Roger Lemerre was relegated by the management, improving the team's results to finish second in the league, just two points from the top, and managed to reach the final of Tunisia Cup. Outside of Tunisia, the team managed to qualify for the semi-finals of the 2019 CAF Confederation Cup after beating Al-Hilal of Sudan before they struggled out against Zamalek. In addition, the team succeeded in winning the Arab Club Champions Cup for the first time in its history after beating Al-Ramtha of Jordan in the first round, and the two Moroccan clubs of Casablanca: Wydad and Raja, then Al-Merrikh of Sudan in the semi-final before winning the final in Hazza bin Zayed Stadium at Al Ain in UAE, after beating Al-Hilal of Saudi Arabia 2–1 to win $6 million. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89toile_Sportive_du_Sahel |
Sabaic | Sabaic, like Proto-Semitic, contains three sibilant phonemes, represented by distinct letters; the exact phonetic nature of these sounds is still uncertain. In the early days of Sabaic studies, Old South Arabian was transcribed using Hebrew letters. The transcriptions of the alveolars or postvelar fricatives remained controversial; after a great deal of uncertainty in the initial period the lead was taken by the transcription chosen by Nikolaus Rhodokanakis and others for the Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum (s, š, and ś), until A. F. L. Beeston proposed replacing this with the representation with s followed by the subscripts 1–3. This latest version has largely taken over the English-speaking world, while in the German-speaking area, for example, the older transcription signs, which are also given in the table below, are more widespread. They were transcribed by Beeston as s1, s2, and s3. Bearing in mind the latest reconstructions of the Proto-Semitic sibilants, we can postulate that s1 was probably pronounced as a simple [s]or [ʃ], s2 was probably a lateral fricative [ɬ], and s3 may have been realized as an affricate [t͡s]. The difference between the three sounds is maintained throughout Old Sabaic and Middle Sabaic, but in the Late period s1 and s3 merge. The subscript n did not start appearing until after the Early Sabaic period. The Middle Sabaic Haramitic dialect often shows the change s3 > s1, for example: ˀks1wt ("clothes"), normal Sabaic ks3wy.
The exact nature of the emphatic consonants q, ṣ, ṭ, ẓ and ḍ also remains a matter for debate: were they pharyngealized as in Modern Arabic, or were they glottalized as in Ethiopic (and reconstructed Proto-Semitic)? There are arguments to support both possibilities. In any case, beginning with Middle Sabaic the letters representing ṣ and ẓ are increasingly interchanged, which seems to indicate that they have fallen together as one phoneme. The existence of bilabial fricative f as a reflex of the Proto-Semitic *p is partly proved by Latin transcriptions of names. In late Sabaic ḏ and z also merge.In Old Sabaic the sound n only occasionally assimilates to a following consonant, but in the later periods this assimilation is the norm. The minuscule Zabūr script does not seem to have a letter that represents the sound ẓ, and replaces it with ḍ instead; for example: mfḍr ("a measure of capacity"), written in the Musnad script as: mfẓr. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabaic |
Sharia | Some extremists have used their interpretation of Islamic scriptures and Sharia, in particular the doctrine of jihad, to justify acts of war and terror against Muslim as well as non-Muslim individuals and governments. The expert on terrorism Rachel Ehrenfeld wrote that the "Sharia's finance (Islamic banking) is a new weapon in the arsenal of what might be termed fifth-generation warfare (5GW)". However, sharia-complaint financing actually requires a person to stay away from weapons manufacturing.
In classical fiqh, the term jihad refers to armed struggle against oppressors. Classical jurists developed an elaborate set of rules pertaining to jihad, including prohibitions on harming those who are not engaged in combat. According to Bernard Lewis, "[a]t no time did the classical jurists offer any approval or legitimacy to what we nowadays call terrorism" and the terrorist practice of suicide bombing "has no justification in terms of Islamic theology, law or tradition". In the modern era the notion of jihad has lost its jurisprudential relevance and instead gave rise to an ideological and political discourse. While modernist Islamic scholars have emphasized defensive and non-military aspects of jihad, some radicals have advanced aggressive interpretations that go beyond the classical theory. For al-Qaeda ideologues, in jihad all means are legitimate, including targeting Muslim non-combatants and the mass killing of non-Muslim civilians.
Some modern ulema, such as Yusuf al-Qaradawi and Sulaiman Al-Alwan, have supported attacks against Israeli army reservists and hence should be considered as soldiers, while Hamid bin Abdallah al-Ali declared that suicide attacks in Chechnya were justified as a "sacrifice". Many prominent Islamic scholars, including al-Qaradawi himself, have issued condemnations of terrorism in general terms. For example, Abdul-Aziz ibn Abdullah Al ash-Sheikh, the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia has stated that "terrorizing innocent people [...] constitute[s] a form of injustice that cannot be tolerated by Islam", while Muhammad Sayyid Tantawy, Grand Imam of al-Azhar and former Grand Mufti of Egypt has stated that "attacking innocent people is not courageous; it is stupid and will be punished on the Day of Judgment". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharia |
Human rights in Jordan | Jordan is a semi-constitutional monarchy ruled by King Abdullah II bin Hussein. The constitution concentrates executive and legislative authority in the king.
Jordan has a bicameral legislature, the National Assembly, consisting of an upper house, the Assembly of Senators, appointed by the king and an elected lower house, the Chamber of Deputies. The members of both houses hold office for four-year terms. There are 60 seats in the Senate and 120 in the Chamber of Deputies. In the Chamber of Deputies 12 seats are reserved for women, 9 seats for Christian candidates, 9 for Bedouin candidates, and 3 for Jordanians of Chechen or Circassian descent. The Assembly of Senators is responsible to the Chamber of Deputies and can be dismissed by "a vote of no confidence". The king may dissolve the National Assembly, forcing new elections. King Abdullah did that on 24 November 2009, and the government ruled by decree through most of 2010, until new elections were held in November. Parliamentary elections have been deemed credible by international observers. The king signs and executes all laws, but his veto power can be overridden by two-thirds vote of the National Assembly. The judicial branch is completely independent. Security forces report to civilian authorities.
The law does not provide citizens the right to change their monarch or government. The king appoints and dismisses the prime minister, cabinet, the Assembly of Senators, and judges, may dissolve parliament, commands the military, and directs major public policy initiatives. The cabinet, based on the prime minister's recommendation, appoints the mayors of Amman, Wadi Musa (Petra), and Aqaba, a special economic zone. The mayors of the other 93 municipalities are elected.
Opposition movements are legal in Jordan and are involved in Jordan's political life. The government licenses political parties and other associations and prohibits membership in unlicensed political parties. There are over 50 licensed political parties, but only a few have a substantial impact at the national level.
Jordan ranked sixth among the 19 countries in the Middle East and North Africa region, and 50th out of 178 countries worldwide in the 2010 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) issued by Transparency International, where 1st is the least corrupt. Jordan's 2010 CPI score was 4.7 on a scale from 0 (highly corrupt) to 10 (very clean). Jordan ratified the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) in February 2005 and has been a regional leader in spearheading efforts to promote the UNCAC and its implementation. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Jordan |
Jordan | Jordan was home to 2,175,491 Palestinian refugees as of December 2016; most of them, but not all, had been granted Jordanian citizenship. The first wave of Palestinian refugees arrived during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War and peaked in the 1967 Six-Day War and the 1990 Gulf War. In the past, Jordan had given many Palestinian refugees citizenship, however recently Jordanian citizenship is given only in rare cases. 370,000 of these Palestinians live in UNRWA refugee camps. Following the capture of the West Bank by Israel in 1967, Jordan revoked the citizenship of thousands of Palestinians to thwart any attempt to permanently resettle from the West Bank to Jordan. West Bank Palestinians with family in Jordan or Jordanian citizenship were issued yellow cards guaranteeing them all the rights of Jordanian citizenship if requested.
Up to 1,000,000 Iraqis moved to Jordan following the Iraq War in 2003, and most of them have returned. In 2015, their number in Jordan was 130,911. Many Iraqi Christians (Assyrians/Chaldeans) however settled temporarily or permanently in Jordan. Immigrants also include 15,000 Lebanese who arrived following the 2006 Lebanon War. Since 2010, over 1.4 million Syrian refugees have fled to Jordan to escape the violence in Syria, the largest population being in the Zaatari refugee camp. The kingdom has continued to demonstrate hospitality, despite the substantial strain the flux of Syrian refugees places on the country. The effects are largely affecting Jordanian communities, as the vast majority of Syrian refugees do not live in camps. The refugee crisis effects include competition for job opportunities, water resources and other state provided services, along with the strain on the national infrastructure.
In 2007, there were up to 150,000 Assyrian Christians; most are Eastern Aramaic speaking refugees from Iraq. Kurds number some 30,000, and like the Assyrians, many are refugees from Iraq, Iran and Turkey. Descendants of Armenians that sought refuge in the Levant during the 1915 Armenian genocide number approximately 5,000 persons, mainly residing in Amman. A small number of ethnic Mandeans also reside in Jordan, again mainly refugees from Iraq. Around 12,000 Iraqi Christians have sought refuge in Jordan after the Islamic State took the city of Mosul in 2014. Several thousand Libyans, Yemenis and Sudanese have also sought asylum in Jordan to escape instability and violence in their respective countries. The 2015 Jordanian census recorded that there were 1,265,000 Syrians, 636,270 Egyptians, 634,182 Palestinians, 130,911 Iraqis, 31,163 Yemenis, 22,700 Libyans and 197,385 from other nationalities residing in the country.
There are around 1.2 million illegal, and 500,000 legal migrant workers and expatriates in the kingdom. Thousands of foreign women, mostly from the Middle East and Eastern Europe, work in nightclubs, hotels and bars across the kingdom. American and European expatriate communities are concentrated in the capital, as the city is home to many international organisations and diplomatic missions. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jordan |
Bedouin | A plunder and massacre of the Hajj caravan by Bedouin tribesmen occurred in 1757, led by Qa'dan Al - Fayez of the Bani Sakhr tribe (Modern-day Jordan) in his vengeance against the Ottomans for failing to pay his tribe for their help protecting the pilgrims. An estimated 20,000 pilgrims were either killed in the raid or died of hunger or thirst as a result including relatives of the Sultan and Musa Pasha. Although Bedouin raids on Hajj caravans were fairly common, the 1757 raid represented the peak of such attacks which was also likely prompted by the major drought of 1756.
Under the Tanzimat Land reforms of 1858, a new Ottoman Land Law was issued, which offered legal grounds for the displacement of the Bedouin (Turkish: Bedeviler). As the Ottoman Empire gradually lost power, this law instituted an unprecedented land registration process that was also meant to boost the empire's tax base. Few Bedouin opted to register their lands with the Ottoman Tapu, due to lack of enforcement by the Ottomans, illiteracy, refusal to pay taxes and lack of relevance of written documentation of ownership to the Bedouin way of life at that time. Some scholars, such as Nora Elizabeth Barakat, believe the displacement of the Bedouin had its roots in events even earlier than the 1858 Land Reforms, for example in an 1844 Anatolia-specific decree recognizing the "tribe" as a formal unit of administration. The goal of these early reforms was to weaken local Bedouin magistrates and limit what she terms as "rural mobility", the ability of these local Bedouins to, independently of the Ottoman state, accumulate wealth through the wheat trade and other means.
At the end of the 19th century, Sultan Abdülhamid II settled Muslim populations (Circassians) from the Balkan and Caucasus among areas predominantly populated by the nomads in the regions of modern Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Israel, and also created several permanent Bedouin settlements, although the majority of them did not remain. The settlement of non Arabs in the traditionally Bedouin areas was a big cause of discontent. This became even severe because every Arab tribe, including the settled ones, have ancestry as a Bedouin.
Ottoman authorities also initiated private acquisition of large plots of state land offered by the sultan to the absentee landowners (effendis). Numerous tenants were brought in order to cultivate the newly acquired lands. Often it came at the expense of the Bedouin lands.
In the late 19th century, many Bedouin began transition to a semi-nomadic lifestyle. One of the factors was the influence of the Ottoman empire authorities who started a forced sedentarization of the Bedouin living on its territory. The Ottoman authorities viewed the Bedouin as a threat to the state's control and worked hard on establishing law and order in the Negev. During the First World War, the Negev Bedouin initially fought with the Ottomans against the British. However, under the influence of British agent T. E. Lawrence, the Bedouins switched side and fought against the Ottomans. Hamad Pasha al-Sufi (died 1923), Sheikh of the Nijmat sub-tribe of the Tarabin, led a force of 1,500 men who joined the Ottoman raid on the Suez Canal.
In Orientalist historiography, the Negev Bedouin have been described as remaining largely unaffected by changes in the outside world until recently. Their society was often considered a "world without time". Recent scholars have challenged the notion of the Bedouin as 'fossilized,' or 'stagnant' reflections of an unchanging desert culture. Emanuel Marx has shown that Bedouin were engaged in a constantly dynamic reciprocal relation with urban centers. Bedouin scholar Michael Meeker explains that "the city was to be found in their midst."
At the time of World War I, a Qays Bedouin tribe from Harran, not far from Urfa, settled in Lüleburgaz in East Thrace under their last Sheikh Salih Abdullah. It is said that this tribe was originally from Tihamah. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bedouin |
Predestination in Islam | Incompatibility between predestination and free will is not an issue in major Sunni Islam sources, as they held the rationale that both could coexist. In response about the polemical debate regarding the issue of "Will of God" (predestination) vs "Will of creatures/mortals" (free will), Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani classified the destiny as a whole consisted of two parts, Qada (God's decree which precede Qadar) and Qadar. Catherine Smith, an anthropologist and Ethnographist who researched about Aceh Muslim society which afflicted by 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami trauma; has illustrated the concept of Qada and Qadar based on her interviews with the local Muslims, who regards the Tsunami disaster (and other retroactive inevitable experience such as death) as a "Qada"; or fixed destiny which should be accepted as inevitable, while Qadar was something to be strived upon since its result still indeterminate from the perspective of human.
Ibn Taymiyya has classified fate into several stages of Taqdir ([taq.diːr]; fate, verbal noun of Qadar), where Qadar is determined and prescribed/sent to creation, which divided the fate into 5 type in accordance of its priorities:
Taqdir al-‘Aam (general fate)/ Taqdir Azali (divine fate): Sunni muslims believe the divine destiny is a highest authority of God which Preserved Tablet (Lawh al-Mahfuz) before any creations. The content of this Taqdir are all that has happened and will happen, which will come to pass as written. According to Al-Tahawi, divine destiny the origin of destiny is the secret of God. Not even archangels or Prophets and messengers in Islam had knowledge about Qadr. Ibn Taymiyyah based this kind of Taqdir from Al-Hajj 22:10 and Sahih Muslim chapter VIII Hadith number 51. This Taqdir encompassed and controlled another Taqdirs.
Taqdir al-Bashari (lit. fate of humans): The next stage of Taqdir after the creation of Adam. God took out all of the progeny of Adam (i.e. all of the humans from the beginning of time until the end of time), and asked them "Am I not your Lord?" and all of the humans responded "We testify that You are our Lord!" Then Allah decreed to them who shall go to paradise and who shall go to hell. This Taqdir encompassed, controlled, and could be intervened by Taqdir al-Azali. The basis of this Taqdir are Al-A'raf 7:172 and a Hadith narrated by a companion of Muhammad named Hisham ibn Hakim, which recorded by Ibn Abi Asim in his work, as-Sunnah, and Al-Suyuti in his work, Al-Dur al-Manthur.
Taqdir al-'Umri (lit. fate of age): This occurs when people are in the womb of their mothers, specifically 120 days phase from Zygote to fetus. God sends an angel to put a soul into the body, and the angel writes down the decree that God has made; their life-spans, their actions, their sustenances (how much they will earn throughout their lifetime) and whether they will be dwellers of paradise or a dweller of hell. This Taqdir encompassed, controlled, and could be intervened by Taqdir al-Azali, and Taqdir al-Bashari. The basis of this Taqdir is a hadith about Taqdir al-'Umri which recorded in Sahih al-Bukhari, (VII/210, no. 3208), Sahih Muslim, (VIII/44, no. 2643), dan record of Ibn Majah, (I/29, no. 76).
Taqdir Sanawi / Taqdir Hawl (fate of yearly): an annual decree of fate which occur every Night of Qadr (Night of Decree) where God sends down his decrees from heaven to earth, in it he destines the actions (deeds, sustenance, births, deaths, etc.) of creation for the next year. The word Qadar should not be confused with Qadr; Qadar is destiny, Qadr is that which has been destined. The basis of this Taqdir are ad-Dukhan 44:4 and al-Qadr 97:4-5. This Taqdir encompassed, controlled, and could be intervened by Taqdir al-Azali, and Taqdir al-Bashari.
Taqdir Yawmi (fate of daily): God decrees the daily fate of his creations; whether its their acts, wills, emotions, or interactions. The basis of this Taqdir is ar-Rahman 55:20 This Taqdir encompassed, controlled, and could be intervened by Higher Taqdirs.
Ibn Taymiyya explained that these levels of fate is that mortal's fate depends on the good deeds or bad deeds of a person, indicating the freedom of choice which could change the predetermined fate of 'Umri, Sanawi, and Yawmi, thus Ibn Taymiyya concluded that the "free will" of humans and jinn within the frameworks of fate are located under al-'Aam and al-Bashari. Al-Uthaymin quoted a hadith recorded by Al-Hakim al-Nishapuri which stated "a prayer could change one's destiny", that means the action of good deed such as prayer are indeterminate from the perspective of Taqdir Yawmi, which could change the predestined priority of Taqdir al-'Umri; However, such changes of fate was already recorded and calculated from the perspective of Taqdir al-‘Aam/Azali; the highest order of fates stage. Meanwhile, Taqdir Sanawi and al-Umri is regulated by angels, they also still depended to Taqdir al-Bashari; which are second only to Taqdir al-'Aam in priority. These two highest Taqdirs are controlled directly by God, where Taqdir al-'Aam also control and bound the entire universe and creations, including the angels themselves, as the angels did not have knowledge about Taqdir al-Bashari, and Taqdir al-'Aam, as per explanation of Ibn Hajar about Hadith of Gabriel.
Ibn Abi al-Izz then concluded that in this context, the concept of fate or destiny does not contradict the existence of human's free will, since some fates or Taqdirs can be changed into another fates which already prepared by God. Furthermore, Salih as-Sadlan from Imam Mohammad Ibn Saud Islamic University gave the example from a hadith authored by Salman the Persian which stated "a supplication could prolong one's lifespan". Salih explained that in broader sense, this Hadith explained that one's fated death could be delayed and misfortunes could averted based on good deeds.
Thereby, based on those tenets about the Taqdirs or fates, classical era Atharism scholars, which followed by modern era Salafi scholars has established their Heresiology, where they branded polemicists who rejected "free will of mortals" as Jabriyya, while those who questioned or rejected the "Will of God" as Qadariyah. The creed of Al-Tahawi warns "that providence" (the seeming conflict of divine decree with human free will) is such a secret that even God's most obedient and holy creatures were not let in on the mystery. As a result, the scholars emphasized that providence is a secret of Allah and that "going too deeply into it philosophically" will lead to "misguidance".
According to Maturidi belief, all active possibilities are created by God and humans act in accordance with their free intention to choose which action they follow. In this way, the intention precedes the created action and capacity by which actions are acquired (kasb in Arabic). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predestination_in_Islam |
Shoshenq I | The conventional dates for his reign, as established by Kenneth Kitchen, are 945–924 BC but his time-line has recently been revised upwards by a few years to 943–922 BC, since he may well have lived for up to two to three years after his successful campaign in Israel and Judah, conventionally dated to 925 BC. As Edward Wente of the University of Chicago noted (1976) on page 276 of his JNES 35 Book Review of Kitchen's study of the Third Intermediate Period, there is "no certainty" that Shoshenq's 925 BC campaign terminated just prior to this king's death a year later in 924 BC. Egyptologist Morris Bierbrier also dated Shoshenq I's accession "between 945–940 BC" in his 1975 book concerning the genealogies of Egyptian officials, who served during the late New Kingdom and Third Intermediate Period. Bierbrier based his opinion on Biblical evidence collated by W. Albright in a BASOR 130 paper. This development would also account for the mostly unfinished state of decorations of Shoshenq's building projects at the Great Temple of Karnak where only scenes of the king's Palestinian military campaign are fully carved. Building materials would first have had to be extracted and architectural planning performed for his great monumental projects here. Such activities usually took up to a year to complete before work was even begun. This would imply that Shoshenq I likely lived for a period in excess of one year after his 925 BC campaign. On the other hand, if the Karnak inscription was concurrent with Shoshenq's campaign into Canaan, the fact that it was left unfinished would suggest this campaign occurred in the last year of Shoshenq's reign. This possibility would also permit his 945 BC accession date to be slightly lowered to 943 BC.
A 2005 study by Rolf Krauss of ancient Egyptian chronology suggests that Shoshenq I came to power in 943 BC rather than 945 BC as is conventionally assumed based on epigraphic evidence from the Great Dakhla stela, which dates to Year 5 of his reign. Krauss and David Warburton write in the 2006 book Ancient Egyptian Chronology:
The chronology of early Dyn. 22 depends on dead reckoning. The sum of the highest attested regnal dates for Osorkon II, Takelot I, Osorkon I, and Shoshenq I, added to 841 BC as year 1 of Shoshenq III, yields 938 BC at the latest for year 1 of Shoshenq I...[However] The large Dakhla stela provides a lunar date in the form of a wrš feast in year 5 of Shoshenq [I], yielding 943 BC as his year 1.
The Year 5 wrš feast is recorded to have been celebrated at Dakhla oasis on IV Peret day 25 and Krauss' exploration of the astronomical data leads him to conclude that the only 'fit' within the period of 950 to 930 BC places the accession of Shoshenq I between December 944 and November 943 BC—or 943 BC for the most part. However, Dr. Anthony Leahy has suggested that "the identification of the wrš-festival of Seth as [a] lunar [festival] is hypothetical, and [thus] its occurrence on the first day of a lunar month an assumption. Neither has been proven incontrovertibly." Thus far, however, only Dr. Kenneth Kitchen is on record as sharing the same academic view.
A 2010 study by Thomas Schneider argued that Shoshenq reigned from 962 to 941 BCE. Ido Koch in his 2021 book considered Schneider's chronology of Egyptian kings as a valuable integrative study. However, recent archaeomagnetic dating at Beth-Shean, one of three early sites that could have been destroyed by Shoshenq I, shows 68.2% probability the destruction occurred between 935 and 900 BC, and 95.4% probability it occurred between 940 and 879 BC. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoshenq_I |
Islam in Vietnam | Vietnam's April 1999 census reported 63,146 Muslims. Over 77% lived in the South Central Coast, with 34% in Ninh Thuận Province, 24% in Bình Thuận Province, and 9% in Ho Chi Minh City; another 22% lived in the Mekong Delta region, primarily in An Giang Province. Only 1% of Muslims lived in other regions of the country. The number of believers is gender-balanced to within 2% in every area of major concentration except An Giang, where the population of Muslim women is 7.5% larger than the population of Muslim men. This distribution is somewhat different from that observed in earlier reports. Prior to 1975, almost half of the Muslims in the country lived in the Mekong Delta, and as late as 1985, the Muslim community in Ho Chi Minh City was reported to consist of nearly 10,000 individuals. Of the 54,775 members of the Muslim population over age 5, 13,516, (or 25%) were currently attending school, 26,134 (or 48%) had attended school in the past, and the remaining 15,121(or 27%) had never attended school, compared to 10% of the general population. This gives Muslims the second-highest rate of school non-attendance out of all religious groups in Vietnam (the highest rate being that for Protestants, at 34%). The school non-attendance rate was 22% for males and 32% for females. Muslims also had one of the lowest rates of university attendance, with less than 1% having attended any institution of higher learning, compared to just under 3% of the general population.
There are two Muslim groups in Vietnam: Sunni Muslims and Bani Cham Muslims. The Bani branch is considered unorthodox because its practices are different from mainstream Islam and it is influenced by Cham folk beliefs. Cham Bani Muslims consisted entirely of ethnic Chams, particularly those living in the provinces of Ninh Thuận and Bình Thuận. The Bani community, which numbered around 64,000 and had 407 clerics (2006), is organized by the Bani Religious Leaders Council. The Sunni community has a wider range of ethnicities (Cham, Viet, Malay, Khmer, Chinese, and Arab). Their population in 2006 was 25,000, mostly inhabiting the southwest of the Mekong Delta, along with urban areas such as Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City.
However, there are esoteric, non-orthodox Islamic beliefs in the Mekong Delta that are regarded as mê tín (superstitions). Cham researcher Dohamide conjectures these non-Islamic beliefs among the Mekong Delta Cham as Sufism. He believes that some fragments of the Mekong Delta Cham communities maybe strongly influenced by Sufi orders. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_Vietnam |
The World (archipelago) | May 2003: The World development was announced by Nakheel, total completion scheduled for 2008. It was initially to have 200 islands and an area of 5,600,000 square metres (60,000,000 sq ft).
February 2004: It was announced that the World would comprise 260 islands, and its area would be 6 km by 9 km, with an area of 23–83,613 square metres (250–900,000 sq ft) for each island, with 50–100 m (160–330 ft) of water between each island.
August 2004: It was announced that land reclamation would cost AED 7.3 billion ($2 billion).
April 2005: Sand dredging 55 percent complete, 88 islands completed.
30 March 2006: Richard Branson appeared at a media conference on the Great Britain island. However, this was to announce direct London-to-Dubai flights by Virgin Atlantic and was not related to his investing in the project.
October 2006: Seven-time Formula One World Champion Michael Schumacher was presented with one of the islands by Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum on the occasion of his final Grand Prix, in Brazil. Schumacher's manager, Willi Weber, suggested, "Perhaps he'll build a kart racing track on [the island]".
December 2006: The World reclamation 90 percent complete.
October 2007: Nakheel announced the sale of Ireland and Shanghai in October 2007.
January 2008: The World breakwater is completed.
19 February 2008: Cinnovation Group acquired a 37,000-square-metre (400,000 sq ft) island as part of a project valued at $200 million USD. Guest and residential villas and a hospitality complex are planned.
25 February 2008: Dubai Multi Commodities Centre announced that it will establish a 6,000-square-metre (65,000 sq ft) pearling and marine entertainment center in association with Paspaley Pearling Corporation. It will be located on an island in the Antarctic region of the World.
September 2008: Dubai's Limitless announced plans to develop a $161 million USD wellness resort on an island in "Siberia". Pearl Dubai paid US$27.2 million for a 150,000-square-metre (1,600,000 sq ft) island nearby.
28 December 2008: Turkey Island was bought by MNG Holding in June 2008 for US$19 million.
28 December 2008: China's Zhongzhou International announced that it will be developing a hotel resort on Shanghai island.
28 December 2008: Nakheel said 70 percent of the World had been sold.
October 2009: An Emirates Business report on 13 October 2009 stated that two islands were sold in July and August 2009.
December 2009: Dubai-based Kleindienst Group said they would start construction of the Heart of Europe in early 2010. Islands include Austria, Germany, Netherlands, Ukraine, Sweden, and Switzerland.
January 2010: On 28 January 2010, Emirates Business reported that Major Trade had started development of their projects on an island in the Greenland area, a villa and hotel resort.
23 February 2010: Kleindienst Group started work on the Germany island of the World.
17 July 2012: The Royal Island Beach Club opened on Lebanon Island.
6 May 2013: Nakheel announced that an out-of-court settlement had been reached between itself and Kleindienst Group, allowing construction on "The Heart of Europe" to resume.
10 June 2013: Construction began on "Taiwan".
2 July 2013: Nakheel announced that settlements "with São Paulo Development Ltd for São Paulo Island and a GCC investor for the purchase of Nord Island", totaling "AED 185 million", along with the earlier settlement with Kleindienst Group (valued at AED 622 million), have "put The World back on the map".
10 December 2013: Nakheel announced plans to connect the islands with a road.
January 2014: Kleindienst Group's JK Properties announced that "work has commenced on The Heart of Europe".
January 2014: Website "The Heart of Europe" publishes monthly construction updates for the project.
February 2014: JK Properties announced that the "Heart of Europe" islands construction is "well underway".
7 December 2016: The Heart of Europe project makes major progress when the Dubai-based company JK Bauen, part of the Kleindienst Group, appointed Chinese-based companies Wuchang Ship Building Industry Group and Sino Great Wall International Engineering in a joint venture to develop facilities on the six islands. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_(archipelago) |
Bedouin | Bedouins in Egypt mostly reside in the Sinai peninsula, Matruh, Red Sea governate, eastern parts of Sharqia governate, Suez, Ismailia and in the suburbs of the Egyptian capital of Cairo. Traditional Bedouin culture was affected by the establishment of resort towns on the Red Sea coast, such as Sharm el-Sheikh. In the wake of urbanization and educational opportunities, many Bedouins now marry outside their tribe, a practice that once was frowned upon.
Bedouins living in the Sinai peninsula did not benefit much from the construction boom due to the low wages offered. Sudanese and Egyptian workers were brought in as construction workers instead. When the tourist industry started to bloom, local Bedouins became cab drivers, tour guides and managers of campgrounds and coffee shops. Tarabin and other Bedouin tribes living along the border between Egypt and Israel have been involved in inter-border smuggling of drugs and weapons, as well as infiltration of prostitutes and African labour workers.
In most countries in the Middle East, the Bedouin have no land rights, only users' privileges, and it is especially true for Egypt. Since the mid-1980s, the Bedouins who held desirable coastal property have lost control of much of their land as it was sold by the Egyptian government to hotel operators. The Egyptian government did not see the land as belonging to Bedouin tribes, but rather as state property.
In the summer of 1999, the Egyptian army bulldozed Bedouin-run tourist campgrounds north of Nuweiba as part of the final phase of hotel development overseen by the Tourist Development Agency (TDA). The director of the Tourist Development Agency dismissed Bedouin rights to most of the land, saying that they had not lived on the coast prior to 1982. Their traditional semi-nomadic culture has left Bedouins vulnerable to such claims.
The Egyptian Revolution of 2011 brought more freedom to the Sinai Bedouin, but since they were
involved in drug smuggling into Gaza, the Egyptian army demolished over 120 tunnels that were used as smuggling channels, compelling them to cooperate with state troops and officials. After negotiations, the military campaign ended with a new agreement between the Bedouin and Egyptian authorities. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bedouin |
Shia Islam in the Indian subcontinent | Shi'ism was introduced in Karnataka in 1565 AD when it became part of the Adil Shahi Dynasty. Concurrent to the American War of Independence, a major threat to the rule of the British East India Company emerged under the banner of Hyder Ali (1766–1782 AD), who was the army commander of the Wadiyar Dynasty of Mysore and then founded the Khudadad Sultanate. He and his son Tipu Sultan appeared as the most formidable resistance to the colonial occupation. He was the most farsighted Indian of his time, like Akbar the Great, he realized the importance of secularism, unity and modern science for the multi-cultural subcontinent. He and his son Tipu Sultan were Sufi Sunnis who used to commemorate Muharram. They modernized the army, invented the iron-cased Mysorean rockets and significantly developed Mysore's economy. Tipu had deep love for Ali, he inscribed Asadullah-ul Ghalib(اسد الله الغالب) on weapons. He sent ambassadors to pay homage to Ali and Hussain in Iraq and ordered them to seek permission from Ottoman Emperor to build a canal from Euphrates to Najaf to meet the needs of clean water in the holy city.
At that point in time, Iran was in turmoil and many Syeds and scholars migrated to different parts of India, some ended up in Mysore, which was building its military muscle. Looking for careers in military, many Syeds joined the army and some 2000 Iranian horse traders settled in Srirangapatna Fort. Tipu tried to form a Mysore- Hyderabad- Pune alliance against the British East India Company, though this effort ultimately failed. He also contacted the French counterpart, Napoleon, the Iranian Fath Ali Shah and the Afghan Zaman Shah for help, but the British managed to encircle and defeat him. In the last Anglo-Mysore war in 1799 AD, Mir Sadiq, Purnaiah and Qamar-ud Din Khan sided with the British East India Company. Syed Ghaffar, Syed Hamid and Muhammad Raza remained loyal to him till the end. The Syeds fought hard under Syed Ghaffar and after his death, Tipu himself lead the few soldiers defending the fort, but was unsuccessful and died. Although Marathas had joined the British 1792 AD against Tipu, they had stayed neutral this time. However, when the news of Tipu's death reached Pune, Baji Rao said that he had lost his right arm. Marathas and Sikhs were going to be the next victims.
After the death of the tiger of Mysore, Tipu Sultan, Shias left Srirangapatna Fort and settled in the Mysore city, and some migrated to Bangalore. A Shia scholar Mir Zain-ul Abideen Abid was appointed Mir Munshi by the Wadiyar king and he constructed an imambargah "Rashk-e Bahisht" in Mysore around 1812 AD. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shia_Islam_in_the_Indian_subcontinent |
Fula people | According to Tishkoff et al. (2009), the Fulani's genomic ancestry clusters near that of Chadic and Central Sudanic speaking populations, with genetic affinities observed to the Hausa people. Based on this, the researchers suggest that the Fulani may have adopted a Niger-Congo language at some point in their history, while intermarrying with local populations. Additionally, moderate levels of West Eurasian admixture was also observed among the Fulani samples, which the authors propose may have been introduced via the Iberian Peninsula and Northern Africa. Dobon et al. (2015), found that the Sudanese Fulani have largely ancestry from Niger-Kordofanian and Nilo-Saharan (Sudanic) speaking groups, with lower amounts of West-Eurasian ancestry.
Triska, Petr et al. (2015) showed that there is extensive admixture across the Sahel Belt, with the Fula carrying West African and East African components, as well as a Mozabite/North African component. These results support the hypothesis of a North African origin and a Western to Central Africa past migration for Fulani.
A full genome analysis was conducted by Vicente et al. in 2019, analyzing several different Fulani subgroups from various geographic regions. They found that the Fulani people are characterized by the admixture of local West African and East African components, but also display West-Eurasian admixture, mediated through historical North African groups. The West-Eurasian ancestry among Fulani was estimated to a mean average of 21,4% among the 53 samples from Ziniaré in Burkina Faso. According to the authors, there were two admixture events, the first being about 2000 years ago, with the second being more recent at around 300 years ago. This Eurasian ancestry was observed in the ancestry components of Mozabite people. They found that: "Our findings suggest that Eurasian admixture and the European LP allele was introduced into the Fulani through contact with a North African population/s. We furthermore confirm the link between the lactose digestion phenotype in the Fulani to the MCM6/LCT locus by reporting the first GWAS of the lactase persistence trait. e observed a T-13910 allele frequency of 48.0%, while the genome-wide European admixture fraction in the Fulani is 21.4% at K = 3. The notable European admixture fraction in the Fulani coupled with the high frequencies of the LP T-13910 allele suggests the possibility of adaptive gene flow into the Fulani gene pool". Another study in 2020 by Priehodová et al., suggest an older date for the introduction of one variant of the LP allele in the Sahel, about ~8.5 ka.
A study in 2019 by Fan et al., found that the Fulani sampled from Cameroon, clustered with Afro-Asiatic speakers from East Africa in the phylogenetic analysis, which the authors said indicates a potential shift in language to Niger-Congo. The analysis on autosomal markers found traces of West Eurasian-related ancestry in this population, which suggests a North African or East African origin (as North and East Africans also have such ancestry likely related to expansions of farmers and herders from the Near East) and is consistent with the presence at moderate frequency of the −13,910T variant associated with lactose tolerance in European populations.
In 2020, a study inferred that the Fulani of western Cameroon have 48% Mende-related, 23% East African-related, and 29% non-African-related ancestry.
In 2023, whole genomes of Fulani individuals from various Sahelian samples were analyzed, and the researches said the non-Sub-Saharan genetic ancestry within the Fulani cannot be solely explained by recent admixture events. Fulani may be descendants of Saharan cattle herders during the last Green Sahara, who had some genomic similarities to Late Neolithic Moroccans based on ancient samples.
Another 2023 study inferred that "The Fulani derived 50% of their ancestry from a population related to the Amhara and 50% from a population related to the Tikari (consistent with TreeMix results with 3 migration events)." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fula_people |
Navvab Safavi | Safavi founded the Fada'iyan-e Islam organization in 1945, and began recruiting like-minded individuals. Like the Muslim Brotherhood, a group he was in deep connection with and even met Sayyid Qutb later in 1953. Navvab Safavi believed that Islamic society needed to be purified. To this end, he organized carefully planned assassinations of politicians and related people to them.
Amir Taheri claims that Safavi was "the man who introduced Khomeini to the Muslim Brotherhood and their ideas," who "spent long hours together" with Khomeini in discussion, and visited him in Qom on a number of occasions during 1943 and 1944.
He and his organization were responsible for the attempted and actual assassinations of politicians Abdolhossein Hazhir, Hossein Ala' (he survived the attempt), Prime Minister Haj Ali Razmara, and historian Ahmad Kasravi.
Safavi and his group were closely associated with Abol-Ghasem Kashani and supported but were not members of Mohammad Mosaddegh's National Front. Safavi worked with Kashani, helping organize bazaar strikes against Premier Ahmad Qavam, public meetings in support of Palestinian Arabs, and a violent demonstration in 1948 against Premier Abdolhossein Hazhir. When the Shah appointed National Front leader Mohammed Mossadegh to the post of prime minister, Safavi expected his objectives would be furthered. He demanded the government drive the British out, and that it release "with honour and respect" the assassination of Razmara. When that didn't happen, Safavi announced "we have broken away irrevocably from Kashani's National Front. They promised to set up an Islamic country according to the precepts of the Koran. Instead, they have imprisoned our brothers." He later warned, "there are others who must be pushed down the incline to hell", words which would pass on to Mossadegh and further alienate him.
Thus relations between Kashani and Safavi, not to mention Mosaddegh, became "strained." On 10 May 1951, Navvab Safavi declared, "I invite Mosaddegh, other members of the National Front and Ayatollah Kashani, to an ethical trial.
Under the Pahlavi regime, the Usuli idea of democracy was suppressed and Shi'i Islamism found the space for revival. In 1950, at 26 years of age, he presented his idea of an Islamic State in a treatise, Barnameh-ye Inqalabi-ye Fada'ian-i Islam, which reflects his simplistic and naïve understanding of politics, history and society. After the 1953 coup against Iran's prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh , Navvab Safavi congratulated the Shah and said:
The country was saved by Islam and with the power of faith . . . The Shah and prime minister and ministers have to be believers in and promoters of, shi'ism, and the laws that are in opposition to the divine laws of God . . . must be nullified . . . The intoxicants, the shameful exposure and carelessness of women, and sexually provocative music . . . must be done away with and the superior teachings of Islam . . . must replace them. With the implementation of Islam's superior economic plan, the deprivation of the Muslim people of Iran, and the dangerous class difference would end.
In the years to follow, he enjoyed a close association with the government. In 1954, he attended the Islamic Conference in Jordan and traveled to Egypt. There he learned about Hasan al-Banna, the founder of Muslim Brotherhood (Arabic: الإخوان المسلمين), who was killed by Egyptian government in 1949, and met Sayyid Qutb. The Shia Marja, Ayatullah Hossein Borujerdi, rejected the ideas of Navvab Safavi and his radical group. He questioned him about the robberies that his organization committed on gun point, Safavi replied:
Our intention is to borrow from people. What we take is for establishing a government based on the model of Imam Ali's government. Our goal is sacred and prior to these tools. When we established an Aliid government-like state, then we give people their money back.
Navvab safavi didn't like Broujerdi's idea of Shia-Sunni rapprochement (Persian: تقریب), he advocated Shia-Sunni unification (Persian: وحدت) under Islamist agenda.
Fada'ian-e Islam launched a campaign of character assassination against the Marja and called for excommunication of Borujerdi and the defrocking of religious scholars who opposed Shi'i Islamism, a practice realized after establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran for Ayatullah Mohammad Kazem Shariatmadari and other clerics through Special Clerical Court. Fada'ian-e Islam carried out assassinations of Abdolhossein Hazhir, Haj Ali Razmara and Ahmad Kasravi. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navvab_Safavi |
Mauretania Tingitana | During the reign of the Numidian King Juba II, Emperor Augustus had already founded three colonias (with Roman citizens) in Mauretania close to the Atlantic coast: Iulia Constantia Zilil, Iulia Valentia Banasa and Iulia Campestris Babba.
This western part of Mauretania was to become the province called Mauretania Tingitana shortly afterwards. The region remained a part of the Roman Empire until 429, when the Vandals overran the area and Roman administrative presence came to an end.
The most important city of Mauretania Tingitana was Volubilis. This city was the administrative and economic center of the province in western Roman Africa. The fertile lands of the province produced many commodities such as grain and olive oil, which were exported to Rome, contributing to the province's wealth and prosperity. Archaeology has documented the presence of a Jewish community in the Roman period.
The principal exports from Mauretania Tingitana were purple dyes and valuable timber. Tingitana also supplied Rome with agricultural goods and animals, such as lions and leopards. The native Mauri were highly regarded and recruited by the Romans as soldiers, especially as light cavalry. Clementius Valerius Marcellinus is recorded as the governor (praeses) between 24 October 277 and 13 April 280.
According to tradition, the martyrdom of St Marcellus took place on 28 July 298 at Tingis (Tangier). During the Tetrarchy (Emperor Diocletian's reform of Roman governmental structures in 297), Mauretania Tingitana became part of the Diocese of Hispaniae, 'the Spains', and, by extension, part of the Praetorian prefecture of Gaul, thus it was across the sea from the European territory of Diocese and Prefecture it belonged to. Mauretania Caesariensis was in the Diocese of Africa. Lucilius Constantius is recorded as governor (praeses) in the late fourth century.
The Notitia Dignitatum shows also, in its military organisation, a Comes Tingitaniae with a field army composed of two legions, three vexillations, and two auxilia palatina. Flavius Memorius held this office (comes) at some point during the middle of the fourth century. However, it is implicit in the source material that there was a single military command for both of the Mauretanian provinces, with a Dux Mauretaniae (a lower rank) controlling seven cohorts and one ala.
The Germanic Vandals established themselves in the province of Baetica in 422 AD under their king, Gunderic, and, from there, they carried out raids on Mauretania Tingitana. In 427 AD, the Comes Africae, Bonifacius, rejected an order of recall from the Emperor Valentinian III, and he defeated an army sent against him. He was less fortunate when a second force was sent in 428 AD. In that year, Gunderic was succeeded by Gaiseric, and Bonifacius invited Gaiseric into Africa, providing a fleet to enable the passage of the Vandals to Tingis and Septem (Ceuta). Bonifacius intended to confine the Vandals to Mauretania, but, once they had crossed the straits, they rejected any control and marched on Carthage. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mauretania_Tingitana |
Syriac language | Since the proper dating of the Cave of Treasures, modern scholars were left with no indications of native Aramaic adoption of Syrian/Syriac labels before the 5th century. In the same time, a growing body of later sources showed that both in Greek, and in native literature, those labels were most commonly used as designations for Aramaic language in general, including its various dialects (both eastern and western), thus challenging the conventional scholarly reduction of the term "Syriac language" to a specific designation for Edessan Aramaic. Such use, that excludes non-Edessan dialects, and particularly those of Western Aramaic provenience, persist as an accepted convention, but in the same time stands in contradiction both with original Greek, and later native (acquired) uses of Syrian/Syriac labels as common designations for Aramaic language in general.
Those problems were addressed by prominent scholars, including Theodor Nöldeke (d. 1930) who noted on several occasions that term "Syriac language" has come to have two distinctive meanings, wider and narrower, with first (historical and wider) serving as a common synonym for Aramaic language in general, while other (conventional and narrower) designating only the Edessan Aramaic, also referred to more specifically as the "Classical Syriac".
Noting the problem, scholars have tried to resolve the issue by being more consistent in their use of the term "Classical Syriac" as a strict and clear scientific designation for the old literary and liturgical language, but the consistency of such use was never achieved within the field.
Inconsistent use of "Syrian/Syriac" labels in scholarly literature has led some researchers to raise additional questions, related not only to terminological issues but also to some more fundamental (methodological) problems, that were undermining the integrity of the field. Attempts to resolve those issues were unsuccessful, and in many scholarly works, related to the old literary and liturgical language, reduction of the term "Classical Syriac" to "Syriac" (only) remained a manner of convenience, even in titles of works, including encyclopedic entries, thus creating a large body of unspecific references, that became a base for the emergence of several new classes of terminological problems at the advent of the informational era. Those problems culminated during the process of international standardization of the terms "Syriac" and "Classical Syriac" within the ISO 639 and MARC systems.
The term "Classical Syriac" was accepted in 2007 and codified (ISO code: syc) as a designation for the old literary and liturgical language, thus confirming the proper use of the term. In the same time, within the MARC standard, code syc was accepted as designation for Classical Syriac, but under the name "Syriac", while the existing general code syr, that was until then named "Syriac", was renamed to "Syriac, Modern". Within ISO 639 system, large body of unspecific references related to various linguistic uses of the term "Syriac" remained related to the original ISO 639-2 code syr (Syriac), but its scope is defined within the ISO 639-3 standard as a macrolanguage that currently includes only some of the Neo-Aramaic languages. Such differences in classification, both terminological and substantial, within systems and between systems (ISO and MARC), led to the creation of several additional problems, that remain unresolved.
Within linguistics, mosaic of terminological ambiguities related to Syrian/Syriac labels was additionally enriched by introduction of the term "Palaeo-Syrian language" as a variant designation for the ancient Eblaite language from the third millennium BC, that is unrelated to the much later Edessan Aramaic, and its early phases, that were commonly labeled as Old/Proto- or even Paleo/Palaeo-Syrian/Syriac in scholarly literature. Newest addition to the terminological mosaic occurred c. 2014, when it was proposed, also by a scholar, that one of regional dialects of the Old Aramaic language from the first centuries of the 1st millennium BC should be called "Central Syrian Aramaic", thus introducing another ambiguous term, that can be used, in its generic meaning, to any local variant of Aramaic that occurred in central regions of Syria during any period in history.
After more than five centuries of Syriac studies, which were founded by western scholars at the end of the 15th century, main terminological issues related to the name and classification of the language known as Edessan Aramaic, and also referred to by several other names combined of Syrian/Syriac labels, remain opened and unsolved. Some of those issues have special sociolinguistic and ethnolinguistic significance for the remaining Neo-Aramaic speaking communities.
Since the occurrence of major political changes in the Near East (2003), those issues have acquired additional complexity, related to legal recognition of the language and its name. In the Constitution of Iraq (Article 4), adopted in 2005, and also in subsequent legislation, term "Syriac" (Arabic: السريانية / al-suriania) is used as official designation for the language of Neo-Aramaic-speaking communities, thus opening additional questions related to linguistic and cultural identity of those communities. Legal and other practical (educational and informational) aspects of the linguistic self-identification also arose throughout Syriac-speaking diaspora, particularly in European countries (Germany, Sweden, Netherlands). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syriac_language |
Sudan | Sudan has had a troubled relationship with many of its neighbours and much of the international community, owing to what is viewed as its radical Islamic stance. For much of the 1990s, Uganda, Kenya and Ethiopia formed an ad hoc alliance called the "Front Line States" with support from the United States to check the influence of the National Islamic Front government. The Sudanese Government supported anti-Ugandan rebel groups such as the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA).
As the National Islamic Front regime in Khartoum gradually emerged as a real threat to the region and the world, the U.S. began to list Sudan on its list of State Sponsors of Terrorism. After the US listed Sudan as a state sponsor of terrorism, the NIF decided to develop relations with Iraq, and later Iran, the two most controversial countries in the region.
From the mid-1990s, Sudan gradually began to moderate its positions as a result of increased U.S. pressure following the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings, in Tanzania and Kenya, and the new development of oil fields previously in rebel hands. Sudan also has a territorial dispute with Egypt over the Hala'ib Triangle. Since 2003, the foreign relations of Sudan had centred on the support for ending the Second Sudanese Civil War and condemnation of government support for militias in the war in Darfur.
Sudan has extensive economic relations with China. China obtains ten percent of its oil from Sudan. According to a former Sudanese government minister, China is Sudan's largest supplier of arms.
In December 2005, Sudan became one of the few states to recognise Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara.
In 2015, Sudan participated in the Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen against the Shia Houthis and forces loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who was deposed in the 2011 uprising.
In June 2019, Sudan was suspended from the African Union over the lack of progress towards the establishment of a civilian-led transitional authority since its initial meeting following the coup d'état of 11 April 2019.
In July 2019, UN ambassadors of 37 countries, including Sudan, have signed a joint letter to the UNHRC defending China's treatment of Uyghurs in the Xinjiang region.
On 23 October 2020, U.S. President Donald Trump announced that Sudan will start to normalize ties with Israel, making it the third Arab state to do so as part of the U.S.-brokered Abraham Accords. On 14 December the U.S. Government removed Sudan from its State Sponsor of Terrorism list; as part of the deal, Sudan agreed to pay $335 million in compensation to victims of the 1998 embassy bombings.
The dispute between Sudan and Ethiopia over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam escalated in 2021. An advisor to the Sudanese leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan spoke of a water war "that would be more horrible than one could imagine".
In February 2022, it is reported that a Sudanese envoy has visited Israel to promote ties between the countries.
In the early months of 2023, fighting reignited, primarily between the military forces of Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the army chief and de facto head of state, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces led by his rival, Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo. As a result, the U.S. and most European countries have shut down their embassies in Khartoum and have attempted evacuations. In 2023, it was estimated that there were 16,000 Americans in Sudan who needed to be evacuated. In absence of an official evacuation plan from the U.S. State Department, many Americans have been forced to turn to other nations' embassies for guidance, with many fleeing to Nairobi. Other African countries and humanitarian groups have tried to help. The Turkish embassy has reportedly allowed Americans to join its evacuation efforts for its own citizens. The TRAKboys, a South-Africa based political organization which came into conflict with the Wagner Group, a Russian private military contractor operating in Sudan since 2017, has been assisting with the evacuation of both Black Americans and Sudanese citizens to safe locations in South Africa.
On April 15, 2024, France is hosting an international conference on Sudan, marking the one-year anniversary of the outbreak of war in the northeast African nation, which has resulted in a humanitarian and political crisis. The country is calling for support from the global community, aiming to draw attention to a crisis that officials believe has been overshadowed by ongoing conflicts in the Middle East. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudan |
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