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Ayyubid dynasty | Saladin went to Alexandria in 1171–72 and found himself facing the dilemma of having many supporters in the city, but little money. A family council was held there by the Ayyubid emirs of Egypt where it was decided that al-Muzaffar Taqi al-Din Umar, Saladin's nephew, would launch an expedition against the coastal region of Barqa (Cyrenaica) west of Egypt with a force of 500 cavalry. In order to justify the raid, a letter was sent to the Bedouin tribes of Barqa, rebuking them for their robberies of travelers and ordering them to pay the alms-tax (zakat). The latter was to be collected from their livestock.
In late 1172, Aswan was besieged by former Fatimid soldiers from Nubia and the governor of the city, Kanz al-Dawla—a former Fatimid loyalist—requested reinforcements from Saladin who complied. The reinforcements had come after the Nubians had already departed Aswan, but Ayyubid forces led by Turan-Shah advanced and conquered northern Nubia after capturing the town of Ibrim. Turan-Shah and his Kurdish soldiers temporarily lodged there. From Ibrim, they raided the surrounding region, halting their operations after being presented with an armistice proposal from the Makurian king. Although Turan-Shah's initial response was hawkish, he later sent an envoy to Dongola, who upon returning, described the poverty of the city and of Nubia in general to Turan-Shah. Consequently, the Ayyubids, like their Fatimid predecessors, were discouraged from further southward expansion into Nubia due to the poverty of the region, but required Nubia to guarantee the protection of Aswan and Upper Egypt. The Ayyubid garrison in Ibrim withdrew to Egypt in 1175.
Throughout the 1170s, the Ayyubids continued to push west as well. Sharaf al-Din Qaraqush, a commander under al-Muzaffar Taqi al-Din Umar, led most of these expeditions on the frontier. He captured Siwa in 1172 and conquered Cyrenaica before 1174. He subsequently conquered Tripoli with an army of Turks and Kurds, joined by Arab troops from some of the region's Bedouin tribes. The exact date of Tripoli's capture is uncertain, but happened sometime in the 1170s or early 1180s. While some Ayyubid forces fought the Crusaders in the Levant, Qaraqush's forces went on to capture most of Ifriqiya (present-day Tunisia) from the Almohads by 1185–1186. By this point, Qaraqush had also entered into alliance with the Banu Ghaniya, led by Ali ibn Ghaniya, another enemy of the Almohads. The Almohad caliph Yaqub al-Mansur reconquered Ifriqiya from 1187 to 1188, defeating both of them. The Ayyubids made no further attempts to intervene in the Maghreb after this. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayyubid_dynasty |
Shanidar Cave | The skeleton of Shanidar 4, an adult male aged 30–45 years, was discovered by Solecki in 1960, positioned on his left side in a partial fetal position.
For many years, Shanidar 4 was thought to provide strong evidence for a Neanderthal burial ritual. Routine soil samples from around the body, gathered for pollen analysis in an attempt to reconstruct the palaeoclimate and vegetational history of the site, were analysed eight years after its discovery. In two of the soil samples in particular, whole clumps of pollen were discovered by Arlette Leroi-Gourhan in addition to the usual pollen found throughout the site, suggesting that entire flowering plants (or at least heads of plants) had been part of the grave deposit. Furthermore, a study of the particular flower types suggested that the flowers may have been chosen for their specific medicinal properties. Yarrow, cornflower, bachelor's button, St Barnaby's thistle, ragwort, grape hyacinth, horsetail and hollyhock were represented in the pollen samples, all of which have been traditionally used, as diuretics, stimulants, and astringents and anti-inflammatories. This led to the idea that the man could possibly have had shamanic powers, perhaps acting as medicine man to the Shanidar Neanderthals.
However, recent work has suggested that the pollen was perhaps introduced to the burial by animal action, as several burrows of a gerbil-like rodent known as the Persian jird were found nearby. The jird is known to store large numbers of seeds and flowers at certain points in their burrows and this argument was used in conjunction with the lack of ritual treatment of the rest of the skeletons in the cave to suggest that the Shanidar 4 burial had natural, not cultural, origins. Paul B. Pettitt has stated that the "deliberate placement of flowers has now been convincingly eliminated", noting that "A recent examination of the microfauna from the strata into which the grave was cut suggests that the pollen was deposited by the burrowing rodent Meriones persicus, which is common in the Shanidar microfauna and whose burrowing activity can be observed today". Despite his conclusions that flowers were unlikely to have been deliberately placed, Petitt nevertheless concludes that the Shanidar burials, because they happened over so many years, represent a deliberate mortuary practice by Neanderthals. It has also been suggested that some of the pollen was deposited by nesting solitary bees. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanidar_Cave |
US intervention in the Syrian civil war | As the Siege of Kobanî continued there were growing calls to also arm the YPG, also known as the People's Protection Units, a Kurdish fighting force in Syria heavily involved in the defense of Kobanî. On 20 October 2014, the Turkish foreign minister, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu announced that the Turkish government would be allowing Peshmerga from the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government to cross their border into Kobanî to support Kurdish fighters. The change in policy came after the Turkish government had refused to allow Kurdish fighters and supplies to pass through the border to YPG units in Kobanî, as it viewed the YPG as an offshoot of the PKK. On 28 October, Peshmerga from the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government departed Erbil to travel to Turkey and eventually to Kobanî. A total of 152 soldiers were deployed starting with forty vehicles carrying weapons, artillery, and machine guns, along with 80 Peshmerga forces, who crossed the border into Turkey by land with the heavy weapons and then drove to the border near Kobanî. The other 72 soldiers in the contingent flew to Turkey and rejoined the rest of the contingent on 29 October. By the start of November, 152 Kurdish Peshmerga from Iraq and 50 Free Syrian Army fighters had crossed the border into Kobanî with heavy weapons, small arms, and ammunition.
On 20 October 2014, the United States began airdropping supplies to Syrian Kurdish forces, including the YPG, that were besieging ISIL-controlled Kobanî. Prior to 20 October, the United States and its anti-ISIL coalition partners in Syria had not provided any supplies to Kurdish forces in their fight against the jihadist group. Much of the reason for the US airdropping supplies was due to the Turkish government's refusal to allow supplies to pass through their border into Kobanî. The US specifically airdropped weapons, ammunition, and medical supplies supplied by Iraqi Kurdistan intended to supply the Kurdish forces in Syria. On 21 October, a video was released by ISIL showing what it claimed was a bundle of airdropped small arms, ammunition, and other supplies from the United States. The Pentagon said it was analyzing the video and could not at the time confirm whether the video was authentic but that the materials were similar; the video would subsequently be analyzed by the Department of Defense to verify its authenticity. On 22 October, the Pentagon confirmed that one of its airdrops had been intercepted by ISIL elements but downplayed the incident, saying that it most likely would not give ISIL any real advantage in their overall operations. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_intervention_in_the_Syrian_civil_war |
War in Darfur | According to the Save Darfur Coalition, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson and al-Bashir agreed to a cease-fire whereby the Sudanese "government and rebel groups will cease hostilities for a period of 60 days while they work towards a lasting peace." In addition, the Save Darfur press release stated that the agreement "included a number of concessions to improve humanitarian aid and media access to Darfur." Despite the formality of a ceasefire there were further media reports of killings and other violence. On 15 April 2007, African Union peacekeepers were targeted and killed. The New York Times reported that "a confidential United Nations report says the government of Sudan is flying arms and heavy military equipment into Darfur in violation of Security Council resolutions and painting Sudanese military planes white to disguise them as United Nations or African Union aircraft."
On 28 February, Sudan's humanitarian affairs minister, Ahmed Haroun, and Janjaweed militia leader, Ali Kushayb, were charged by the International Criminal Court with 51 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Ahmed Haroun said he "did not feel guilty", his conscience was clear, and that he was ready to defend himself.
On 31 March, Janjaweed militiamen killed 200 to 400 people in the eastern border region of Chad near Sudan. The border villages of Tiero and Marena were encircled and then fired upon. The women were robbed and the men shot according to the UNHCR. Many of those who survived the initial attack, ended up dying due to exhaustion and dehydration, often while fleeing. On 14 April 2007, more attacks were reported by the UNHCR in Tiero and Marena.
On 18 April President Bush gave a speech at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum criticizing the Sudanese government and threatened further sanctions if the situation did not improve.
Al-Bashir and President of Chad, Idriss Déby signed a peace agreement on 3 May 2007 aimed at reducing tension between their countries. The accord was brokered by Saudi Arabia. It asserted that neither country would harbor, train or fund armed movements opposed to the other. Reuters reported that "Deby's fears that Nouri's UFDD may have been receiving Saudi as well as Sudanese support could have pushed him to sign the Saudi-mediated pact with Bashir". Colin Thomas-Jensen, an expert on Chad and Darfur at the International Crisis Group think-tank expressed doubts as to whether "this new deal will lead to any genuine thaw in relations or improvement in the security situation". Chadian rebel Union of Forces for Democracy and Development (UFDD) which had fought a hit-and-run war against Déby's forces in eastern Chad since 2006, stated that the Saudi-backed peace deal would not stop its military campaign.
Oxfam announced on 17 June that it would permanently pull out of Gereida, the largest refugee camp, which had a population of over 130,000. The agency cited inaction by local authorities from the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM), which controls the region, in addressing security concerns and violence against aid workers. An employee of the NGO Action by Churches Together was murdered in June in West Darfur. Vehicle hijackings also made them consider leaving.
BBC News reported that a huge underground lake had been found. This find could eliminate the competition for water resources.
France and Britain announced they would push for a UN resolution to dispatch African Union and United Nations peacekeepers to Darfur and would push for an immediate cease-fire in Darfur and are prepared to provide "substantial" economic aid "as soon as a cease-fire makes it possible".
A 14 July 2007 article noted that in the past two months up to 75,000 Arabs from Chad and Niger had crossed into Darfur. Most have been relocated by Sudanese government to former villages of displaced non-Arab people.
A hybrid UN/AU force was finally approved on 31 July with the unanimously approved United Nations Security Council Resolution 1769. UNAMID was to take over from AMIS by 31 December at the latest, and had an initial mandate up to 31 July 2008.
On 31 July, Mahria gunmen surrounded mourners at the funeral of an important Terjem sheik and killed 60 with rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) and belt-fed machine guns.
Between 3 August and 5 August a conference was held in Arusha to unite the rebel groups to streamline the subsequent peace negotiations with the government. Most senior rebel leaders attended, with the notable exception of Abdul Wahid al Nur, who headed a rather small splinter group of the SLA/M that he had initially founded in 2003, was considered to be the representatives of a large part of the displaced Fur people. His absence was damaging to the peace talks. International officials stated that there is "no John Garang in Darfur", referring to the leader of the negotiating team of South Sudan, who was universally accepted by the various South Sudanese rebel groups.
The participants were Gamali Galaleiddine, Khalil Abdalla Adam, Salah Abu Surra, Khamis Abdallah Abakar, Ahmed Abdelshafi, Abdalla Yahya, Khalil Ibrahim (of the Justice and Equality Movement) and Ahmed Ibrahim Ali Diraige. Closed-door meetings between the AU-UN and rebel leaders, as well as among rebel leaders took place. Eight more participants arrived on 4 August (including Jar el-Neby, Salah Adam Isaac and Suleiman Marajan), while the SLM Unity faction boycotted the talks because the Sudanese government had threatened to arrest Suleiman Jamous if he left the hospital. The rebel leaders aimed to unify their positions and demands, which included compensation for the victims and autonomy for Darfur. They eventually reached agreement on joint demands, including power and wealth sharing, security, land and humanitarian issues.
In the months through August, Arab tribes that had worked together in the Janjaweed militia began falling out among themselves, and further splintered. Thousands of Terjem and Mahria gunmen traveled hundreds of miles to fight in the strategic Bulbul river valley. Farther south, Habanniya and Salamat tribes clashed. The fighting did not result in as many deaths as in 2003 and 2004. United Nations officials said the groups might be trying to seize land before peacekeepers arrived.
On 18 September, the JEM stated that if the peace talks with Khartoum should fail, they would step up their demands from self-determination to independence.
On 30 September, the rebels overran an AMIS base, killing at least 12 peacekeepers in "the heaviest loss of life and biggest attack on the African Mission" during a raid at the end of Ramadan season.
Peace talks started on 27 October in Sirte, Libya. The following groups attended:
Justice and Equality Movement splinters:
Justice and Equality Movement–Collective Leadership, led by Bahr Idriss Abu Garda
Justice and Equality Movement–Azraq, led by Idriss Ibrahim Azraq
National Movement for Reform and Development, led by Khalil Abdullah
Revolutionary Democratic Forces Front, led by Salah Abu Surrah
United Revolutionary Force Front, led by Alhadi Agabeldour
Sudan Liberation Movement–G19, led by Khamees Abdullah
Sudan Federal Democratic Alliance, led by Ahmed Ibrahim Diraige
The following groups did not attend:
Justice and Equality Movement, led by Khalil Ibrahim; they object to the presence of rebel groups they say had no constituency and no place at the table.
Sudan Liberation Movement (Abdel Wahed), led by Abdel Wahed Mohamed el-Nur; the group has few forces, but its leader is highly respected; refused to attend until a force was deployed to stem the Darfur violence.
Sudan Liberation Movement–Unity, originally led by Abdallah Yehya, includes many other prominent figures (Sherif Harir, Abu Bakr Kadu, Ahmed Kubur); the group with the largest number of rebel fighters; object for the same reason as the JEM.
Ahmed Abdel Shafi, a notable rebel enjoying strong support from the Fur tribe.
Faced with a boycott from the most important rebel factions, the talks were rebranded as an "advanced consultation phase", with official talks likely to start in November or December.
On 15 November, nine rebel groups – six SLM factions, the Democratic Popular Front, the Sudanese Revolutionary Front and the Justice and Equality Movement–Field Revolutionary Command – signed a Charter of Unification and agreed to operate under the name of SLM/A henceforth. On 30 November it was announced that Darfur's rebel movements had united into two large groups and were now ready to negotiate in an orderly manner with the government. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Darfur |
Liber de causis | Alonso, Manuel Alonso. Las fuentes literarias del Liber de causis. Al-Andalus: revista de las escuelas de estudios árabes de Madrid y Granada, (10), 1945, pp. 345–382.
Bächli-Hinz, Andreas. Monotheismus und neuplatonische Philosophie: Eine Untersuchung zum pseudo-aristotelischen Liber de causis und dessen Rezeption durch Albert den Großen, Frankfurt, Academia Verlag, 2002.
Calma, Dragos, ed. (2016). Neoplatonism in the Middle Ages: New Commentaries on 'Liber de Causis' and 'Elementatio Theologica'. Studia Artistarum. Vol. 42. Turnhout: Brepols. doi:10.1484/M.SA-EB.5.111556. ISBN 978-2-503-55474-7. (in 2 volumes)
Calma, Dragos, ed. (2019). Reading Proclus and the Book of Causes, Volume 1: Western Scholarly Networks and Debates. Studies in Platonism, Neoplatonism, and the Platonic Tradition. Vol. 22. Leiden: Brill. doi:10.1163/9789004395114. ISBN 978-90-04-34510-2.
Calma, Dragos, ed. (2020). Reading Proclus and the Book of Causes, Volume 2: Translations and Acculturations. Studies in Platonism, Neoplatonism, and the Platonic Tradition. Vol. 26. Leiden: Brill. doi:10.1163/9789004440685. ISBN 978-90-04-34511-9.
Calma, Dragos, ed. (2022). Reading Proclus and the Book of Causes, Volume 3: On Causes and the Noetic Triad. Studies in Platonism, Neoplatonism, and the Platonic Tradition. Vol. 28. Leiden: Brill. doi:10.1163/9789004501331. ISBN 978-90-04-50132-4.
D'Ancona, Cristina. Recherches sur le Liber de causis. Vrin, Paris 1995, ISBN 2-7116-1225-2
D'Ancona, Cristina; Taylor, Richard C. "Le Liber de causis", in: Richard Goulet and others (ed.): Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques, CNRS, Paris 2003, ISBN 2-271-06175-X, S. 599–647
Dodds, E. R. (1963). Proclus: The Elements of Theology. A Revised Text with Translation, Introduction, and Commentary (2nd ed.). London: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-814097-5.
Helmig, Christoph; Steel, Carlos (2015). "Proclus". In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Megías, Paloma Llorente. Liber de Causis: Indice y Concordancia, Florence, Olschki 2004.
Ricklin, Thomas. Die 'Physica' und der 'Liber de causis' im 12. Jahrhundert. Zwei Studien. University press, Freiburg (Switzerland) 1995, ISBN 3-7278-0994-9
Taylor, Richard C. "The Kalām fī maḥḍ al-khair (Liber de causis) in the Islamic Philosophical Milieu" in: Jill Kraye and others (eds.): Pseudo-Aristotle in the Middle Ages, Warburg Institute, London 1986, ISBN 0-85481-065-X, S. 37–52 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liber_de_causis |
Ibn Battuta | From Sinope he took a sea route to the Crimean Peninsula, arriving in the Golden Horde realm. He went to the port town of Azov, where he met with the emir of the Khan, then to the large and rich city of Majar. He left Majar to meet with Uzbeg Khan's travelling court (Orda), which was at the time near Mount Beshtau. From there he made a journey to Bolghar, which became the northernmost point he reached, and noted its unusually short nights in summer (by the standards of the subtropics). Then he returned to the Khan's court and with it moved to Astrakhan.
Ibn Battuta recorded that while in Bolghar he wanted to travel further north into the land of darkness. The land is snow-covered throughout (northern Siberia) and the only means of transport is dog-drawn sled. There lived a mysterious people who were reluctant to show themselves. They traded with southern people in a peculiar way. Southern merchants brought various goods and placed them in an open area on the snow in the night, then returned to their tents. Next morning they came to the place again and found their merchandise taken by the mysterious people, but in exchange they found fur-skins which could be used for making valuable coats, jackets, and other winter garments. The trade was done between merchants and the mysterious people without seeing each other. As Ibn Battuta was not a merchant and saw no benefit of going there he abandoned the travel to this land of darkness.
When they reached Astrakhan, Öz Beg Khan had just given permission for one of his pregnant wives, Princess Bayalun, a daughter of Byzantine emperor Andronikos III Palaiologos, to return to her home city of Constantinople to give birth. Ibn Battuta talked his way into this expedition, which would be his first beyond the boundaries of the Islamic world.
Arriving in Constantinople towards the end of 1332 (or 1334), he met the Byzantine emperor Andronikos III Palaiologos. He visited the great church of Hagia Sophia and spoke with an Eastern Orthodox priest about his travels in the city of Jerusalem. After a month in the city, Ibn Battuta returned to Astrakhan, then arrived in the capital city Sarai al-Jadid and reported the accounts of his travels to Sultan Öz Beg Khan (r. 1313–1341). Then he continued past the Caspian and Aral Seas to Bukhara and Samarkand, the latter of which he praised as "one of the grandest and finest cities, and the most perfect of them". Here he visited the court of another Mongol khan, Tarmashirin (r. 1331–1334) of the Chagatai Khanate. He also noted the ruined state of the city walls, a result of the Mongol invasion in 1220 and subsequent infighting. From there, he journeyed south to Afghanistan, then crossed into India via the mountain passes of the Hindu Kush. In the Rihla, he mentions these mountains and the history of the range in slave trading. He wrote,
After this I proceeded to the city of Barwan, in the road to which is a high mountain, covered with snow and exceedingly cold; they call it the Hindu Kush, that is Hindu-slayer, because most of the slaves brought thither from India die on account of the intenseness of the cold.
Ibn Battuta and his party reached the Indus River on 12 September 1333. From there, he made his way to Delhi and became acquainted with the sultan, Muhammad bin Tughluq. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_Battuta |
West Bank | The Jordanians neglected to invest much in the area during their time governing the area, although there was some investment in the immediate vicinity of Jerusalem.
Soon after the 1967 war, Yigal Allon produced the Allon Plan, which would have annexed a strip along the Jordan River valley and excluded areas closer to the pre-1967 border, which had a high density of Palestinians. Moshe Dayan proposed a plan which Gershom Gorenberg likens to a "photo negative of Allon's." The Allon plan evolved over a period of time to include more territory. The final draft dating from 1970 would have annexed about half of the West Bank. Israel had no overall approach for integrating the West Bank.
The early occupation set severe limits on public investment and comprehensive development programmes in the territories. British and Arab commercial banks operating in the West Bank were closed down soon after Israel assumed power there. Bank Leumi then opened nine branches, without successfully replacing the earlier system. Farmers could get loans, but Palestinian businessmen avoided taking out loans from them, since they charged 9% compared to 5% interest in Jordan. By June 1967, only a third of West Bank land had been registered under Jordan's Settlement of Disputes over Land and Water Law. In 1968, Israel moved to cancel the possibility of registering one's title with the Jordanian Land Register.
Ian Lustick states that Israel "virtually prevented" Palestinian investment in local industry and agriculture. At the same time, Israel encouraged Arab labour to enter into Israel's economy, and regarded them as a new, expanded and protected market for Israeli exports. Limited export of Palestinian goods to Israel was allowed. Expropriation of prime agricultural land in an economy where two thirds of the workforce had farmed is believed to account for the flight of labourers to work in Israel.
As much as 40% of the workforce commuted to Israel on a daily basis finding only poorly paid menial employment. Remittances from labourers earning a wage in Israel were the major factor in Palestinian economic growth during the 1969–73 boom years. The migration of workers from the territories had a negative impact on local industry, by creating an internal labour scarcity in the West Bank and consequent pressure for higher wages there. The contrast between the quality of their lives and Israelis' growing prosperity stoked resentment.
Attempting to impose governmental authority, Israel established a licensing system according to which no industrial plant could be built without obtaining a prior Israeli permit. With Military Order No. 393 (14 June 1970), the local commander was given the power and authority to block any construction if, in his evaluation, the building might pose a danger to Israel's security. The overall effect was to obstruct manufacturing development and subordinate any local industrial activity to the exigencies of Israel's economy, or to block the creation of industries that might compete with Israel's. For example, entrepreneurs were denied a permit for a cement factory in Hebron. In order to protect Israeli farmers, melon production was forbidden, imports of grapes and dates were banned, and limits were set to how many cucumbers and tomatoes could be produced. Israeli milk producers exerted pressure on the Ministry for Industry and Trade to stop the establishment of a competitive dairy in Ramallah.
The sum effect after two decades was that 15% of all Palestinian firms in the West Bank and Gaza employing over eight people, and 32% with seven or less, were prohibited from selling their products in Israel. Israeli protectionist policies distorted wider trade relations to the point that, by 1996, 90% of all West Bank imports came from Israel, with consumers paying more than they would for comparable products had they been able to exercise commercial autonomy. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Bank |
Al Jazeera controversies and criticism | Al Jazeera has faced considerable criticism and backlash in Egypt and other Arab countries; from ordinary people, media outlets, and governments who accuse it of supporting Qatari agenda and Islamists such as the Muslim Brotherhood Al Jazeera has been criticized by an Egyptian newspaper for its allegedly-biased coverage of news related to Egypt and its government. According to the Egypt Independent, many Egyptians believe Al Jazeera's attacks to be a concerted effort by the channel to destroy Egypt's image in the region."
In 2010, Al Jazeera filed a lawsuit against the Egyptian Al-Ahram newspaper for "Jazeerat al-Taharoush" ("Al Jazeera: An Island of Harassment"), a 9 June 2010 article which Al Jazeera found "wholly deceptive and journalistically unprofessional" with an aim to "damage the reputation of the Al Jazeera Network." The Egyptian regime later collapsed as a result of the Arab Spring.
A Cairo court ordered Al Jazeera to stop broadcasting in Egypt in September 2013, saying that it was "inciting violence that led to the deaths of Egyptians." On December 29 of that year, three journalists working for Al Jazeera English (Australian Peter Greste, Egyptian-Canadian Mohamed Fahmy and Egyptian Baher Mohammed) were taken into custody by Egyptian security forces at the Cairo Marriott Hotel. On June 23, 2014, after a four-month trial, they were found guilty of spreading false news and collaborating with the Muslim Brotherhood and sentenced to seven to 10 years' imprisonment. They were released on bail shortly afterwards, and Mohamed Fahmy sued Al Jazeera on 5 May 2015 for C$100 million (US$83m; £53m) in punitive and remedial damages for negligence and breach of contract. He accused the network of "negligence" by misinforming him about its legal status and their safety in Egypt. The three were pardoned on September 23, 2015, and released. Egypt blocked 21 websites, including Al-Jazeera and Masr AlArabiya, in May 2017, for allegedly supporting terrorism and spreading fake news by supporting the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood.
In 2021, Egyptian media criticized Al Jazeera for refusing to cover the protests against a controversial electoral law in Qatar which limited the voting rights of a Bedouin tribe. According to Ikram Badr al-Din, a professor of political science at Cairo University, this "suggests that it is not independent and works only for the benefit of the ruling family in Qatar." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Jazeera_controversies_and_criticism |
Carolingian Empire | Louis the Pious' reign as Emperor was unexpected; as the third son of Charlemagne, he was originally crowned King of Aquitaine at three years old. With the deaths of his older siblings, he went from 'a boy who became a king to a man who would be emperor'. Although his reign was mostly overshadowed by the dynastic struggle and resultant civil war, as his epithet states, he was highly interested in matters of religion. One of the first things he did was 'ruling the people by law and with the wealth of his piety', namely by restoring churches. "The Astronomer" stated that, during his kingship of Aquitaine, he 'built up the study of reading and singing, and also the understanding of divine and worldly letters, more quickly than one would believe.' He also made significant effort to restore many monasteries that had disappeared prior to his reign, as well as sponsoring new ones.
Louis the Pious' reign lacked security; he often had to struggle to maintain control of the Empire. As soon as he heard of the death of Charlemagne, he hurried to Aachen, where he exiled many of Charlemagne's trusted advisors, such as Wala. Wala and his siblings were children of the youngest son of Charles Martel, and so were a threat as a potential alternative ruling family. Monastic exile was a tactic Louis used heavily in his early reign to strengthen his position and remove potential rivals. In 817 his nephew, King Bernard of Italy, rebelled against him due to discontent with being the vassal of Lothar, Louis' eldest son. The rebellion was quickly put down by Louis, and by 818 Bernard of Italy was captured and punished - the punishment of death was commuted to blinding. However, the trauma of the procedure ending up killing him two days later. Italy was brought back into Imperial control. In 822 Louis' show of penance for Bernard's death greatly reduced his prestige as Emperor to the nobility – some suggest it opened him up to 'clerical domination'. Nonetheless, in 817 Louis had established three new Carolingian kingships for his sons from his first marriage: Lothar was made King of Italy and co-Emperor, Pepin was made King of Aquitaine, and Louis the German was made King of Bavaria. His attempts in 823 to bring his fourth son (from his second marriage), Charles the Bald into the will was marked by the resistance of his eldest sons. Whilst this was part of the reason for strife amongst Louis' sons, some suggest that it was the appointment of Bernard of Septimania as chamberlain which caused discontent with Lothar, as he was stripped of his co-Emperorship in 829 and was banished to Italy (although it is not known why; The Astronomer simply states that Louis 'dismissed his son Lothar to go back to Italy') and Bernard assumed his place as second in command to the emperor. With Bernard's influence over not only the emperor, but the empress as well, further discord was sowed amongst prominent nobility. Pepin, Louis' second son, too, was disgruntled; he had been implicated in a failed military campaign in 827, and he was tired of his father's overbearing involvement in the ruling of Aquitaine. As such, the angry nobility supported Pepin, civil war broke out during Lent in 830, and the last years of his reign were plagued by civil war.
Shortly after Easter, his sons attacked Louis' empire and dethroned him in favour of Lothar. The Astronomer stated Louis spent the summer in the custody of his son, 'an emperor in name only'. The following year Louis attacked his sons' kingdoms by drafting new plans for succession. Louis gave Neustria to Pepin, stripped Lothar of his Imperial title and granted the Kingdom of Italy to Charles. Another partition in 832 completely excluded Pepin and Louis the German, making Lothar and Charles the sole benefactors of the kingdom, which precipitated Pepin and Louis the German revolting in the same year, followed by Lothar in 833, and together they imprisoned Louis the Pious and Charles. Lothar brought Pope Gregory IV from Rome under the guise of mediation, but his true role was to legitimise Lothar and his brothers' rule by deposing and excommunicating Louis. By 835, peace was made within the family, and Louis was restored to the Imperial throne at the church of St. Stephen in Metz. When Pepin died in 838, Louis crowned Charles king of Aquitaine, whilst the nobility elected Pepin's son Pepin II, a conflict which was not resolved until 860 with Pepin's death. When Louis the Pious finally died in 840, Lothar claimed the entire empire irrespective of the partitions.
As a result, Charles and Louis the German went to war against Lothar. After losing the Battle of Fontenay, Lothar fled to his capital at Aachen and raised a new army, which was inferior to that of the younger brothers. In the Oaths of Strasbourg, in 842, Charles and Louis agreed to declare Lothar unfit for the imperial throne. This marked the east–west division of the Empire between Louis and Charles until the Verdun Treaty. Considered a milestone in European history, the Oaths of Strasbourg symbolize the birth of both France and Germany. The partition of Carolingian Empire was finally settled in 843 by and between Louis the Pious' three sons in the Treaty of Verdun. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolingian_Empire |
Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan | Sheikh Zayed was determined to unite the Emirates into federation. His calls for cooperation extended across the Persian Gulf to Iran. He advocated dialogue as the means to settle the row with Tehran over three strategic Persian Gulf islands which Iran seized from the (future) UAE Emirate of Sharjah in 1971. The islands remain in Iranian hands, despite over three decades of UAE diplomatic initiatives.
The attitude of Zayed towards his neighbors can best be seen in his position regarding the "Umm al Zamul" dispute (1964), when he expressed a genuine wish that his brother Sheikh Shakhbut would accept "the Sultan's proposal for a neutral zone". He said in that regard: "... it was ridiculous to squabble over a [water] well so bitter that few bedouin could stomach its waters, or to split hairs over a tiny area of barren, almost totally unfrequented desert. And even if there happened to be oil in the area, Abu Dhabi had so much already that she could well afford to spare some for her less fortunate neighbours".
Furthermore, during the negotiations between Abu Dhabi and Dubai that resulted in forming the Abu Dhabi — Dubai Union (which preceded the formation of the United Arab Emirates), Sheikh Zayed was extremely generous with the Sheikh Rashid of Dubai. Kemal Hamza, Sheikh Rashid's envoy to the meeting between Sheikh Zayed and Sheikh Rashid in Sumeih remarked that "Zayed was extremely 'karim' (generous) throughout the negotiations and seemed prepared to give Rashid whatever he wanted". This amounted to Zayed giving Rashid "oil rights in the sea-bed that might be worth milions a year" even at the risk of criticism "at home for giving so much..." It also gave rise to comments that such concessions constituted "an alienation of territory by Abu Dhabi". But the future course of events proved, none of these arguments stood the test of judgment in light of the much higher goal that Sheikh Zayed had in mind, and which in the ultimate analysis amply justified the sacrifices incurred by him. Such concessions are rare in the records of history and news of this generosity travelled far and wide.
He was considered a relatively liberal ruler, and permitted private media. However, they were expected to practice self-censorship and avoid criticism of Zayed or the ruling families. Freedom of worship was permitted, and to a certain extent allowances were made for expatriate cultures, but this did not always sit comfortably in the eyes of the wider Arab world with Zayed's role as a Muslim head of state.
Zayed did not shy away from controversy when it came to expressing his opinions on current events in the Arab world. Troubled by the suffering of Iraqi civilians, he took the lead in calling for the lifting of economic sanctions on Iraq imposed by the United Nations in the aftermath of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990, despite Kuwaiti displeasure and opposition.
Zayed was one of the wealthiest men in the world. A Forbes estimate put his fortune at around US$20 billion in 2004. The source of this wealth was almost exclusively due to the immense oil wealth of Abu Dhabi and the Emirates, which sit on a pool of a tenth of the world's proven oil reserves. In 1988, he purchased, for £5m, Tittenhurst Park at Sunninghill, Berkshire as his English home. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zayed_bin_Sultan_Al_Nahyan |
Muslim conquest of Persia | Umar decided to strike the Persians immediately after their defeat at Nahavand, while he still possessed a psychological advantage. Umar had to decide which of three provinces to conquer first: Fars in the south, Azerbaijan in the north or Isfahan in the center. Umar chose Isfahan, as it was the heart of the Persian Empire and a conduit for supply and communications among the Sasanian garrisons, and its capture would isolate Fars and Azerbaijan from Khorasan, Yazdegerd's stronghold. After he had taken Fars and Isfahan, the next attacks would be simultaneously launched against Azerbaijan, the northwestern province, and Sistan, the easternmost province of the Persian Empire. The conquest of those provinces would leave Khorasan isolated and vulnerable, the last stage of the conquest of Sassanid Persia.
Preparations were complete by January 642. The success of the plan depended upon how effectively Umar could coordinate these attacks from Medina, about 1500 kilometers from Persia, and upon the skill of his field commanders. Umar adopted a different approach to the command structure. Instead of appointing a single field commander to press the campaign, Umar appointed several commanders, each assigned a different mission. Once a commander's mission ended, he would become an ordinary soldier under the new field commander for the latter's mission. The purpose of this strategy was to allow commanders to mix with their soldiers and to remind them that they are like everyone else: command is only given to the most competent, and, once the battle is over, the commander returns to his previous position.
On the eve of the campaign, Umar, in order to boost morale, decided to reinstall Khalid as field commander, four years after his dismissal. Khalid's reputation as the conqueror of the Eastern Roman provinces demoralized the Persian commanders, most of whom had already been defeated by him during his conquest of Mesopotamia in 633. Before Umar could issue the reappointment order, Khalid died in Emesa.
Throughout the Persian campaign, Umar even appointed the commanders of the wings, the center and the cavalry of the army. Umar strictly instructed his commanders to consult him before making any decisive move in Persia. All the commanders, before starting their assigned campaigns, were instructed to send a detailed report of the geography and terrain of the region and the positions of the Persian garrisons, forts, cities and troops. Umar then would send them a detailed plan of how he wanted the region to be captured. Only the tactical issues were left to the field commanders to tackle in accordance with the situation they faced at their fronts. Umar appointed the best available and well-reputed commanders for the campaign. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_conquest_of_Persia |
Neolithic | In southeast Europe agrarian societies first appeared in the 7th millennium BC, attested by one of the earliest farming sites of Europe, discovered in Vashtëmi, southeastern Albania and dating back to 6500 BC. In most of Western Europe in followed over the next two thousand years, but in some parts of Northwest Europe it is much later, lasting just under 3,000 years from c. 4500 BC–1700 BC. Recent advances in archaeogenetics have confirmed that the spread of agriculture from the Middle East to Europe was strongly correlated with the migration of early farmers from Anatolia about 9,000 years ago, and was not just a cultural exchange.
Anthropomorphic figurines have been found in the Balkans from 6000 BC, and in Central Europe by around 5800 BC (La Hoguette). Among the earliest cultural complexes of this area are the Sesklo culture in Thessaly, which later expanded in the Balkans giving rise to Starčevo-Körös (Cris), Linearbandkeramik, and Vinča. Through a combination of cultural diffusion and migration of peoples, the Neolithic traditions spread west and northwards to reach northwestern Europe by around 4500 BC. The Vinča culture may have created the earliest system of writing, the Vinča signs, though archaeologist Shan Winn believes they most likely represented pictograms and ideograms rather than a truly developed form of writing.
The Cucuteni-Trypillian culture built enormous settlements in Romania, Moldova and Ukraine from 5300 to 2300 BC. The megalithic temple complexes of Ġgantija on the Mediterranean island of Gozo (in the Maltese archipelago) and of Mnajdra (Malta) are notable for their gigantic Neolithic structures, the oldest of which date back to around 3600 BC. The Hypogeum of Ħal-Saflieni, Paola, Malta, is a subterranean structure excavated around 2500 BC; originally a sanctuary, it became a necropolis, the only prehistoric underground temple in the world, and shows a degree of artistry in stone sculpture unique in prehistory to the Maltese islands. After 2500 BC, these islands were depopulated for several decades until the arrival of a new influx of Bronze Age immigrants, a culture that cremated its dead and introduced smaller megalithic structures called dolmens to Malta. In most cases there are small chambers here, with the cover made of a large slab placed on upright stones. They are claimed to belong to a population different from that which built the previous megalithic temples. It is presumed the population arrived from Sicily because of the similarity of Maltese dolmens to some small constructions found there.
With some exceptions, population levels rose rapidly at the beginning of the Neolithic until they reached the carrying capacity. This was followed by a population crash of "enormous magnitude" after 5000 BC, with levels remaining low during the next 1,500 years. Populations began to rise after 3500 BC, with further dips and rises occurring between 3000 and 2500 BC but varying in date between regions. Around this time is the Neolithic decline, when populations collapsed across most of Europe, possibly caused by climatic conditions, plague, or mass migration. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neolithic |
Ali Qushji | Qushji's most important astronomical work is Concerning the Supposed Dependence of Astronomy upon Philosophy. Under the influence of Islamic theologians who opposed the interference of Aristotelianism in astronomy, Qushji rejected Aristotelian physics and completely separated natural philosophy from Islamic astronomy, allowing astronomy to become a purely empirical and mathematical science. This allowed him to explore alternatives to the Aristotelian notion of a stationary Earth, as he explored the idea of a moving Earth instead (though Emilie Savage-Smith asserts that no Islamic astronomers proposed a heliocentric universe). He found empirical evidence for the Earth's rotation through his observation on comets and concluded, on the basis of empirical evidence rather than speculative philosophy, that the moving Earth theory is just as likely to be true as the stationary Earth theory.
His predecessor al-Tusi had previously realized that "the monoformity of falling bodies, and the uniformity of celestial motions," both moved "in a single way", though he still relied on Aristotelian physics to provide "certain principles that only the natural philosophers could provide the astronomer." Qushji took this concept further and proposed that "the astronomer had no need for Aristotelian physics and in fact should establish his own physical principles independently of the natural philosophers." Alongside his rejection of Aristotle's concept of a stationary Earth, Qushji suggested that there was no need for astronomers to follow the Aristotelian notion of the heavenly bodies moving in uniform circular motion.
Qushji's work was an important step away from Aristotelian physics and towards an independent astronomical physics. This is considered to be a "conceptual revolution" that had no precedent in European astronomy prior to the Copernican Revolution in the 16th century. Qushji's view on the Earth's motion was similar to the later views of Nicolaus Copernicus on this issue, though it is uncertain whether the former had any influence on the latter. However, it is likely that they both may have arrived at similar conclusions due to using the earlier work of Nasir al-Din al-Tusi as a basis. This is more of a possibility considering "the remarkable coincidence between a passage in De revolutionibus (I.8) and one in Ṭūsī’s Tadhkira (II.1[6]) in which Copernicus follows Ṭūsī’s objection to Ptolemy’s "proofs" of the Earth's immobility." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Qushji |
2003 invasion of Iraq | Initially, the 1st Marine Division (United States) fought through the Rumaila oil fields, and moved north to Nasiriyah—a moderate-sized, Shi'ite-dominated city with important strategic significance as a major road junction and its proximity to nearby Tallil Airfield. It was also situated near a number of strategically important bridges over the Euphrates River. The city was defended by a mix of regular Iraqi army units, Ba'ath loyalists, and Fedayeen from both Iraq and abroad. The United States Army 3rd Infantry Division defeated Iraqi forces entrenched in and around the airfield and bypassed the city to the west.
On 23 March, a convoy from the 3rd Infantry Division, including the female American soldiers Jessica Lynch, Shoshana Johnson, and Lori Piestewa, was ambushed after taking a wrong turn into the city. Eleven U.S. soldiers were killed, and seven, including Lynch and Johnson, were captured. Piestewa died of wounds shortly after capture, while the remaining five prisoners of war were later rescued. Piestewa, who was from Tuba City, Arizona, and an enrolled member of the Hopi Tribe, was believed to have been the first Native American woman killed in combat in a foreign war. On the same day, U.S. Marines from the 2nd Marine Division entered Nasiriyah in force, facing heavy resistance as they moved to secure two major bridges in the city. Several marines were killed during a firefight with Fedayeen in the urban fighting. At the Saddam Canal, another 18 marines were killed in heavy fighting with Iraqi soldiers. An Air Force A-10 was involved in a case of friendly fire that resulted in the death of six Marines when it accidentally attacked an American amphibious vehicle. Two other vehicles were destroyed when a barrage of RPG and small arms fire killed most of the Marines inside. A Marine from Marine Air Control Group 28 was killed by enemy fire, and two Marine engineers drowned in the Saddam Canal. The bridges were secured and the Second Marine division set up a perimeter around the city.
On the evening of 24 March, the 2nd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, which was attached to Regimental Combat Team One (RCT-1), pushed through Nasiriyah and established a perimeter 15 km (9.3 miles) north of the city. Iraqi reinforcements from Kut launched several counterattacks. The Marines managed to repel them using indirect fire and close air support. The last Iraqi attack was beaten off at dawn. The battalion estimated that 200–300 Iraqi soldiers were killed, without a single U.S. casualty. Nasiriyah was declared secure, but attacks by Iraqi Fedayeen continued. These attacks were uncoordinated, and resulted in firefights that killed many Fedayeen. Because of Nasiriyah's strategic position as a road junction, significant gridlock occurred as U.S. forces moving north converged on the city's surrounding highways.
With the Nasiriyah and Tallil Airfields secured, coalition forces gained an important logistical center in southern Iraq and established FOB/EAF Jalibah, some 10 miles (16 km) outside Nasiriyah. Additional troops and supplies were soon brought through this forward operating base. The 101st Airborne Division continued its attack north in support of the 3rd Infantry Division.
By 28 March, a severe sandstorm slowed the coalition advance as the 3rd Infantry Division halted its northward drive halfway between Najaf and Karbala. Air operations by helicopters, poised to bring reinforcements from the 101st Airborne, were blocked for three days. There was particularly heavy fighting in and around the bridge near the town of Kufl. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_invasion_of_Iraq |
Táhirih | After her conversion to the Bábí faith, the poems of Táhirih flourished. In most she talks about her longing to meet the Báb. Her poetry illustrates an impressive knowledge of Persian and Arabic literature which Táhirih possessed, seldom seen in a woman in mid-nineteenth century Iran. One of the most famous poems attributed to her is named Point by Point. Although it is widely considered her signature poem and a masterpiece, it has been claimed by Mohit Tabátabá'i to be older and by someone else – though in making this claim he offered no proof and any argument to the contrary is not possible in Iran. When Táhirih was killed, hostile family members suppressed or destroyed her remaining poems, whilst her others were spread across Iran. It has been suggested that Táhirih had little interest in putting her poems in print. ʻAbdu'l-Bahá recalls that when he was aged five Táhirih would chant her poetry to him in her beautiful voice. Edward Granville Browne procured her poems from Bábí, Baháʼí and Azali sources and published them in his book A Year Amongst the Persians.
After collecting, translating, and publishing a volume of those poems commonly considered as having been written by Táhirih,The Poetry of Táhirih (2002), scholars John S. Hatcher and Amrollah Hemmat received a photocopy of two handwritten manuscripts from Bíjan Beidáíe, son of renowned scholar Dhuká'í Beidáíe who had originally submitted this manuscript to the Baháʼí archives of Iran. The result of this propitious find of poems previously unpublished, untranslated, and largely unknown, was the publication of two volumes by Hatcher and Hemmat containing both translation of the poetry into English and copies of the original calligraphy. The first volume Adam's Wish (2008) includes a lengthy poem called Adam's Wish, about the desire of Adam and all other past prophets to witness humanity's coming of age. The second volume The Quickening was published in 2011 and also includes copies of the original calligraphy of the second manuscript. As Hatcher and Hemmat explain in the introductions to these two volumes, some scholars question whether or not all the poems in the manuscript are by Táhirih. Dhuká'í Beidáíe himself states in Persian on page 256 of Adam's Wish that some of the poems may be written by Bihjat (Karím Khan-i-Máftí), one of the Báb'ís of Qazvin who corresponded with Táhirih through exchanges of poems, possibly during the period when she was imprisoned the house of the governor of Tehran in the period prior to her execution. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C3%A1hirih |
Unilateral Declaration of Egyptian Independence | The status of Egypt had become highly convoluted ever since its virtual breakaway from the Ottoman Empire in 1805 under Muhammad Ali Pasha. From then on, Egypt was de jure a self-governing vassal state of the Ottoman Empire, but de facto independent, with its own hereditary monarchy, military, currency, legal system, and empire in Sudan. From 1882 onwards, Egypt was occupied by the United Kingdom, but not annexed, leading to a unique situation of a country that was legally a vassal of the Ottoman Empire whilst having almost all the attributes of statehood, but in reality being governed by the United Kingdom in what was known as a "veiled protectorate".
In the unilateral declaration, the United Kingdom granted to itself "reserved" powers in four areas central to the governance of Egypt: foreign relations, communications, the military, and Sudan, which was legally a condominium of both Egypt and the United Kingdom. These reserved powers, to which the Egyptian government did not consent, meant that nationalist grievances against the United Kingdom continued and would contribute to the causes of the Egyptian Revolution of 1952 three decades later. According to historian Caroline Elkins, the Egyptian independence declaration did not entail sovereignty for Egypt, but rather a "semiautonomous" status.
In 1914, the legal fiction of Ottoman sovereignty was ended, and the Sultanate of Egypt (which the Ottomans had destroyed in 1517) was re-established, but Egypt was not legally independent. Though the United Kingdom did not annex Egypt, it made the restored sultanate a protectorate (a state not part of the British Empire but nonetheless administered by the United Kingdom), thereby formalising the political and military role that it had exercised in Egypt since 1882.
Although it met the Egyptian nationalists' immediate demands for an end to the protectorate, the declaration was globally unsatisfactory since the Egyptian independence that the United Kingdom recognised was greatly restricted by the "reserved points" clause. This led to sustained pressure on the United Kingdom from Egyptian nationalists to renegotiate the relationship between the two countries. The Anglo-Egyptian treaty of 1936 resolved some of these issues, but others, particularly regarding Sudan, and the presence of British military personnel in the Suez Canal Zone, remained. The continued control of Egyptian affairs by the United Kingdom, as well as British repression of Egyptians who pushed for independence, sparked the Egyptian Revolution of 1919. Subsequently, the United Kingdom government entered into negotiations intended to abate Egyptian grievances whilst maintaining its own military presence and political influence in the country.
The declaration was preceded by a period of inconclusive negotiations between the governments of Egypt and the United Kingdom. Areas of disagreement included Egypt's position on the issues of the protectorate, and of its future role in Sudan. Egyptian Prime Minister Adli Yakan Pasha, and moderate Egyptian nationalists managed to obtain the agreement of British High Commissioner Edmund Allenby to secure the more general issue of Egyptian sovereignty with a view to the United Kingdom ultimately recognising Egypt as an independent state. The Coalition Government of British Prime Minister Lloyd George wanted to maintain the protectorate over Egypt. Allenby threatened to resign, and this action brought the issue to public discussion, and led to a quick official response: two weeks later the declaration was issued. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unilateral_Declaration_of_Egyptian_Independence |
Water supply and sanitation in Jordan | The share of non-revenue water (NRW) - water which is produced but not billed - was estimated at approx. 50% nationwide in 2014. This amounts to an estimated physical leakage of 76 billion litres per year, which could meet the needs of 2.6 million people (more than a third of the population. The main reasons leading to this high rate are leakage, by-passing of meters, illegal connections, unreliable water meters and problems concerning the reading of those meters. Leakages also affect water pressure and quality. Stolen water is used for irrigation or sold through water tankers, which reduces the amount available for official water supply and increases the price. Measures to decrease the rate of NRW can thus contribute to relieve the high pressure on water resources. The Government, in its National Water Strategy, aims at reducing non-revenue water to 25% by 2022, and technical losses to below 15%. The Strategy thus also includes strengthening the criminalization of water theft and illegal wells.
Under a nationwide campaign to end water theft and violations on water networks and resources, the Ministry of Water and Irrigation, water companies and security authorities sealed 26 illegal wells in January 2015, seized and confiscated 30 drilling rigs, as well as dismantled 408 illegal fixtures on water mains and pipes across the Kingdom. According to WAJ, hundreds of thousands of stolen and wasted cubic metres of water have been saved since a “serious crackdown” on water theft and violations was initiated in August 2013.
In Amman, the level of non-revenue water has been reduced from an estimated 46% in 2005 to an estimated 34% in 2010. However, during the same period the average hours of service per week declined from 66 to 36.
The UN Special Rapporteur on the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation called in a 2014 report on donors to prioritize their cooperation in tackling non-revenue water through small scale, effective interventions.
Jordan wants to reduce non-revenue water from about 50% of total national supply to 25% of total supply to urban systems by 2040. The Ministry of Water and Irrigation estimates that the investment required to achieve this goal would be €1.7 billion over the next ten years. At an international summit in Amman in March 2022, $1.83 billion in grants and loans were offered for the project. According to Jordan's Ministry of Water and Irrigation, new offers have brought the total to $2.35 billion. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_supply_and_sanitation_in_Jordan |
Islamic garden | The terraced gardens of Madinat al-Zahra in al-Andalus, built in the 10th century under Abd ar-Rahman III and ruined in the 11th century, are the earliest well-documented examples of a symmetrically-divided enclosed garden in the western Islamic world and among the earliest examples in the Islamic world more generally. They are also the earliest example in the region to combine this with a system of terraces. This type of Andalusi garden probably drew its origins from the Persian chahar bagh garden in the east and was imported to the west by Umayyad patrons.: 69–70 An older country estate known as al-Qasr ar-Rusafa, built by Abd ar-Rahman I near Cordoba in 777, has not been fully studied but probably also featured gardens and pavilions with elevated views, which suggests that this garden tradition was adopted very early by the Umayyad emirs of Al-Andalus. Symmetrically-divided courtyard gardens, later known as a riyad (or riad), would go on to become a typical feature of western Islamic architecture in the Maghreb and al-Andalus, including later Andalusi palaces such as the Aljaferia and the Alhambra.
In present-day Algeria, the Qal'at Beni Hammad ("Citadel of the Beni Hammad") was the fortified capital city built by the Hammadid dynasty in the early 11th century. Its ruins have remained uninhabited for 800 years but have been investigated by archeologists. Dar al-Bahr, the Lake Palace, is situated on the southern end of the city. During its time, it was remarked upon by visitors for the nautical spectacles enacted in its large pool. Surrounding the pool and the palace were terraces, courtyards and gardens. Little is known of the details of these gardens, other than the lion motifs carved in their stone fountains. The earliest known example of a riyad garden in the western Maghreb (present-day Morocco) was the palace built by the Almoravid emir Ali ibn Yusuf in Marrakesh in the early 12th century, although it is only known from archeological excavations. Riyad gardens continued to proliferate after this period, especially in Marrakesh. Notably, the late 16th-century Saadi sultan Ahmad al-Mansur built very large riyad palaces including the monumental reception palace known as El Badi and a separate leisure palace inside the Agdal Gardens.
In al-Andalus, the Generalife of Granada, built by the Nasrid dynasty under Muhammad II or Muhammad III on a hill across from Alhambra, is another famous example. The palace contains many gardens with fountains, pavilions providing views of the landscape, and shallow-rooted plants. Although it has been modified and replanted over the centuries, two major elements have been preserved from the original design: the Acequia ("canal") Court and the "water stairway" that went to the upper level of the estate. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_garden |
Sinai and Palestine campaign | We have moved camp from a hill above the village of Deir Beulah to a lonely spot in the grove by the shores of a sweet water lake and close to the sea. The trees and tangles of most luxuriant creepers and bushes conceal also some field batteries and hundreds of tons of shells and high explosives. Behind us are our heavies and cavalry and very near in front our entrenched infantry with whom we are in touch. Absurdly near to these are the Turkish positions, trenches and redoubts. As we crossed the plain and a little ridge of hills to my new position on Palm Sunday, [1 April] Turkish HE [High Explosive] shells were falling pretty freely, but in a seemingly rather aimless way and the same desultory fire kept up all Monday. Aircraft and anti-aircraft guns were busy nearly all the time keeping up a constant hubbub. The next day, Tuesday 3 April, the Turks attacked and I was lucky enough to have a sort of front seat for the whole show, including the repulse of their infantry onslaught.
Surrounded by palms and olive groves, Deir el Belah is 5 miles (8.0 km) north east of Khan Yunis and 8 miles (13 km) south west of Gaza. From Deir el Belah active patrolling towards Sharia and Beersheba continued. Here the 1st Light Horse Brigade rejoined the Anzac Mounted Division, three Hotchkiss light machine guns were issued to every squadron, substantially increasing the firepower of the mounted infantry and training in their use and gas helmets was carried out. Deir el Belah became the headquarters of Eastern Force after railhead reached there on 5 April and the arrival of the 74th (Yeomanry) Division increased the force to four infantry divisions.
General Murray had created the impression that the First Battle of Gaza had ended better than it had and the defenders had suffered more, with the Chief of the Imperial General Staff William Robertson in London. Continuing inconclusive fighting in France resulted in Murray being encouraged on 2 April to begin a major offensive; to aim for Jerusalem, in the hope of raising morale. By 18 April it was clear Nivelle's offensive had not succeeded, the newly democratic Russia could no longer be relied on to attack the German or Ottoman empires freeing them to reinforce Palestine and Mesopotamia, and the resumption of unrestricted German U-boat warfare was sinking 13 British ships a day when the average during 1916 had been only three. This misunderstanding of the actual position in southern Palestine "rest squarely on General Murray for, whether he intended it or not, the wording of the reports fully justifies the interpretation placed upon them." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinai_and_Palestine_campaign |
Houthi insurgency | In April, Houthi spokesman Mohammed Abdulsalam declared that rebels had captured the Manaba district in Sa'dah, with little government resistance. Government troops declared they had killed 30 Houthis who had tried to penetrate into Harf Sufyan District.
On July 17, 2010, the Houthis warned on their website that the government was preparing for another offensive against the Houthis. They said the government had been digging trenches from the Sanaʽa to Sa'ada. They claimed the army was trying to amass servicemen in villages and that soldiers in Amshia Bsfian region were creating an army stronghold on Mount Guide. The report came as the Yemeni government blamed Houthi fighters for recent ethnic clashes which had killed 11 people, including two soldiers, and for the kidnapping of two people in a market. The Houthis have denied these allegations and have claimed that it was the work of the government.
On July 20, 2010, clashes broke out between Houthis and members of an army-backed tribe, led by Sheikh Sagheer Aziz, in the region of Souffian. A Houthi commander declared that the clashes had broken out because of Yemeni Army attacks on Houthis and local pro-Houthi tribes. Forty-nine people were reported killed in the clashes, including 20 tribal and 10 Houthi fighters. The Houthis also managed to surround the Yemeni military bases in the region.
Over the following days the Yemeni army and pro-government Bin Aziz tribes continued to clash with the Houthis. The government claimed that in the following two days, 20 fighters were killed on each side. A Houthi spokesman denied these claims, stating only three Houthi fighters had been killed in the clashes. Both sides have blamed each other for starting the clashes. The UN expressed great concern about the situation in North Yemen.
On July 23, Houthi spokesman Vayf-Allah al-Shami said calm had returned to the region and that a government committee was trying to mediate a cease-fire between the Houthis and the Bin Aziz tribes in the Souffian region.
On July 27, Houthis seized a military post at al-Zaala in Harf Sufyan, capturing 200 soldiers of the army's Republican Guard. Tribal sources claimed they had inflicted 200 fatalities on the Houthis in al-Amsheya while suffering only 30 dead themselves. Houthi spokesman Abdul Salam denied the high number of killed and said the claims were highly exaggerated. Houthis said they recovered the bodies of 17 of their fighters, including that of rebel commander Abu Haidar, near the house of Sheikh Saghir Aziz in Al-Maqam, near Al-Zaala.
On July 29, the Houthis released the 200 soldiers they had captured as a goodwill gesture. In total some 70 people had died since the clashes started.
On November 22, one soldier was killed and two wounded in a roadside bombing. The next day 23 Houthi fighters and supporters were killed and 30 injured by a car bomb targeting a Shi'a religious procession in al-Jawf province. On November 26, two Shi'a mourners were killed and eight injured by a bomb while on their way to Sa'adah city to attend Badreddin al-Houthi's funeral.
In total, between 195 and 281 people were killed during this round violence, with the majority of the casualties on the Houthi side. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houthi_insurgency |
Wahhabism | While Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab himself was not inclined to adhere to a particular madhab, many of his followers would perpetuate the Hanbali legal theory. Hanbali jurist Hamad ibn Nasir ibn Mu'ammar (1160–1125 A.H/ 1747–1810 C.E) laid out a comprehensive legal theory in his treatises like Risala al-Ijtihad wal Taqlid ("Treatise on Ijtihad and Taqlid") which became influential in the scholarly circles of the Muwahhidun. Ibn Mu'ammar believed that maintaining the practice of Ijtihad in every era was a religious obligation and tasked the Islamic scholars for carrying out this responsibility. This was to be done through proof evaluation from the Scriptures and by employing Usul al-Fiqh (Principles of Jurisprudence). Based on one's expertise and knowledge, Ibn Mu'ammar ranked a hierarchy of Fuqaha (Islamic jurists) for carrying out the duty of issuing fatwas. At the top was the absolute Mujtahid who issues verdicts solely based on the principles (Usul) of his madhab by independently determining the preponderant view from all the possible scenarios tracked down by himself as well as supplement the former rulings. After this came the 3 levels of partial Ijtihad which limited the scope of research: initially just to the past opinions, then to the rulings found in the 4 madhabs and finally to the views within one's own madhab. The lowest of Ibn Mu'ammar's hierarchy constituted the non-Mujtahid laity who are required to directly engage with the Scriptural sources in consultation with scholars, as well as by analysing past scholarly works. Thus, Ibn Mu'ammar's legal theory strived for the reconciliation between the reformist programme of the Muwahhidin and the classical jurisprudential structures. What made Ibn Mu'ammar's proposed system unique was its "microcosmic" and flexible nature; which permitted the scholars to simultaneously represent different ranks within the hierarchy to carry out their responsibilities of Ijtihad.
The Wahhabi legal theory stipulated proof-evaluation based on Hanbali principles as one of its major hallmarks. By claiming themselves as Hanbali, Muwahhidun scholars implied directly adhering to the five Usul al-Fiqh (Principles of jurisprudence) of the Hanbali school. Despite the main methodology of Wahhabi movement being derived from Hanbalite Ahl al-Hadith, scholars also take the rulings from other Madhhabs, as long they regard them as being verified through Hadith and traditions or Sunnah authenticated by Sahabah. (Qaul Sahabiyyah according to modern contemporary Muslim scholars). Prominent Wahhabi scholar Muhammad ibn Salih al-Uthaymeen derived rulings from the Shafiite jurisprudence in his commentary of The Meadows of the Righteous book authored by al-Nawawi, wherein the Ijtihad (reasoning) of Abu Hurairah was taken by al-Nawawi for rulings of Wudu (ablution ritual). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wahhabism |
Islam in China | During the following Ming dynasty, Muslims continued to be influential around government circles. Six of Ming dynasty founder Hongwu Emperor's most trusted generals are said to have been Muslim, including Lan Yu who, in 1388, led a strong imperial Ming army out of the Great Wall and won a decisive victory over the Mongols in Mongolia, effectively ending the Mongol dream to re-conquer China. During the war fighting the Mongols, among the Ming Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang's armies was the Hui Muslim Feng Sheng. Zhu Yuanzhang also wrote a praise of Islam, The Hundred-word Eulogy. It was recorded that "His Majesty ordered to have mosques built in Xijing and Nanjing [the capital cities], and in southern Yunnan, Fujian and Guangdong. His Majesty also personally wrote baizizan [a eulogy] in praise of the Prophet's virtues." Additionally, the Yongle Emperor hired Zheng He, perhaps the most famous Chinese of Muslim birth although at least in later life not a Muslim himself, to lead seven expeditions to the Indian Ocean from 1405 and 1433. However, during the Ming dynasty, new immigration to China from Muslim countries was restricted in an increasingly isolationist nation. The Muslims in China who were descended from earlier immigration began to assimilate by speaking Chinese and by adopting Chinese names and culture. Mosque architecture began to follow traditional Chinese architecture. This era, sometimes considered the Golden Age of Islam in China, also saw Nanjing become an important center of Islamic study.
Taoism and Confucianism influenced Islam around and before this time, and because of their influence and the lack of proficiency many imams had with writing in Chinese, many Muslims had vastly different conceptions of God from Muslims in western countries. They also came up with Taoist-influenced names for Allah different from the typical 99 names.
Muslims in Ming dynasty Beijing were given relative freedom by the Chinese, with no restrictions placed on their religious practices or freedom of worship and being normal citizens in Beijing. In contrast to the freedom granted to Muslims, followers of Tibetan Buddhism and Catholicism suffered from restrictions and censure in Beijing.
The Hongwu Emperor decreed the building of multiple mosques throughout China in many locations. A Nanjing mosque was built by the Xuande Emperor. Weizhou Grand Mosque, considered as one of the most beautiful, was constructed during the Ming dynasty.
When the Qing dynasty invaded the Ming dynasty in 1644, Muslim Ming loyalists led by Muslim leaders Milayin, Ding Guodong and Ma Shouying led a revolt in 1646 against the Qing during the Milayin rebellion in order to drive the Qing out and restore the Ming Prince of Yanchang Zhu Shichuan to the throne as the emperor. The Muslim Ming loyalists were crushed by the Qing with 100,000 of them, including Milayin and Ding Guodong killed. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_China |
Maimonides | Maimonides composed works of Jewish scholarship, rabbinic law, philosophy, and medical texts. Most of Maimonides' works were written in Judeo-Arabic. However, the Mishneh Torah was written in Hebrew. In addition to Mishneh Torah, his Jewish texts were:
Commentary on the Mishna (Arabic Kitab al-Siraj, translated into Hebrew as Pirush Hamishnayot), written in Classical Arabic using the Hebrew alphabet. This was the first full commentary ever written on the entire Mishnah, which took Maimonides seven years to complete. It is considered one of the most important Mishnah commentaries, having enjoyed great popularity both in its Arabic original and its medieval Hebrew translation. The commentary includes three philosophical introductions which were also highly influential:
The Introduction to the Mishnah deals with the nature of the oral law, the distinction between the prophet and the sage, and the organizational structure of the Mishnah.
The Introduction to Mishnah Sanhedrin, chapter ten (Pereḳ Ḥeleḳ), is an eschatological essay that concludes with Maimonides' famous creed ("the thirteen principles of faith").
The Introduction to Pirkei Avot, popularly called The Eight Chapters, is an ethical treatise.
Sefer Hamitzvot (The Book of Commandments). In this work, Maimonides lists all the 613 mitzvot traditionally contained in the Torah (Pentateuch). He describes fourteen shorashim (roots or principles) to guide his selection.
Sefer Ha'shamad (Letter of Martydom)
The Guide for the Perplexed, a philosophical work harmonising and differentiating Aristotle's philosophy and Jewish theology. Written in Judeo-Arabic under the title Dalālat al-ḥāʾirīn, and completed between 1186 and 1190. It has been suggested that the title is derived from the Arabic phrase dalīl al-mutaḥayyirin (guide of the perplexed) a name for God in a work by al-Ghazālī, echoes of whose work can be found elsewhere in Maimonides. The first translation of this work into Hebrew was done by Samuel ibn Tibbon in 1204 just prior to Maimonides' death.
Teshuvot, collected correspondence and responsa, including a number of public letters (on resurrection and the afterlife, on conversion to other faiths, and Iggereth Teiman—addressed to the oppressed Jewry of Yemen).
Hilkhot ha-Yerushalmi, a fragment of a commentary on the Jerusalem Talmud, identified and published by Saul Lieberman in 1947.
Commentaries to the Babylonian Talmud, of which fragments survive. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maimonides |
Arecaceae | Human use of palms is at least as old as human civilization itself, starting with the cultivation of the date palm by Mesopotamians and other Middle Eastern peoples 5,000 years or more ago. Date wood, pits for storing dates, and other remains of the date palm have been found in Mesopotamian sites. The date palm had a significant effect on the history of the Middle East and North Africa. In the text “Date Palm Products” (1993), W.H. Barreveld wrote:
One could go as far as to say that, had the date palm not existed, the expansion of the human race into the hot and barren parts of the "old" world would have been much more restricted. The date palm not only provided a concentrated energy food, which could be easily stored and carried along on long journeys across the deserts, it also created a more amenable habitat for the people to live in by providing shade and protection from the desert winds.
An indication of the importance of palms in ancient times is that they are mentioned more than 30 times in the Bible, and at least 22 times in the Quran. The Torah also references the “70 date palm trees,” which symbolize the 70 aspects of Torah that are revealed to those who “eat of its fruit.”
Arecaceae have great economic importance, including coconut products, oils, dates, palm syrup, ivory nuts, carnauba wax, rattan cane, raffia, and palm wood. This family supplies a large amount of the human diet and several other human uses, both by absolute amount produced and by number of species domesticated. This is far higher than almost any other plant family, sixth out of domesticated crops in the human diet, and first in total economic value produced – sharing the top spot with the Poaceae and Fabaceae. These human uses have also spread many Arecaceae species around the world.
Along with dates mentioned above, members of the palm family with human uses are numerous:
The type member of Arecaceae is the areca palm (Areca catechu), the fruit of which, the areca nut, is chewed with the betel leaf for intoxicating effects.
Carnauba wax is harvested from the leaves of a Brazilian palm (Copernicia).
Rattans, whose stems are used extensively in furniture and baskets, are in the genus Calamus.
Palm oil is an edible vegetable oil produced by the oil palms in the genus Elaeis.
Several species are harvested for heart of palm, a vegetable eaten in salads.
Sap of the nipa palm, Nypa fruticans, is used to make vinegar.
Palm sap is sometimes fermented to produce palm wine or toddy, an alcoholic beverage common in parts of Africa, India, and the Philippines. The sap may be drunk fresh, but fermentation is rapid, reaching up to 4% alcohol content within an hour, and turning vinegary in a day.
Palmyra and date palm sap is harvested in Bengal, India, to process into gur and jaggery.
Coconut is the partially edible seed of the fruit of the coconut palm (Cocos nucifera).
Coir is a coarse, water-resistant fiber extracted from the outer shell of coconuts, used in doormats, brushes, mattresses, and ropes.
Some indigenous groups living in palm-rich areas use palms to make many of their necessary items and food. Sago, for example, a starch made from the pith of the trunk of the sago palm Metroxylon sagu, is a major staple food for lowland peoples of New Guinea and the Moluccas.
Palm wine is made from Jubaea also called Chilean wine palm, or coquito palm.
Recently, the fruit of the açaí palm Euterpe has been used for its reputed health benefits.
Saw palmetto (Serenoa repens) is being investigated as a drug for treating enlarged prostates.
Palm leaves are also valuable to some peoples as a material for thatching, basketry, clothing, and in religious ceremonies (see "Symbolism" below).
Ornamental uses: Today, palms are valuable as ornamental plants and are often grown along streets in tropical and subtropical cities. Chamaedorea elegans is a popular houseplant and is grown indoors for its low maintenance. Farther north, palms are a common feature in botanical gardens or as indoor plants. Few palms tolerate severe cold and the majority of the species are tropical or subtropical. The three most cold-tolerant species are Trachycarpus fortunei, native to eastern Asia, and Rhapidophyllum hystrix and Sabal minor, both native to the southeastern United States.
The southeastern U.S. state of South Carolina is nicknamed the Palmetto State after the sabal palmetto (cabbage palmetto), logs from which were used to build the fort at Fort Moultrie. During the American Revolutionary War, they were invaluable to those defending the fort, because their spongy wood absorbed or deflected the British cannonballs.
Singaporean politician Tan Cheng Bock uses a palm tree-like symbol similar to a Ravenala to represent him in the 2011 Singaporean presidential election. The symbol of a party he founded, Progress Singapore Party, was also based on a palm tree.
On Ash Wednesday, Catholics receive a cross on their forehead made of palm ashes as a reminder of the Catholic belief that everyone and everything eventually returns to where it came from, commonly expressed by the saying "ashes to ashes and dust to dust.” | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arecaceae |
Islamophobia | Muslim immigration into Europe has led some critics to label Islam incompatible with secular Western society. This criticism has been partly influenced by a stance against multiculturalism advocated by recent philosophers, closely linked to the heritage of New Philosophers, including the likes of Pascal Bruckner. Jocelyne Cesari, in her study of discrimination against Muslims in Europe, finds that anti-Islamic sentiment may be difficult to separate from other drivers of discrimination. Because Muslims are mainly from immigrant backgrounds and the largest group of immigrants in many Western European countries, xenophobia overlaps with Islamophobia, and a person may have one, the other, or both. So, for example, some people who have a negative perception of and attitude toward Muslims may also show this toward non-Muslim immigrants, either as a whole or certain group (such as, for example, Eastern Europeans, sub-Saharan Africans, or Roma), whereas others would not. Nigel Farage, for example, is anti-EU and in favor of crackdowns on immigration from Eastern Europe, but is favourable to immigration from Islamic Commonwealth countries such as Nigeria and Pakistan.
The European Network Against Racism (ENAR) reports that Islamophobic crimes are on the increase in France, England and Wales. In Sweden crimes with an Islamophobic motive increased by 69% from 2009 to 2013.
An increase of Islamophobia in Russia follows the growing influence of the strongly conservative sect of Wahhabism, according to Nikolai Sintsov of the National Anti-Terrorist Committee.
Various translations of the Qur'an have been banned by the Russian government for promoting extremism and Muslim supremacy. Akhmed Yarlikapov, an expert on Islam, said the Bible too could be banned just as easily for identical motives.
Anti-Muslim rhetoric is on the rise in Georgia. In Greece, Islamophobia accompanies anti-immigrant sentiment, as immigrants are now 15% of the country's population and 90% of the EU's illegal entries are through Greece. In France Islamophobia is tied, in part, to the nation's long-standing tradition of secularism. With the popularization of the Bulgarian nationalist party ATAKA, Islamophobia in Bulgaria also showed an increase. The party itself participated in the 2011 Banya Bashi Mosque clashes. In Myanmar (Burma) the 969 Movement has been accused of events such as the 2012 Rakhine State riots. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamophobia |
Umm Kulthum | Umm Kulthum was born in the village of Tamay e-Zahayra within the markaz of Senbellawein, Dakahlia Governorate to a family of a religious background. Her father, Ibrahim El-Sayyid El-Beltagi, was a rural imam while her mother, Fatmah El-Maleegi, was a housewife. She learned how to sing by listening to her father teach her older brother, Khalid. From a young age, she showed exceptional singing talent. Through her father, she learned to recite the Qur'an, and she reportedly memorized the entire book.
Her grandfather was also a well-known reader of the Qur'an and she remembered how the villagers used to listen to him when he recited the Qur'an. When she was 12 years old, having noticed her strength in singing, her father asked her to join the family ensemble. She subsequently joined as a supporting voice, initially just repeating what the others sang. On stage, she wore a boy's cloak and bedouin head covering in order to alleviate her father's anxiety about her reputation and public performance. At the age of 16, she was noticed by Mohamed Abo Al-Ela, a modestly famous singer, who taught her the old classical Arabic repertoire. A few years later, she met the famous composer and oudist Zakariyya Ahmad, who took her to Cairo. Although she made several visits to Cairo in the early 1920s, she waited until 1923 before permanently moving there. She was invited on several occasions to the home of Amin Beh Al Mahdy, who taught her to play the oud, a type of lute. She developed a close relationship with Rawheya Al-Mahdi, Amin's daughter, and became her closest friend. Umm Kulthum even attended Rawheya's daughter's wedding, although she usually preferred not to appear in public (offstage).
During the early years of her career, she faced staunch competition from two prominent singers: Mounira El Mahdeya and Fatheya Ahmed, who had voices similar to hers. El Mahdeya's friend, who worked as an editor at Al-Masra, suggested several times that Umm Kulthum had married one of the guests who frequently visited her household; this affected her conservative father so much that he decided that the whole family should return to their village. He would only change his mind after being persuaded by the arguments of Amin Al Mahdi. Following this incident, Umm Kulthum made a public statement regarding visits in her household in which she announced she would no longer receive visitors. In 1923 she struck a contract with Odeon Records which by 1926 would pay her more than any other Egyptian musical artist per record. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umm_Kulthum |
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine | After the occurrence of the First Intifada and the subsequent Oslo Accords the PFLP had difficulty establishing itself in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. At that time (1993–96) the popularity of Hamas was rapidly increasing in the wake of their successful strategy of suicide bombings devised by Yahya Ayyash ("the Engineer"). The dissolution of the Soviet Union together with the rise of Islamism—and particularly the increased popularity of the Islamist groups Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad—disoriented many left activists who had looked towards the Soviet Union, and has marginalized the PFLP's role in Palestinian politics and armed resistance. However, the organization retains considerable political influence within the PLO, since no new elections have been held for the organization's legislative body, the PNC.
The PFLP developed contacts at this time with Islamic fundamentalist groups linked to Iran – both Palestinian Hamas, and the Lebanon-based Hezbollah. The PLO's agreement with Israel in September 1993, and negotiations which followed, further isolated it from the umbrella organization and led it to conclude a formal alliance with the Iranian backed groups.
As a result of its post-Oslo weakness, the PFLP has been forced to adapt slowly and find partners among politically active, preferably young, Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, in order to compensate for their dependence on their aging commanders returning from or remaining in exile. The PFLP has therefore formed alliances with other leftist groups formed within the Palestinian Authority, including the Palestinian People's Party and the Popular Resistance Committees of Gaza.
In 1990, the PFLP transformed its Jordan branch into a separate political party, the Jordanian Popular Democratic Unity Party. From its foundation, the PFLP sought superpower patrons, early on developing ties with the Soviet Union, the People's Republic of China, and, at various times, with regional powers such as Syria, South Yemen, Libya, North Korea, and Iraq, as well as with left-wing groups around the world, including the FARC and the Japanese Red Army. When that support diminished or stopped, in the late 1980s and 1990s, the PFLP sought new allies and developed contacts with Islamist groups linked to Iran, despite the PFLP's strong adherence to secularism and anti-clericalism. The relationship between the PFLP and the Islamic Republic of Iran has fluctuated – it strengthened as a result of Hamas moving away from Iran due to differing positions on the Syrian Civil War. Iran rewarded the PFLP for its pro-Assad stance with an increase in financial and military assistance. The PFLP has been accused by Israel of diverting European humanitarian aid from Palestinian NGOs to itself. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popular_Front_for_the_Liberation_of_Palestine |
Geography of Somalia | Due to Somalia's proximity to the equator, there is not much seasonal variation in its climate. However, there are some very unpredictable rainfalls that occur sometimes. Hot conditions prevail year-round along with monsoon (periodic seasonal reversing wind accompanied by corresponding changes in precipitation) winds and irregular rainfall. Mean daily maximum temperatures range from 30 to 40 °C (86 to 104 °F), except at higher elevations and along the eastern seaboard, where the effects of a cold offshore current can be felt. In Mogadishu, for instance, average afternoon highs range from 28 to 32 °C (82 to 90 °F) in April. Some of the highest mean annual temperatures in the world have been recorded in the country; Berbera on the northwestern coast has an afternoon high that averages more than 38 °C (100 °F) from June through September. Nationally, mean daily minimums usually vary from about 15 to 30 °C (59 to 86 °F). The greatest range in climate occurs in northern Somalia, where temperatures sometimes surpass 45 °C (113 °F) in July on the littoral plains and drop below the freezing point during December in the highlands. In this region, relative humidity ranges from about 40 percent in the mid-afternoon to 85 percent at night, changing somewhat according to the season.
Unlike the climates of most other countries at this latitude, conditions in Somalia range from arid desert in the northeastern and central regions to semiarid steppe in the south and northwest. In the south, in the east Africa coastal forest, there are regions in which there is a tropical savanna climate. In the Cal Madow region of Somalia, there is cold steppe climate. In the northeast, annual rainfall is less than 4 inches (100 mm); in the central plateaus, it is about 8 to 12 inches (200 to 300 mm). The northwestern and southwestern parts of the nation, however, receive considerably more rain, with an average of 20 to 24 inches (510 to 610 mm) falling per year. Although the coastal regions are hot and humid throughout the year, the hinterland is typically dry and hot. The Cal Madow and the Lag Badana national park are humid areas.
Most of the country receives less than 500 millimeters (19.7 in) of rain annually, and a large area encompassing the northeast and much of northern Somalia receives as little as 50 to 150 millimeters (1.97 to 5.91 in). Certain higher areas in the north, however, record more than 500 millimeters (19.7 in) a year, as do some coastal sites. The southwest receives 330 to 500 millimeters (13.0 to 19.7 in). Generally, rainfall takes the form of showers or localized torrential rains and is extremely variable. Mean daily maximum temperatures throughout the country range from 30 to 40 °C (86 to 104 °F), except at higher elevations and along the Somali Sea coast. Mean daily minimum temperatures vary from 20 °C (68 °F) to more than 30 °C (86 °F). Northern Somalia experiences the greatest temperature extremes, with readings ranging from below freezing in the highlands in December to more than 45 °C (113 °F) in July in the coastal plain skirting the Gulf of Aden. The north's relative humidity ranges from about 40 percent in midafternoon to 85 percent at night, varying somewhat with the season. During the colder months, December to February, visibility at higher elevations is often restricted by fog. Temperatures in the south are less extreme, ranging from about 20 to 40 °C (68 to 104 °F). The hottest months are February through April. Coastal readings are usually five to ten degrees cooler than those inland. The coastal zone's relative humidity usually remains about 70 percent even during the dry seasons.
There are four main seasons around which pastoral and agricultural life revolve, and these are dictated by shifts in the wind patterns. From December to March is the Jilal, the harshest dry season of the year. The main rainy season, referred to as the Gu, lasts from April to June. This period is characterized by the southwest monsoons, which rejuvenate the pasture land, especially the central plateau, and briefly transform the desert into lush vegetation. From July to September is the second dry season, the Xagaa (pronounced "Hagaa"). The Dayr, which is the shortest rainy season, lasts from October to December. The tangambili periods that intervene between the two monsoons (October–November and March–May) are hot and humid. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geography_of_Somalia |
Glossary of Islam | ʿAbd (عبد) (for male) ʾAmah (أمة) (for female)
Servant or worshipper. Muslims consider themselves servants and worshippers of God as per Islam. Common Muslim names such as Abdullah (Servant of God), Abdul-Malik (Servant of the King), Abdur-Rahmān (Slave of the Most Beneficent), Abdus-Salām (Slave of [the originator of] Peace), Abdur-Rahîm (Slave of the Most Merciful), all refer to names of Allah.
ʾAdab (أدب)
Traditionally describes good manners, as in etiquette. For example, being courteous is good ʾadab. However, the term can be used very broadly, and the proper translation would be "the proper way to go about something," as in the example, ʾĀdāb al Qitāl, or, "The Proper Ways of Fighting in War," (Qitāl in Arabic means mortal combat) in which the word "etiquette" does not befit the context. A secondary meaning of ʾAdab is "literature".
ʾAdhān (أذان)
call to salat (prayer), sometimes alternatively spelled and pronounced Azaan, Athaan and Adhan.
ʿAdl (عدل)
justice, especially distributive justice: social, economic, political, proprietary.
AH (هجرية)
Anno Hegirae The Islamic calendar starts counting years starting from the time when Muhammad had to leave Mecca and go to Medina, an event known as the Hijra. The first day of the first Islamic year is 1 Muḥarram 1 (AH) and corresponds to 16 July 622 (CE).
ʾAḥad (أحد)
literally "one." Islamically, ahad means One Alone, unique, none like God. Al-Ahad is one of the names of God.
ʾAḥkām (أحكام)
These are rulings and orders of the Qu'ran and Sunnah. A single ruling is called a Ḥukm. Five kinds of orders: Wajib or Fard (obligatory), Mustahab (preferred and recommended), Halal or Mubah (permissible), Makruh (disliked and not recommended), and Haram (forbidden)
ʾAhl al-Bayt (أهل البيت)
members of Muhammad's Household. Also known among Shia as the Maʿṣūmūn (معصومون) (infallibles; spiritually pure).
ʾAhl al-Fatrah (الفطرة)
people who live in ignorance of the teachings of a revealed religion, but according to the "Fitra", the "Natural Religion" innate to human nature as created by God.
ʾAhl al-Kitāb (أهل الكتاب)
"People of the Book", or followers of pre-Islamic monotheistic religions with some form of scripture believed to be of divine origin which were mentioned in Quran: Jews, Christians.
ʾĀkhirah (الآخرة)
hereafter or eternal life
ʾAkhlāq (أخلاق)
The practice of virtue. Morals.
Al-ʾIkhlāṣ (الإخلاص)
Sincerity and genuineness in religious beliefs.
Al-Bir (البّر)
Piety and righteousness and every act of obedience to Allah.
ʿĀlamīn (عالمين)
Literally "worlds", humankind, jinn, angels and all that exists.
Al Hijr (Kaaba) (الكعبة)
A semi-circular wall north-west of Kaaba.
ʿalayhi -s-salām (عليه السلام)
"Peace be upon him" This expression normally follows after naming a prophet (other than Muhammad), or one of the noble Angels (i.e. Jibreel (Gabriel), Mika'il (Michael), etc.)
al-ḥamdu li-llāh (الحمد لله)
"Praise be to God!" Qur'anic exclamation and also same meaning as hallelujah.
Allāh (الله)
The name of God according to Islam. Also used as the Arabic word for God in general.
Allāhumma (اللَّهُمَّ)
"O Allah, my Lord" - used in a phrase or salutation, invocations or supplications (dua).
Allāhu ʾAkbar (أكبر)
"Allah is [the] greatest". Greater than anything or anyone, imaginable or unimaginable.
ʿĀlim (عالِم)
lit. One who knows. A scholar (in any field of knowledge) ; a jurist or scientist (who knows science) or a theologian (who knows religion); similar to Japanese sensei, "teacher".
Amān, lit. 'safety, protection, safe conduct'
ʾAmānah (أمانة)
the trust. Of all creation, only human beings & jinns carry the "trust", which is free will.
ʾĀmīn (آمين)
Amen.
ʾAmīr ul-Muʾminīn (المؤمنين)
"Commander of the Faithful" Historically the title of the Caliph. In some modern countries like Morocco, a ʾAmīr ul-Muʾminīn or Commander of the faithful is the religious chief.
ʾĀminah (آمنة)
Muhammad's mother. Aminah fell sick and died in Abwa, near Madina (then Yathrib) when Muhammad was six years old.
Al-ʾAmr Bi'l Maʿrūf (بالمعروف)
Islamic doctrine of enjoining right. There exists in Islam the (obligatory) principle of encouraging other people to do the right thing.
ʾAnfāl (أنفال)
Spoils of war. (See Sūrat al-ʾAnfāl (8:1)) (الأنفال)
ʾAnṣār (أنصار)
"Helpers." The Muslim converts at Medina who helped the Muslims from Mecca after the Hijrah.
ʿAqīdah (عقيدة)
Article of faith, tenet, creed, or dogma.
ʿAqīqah (عقيقة)
Islamic practice of shaving the head of the newborn male and contributing the weight in silver for charity as well as 2 lambs.
ʿAql (عقل)
Intelligence, intellect, mind, understanding
ʾArkān singular rukn (ركن/أركان)
The five rukn "pillars" of Islam. (See rukn)
A.S. (ʿAlayhi s-salām) (السلام)
This acronym evokes a blessing and is appended to the names of the prophets who came before Muhammad. It will also be applied to the mothers of those prophets. When following a woman's name, the feminine form is ʿAlayha s-salām.
aṣaḥḥ
Arabic elative term, “more correct.” Used by Muslim scholars to introduce their own view while not entirely dismissing that of others.
ʾAṣl (أصل) (pl. ʾuṣūl)
Root, origin, source; principle.
ʾaslim taslam (أسلِم تسلَم)
"Submit to Islam" (See dawah)
ʾAsmāʾ Allāh al-Ḥusnā (الحسنى)
List of God's 99 names. According to a hadith, the one who enumerates them all will enter Paradise.
ʿAṣr (العصر)
The third salat prayer. The time of the day before sunset and after noon. Also means "era".
Aṣ-Ṣirāṭ (الصراط)
The bridge by crossing which it is determined (judged) whether a person would go to heaven or hell. How a person crosses the Sirat depends on what they have done in their life and what they have believed in.
al-ʿAsharatu Mubashsharun bil-Jannah or just ʿAsharatu Mubashsharah (Arabic
العشرة المبشّرون بالجنة, romanized: ʿAsharatu l-mubashshirūn or Arabic: عشرة المبشّر, romanized: Asharatul-mubashshirūna bil Jannah): The ten companions of Muhammad who were promised paradise (only in Sunni Islam)
ʿĀshūrāʾ (عاشوراء)
Tenth day of the month of Muharram. It is the day God saved Moses and the children of Israel from the Pharaoh. The grandson of Muhammad, Imam Hussayn sacrificed his life along with 72 of his companions on the sand dunes of Karbala. Sunni Scholars recommended to fast during this day. To the Shias, it is also a day on which they mourn the death of the third Shia Imam, Husayn ibn Ali, along with his family and companions, who were killed in the famous battle in Karbala. They cry and weep and organize lamentating programmes where they not only learn how to live a proper Islamic life and improve their Spiritual Self but also cry at the end of the ritual to show their true love and faith towards imam Hussayn.
As-Salāmu ʿAlaykum (السلام عليكم)
The Islamic greeting; literally "Peace be upon you"; In addition, wa-Raḥmatullāhi wa-Barakātuhu (وبركاته) means "and the Mercy of God and His blessing". The response to this greeting is wa-ʿAlaykum as-Salām wa-Raḥmatullāhi wa-Barakātuhu (وبركاته) --"And on you be the Peace and Mercy of God and His Blessing".
ʾAstaghfir allāh (أستغفر الله)
"I seek forgiveness from God." Islamic expression.
Aʿudhu billah (باللهʾAʿūdhu billāh)
"I seek refuge in God". This is a paraphrase on the beginnings of the two last suras in the Qur'an.
ʾAwliyāʾ (أولياء)
Friends, protectors, helpers, caretaker, maintainer. (singular: wali)
ʿAwrah (عورة)
The parts of the body, male or female, must be covered in public but not between spouses, such as, body parts must be concealed of a woman before non-related men.(Non-related men means those she can marry lawfully).
ʾĀyah (آية), plural ʾāyāt (آيات)
A sign. More specifically, a verse in the Qur'an.
Āyatullāh (آية الله, also spelled Ayatollah)
Sign of God Title given to highly ranked religious scholars in Sh'ia sect.
Azāzīl
a name of Iblīs (Satan) in his role as a fallen angel. (Potentially etymologically related to Azazel from the Apocalypse of Abraham). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_Islam |
Bombardment of Alexandria | In 1869, Khedive Isma'il of Egypt inaugurated the Suez Canal, which was a joint venture between the Egyptian Government and the French-led Suez Canal Company. During the excavation of the canal so many Egyptian workers died that it became common in the collective memory of Egyptians to say that Egyptian blood ran in the canal before the water of the seas. The canal cut sailing time from Britain to India by weeks and Britain's interest in Egypt grew.
Due to the excessive spending of the Egyptian Government under the ambitious Khedive, Britain purchased the Khedive's shares of the Suez Canal company in 1875, thus becoming a substantial partner, owning 40% of the total share issue. French and British concern over Egypt's mounting debts led to the establishment of a de facto Anglo-French condominium over Egypt which was still nominally part of the Ottoman Empire. Egyptian nationalism was sparked and, after a revolt by Egyptian troops in 1881, complete control of the government was held by 'Urabi Pasha by February 1882. The rebellion expressed resentment of foreigners.
'Urabi organized a militia and marched on Alexandria. Meanwhile, the European powers gathered in Constantinople to discuss reestablishing the power of the Khedive and an Anglo-French fleet was ordered to the port of Alexandria. The Egyptians began reinforcing and upgrading their fortifications and the British House of Commons ordered ships to be temporarily dispatched from the Channel Fleet to Malta under Admiral Seymour's command.
On 20 May 1882, the combined Anglo-French fleet, consisting of the British battleship HMS Invincible, the French ironclad La Galissonnière and four gunboats arrived in Alexandria. By 5 June, six more warships had entered Alexandria harbour and more cruised off the coast. The reasons that the British government sent warships to Alexandria is an object of historical debate, with arguments proposed that it was to protect the Suez Canal and prevent anarchy, and other arguments claiming that it was to protect the interests of British investors with assets in Egypt (see 1882 Anglo-Egyptian War).
The presence of the foreign fleet exacerbated the tensions in Alexandria between the nationalist forces and the large foreign and Christian population. On 11 and 12 June ferocious riots erupted, possibly started by 'Urabi's supporters but also blamed upon the Khedive himself as a false flag operation. Over 50 Europeans and 125 Egyptians were killed in the fracas that began near Place Mehmet Ali with British Admiral Seymour, who was ashore at the time, narrowly escaping the mob. Upon learning of the riot, 'Urabi ordered his forces to restore order.
The reaction by European countries to the disturbance was swift. As refugees fled Alexandria, a flotilla of over 26 ships belonging to most of the countries of Europe gathered in the harbour. By 6 July nearly every non-Egyptian had evacuated Alexandria. Meanwhile, the garrison had continued to fortify the various forts and towers with additional guns until Admiral Seymour issued an ultimatum to 'Urabi's forces to stop fortifying or the British fleet would bombard the city. That same day, the French Admiral Conrad, had informed Seymour that in the event of British bombardment, the French fleet would depart for Port Said and would not participate in the bombardment.
The ultimatum, which was ignored amid denials of the defensive works by the Egyptian governor, was set to expire at 7:00 am on 11 July. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombardment_of_Alexandria |
Fatima bint Musa | Fatima was buried outside of Qom in a plot of land owned by Musa al-Ash'ari, which became a public endowment later. The house where she stayed, the site of her prayers, became a mosque outside of Qom. Her shrine has been developed by successive generations, patronized by the Buyids (r. 934–1062) and the Seljuks (r. 1037–1194), as well as the Qara Qoyunlus (r. 1374–1468) and the Aq Qoyunlus (r. 1378–1503). The current imposing complex, however, largely dates to the Safavid (r. 1501–1736) and Qajar (r. 1789–1925) eras.
Qom owes its status as a pilgrimage destination to the shrine of Fatima al-Ma'suma, and pilgrimage to her shrine is encouraged in traditions attributed to her brother al-Rida and his son Muhammad al-Jawad (d. 835), the ninth Imam in Twelver Shia. The city thus became an important center for Shia activity and learning from the eighth century onward, reaching a peak in the tenth century, until it was destroyed in 1224 during the first Mongul invasion of Persia. The Persian historian Hamdallah Mustawfi found the city in ruins in his visit in the fourteenth century, but it reemerged during the Safavid period. In particular, the shrine was further developed in 1519 by Shah Bigum, the daughter of the Safavid king Ismail I (r. 1501–1524), while the Safavid king Abbas I (r. 1588–1629) financially supported the shrine and built there a school and pilgrim hospice. He did so partly to encourage pilgrimage to Shia shrines within his territory just before the Sunni Ottomans established in 1638 their rule over Iraq, where the shrines of most Shia Imams are located. The theological law school there was founded in 1533, known as Feyziyya after the Safavid-era philosopher Mohsen Fayz Kashani (d. 1680). Qom later benefited from its proximity to Tehran, the royal residence of the Qajars, who further developed the shrine and buried their dead in the city. The Qajar-era jurist Mirza-ye Qomi (d. 1815) particularly helped raise the academic profile of the seminary school. Another phase of growth began with the arrival of Abdolkarim Haeri Yazdi (d. 1937) in 1921, who founded the present theological center (hawza-ye elmiyye). Among his students was Ruhollah Khomeini (d. 1989) who led the Iranian revolution in 1979. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatima_bint_Musa |
Head of government | Akan: ɔmampanyin
Albanian: Kryeministër
Bengali: For the prime minister of Bangladesh and other countries
প্রধানমন্ত্রী/ Pradhan Mantri (literally: Prime Minister, official)
সরকার প্রধান/ Sarkar Pradhan (literally: Head of the Government, informal)
Bambara: minisiriɲɛmɔgɔ
Basque:
Leader of the Basque Country (Spain): Eusko Jaurlaritzako lehendakaria (literally, 'President of the Basque Government')
Leader of Navarre (Spain): Nafarroako Gobernuko lehendakaria (literally, 'President of the Government of Navarra')
president, generically: Lehendakari
Bulgarian: Министър-председател (transliteration: Ministar-predsedatel, literally 'Minister President')
Catalan:
For Andorra: Cap de Govern del Principat d'Andorra (literally: 'Head of Government of the Principality of Andorra')
For the Balearic Islands (Spain): President/-a del Govern Balear
For Catalonia (Spain): President/-a de la Generalitat de Catalunya (literally: 'President of the Generalitat of Catalonia')
For Valencia (Spain): President/-a de la Generalitat Valenciana (literally: 'President of the Valencian Generalitat')
The terms 'head of government' and 'prime minister', generically: cap de govern and primer ministre or primera ministra, respectively
Chinese:
For the premier of China: 总理 (zǒnglǐ)
Czech: Předseda vlády (literally: 'Chairman of the Government')
Danish:
For the head of government of Nordic states: Statsminister (literally: 'Minister of the State')
For the head of government of non-Nordic states: Premierminister (literally: 'Prime Minister')
For the head of government of the autonomous territory of Faroe Islands: Lagmand (literally: 'Lawman")
For the head of government of the autonomous territory of Greenland: Landsstyreformand (literally: 'land governance chairman')
Dutch:
For the head of government of the Netherlands: Minister-President, Eerste Minister (literally, 'First Minister') or Premier
For the head of government of Belgium, and as the term 'prime minister' generically: Eerste Minister or Premier
Estonian: Peaminister
Ewe: Dukplɔlagã
Finnish: Pääministeri
Filipino
For the head of state and government (President) of the Philippines: Pangulo ng Pilipinas
French:
For France, Belgium and Canada: Prime Minister of France; Prime Minister of Belgium; Prime Minister of Canada: Premier Ministre or Première Ministre, also as the term 'prime minister' generically.
For Switzerland: Conseil Fédéral (literally, the 'Federal Council', considered the head of government as a group)
Galician (Spain): Presidente/-a da Xunta de Galicia (literally, 'President of the Council of Galicia')
German:
For Germany and Austria: Chancellor of Germany; Chancellor of Austria: Bundeskanzler (masc.) / Bundeskanzlerin (fem.)
For Switzerland: Schweizerischer Bundesrat (literally, the 'Swiss Federal Council', considered the head of government as a group)
The term 'head of government,' generically: Regierungschef/-in
The term 'prime minister,' generically: Ministerpräsident/-in; or Premierminister/-in
historically: Leitender Minister ('Senior Minister')
Greek: Πρωθυπουργός (transliteration: Prothipourgos)
Hausa: Firayam Minista
Hebrew:
For the prime minister of Israel: ראש הממשלה (transliteration: Rosh HaMemshala)
Hindi/Hindustani/Urdu:
The term 'head of government', generically: शासनप्रमुख (translit. Śāsanapramukha), literally:'Chief of government'
The term 'Prime Minister', generically: प्रधानमन्त्री (translit. Pradhānamantrī), literally:'Chief of Ministers/Prime Minister'
The other Hindustani term generically used for 'Prime Minister'(now used officially only in Pakistan with Urdu as official language) : वज़ीर-ए-आज़म/وزیر اعظم (translit. Wazīr-ē-Āzam), lit.:'Grand Vizier/Prime Minister'
For 'Prime Minister of India' : भारतीय प्रधानमन्त्री/भारत के प्रधानमन्त्री (translit. Bhāratiya Pradhānamantrī/Bhārat Kē Pradhānamantrī), translation:'Indian Prime Minister/Prime Minister of India'(this term is used by the Government of the Union and the State Governments of India, under the umbrella of "Hindi Language");
For 'Prime Minister of Pakistan': وزیر اعظم پاکستان/پاکستان کے وزیر اعظم (translit. Wazīr-ē-Āzam Pākistān/Pākistān Kē Wazīr-ē-Āzam), This is the term used in India and Pakistan under the umbrella of Urdu, the Hindi term being, पाकिस्तानी प्रधानमन्त्री/पाकिस्तान के प्रधानमन्त्री (translit.Pākistānī Pradhānamantrī/Pākistān Kē Pradhānamantrī)
Historically, various terms like Pradhānamantrī, Pradhān, Pantapradhān, Sadr-ē-Riyāsat, Sadr, Wazīr-ē-Āzam, Wazīr-ē-Ālā, Mahāmantrī, Wazīr-ē-Khazānā, Pēśwā, Dīwān, Dīwān Sāhib, Dīwān Bahādur, Dīwān Pramukh, Sadr-ul-Maham, Pantapramukh, Ālāmantrī, etc. have been used by various Empires, Kingdoms and Princely States of India as a title for the prime minister, some of these titles were also used by the sovereign of various kingdoms.
Hungarian: Miniszterelnök
Irish: Leader of Ireland: Taoiseach
Italian:
For the head of government of Italy: Presidente del Consiglio dei Ministri della Repubblica Italiana (literally, 'President of the Council of Ministers of the Italian Republic')
When referring to other prime ministers: Primo ministro or Prima ministra (masculine and feminine forms; literally 'prime minister')
For Switzerland: Consiglio Federale (literally, the 'Federal Council', considered the head of government as a group)
Japanese:
For the head of government of Japan (Prime Minister): 内閣総理大臣 (Naikaku Sōri-Daijin) or 首相 (Shushō)
Khmer:
For the prime minister of Cambodia: នាយករដ្ឋមន្ត្រី (Neayuk rothmontrey)
Korean:
For the president of South Korea: Daetongryung
For the prime minister of South Korea: Chongni(총리) or Gukmu Chongni(국무총리)
Latvian:
For the head of government of Latvia: Ministru prezidents (literally, 'Minister President')
When referring to other prime ministers: Premjerministrs
Lingala: Premier ministre
Lithuanian: Ministras pirmininkas
Luganda: Ssaabaminisita
Malay:
In Malaysia, the prime minister of Malaysia is Perdana Menteri. The head of government of the constituent states are either Ketua Menteri, "chief minister" in the Malaysian states without a monarchy (Malacca, Penang, Sabah and Sarawak), or Menteri Besar "first minister" in the sultanates and other monarchic states.
Maltese: In Malta, the head of government is "Prim Ministru".
Māori: Pirimia, (literally, 'Premier', the former title for the prime minister of New Zealand.)
Norwegian: Statsminister
Polish:
For the head of government of Poland: Prezes Rady Ministrów ('President of Council of Ministers', literally: 'Chairman of the Council of Ministers')
For the term 'prime minister' in general: Premier (also, informally, to the head of government of Poland)
Portuguese:
For Brazil: Presidente/-a da República Federativa do Brasil (literally, 'President of the Federal Republic of Brazil')
For Portugal and as the term 'prime minister' in general: Primeiro-ministro or Primeira-ministra (masculine and feminine forms, literally 'prime minister' or 'first minister')
Romanian: Prim-ministru
Russian: Prem'yer-ministr
Scotland:
Scottish Gaelic: Prìomh Mhinistear na h-Alba (literally First Minister of Scotland)
Sinhalese: ශ්රී ලංකා අග්රාමාත්ය Shri Lanka Agramathya (literally: 'Sri Lanka Prime Minister')
Slovak: Predseda vlády (literally: 'Chairman of the Government')
Slovene: Predsednik Vlade (literally: 'Chairman of the Government')
Spanish:
For the head of government of Spain: Presidente/-a del gobierno de España (literally: 'President of the Government')
When referring to other prime ministers: Primer ministro or Primera Ministra (masculine and feminine forms; literally 'prime minister')
The term 'head of government', generically: jefe del gobierno
Swahili: Sultan
Swedish: Statsminister ("prime minister", literally: "state minister")
Thai:
For the head of government (Prime Minister) of Thailand: Nayok rathamontri
Turkish: Başbakan
Yoruba: adari igbimọ ijọba | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_of_government |
Lebanon | In 1516, Lebanon became part of the Ottoman Empire, with governance administered indirectly through local emirs. Lebanon's area was organized into provinces: Northern and Southern Mount Lebanon, Tripoli, Baalbek and Beqaa Valley, and Jabal Amil.
In 1590, Druze tribal leader Fakhr al-Din II succeeded Korkmaz in southern Mount Lebanon and quickly asserted his authority as the paramount emir of the Druze in the Shouf region. Eventually, he was appointed Sanjak-bey, overseeing various Ottoman sub-provinces and tax collection. Expanding his influence extensively, he even constructed a fort in Palmyra. However, this expansion raised concerns for Ottoman Sultan Murad IV, leading to a punitive expedition in 1633. Fakhr al-Din II was captured, imprisoned for two years, and subsequently executed in April 1635, along with one of his sons. Surviving members of his family continued to govern a reduced area under closer Ottoman supervision until the late 17th century. On the death of the last Maan emir, various members of the Shihab clan ruled Mount Lebanon until 1830.
While the history of Druze-Christian relations in Lebanon has generally been marked by harmony and peaceful coexistence, there were occasional periods of tension, notably during the 1860 Mount Lebanon civil war, during which around 10,000 Christians were killed by the Druze. Shortly afterwards, the Emirate of Mount Lebanon, which lasted about 400 years, was replaced by the Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate, as a result of a European-Ottoman treaty called the Règlement Organique. The Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate (1861–1918, Arabic: متصرفية جبل لبنان; Turkish: Cebel-i Lübnan Mutasarrıflığı) was one of the Ottoman Empire's subdivisions following the Tanzimat reform. After 1861 there existed an autonomous Mount Lebanon with a Christian mutasarrıf, which had been created as a homeland for the Maronites under European diplomatic pressure following the 1860 massacres. The Maronite Catholics and the Druze founded modern Lebanon in the early eighteenth century, through the ruling and social system known as the "Maronite-Druze dualism" in Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate.
The Baalbek and Beqaa Valley and Jabal Amel was ruled intermittently by various Shia feudal families, especially the Al Ali Alsagheer in Jabal Amel that remained in power until 1865 when Ottomans took direct ruling of the region. Youssef Bey Karam, a Lebanese nationalist played an influential role in Lebanon's independence during this era.
Lebanon experienced profound devastation in the First World War when the Ottoman army assumed direct control, disrupting supplies and confiscating animals, ultimately leading to a severe famine. During the war, approximately 100,000 people in Beirut and Mount Lebanon died due to starvation. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebanon |
Muslim Brotherhood in Syria | On 16 June 1979, the Muslim Brotherhood carried out an attack on cadets at the Aleppo Artillery School, officially killing 83.
Around this time, professor Yusef al-Yusef was assassinated in Aleppo. The Syrian government responded by sentencing to death about 15 prisoners, already accused of being Iraqi agents, for belonging to the Islamic resistance movement. Terrorist attacks then became a daily occurrence, particularly in Aleppo and other northern cities. The government tended to ascribe these attacks to the Brotherhood, but as the armed resistance gained widespread popular support and more loosely defined armed groups appeared, especially in poor neighborhoods, it became difficult to determine the extent of the Brotherhood's involvement.
In November 1979, a Brotherhood leaflet stated:
We reject all forms of despotism, out of respect for the very principles of Islam, and we don't demand the fall of Pharaoh so that another one can take his place. Religion is not imposed by force....
In the days leading to 8 March 1980 (the seventeenth anniversary of the Ba'thist coup), nearly all Syrian cities were paralysed by strikes and protests, which developed into pitched battles with security forces. Many organisations, both religious and secular, were involved, including the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood. The government responded with overwhelming military force, sending in tens of thousands of troops, supported by tanks and helicopters. In and around Aleppo, hundreds of demonstrators were killed, and eight thousand were arrested. By April, the uprising had been crushed.
A newspaper article by the president's brother, Rifaat al-Assad, stated that the government was prepared to "sacrifice a million martyrs" (over a tenth of Syria's population at that time) in order to stamp out "the nation's enemies". On 7 July 1980, the government passed a law making membership in the Brotherhood punishable by death. Typically, however, the administration practiced indiscriminate, collective punishment: in August, the army executed 80 residents of a block of flats in response to an attack on soldiers stationed in Aleppo. In April 1981, the army executed about 400 of Hama's inhabitants, chosen among male loyalists over the age of 14. This was as a retribution after a failed terrorist attack on an Alawite village near Hama.
During a 50-day moratorium on the application of the 7 July law, over a thousand Muslim Brothers surrendered to the authorities, hoping to escape the death penalty; information published about them in the official press may give some insight into the composition of the Brotherhood's membership at that time. Most of those who gave themselves up were students under twenty-five years of age, from Damascus and other large cities; others were schoolteachers, professors or engineers.
In August, September and November 1981, the Brotherhood carried out three car-bomb attacks against government and military targets in Damascus, killing hundreds of people, according to the official press. On 2 February 1982, the Brotherhood led a major insurrection in Hama, rapidly taking control of the city; the military responded by bombing Hama (whose population was about 250,000) throughout the rest of the month, killing between 10,000 and 30,000 people. The tragedy of the Hama Massacre marked the defeat of the Brotherhood, and the militant Islamic movement in general, as a political force in Syria. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_Brotherhood_in_Syria |
Umayyad Caliphate | In contrast to Uthman, Mu'awiya restricted the influence of his Umayyad kinsmen to the governorship of Medina, where the dispossessed Islamic elite, including the Umayyads, was suspicious or hostile toward his rule. However, in an unprecedented move in Islamic politics, Mu'awiya nominated his own son, Yazid I, as his successor in 676, introducing hereditary rule to caliphal succession and, in practice, turning the office of the caliph into a kingship. The act was met with disapproval or opposition by the Iraqis and the Hejaz-based Quraysh, including the Umayyads, but most were bribed or coerced into acceptance. Yazid acceded after Mu'awiya's death in 680 and almost immediately faced a challenge to his rule by the Kufan partisans of Ali who had invited Ali's son and Muhammad's grandson Husayn to stage a revolt against Umayyad rule from Iraq. An army mobilized by Iraq's governor Ibn Ziyad intercepted and killed Husayn outside Kufa at the Battle of Karbala. Although it stymied active opposition to Yazid in Iraq, the killing of Muhammad's grandson left many Muslims outraged and significantly increased Kufan hostility toward the Umayyads and sympathy for the family of Ali.
The next major challenge to Yazid's rule emanated from the Hejaz where Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr, the son of al-Zubayr ibn al-Awwam and grandson of Abu Bakr, advocated for a shura among the Quraysh to elect the caliph and rallied opposition to the Umayyads from his headquarters in Islam's holiest sanctuary, the Ka'aba in Mecca. The Ansar and Quraysh of Medina also took up the anti-Umayyad cause and in 683 expelled the Umayyads from the city. Yazid's Syrian troops routed the Medinans at the Battle of al-Harra and subsequently plundered Medina before besieging Ibn al-Zubayr in Mecca. The Syrians withdrew upon news of Yazid's death in 683, after which Ibn al-Zubayr declared himself caliph and soon after gained recognition in most provinces of the caliphate, including Iraq and Egypt. In Syria Ibn Bahdal secured the succession of Yazid's son and appointed successor Mu'awiya II, whose authority was likely restricted to Damascus and Syria's southern districts. Mu'awiya II had been ill from the beginning of his accession, with al-Dahhak assuming the practical duties of his office, and he died in early 684 without naming a successor. His death marked the end of the Umayyads' Sufyanid ruling house, called after Mu'awiya I's father Abu Sufyan. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umayyad_Caliphate |
History of the Jews in Tunisia | With the Arab conquest and the arrival of Islam in Tunisia in the eighth century, the "People of the Book" (including Jews and Christians) were given a choice between conversion to Islam (which some Jewish Berbers have done) and legal status as dhimmi. The dhimmi is a term for non-Muslims, originally Jews and Christians as People of the Book, living an Islamic state and refers to the state's obligation to protect the lives of these communities as well as their freedom of religion and right to administer their own laws in certain regards (i.e. the Jewish halakhic courts), in return for the payment of the jizya, the poll tax.
Jews were economically, culturally and linguistically integrated into society, while retaining their cultural and religious peculiarities. If it is slow, arabization is faster in urban areas, following the arrival of Jews from the East in the wake of the Arabs, and in the wealthy classes.
In 788, when Idris I of Morocco proclaimed Mauritania's independence of the Abbasid Caliphate of Baghdad, the Tunisian Jews joined his army under the leadership of their chief, Benjamin ben Joshaphat ben Abiezer. They soon withdrew, however; primarily because they were loath to fight against their coreligionists of other parts of Mauritania, who remained faithful to the caliphate of Baghdad; and secondarily, because of some indignities committed by Idris against Jewish women. The victorious Idris avenged this defection by attacking the Jews in their cities. The Jews were required to pay a capitation-tax and provide a certain number of virgins annually for Idris' harem. The Jewish tribe 'Ubaid Allah preferred to migrate to the east rather than to submit to Idris; according to a tradition, the Jews of the island of Djerba are the descendants of that tribe. In 793 Imam Idris was poisoned at the command of caliph Harun al-Rashid (it is said, by the governor's physician Shamma, probably a Jew), and circa 800 the Aghlabite dynasty was established. Under the rule of this dynasty, which lasted until 909, the situation of the Jews in Tunis was very favorable. As of old, Bizerta had a Jewish governor, and the political influence of the Jews made itself felt in the administration of the country. Especially prosperous at that time was the community of Kairwan (Kairouan), which was established soon after the foundation of that city by Uqba bin Nafi in the year 670.
A period of reaction set in with the accession of the Zirite Al-Mu'izz (1016–62), who persecuted all heterodox sects, as well as the Jews. The persecution was especially detrimental to the prosperity of the Kairwan community, and members thereof began to emigrate to the city of Tunis, which speedily gained in population and in commercial importance.
The accession of the Almohad dynasty to the throne of the Maghreb provinces in 1146 proved disastrous to the Jews of Tunis. The first Almohad, 'Abd al-Mu'min, claimed that Muhammad had permitted the Jews free exercise of their religion for only five hundred years, and had declared that if, after that period, the messiah had not come, they were to be forced to embrace Islam. Accordingly, Jews as well as Christians were compelled either to embrace Islam or to leave the country. 'Abd al-Mu'min's successors pursued the same course, and their severe measures resulted either in emigration or in forcible conversions. Soon becoming suspicious of the sincerity of the new converts, the Almohadis compelled them to wear a special garb, with a yellow cloth for a head-covering. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Tunisia |
Hibatullah Akhundzada | Akhundzada is seen as a religiously ultraconservative figure and ideologue within the Taliban. He is said to oppose girls' education in Afghanistan, vetoing a plan to return girls to secondary education by March 23. He also issued and approved a decree on May 7, requiring women to cover their hair and bodies from the eyes down while in public, and not to leave their residence unless necessary. He also oversaw the implementation of tighter media restrictions, banning the use of mobile phones in post-secondary education and foreign language broadcasts. This is said to be part of an effort to return to the Taliban’s style of governance from 1996 to 2001, with Akhundzada modelling his leadership on that of Mullah Omar, the Taliban’s founder.
He is part of an ultraconservative clerical faction, which maintains outsized influence on the movement’s decision making. This faction includes Chief Justice Abdul Hakim Haqqani, Vice and Virtue Minister Sheikh Mohammad Khalid, and Hajj and Religious Affairs Minister Noor Mohammad Saqib.
On 1 July 2022, at a religious gathering in Kabul, he criticized the international community for "interfering" in his "Islamic" governance, warning that non-Muslim countries would always be opposed to a pure Islamic state. He effectively ruled out an inclusive government. In an apparent rebuke to international calls to ease restrictions on women in Afghanistan, he said "I am not here to fulfill your [foreigners'] wishes, nor are they acceptable to me. I cannot compromise on Sharia to work with you or even move a step forward." He added, "You have used the Mother of All Bombs, and you are welcome to use even the atomic bomb against us, because nothing can scare us into taking any step that is against Islam or Sharia." However, he did not discuss issues such as girls' education in his hour-long speech.
Akhundzada's isolation, autocratic leadership style, and ultraconservative policies have created a growing rift between him and his Kandahar-based clerical advisors, and those running the government in Kabul who have to implement his policies and respond to criticism of them. Though the Taliban has typically presented a united front, internal tensions have become more apparent over time. In February 2023, Akhundzada's top deputy Sirajuddin Haqqani publicly rebuked the government's hardline policies, saying power must not be monopolized and the government must respect the people's concerns. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hibatullah_Akhundzada |
Karate | Vernon Bell, a 3rd Dan Judo instructor who had been instructed by Kenshiro Abbe introduced Karate to England in 1956, having attended classes in Henry Plée's Yoseikan dōjō in Paris. Yoseikan had been founded by Minoru Mochizuki, a master of multiple Japanese martial arts, who had studied Karate with Gichin Funakoshi, thus the Yoseikan style was heavily influenced by Shotokan. Bell began teaching in the tennis courts of his parents' back garden in Ilford, Essex and his group was to become the British Karate Federation. On 19 July 1957, Vietnamese Hoang Nam 3rd Dan, billed as "Karate champion of Indo China", was invited to teach by Bell at Maybush Road, but the first instructor from Japan was Tetsuji Murakami (1927–1987) a 3rd Dan Yoseikan under Minoru Mochizuki and 1st Dan of the JKA, who arrived in England in July 1959. In 1959, Frederick Gille set up the Liverpool branch of the British Karate Federation, which was officially recognised in 1961. The Liverpool branch was based at Harold House Jewish Boys Club in Chatham Street before relocating to the YMCA in Everton where it became known as the Red Triangle. One of the early members of this branch was Andy Sherry who had previously studied Jujutsu with Jack Britten. In 1961, Edward Ainsworth, another blackbelt Judoka, set up the first Karate study group in Ayrshire, Scotland having attended Bell's third 'Karate Summer School' in 1961.
Outside of Bell's organisation, Charles Mack traveled to Japan and studied under Masatoshi Nakayama of the Japan Karate Association who graded Mack to 1st Dan Shotokan on 4 March 1962 in Japan. Shotokai Karate was introduced to England in 1963 by another of Gichin Funakoshi's students, Mitsusuke Harada. Outside of the Shotokan stable of karate styles, Wado Ryu Karate was also an early adopted style in the UK, introduced by Tatsuo Suzuki, a 6th Dan at the time in 1964.
Despite the early adoption of Shotokan in the UK, it was not until 1964 that JKA Shotokan officially came to the UK. Bell had been corresponding with the JKA in Tokyo asking for his grades to be ratified in Shotokan having apparently learnt that Murakami was not a designated representative of the JKA. The JKA obliged, and without enforcing a grading on Bell, ratified his black belt on 5 February 1964, though he had to relinquish his Yoseikan grade. Bell requested a visitation from JKA instructors and the next year Taiji Kase, Hirokazu Kanazawa, Keinosuke Enoeda and Hiroshi Shirai gave the first JKA demo at the old Kensington Town Hall on 21 April 1965. Hirokazu Kanazawa and Keinosuke Enoeda stayed and Murakami left (later re-emerging as a 5th Dan Shotokai under Harada).
In 1966, members of the former British Karate Federation established the Karate Union of Great Britain (KUGB) under Hirokazu Kanazawa as chief instructor and affiliated to JKA. Keinosuke Enoeda came to England at the same time as Kanazawa, teaching at a dōjō in Liverpool. Kanazawa left the UK after 3 years and Enoeda took over. After Enoeda's death in 2003, the KUGB elected Andy Sherry as Chief Instructor. Shortly after this, a new association split off from KUGB, JKA England.
An earlier significant split from the KUGB took place in 1991 when a group led by KUGB senior instructor Steve Cattle formed the English Shotokan Academy (ESA). The aim of this group was to follow the teachings of Taiji Kase, formerly the JKA chief instructor in Europe, who along with Hiroshi Shirai created the World Shotokan Karate-do Academy (WKSA), in 1989 to pursue the teaching of "Budo" karate as opposed to what he viewed as "sport karate". Kase sought to return the practice of Shotokan Karate to its martial roots, reintroducing amongst other things open hand and throwing techniques that had been side lined as the result of competition rules introduced by the JKA. Both the ESA and the WKSA (renamed the Kase-Ha Shotokan-Ryu Karate-do Academy (KSKA) after Kase's death in 2004) continue following this path today.
In 1975, Great Britain became the first team ever to take the World male team title from Japan after being defeated the previous year in the final. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karate |
Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse | Twelve soldiers were convicted of various charges relating to the incidents, with all of the convictions including the charge of dereliction of duty. Most soldiers only received minor sentences. Three other soldiers were either cleared of charges or were not charged. No one was convicted for the murders of the detainees.
Colonel Thomas Pappas was relieved of his command on May 13, 2005, after receiving non-judicial punishment for two instances of dereliction of duty, including that of allowing dogs to be present during interrogations. He was fined $8000 under the provisions of Article 15 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (non-judicial punishment). He also received a General Officer Memorandum of Reprimand which effectively ended his military career. He did not face criminal prosecution.
Lieutenant Colonel Steven L. Jordan became the second highest-ranking officer to have charges brought against him in connection with the Abu Ghraib abuse on April 29, 2006. Prior to his trial, eight of the twelve charges against him were dismissed, including two of the most serious, after Major General George Fay admitted that he did not read Jordan his rights before interviewing him. On August 28, 2007, Jordan was acquitted of all charges related to prisoner mistreatment and received a reprimand for disobeying an order not to discuss a 2004 investigation into the allegations.
Specialist Charles Graner was found guilty on January 14, 2005, of conspiracy to maltreat detainees, failing to protect detainees from abuse, cruelty, and maltreatment, as well as charges of assault, indecency, adultery, and obstruction of justice. On January 15, 2005, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison, dishonorable discharge, and reduction in rank to private. Graner was paroled from the U.S. military's Fort Leavenworth prison on August 6, 2011, after serving six-and-a-half years.
Staff Sergeant Ivan Frederick pleaded guilty on October 20, 2004, to conspiracy, dereliction of duty, maltreatment of detainees, assault and committing an indecent act, in exchange for other charges being dropped. His abuses included forcing three prisoners to masturbate. He also punched one prisoner so hard in the chest that he needed resuscitation. He was sentenced to eight years in prison, forfeiture of pay, a dishonorable discharge and a reduction in rank to private. He was released on parole in October 2007, after four years in prison.
Sergeant Javal Davis pleaded guilty on February 4, 2005, to dereliction of duty, making false official statements, and battery. He was sentenced to six months in prison, a reduction in rank to private, and a bad conduct discharge. Davis had admitted to stepping on the hands and feet of a group of handcuffed detainees and falling with his full weight on top of them.
Specialist Jeremy Sivits was sentenced on May 19, 2004, by a special court-martial to the maximum one-year sentence, in addition to a bad conduct discharge and a reduction of rank to private, upon his guilty plea. He died from COVID-19 in 2022.
Specialist Armin Cruz was sentenced on September 11, 2004, to eight months' confinement, reduction in rank to private and a bad conduct discharge in exchange for his testimony against other soldiers.
Specialist Sabrina Harman was sentenced on May 17, 2005, to six months in prison and a bad conduct discharge after being convicted on six of the seven counts. Previously, she had faced a maximum sentence of five years. Harman served her sentence at Naval Consolidated Brig, Miramar.
Specialist Megan Ambuhl was convicted on October 30, 2004, of dereliction of duty. She was dishonorably discharged, reduced in rank to private, and ordered to forfeit half a month of pay.
Private First Class Lynndie England was convicted on September 26, 2005, of one count of conspiracy, four counts of maltreating detainees and one count of committing an indecent act. She was acquitted on a second conspiracy count. England had faced a maximum sentence of ten years. She was sentenced on September 27, 2005, to three years' confinement, forfeiture of all pay and allowances, reduction to Private (E-1) and received a dishonorable discharge. England served her sentence at Naval Consolidated Brig, Miramar. She was paroled on March 1, 2007, after having served one year and five months.
Sergeant Santos Cardona was convicted of dereliction of duty and aggravated assault, the equivalent of a felony in the U.S. civilian justice system. Cardona was sentenced to 90 days of hard labor, which he served at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. He was also fined and demoted. Cardona was unable to re-enlist due to his conviction. However, on September 29, 2007, Cardona left the Army with an honorable discharge. In 2009, he was killed in action while working as a government contractor in Afghanistan.
Specialist Roman Krol pleaded guilty on February 1, 2005, to conspiracy and maltreatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib. He was sentenced to ten months' confinement, reduction in rank to Private, and a bad conduct discharge.
Specialist Israel Rivera, who was present during abuse on October 25, was under investigation but was never charged and testified against other soldiers.
Sergeant Michael Smith was found guilty on March 21, 2006, of two counts of prisoner maltreatment, one count of simple assault, one count of conspiracy to maltreat, one count of dereliction of duty and a final charge of an indecent act, and sentenced to 179 days in prison, a fine of $2,250, a demotion to private, and a bad conduct discharge. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse |
Arabs | The earliest documented use of the word Arab in reference to a people appears in the Kurkh Monoliths, an Akkadian-language record of the Assyrian conquest of Aram (9th century BCE). The Monoliths used the term to refer to Bedouins of the Arabian Peninsula under King Gindibu, who fought as part of a coalition opposed to Assyria. Listed among the booty captured by the army of the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III in the Battle of Qarqar (853 BCE) are 1000 camels of "Gîndibuʾ the Arbâya" or "[the man] Gindibu belonging to the Arabs" (ar-ba-a-a being an adjectival nisba of the noun ʿArab).
The related word ʾaʿrāb is used to refer to Bedouins today, in contrast to ʿArab which refers to Arabs in general. Both terms are mentioned around 40 times in pre-Islamic Sabaean inscriptions. The term ʿarab ('Arab') occurs also in the titles of the Himyarite kings from the time of 'Abu Karab Asad until MadiKarib Ya'fur. According to Sabaean grammar, the term ʾaʿrāb is derived from the term ʿarab. The term is also mentioned in Quranic verses, referring to people who were living in Madina and it might be a south Arabian loanword into Quranic language.
The oldest surviving indication of an Arab national identity is an inscription made in an archaic form of Arabic in 328 CE using the Nabataean alphabet, which refers to Imru' al-Qays ibn 'Amr as 'King of all the Arabs'. Herodotus refers to the Arabs in the Sinai, southern Palestine, and the frankincense region (Southern Arabia). Other Ancient-Greek historians like Agatharchides, Diodorus Siculus and Strabo mention Arabs living in Mesopotamia (along the Euphrates), in Egypt (the Sinai and the Red Sea), southern Jordan (the Nabataeans), the Syrian steppe and in eastern Arabia (the people of Gerrha). Inscriptions dating to the 6th century BCE in Yemen include the term 'Arab'.
The most popular Arab account holds that the word Arab came from an eponymous father named Ya'rub, who was supposedly the first to speak Arabic. Abu Muhammad al-Hasan al-Hamdani had another view; he states that Arabs were called gharab ('westerners') by Mesopotamians because Bedouins originally resided to the west of Mesopotamia; the term was then corrupted into Arab.
Yet another view is held by al-Masudi that the word Arab was initially applied to the Ishmaelites of the Arabah valley. In Biblical etymology, Arab (Hebrew: arvi) comes from the desert origin of the Bedouins it originally described (arava means 'wilderness').
The root ʿ-r-b has several additional meanings in Semitic languages—including 'west, sunset', 'desert', 'mingle', 'mixed', 'merchant' and 'raven'—and are "comprehensible" with all of these having varying degrees of relevance to the emergence of the name. It is also possible that some forms were metathetical from ʿ-B-R, 'moving around' (Arabic: ʿ-B-R, 'traverse') and hence, it is alleged, 'nomadic'. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabs |
Syrian Jews | There exists a fragment of the old Aleppo prayer book for the High Holy Days, published in Venice in 1527, and a second edition, starting with the High Holy Days but covering the whole year, in 1560. This represents the liturgy of the Musta'arabim (native Arabic-speaking Jews) as distinct from that of the Sephardim proper (immigrants from Spain and Portugal): it recognizably belongs to the "Sephardic" family of rites in the widest sense, but is different from any liturgy used today. For more detail, see Old Aleppo ritual.
Following the immigration of Jews from Spain following the expulsion, a compromise liturgy evolved containing elements from the customs of both communities, but with the Sephardic element taking an ever-larger share. In Syria, as in North African countries, there was no attempt to print a Siddur containing the actual usages of the community, as this would not generally be commercially viable. Major publishing centres, principally Livorno, and later Vienna, would produce standard "Sephardic" prayer books suitable for use in all communities, and particular communities such as the Syrians would order these in bulk, preserving any special usages by oral tradition. (For example, Ḥacham Abraham Ḥamwi of Aleppo commissioned a series of prayer-books from Livorno, which were printed in 1878, but even these were "pan-Sephardic" in character, though they contained some notes about the specific "minhag Aram Tsoba".) As details of the oral tradition faded from memory, the liturgy in use came ever nearer to the "Livorno" standard. In the early years of the 20th century, this "Sephardic" rite was almost universal in Syria. The only exception (in Aleppo) was a "Musta'arabi" minyan at the Central Synagogue of Aleppo, but the liturgy of this group only differed from the "Sephardic" by a few textual variants and the order of some of the hymns.
The liturgy of Damascus differed from that of Aleppo in some details, mostly because of its greater proximity to the Holy Land. Some of the laws specific to Eretz Yisrael are regarded as extending to Damascus, and the city had ties both to the Safed Kabbalists and to the Jerusalem Sephardic community.
The liturgy now used in Syrian communities round the world is textually speaking Oriental-Sephardic. That is to say, it is based on the Spanish rite as varied by the customs of Isaac Luria, and resembles those in use in Greek, Turkish and North African Jewish communities. In earlier decades some communities and individuals used "Edot ha-Mizraḥ" prayer-books which contained a slightly different text, based on the Baghdadi rite, as these were more commonly available, leaving any specifically Syrian usages to be perpetuated by oral tradition. The nearest approach to a current official prayer book is entitled Kol Ya'akob, but many other editions exist and there is still disagreement on some textual variants.
The musical customs of Syrian communities are very distinctive, as many of the prayers are chanted to the melodies of the pizmonim, according to a complicated annual rota designed to ensure that the maqam (musical mode) used suits the mood of the festival or of the Torah reading for the week. See Syrian Cantors and the Weekly Maqam. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_Jews |
Gurage people | According to the historian Paul B. Henze, the Gurage origin is explained by traditions of a military expedition to the south during the last years of the Kingdom of Aksum, which left military colonies that eventually became isolated from both northern Ethiopia and each other. However other historians have raised the issue of the complexity of Gurage peoples if viewed as a singular group, for example Ulrich Braukhamper states that the Gurage East people may have been an extension of the ancient Harla people. Indeed, there is evidence that Harla architecture may have influenced old buildings (pre-16th c.) found near Harar (eastern Ethiopia), and the Gurage East group often cite kinship with Harari (Hararghe) peoples in the distant past.
Braukhamper also states King Amda Seyon ordered Eritrean troops to be sent to mountainous regions in Gurage (named Gerege), which eventually became a permanent settlement. In addition to Amda Seyon's military settlement there, the permanence of Abyssinian presence in Gurage is documented during his descendants Zara Yaqob and Dawit II's reigns. Thus, historically, Gurage peoples may be the product of a complex mixture of Abyssinian and Harla groups which migrated and settled in that region for different reasons and at various times.
Another stated that the Gurage were originated from a place called Gura, Eritrea. This believed that linguistically by citing a southward Semitic migration during the late classical and medieval period; however more historical research needed.
A single military expedition explanation is likely possible for soldiers to implant their language in the region effectively. However the extent of Aksumite political and economic control over the interior Ethiopian Highlands, as well as that of successor dynasties dominating the Christian north, is being studied. Aside from local oral traditions linking their past to areas farther north, the Gurage countryside is home to orthodox Christian monasteries likely dating to the Middle Ages (Debre Tsion Maryam, Muher Iyesus, Abuna Gebre Menfes Kiddus, and others), before the conquests of Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi and subsequent Oromo migrations into the central Highlands. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gurage_people |
Safavid Iran | The Portuguese Empire and the discovery of the trading route around the Cape of Good Hope in 1487 not only hit a death blow to Venice as a trading nation, but it also hurt the trade that was going on along the Silk Road and especially the Persian Gulf. They correctly identified the three key points to control all seaborne trade between Asia and Europe: The Gulf of Aden, The Persian Gulf and the Straits of Malacca by cutting off and controlling these strategic locations with high taxation. In 1602, Shah Abbas I drove the Portuguese out of Bahrain, but he needed naval assistance from the newly arrived English East India Company to finally expel them from the Strait of Hormuz and regain control of this trading route. He convinced the English to assist him by allowing them to open factories in Shiraz, Isfahan and Jask. With the later end of the Portuguese Empire, the English, Dutch and French in particular gained easier access to Persian seaborne trade, although they, unlike the Portuguese, did not arrive as colonisers, but as merchant adventurers. The terms of trade were not imposed on the Safavid shahs, but rather negotiated.
Furthermore, the Safavids maintained a sizeable sphere of influence overseas, particularly in the Deccan region of India. The Sultanates of Ahmednagar, Bijapur, and Golconda all sought Persian suzerainty not just because of religious or cultural ties, but also because of the need for a counterweight to Mughal expansion. The Persians complied, and thousands of Persians emigrated to the Deccan during the 16th and 17th centuries, continuing a process that already began under the Bahmani Sultanate of the Deccan. From here, Persian traders ventured eastwards to Southeast Asian kingdoms, most notably Ayutthaya Siam, where influential Persian families like the Bunnag helped foster cordial diplomatic relations between Thailand and Iran, as evidenced in the expedition of Suleyman's Ship. The Persians were also active in the Aceh Sultanate, the Brunei Sultanate, the Demak Sultanate, and Dai Viet.
In the long term, however, the seaborne trade route was of less significance to the Persians than was the traditional Silk Road. Lack of investment in ship building and the navy provided the Europeans with the opportunity to monopolize this trading route. The land-borne trade would thus continue to provide the bulk of revenues to the Iranian state from transit taxes. The revenue came not so much from exports, as from the custom charges and transit dues levied on goods passing through the country. Shah Abbas was determined to greatly expand this trade, but faced the problem of having to deal with the Ottomans, who controlled the two most vital routes: the route across Arabia to the Mediterranean ports, and the route through Anatolia and Istanbul. A third route was therefore devised which circumvented Ottoman territory. By travelling across the Caspian Sea to the north, they would reach Russia. And with the assistance of the Muscovy Company they could cross over to Moscow, reaching Europe via Poland. This trading route proved to be of vital importance, especially during times of war with the Ottomans.
By the end of the 17th century, the Dutch had become dominant in the trade that went via the Persian Gulf, having won most trade agreements, and managed to strike deals before the English or French were able to. They particularly established monopoly of the spice and porcelain trade between the Far East and Iran. Protected by Dutch naval power, competition from Bengali silk and Sino-Japanese porcelain contributed to the decline of the Safavid economy during the late 17th century. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safavid_Iran |
Timeline of terrorism in Egypt (2013–present) | 6 January 2017 – Two Egyptian Coptic Christians were murdered. They were murdered because of their faith, according to the brother of the dead woman.
16 January 2017 – Eight Egyptian security officers were killed and 3 others were injured when their checkpoint about 70 km away from the Kharga Oasis was attacked by unidentified militants. At least two of the assailants were killed, while the others escaped.
1 April 2017 – A booby-trapped motorbike exploded outside a police training center, killing one police officer and injuring 12 others, as well as 3 civilians.
9 April 2017 – 2017 Palm Sunday church bombings
At least 45 people were killed and at least 126 were injured in an explosion in a Coptic Church in Tanta, Egypt. Initial investigations show the terrorist blew himself up during the church's Palm Sunday services, causing mass destruction at the scene.
Near a police station in Tanta, there was also an attack.
A suicide bomber has detonated an explosion outside Saint Mark's Church in Alexandria's Manshyia district. Casualties were reported.
There was also an explosion in Chouhada Street in Alexandria.
1 May 2017 – A police convoy that was in the Nasr City area of Cairo were attacked after gunmen in two vehicles opened fire. The attack killed three police officers and wounded five.
26 May 2017 – 2017 Minya attack 28 people have been killed and 25 wounded after gunmen opened fire on a bus carrying Coptic Christians in central Egypt.
1 June 2017 – Three soldiers and one Egyptian army officer were killed in a bomb blast near El-Bawiti in Egypt's Western Desert, the army confirmed in a statement.
18 June 2017 – An Egyptian policeman was killed and four wounded by a roadside explosive near the Cairo suburb of Maadi.
7 July 2017 – Rafah terror attack
7 July 2017 – An Egyptian national security officer was shot dead on Friday by gunmen in the Qalyubiyya Governorate.
14 July 2017 -
Gunmen ambushed an Egyptian security checkpoint, killing five policemen in an area just south of the capital.
2017 Hurghada attack: Two German tourists and a Czech citizen, who succumbed to her wounds on 27 July 2017 in a hospital in Cairo, were killed and three other tourists were injured when a knifeman attacked a holiday resort in Hurghada. The attacker communicated with the Islamic State via Internet and was given the task of attacking foreign tourists on Hurghada beaches by the group.
3 August 2017 – A policeman and a civilian were killed and three people wounded in an attack on a patrol in Esna, south of Luxor.
8 August 2017 – A group of gunmen killed two police officers and wounded another in a village north of Cairo.
2 October 2017 – Egypt's Interior Ministry announced that the police had killed three suspected militants in a shootout in a southern Cairo suburb. The gunfire exchange took place at a cemetery under construction in 15 May City, a district south of Cairo, as security forces were trying to arrest them. Rifles and ammunition were found at the scene.
20 October 2017 – Official Ministry of Interior of Egypt listed 16 police officer deaths, 15 injured and one missing as well as 15 killed or injured terrorists. Reuters and BBC published that 52 policemen were killed; including 23 officers according to Reuters, and 18 according to BBC based on unidentified security sources. This was rebuked State Information service of Egypt.
29 December 2017 – 2017 Saint Menas church attack 11 people have died in twin attacks on Coptic Christians in the southern Cairo: eight civilians and a police officer were killed in a shooting outside a church, and two civilians were killed in a Coptic-owned shop beforehand. One attacker was killed by the police. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_terrorism_in_Egypt_(2013%E2%80%93present) |
First Bulgarian Empire | The first capital, Pliska, initially resembled a huge encampment spanning an area of 23 km2 with the eastern and western sides measuring some 7 km in length, the northern, 3.9 km, and the southern, 2.7 km. The whole area was encircled by a trench 3.5 m wide in the foundation and 12 m wide in the upper part and earthen escarpment with similar proportions – 12 m wide in the foundation and 3.5 m in the upper part. The inner town measured 740 m to the north and to the south, 788 m to the west, and 612 m to the east. It was protected by stone walls 10 m high and 2.6 m thick, constructed with large carved blocks. There were four gates, each protected by two pairs of quadrangular towers. The corners were protected by cylindrical towers and there were pentagonal towers between each corner and gate tower. The inner town harboured the Khan's palace, the temples, and the noble residences. The palace complex included baths, a pool and a heating system. There were several inns, as well as numerous shops and workshops.
The Bulgarians also constructed forts with residences, called auls, or fortified palaces, by contemporary Byzantine authors. An example of this type of construction is the Aul of Omurtag, mentioned in the Chatalar Inscription, which bears many similarities to Pliska, such as the presence of baths and the usage of monumental construction techniques with large carved limestone blocks. Archaeologists have discovered a damaged lion statue that was originally 1 m in height and matches this description from an inscription: "In the field of Pliska staying he [Omurtag] made a court/camp (aulis) at [the river] Ticha ... and skillfully erected a bridge at Ticha together with the camp [he put] four columns and above the columns he erected two lions." The same method of construction was employed in a fortress on the Danubian island of Păcuiul lui Soare (in modern Romania), where the gate is similar in plan to those at Pliska, Preslav and the Aul of Omurtag. The fortress of Slon, an important juncture that connected the salt mines of Transylvania with the lands to the south of the Danube, and constructed in the same manner, was located further north, on the southern slopes of the Carpathian Mountains.
The second capital, Preslav, covered an area of 5 km2 in the shape of irregular pentagon and, like Pliska, was divided into an inner and an outer town. The city experienced an extensive construction programme under Simeon I who intended it to rival Constantinople. The inner town contained two palaces, referred to by archaeologists as the Western Palace and the Throne Hall, that were linked. Very few elements of the decoration have survived – marble plates and two monolithic columns of green marble that probably enclosed the arch above the throne. The whole complex was larger than the Pliska Palace and was walled with the bath adjoining the southern wall. A ceremonial road covered with stone plates linked the northern gate and the palace complex and formed a spacious plaza in front of it. The outer town housed estates, churches, monasteries, workshops and dwellings. Adjoined to the outer side of southern gates of the inner town there was a large trading edifice with 18 rooms for commerce on the first floor and accommodation rooms on the second. The most common plan of the commercial, artesian and residential monastic edifices was rectangular with the first floor being used for production, and the second one – for living. Some of the buildings had marble or ceramic tile floors, and others had verandas on the second floor. There were two types of plumbing – made of masonry or of clay pipes that brought water from the mountains to the city. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Bulgarian_Empire |
Library of Alexandria | In 48 BC, during Caesar's Civil War, Julius Caesar was besieged at Alexandria. His soldiers set fire to some of the Egyptian ships docked in the Alexandrian port while trying to clear the wharves to block the fleet belonging to Cleopatra's brother Ptolemy XIV. This fire purportedly spread to the parts of the city nearest to the docks, causing considerable devastation. The first-century AD Roman playwright and Stoic philosopher Seneca the Younger quotes Livy's Ab Urbe Condita Libri, which was written between 63 and 14 BC, as saying that the fire started by Caesar destroyed 40,000 scrolls from the Library of Alexandria. The Greek Middle Platonist Plutarch (c. 46–120 AD) writes in his Life of Caesar that, "[W]hen the enemy endeavored to cut off his communication by sea, he was forced to divert that danger by setting fire to his ships, which, after burning the docks, thence spread on and destroyed the great library." The Roman historian Cassius Dio (c. 155 –c. 235 AD), however, writes: "Many places were set on fire, with the result that, along with other buildings, the dockyards and storehouses of grain and books, said to be great in number and of the finest, were burned." However, Florus and Lucan only mention that the flames burned the fleet itself and some "houses near the sea".
Scholars have interpreted Cassius Dio's wording to indicate that the fire did not actually destroy the entire Library itself, but rather only a warehouse located near the docks being used by the Library to house scrolls. Whatever devastation Caesar's fire may have caused, the Library was evidently not completely destroyed. The geographer Strabo (c. 63 BC–c. 24 AD) mentions visiting the Mouseion, the larger research institution to which the Library was attached, in around 20 BC, several decades after Caesar's fire, indicating that it either survived the fire or was rebuilt soon afterwards. Nonetheless, Strabo's manner of talking about the Mouseion shows that it was nowhere near as prestigious as it had been a few centuries prior. Despite mentioning the Mouseion, Strabo does not mention the Library separately, perhaps indicating that it had been so drastically reduced in stature and significance that Strabo felt it did not warrant separate mention. It is unclear what happened to the Mouseion after Strabo's mention of it.
Furthermore, Plutarch records in his Life of Marc Antony that, in the years leading up to the Battle of Actium in 33 BC, Mark Antony was rumored to have given Cleopatra all 200,000 scrolls in the Library of Pergamum. Plutarch himself notes that his source for this anecdote was sometimes unreliable and it is possible that the story may be nothing more than propaganda intended to show that Mark Antony was loyal to Cleopatra and Egypt rather than to Rome. Casson, however, argues that, even if the story was made up, it would not have been believable unless the Library still existed. Edward J. Watts argues that Mark Antony's gift may have been intended to replenish the Library's collection after the damage to it caused by Caesar's fire roughly a decade and a half prior.
Further evidence for the Library's survival after 48 BC comes from the fact that the most notable producer of composite commentaries during the late first century BC and early first century AD was a scholar who worked in Alexandria named Didymus Chalcenterus, whose epithet Χαλκέντερος (Chalkénteros) means "bronze guts". Didymus is said to have produced somewhere between 3,500 and 4,000 books, making him the most prolific known writer in all of antiquity. He was also given the nickname βιβλιολάθης (Biblioláthēs), meaning "book-forgetter" because it was said that even he could not remember all the books he had written. Parts of some of Didymus' commentaries have been preserved in the forms of later extracts and these remains are modern scholars' most important sources of information about the critical works of the earlier scholars at the Library of Alexandria. Lionel Casson states that Didymus' prodigious output "would have been impossible without at least a good part of the resources of the library at his disposal." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_Alexandria |
Hyksos | The names, the order, length of rule, and even the total number of the Fifteenth Dynasty rulers are not known with full certainty. After the end of their rule, the Hyksos kings were not considered to have been legitimate rulers of Egypt and were therefore omitted from most king lists. The fragmentary Turin King List included six Hyksos kings, however only the name of the last, Khamudi, is preserved. Six names are also preserved in the various epitomes of Manetho, however, it is difficult to reconcile the Turin King List and other sources with names known from Manetho, largely due to the "corrupted name forms" in Manetho. The name Apepi/Apophis appears in multiple sources, however.
Various other archaeological sources also provide names of rulers with the Hyksos title, however, the majority of kings from the second intermediate period are attested once on a single object, with only three exceptions. Ryholt associates two other rulers known from inscriptions with the dynasty, Khyan and Sakir-Har. The name of Khyan's son, Yanassi, is also preserved from Tell El-Dab'a. The two best attested kings are Khyan and Apepi. Scholars generally agree that Apepi and Khamudi are the last two kings of the dynasty, and Apepi is attested as a contemporary of Seventeenth-Dynasty pharaohs Kamose and Ahmose I. Ryholt has proposed that Yanassi did not rule and that Khyan directly preceded Apepi, but most scholars agree that the order of kings is: Khyan, Yanassi, Apepi, Khamudi. There is less agreement on the early rulers. Sakir-Har is proposed by Schneider, Ryholt, and Bietak to have been the first king.
Recently, archaeological finds have suggested that Khyan may actually have been a contemporary of Thirteenth-Dynasty pharaoh Sobekhotep IV, potentially making him an early rather than a late Hyksos ruler. This has prompted attempts to reconsider the entire chronology of the Hyksos period, which as of 2018 had not yet reached any consensus.
Some kings are attested from either fragments of the Turin King List or from other sources who may have been Hyksos rulers. According to Ryholt, kings Semqen and Aperanat, known from the Turin King List, may have been early Hyksos rulers, however Jürgen von Beckerath assigns these kings to the Sixteenth Dynasty of Egypt. Another king known from scarabs, Sheshi, is believed by many scholars to be a Hyksos king, however Ryholt assigns this king to the Fourteenth Dynasty of Egypt. Manfred Bietak proposes that a king recorded as Yaqub-Har may also have been a Hyksos king of the Fifteenth Dynasty. Bietak suggests that many of the other kings attested on scarabs may have been vassal kings of the Hyksos.
None of the proposed identifications besides of Apepi and Apophis is considered certain.
In Sextus Julius Africanus's epitome of Manetho, the rulers of Sixteenth Dynasty are also identified as "shepherds" (i.e. Hyksos) rulers. Following the work of Ryholt in 1997, most but not all scholars now identify the Sixteenth Dynasty as a native Egyptian dynasty based in Thebes, following Eusebius's epitome of Manetho; this dynasty would be contemporary to the Hyksos. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyksos |
Shia Islam | Later, most denominations of Shia Islam, including Twelvers and Ismāʿīlīs, became Imamis. Imami Shīʿītes believe that Imams are the spiritual and political successors to Muhammad. Imams are human individuals who not only rule over the Muslim community with justice, but also are able to keep and interpret the divine law and its esoteric meaning. The words and deeds of Muhammad and the Imams are a guide and model for the community to follow; as a result, they must be free from error and sin, and must be chosen by divine decree (nass) through Muhammad. According to this view peculiar to Shia Islam, there is always an Imam of the Age, who is the divinely appointed authority on all matters of faith and law in the Muslim community. ʿAlī was the first Imam of this line, the rightful successor to Muhammad, followed by male descendants of Muhammad through his daughter Fatimah.
This difference between following either the Ahl al-Bayt (Muhammad's family and descendants) or pledging allegiance to Abū Bakr has shaped the Shia–Sunnī divide on the interpretation of some Quranic verses, hadith literature (accounts of the sayings and living habits attributed to the Islamic prophet Muhammad during his lifetime), and other areas of Islamic belief throughout the history of Islam. For instance, the hadith collections venerated by Shia Muslims are centered on narrations by members of the Ahl al-Bayt and their supporters, while some hadith transmitted by narrators not belonging to or supporting the Ahl al-Bayt are not included. Those of Abu Hurairah, for example, Ibn Asakir in his Taʿrikh Kabir, and Muttaqi in his Kanzuʿl-Umma report that ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb lashed him, rebuked him, and forbade him to narrate ḥadīth from Muhammad. ʿUmar is reported to have said: "Because you narrate hadith in large numbers from the Holy Prophet, you are fit only for attributing lies to him. (That is, one expects a wicked man like you to utter only lies about the Holy Prophet.) So you must stop narrating hadith from the Prophet; otherwise, I will send you to the land of Dus." (An Arab clan in Yemen, to which Abu Hurairah belonged). According to Sunnī Muslims, ʿAlī was the fourth successor to Abū Bakr, while Shia Muslims maintain that ʿAlī was the first divinely sanctioned "Imam", or successor of Muhammad. The seminal event in Shia history is the martyrdom at the Battle of Karbala of ʿAlī's son, Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī, and 71 of his followers in 680 CE, who led a non-allegiance movement against the defiant caliph.
It is believed in Twelver and Ismāʿīlī branches of Shia Islam that divine wisdom (ʿaql) was the source of the souls of the prophets and Imams, which bestowed upon them esoteric knowledge (ḥikmah), and that their sufferings were a means of divine grace to their devotees. Although the Imam was not the recipient of a divine revelation (waḥy), he had a close relationship with God, through which God guides him, and the Imam, in turn, guides the people. Imamate, or belief in the divine guide, is a fundamental belief in the Twelver and Ismāʿīlī branches of Shia Islam, and is based on the concept that God would not leave humanity without access to divine guidance. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shia_Islam |
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Fatimid Caliphate | For a large part of the tenth century the Fatimids also engaged in a rivalry with the Umayyads of Cordoba – who ruled Al-Andalus and were hostile to the Fatimids' pretensions – in an effort to establish domination over the western Maghreb. In 911, Tahert, which had been briefly captured by Abu Abdallah al-Shi'i in 909, had to be retaken by the Fatimid general Masala ibn Habus of the Miknasa tribe. The first Fatimid expeditions to what is now northern Morocco occurred in 917 and 921 and were primarily aimed at the Principality of Nakur, which they subjugated on both occasions. Fez and Sijilmasa were also captured in 921. These two expeditions were led by Masala ibn Habus, who had been made governor of Tahert. Thereafter, the weakened Idrisids and various local Zenata and Sanhaja leaders acted as proxies whose formal allegiances oscillated between the Umayyads or the Fatimids depending on the circumstances. As a result of the political instability in the western Maghreb, effective Fatimid control did not extend much beyond the former territory of the Aghlabids. Masala's successor, Musa ibn Abi'l-Afiya, captured Fez from the Idrisids again, but in 932 defected to the Umayyads, taking the western Maghreb with him. The Umayyads gained the upper hand again in northern Morocco during the 950s, until the Fatimid general Jawhar, on behalf of Caliph Al-Mu'izz li-Din Allah, led another major expedition to Morocco in 958 and spent two years subjugating most of northern Morocco. He was accompanied by Ziri ibn Manad, the leader of the Zirids. Jawhar took Sijilmasa in September or October 958 and then, with the help of Ziri, his forces took Fez in November 959. He was unable, however, to dislodge the Umayyad garrisons in Sala, Sebta (present-day Ceuta) and Tangier, and this marked the only time that the Fatimid army was present at the Strait of Gibraltar. Jawhar and Ziri returned to al-Mansuriyya in 960. The subjugated parts of Morocco, including Fez and Sijilmasa, were left under the control of local vassals while most of the central Maghreb (Algeria), including Tahert, was given to Ziri ibn Manad to govern on the caliph's behalf.
All this warfare in the Maghreb and Sicily necessitated the maintenance of a strong army, and a capable fleet as well. Nevertheless, by the time of al-Mahdi's death in 934, the Fatimid Caliphate "had become a great power in the Mediterranean". The reign of the second Fatimid imam-caliph, al-Qa'im, was dominated by the Kharijite rebellion of Abu Yazid. Starting in 943/4 among the Zenata Berbers, the uprising spread through Ifriqiya, taking Kairouan and blockading al-Qa'im at al-Mahdiyya, which was besieged in January–September 945. Al-Qa'im died during the siege, but this was kept secret by his son and successor, Isma'il, until he had defeated Abu Yazid; he then announced his father's death and proclaimed himself imam and caliph as al-Mansur. While al-Mansur was campaigning to suppress the last remnants of the revolt, a new palace city was being constructed for him south of Kairouan. Construction began around 946 and it was only fully completed under al-Mansur's son and successor, al-Mu'izz. It was named al-Mansuriyya (also known as Sabra al-Mansuriyya) and became the new seat of the caliphate. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatimid_Caliphate |
Martijn Theodoor Houtsma | Houtsma was the son of Otto Evertz Houtsma, a wood miller and later the Mayor of Rauwerderhem in Irnsum, and Feikje Maria Petronella Horreüs Laurman. He attended the Latin school at Dokkum before enrolling at the University of Leiden for a degree in theology in 1868 which he soon combined with the study of Eastern languages. Among his tutors at Leiden were Antonie Rutgers, Reinhart Dozy, Michael Jan de Goeje and Abraham Kuenen. He graduated in 1875 as a Doctor of Theology from Leiden where he wrote his dissertation entitled De strijd over het dogma in den Islam tot op el-Ash'ari (The Struggle Over Dogma in Islam Up to Al-Ashari), a work offering a systematic study of dogmatic developments in Islam from the time of Muhammad up to c. 950. In 1874 Houtsma became a lecturer in Hebrew at Leiden and between 1874 and 1890 worked as the Assistant Keeper of the Oriental Manuscripts at the University Library. During this time he focused on the study of Persian and Turkish, and on the history of the Seljuks in particular. For a period of time he was also a lecturer in Persian and Turkish. In 1890, he was appointed the professor of Hebrew and Israelite antiquities at the University of Utrecht and elected as a member of the Royal Academy of Sciences. At Utrecht, Houtsma used his position mainly for the organisation of Islamic research, though his abiding interest with the study of the Old Testament continued. In 1898, he was appointed Chief Editor of the project initiated by the International Orientalist Congress to produce an encyclopaedia of Islam. This resulted in the publication of the first edition of the Encyclopaedia of Islam whose first volume appeared in 1913 in parallel English, German, and French editions. He retired from professorship in 1917 but stayed on at Utrecht.
Houtsma published the index volume to the Oriental Catalogue of the library at Leiden University, the Catalogus codicum orientalium Bibliothecae Academiae Lugduno-Batavae in 1875, and had worked closely with his senior, de Goeje, in enlarging its second edition, published in 1888. His first Oriental text was the Akhtal, Encommium Omayadarum (1878) of the Umayyad poet Al-Akhtal al-Taghlibi. This was followed by two Arabic texts, the Kitāb al-Addād of Ibn al-Anbārī (1881) and the history of al-Ya‘qūbī (1883). His major work on the history of the Seljuks appeared between 1886 and 1902 in the form of Recueil de textes relatifs à l'histoire des Seljoucides (Collection of Texts Relating to the History of the Seljuk People), published in four volumes, two in Persian, one in Arabic and one in Turkish. He also wrote the article on the Seljuks for the Encyclopaedia Britannica. In 1921, he published a volume comprising the verses of the 12th century Persian poet Niẓāmī Ganjavī entitled Choix de vers tirés de la Khamsa de Niẓāmī (Selected Verses from the Khamsa of Niẓāmī) and contributed an article on the poet to the Volume of Oriental studies presented to Edward G. Browne (1922). Houtsma remains most well known, however, for his work as the Chief Editor of the first edition (1913–38) of the Encyclopaedia of Islam. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martijn_Theodoor_Houtsma |
Shia crescent | The term was coined in 2004 by King Abdullah II of Jordan at a time when Iran was reportedly interfering in Iraq in the run-up to the January 2005 parliamentary elections. This was in the context of a threatened, later realised, boycott of the elections by Sunnis in Iraq potentially leading to a Shia-dominated government and the assumption that a Shia Iraq might fall under the influence of Shia Iran. The suggestion was that the common religion gives good potential for cooperation between Iran, Iraq, Alawite-dominated Syria and the politically powerful Shia militia Hezbollah in Lebanon; as well, the suggestion was that these others would be proxies for Iran in a regional power play.
The term has developed since to encompass other Shia areas of the Middle East. The nations where Shia Muslims form a dominant majority are Iran and Iraq. Shias also represent a large majority in Azerbaijan, however it is constitutionally a secular state. Those who are actual practicing adherents are much lower, which has led to them generally being excluded from the crescent. Shia are also the majority of citizens in Bahrain, however the government is largely Sunni. Large Shia minorities also exist in Lebanon, Kuwait, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and to a lesser extent, UAE. Excepting Lebanon, where the weak central government structure of Lebanon has allowed Hezbollah to become involved in the Syrian civil war, these are not usually described as part of the crescent.
Ayatollah Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, in a speech on June 5, 2005, on the anniversary of Ayatollah Khomeini's death, cited the "Shia Crescent" project as evidence of a policy of religious divisiveness. In 29th International Islamic Unity Conference in Tehran on December 27, 2015, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani called on Muslim countries to unite and strive to improve Islam’s public image, adding that "There is neither a Shiite nor a Sunni crescent. We have an Islamic moon. We, Muslims, are in a world where we must be united". Noam Chomsky, an American university professor and linguist, in his book, Making the Future: Occupations, Interventions, Empire and Resistance, claims that most of the Middle East's energy reserves lie in the so-called "Shiite Crescent" Iran's influence in the Shiite Crescent challenges US efforts to control Middle East energy resources. Washington's nightmare is for a Shiite coalition to take control of the world's most important oil reserves independently of the United States.
In January 2016, a confidant of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman claimed that the Arab world was confronted "by a Shia full moon”, rather than just a Shia Crescent, as a result of the expanded activities of Iranian-backed Shia militias in countries such as Iraq, Syria and Yemen. In December 2017, Mohammad Ali Jafari, the chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), said that "Today, armed cells of resistance have been established in Islamic countries, and small networks of resistance have been created in other countries, and we will see their influence in the future.” According to him, large forces of volunteers have joined the "anti-terror" struggle in Syria. Jafari had also previously talked about the regime's need to create a Shia Islamist bloc loyal to Iran.
In 2014, Qods Force Chief Qassem Suleimani outlined Ali Khameini's strategy of toppling the Arab governments through military insurgencies waged by Iran-backed Khomeinist militants. Explaining that Iran's goal was to occupy "70 percent of the world's oil", Suleimani stated: "The revival of Shia under the leadership of Iran creates a polarity and power for Iran, which has a political dimension and also a security dimension and also an economic dimension .... We know that three countries Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq contain the most oil in the world. [Saudi] Arabia is first, Iran and Iraq are second and third, and that approximately 70 percent of the worlds oil is located where the Shia live or about 80 percent is where the Shia live. Iraq's oil is in this corridor between Basra and Baghdad; Kuwait, and [Saudi] Arabia, which 80 percent of its oil is located in the Shia-populated places like Damam [and] Qatif, and it is also clear for Iran. The political leadership of Shiism exponentially adds to Iran's ethnic power." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shia_crescent |
Julian (emperor) | Julian's works have been edited and translated several times since the Renaissance, most often separately; but many are translated in the Loeb Classical Library edition of 1913, edited by Wilmer Cave Wright. Wright mentions, however, that there are many problems surrounding Julian's vast collection of works, mainly the letters ascribed to Julian. The collections of letters existing today are the result of many smaller collections, which contained varying numbers of Julian's works in various combinations. For example, in Laurentianus 58.16, the largest collection of letters ascribed to Julian was found, containing 43 manuscripts. The origins of many letters in these collections are unclear.
Joseph Bidez and François Cumont compiled the different collections in 1922 and arrived at a total of 284 items. 157 of these were considered genuine, and 127 were regarded as spurious. This contrasts starkly with Wright's earlier mentioned collection, which contains only 73 items which are considered genuine, along with 10 apocryphal letters. Michael Trapp notes, however, that when comparing Bidez and Cumont's work with Wright's, Bidez and Cumont regard as many as sixteen of Wright's genuine letters as spurious. Which works can be ascribed to Julian is thus very much up to debate.
The problems surrounding a collection of Julian's works are exacerbated by the fact that Julian was a motivated writer, which means it is possible that many more letters could have circulated despite his short reign. Julian himself attests to the large number of letters he had to write in a letter that is itself likely to be genuine. Julian's religious agenda gave him even more work than the average emperor as he sought to instruct his newly styled pagan priests and dealt with discontented Christian leaders and communities. An example of him instructing his pagan priests is found in a fragment in the Vossianus MS., inserted in the Letter to Themistius.
Additionally, Julian's hostility towards the Christian faith inspired vicious counteractions by Christian authors, as in Gregory of Nazianzus' invectives against Julian. Christians no doubt suppressed some of Julian's works as well. This Christian influence is still visible in Wright's much smaller collection of Julian's letters. She comments that some letters are suddenly cut off when the contents become hostile towards Christians and believes this to be the result of Christian censorship. Notable examples appear in the Fragment of a letter to a Priest and the letter to High-Priest Theodorus. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_(emperor) |
Justinian I | Justinian's religious policy reflected the Imperial conviction that the unity of the Empire presupposed unity of faith, and it appeared to him obvious that this faith could only be the orthodoxy (Chalcedonian). Those of a different belief were subjected to persecution, which imperial legislation had effected from the time of Constantius II and which would now vigorously continue. The Codex contained two statutes that decreed the total destruction of paganism, even in private life; these provisions were zealously enforced. Contemporary sources (John Malalas, Theophanes, and John of Ephesus) tell of severe persecutions, even of men in high position.
The original Academy of Plato had been destroyed by the Roman dictator Sulla in 86 BC. Several centuries later, in 410 AD, a Neoplatonic Academy was established that had no institutional continuity with Plato's Academy, and which served as a center for Neoplatonism and mysticism. It persisted until 529 AD when it was finally closed by Justinian I. Other schools in Constantinople, Antioch, and Alexandria, which were the centers of Justinian's empire, continued.
In Asia Minor alone, John of Ephesus was reported to have converted 70,000 pagans, which was probably an exaggerated number. Other peoples also accepted Christianity: the Heruli, the Huns dwelling near the Don, the Abasgi, and the Tzanni in Caucasia.
The worship of Amun at the oasis of Awjila in the Libyan desert was abolished, and so were the remnants of the worship of Isis on the island of Philae, at the first cataract of the Nile. The Presbyter Julian and the Bishop Longinus conducted a mission among the Nabataeans, and Justinian attempted to strengthen Christianity in Yemen by dispatching a bishop from Egypt.
The civil rights of Jews were restricted and their religious privileges threatened. Justinian also interfered in the internal affairs of the synagogue and encouraged the Jews to use the Greek Septuagint in their synagogues in Constantinople.
The Emperor faced significant opposition from the Samaritans, who resisted conversion to Christianity and were repeatedly in insurrection. He persecuted them with rigorous edicts, but could not prevent reprisals towards Christians from taking place in Samaria toward the close of his reign. The consistency of Justinian's policy meant that the Manicheans too suffered persecution, experiencing both exile and threat of capital punishment. At Constantinople, on one occasion, not a few Manicheans, after strict inquisition, were executed in the emperor's very presence: some by burning, others by drowning. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justinian_I |
Ogaden War | Under the leadership of General Mohammad Ali Samatar, Irro and other senior Somali military officials were tasked in 1977 with formulating a national strategy in preparation for the war against Ethiopia. This was part of a broader effort to unite all of the Somali-inhabited territories in the Horn region into a Greater Somalia (Soomaaliweyn).
A distinguished graduate of the Soviet Frunze Military Academy, Samatar oversaw Somalia's military strategy. During the Ogaden War, Samatar was the Commander-in-Chief of the Somali Armed Forces. He and his frontline deputies faced off against their mentor and former Frunze alumnus, General Vasily Petrov, assigned by the USSR to advise the Ethiopian Army. A further 15,000 Cuban troops, led by General Arnaldo Ochoa, also supported Ethiopia. General Samatar was assisted in the offensive by several field commanders, most of whom were also Frunze graduates:
General Yussuf Salhan commanded the SNA on the Jijiga Front, assisted by Colonel A. Naji, capturing the area on August 30, 1977. (Salhan later became Minister of Tourism but was expelled from the Somali Socialist Party in 1985.)
Colonel Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed commanded the SNA on the Negellie Front. (Ahmed later led the rebel SSDF group based in Ethiopia.)
Colonel Abdullahi Ahmed Irro commanded the SNA on the Godey Front.
Colonel Ali Hussein commanded the SNA in two fronts, Qabri Dahare and Harar. (Hussein eventually joined the Somali National Movement in late 1988.)
Colonel Farah Handulle commanded the SNA on the Warder Front. (He became a civilian administrator and Governor of Sanaag, and in 1987 was killed in Hargheisa one day before he took over governorship of the region.)
General Mohamed Nur Galaal, assisted by Colonel Mohamud Sh. Abdullahi Geelqaad, commanded Dirir-Dewa, which the SNA retreated from. (Galaal later became Minister of Public Works and leading member of the ruling Somali Revolutionary Socialist Party.)
Colonel Abdulrahman Aare and Colonel Ali Ismail co-commanded the Degeh-Bur Front. (Both officers were later chosen to reinforce the Harar campaign; Aare eventually became a military attaché and retired as a private citizen after the SNA's collapse in 1990.)
Colonel Abukar Liban 'Aftooje' initially served as acting logistics coordinator for the Southern Command and later commanded the SNA on the Iimeey Front. (Aftoje became a general and military attaché to France.) | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogaden_War |
Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist | Mohammad-Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi (along with Ahmed Vaezi and Baqir Sharif al-Qurashi) cites a hadith known as "the maqbulah of ‘Umar ibn Hanzalah", where this Umar asks the 6th Imam (Ja'far al-Sadiq) whether it is permissible when two Shi‘ah have a dispute over a debt or a legacy to go to a judge or ruler for mediation/arbitration. The Imam replies that the mediator they use should be a Muslim who knows the hadith and rulings of the Shi'i Imams or Infallibles ("a person among you who narrates from us, is versed in the lawful and the unlawful"), i.e. who knows Shi'i fiqh; and that a "ruler or judge" who doesn't have this knowledge is of taghut ("illegitimate ruling power"). Furthermore, to reject use or ruling of experts in Shi'i fiqh is equivalent to shirk, i.e. polytheism (a grave sin).
“If there is a person among you who narrates from us, is versed in the lawful and the unlawful, and is well acquainted with our laws and ordinances, accept him as judge [qaḍi] and arbiter, for I have appointed him as a ruler [hakim] over you. So, if he rules according to our law and you reject his ruling, you will belittle Allah’s law and oppose us, and to oppose us means to oppose Allah, and opposing Him is tantamount to associating partners with Him.”
Ahmed Vaezi interprets this to mean that the order/hukm of the guardian/wali jurist/faqih "is binding upon all Muslims"—including other faqih and including Muslims outside of the political jurisdiction of the wali (i.e. outside Iran). This is because the wali is a "the just and capable jurist ... appointed as hakim", to administer justice (wilayat al-qada), and so must be obeyed.
Al Quarshi interpreted what Ja'far al-Sadiq is reported to have said to mean that "those "who relates our traditions and narrations to you" were Shi'i jurists, and those jurists now had "a general wilayat" (general guardianship) and "the authority as the ruler and point of reference for all Muslims in their social aspects". "The [singular] religious jurisprudent" should not only collect and distribute funds to the poor and needy, lead and fund "the colleges of religious sciences", but also "takes care" of and be "concerned for everything regarding the world of Islam", rising to defend Muslim lands from the attacks of infidels throughout the Muslim world.
To those who claim that the hadith is only an order to Shi‘ah not to use the courts of the usurping ‘Abbasid government when they have legal disputes,
Misbah Yazdi replies that the hadith says "... I have appointed him as a ruler over you..." translating hakim as ruler, not judge. (But in another work -- Islamic Political Theory (Legislation): Volume 2 -- Mesbah-Yazdi translates hakim as judge.)
In any case Mesbah Yazdi concludes: "it is crystal clear that obedience to the decree of the infallible Imam (‘a) is obligatory and mandatory. As such, to obey the decree of the [ruler] faqih is obligatory and mandatory, too"; and in another chapter of his book he also claims, "the faqih enjoys all the prerogatives which the infallible Imam (‘a) as the holder of authority of the Islamic society has." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guardianship_of_the_Islamic_Jurist |
Moorish architecture | The main palaces of rulers were usually located inside a separate fortified district or citadel of the capital city. These citadels included a complex of different structures including administrative offices, official venues for ceremonies and receptions, functional amenities (such as warehouses, kitchens, and hammams), and the private residences of the ruler and his family. Although palace architecture varied from one period and region to the next, certain traits recurred such as the predominance of courtyards and internal gardens around which elements of the palace were typically centered.
In some cases, rulers were installed in the existing fortified citadel of the city, such as the many Alcazabas and Alcázars in Spain, or the Kasbahs of North Africa. The original Alcazar of Cordoba, used by the Umayyad emirs and their predecessors, was an early example of this. When Cordoba first became the capital of Al-Andalus in the 8th century the early Muslim governors simply moved into the former Visigothic palace, which was eventually redeveloped and modified by the Umayyad rulers after them. The Alcázar of Seville was also occupied and rebuilt in different periods by different rulers. In Marrakesh, Morocco, the Almohad Caliphs in the late 12th century built a large new palace district, the Kasbah, on the south side of the city, which was subsequently occupied and rebuilt by the later Saadian and 'Alawi dynasties. In Al-Andalus many palace enclosures were highly fortified alcazabas located on hilltops overlooking the rest of the city, such as the Alcazaba of Almería and the Alcazaba of Málaga, which were occupied by the various governors and local rulers. The most famous of all these, however, is the Alhambra of Granada, which was built up by the Nasrid dynasty during the 13th to 15th centuries.
Rulers with enough resources sometimes founded entirely separate and autonomous royal cities outside their capital cities, such as Madinat al-Zahra, built by Abd ar-Rahman III outside Cordoba, or Fes el-Jdid built by the Marinids outside old Fez. Some rulers even built entirely new capital cities centered on their palaces, such as the Qal'at Bani Hammad, founded in 1007 by the Hammadids in present-day Algeria, and Mahdia, begun in 916 by the Fatimid Caliphs in present-day Tunisia. In many periods and regions rulers also built outlying private estates with gardens in the countryside. As early as the 8th century, for example, Abd ar-Rahman I possessed such estates in the countryside outside Cordoba. The later Nasrid-built Generalife, located on the mountainside a short distance outside the Alhambra, is also an example of outlying residence and garden made for the private use of the rulers. Moroccan sultans also built pleasure pavilions or residences within the vast gardens and orchards that they maintained outside their cities, notably the Menara Gardens and Agdal Gardens on the outskirts of Marrakesh. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moorish_architecture |
Caliphate | In the immediate aftermath of the death of Muhammad, a gathering of the Ansar (natives of Medina) took place in the Saqifah (courtyard) of the Banu Sa'ida clan. The general belief at the time was that the purpose of the meeting was for the Ansar to decide on a new leader of the Muslim community among themselves, with the intentional exclusion of the Muhajirun (migrants from Mecca), though this has later become the subject of debate.
Nevertheless, Abu Bakr and Umar, both prominent companions of Muhammad, upon learning of the meeting became concerned of a potential coup and hastened to the gathering. Upon arriving, Abu Bakr addressed the assembled men with a warning that an attempt to elect a leader outside of Muhammad's own tribe, the Quraysh, would likely result in dissension as only they can command the necessary respect among the community. He then took Umar and another companion, Abu Ubaidah ibn al-Jarrah, by the hand and offered them to the Ansar as potential choices. He was countered with the suggestion that the Quraysh and the Ansar choose a leader each from among themselves, who would then rule jointly. The group grew heated upon hearing this proposal and began to argue among themselves. Umar hastily took Abu Bakr's hand and swore his own allegiance to the latter, an example followed by the gathered men.
Abu Bakr was near-universally accepted as head of the Muslim community (under the title of caliph) as a result of Saqifah, though he did face contention as a result of the rushed nature of the event. Several companions, most prominent among them being Ali ibn Abi Talib, initially refused to acknowledge his authority. Ali may have been reasonably expected to assume leadership, being both cousin and son-in-law to Muhammad. The theologian Ibrahim al-Nakha'i stated that Ali also had support among the Ansar for his succession, explained by the genealogical links he shared with them. Whether his candidacy for the succession was raised during Saqifah is unknown, though it is not unlikely. Abu Bakr later sent Umar to confront Ali to gain his allegiance, resulting in an altercation which may have involved violence. However, after six months the group made peace with Abu Bakr and Ali offered him his fealty. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caliphate |
At-Tawbah | From opening up to the 37th ayat, the initial talk, was uncovered in Zil-Qa'adah A.H. 9. As the significance of the subject of the talk required its affirmation on the event of Hajj Muhammad dispatched Ali to follow Abu Bakr, who had just left for Makkah to lead the Pilgrims to the Ka'abah. He trained Ali to convey the talk before the representatives of the various clans of Arabia in order to advise them regarding the new policy guidelines pertinent to the mushriks.
Starting from ayat 38 up to 72nd ayat the subsequent talk was revealed during Rajab A.H. 9 or a little before this, when Muhammad was occupied with getting ready for the Campaign of Tabuk. The Believers were encouraged to take a dynamic part in Jihad, and the shirkers were seriously reproached for keeping down their riches and for wavering to forfeit their lives in the path for Allah due to their hypocrisy, powerless belief(iman) or carelessness.
The final section of ayaat 73rd to last, was uncovered on his return from the Campaign of Tabuk. There are a few pieces revealed in different events during the same time frame and were incorporated by Muhammad into the Surah as per instructions from Allah. This talk cautions the hypocrites of their malevolent deeds and censures those Believers who had remained behind in the Campaign of Tabuk. At that point in the wake of berating them, Allah exculpates those genuine Believers who had not partaken in the Jihad in the Way of Allah for one explanation or the other.
In the middle of the ayat 97 In other words, apart from hypocrisy, one of their defects is that they did not even keep in touch with the Muslims of Madinah through which they would have known the rules of Sharia.
That is, these people want the Muslims to fall into such a cycle of trouble that these people get freedom from the kind of commands that they find very difficult to follow. Especially on the occasion of the Battle of Tabuk, these people had the hope that this time the Muslims were facing the great power of Rome, so maybe this time they would lose all their power after being defeated by the Romans. Further, Allah Ta'ala said that in reality these people are lying in the cycle of self-hypocrisy, which will cause them to be disgraced both in this world and in the hereafter. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At-Tawbah |
Aq Qoyunlu | The leaders of Aq Qoyunlu were from the Begundur or Bayandur clan of the Oghuz Turks and were considered descendants of the semi-mythical founding father of the Oghuz, Oghuz Khagan. The Bayandurs behaved like statesmen rather than warlords and gained the support of the merchant and feudal classes of Transcaucasia (present-day Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia). The Aq Qoyunlu, along with the Qara Qoyunlu, were the last Iranian regimes that used their Chinggisid background to establish their legitimacy. Under Ya'qub Beg, the Chinggisid yasa (traditional nomadic laws of the medieval Turco-Mongols of the Eurasian steppe lands) was dissolved.
Uzun Hasan's conquest of most of mainland Iran shifted the seat of power to the east, where the Aq Qoyunlu adopted Iranian customs for administration and culture. In the Iranian areas, Uzun Hasan preserved the previous bureaucratic structure along with its secretaries, who belonged to families that had in a number of instances served under different dynasties for several generations. The four top civil posts of the Aq Qoyunlu were all occupied by Iranians, which under Uzun Hasan included; the vizier, who led the great council (divan); the mostawfi al-mamalek, high-ranking financial accountants; the mohrdar, who affixed the state seal; and the marakur "stable master", who supervised the royal court.
Culture flourished under the Aq Qoyunlu, who, although of coming from a Turkic background, sponsored Iranian culture. Uzun Hasan himself adopted it and ruled in the style of an Iranian king. Despite his Turkoman background, he was proud of being an Iranian. At his new capital, Tabriz, he managed a refined Persian court. There he utilized the trappings of pre-Islamic Persian royalty and bureaucrats taken from several earlier Iranian regimes. Through the use of his increasing revenue, Uzun Hasan was able to buy the approval of the ulama (clergy) and the mainly Iranian urban elite, while also taking care of the impoverished rural inhabitants.
In letters from the Ottoman Sultans, when addressing the kings of Aq Qoyunlu, such titles as Arabic: ملك الملوك الأيرانية "King of Iranian Kings", Arabic: سلطان السلاطين الإيرانية "Sultan of Iranian Sultans", Persian: شاهنشاه ایران خدیو عجم Shāhanshāh-e Irān Khadiv-e Ajam "Shahanshah of Iran and Ruler of Persia", Jamshid shawkat va Fereydun rāyat va Dārā derāyat "Powerful like Jamshid, flag of Fereydun and wise like Darius" have been used. Uzun Hassan also held the title Padishah-i Irān "Padishah of Iran", which was re-adopted by his distaff grandson Ismail I, founder of the Safavid Empire.
The Aq Qoyunlu realm was notable for being inhabited by many prominent figures, such as the poets Ali Qushji (died 1474), Baba Fighani Shirazi (died 1519), Ahli Shirazi (died 1535), the poet, scholar and Sufi Jami (died 1492) and the philosopher and theologian, Jalal al-Din Davani (died 1503). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aq_Qoyunlu |
Christianity in Africa | Christianity reached Africa first in Egypt around the year 50 AD. Mark the Evangelist became the first bishop of the Alexandrian Patriarchate in about the year 43. At first the church in Alexandria was mainly Greek-speaking. By the end of the 2nd century the scriptures and liturgy had been translated into three local languages. Christianity in Sudan also spread in the early 1st century, and the Nubian churches, which were established in the sixth century within the kingdoms of Nobatia, Makuria and Alodia were linked to those of Egypt.
Christianity also grew in northwestern Africa (today known as the Maghreb), reaching the region around Carthage by the end of the 2nd century. The churches there were linked to the Church of Rome and provided Pope Gelasius I, Pope Miltiades and Pope Victor I, all of them Christian Berbers like Saint Augustine and his mother Saint Monica.
At the beginning of the 3rd century the church in Alexandria expanded rapidly, with five new suffragan bishoprics. At this time, the Bishop of Alexandria began to be called Pope, as the senior bishop in Egypt. In the middle of the 3rd century the church in Egypt suffered severely in the persecution under the Emperor Decius. Many Christians fled from the towns into the desert. When the persecution died down, however, some remained in the desert as hermits to pray. This was the beginning of Christian monasticism, which over the following years spread from Africa to other parts of the Gohar, and Europe through France and Ireland.
The early 4th century in Egypt began with renewed persecution under the Emperor Diocletian. In the Ethiopian/Eritrean Kingdom of Aksum, King Ezana declared Christianity the official religion after having been converted by Frumentius, resulting in the promotion of Christianity in Ethiopia (eventually leading to the foundation of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church). At the beginning of the fifth century, no other region of the Roman Empire had as many bishoprics as Northern Africa; when the Vandal king summoned a synod in Carthage, 460 Catholic bishops attended.
In these first few centuries, African Christian leaders such as Origen, Lactantius, Augustine, Tertullian, Marius Victorinus, Pachomius, Didymus the Blind, Ticonius, Cyprian, Athanasius and Cyril (along with rivals Valentinus, Plotinus, Arius and Donatus Magnus) influenced the Christian world outside Africa with responses to Gnosticism, Arianism, Montanism, Marcionism, Pelagianism and Manichaeism, and the idea of the university (after the Library of Alexandria), understanding of the Trinity, Vetus Latina translations, methods of exegesis and biblical interpretation, ecumenical councils, monasticism, Neoplatonism and African literary, dialectical and rhetorical traditions. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_in_Africa |
Egyptian–Libyan War | Libya and Egypt both portrayed the outcome as a victory for themselves. They never reached a formal peace agreement after the war, but ceased combat operations and upheld a truce. Tensions nevertheless remained high, with Sadat and Gaddafi trading insults in the days following the conflict. Libyan Foreign Minister Abdel Moneim al-Houni wrote a letter to the United Nations Security Council, alleging that the Egyptians had destroyed schools and hospitals, caused significant damage to five towns, and inflicted "a great loss of life among innocent civilians". The Security Council declined to discuss the matter. The Libyan government also accused the United States of sharing combat intelligence with Egypt. On 24 August Egypt and Libya exchanged prisoners. Large concentrations of troops remained stationed along the border in the immediate aftermath of the conflict, but these were eventually withdrawn, as the lack of infrastructure in the area made long-term deployments of significant forces difficult.
International media was barred from the combat zone during the war, making independent confirmation about details of the conflict difficult. Observers were surprised by Sadat's sudden declaration of a ceasefire, as Egyptian officials had been telling diplomats that Sadat intended on invading Libya and deposing Gaddafi. Over the course of the border war the Palestinian Liberation Organisation leader Yasser Arafat flew between Tripoli and Cairo in an attempt to mediate its resolution. Two Libyan military officers accompanied Arafat to Egypt to attempt to reach a solution. Shortly before the end of fighting the President of Algeria, Houari Boumediène, also intervened to mediate, and the government of Kuwait announced it would assist. However, several diplomatic sources reported that the United States government had encouraged Sadat to end the conflict. Taking into account Egyptian failures during the Yom Kippur War and the lack of infrastructure in the Western Desert, American officials believed that the Egyptians could not sustain an invasion of Libya and would thus be forced to withdraw in humiliation. The Americans believed this would damage Sadat's reputation, thus undermining his political clout or even possibly leading to his downfall. Since the United States deemed him to be of key importance in Egypt achieving peace with Israel, its ally, they pressed him to end the fighting. They also feared that the Soviets would intervene in favor of Libya. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian%E2%80%93Libyan_War |
Al-Zahrawi | On Surgery and Instruments is the 30th and last volume of the Kitab al-Tasrif. It was without a doubt his most important work and the one which established his authority in Europe for centuries to come.
On Surgery and Instruments is the first illustrated surgical guide ever written. Its contents and descriptions has contributed in many technological innovations in medicine, notably which tools to use in specific surgeries. In his book, al-Zahrawi draws diagrams of each tool used in different procedures to clarify how to carry out the steps of each treatment. The full text consists of three books, intended for medical students looking forward to gaining more knowledge within the field of surgery regarding procedures and the necessary tools.
The book was translated into Latin in the 12th century by Gerard of Cremona. It soon found popularity in Europe and became a standard text in all major Medical universities like those of Salerno and Montpellier. It remained the primary source on surgery in Europe for the next 500 years, and as the historian of medicine, Arturo Castiglioni, has put it: al-Zahrawi's treatise "in surgery held the same authority as did the Canon of Avicenna in medicine".
Al-Zahrawi claims that his knowledge comes from careful reading of previous medical texts as well as his own experience: “...whatever skill I have, I have derived for myself by my long reading of the books of the Ancients and my thirst to understand them until I extracted the knowledge of it from them. Then through the whole of my life I have adhered to experience and practice... I have made it accessible for you and rescued it from the abyss of prolixity".
In the beginning of his book, al-Zahrawi states that the reason for writing this treatise was the degree of underdevelopment surgery had reached in the Islamic world, and the low status it held amongst physicians at the time. Al-Zahrawi ascribed such decline to a lack of anatomical knowledge and a misunderstanding of the human physiology.
Noting the importance of anatomy he wrote: "Before practicing surgery one should gain knowledge of anatomy and the function of organs so that he will understand their shape, connections and borders. He should become thoroughly familiar with nerves muscles bones arteries and veins. If one does not comprehend the anatomy and physiology one can commit a mistake which will result in the death of the patient. I have seen someone incise into a swelling in the neck thinking it was an abscess, when it was an aneurysm and the patient dying on the spot."
In urology, al-Zahrawi wrote about taking stones out of the bladder. By inventing a new instrument, an early form of the lithotrite which he called "Michaab", he was able to crush the stone inside the bladder without the need for a surgical incision. His technique was important for the development of lithotomy, and an improvement over the existing techniques in Europe which caused severe pain for the patient, and came with high death rates.
In dentistry and periodontics, al-Zahrawi had the most significant contribution out of all Muslim physicians, and his book contained the earliest illustrations of dental instruments. He was known to use gold and silver wires to ligate loosened teeth, and has been credited as the first to use replantation in the history of dentistry. He also invented instruments to scale the calculus from the teeth, a procedure he recommended as a prevention from periodontal disease.
Al-Zahrawi introduced over 200 surgical instruments, which include, among others, different kinds of scalpels, retractors, curettes, pincers, specula, and also instruments designed for his favoured techniques of cauterization and ligature. He also invented hooks with a double tip for use in surgery. Many of these instruments were never used before by any previous surgeons.
His use of catgut for internal stitching is still practised in modern surgery. The catgut appears to be the only natural substance capable of dissolving and is acceptable by the body. An observation Al-Zahrawi discovered after his monkey ate the strings of his oud. Al-Zahrawi also invented the forceps for extracting a dead fetus, as illustrated in the Kitab al-Tasrif. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Zahrawi |
Golan Heights | A small portion of territory in the Golan Heights, on the Lebanon–Syria border, has been a particular flashpoint. The territory, known as the Shebaa Farms, measures only 22 km2 (8.5 sq mi). Since 2000, Lebanon has officially claimed it to be Lebanese territory from which Israel should withdraw, and Syria has concurred.
The approximate boundary between Lebanon and Syria has its origins in an 1862 French map. During the early period of the French Mandate, both French and British maps were inconsistent regarding the boundary in the western Golan region, with some showing the Shebaa Farms in Lebanon and others, the majority, showing them in Syria. However, by 1936 the disagreement was eliminated by high quality maps showing the Shebaa Farms in Syria, and these formed the basis of later official maps. According to Kaufman, the choice between the two options was due to a preference for drawing boundaries along watersheds rather than along valleys. However, no detailed delineation or demarcation was performed throughout the mandate period.
Meanwhile, problems were reported with the location of the boundary. Several official documents from the 1930s state that the boundary lies along the Wadi al-'Asal (to the south of the Shebaa Farms). Local officials of the French administration reported that the de facto boundary did not correspond to the boundary shown on maps. The High Commissioner requested a Syrian–Lebanese negotiation but apparently nothing happened.
From the founding of the Syrian Republic in 1946 until the Israeli occupation in 1967, the Shebaa Farms were controlled by Syria and Lebanon did not make any known official complaint. The Israel occupation cut off the access of many Lebanese residents from the farms they had worked.
In the context of renewal of the UNIFIL mandate, the Lebanese government implicitly endorsed United Nations maps of the region in 1978 and many times later, even though the maps showed the Shebaa Farms in Syria.
Lebanese newspapers, residents and politicians lobbied the Lebanese government in the early 1980s to take up the issue, but it was apparently not raised in the failed negotiations for an Israeli withdrawal after the 1982 Israeli invasion. A series of publications appeared, partly assisted by Hezbollah and Amal, and a committee which formed in the Lebanese town of Shebaa wrote to the UN in 1986 protesting Israeli occupation of their lands. However, it was Hezbollah in 2000 which first adopted the Shebaa Farms as the basis for a public territorial claim against Israel.
On 7 June 2000, the United Nations published the Blue Line as the line to which Israel should withdraw from Lebanon in accordance with Security Council Resolution 425. The UN chose to follow the maps at its disposal and did not accept the Lebanese complaint from several weeks earlier that the Shebaa Farms were in Lebanon. After the Israeli withdrawal, the United Nations affirmed on 18 June 2000 that Israel had withdrawn its forces from Lebanon. However, the press release noted that both Lebanon and Syria disagreed, considering the Shebaa Farms area to be Lebanese. In deference to the Lebanese position, the Blue Line is not marked on the ground in this location.
The attitude of the UN shifted during the following years. In 2006, the Lebanese government presented the UN with a seven-point plan that included a proposal to place the Shebaa Farms under UN administration until boundary demarcation and sovereignty were settled. In August of that year, the Security Council passed Resolution 1701 which "took due note" of the Lebanese plan and called for "delineation of the international borders of Lebanon, especially in those areas where the border is disputed or uncertain, including by dealing with the Shebaa farms area".
In 2007, a UN cartographer delineated the boundaries of the region: "starting from the turning point of the 1920 French line located just south of the village of El Majidiye; from there continuing south-east along the 1946 Moughr Shab’a-Shab’a boundary until reaching the thalweg of the Wadi al-Aasal; thence following the thalweg of the wadi north-east until reaching the crest of the mountain north of the former hamlet Mazraat Barakhta and reconnecting with the 1920 line." As of 2023, neither Syria nor Israel have responded to the delineation, nor have Lebanon and Syria made progress towards border demarcation.
The position of Israel, which occupied the Golan Heights in 1967 and annexed them in 1981 to the disapproval of the international community, is that the Shebaa Farms belonged to Syria and there is no case for Lebanese sovereignty. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golan_Heights |
Alexander II Zabinas | Supported by the Egyptian troops, Antiochus VIII waged war against Alexander II, who lost most of his lands. He lost Ashkelon in 189 SE (124/123 BC). The final battle took place at an unknown location in the first half of 123 BC, ending with Alexander II's defeat. Different ancient historians presented varying accounts of Alexander II's end. Josephus merely stated that the king was defeated and killed, while Eusebius mentioned that Alexander II committed suicide with poison because he could not live with his defeat. Most details are found in the accounts of Diodorus Siculus and Justin:
In the account of Diodorus Siculus, Alexander II decided to avoid the battle with Antiochus VIII since he had no confidence in his subjects' aspirations for political change or their tolerance for the hardships that warfare would bring. Instead of fighting, Alexander II decided to take the royal treasuries, steal the valuables of the temples, and sail to Greece at night. While pillaging the temple of Zeus with some of his foreign subordinates, he was discovered by the populace and barely escaped with his life. Accompanied by a few men he went to Seleucia Pieria, but the news of his sacrilege arrived before him. The city closed its gates, forcing him to seek shelter in Posidium. Two days after pillaging the temple, Alexander II was caught and brought in chains to Antiochus VIII in his camp, suffering the insults and humiliation at the hands of his enemies. People who witnessed the indignation of Alexander II were shocked at the scene they thought could never happen. After accepting what had occurred in front of them was reality, they looked away with astonishment.
In the account of Justin, Alexander II fled to Antioch following his defeat at the hands of Antiochus VIII. Lacking the resources to pay his troops, the king ordered the removal of a golden Nike from the temple of Jupiter (Zeus), joking that "victory was lent to him by Jupiter". A few days later, Alexander II himself ordered the golden statue of Jupiter to be taken out under the cover of night. The city's populace revolted against the king, and he was forced to flee. He was later deserted by his men and caught by bandits; they delivered him to Antiochus VIII, who ordered him executed.
Alexander II issued two series of gold staters. One bears his epithets and dates to 125 BC according to many numismatists, such as Oliver Hoover and Arthur Houghton, and another bearing only the title of king (basileus). Earlier numismatists, such as Edward Theodore Newell and Ernest Babelon, who only knew about the 125 BC stater, suggested that it was minted with the gold pillaged from the temple. However, the iconography of that stater does not match that used for Alexander II's late coinage, as the diadem ties fall in a straight fashion on the neck. On the other hand, the arrangement of the diadem ties on the stater that lacks the royal epithets is more consistent with Alexander II's late tetradrachm, making it more reasonable to associate that stater with the Nike theft.
Though his last coins were issued in 190 SE (123/122 BC), ancient historians do not provide the explicit date of Alexander II's death. He probably died by October 123 BC since the first Antiochene coins of Antiochus VIII were issued in 190 SE (123/122 BC). Damascus kept striking coinage in the name of Alexander II until 191 SE (122/121 BC), when the forces of Antiochus VIII took it. According to Diodorus Siculus, many who witnessed the king's end "remarked in various ways on the fickleness of fate, the reversals in human fortunes, the sudden turns of tide, and how changeable life could be, far beyond what anyone would expect". No wife or children of Alexander II, if he had any, are known; with his death, the line of Antiochus IV became extinct. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_II_Zabinas |
Damascus | In the early years of the 20th century, nationalist sentiment in Damascus, initially cultural in its interest, began to take a political coloring, largely in reaction to the turkicisation program of the Committee of Union and Progress government established in Istanbul in 1908. The hanging of a number of patriotic intellectuals by Jamal Pasha, governor of Damascus, in Beirut and Damascus in 1915 and 1916 further stoked nationalist feeling, and in 1918, as the forces of the Arab Revolt and the British Imperial forces approached, residents fired on the retreating Turkish troops.
On 1 October 1918, T.E. Lawrence entered Damascus, the third arrival of the day, the first being the Australian 3rd Light Horse Brigade, led by Major A.C.N. 'Harry' Olden. Two days later, 3 October 1918, the forces of the Arab revolt led by Prince Faisal also entered Damascus. A military government under Shukri Pasha was named and Faisal ibn Hussein was proclaimed king of Syria. Political tension arose in November 1917, when the new Bolshevik government in Russia revealed the Sykes-Picot Agreement whereby Britain and France had arranged to partition the Arab East between them. A new Franco-British proclamation on 17 November promised the "complete and definitive freeing of the peoples so long oppressed by the Turks." The Syrian National Congress in March adopted a democratic constitution. However, the Versailles Conference had granted France a mandate over Syria, and in 1920 a French army commanded by the General Mariano Goybet crossed the Anti-Lebanon Mountains, defeated a small Syrian defensive expedition at the Battle of Maysalun and entered Damascus. The French made Damascus the capital of their League of Nations Mandate for Syria.
When in 1925 the Great Syrian Revolt in the Hauran spread to Damascus, the French suppressed it with heavy weaponry, bombing and shelling the city on 9 May 1926. As a result, the area of the old city between Al-Hamidiyah Souq and Medhat Pasha Souq was burned to the ground, with many deaths, and has since then been known as al-Hariqa ("the fire"). The old city was surrounded with barbed wire to prevent rebels from infiltrating the Ghouta, and a new road was built outside the northern ramparts to facilitate the movement of armored cars.
On 21 June 1941, 3 weeks into the Allied Syria-Lebanon campaign, Damascus was captured from the Vichy French forces by a mixed British Indian and Free French force. The French agreed to withdraw in 1946, following the British intervention during the Levant Crisis, thus leading to the full independence of Syria. Damascus remained the capital.
In 1979, the Old City of Damascus, with its collection of archaeological and historical religious sites, was listed as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damascus |
Islamic modernism | The theological views of the Azharite scholar Muhammad 'Abduh (d. 1905) were greatly shaped by the 19th century Ottoman intellectual discourse. Similar to the early Ottoman modernists, Abduh tried to bridge the gap between Enlightenment ideals and traditional religious values. He believed that classical Islamic theology was intellectually vigorous and portrayed Kalam (speculative theology) as a logical methodology that demonstrated the rational spirit and vitality of Islam. Key themes of modernists would eventually be adopted by the Ottoman clerical elite who underpinned liberty as a basic Islamic principle. Portraying Islam as a religion that exemplified national development, human societal progress and evolution; Ottoman Shaykh al-Islam Musa Kazim Efendi (d. 1920) wrote in his article "Islam and Progress" published in 1904:"the religion of Islam is not an obstacle to progress. On the contrary, it is that which commands and encourages progress; it is the very reason for progress itself"
Commencing in the late nineteenth century and impacting the twentieth-century, Muhammed Abduh and his followers undertook an educational and social project to defend, modernize and revitalize Islam to match Western institutions and social processes. Its most prominent intellectual founder, Muhammad Abduh (d. 1323 AH/1905 CE), was Sheikh of Al-Azhar University for a brief period before his death. This project superimposed the world of the nineteenth century on the extensive body of Islamic knowledge that had accumulated in a different milieu.
These efforts had little impact at first. After Abduh's death, his movement was catalysed by the demise of the Ottoman Caliphate in 1924 and promotion of secular liberalism – particularly with a new breed of writers being pushed to the fore including Egyptian Ali Abd al-Raziq's publication attacking Islamic politics for the first time in Muslim history. Subsequent secular writers of this trend including Farag Foda, al-Ashmawi, Muhamed Khalafallah, Taha Husayn, Husayn Amin, et al., have argued in similar tones.
Abduh was skeptical towards many Ahadith (or "Traditions"). Particularly towards those Traditions that are reported through few chains of transmission, even if they are deemed rigorously authenticated in any of the six canonical books of Hadith (known as the Kutub al-Sittah). Furthermore, he advocated a reassessment of traditional assumptions even in Hadith studies, though he did not devise a systematic methodology before his death. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_modernism |
Ibn Butlan | In the 12th century a physician from Baghdad, ʿAli ibn Aṯradī wrote a commentary for The Physicians' Banquet. He was a member of an Eastern Christian Baghdadi family that provided three generations worth of prominent physician-philosophers. At the request of Maḥfūẓ ibn al-Masīḥī, a Christian physician from the city of an-Nīl in Iraq, he wrote and sent the work as a missive. His commentary is solely concerned with addressing the questions which are posed by the young physician but not answeed in the original work. The satirical character thereof goes unnoticed by him, as he answers questions which were posed in a humorous fashion by Ibn Buṭlān with lengthy deliberations of his own. In this treatise it becomes clear that ʿAli ibn Aṯradī unlike Ibn Buṭlān was not an empiricist this makes his explanations of his diagnostic process valuable, in addition to this feature he also incorporates of Ibn Sīna whom ʿAli ibn Aṯradī credits for the idea of such a work addressing questions by a prominent physician. This also speaks to Ibn Buṭlān's reputation during that period. Klein-Franke, Dagher, and Troupeau claim Ibn Buṭlān himself did not incorporate any thought from Ibn Sīna into his work, as he likely did not have any knowledge of him and view this commentary as the first point of contact between their respective works. Jadon however identifies the Compendium for the Monasteries and the Monks, partially at least as an abbridgment of the Qānūn by Ibn Sīna.
Ibn Buṭlān is variously known by the names Elbochasim de baldach, Elbocasim de baldach, Albulkasem de Baldac, Ububchasym de Baldach, Eluchasem Elimitar, and Albullasem de baldak in medieval Latin texts and Europe at large. Baldach being Medieval Latin for Baghdad.
There is some ambiguity in determining the birthday and date of death for Ibn Buṭlān. With regards to the birthday this is not surprising as such information was not of any social importance in the 11th century Arab world and the actual age of a person of secondary importance compared to the idealised age of 72 years in medieval Arab biographical literature. Conrad suggests that Ibn Buṭlān likely did not even himself know when he was born. With regards to his date of passing most of the confusion comes down to an error introduced by al-Qifṭī; who in his biography of Ibn Buṭlān claims he died in the year 444 AH/1052 AD. This is an impossibility given that Ibn Abī Uṣaibiʿa lists works written up to 11 years after that time and even quotes Ibn Buṭlān commenting on previously discussed astronomical events which modern science can securely say occurred after that that date. An exact date of his death comes transmitted however by al-Ḥalabī who through an acquaintance saw it noted by the descendants of Abū 'l-Ḫair al-Mubārak ibn Šarāra (Ibn Buṭlān's former adversary from Aleppo) that he died on 8 Šauwāl 458 AH/2 September 1066 AD. This date was also used by Schacht for his entry on Ibn Buṭlān in the Encyclopaedia of Islam. As well as by Klein-Franke in his biography of Ibn Buṭlān. Though other scholars like Graf (who also identifies the date of 444 AH as incorrect) state more general date ranges like "after 1067/68"; Ibn Buṭlān commonly uses Arabic: سنة الإسكندر, romanized: Year of Alexander, lit. 'Sana 'l-Iskandar', that is Anno Graecorum for dates in his texts, this often causes trouble for other authors when converting it to other systems, Ibn Abī Uṣaibiʿa converts the Year of Alexander 1365 to 450 AH, miscalculating by 4 years, while an apostille in a manuscript of the Essay on the Holy Eucharist converts Ibn Buṭlān giving the Year of Alexander 1365 to 760 Era of the Martyrs instead of 770 Era of the Martyrs.
At times a work called Arabic: عمدة الطبيب في معرفة النبات, romanized: ʿUmda 'ṭ-Ṭabīb fī maʿrifa 'n-Nabāt is falsely attributed to Ibn Buṭlān, it is however a work by an Andalusian botanist. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_Butlan |
Arab citizens of Israel | Knesset:
Arab citizens of Israel have been elected to every Knesset, and as of 2015 held 17 of its 120 seats. The first female Arab MP was Hussniya Jabara, a Muslim Arab from central Israel, who was elected in 1999.
Government: Until 2001, no Arab had been included Israel's cabinet. In 2001, this changed, when Salah Tarif, a Druze Arab citizen of Israel, was appointed a member of Ariel Sharon's cabinet without a portfolio. Tarif was later ejected after being convicted of corruption. The first non-Druze Arab minister in Israel's history was Raleb Majadele, who in 2007 was appointed a minister without portfolio, and a month later appointed minister for Science, Culture and Sport. Following this precedent, additional Muslim Arabs served as ministers or deputy ministers, including Issawi Frej, Abd el-Aziz el-Zoubi and Nawaf Massalha
The appointment of Majadele was criticized by far-right Israelis, some of whom are also within the Cabinet, but this drew condemnation across the mainstream Israeli political spectrum. Meanwhile, Arab lawmakers called the appointment an attempt to "whitewash Israel's discriminatory policies against its Arab minority".
Supreme Court:
Abdel Rahman Zuabi, a Muslim from northern Israel, was the first Arab on the Israeli Supreme Court, serving a 9-month term in 1999. In 2004, Salim Joubran, a Christian Arab from Haifa descended from Lebanese Maronites, became the first Arab to hold a permanent appointment on the Court. Joubran's expertise lies in the field of criminal law. George Karra, a Christian Arab from Jaffa has served as a Tel Aviv District Court judge since 2000. He was the presiding judge in the trial of Moshe Katsav. In 2011, he was nominated as a candidate for the Israeli Supreme Court.
Foreign Service:
Ali Yahya, an Arab Muslim, became the first Arab ambassador for Israel in 1995 when he was appointed ambassador to Finland. He served until 1999, and in 2006 was appointed ambassador to Greece. Other Arab ambassadors include Walid Mansour, a Druze, appointed ambassador to Vietnam in 1999, and Reda Mansour, also a Druze, a former ambassador to Ecuador. Mohammed Masarwa, an Arab Muslim, was Consul-General in Atlanta. In 2006, Ishmael Khaldi was appointed Israeli consul in San Francisco, becoming the first Bedouin consul of the State of Israel.
Israel Defense Forces:
Arab Generals in the IDF include Major General Hussain Fares, commander of Israel's border police, and Major General Yosef Mishlav, head of the Home Front Command and current Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories. Both are members of the Druze community. Other high-ranking officers in the IDF include Lieutenant Colonel Amos Yarkoni (born Abd el-Majid Haydar/ عبد الماجد حيدر) from the Bedouin community, a legendary officer in the Israel Defense Forces and one of six Israeli Arabs to have received the IDF's third highest decoration, the Medal of Distinguished Service.
Israeli Police:
In 2011, Jamal Hakroush became the first Muslim Arab deputy Inspector-General in the Israeli Police. He has previously served as district commander of two districts.
Jewish National Fund:
In 2007, Ra'adi Sfori became the first Arab citizen of Israel to be elected as a JNF director, over a petition against his appointment. The court upheld the JNF's appointment, explaining, "As this is one director among a large number, there is no chance he will have the opportunity to cancel the organization's goals." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_citizens_of_Israel |
Nile | The Greek historian Herodotus wrote that "Egypt was the gift of the Nile". An unending source of sustenance, it played a crucial role in the development of Egyptian civilization. Because the river overflowed its banks annually and deposited new layers of silt, the surrounding land was very fertile. The Ancient Egyptians cultivated and traded wheat, flax, papyrus and other crops around the Nile. Wheat was a crucial crop in the famine-plagued Middle East. This trading system secured Egypt's diplomatic relationships with other countries and contributed to economic stability. Far-reaching trade has been carried on along the Nile since ancient times. A tune, Hymn to the Nile, was created and sung by the ancient Egyptian peoples about the flooding of the Nile River and all of the miracles it brought to Ancient Egyptian civilization.
Water buffalo were introduced from Asia, and the Assyrians introduced camels in the 7th century BCE. These animals were raised for meat and were domesticated and used for ploughing—or in the camels' case, carriage. Water was vital to both people and livestock. The Nile was also a convenient and efficient means of transportation for people and goods.
The Nile was also an important part of ancient Egyptian spiritual life. Hapi was the god of the annual floods, and both he and the pharaoh were thought to control the flooding. The Nile was considered to be a causeway from life to death and the afterlife. The east was thought of as a place of birth and growth, and the west was considered the place of death, as the god Ra, the Sun, underwent birth, death, and resurrection each day as he crossed the sky. Thus, all tombs were west of the Nile, because the Egyptians believed that in order to enter the afterlife, they had to be buried on the side that symbolized death.
As the Nile was such an important factor in Egyptian life, the ancient calendar was even based on the three cycles of the Nile. These seasons, each consisting of four months of thirty days each, were called Akhet, Peret, and Shemu. Akhet, which means inundation, was the time of the year when the Nile flooded, leaving several layers of fertile soil behind, aiding in agricultural growth. Peret was the growing season, and Shemu, the last season, was the harvest season when there were no rains. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nile |
Himyarite Kingdom | During the Ethiopian Christian period, Christianity appears to have become the official religion. Many churches began to be built. For example, the inscription RIÉ 191, discovered in Axum, describes the construction of a church off the coast of Yemen. The Marib Dam inscription from 548 mentions a priest, a monastery, and an abbot of that monastery. As in the Himyarite period, Christian inscriptions continue to refer to the monotheistic deity using the name Rahmanan, but now these inscriptions are accompanied with crosses and references to Christ as the Messiah and the Holy Spirit. For example, one (damaged) inscription, as for example in Ist 7608 bis. Another extensive inscription, CIH 541, documents Abraha sponsoring the construction of a church at Marib, besides invoking/mentioning the Messiah, Spirit, and celebrations hosted by a priest at another church. Abraha celebrated the construction of the dam by holding mass in the city church and inviting ambassadors from Rome and Persia. Later Islamic historiography also ascribes to Abraha the construction of a church at Sanaa. Abraha's inscriptions bear a relatively low Christology, perhaps meant to assuage the Jewish population, and their formulae resemble descriptions of Jesus in the Quran. (The Jabal Dabub inscription is another South Arabian Christian graffito dating to the sixth century and containing a pre-Islamic variant of the Basmala.) Whereas Abraha's predecessor more explicitly denoted Jesus as the Son of Rahmanan and as "Victor" (corresponding to Aksumite description under Kaleb of Axum), and made use of Trinitarian formulae, Abraha began to only describe Jesus as God's "Messiah" (but not Son) and, in aligning himself more closely with Syriac Christianity, replaced Aksumite Christian with Syriac loanwords. The use of the phrase "Rahmanan and his son Christ the conqueror" in inscriptions from this time owes to the use of the Syriac loanword Masīḥ. More broadly, the separation of Abraha's Himyar from the Akumsite kingdom corresponded to its greater alignment with the Christianity espoused in Antioch and Syria. Inscriptions from this region disappear after 560. Abraha's influence would end up extending across the regions he conquered, including regions of eastern Arabia, central Arabia, Medina in the Hejaz, and an unidentified site called Gzm. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himyarite_Kingdom |
1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight | Palestinians fled the city of Haifa en masse, in one of the most notable flights of this stage. Historian Efraim Karsh writes that not only had half of the Arab community in Haifa community fled the city before the final battle was joined in late April 1948, but another 5,000–15,000 left apparently voluntarily during the fighting while the rest, some 15,000–25,000, were ordered to leave, as was initially claimed by an Israeli source, on the instructions of the Arab Higher Committee.: 195–198
Karsh concludes that there was no Jewish grand design to force this departure, and that in fact the Haifa Jewish leadership tried to convince some Arabs to stay, to no avail. Walid Khalidi disputes this account, saying that two independent studies, which analysed CIA and BBC intercepts of radio broadcasts from the region, concluded that no orders or instructions were given by the Arab Higher Committee.
According to Morris, "The Haganah mortar attacks of 21–22 April [on Haifa] were primarily designed to break Arab morale in order to bring about a swift collapse of resistance and speedy surrender. [...] But clearly the offensive, and especially the mortaring, precipitated the exodus. The three-inch mortars "opened up on the market square [where there was] a great crowd [...] a great panic took hold. The multitude burst into the port, pushed aside the policemen, charged the boats and began to flee the town", as the official Haganah history later put it".: 191, 200 According to Pappé,: 96 this mortar barrage was deliberately aimed at civilians to precipitate their flight from Haifa.
The Haganah broadcast a warning to Arabs in Haifa on 21 April: "that unless they sent away 'infiltrated dissidents' they would be advised to evacuate all women and children, because they would be strongly attacked from now on".
Commenting on the use of "psychological warfare broadcasts" and military tactics in Haifa, Benny Morris writes:
Throughout the Haganah made effective use of Arabic language broadcasts and loudspeaker vans. Haganah Radio announced that "the day of judgement had arrived" and called on inhabitants to "kick out the foreign criminals" and to "move away from every house and street, from every neighbourhood occupied by foreign criminals". The Haganah broadcasts called on the populace to "evacuate the women, the children and the old immediately, and send them to a safe haven". Jewish tactics in the battle were designed to stun and quickly overpower opposition; demoralisation was a primary aim. It was deemed just as important to the outcome as the physical destruction of the Arab units. The mortar barrages and the psychological warfare broadcasts and announcements, and the tactics employed by the infantry companies, advancing from house to house, were all geared to this goal. The orders of Carmeli's 22nd Battalion were "to kill every [adult male] Arab encountered" and to set alight with fire-bombs "all objectives that can be set alight. I am sending you posters in Arabic; disperse on route.": 191, 192
By mid-May 4,000 Arabs remained in Haifa. These were concentrated in Wadi Nisnas in accordance with Plan D whilst the systematic destruction of Arab housing in certain areas, which had been planned before the War, was implemented by Haifa's Technical and Urban Development departments in cooperation with the IDF's city commander Ya'akov Lublini.: 209–211 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_Palestinian_expulsion_and_flight |
History of navigation | In 1714 the British Commissioners for the discovery of longitude at sea came into prominence. This group, which existed until 1828, offered grants and rewards for the solution of navigational problems. Between 1737 and 1828, the commissioners disbursed some £101,000. The government of the United Kingdom also offered significant rewards for navigational accomplishments in this era, such as £20,000 for the discovery of the Northwest Passage and £5,000 for the navigator that could sail within a degree of latitude of the North Pole. A widespread manual in the 18th century was Navigatio Britannica by John Barrow, published in 1750 by March & Page and still being advertised in 1787.
Isaac Newton invented a reflecting quadrant around 1699. He wrote a detailed description of the instrument for Edmond Halley, which was published in 1742. Due to this time lapse, credit for the invention has often been given instead to John Hadley and Thomas Godfrey. The octant eventually replaced earlier cross-staffs and Davis quadrants, and had the immediate effect of making latitude calculations much more accurate.
A highly important breakthrough for the accurate determination of longitude came with the invention of the marine chronometer. The 1714 longitude prize offer for a method of determining longitude at sea, was won by John Harrison, a Yorkshire carpenter. He submitted a project in 1730, and in 1735 completed a clock based on a pair of counter-oscillating weighted beams connected by springs whose motion was not influenced by gravity or the motion of a ship. His first two sea timepieces H1 and H2 (completed in 1741) used this system, but he realised that they had a fundamental sensitivity to centrifugal force, which meant that they could never be accurate enough at sea.
Harrison solved the precision problems with his much smaller H4 chronometer design in 1761. H4 looked much like a large five-inch (12 cm) diameter pocket watch. In 1761, Harrison submitted H4 for the £20,000 longitude prize. His design used a fast-beating balance wheel controlled by a temperature-compensated spiral spring. These features remained in use until stable electronic oscillators allowed very accurate portable timepieces to be made at affordable cost. In 1767, the Board of Longitude published a description of his work in The Principles of Mr. Harrison's time-keeper.
In 1757, John Bird invented the first sextant. This replaced the Davis quadrant and the octant as the main instrument for navigation. The sextant was derived from the octant in order to provide for the lunar distance method. With the lunar distance method, mariners could determine their longitude accurately. Once chronometer production was established in the late 18th century, the use of the chronometer for accurate determination of longitude was a viable alternative. Chronometers replaced lunars in wide usage by the late 19th century.
In 1891 radios, in the form of wireless telegraphs, began to appear on ships at sea.
In 1899 the R.F. Matthews was the first ship to use wireless communication to request assistance at sea. Using radio for determining direction was investigated by "Sir Oliver Lodge, of England; Andre Blondel, of France; De Forest, Pickard; and Stone, of the United States; and Bellini and Tosi, of Italy." The Stone Radio & Telegraph Company installed an early prototype radio direction finder on the naval collier Lebanon in 1906.
By 1904 time signals were being sent to ships to allow navigators to check their chronometers. The U.S. Navy Hydrographic Office was sending navigational warnings to ships at sea by 1907.
Later developments included the placing of lighthouses and buoys close to shore to act as marine signposts identifying ambiguous features, highlighting hazards and pointing to safe channels for ships approaching some part of a coast after a long sea voyage. In 1912 Nils Gustaf Dalén was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his invention of automatic valves designed to be used in combination with gas accumulators in lighthouses.
1921 saw the installation of the first radiobeacon.
The first prototype shipborne radar system was installed on the USS Leary in April 1937.
On November 18, 1940, Mr. Alfred L. Loomis made the initial suggestion for an electronic air navigation system which was later developed into LORAN (long range navigation system) by the Radiation Laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and on November 1, 1942, the first LORAN System was placed in operation with four stations between the Chesapeake Capes and Nova Scotia.
In October 1957, the Soviet Union launched the world's first artificial satellite, Sputnik. Scientists at Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory took a series of measurements of Sputnik's doppler shift yielding the satellite's position and velocity. This team continued to monitor Sputnik and the next satellites into space, Sputnik II and Explorer I. In March 1958 the idea of working backwards, using known satellite orbits to determine an unknown position on the Earth's surface began to be explored. This led to the TRANSIT satellite navigation system. The first TRANSIT satellite was placed in polar orbit in 1960. The system, consisting of 7 satellites, was made operational in 1962. A navigator using readings from three satellites could expect accuracy of about 80 feet.
On July 14, 1974 the first prototype Navstar GPS satellite was put into orbit, but its clocks failed shortly after launch. The Navigational Technology Satellite 2, redesigned with cesium clocks, started to go into orbit on June 23, 1977. By 1985, the first 11-satellite GPS Block I constellation was in orbit.
Satellites of the similar Russian GLONASS system began to be put into orbit in 1982, and the system is expected to have a complete 24-satellite constellation in place by 2010. The European Space Agency expects to have its Galileo with 30 satellites in place by 2011–12 as well. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_navigation |
Marinid Sultanate | After the Nasrids of Granada ceded the town of Algeciras to the Marinids, Abu Yusuf went to Al-Andalus to support the ongoing struggle against the Kingdom of Castile. The Marinid dynasty then tried to extend its control to include the commercial traffic of the Strait of Gibraltar.
It was in this period that Iberian Christians were first able to take the fighting across the Strait of Gibraltar to what is today Morocco: in 1260 and 1267 they attempted an invasion, but both attempts were defeated.
After gaining a foothold in the city of Algeciras in the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula, the Marinids became active in the conflict between Muslims and Christians in Iberia. To gain absolute control of the trade in the Strait of Gibraltar from their base at Algeciras, they conquered several nearby Iberian towns: by the year 1294 they had occupied Rota, Tarifa, and Gibraltar.
In 1276, they founded the North African city of Fes Jdid, which they made their administrative and military center. While Fes had been a prosperous city throughout the Almohad period, even becoming the largest city in the world during that time, it was in the Marinid period that Fes reached its golden age, a period which marked the beginning of an official, historical narrative for the city. It is from the Marinid period that Fes' reputation as an important intellectual centre largely dates and the Marinids established the first madrasas in Morocco here during this time.
Despite internal infighting, Abu Said Uthman II (r. 1310–1331) initiated huge construction projects across the land. Several madrasas were built, the Al-Attarine Madrasa being the most famous. The building of these madrasas were necessary to create a dependent bureaucratic class, in order to undermine the marabouts and Sharifian elements.
The Marinids also strongly influenced the policy of the Emirate of Granada, from which they enlarged their army in 1275. In the 13th century, the Kingdom of Castile made several incursions into their territory. In 1260, Castilian forces raided Salé and, in 1267, initiated a full-scale invasion, but the Marinids repelled them.
At the height of their power, during the rule of Abu al-Hasan Ali (r. 1331–1348), the Marinid army was large and disciplined. It consisted of 40,000 Zenata cavalry, while Arab nomads contributed to the cavalry and Andalusians were included as archers. The personal bodyguard of the sultan consisted of 7,000 men, and included Christian, Kurdish and Black African elements. Under Abu al-Hasan another attempt was made to reunite the Maghreb. In 1337 the Abdalwadid kingdom of Tlemcen was conquered, followed in 1347 by the defeat of the Hafsid empire in Ifriqiya, which made him master of a huge territory, which spanned from southern present-day Morocco to Tripoli. However, within the next year, a revolt of Arab tribes in southern Tunisia made them lose their eastern territories. The Marinids had already suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of a Portuguese-Castilian coalition in the Battle of Río Salado in 1340, and finally had to withdraw from Andalusia, only holding on to Algeciras until 1344.
In 1348, Abu al-Hasan was deposed by his son Abu Inan Faris, who tried to reconquer Algeria and Tunisia. Despite several successes, he was strangled by his own vizir in 1358, after which the dynasty began to decline. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marinid_Sultanate |
Al-Aqsa | In 637, the Rashidun Caliphate under Umar, the father-in-law of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, besieged and captured Jerusalem from the Byzantine Empire. There are no contemporary records, but many traditions, about the origin of the main Islamic buildings on the Temple Mount. A popular account from later centuries is that Umar was led to the place reluctantly by the Christian patriarch Sophronius. He found it covered with rubbish, but the sacred Rock was found with the help of a converted Jew, Ka'b al-Ahbar. Al-Ahbar advised Umar to build a mosque to the north of the rock, so that worshippers would face both the rock and Mecca, but instead Umar chose to build it to the south of the rock. It became known as al-Aqsa Mosque. According to Muslim sources, Jews participated in the construction of the haram, laying the groundwork for both al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock mosques. The first known eyewitness testimony is that of the pilgrim Arculf who visited about 670. According to Arculf's account as recorded by Adomnán, he saw a rectangular wooden house of prayer built over some ruins, large enough to hold 3,000 people.
In 691, an octagonal Islamic building topped by a dome was built by the Caliph Abd al-Malik around the Foundation Stone, for a myriad of political, dynastic and religious reasons, built on local and Quranic traditions articulating the site's holiness, a process in which textual and architectural narratives reinforced one another. The shrine became known as the Dome of the Rock (قبة الصخرة, Qubbat as-Sakhra). (The dome itself was covered in gold in 1920.) In 715 the Umayyads, led by the Caliph al-Walid I, built al-Aqsa Mosque (المسجد الأقصى, al-Masjid al-'Aqṣā, lit. "Furthest Mosque"), corresponding to the Islamic belief of Muhammad's miraculous nocturnal journey as recounted in the Quran and hadith. The term "Noble Sanctuary" or "Haram al-Sharif", as it was called later by the Mamluks and Ottomans, refers to the whole area that surrounds that Rock.
A mostly wooden, rectangular prayer hall on the Temple Mount site with a capacity for 3,000 worshippers is attested by the Gallic monk Arculf during his pilgrimage to Jerusalem in c. 679–682. Its precise location is not known. The art historian Oleg Grabar deems it likely that it was close to the present prayer hall, while the historian Yildirim Yavuz asserts it stood at the present site of the Dome of Rock. The architectural historian K. A. C. Creswell notes that Arculf's attestation lends credibility to claims by some Islamic traditions and medieval Christian chronicles, which he otherwise deems legendary or unreliable, that the second Rashidun caliph, Umar (r. 634–644), ordered the construction of a primitive mosque on the Temple Mount. However, Arculf visited Palestine during the reign of Caliph Mu'awiya I (r. 661–680), founder of the Syria-based Umayyad Caliphate. Mu'awiya had been governor of Syria, including Palestine, for about twenty years before becoming caliph and his accession ceremony was held in Jerusalem. The 10th-century Jerusalemite scholar al-Mutahhar ibn Tahir al-Maqdisi claims Mu'awiya built a mosque on the Haram.
There is disagreement as to whether the present prayer hall was originally built by the Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik (r. 685–705) or his successor, his son al-Walid I (r. 705–715). Several architectural historians hold that Abd al-Malik commissioned the project and that al-Walid finished or expanded it. Abd al-Malik inaugurated great architectural works on the Temple Mount, including construction of the Dome of the Rock in c. 691. A common Islamic tradition holds that Abd al-Malik simultaneously commissioned the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa Mosque. As both were intentionally built on the same axis, Grabar comments that the two structures form "part of an architecturally thought-out ensemble comprising a congregational and a commemorative building", the al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, respectively. Guy le Strange claims that Abd al-Malik used materials from the destroyed Church of Our Lady to build the mosque and points to possible evidence that substructures on the southeast corners of the mosque are remains of the church.
The earliest source indicating al-Walid's work on the mosque is the Aphrodito Papryi. These contain the letters between al-Walid's governor of Egypt in December 708–June 711 and a government official in Upper Egypt which discuss the dispatch of Egyptian laborers and craftsmen to help build the al-Aqsa Mosque, referred to as the "Mosque of Jerusalem". The referenced workers spent between six months and a year on the construction. Several 10th and 13th-century historians credit al-Walid for founding the mosque, though the historian Amikam Elad doubts their reliability on the matter. In 713–714, a series of earthquakes ravaged Jerusalem, destroying the eastern section of the mosque, which was subsequently rebuilt by al-Walid's order. He had gold from the Dome of the Rock melted to use as money to finance the repairs and renovations. He is credited by the early 15th-century historian al-Qalqashandi for covering the mosque's walls with mosaics. Grabar notes that the Umayyad-era mosque was adorned with mosaics, marble, and "remarkable crafted and painted woodwork". The latter are preserved partly in the Palestine Archaeological Museum and partly in the Islamic Museum.
Estimates of the size of the Umayyad-built mosque by architectural historians range from 112 by 39 meters (367 ft × 128 ft) to 114.6 by 69.2 meters (376 ft × 227 ft). The building was rectangular. In the assessment of Grabar, the layout was a modified version of the traditional hypostyle mosque of the period. Its "unusual" characteristic was that its aisles laid perpendicular to the qibla wall. The number of aisles is not definitively known, though fifteen is cited by a number of historians. The central aisle, double the width of the others, was probably topped by a dome.
The last years of Umayyad rule were turbulent for Jerusalem. The last Umayyad caliph, Marwan II (r. 744–750), punished Jerusalem's inhabitants for supporting a rebellion against him by rival princes, and tore down the city's walls. In 746, the al-Aqsa Mosque was ruined in an earthquake. Four years later, the Umayyads were toppled and replaced by the Iraq-based Abbasid Caliphate. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Aqsa |
Islamic banking and finance | Following Islamic principles, "Islamic banks were supposed to adopt new financing policies and to explore new channels of investments" to encourage development and raise the standard of living of "small scale traders", but Taqi Usmani complains "very few Islamic banks and financial institutions have paid attention to this aspect".
Islamic scholar Mohammad Hashim Kamali, laments the focus on short-term financing by Islamic banks. This financing being "largely concerned with the financing of goods already produced, and not with the creation or increase of production capital or with facilities like factories and plants, infrastructure etc." Islamic bonds, also known as sukuk, have emerged as a new financial instrument to fund ethical transactions such as the project for the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation. To support the growth is Islamic financing, governments must establish measures to create a level playing field with regards to liquid secondary markets and equal regulation and taxes that match conventional banking.
Others
Protest the lack of "a different type of banking which was aligned to fairness, equitable income distribution, and ethical modes of investment" (Muhammad Akram Khan).
Propose emphasizing "community banking, microfinance, socially responsible investment and the like." (Mahmoud El-Gamal).
Challenge the basic premise of Islamic banking, arguing that "greed and profit" are more serious and widespread causes of exploitation than interest on loans, which may not truly constitute forbidden riba in a competitive, regulated market (Muhammad O. Farooq).The world in reality is full of exploitation: child exploitation, sexual exploitation, labor exploitation, etc. Interest is probably, if any, a small component in accounting for global exploitation. Yet, the proponents of Islamic economics and finance are fixated with interest.Farooq cites as an example the profit (not interest) motive of the East India Company that colonized and ruled India at the expense of the Muslim Mughal Empire until 1858. He notes that lack of empirical or focused studies (as opposed to polemical fulminating) in Islamic economics on the subject of exploitation or injustice.
Complain that while use of profit and loss sharing by Islamic banks is in decline, in the non-Muslim West venture capital – which operates under the same principals as darabah, (minus the prohibition on haram products) – has "financed the global high-tech industry" and could potentially "bring major benefits" to poor Muslims countries seeking economic development (Timur Kuran). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_banking_and_finance |
Maritime history of Somalia | In the early modern period, successor states of the Adal and Ajuran empires began to flourish in Somalia, continuing the tradition of seaborne trade established by previous Somali empires. The rise of the 19th century Gobroon dynasty in particular saw a rebirth in Somali maritime enterprise. During this period, the Somali agricultural output to Arabian markets was so great that the coast of Somalia came to be known as the Grain Coast of Yemen and Oman. Somali merchants also operated trade factories on the Eritrean coast.
Berbera was the most important port in the Somali Peninsula between the 18th–19th centuries. For centuries, Berbera had extensive trade relations with several historic ports in the Arabian Peninsula. Additionally, the Somali and Ethiopian interiors were very dependent on Berbera for trade, where most of the goods for export arrived from. During the 1833 trading season, the port town swelled to over 70,000 people, and upwards of 6,000 camels laden with goods arrived from the interior within a single day. Berbera was the main marketplace in the entire Somali seaboard for various goods procured from the interior, such as livestock, coffee, frankincense, myrrh, acacia gum, saffron, feathers, wax, ghee, hide (skin), gold and ivory.
According to a trade journal published in 1856, Berbera was described as “the freest port in the world, and the most important trading place on the whole Arabian Gulf (referring to the Gulf of Aden).”:
“The only seaports of importance on this coast are Feyla [Zeila] and Berbera; the former is an Arabian colony, dependent of Mocha, but Berbera is independent of any foreign power. It is, without having the name, the freest port in the world and the most important trading place on the whole Arabian Gulf. From the beginning of November to the end of April, a large fair assembles in Berbera, and caravans of 6,000 camels at a time come from the interior loaded with coffee (considered superior to Mocha in Bombay), gum, ivory, hides, skins, grain, cattle, and sour milk, the substitute of fermented drinks in these regions; also much cattle are brought there for the Aden market.”
Historically, the port of Berbera was controlled indigenously between the mercantile Reer Ahmed Nur and Reer Yunis Nuh sub-clans of the Habar Awal.
The major Isaaq sub-clans that historically operated from Berbera and other ports and harbors in their domain were known to be adept at trade and seafaring:
Some Isaaq clans are very much given to both seafaring and trade. The setting up of trading posts and the erection of any permanent dwellings used to be strongly resented by the nomads of the deep interior.
During the brief period of imperial hegemony over the Somali Peninsula, Somali sailors and traders frequently joined British and other European ships to the Far East, Europe and the Americas.
Somalia, in the pre-civil war period, possessed the largest merchant fleet in the Muslim world. It consisted of 12 oil tankers (average size 1300 tons), 15 bulk ore carriers (average size 15000 tons), and 207 other crafts with an average tonnage of 5000 to 10000. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maritime_history_of_Somalia |
Mohammed bin Salman | Mohammed has stated that "in Islamic law, the head of the Islamic establishment is wali al-amr (Arabic: وَلِيّ الأمر ), the ruler. While Saudi rulers "have historically stayed away from religion", and "outsourced" issues of theology and religious law to "the big beards", traditionally conservative and orthodox religious scholars, Mohammed has "a law degree from King Saud University" and "flaunts his knowledge and dominance over the clerics", according to Graeme Wood. He is "probably the only leader in the Arab world who knows anything about Islamic epistemology and jurisprudence", according to American historian Professor Bernard Haykel. In an interview televised in Saudi Arabia on 25 April 2021, Mohammed criticised the devotion of Saudi religious leaders to Wahhabi doctrines "in language never before used by a Saudi monarch", saying "there are no fixed schools of thought and there is no infallible person", and that fatwas "should be based on the time, place and mindset in which they are issued", rather than regarded as immutable.
In interviews with Wood, Mohammedexplained that Islamic law is based on two textual sources: the Quran and the Sunnah, or the example of the Prophet Muhammad, gathered in many tens of thousands of fragments from the Prophet's life and sayings. Certain rules—not many—come from the unambiguous legislative content of the Quran, he said, and he cannot do anything about them even if he wants to. But those sayings of the Prophet (called Hadith), he explained, do not all have equal value as sources of law, and he said he is bound by only a very small number whose reliability, 1,400 years later, is unimpeachable. Every other source of Islamic law, he said, is open to interpretation—and he is therefore entitled to interpret them as he sees fit. The effect of this maneuver is to chuck about 95 percent of Islamic law into the sandpit of Saudi history and leave MBS free to do whatever he wants. "He's short-circuiting the tradition," Haykel said. ".. That leaves him to determine what is in the interest of the Muslim community. If that means opening movie theaters, allowing tourists, or women on the beaches on the Red Sea, then so be it.”
As of early 2021, Mohammed has "ordered a codification of Saudi laws that would end the power of individual Wahhabi judges to implement" their own interpretation of Sharia. According to Wood, many conservative clerics strongly appear to have succumbed to "good old-fashioned intimidation" by the government to reverse their religious positions and supporting the government line on issues such as "the opening of cinemas and mass layoffs of Wahhabi imams". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammed_bin_Salman |
Midwife | Midwifery is a regulated profession with no connection to Nursing. Midwifery is a profession with a distinct body of knowledge and its own scope of practice, code of ethics and standards of practice. The midwifery profession has knowledge, skills and abilities to provide a primary complete maternity service to childbearing women on its own responsibility.
Education, training and regulation
The undergraduate midwifery programmes are three-year full-time (three trimesters per year) tertiary programmes leading to a bachelor's degree in midwifery (Bachelor of Midwifery or Bachelor of Health Science (Midwifery)).
These programmes are offered by Otago Polytechnic in Dunedin, Ara Institute of Canterbury (formally CPIT) in Christchurch, Waikato Institute of Technology in Hamilton and Auckland University of Technology (AUT) in Auckland. Several schools have satellite programmes such as Otago with a programme in Southland, Wanaka, Wellington, Palmerston North, Wanganui, and Wairarapa – and AUT with student cohorts in various sites in the upper North Island. The postgraduate midwifery programmes (for registered midwives) lead to postgraduate degrees or equivalent qualifications in midwifery (Postgraduate Certificate in Midwifery, Postgraduate Diploma in Midwifery, Master of Midwifery, PhD Professional Doctorate).
The Midwifery First Year of Practice Programme (MFYP) is a compulsory national programme for all New Zealand registered midwifery graduates, irrespective of work setting. The New Zealand College of Midwives (the NZCOM) is contracted by the funder, Health Workforce New Zealand (HWNZ), to provide the programme nationally in accordance with the programme specification.
Midwives in New Zealand must be registered with the Midwifery Council of New Zealand to practice midwifery, and use the title midwife.
Practice
Women may choose a midwife, a General practitioner or an Obstetrician to provide their maternity care. About 78 percent choose a midwife (8 percent GP, 8 percent Obstetrician, 6 percent unknown). Midwives provide maternity care from early pregnancy to 6 weeks postpartum. The midwifery scope of practise covers normal pregnancy and birth. The midwife either consults or transfers care where there is a departure from a normal pregnancy. Antenatal care is normally provided in clinics, and postnatal care is initially provided in the woman's home. Birth can be in the home, a primary birthing unit, or a hospital. Midwifery care is fully funded by the Government. (GP care may be fully funded. Private obstetric care incurs a fee in addition to the government funding.)
Professional associations/colleges
New Zealand College of Midwives. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midwife |
Suez Crisis | In January 1956, to end the incipient arms race in the Middle East (set off by the Soviet Union selling Egypt arms on a scale unlimited by the Tripartite Declaration and with France doing likewise with Israel), which he saw as opening the Near East to Soviet influence, Eisenhower launched a major effort to make peace between Egypt and Israel. Eisenhower sent out his close friend Robert B. Anderson to serve as a secret envoy who would permanently end the Arab–Israeli dispute. During his meetings with Nasser, Anderson offered large quantities of American aid in exchange for a peace treaty with Israel. Nasser demanded Palestinian refugees be given the opportunity to choose between repatriation or resettlement in Arab countries, wanted to annex the southern half of Israel and rejected direct talks with Israel. Given Nasser's territorial and refugee-related demands, the Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion suspected that Nasser was not interested in a settlement, insteading demanding face-to-face negotiations with Nasser, starting with lower-level negotiations, and weapons from the US. Nasser was unwilling to accept direct negotiations, citing possible assassinations such as the assassination of King Abduallah.
A second round of secret diplomacy by Anderson in February 1956 was equally unsuccessful. Nasser sometimes suggested during his talks with Anderson that he was interested in peace with Israel if only the Americans would supply him with unlimited quantities of military and economic aid. In case of Israeli acceptance to the Palestinian right of return and to Egypt annexing the southern half of Israel, Egypt would not accept a peace settlement. The United States or the United Nations would have to present the Israeli acceptance to all Arabs as a basis for peace settlements. It is not clear if Nasser was sincerely interested in peace, or just merely saying what the Americans wanted to hear in the hope of obtaining American funding for the Aswan high dam and American weapons. The truth will likely never be known as Nasser was an intensely secretive man, who managed to hide his true opinions on most issues from both contemporaries and historians. However, the British historian P. J. Vatikitos noted that Nasser's determination to promote Egypt as the world's foremost anti-Zionist state as a way of reinforcing his claim to Arab leadership meant that peace was unlikely.
Hasan Afif El-Hasan says that in 1955–1956 the Americans proposed to Nasser that he solve the Arab–Israeli conflict peacefully in exchange for American finance of the High Dam on the Nile river, but Nasser rejected the offer because it would mean siding with the West (as opposed to remaining neutral) in the Cold War. Since the alternative to a peace agreement was a war with unpredictable consequences, Nasser's refusal to accept the proposal was irrational, according to el-Hasan. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Crisis |
Esarhaddon | As a result of his tumultuous rise to the throne, Esarhaddon was distrustful of his servants, vassals and family members. He frequently sought the advice of oracles and priests on whether any of his relatives or officials wished to harm him. Although highly distrustful of his male relatives, Esarhaddon seems to not have been paranoid in regards to his female relatives. During his reign his wife Ešarra-ḫammat, his mother Naqiʾa and his daughter Šērūʾa-ēṭirat all wielded considerably more influence and political power than women during earlier parts of Assyrian history.
Esarhaddon's paranoia was also reflected by where he chose to live. One of his main residences was a palace in the city of Nimrud originally constructed as an armory by his predecessor Shalmaneser III (r. 859–824 BC) almost two hundred years earlier. Rather than occupying a central and visible spot within the cultic and administrative center of the city, this palace was located in its outskirts on a separate mound which made it well-protected. Between 676 and 672, the palace was strengthened with its gateways being modified into impregnable fortifications which could seal the entire building off completely from the city. If these entrances were sealed, the only way into the palace would be through a steep and narrow path protected by several strong doors. A similar palace, also located on a separate mound far from the city center, was built at Nineveh.
All Assyrian kings are known to have sought the guidance of the sun-god Shamash (which was obtained through interpreting what was perceived as signs from the gods) for advice in political and military matters, such as whom to appoint to a certain position or if a planned military campaign would be successful. Queries concerning the possibility of betrayal are known only from Esarhaddon's reign.
Most scholars have classified Esarhaddon as paranoid, some going as far as suggesting that he developed paranoid personality disorder after the murder of his father. Other scholars have refrained from using this label, instead simply characterizing him as "mistrustful" and noting that paranoia is "by definition delusional and irrational" while Esarhaddon is likely to have had many real opponents and enemies. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esarhaddon |
Al-Tabari | Al-Tabari wrote history, theology and Qur'anic commentary. His principal and most influential works were:
Tafsir al-Tabari ('Commentary of al-Tabari'); Qur'anic commentary (tafsir).
Tarikh al-Rusul wa al-Muluk (History of the Prophets and Kings), historical chronicle, often referred to as Tarikh al-Tabari.
His legal texts, commentaries and Qur'anic exegesis, and history, produced respectively, were published throughout his lifetime. Biographers stress his reverence for scholarship, objectivity, and independent judgement (ijtihad). He rates the credibility of his sources from a theological rather than an historical standpoint, yet he opposed religious innovation. In one anecdote, Abu Kamil suggested him when he was near death, to forgive his enemies, which he agreed to, apart from one who called him an innovator. Tabari was generally conciliatory, moderate, and affable.
Initially, Tabari belonged to the Shafi'ite madhhab (school) of fiqh (Islamic law), and was welcomed by them. He established his own madhhab, usually designated the Jariri madhhab after his patronymic. His school failed to endure in the competitive atmosphere of the times. As a youth in Baghdad, he had applied to the Hanbalite's but received a hostile rejection.
Al-Tabari's jurisprudence belongs to a type which Christopher Melchert has called "Rationalism", largely associated with the Shafi'i madhhab. It was characterized by strong scripturalist tendencies. He appears, like Dawud al-Zahiri, to restrict consensus historically, defining it as the transmission by many authorities of reports on which the Sahaba agreed unanimously. Like Dawud al-Zahiri, he also held that consensus must be tied to a text and cannot be based on legal analogy.
While we still lack a satisfactory scholarly biography of this remarkable scholar, interested readers now have access to a meticulous and well-annotated translation of the sections from al-Tabari's chronicle, which constitute the most important primary source for the
history of his reign. Anyone familiar with al-Tabari's chronicle knows what a formidable challenge it poses for a translator, especially for one attempting to make it accessible to an audience that includes non-specialists. There is first of all the obstacle of al-Tabari's Arabic prose, which varies greatly in style and complexity, according to the source he is using (and apparently quoting verbatim). The sections in the McAuliffe translation, drawn mostly from al-Mada'ini and 'Umar ibn Shabba, do not represent the most obscure passages to be found in al-Tabari, but they are nonetheless full of linguistic ambiguities and difficulties for the translator.
He wrote extensively; his voluminous corpus containing three main titles:
History of the Prophets and Kings – (Tarikh al-Rusul wa al-Muluk, commonly called Tarikh al-Tabari)
The first of the two large works, generally known as the Annals (Arabic Tarikh al-Tabari). This is a universal history from the time of Qur'anic Creation to 915, and is renowned for its detail and accuracy concerning Muslim and Middle Eastern history. Tabari's work is one of the major primary sources for historians. The History commenced with the Creation, followed by accounts regarding the patriarchs, prophets, and rulers of antiquity. The history of the Sasanian Empire came next. For the period of Muhammad's life, al-Ṭabarī drew upon the extensive researches of 8th-century Medinan scholars. Although pre-Islamic influences are evident in their works, the Medinan perspective of Muslim history evolved as a theocentric (god-centred) universal history of prophecy, culminating in the career of Muhammad and not as a continuum of tribal wars and values. The sources for al-Ṭabarī's History covering the years from the Prophet’s death to the fall of the Umayyad dynasty (661–750 CE) were short monographs, each treating a major event or the circumstances attending the death of an important person. Al-Ṭabarī supplemented this material with historical reports embodied in works on genealogy, poetry, and tribal affairs. Further, details of the early ʿAbbāsid period were available to him in a few histories of the caliphs that unfortunately have come down only in the fragments preserved by al-Ṭabarī. Almost all of these accounts reflected an Iraqi perspective of the community; coupled with this is al-Ṭabarī’s scant attention to affairs in Egypt, North Africa, and Muslim Spain, so that his History does not have the secular “universal” outlook sometimes attributed to it. From the beginning of the Muslim era (dated from 622, the date of the hijrah—the Prophet Muhammad’s migration from Mecca to Medina), the History is arranged as a set of annals according to the years after the hijrah. It terminates in the year 915.
The Commentary on the Qur'an – (Commentary al-Tabari)
His second great work was the commentary on the Qur'an, (Arabic Tafsir al-Tabari), which was marked by the same fullness of detail as the Annals. Abul-Qaasim Ibn 'Aqil Al-Warraq says: " Imām Ibn Jarir once said to his students: “Are you all ready to write down my lesson on the commentary of the entire Holy Quran?" They enquired as to how lengthy it would be. "30 000 pages"! he replied. They said: "This would take a long time and cannot be completed in one lifetime. He therefore made it concise and kept it to 3000 pages (note, this was in reference to the old days when they used ink and hard-paper which was a bit long format today). It took him seven years to finish it from the year 283 until 290.
Tahdhīb al-Athār was begun by Tabari. This was on the traditions transmitted from the Companions of Muhammad. It was not, however, completed.
A perusal of Tabari shows that he in fact relied on a variety of historians and other authors, such as Abu Mihnaf, Sayf b. 'Umar, Ibn al-Kalbi, 'Awana ibn al-Hakam, Nasr b. Muzahim, al-Mada'ini, 'Urwa b. al-Zubayr, al-Zuhri, Ibn Ishaq, Waqidi, Wahb b. Munabbih, Ka'b al-Ahbar, Ibn al-Matni, al Haggag b. al-Minhal, Hisham b. 'Urwa, al-Zubayr b. Bakkar and so forth, in addition to oral accounts that were circulating at the time. In recounting his history, Tabari used numerous channels to give accounts. These are both channels that are given by the same author in a work, such as for example three different accounts that start with the isnad al-Harita.
Although no subject in history, recitation of the Quran and its interpretation, poetry, grammar and vocabulary, ethics, mathematics, and theology remained untouched by Tabari, he is primarily known as the author and author of history. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Tabari |
East African campaign (World War II) | During 16 June 1940, Galileo Galilei sank the Norwegian tanker James Stove (8,215 gross register tons [GRT]), sailing independently about 12 nmi (22 km; 14 mi) south of Aden. On 2 July the first of the BN convoys (Bombay Northward; Bombay to Suez, then Aden to Suez 1940–1941), comprising six tankers and three freighters, assembled in the Gulf of Aden. Italian sorties against the BN–BS convoys (Bombay Southward; Suez to Aden, late 1940 to early 1941) were dispiriting failures; from 26 to 31 July, Guglielmotti failed to find two Greek merchantmen and a sortie by the torpedo boats Cesare Battisti and Francesco Nullo was also abortive. Guglielmotti from 21 to 25 August, Galileo Ferraris (25–31 August), Francesco Nullo and Nazario Sauro from 24 to 25 August and the destroyers Pantera and Tigre (28–29 August) failed to find Greek ships in the Red Sea, despite agent reports and sightings by air reconnaissance. Italian aircraft and submarines had little more success.
On the night of 5/6 September, Cesare Battisti, Daniele Manin and Nazario Sauro sailed, followed on 6/7 September by the destroyers Leone and Tigre to attack a northbound convoy (BN 4) found by air reconnaissance but found nothing. Further to the north, Galileo Ferraris and Guglielmotti also failed to find BN 4 but Guglielmotti torpedoed the Greek tanker Atlas (4,008 GRT) south of the Farasan Islands straggling behind the convoy. Leone, Pantera, Cesare Battisti and Daniele Manin with the submarines Archimede and Gugliemotti failed to find a convoy of 23 ships spotted by air reconnaissance. Bhima (5,280 GRT) in convoy BN 5 was damaged by bombs and one man killed; the ship was towed to Aden and beached. In August the British ran four convoys in each direction, five in September and seven in October, 86 ships in BN convoys and 72 in BS (southbound) convoys; the Regia Aeronautica managed only six air attacks in October and none after 4 November.
The Attack on Convoy BN 7, took place from 20 to 21 October and was the only destroyer attack on a convoy, despite gaining precise information on BN convoys as they passed French Somaliland. The 31 ships of BN 7 were escorted by the cruiser Leander, the destroyer HMS Kimberley, the sloops Auckland, HMAS Yarra and HMIS Indus with the minesweepers Derby and Huntley, with air cover from Aden. Guglielmo Marconi and Galileo Ferraris, stationed to the north, failed to intercept the convoy but on 21 October the destroyers Nazario Sauro and Francesco Nullo with the destroyers Pantera, Leone attacked the convoy 150 nmi (280 km; 170 mi) east of Massawa; the attackers caused only superficial damage to one ship.
Kimberley forced Francesco Nullo aground on an island near Massawa, at the Action off Harmil Island on the morning of 21 October. Kimberley was hit in the engine room by a shore battery and had to be towed to Port Sudan by Leander. The wreck of Francesco Nullo was bombed on 21 October by three Blenheims of 45 Squadron. From 22 to 28 November, Archimede and Galileo Ferraris sailed to investigate reports of a convoy but found nothing, as did Tigre, Leone, Daniele Manin, Nazario Sauro and Galileo Ferraris from 3 to 5 December. From 12 to 22 December Archimede sailed twice after ship sightings but both sorties came to nothing; Galileo Ferraris sortied off Port Sudan. from June to December the RAF had escorted 54 BN and BS convoys from which one ship was sunk and one damaged by Italian aircraft. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_African_campaign_(World_War_II) |
Cavalry | Cavalry found a new role in colonial campaigns (irregular warfare), where modern weapons were lacking and the slow moving infantry-artillery train or fixed fortifications were often ineffective against indigenous insurgents (unless the latter offered a fight on an equal footing, as at Tel-el-Kebir, Omdurman, etc.). Cavalry "flying columns" proved effective, or at least cost-effective, in many campaigns—although an astute native commander (like Samori in western Africa, Shamil in the Caucasus, or any of the better Boer commanders) could turn the tables and use the greater mobility of their cavalry to offset their relative lack of firepower compared with European forces.
In 1903 the British Indian Army maintained forty regiments of cavalry, numbering about 25,000 Indian sowars (cavalrymen), with British and Indian officers.
Among the more famous regiments in the lineages of the modern Indian and Pakistani armies are:
Governor General's Bodyguard (now President's Bodyguard)
Skinner's Horse (now India's 1st Horse (Skinner's Horse))
Gardner's Lancers (now India's 2nd Lancers (Gardner's Horse))
Hodson's Horse (now India's 3rd Horse (Hodson's)) of the Bengal Lancers fame
6th Bengal Cavalry (later amalgamated with 7th Hariana Lancers to form 18th King Edward's Own Cavalry) now 18th Cavalry of the Indian Army
Probyn's Horse (now 5th Horse, Pakistan)
Royal Deccan Horse (now India's The Deccan Horse)
Poona Horse (now India's The Poona Horse)
Scinde Horse (now India's The Scinde Horse)
Queen's Own Guides Cavalry (now Pakistan).
11th Prince Albert Victor's Own Cavalry (Frontier Force) (now 11th Cavalry (Frontier Force), Pakistan)
Several of these formations are still active, though they now are armoured formations, for example the Guides Cavalry of Pakistan.
The French Army maintained substantial cavalry forces in Algeria and Morocco from 1830 until the end of the Second World War. Much of the Mediterranean coastal terrain was suitable for mounted action and there was a long established culture of horsemanship amongst the Arab and Berber inhabitants. The French forces included Spahis, Chasseurs d' Afrique, Foreign Legion cavalry and mounted Goumiers. Both Spain and Italy raised cavalry regiments from amongst the indigenous horsemen of their North African territories (see regulares, Italian Spahis and savari respectively).
Imperial Germany employed mounted formations in South West Africa as part of the Schutztruppen (colonial army) garrisoning the territory. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavalry |
Antioch | The original city of Seleucus was laid out in imitation of the grid plan of Alexandria by the architect Xenarius. Libanius describes the first building and arrangement of this city (i. p. 300. 17).
The citadel was on Mount Silpius and the city lay mainly on the low ground to the north, fringing the river. Two great colonnaded streets intersected in the centre. Shortly afterwards a second quarter was laid out, probably on the east and by Antiochus I Soter, which, from an expression of Strabo, appears to have been the native, as contrasted with the Greek, town. It was enclosed by a wall of its own.
In the Orontes, north of the city, lay a large island, and on this Seleucus II Callinicus began a third walled "city", which was finished by Antiochus III the Great. A fourth and last quarter was added by Antiochus IV Epiphanes (175–164 BC); thenceforth Antioch was known as Tetrapolis. From west to east the whole was about 6 kilometres (4 miles) in diameter and a little less from north to south. This area included many large gardens.
The new city was populated by a mix of local settlers that Athenians brought from the nearby city of Antigonia, Macedonians, and Jews (who were given full status from the beginning). According to ancient tradition, Antioch was settled by 5,500 Athenians and Macedonians, together with an unknown number of native Syrians. This number probably refers to free adult citizens, so that the total number of free Greek settlers including women and children was probably between 17,000 and 25,000.
About 6 kilometres (4 miles) west and beyond the suburb Heraclea lay the paradise of Daphne, a park of woods and waters, in the midst of which rose a great temple to the Pythian Apollo, also founded by Seleucus I and enriched with a cult-statue of the god, as Musagetes, by Bryaxis. A companion sanctuary of Hecate was constructed underground by Diocletian. The beauty and the lax morals of Daphne were celebrated all over the ancient world; and indeed Antioch as a whole shared in both these titles to fame.
Antioch became the capital and court-city of the western Seleucid Empire under Antiochus I, its counterpart in the east being Seleucia; but its paramount importance dates from the battle of Ancyra (240 BC), which shifted the Seleucid centre of gravity from Anatolia, and led indirectly to the rise of Pergamon.
The Seleucids reigned from Antioch. We know little of it in the Hellenistic period, apart from Syria, all our information coming from authors of the late Roman time. Among its great Greek buildings we hear only of the theatre, of which substructures still remain on the flank of Silpius, and of the royal palace, probably situated on the island. It enjoyed a reputation for being "a populous city, full of most erudite men and rich in the most liberal studies", but the only names of distinction in these pursuits during the Seleucid period that have come down to us are Apollophanes, the Stoic, and one Phoebus, a writer on dreams. The nicknames which they gave to their later kings were Aramaic; and, except Apollo and Daphne, the great divinities of north Syria seem to have remained essentially native, such as the "Persian Artemis" of Meroe and Atargatis of Hierapolis Bambyce.
The epithet "Golden" suggests that the external appearance of Antioch was impressive, but the city needed constant restoration owing to the seismic disturbances to which the district has always been subjected. The first great earthquake in recorded history was related by the native chronicler John Malalas. It occurred in 148 BC and did immense damage.
Local politics were turbulent. In the many dissensions of the Seleucid house the population took sides, and frequently rose in rebellion, for example against Alexander Balas in 147 BC, and Demetrius II Nicator in 129 BC. The latter, enlisting a body of Jews, punished his capital with fire and sword. In the last struggles of the Seleucid house, Antioch turned against its feeble rulers, invited Tigranes the Great to occupy the city in 83 BC, tried to unseat Antiochus XIII Asiaticus in 65 BC, and petitioned Rome against his restoration in the following year. Antioch's wish prevailed, and it passed with Syria to the Roman Republic in 64 BC, but remained a civitas libera. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antioch |
State Sponsors of Terrorism (U.S. list) | The sanctions which the US imposes on countries on the list are:
A ban on arms-related exports and sales.
Controls over exports of dual-use items, requiring 30-day Congressional notification for goods or services that could significantly enhance the terrorist-list country's military capability or ability to support terrorism.
Prohibitions on economic assistance.
Imposition of miscellaneous financial and other restrictions, including:
Requiring the United States to oppose loans by the World Bank and other international financial institutions;
Lifting diplomatic immunity to allow families of terrorist victims to file civil lawsuits in U.S. courts;
Denying companies and individuals credits for income taxes paid to terrorist-listed countries;
Denial of duty-free treatment of goods exported to the United States;
Authority to prohibit any U.S. citizen from engaging in a financial transaction with a terrorist-list government without a Treasury Department license; and
Prohibition of Defense Department contracts above $100,000 with companies controlled by terrorist-list states.
From January 2016, some of the countries listed were included in a separate exclusion the Visa Waiver Program. The (VWP) does not apply where a person has previously traveled to these countries on or after 1 March 2011 or for those who remain nationals of those countries in addition to the nationality that would otherwise entitle them to a visa waiver. Instead, they are now required to go through the process to obtain a visa. Certain categories such as diplomats, military, journalists, humanitarian workers or legitimate businessmen may have their visa requirement waived by the Secretary of Homeland Security.
Under the Trump administration, citizens of these countries faced partial entry restrictions to the United States under Presidential Proclamation 9645 of the Executive Order 13780. The order was in force from 2017 until its revocation in 2021.
Entry of all North Korean and Syrian nationals into the United States as immigrant and non-immigrant are currently suspended.
Entry of all Iranian nationals into the United States as immigrant and non-immigrant are currently suspended unless they have valid student visas (F, M-1, and M-2 visas) or exchange visitor visas (J-1 and J-2 visas), but may be subject to enhanced screening.
Travel restrictions imposed by the United States on citizens of Sudan were removed under Presidential Proclamation 9645.
Unlike the previous executive order, these restrictions are conditional and can be lifted if those countries meet the required security standards set up by the United States. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Sponsors_of_Terrorism_(U.S._list) |
Medieval art | Insular art refers to the distinct style found in Ireland and Britain from about the 7th century, to about the 10th century, lasting later in Ireland, and parts of Scotland. The style saw a fusion between the traditions of Celtic art, the Germanic Migration period art of the Anglo-Saxons and the Christian forms of the book, high crosses and liturgical metalwork.
Extremely detailed geometric, interlace, and stylised animal decoration, with forms derived from secular metalwork like brooches, spread boldly across manuscripts, usually gospel books like the Book of Kells, with whole carpet pages devoted to such designs, and the development of the large decorated and historiated initial. There were very few human figures—most often these were Evangelist portraits—and these were crude, even when closely following Late Antique models.
The insular manuscript style was transmitted to the continent by the Hiberno-Scottish mission, and its anti-classical energy was extremely important in the formation of later medieval styles. In most Late Antique manuscripts text and decoration were kept clearly apart, though some initials began to be enlarged and elaborated, but major insular manuscripts sometimes take a whole page for a single initial or the first few words (see illustration) at beginnings of gospels or other sections in a book. Allowing decoration a "right to roam" was to be very influential on Romanesque and Gothic art in all media.
The buildings of the monasteries for which the insular gospel books were made were then small and could fairly be called primitive, especially in Ireland. There increasingly were other decorations to churches, where possible in precious metals, and a handful of these survive, like the Ardagh Chalice, together with a larger number of extremely ornate and finely made pieces of secular high-status jewellery, the Celtic brooches probably worn mainly by men, of which the Tara Brooch is the most spectacular.
"Franco-Saxon" is a term for a school of late Carolingian illumination in north-eastern France that used insular-style decoration, including super-large initials, sometimes in combination with figurative images typical of contemporary French styles. The "most tenacious of all the Carolingian styles", it continued until as late as the 11th century.
Giant initials | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_art |
History of Islam | Early Islam arose within the historical, social, political, economic, and religious context of Late Antiquity in the Middle East. The second half of the 6th century CE saw political disorder in the pre-Islamic Arabian peninsula, and communication routes were no longer secure. Religious divisions played an important role in the crisis. Judaism became the dominant religion of the Himyarite Kingdom in Yemen after about 380 CE, while Christianity took root in the Persian Gulf. There was also a yearning for a more "spiritual form of religion", and "the choice of religion increasingly became an individual rather than a collective issue." While some Arabs were reluctant to convert to a foreign faith, those Abrahamic religions provided "the principal intellectual and spiritual reference points", and Jewish and Christian loanwords from Aramaic began to replace the old pagan vocabulary of Arabic throughout the peninsula. The Ḥanīf ("renunciates"), a group of monotheists that sought to separate themselves both from the foreign Abrahamic religions and the traditional Arab polytheism, were looking for a new religious worldview to replace the pre-Islamic Arabian religions, focusing on "the all-encompassing father god Allah whom they freely equated with the Jewish Yahweh and the Christian Jehovah." In their view, Mecca was originally dedicated to this monotheistic faith that they considered to be the one true religion, established by the patriarch Abraham.
According to the traditional account, the Islamic prophet Muhammad was born in Mecca, an important caravan trading center, around the year 570 CE. His family belonged to the Arab clan of Quraysh, which was the chief tribe of Mecca and a dominant force in western Arabia. To counter the effects of anarchy (particularly raiding for booty between tribes), they upheld the institution of "sacred months" when all violence was forbidden and travel was safe. The polytheistic Kaaba shrine in Mecca and the surrounding area was a popular pilgrimage destination for surrounding Arabs, which was a significant source of revenue for the city.
Most likely Muhammad was "intimately aware of Jewish belief and practices," and acquainted with the Ḥanīf. Like the Ḥanīf, Muhammad practiced Taḥannuth, spending time in seclusion at mount Hira and "turning away from paganism." When he was about 40 years old, he began receiving at mount Hira' what Muslims regard as divine revelations delivered through the angel Gabriel, which would later form the Quran. These inspirations urged him to proclaim a strict monotheistic faith, as the final expression of Biblical prophetism earlier codified in the sacred texts of Judaism and Christianity; to warn his compatriots of the impending Judgement Day; and to castigate social injustices of his city. Muhammad's message won over a handful of followers (the ṣaḥāba) and was met with increasing persecution from Meccan notables. In 622 CE, a few years after losing protection with the death of his influential uncle ʾAbū Ṭālib ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib, Muhammad migrated to the city of Yathrib (subsequently called Medina) where he was joined by his followers. Later generations would count this event, known as the hijra, as the start of the Islamic era.
In Yathrib, where he was accepted as an arbitrator among the different communities of the city under the terms of the Constitution of Medina, Muhammad began to lay the foundations of the new Islamic society, with the help of new Quranic verses which provided guidance on matters of law and religious observance. The surahs of this period emphasized his place among the long line of Biblical prophets, but also differentiated the message of the Quran from the sacred texts of Christianity and Judaism. Armed conflict with the Arab Meccans and Jewish tribes of the Yathrib area soon broke out. After a series of military confrontations and political manoeuvres, Muhammad was able to secure control of Mecca and allegiance of the Quraysh in 629 CE. In the time remaining until his death in 632 CE, tribal chiefs across the Arabian peninsula entered into various agreements with him, some under terms of alliance, others acknowledging his claims of prophethood and agreeing to follow Islamic practices, including paying the alms levy to his government, which consisted of a number of deputies, an army of believers, and a public treasury.
The real intentions of Muhammad regarding the spread of Islam, its political undertone, and his missionary activity (da'wah) during his lifetime are a contentious matter of debate, which has been extensively discussed both among Muslim scholars and Non-Muslim scholars within the academic field of Islamic studies. Various authors, Islamic activists, and historians of Islam have proposed several understandings of Muhammad's intent and ambitions regarding his religio-political mission in the context of the pre-Islamic Arabian society and the founding of his own religion:
Was it in Muhammad's mind to produce a world religion or did his interests lie mainly within the confines of his homeland? Was he solely an Arab nationalist—a political genius intent upon uniting the proliferation of tribal clans under the banner of a new religion—or was his vision a truly international one, encompassing a desire to produce a reformed humanity in the midst of a new world order? These questions are not without significance, for a number of the proponents of contemporary da'wah activity in the West trace their inspiration to the prophet himself, claiming that he initiated a worldwide missionary program in which they are the most recent participants. [...] Despite the claims of these and other writers, it is difficult to prove that Muhammad intended to found a world-encompassing faith superseding the religions of Christianity and Judaism. His original aim appears to have been the establishment of a succinctly Arab brand of monotheism, as indicated by his many references to the Qurʾān as an Arab book and by his accommodations to other monotheistic traditions. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Islam |
French Algeria | The French faced other opposition as well in the area. The superior of a religious brotherhood, Muhyi ad Din, who had spent time in Ottoman jails for opposing the bey's rule, launched attacks against the French and their makhzen allies at Oran in 1832. In the same year, jihad was declared and to lead it tribal elders chose Muhyi ad Din's son, twenty-five-year-old Abd al Qadir. Abd al Qadir, who was recognized as Amir al-Muminin (commander of the faithful), quickly gained the support of tribes throughout Algeria. A devout and austere marabout, he was also a cunning political leader and a resourceful warrior. From his capital in Tlemcen, Abd al Qadir set about building a territorial Muslim state based on the communities of the interior but drawing its strength from the tribes and religious brotherhoods. By 1839, he controlled more than two-thirds of Algeria. His government maintained an army and a bureaucracy, collected taxes, supported education, undertook public works, and established agricultural and manufacturing cooperatives to stimulate economic activity.
The French in Algiers viewed with concern the success of a Muslim government and the rapid growth of a viable territorial state that barred the extension of European settlement. Abd al Qadir fought running battles across Algeria with French forces, which included units of the Foreign Legion, organized in 1831 for Algerian service. Although his forces were defeated by the French under General Thomas Bugeaud in 1836, Abd al Qadir negotiated a favorable peace treaty the next year. The treaty of Tafna gained conditional recognition for Abd al Qadir's regime by defining the territory under its control and salvaged his prestige among the tribes just as the shaykhs were about to desert him. To provoke new hostilities, the French deliberately broke the treaty in 1839 by occupying Constantine. Abd al Qadir took up the holy war again, destroyed the French settlements on the Mitidja Plain, and at one point advanced to the outskirts of Algiers itself. He struck where the French were weakest and retreated when they advanced against him in greater strength. The government moved from camp to camp with the amir and his army. Gradually, however, superior French resources and manpower and the defection of tribal chieftains took their toll. Reinforcements poured into Algeria after 1840 until Bugeaud had at his disposal 108,000 men, one-third of the French army.
One by one, the amir's strongholds fell to the French, and many of his ablest commanders were killed or captured so that by 1843 the Muslim state had collapsed.
Abd al Qadir took refuge in 1841 with his ally, the sultan of Morocco, Abd ar Rahman II, and launched raids into Algeria. This alliance led the French Navy to bombard and briefly occupy Essaouira (Mogador) under the Prince de Joinville on August 16, 1844. A French force was destroyed at the Battle of Sidi-Brahim in 1845. However, Abd al Qadir was obliged to surrender to the commander of Oran Province, General Louis de Lamoricière, at the end of 1847.
Abd al Qadir was promised safe conduct to Egypt or Palestine if his followers laid down their arms and kept the peace. He accepted these conditions, but the minister of war — who years earlier as general in Algeria had been badly defeated by Abd al Qadir — had him consigned in France in the Château d'Amboise. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Algeria |
Farewell Pilgrimage | Spending the night at Dhi Tuwa outside Mecca, Muhammad and his companions arrived at the Masjid al-Haram the next day. They entered from what is the Al Salam Gate today and approached the Kaaba. Muhammad then proceeded to the circumambulate the Kaaba (tawaf), after which he once again touched and kissed the Black Stone. After his prayers, Muhammad drank from the Zamzam well, prayed, and then continued to the hills of As Safa and Al Marwah, where he performed the ritual walking between the two mountains (sa'ee). Muhammad then moved to Al Hujūn; he had not removed his ihram after the Sa'ee as he had intended to perform Hajj Qirān, which involves performing Umrah and Hajj together. Muhammad then ordered those who had arrived without sacrificial animals to observe ihram for Umrah and to perform Tawaf and Sa'ee, following which they relieved themselves of ihram.
On the sunset of the 8th of Dhu al-Hijjah, Muhammad left for Mina and performed all prayers from Zuhr to Fajr, before leaving for Mount Arafat the next morning, walking alongside his camel. As he ascended the mountain, he was surrounded by thousands of pilgrims chanting Talbiyah and Takbir. Muhammad ordered a tent be erected for him on the east side of Mount Arafat at a spot called Namirah. He rested in the tent until the sun passed the zenith, then he rode his camel until he reached the valley of Uranah. Muhammad delivered his final Friday sermon (khutbah), known as the Farewell Sermon, to more than 100,000 Sahaba, before leading the Zuhr and Asr prayers in conjunction. Then he moved to plain of Arafat and spent the afternoon in supplication. According to Al Mubarakpuri, verse 3 of Surah 5, Al Ma'idah, was revealed to Muhammad after having delivered this sermon:
This day I have perfected your religion for you, completed My Favour upon
you, and have chosen for you Islam as your religion.
Upon sunset of the 9th of Dhu al-Hijjah, Muhammad arrived at Muzdalifah and performed his Maghrib and Isha prayer before taking rest. At the break of dawn, he prayed and supplicated before returning to Mina in the morning and carrying out the ritual of the Stoning of the Devil, reciting the takbir every time he threw a stone at the Jamrah. Muhammad then ordered the sacrifice of the sacrificial animals that he had brought with him. Muhammad and his companions ate little of what they had sacrificed and gave the rest to charity. Muhammad then returned to Mecca, performed another Tawaf and prayed Zuhr at the Masjid al-Haram. He then drank from the Zamzam well before returning to Mina on the same day and continuing the Stoning of the Devil. Muhammad then spent the next three days, the 11th, 12th, and 13th of Dhu al-Hijjah, known as the Days of Tashrīq, in Mina performing the Stoning of the Devil. Al Mubarakpuri says that Muhammad delivered another speech on the 12th, following the revelation of Surah 110, An Nasr. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farewell_Pilgrimage |
Robert Fisk | Fisk was known for his criticism of the foreign policy of the United States, particularly the country's involvement in the wars in Afghanistan and the Middle East. He was consistently critical of Israel, labelling some of the country's actions against Palestinians as "war crimes". One of his beliefs was that he should report events from the point of view of the victim rather than those in authority. The Times newspaper, in its November 2020 obituary of Fisk, said that he had developed a "visceral dislike of the Israeli government and its allies" following his coverage of the Sabra and Shatila massacre, arguing that this had made Fisk biased and "unable to provide a dispassionate account of events and their context". David Pryce-Jones, writing in The Spectator in 2003, said that Fisk was guilty of "hysteria and distortion" in his coverage of Middle Eastern topics. In contrast, The Independent, for whom he wrote from 1989, praised him as being "renowned for his courage in questioning official narratives from governments".
The BBC's Jeremy Bowen also praised him following his death, and noted the controversy Fisk drew for his "sharp criticism of the US and Israel, and of Western foreign policy". Bowen described himself as an admirer who would miss Fisk's "guts and his appetite for the fight". Fisk dismissed the controversy related to his reporting in Syria, saying that he was "writing only what he saw and heard". His ex-wife, Lara Marlowe, took exception to the use of the adjective "controversial" in his obituaries, saying "he was a prolific non-conformist in the world of journalism, whose judgments avoided jumping on the bandwagon" and, in her experience, had been "intuitive, rapid [...] and invariably right".
Similarly, the foreign correspondent for The Independent Patrick Cockburn, responding to criticisms raised in obituaries, said "Derring-do in times of war usually gets good notices from the press and from public opinion, but moral endurance is a much rarer commodity, when the plaudits are replaced by abuse, often from people who see a world divided between devils and angels and denounce anybody reporting less than angelic behaviour on the part of the latter for being secret sympathisers with the devil." Cockburn wrote that Fisk was better than anyone at "find[ing] out significant news as fast as possible, disregard[ing] all efforts by governments, armies and media to suppress it, and pass[ing] that information on to the public so they can better judge what is happening in the world around them". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Fisk |
Mumbai | After India's independence in 1947, the territory of the Bombay Presidency retained by India was restructured into Bombay State. The area of Bombay State increased, after several erstwhile princely states that joined the Indian union were integrated into the state. Subsequently, the city became the capital of Bombay State. In April 1950, Municipal limits of Mumbai were expanded by merging the Mumbai Suburban District and Mumbai City to form the Greater Mumbai Municipal Corporation.
The Samyukta Maharashtra movement to create a separate Maharashtra state including Mumbai was at its height in the 1950s. In the Lok Sabha discussions in 1955, the Congress party demanded that the city be constituted as an autonomous city-state. The States Reorganisation Committee recommended a bilingual state for Maharashtra–Gujarat with Mumbai as its capital in its 1955 report. Bombay Citizens' Committee, an advocacy group of leading Gujarati industrialists lobbied for Mumbai's independent status.
Following protests during the movement in which 105 people died in clashes with the police, Bombay State was reorganised on linguistic lines on 1 May 1960. Gujarati-speaking areas of Bombay State were partitioned into the state of Gujarat. Maharashtra State with Mumbai as its capital was formed with the merger of Marathi-speaking areas of Bombay State, eight districts from Central Provinces and Berar, five districts from Hyderabad State, and numerous princely states enclosed between them. As a memorial to the martyrs of the Samyukta Maharashtra movement, Flora Fountain was renamed as Hutatma Chowk (Martyr's Square) and a memorial was erected.
The following decades saw massive expansion of the city and its suburbs. In the late 1960s, Nariman Point and Cuffe Parade were reclaimed and developed. The Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (BMRDA) was established on 26 January 1975 by the Government of Maharashtra as an apex body for planning and co-ordination of development activities in the Mumbai metropolitan region. In August 1979, a sister township of New Mumbai was founded by the City and Industrial Development Corporation (CIDCO) across the Thane and Raigad districts to help the dispersal and control of Mumbai's population. The textile industry in Mumbai largely disappeared after the widespread 1982 Great Bombay Textile Strike, in which nearly 250,000 workers in more than 50 textile mills went on strike. Mumbai's defunct cotton mills have since become the focus of intense redevelopment. Industrial development began in Mumbai when its economy started focusing on the petrochemical, electronic, and automotive sectors. In 1954 Hindustan Petroleum comissoned Mumbai Refinery at Trombay and BPCL Refinery.
The Jawaharlal Nehru Port, which handles 55–60% of India's containerised cargo, was commissioned on 26 May 1989 across the creek at Nhava Sheva with a view to de-congest Mumbai Harbour and to serve as a hub port for the city. The geographical limits of Greater Mumbai were coextensive with municipal limits of Greater Mumbai. On 1 October 1990, the Greater Mumbai district was bifurcated to form two revenue districts namely, Mumbai City and Mumbai Suburban, though they continued to be administered by same Municipal Administration.
The years from 1990 to 2010 saw an increase in violence and terrorism activities. Following the demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, the city was rocked by the Hindu-Muslim riots of 1992–93 in which more than 1,000 people were killed. In March 1993, a series of 13 coordinated bombings at several city landmarks by Islamic extremists and the Mumbai underworld resulted in 257 deaths and over 700 injuries. In 2006, 209 people were killed and over 700 injured when seven bombs exploded on the city's commuter trains. In 2008, a series of ten coordinated attacks by armed terrorists for three days resulted in 173 deaths, 308 injuries, and severe damage to several heritage landmarks and prestigious hotels. The three coordinated bomb explosions in July 2011 that occurred at the Opera house, Zaveri Bazaar and Dadar were the latest in the series of terrorist attacks in Mumbai which resulted in 26 deaths and 130 injuries.
Mumbai is the commercial capital of India and has evolved into a global financial hub. For several decades it has been the home of India's main financial services companies, and a focus for both infrastructure development and private investment. From being an ancient fishing community and a colonial centre of trade, Mumbai has become South Asia's largest city and home of the world's most prolific film industry. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mumbai |
Heresy | In other contexts the term does not necessarily have pejorative overtones and may even be complimentary when used, in areas where innovation is welcome, of ideas that are in fundamental disagreement with the status quo in any practice and branch of knowledge.
Scientist/author Isaac Asimov considered heresy as an abstraction, mentioning religious, political, socioeconomic and scientific heresies. He divided scientific heretics into: endoheretics, those from within the scientific community; and exoheretics, those from without. Characteristics were ascribed to both and examples of both kinds were offered. Asimov concluded that science orthodoxy defends itself well against endoheretics (by control of science education, grants and publication as examples), but is nearly powerless against exoheretics. He acknowledged by examples that heresy has repeatedly become orthodoxy.
Publishing his findings as The Dinosaur Heresies, revisionist paleontologist Robert T. Bakker, himself a scientific endoheretic, treated the mainstream view of dinosaurs as dogma:
I have enormous respect for dinosaur paleontologists past and present. But on average, for the last fifty years, the field hasn't tested dinosaur orthodoxy severely enough.: 27
He adds that, "Most taxonomists, however, have viewed such new terminology as dangerously destabilizing to the traditional and well-known scheme.": 462 The illustrations by the author show dinosaurs in very active poses, in contrast to the traditional perception of lethargy.
Immanuel Velikovsky is an example of a recent scientific exoheretic; he did not have appropriate scientific credentials and did not publish in scientific journals. While the details of his work are in scientific disrepute, the concept of catastrophic change (extinction event and punctuated equilibrium) has gained acceptance in recent decades.
The term heresy is used not only with regard to religion but also in the context of political theory. The term heresy is also used as an ideological pigeonhole for contemporary writers because, by definition, heresy depends on contrasts with an established orthodoxy. For example, the tongue-in-cheek contemporary usage of heresy, such as to categorize a "Wall Street heresy" a "Democratic heresy" or a "Republican heresy", are metaphors that invariably retain a subtext that links orthodoxies in geology or biology or any other field to religion. These expanded metaphoric senses allude to both the difference between the person's views and the mainstream and the boldness of such a person in propounding these views. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heresy |
Hanbali school | Like all other schools of Sunni Islam, the Hanbali school holds that the two primary sources of Islamic law are the Qur'an and the Sunnah found in Hadiths (compilation of sayings, actions and customs of Muhammad). Where these texts did not provide guidance, Imam Hanbal recommended guidance from established consensus of Muhammad's companions (Sahabah), then individual opinion of Muhammad's companions, followed in order of preference by weaker hadiths, and in rare cases qiyas (analogy). The Hanbali school, unlike Hanafi and Maliki schools, rejected that a source of Islamic law can be a jurist's personal discretionary opinion or consensus of later generation Muslims on matters that serve the interest of Islam and community. Hanbalis hold that this is impossible and leads to abuse. The Hanbali school also rejects taqlid (blind adherence to scholarly opinions) and encourages the practice of Ijtihad (independent reasoning) through the study of Quran and Hadith.
Ibn Hanbal rejected the possibility of religiously binding consensus (Ijma), as it was impossible to verify once later generations of Muslims spread throughout the world, going as far as declaring anyone who claimed as such to be a liar. Ibn Hanbal did, however, accept the possibility and validity of the consensus of the Sahaba the first generation of Muslims. Later followers of the school, however, expanded on the types of consensus accepted as valid, and the prominent Hanbalite Ibn Taymiyyah expanded legal consensus to later generations while at the same time restricting it only to the religiously learned. Analogical reasoning (Qiyas), was likewise rejected as a valid source of law by Ibn Hanbal himself, with a near-unanimous majority of later Hanbalite jurists not only accepting analogical reasoning as valid but also borrowing from the works of Shafi'ite jurists on the subject.
Ibn Hanbal's strict standards of acceptance regarding the sources of Islamic law were probably due to his suspicion regarding the field of Usul al-Fiqh, which he equated with speculative theology (kalam). While demanding strict application of Qur'an and Hadith, Hanbali Fiqh is nonetheless flexible in areas not covered by Scriptures. In issues where the Qur'an and the Hadiths were ambiguous or vague; the Hanbali Fuqaha (jurists) engaged in Ijtihad to derive rulings. Additionally, the Hanbali madh'hab accepted the Islamic principle of Maslaha ('public interest') in solving the novel issues. In the modern era, Hanbalites have branched out and even delved into matters regarding the upholding (Istislah) of public interest (Maslaha) and even juristic preference (Istihsan), anathema to the earlier Hanbalites as valid methods of determining religious law. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanbali_school |
Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate | The First World War created a new political situation in Mount Lebanon fraught with danger to its security, stability and internal independence. The international guarantee that was available to it under the Protocol of 1861 lost its practical value with the division of the signatory states into two warring divisions: the Allied Powers, which included the signatory states of Britain, France and Russia, and the side of the Central Powers countries, which included the signatory state of Austria, and the Ottoman Empire. There was nothing left after the outbreak of the war to deter the newly established federal government in Constantinople from violating the Basic Law of Mount Lebanon, or to prevent it from interfering in its internal affairs. In addition, the entry of the Ottoman Empire into the war on the side of the central axis countries, made all the lands belonging to the state in a state of war with the Allies, and since Mount Lebanon was part of this state, it became subject to the conditions of the war and exposed to its woes and disasters.
Due to the big number of French, British and Russian orientalists who were residing in the Levant, including Mount Lebanon, and due to the presence of a significant number of missionaries and dispatches affiliated with the Allied Powers, the Ottomans decided to invoke military necessities to enter Mount Lebanon, due to the fear of what these foreigners could do to incite the public against the Ottomans. The Federal Government sent the Minister of the Ottoman Navy, Ahmed Jamal Pasha (one of the "Three Pashas" of the World War I-era Ottoman leadership, he is also known as "As-Saffāḥ"; lit. 'the Blood-Shedder'), to the Levant at the head of the Fourth Army, to attack the British, drive them out of Egypt, and seize the Suez Canal, through which most of the war supplies to the allies from Australia, Asia, and eastern and southern Africa passed. In the Wilayah of Beirut, compulsory conscription was imposed on young people, while in the Mutasarrifate, Jamal Pasha carried out several actions that violated the Mutasarrifate system, Jamal Pasha considered all the Lebanese to be enemies of the Sultanate, and he persecuted the intellectuals. He closed newspapers, dissolved associations, put everyone under the watch of spies, imposed forced labor and disrupted transportation., he also feared that the British and French would invade Mount Lebanon from the sea to strike the rear of the Ottoman army and cut off its communications, so he decided to occupy Lebanese lands, effectively turning the Mutasarrifate into a Vilayet (Wilayah). On 22 November, the first Ottoman regiment arrived from Damascus to Zahlé, and from there it set off westward, climbing the mountain to Dhour al-Shwer, the regiment reached it in the midst of a severe snow storm. It did not take long after that, until the whole of Mount Lebanon came under the control of the Ottoman army and martial law. On 28 November, Jamal Pasha broadcast from his command center in Damascus a statement addressed to the people of Mount Lebanon telling them to implement martial law on their mountain and recommending that they be loyal to their state, remain calm, and go about their business.
Jamal Pasha assumed power, and the mutasarrif Ohannes Pasha and all the employees of the Government of Mount Lebanon became subject to his orders, acting on his instructions. Jamal Pasha established the "customary court" in Aley, which is a supreme military court, to try those accused of being disloyal to the Ottoman Empire, and confiscate the property of foreign nationals of hostile countries after the federal government had announced the abolition of foreign privileges, and transformed some Lebanese facilities into military barracks and government departments. Jamal Pasha interfered in the internal affairs of the religious sects, he led an abolition of the privileges of the Maronite clergy, during which he forced the patriarch of the Maronite community and its metropolitans, to request a firman for the appointment of the Patriarch from the Ottoman Sultan, the Pasha also practiced several pressures on the Maronite clergy. Bishop Boutros Shebli was exiled to Adana, where he died, and the seventy-two years old Patriarch Elias Howayek was forced to visit him in Sofar in which he was threatened with exile. Thus, Jamal Pasha has eliminated the old privilege granted by Sultan Selim I to the Maronite community during his conquest of the Levant in 1516. The Unionists went even further in undermining the autonomy of Mount Lebanon when they disrupted the work of the Basic System and made it practically nullified, although Ohannes Pasha tried to preserve the privileges of Mount Lebanon and resisted the interference of the military authority in its affairs as much as possible, but he did not succeed, and he had lost the confidence of the federal government due to his Armenian origin, so the rulers and soldiers harassed him until he submitted his resignation in the month of June 1915. After the departure of Ohannes Pasha, Three Turkish Muslim administrators were appointed to succeed him: Ali Munif Bey, Ismail Haqqi Bey, and Mumtaz Bey. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Lebanon_Mutasarrifate |
Algerian War | The FLN uprising presented nationalist groups with the question of whether to adopt armed revolt as the main course of action. During the first year of the war, Ferhat Abbas's Democratic Union of the Algerian Manifesto (UDMA), the ulema, and the Algerian Communist Party (PCA) maintained a friendly neutrality toward the FLN. The communists, who had made no move to cooperate in the uprising at the start, later tried to infiltrate the FLN, but FLN leaders publicly repudiated the support of the party. In April 1956, Abbas flew to Cairo, where he formally joined the FLN. This action brought in many évolués who had supported the UDMA in the past. The AUMA also threw the full weight of its prestige behind the FLN. Bendjelloul and the pro-integrationist moderates had already abandoned their efforts to mediate between the French and the rebels.
After the collapse of the MTLD, the veteran nationalist Messali Hadj formed the leftist Mouvement National Algérien (MNA), which advocated a policy of violent revolution and total independence similar to that of the FLN, but aimed to compete with that organisation. The Armée de Libération Nationale (ALN), the military wing of the FLN, subsequently wiped out the MNA guerrilla operation in Algeria, and Messali Hadj's movement lost what little influence it had had there. However, the MNA retained the support of many Algerian workers in France through the Union Syndicale des Travailleurs Algériens (the Union of Algerian Workers). The FLN also established a strong organization in France to oppose the MNA. The "Café wars", resulting in nearly 5,000 deaths, were waged in France between the two rebel groups throughout the years of the War of Independence.
On the political front, the FLN worked to persuade—and to coerce—the Algerian masses to support the aims of the independence movement through contributions. FLN-influenced labor unions, professional associations, and students' and women's organizations were created to lead opinion in diverse segments of the population, but here too, violent coercion was widely used. Frantz Fanon, a psychiatrist from Martinique who became the FLN's leading political theorist, provided a sophisticated intellectual justification for the use of violence in achieving national liberation. From Cairo, Ahmed Ben Bella ordered the liquidation of potential interlocuteurs valables, those independent representatives of the Muslim community acceptable to the French through whom a compromise or reforms within the system might be achieved.
As the FLN campaign of influence spread through the countryside, many European farmers in the interior (called Pieds-Noirs), many of whom lived on lands taken from Muslim communities during the nineteenth century, sold their holdings and sought refuge in Algiers and other Algerian cities. After a series of bloody, random massacres and bombings by Muslim Algerians in several towns and cities, the French Pieds-Noirs and urban French population began to demand that the French government engage in sterner countermeasures, including the proclamation of a state of emergency, capital punishment for political crimes, denunciation of all separatists, and most ominously, a call for 'tit-for-tat' reprisal operations by police, military, and para-military forces. Colon vigilante units, whose unauthorized activities were conducted with the passive cooperation of police authorities, carried out ratonnades (literally, rat-hunts, raton being a racist term for denigrating Muslim Algerians) against suspected FLN members of the Muslim community.
By 1955, effective political action groups within the Algerian colonial community succeeded in convincing many of the Governors General sent by Paris that the military was not the way to resolve the conflict. A major success was the conversion of Jacques Soustelle, who went to Algeria as governor general in January 1955 determined to restore peace. Soustelle, a one-time leftist and by 1955 an ardent Gaullist, began an ambitious reform program (the Soustelle Plan) aimed at improving economic conditions among the Muslim population. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algerian_War |
Girls of Riyadh | Originally released in Lebanon in Arabic in 2005, Girls of Riyadh was not officially banned in Saudi Arabia but its publishing was met with resistance due to perceived controversial and non-conservative content by a female author. Rajaa Alsanea faced criticism and speculation on whether she had the help and influence of a man in the novels writing, given its success. Alsanea carried out many interviews in Lebanon proving her authorship in response. Some critics accused the novel of pandering to western ideals while others applauded Girls of Riyadh for its refreshing stance on the Middle East that pushes back against inaccurate stereotypes while also condemning the existence of others in Saudi culture e.g. forced marriages. Alsanea faced legal action over the novel's publication which was later dismissed in court. She commented in 2007 that people would buy all the copies of the book from bookshops in order to stop its circulation. This happened at Riyadh Book Fair, which is Saudi Arabia's largest book fair.
Girls of Riyadh's popularity grew with the help of the Internet and the novel was praised by Saudi media. Black-market copies of the novel circulated and Girls of Riyadh has been a bestseller across much of the Middle East. The book was viewed by many as a 'taboo-breaking', giving insight into the inner lives and concerns of Saudi women. She successfully applied for permission to sell the novel in Saudi from Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Information. The book has attracted high-profile endorsement such as celebrated Saudi author and former ambassador to the UK Ghazi Al-Quasaibi, who wrote the prologue and praised it as 'worth reading'.
As of January 2008, English copies of Girls of Riyadh are openly available at major bookstores in Saudi Arabia. The book, published by Penguin Books, is available in the English translation, but has some changes due to difficulties of re-creating the effect of using different dialects of Arabic.
The book is widely distributed, being sold in stores from U.S. to Europe. In the reader's guider to novel, Alsanea notes that she wants to enable her Western readers to connect with Saudi culture, seeing that the girls in the novel had the 'same dreams, emotions, and goals' as them.
The English translator, Marilyn Booth, expressed dissatisfaction with the result of the translation project. According to Booth, the publishing house and author interfered with her initial translation to the detriment of the final text. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girls_of_Riyadh |
Ahmadiyya | The principal headquarters of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community is the city, town or place where the caliph resides. As such, since the forced exile of the fourth caliph from Pakistan in 1984, the de facto headquarters of the Community had been based at the Fazl Mosque in London, England. In 2019, the fifth caliph moved the headquarters to Islamabad, Tilford, England on land bought by the Community in 1985. Although the Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina are acknowledged to be more sacred, Qadian is considered to be the spiritual headquarters of the Community. It is believed, and prophesied, that in the future, the Ahmadiyya Caliphate will once again return to Qadian, the birthplace of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. However, the Ahmadiyya city of Rabwah in Pakistan, since its founding on 20 September 1948 by the second caliph, after the Indian partition, coordinates majority of the organization's activity around the world. In particular, the city is responsible for, but not exclusively, the two central bodies of the Community; Central Ahmadiyya Council and the Council for 'The New Scheme'. Another, but much smaller body, the Council for 'New Dedication' , is also active. All central bodies work under the directive of the caliph.
Sadr Anjuman Ahmadiyya or the Central Ahmadiyya Council, first set up by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad in 1906, is today responsible for organizing the Community activities in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh; whereas the Anjuman Tehrik-i-Jadid or the Council for 'The New Scheme', first set up by the second caliph, is responsible for missions outside the Indian subcontinent. Each council is further divided into directorates, such as the Department of Financial Affairs, the Department of Publications, the Department of Education, the Department of External Affairs, and the Department of Foreign Missions, among others. Under the latter council, the Community has built over 15,000 mosques, over 500 schools, over 30 hospitals and translated the Quran into over 70 languages. The Anjuman Waqf-i-Jadid or the Council for 'The New Dedication', also initiated by the second caliph, is responsible for training and coordinating religious teachers in rural communities around the world. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmadiyya |
Old Assyrian period | The Assyrians worshipped the same pantheon of gods as the Babylonians in southern Mesopotamia. As known Old Assyrian texts are concerned mainly with trade, knowledge of Assyrian religion in the Old Assyrian period is not as detailed as in later periods. The chief deity in Assur in the Old Assyrian period, and in later times as well, was the Assyrian national deity Ashur. Though the deity and the city are commonly distinguished by modern historians through calling the god Ashur and the city Assur, both were inscribed in the exact same way in ancient times (Aššur). Because Old Assyrian documents sometimes appear to not differentiate between the city and the god, it is believed that Ashur is a deified personification of the city itself. Perhaps the site of the city, originating as a holy site prior to the city's construction and settled due to its strategic location came to gradually be regarded as divine in its own right at some point in the preceding Early Assyrian period. Ashur's role as a deity was flexible and changed with the changing culture and politics of the Assyrians themselves. Though he would in later centuries be regarded as a god of war, guiding the Assyrian kings on their campaigns, he was in Old Assyrian times seen as a god of death and revival, related to agriculture.
One of Ashur's main functions was also justice: it was believed that anyone who gave false testimony or unjust judgement in court would be struck down by "Ashur's dagger" (Patrum ša Aššur), a weapon Assyrians had to take oaths on. Women also took oaths on the "tambourine (huppum) of Ishtar". Both of these objects were likely physical divine emblems in Assur. The temples dedicated to Ashur in both Assur and the Assyrian trading colonies evidently included statues of the god and representations of his divine objects since one of the preserved texts describe thieves breaking into the Ashur temple in Kültepe and stealing Assur's dagger and a sun-disc that was placed on his chest.
Ashur is frequently alluded to in surviving Old Assyrian texts and inscriptions. Assyrian texts from Kültepe show that Assyrians swore their oaths by "the City and the prince" or "the City and the lord", "prince" and "lord" probably meaning Ashur. In several texts, family members at home in Assur wrote to the traders in Kültepe that they ought to return to Assur and "come and see the eye of Ashur" or "seize Ashur's foot", suggesting that the god disapproved of his subjects leaving his city for too long periods of time only for the sake of monetary gain, even though there were sanctuaries dedicated to Ashur in all of the trading colonies as well. Women were evidently greatly concerned with religion, recorded as making offerings, paying tribute to the gods and reminding their husbands of their duties to the gods. In one text, two women wrote the following message to the prominent trader Imdu-ilum:
Ashur warned you over and over again. You love money, (but) neglect your soul; can you not do Ashur's will in the City! Urgent! When you hear this message come and see Ashur's eye and save your soul!
In addition to Ashur, other prominent gods worshipped by the Assyrians of the Old period included the Sumerian weather-god Enlil, possibly because the weather-god had held a prominent role in the Hurrian pantheon. More prominent than Enlil was the Semitic weather-god Adad, whose name was also incorporated into about one tenth of the names of known individuals of the period. Equally prominent as Adad was the moon-god Sîn, whose name was also incorporated into about a tenth of all known Old Assyrian individuals, and who in later times became one of the major patron deities of the Assyrian royal family. Though names with Sîn are common, the presence of the name "Laban" in some Old Assyrian names indicates that Sîn was also sometimes worshipped under that name, otherwise used for him in the region corresponding to modern Lebanon. Another prominent deity was the goddess Ishtar, who had been worshipped at Assur since early in the preceding Early Assyrian period and was probably the original primary deity of the settlement.
Few texts of purely religious nature (i.e. not just allusions in other texts) are known from the Old Assyrian period. Known Assyrian religious texts from this time include a poem describing an evil demon, the daughter of the sky-god Anu who was cast down to Earth by her father due to her evil schemes. This demon worked in mankind's favor, attacking those who behaved against the will of the gods and weakening dangerous animals, such as lions. Another text, specifically related to merchant activities, discusses a demon in the shape of a black dog who lies in wait for merchant caravans. This demon was possibly related in some form to the water-god Enki and might have embodied thirst. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Assyrian_period |
Iraq Levies | At the 1921 Cairo Conference the mission of the Levies was defined "...to relieve the British and Indian Troops in Iraq, take over outposts in Mosul Vilayat (province) and in Kurdistan, previously held by the Imperial Garrison, and generally to fill the gap until such time as the Iraq National Army is trained to undertake these duties."
Up to 1921 the Levies had consisted primarily of Arabs, Kurds, Turkmens and Shabaks, while the Assyrians had fought independently alongside the Armenians and Allied Forces in an Assyrian war of independence during World War I. Now that an Iraqi Army was to be formed, the Arabs and other Muslim peoples were required to join it rather than to go to the Levies. It was decided to enlist ethnic Assyrians in the Levies.
The Assyrians were prized for their discipline, loyalty, bravery and fighting skills by the British, and were Eastern Aramaic speaking Assyrian Church of the East, Syriac Orthodox or Chaldean Catholic Christians, a Semitic ethnic and religious minority in a generally Arab/Kurdish Muslim population. In July 1922 Orders were issued in which no more Arabs were to be enlisted as they were required to join the new Iraqi Army, and those serving could not re-engage. A 1922 treaty between Great Britain and Iraq allowed for the continued existence of the Levies as "local forces of the Imperial garrison" and specified that its members were "members of the British Forces who are inhabitants of Iraq".
By 1923 the ethnic composition of the Iraq Levies was 50% Assyrian, with a large minority of Kurds, plus an attached battalion of Marsh Arabs and a few Armenians, Mandeans and Turcomans.
In July 1928 the Levies were transferred from the Colonial Office to the Air Ministry and its headquarters was transferred to Hinaidi.
By 1928 the Levies had become entirely Assyrian. The Marsh Arab battalion became the 7th Battalion of the Iraqi Army. The force then expanded rapidly and became known as "Shabanas", a Turkish word meaning a semi-military gendarmerie. Its primary duty was now to protect Royal Air Force bases in Iraq.
As the Assyrian force became more disciplined they rendered excellent service; during the Arab rebellion of the 1920s they displayed, under conditions of the greatest trial, steadfast loyalty to their British officers.
In 1920 the Assyrians had given proof of their discipline and fighting qualities when the Assyrian camps at Mindan and Baquba were attacked by Arab forces, the Assyrians defeating and driving off the Arabs. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Levies |
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