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Child marriage | Although the general marriageable age is 18 in the majority of countries, most jurisdictions allow for exceptions for underage youth with parental and/or judicial consent. Such laws are neither limited to developing countries, nor a state's religion. In some countries, a religious marriage by itself has legal validity, while in others it does not, as civil marriage is obligatory. For Catholics incorporated into the Latin Church, the 1983 Code of Canon Law sets the minimum age for a valid marriage at 16 for males and 14 for females.: c. 1083 §1 In 2015, Spain raised its minimum marriageable age to 18 (16 with court consent) from the previous 14. In Mexico, marriage under 18 is allowed with parental consent, from age 14 for girls and age 16 for boys. In Ukraine, in 2012, the Family Code was amended to equalize the marriageable age for girls and boys to 18, with courts being allowed to grant permission to marry from 16 years of age if it is established that the marriage is in the best interest of the youth.
Many states in the US permit child marriages with the court's permission. Since 2015, the minimum marriageable age throughout Canada is 16. In Canada, the age of majority is set by province/territory at 18 or 19, so minors under this age have additional restrictions (i.e. parental and court consent). Under the Criminal Code, Art. 293.2 Marriage under the age of 16 years reads: "Everyone who celebrates, aids or participates in a marriage rite or ceremony knowing that one of the persons being married is under the age of 16 years is guilty of an indictable offense and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years." The Civil Marriage Act also states: "2.2 No person who is under the age of 16 years may contract marriage." In the UK, marriage is allowed for 16–17 years old with parental consent in England and Wales as well as in Northern Ireland, and even without parental consent in Scotland. However, a marriage of a person under 16 is void under the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973. The United Nations Population Fund stated the following:
In 2010, 158 countries reported that 18 years was the minimum legal age for marriage for women without parental consent or approval by a pertinent authority. However, in 146 countries, state or customary law allows girls younger than 18 to marry with the consent of parents or other authorities; in 52 countries, girls under age 15 can marry with parental consent. In contrast, 18 is the legal age for marriage without consent among males in 180 countries. Additionally, in 105 countries, boys can marry with the consent of a parent or a pertinent authority, and in 23 countries, boys under age 15 can marry with parental consent.
A lower legally allowed marriage age does not necessarily cause high rates of child marriages. However, there is a correlation between restrictions placed by laws and the average age of first marriage. In the United States, per 1960 Census data, 3.5% of girls married before the age of 16, while an additional 11.9% married between 16 and 18. States with lower marriage age limits saw higher percentages of child marriages. This correlation between the higher age of marriage in civil law and the observed frequency of child marriages breaks down in countries with Islam as the state religion. In Islamic nations, many countries do not allow child marriage of girls under their civil code of laws, but the state-recognized Sharia religious laws and courts in all these nations have the power to override the civil code, and often do. UNICEF reports that the top eight nations in the world with the highest observed child marriage rates are Niger (75%), Chad (72%), Mali (71%), Bangladesh (64%), Guinea (63%), Central African Republic (61%), Mozambique (56%), and Nepal (51%). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_marriage |
1969 Somali coup d'état | On 15 October 1969, President Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke, only Somalia's second president of the postcolonial era, was shot dead by his bodyguard using an automatic rifle as he stepped out of a car in the northern city of Las Anod. He was succeeded by interim President Sheikh Mukhtar Mohamed Hussein. The coup was set in motion the day after Sharmarke's funeral.
The coup d'état took place during the early morning hours of 21 October 1969. Troops of the Somali National Armed Forces supported by tanks and commanded by various members of the Supreme Revolutionary Council sealed off several strategic sites in Mogadishu, including the parliament building, information ministry, Radio Mogadishu, police headquarters, and the mansion of Prime Minister Egal. Major government officials were abducted and imprisoned. Several former senior Somali politicians were rounded up during the coup as well, among them former President Aden Adde and former Prime Minister Abdirizak Haji Hussein. Both were placed in detention and were not released until 1973. Prime Minister Egal too was imprisoned, but in solitary confinement. Despite the seizure of police buildings in the coup, the police did not resist the military and even cooperated with them. Jama Ali Korshel, the head of the Somali Police Force was appointed vice chairman of the Supreme Revolutionary Council.
After military forces seized Radio Mogadishu, the station began broadcasting martial music as a way of conveying the motives of the coup leaders, including the song "Either doomsday death or victory of life," which invoked images of several wild animals such as lions and horses. In his first speech on the radio during the coup, Barre condemned the "corruption" of the old regime and disparaged the oppression of the educated. He also explained that although the government he had overthrown was inept and corrupt not all of its members were criminals, perhaps acknowledging that he had been a part of the very system he had just overthrown. Barre's Supreme Revolutionary Council dissolved the parliament and the Supreme Court, and suspended the constitution.
In 1970, one year after the coup, Siad Barre declared Somalia to be a socialist state and set upon the 'Somalization' of the country, essentially a grand scheme to diminish clan loyalties and create a 'dutiful Somali' country. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1969_Somali_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat |
Arabic grammar | Classical Arabic tends to prefer the word order VSO (verb before subject before object), but uses the particle ʼinna and SVO (subject before verb) to emphasize the subject. Verb-initial word orders like in Classical Arabic are relatively rare across the world's languages, occurring only in a few language families including Celtic, Austronesian, and Mayan. The different Arabic word orders have an agreement asymmetry: the verb shows person, number, and gender agreement with the subject in SVO constructions but only gender (and possibly person) agreement in VSO, to the exclusion of number.
Modern Standard Arabic tends to use SVO without ʼinna.
Despite the fact that the subject in the latter two above examples is plural, the verb lacks plural marking and instead surfaces as if it were in the singular form.
Though early accounts of Arabic word order variation argued for a flat, non-configurational grammatical structure, more recent work has shown that there is evidence for a VP constituent in Arabic, that is, a closer relationship between verb and object than verb and subject. This suggests a hierarchical grammatical structure, not a flat one. An analysis such as this one can also explain the agreement asymmetries between subjects and verbs in SVO versus VSO sentences, and can provide insight into the syntactic position of pre- and post-verbal subjects, as well as the surface syntactic position of the verb.
In the present tense, there is no overt copula in Arabic. In such clauses, the subject tends to precede the predicate, unless there is a clear demarcating pause between the two, suggesting a marked information structure. It is a matter of debate in Arabic literature whether there is a null present tense copula which syntactically precedes the subject in verbless sentences, or whether there is simply no verb, only a subject and predicate.
Subject pronouns are normally omitted except for emphasis or when using a participle as a verb (participles are not marked for person). Because the verb agrees with the subject in person, number, and gender, no information is lost when pronouns are omitted. Auxiliary verbs precede main verbs, prepositions precede their objects, and nouns precede their relative clauses.
Adjectives follow the noun they are modifying, and agree with the noun in case, gender, number, and state: For example, فَتَاةٌ جَمِيلَةٌ fatātun jamīlatun 'a beautiful girl' but الفَتاةُ ٱلْجَمِيلةُ al-fatātu al-jamīlatu 'the beautiful girl'. (Compare الفَتاةُ جَمِيلةٌ al-fatātu jamīlatun 'the girl is beautiful'.) Elative adjectives, however, usually do not agree with the noun they modify, and sometimes even precede their noun while requiring it to be in the genitive case. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_grammar |
European Neighbourhood Policy | The European Union's European Neighbourhood Policy aims at bringing Europe and its neighbours closer. It was conceived after the 2004 enlargement of the European Union with 10 new member countries, in order to avoid creating new borders in Europe. It is also designed to prevent the emergence of new dividing lines between the enlarged EU and its neighbours. The vision is that of a ring of countries, drawn into further integration, but without necessarily becoming full members of the European Union. The policy was first outlined by the European Commission in March 2003.
The countries covered include Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, State of Palestine, Syria, Tunisia in the South and Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine in the East. Russia has a special status with the EU–Russia Common Spaces instead of ENP participation.
On 25 May 2011, the European Commission launched what it described as a new and ambitious European Neighbourhood Policy, backed by more than €1.2 billion in new funding, bringing the total to almost €7 billion. The main priorities and directions of a revitalised ENP strategy are set out in the Joint Communication by the European Commission and the High Representative for Foreign Affairs, titled "A new response to a changing Neighbourhood". It seeks to strengthen individual and regional relationships between the EU and countries in its neighbourhood through a "more funds for more reform" approach – making more additional funds available, but with more mutual accountability.
In the South, the first comprehensive policy for the region was the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (or Barcelona Process) a wide framework of political, economic and social relations between member states of the EU and countries of the Southern Mediterranean. It was initiated on 27–28 November 1995 through a conference of Ministers of Foreign Affairs, held in Barcelona. Besides the 27 member states of the European Union, the remaining "Mediterranean Partners" are all other Mediterranean countries including Libya (which had 'observer status' from 1999 to 2012).
In the East, the Eastern Partnership (EaP) is a policy initiative launched at the Prague Summit in May 2009 that aims to bring the six Eastern European neighbours (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine) closer to the EU. It represents the Eastern dimension of the ENP and strengthens bilateral relations between the EU and its partners. These states, with the exception of Belarus, also participate in the Euronest Parliamentary Assembly.
In March 2015, the European Commission launched a review of the principles on which the policy is based as well as its scope and how its instruments should be used. The consultation follows four priorities: differentiation; focus; flexibility; ownership and visibility. A Communication setting out proposals for the future direction of the ENP will follow in autumn. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Neighbourhood_Policy |
Qatari folklore | There are many popular villain archetypes found within Qatari folklore. Common ones include:
The tyrant: The depiction of an evil authoritarian man in Qatari folklore often signifies a character with immense power over others. These tales encompass various narratives featuring a despot, a monarch, or their descendants inclined towards oppression and unjust behavior. Such tales exhibit male dominance and a villain who embodies characteristics such as narcissism and selfishness. An example is provided in the tale of The Uncle and the Sister's Sons, where Uncle Bazid sacrifices his sister's four children in pursuit of his mistress. Bazid coldly tells his sister, searching for her children, "Your four children are dead, and you shouldn't grieve, for this is the way of the world". The tyrant can also be used as a vessel for critical social commentary. In the story The Seven Sons of the King, a king discriminates against his son born to a servant in favor of his other sons, despite the former's superior qualities and suitability for leadership. This illustrates the prevalence of racial injustice within these narratives.
The treacherous man: The treacherous archetype in Qatari folktales embodies a man marked by betrayal and untrustworthiness. Such a character often lacks loyalty and fails to acknowledge previous favors. An illustrative story, The Husband’s Treachery, revolves around a longstanding blood feud between two tribes. The husband, plotting to betray his wife’s brothers who are his guests, is thwarted by his wife. Sensing his intent, she sings out to her brothers, "O brothers, listen and understand. When he prepares his weapon and sharpens his sword, leave the camels and mount the horses". The motif of treachery is often interwoven with themes of racism and jealousy, for instance, in Al Furousiya, where two brothers conspire against their third brother, Ibn al-Abdah, who travels to India to rescue them. Despite his noble intentions, they regard him with contempt due to his status as the son of a slave. Similarly, in the story The Little Boy in the Well, the youngest sibling saves his brothers from thieves with his cleverness, only to be betrayed by them later. They throw him into a well, where he is eventually found by passersby. These tales often mirror religious stories, such as the account of Joseph and his brothers, where exceptional qualities provoke envy and betrayal, reflecting a deeply ingrained value on integrating Islam into local culture.
The Jewish merchant: An example of economic antisemitism, a stereotype that can be found among Qatari tales is the Jewish merchant character, who is characterized as selfish, opportunistic and exploitative. These stereotypes are at least partially rooted in antisemitic stereotypes in Islam. An example of this archetype can be found in The Feather Dress, where a young boy, Mubarak, accompanies a Jewish merchant, seeking safety during his journey, only to be abandoned atop a mountain where he is surrounded by birds of prey.
The malevolent cleric (al-mutawa): The archetype of the malevolent cleric, also known as al-mutawa, surfaces in Qatari folklore as a figure who, despite appearing to embody integrity and virtue, engages in deceitful and corrupt practices. One prominent story illustrating this archetype is The Talking Dowry and the Crystal, which involves elements of sorcery and deceit intertwined with religious practices. In this tale, al-mutawa conspires with an evil stepmother. As she plots to eliminate her stepson, she enlists al-mutawa to deceive her husband by falsely claiming that his wife is gravely ill and needs a boy’s liver to recover. This ruse leads to tragic consequences. Another story, Laibah al-Sabr, depicts al-mutawa's house as a place where the Sultan’s daughter, terrified by his actions, witnesses his sinister activities, which include cannibalism. Historically, there has been an antagonism between monotheistic religions and magic, with many ancient cultures considering magic as integral to religion. This historical overlap between religious practices and sorcery is reflected in the portrayal of the evil cleric in folktales. Such stories highlight the relationship between ignorance and sorcery, with individuals masquerading as religious figures to exploit others’ beliefs and desires. The practice of sorcery is often presented as a seemingly quicker or more thrilling path to achieving one's goals, emphasizing the cleric’s deceitful nature. This archetype mostly serves as a cautionary tale, warning against blind trust in those who claim moral and spiritual authority without demonstrating genuine integrity. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatari_folklore |
Amin al-Husseini | Two official investigations were subsequently conducted by the British and the League of Nations's Mandatory Commission. The former, The Shaw Report, concluded that the incident on 23 August consisted of an attack by Arabs on Jews, but rejected the view that the riots had been premeditated. Al-Husseini certainly played an energetic role in Muslim demonstrations from 1928 onwards, but could not be held responsible for the August riots, even if he had "a share in the responsibility for the disturbances". He had nonetheless collaborated from the 23rd of that month in pacifying rioters and reestablishing order. The worst outbreaks occurred in areas, Hebron, Safed, Jaffa, and Haifa where his Arab political adversaries were dominant. The root cause of the violent outbreaks lay in the fear of territorial dispossession.
In a Note of Reservation, Mr. Harry Snell, who had apparently been swayed by Sir Herbert Samuel's son, Edwin Samuel
states that, although he was satisfied that al-Husseini was not directly responsible for the violence or had connived at it, he believed al-Husseini was aware of the nature of the anti-Zionist campaign and the danger of disturbances. He therefore attributed to the Mufti a greater share of the blame than the official report had. The Dutch Vice-Chairman of the Permanent Mandates Commission, M. Van Rees, argued that "the disturbances of August 1929, as well as the previous disturbances of a similar character, were, in brief, only a special aspect of the resistance offered everywhere in the East, with its traditional and feudal civilisation, to the invasion of a European civilisation introduced by a Western administration" but concluded that in his view "the responsibility for what had happened must lie with the religious and political leaders of the Arabs".
In London, Lord Melchett demanded his arrest for orchestrating all anti-British unrest throughout the Middle East. Consular documentation discarded the plot thesis rapidly, and identified the deeper cause as political, not religious, namely in what the Palin report had earlier identified
as profound Arab discontent over Zionism. Arab memoirs on the fitna (troubles) follow a contemporary proclamation for the Defence of the Wall on 31 August, which justified the riots as legitimate, but nowhere mention a coordinated plan. Izzat Darwaza, an Arab nationalist rival of al-Husseini, alone asserts, without details, that al-Husseini was responsible. Al-Husseini in his Judeophobic memoirs never claimed to have played such a role.
The High Commissioner received al-Husseini twice officially on 1 October 1929 and a week later, and the latter complained of pro-Zionist bias in an area where the Arab population still viewed Great Britain favorably. Al-Husseini argued that the weakness of the Arab position was that they lacked political representation in Europe, whereas for millennia, in his view, the Jews dominated with their genius for intrigue. He assured Chancellor of his cooperation in maintaining public order. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amin_al-Husseini |
Crocodile (pharaoh) | Almost nothing is known about Crocodile's reign. If he existed, he might have had his capital at Tarkhan, where his proposed tomb was excavated. Dreyer places him in a time shortly before the kings Iry-Hor, Ka and Narmer. He points to guiding inscriptions on the jars mentioning a Hen-mehw ("brought from Lower Egypt"). This specific diction of designations of origin is archaeologically proven for the time before three mentioned kings, from King Ka onward, it was Inj-mehw (with the same meaning).
One artifact that possibly depicts King Crocodile, was found at Hierakonpolis in the so-called Main deposit. The artifact is a piece of a broken mace head which shows traces of a once completed relief scene. The conserved part of the relief shows the head and upper torso of a seated king figure inside a hebsed-pavilion. It wears the White Crown of Upper Egypt, a hebsed cloak and a flail. Right before the face of the king traces of a golden rosette (the predynastic crest of the kings) and a certain hieroglyph are visible. All but the hieroglyph are damaged, leaving room for interpretations. Mainstream Egyptologists consider the sign to be either the name of Crocodile or King Scorpion II.
A clay seal impression from Minshat Abu Omar is also of special interest to Egyptologists: in the centre of the impression it shows a serekh-like frame with a bucranium above and a crocodile crawling through grass inside. Right of this crest a divine standard is depicted, a recumbent crocodile with two projectings (either lotus buds or ostrich feathers) sprouting out of its back and is sitting on that standard. The whole arrangement is surrounded by rows of crocodiles with rope curls beneath, which seems to point to the proposed reading of Crocodile's royal serekh. But Egyptologists Van den Brink and Ludwig David Morenz argue against the idea that the seal impression talks about the ruler. In their opinion, the inscription celebrates the foundation of a shrine for the god Sobek at a city named Shedyt (alternatively Shedet). The city and the shrine are known from Old Kingdom inscriptions; the main cult centre was located at Medinet el-Fayum. For this reason, Sobek was worshipped during early dynasties as "Sobek of Shedyt". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crocodile_(pharaoh) |
Tazir | The classical Islamic legal tradition did not have a separate category for criminal law as does modern law. The classical Islamic jurisprudence typically divided the subject matter of law into four "quarters", that is rituals, sales, marriage, and injuries. In modern usage, Islamic criminal law has been extracted and collated from that classical Islamic jurisprudence literature into three categories of rules:
Hadd (literally "limit") under Sharia, are rules stated in the Quran and the Hadiths, and whose violation is deemed in Islam as a crime against God, and requires a fixed punishment. Hadd crimes include theft, illicit sexual relations or rape, making unproven accusations of illicit sex, drinking intoxicants like alcohol, apostasy, and highway robbery.
Qisas, (literally "retaliation in kind") and diya, (دية) ("blood money"), in Islamic jurisprudence, are the second category of crimes, where Sharia specifies equal retaliation (qisas) or monetary compensation (diya), as a possible punishment. Included in this category is homicide, for example, which Islamic law treats as a civil dispute between believers. Qisas principle is available against the accused, to the victim or victim's heirs, when a Muslim is murdered, suffers bodily injury or suffers property damage. In the case of murder, qisas means the right of a murder victim's nearest relative or wali (ولي) (legal guardian) to, if the court approves, take the life of the killer or do it in his behalf.
Tazir (literally "to punish", sometimes spelled as taazir, ti'zar, tazar, ta'azar) is the third category, and refers to offense mentioned in the Quran or the Hadiths, but where neither the Quran nor the Hadiths specify a punishment. In Tazir cases, the punishment is at the discretion of the state, the ruler, or a qadi (kadi), or court acting on behalf of the ruler. Tazir punishment is for actions which are considered sinful in Islam, undermine the Muslim community, or threaten public order during Islamic rule, but those that are not punishable as hadd or qisas crimes. The legal restrictions on the exercise of that power are not specified in the Quran or the Hadiths, and vary. The judge enjoys considerable leeway in deciding an appropriate form of punishment, and the punishment does not have to be consistent across the accused persons or over time. The ruler or qadi also has the discretion to forgive tazir offenses. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tazir |
Israelites | Compared to the United Monarchy, the historicity of the Kingdom of Israel and Judah is widely accepted by historians and archaeologists.: 169–195 Their destruction by the Assyrians and Babylonians respectively is also confirmed by archaeological evidence and extrabiblical sources.: 306 Christian Frevel argues that Yahwism was rooted in the culture of the Kingdom of Israel, who introduced it to the Kingdom of Judah via Ahab's expansions and sociopolitical cooperation, which was prompted by Hazael's conquests.
Frevel has also argued that Judah was a 'vassal-like' state to Israel, under the Omrides. This theory has been rejected by other scholars, who argue that the archaeological evidence seems to indicate that Judah was an independent socio-political entity for most of the 9th century BCE.
Avraham Faust argues that there was continued adherence to the 'ethos of egalitarianism and simplicity' in the Iron Age II (10th-6th century BCE). For example, there is minimal evidence for temples and complex tomb burials, despite Israel and Judah being more densely populated than the Late Bronze Age. Four-room houses remained the norm. In addition, royal inscriptions were scarce, along with imported and decorated pottery.
The Kingdom of Israel was conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire around 720 BCE. The records of Sargon II of Assyria indicate that he deported part of the population to Assyria. This deportation became the basis for the Jewish idea of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. Some Israelites migrated to the southern kingdom of Judah, while those Israelites that remained in Samaria, concentrated mainly around Mount Gerizim, came to be known as Samaritans. Foreign groups were also settled by the Assyrians in the territories of the conquered kingdom.
The exiled Israelites from non-Judean regions faced assimilation into the Assyrian population, unlike their counterparts from Judea. While historical records indicate the disappearance of Israelite tribes from Galilee and Transjordan, it's plausible that many Israelites from Samaria survived and remained in the region. These survivors, contrary to Jewish tradition, are believed to have become the ancestors of the Samaritans, who followed Samaritanism. Research indicates that only a portion of this population intermarried with Mesopotamians settlers. In their native Samaritan Hebrew, the Samaritans identify as "Israel", "B'nai Israel" or "Shamerim/Shomerim" (i.e. "Guardians/Keepers/Watchers").
Towards the end of the same century, the Neo-Babylonian Empire emerged victorious over the Assyrians, leading to Judah's subjugation as a vassal state. In the early 6th century BC, a series of revolts in Judah prompted the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II to lay siege to and destroy Jerusalem along with the First Temple, marking the kingdom's demise. Subsequently, a segment of the Judahite populace was exiled to Babylon in several waves. Judeans were progenitors of the Jews, who practiced Second Temple Judaism during the Second Temple period. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israelites |
Al Jazeera controversies and criticism | In 2015, Al Jazeera was condemned by UAE Minister of Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash for twisting a statement by UAE Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan about the Russian Sukhoi Su-24 downed by Turkey. During a press conference with a Russian official in Abu Dhabi, Al Nahyan said that the UAE "offers its deepest condolences to our Russian friends on the incident of the military plane that crashed recently in Syria" and called the crash of a Russian civilian plane in Egypt "a terrorist act". Al Jazeera reported that he "describes the Turkish shooting of the Russian fight jet a terrorist act," which Gargash said ignored the fact that he was referring to the Russian passenger plane which crashed in Egypt. The Al Jazeera statement was reported more than once, and was tweeted by the channel on its main Twitter account. According to Gargash, "The way Al Jazeera channel has dealt with the statement of Shaikh Abdullah Bin Zayed was not a professional blunder; It was part of a smear campaign [by the media] against the UAE."
The UAE blocked Al Jazeera in the emirates on 5 June 2017 (after the onset of the Qatar diplomatic crisis) because the organization was a state-endowed entity of the Qatari government and Qatar is "a major sponsor of hate speech through Al Jazeera's Arabic-language network and its other state-controlled media entities." In the International Court of Justice case filed by Qatar against the United Arab Emirates about the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination (Qatar v. United Arab Emirates), Qatar requested that the court order the UAE to suspend its block of Al Jazeera. The court ruled, "both parties shall refrain from any action which might aggravate or extend the dispute before the court or make it more difficult to resolve".
In June 2017, hacked emails from UAE ambassador to the US Yousef Al Otaiba were reported as "embarrassing" by HuffPost because they indicated links between the UAE and the US-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies. According to a number of observers, the extensive media coverage of the alleged email hack was seen as exacerbating the Qatar diplomatic crisis and orchestrated by Qatar.
After the 2017 Qatar diplomatic crisis and in 2018, Al Jazeera reported apparent new details about a 1996 Qatari coup d'état attempt which accused the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Egypt of plotting to overthrow Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani. According to the organization, former French National Gendarmerie commander Paul Barril was contracted and supplied with weapons by the UAE to carry out the coup in Qatar. UAE Minister of Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash said that Barril was a security guard for Qatari emir Khalifa bin Hamad Al Thani during the emir's visit to Abu Dhabi; had no connection to the UAE, and the report was an attempt to involve the UAE in the coup attempt.
In 2019, Al Jazeera Arabic tweeted that a photograph of a Buddhist sculpture in Abu Dhabi which was part of a Louvre Abu Dhabi cultural initiative led to "commentators saying there is a return of idol worship to the Arabian Peninsula." The National called the insinuation that the sculpture contradicted Islam fake news. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Jazeera_controversies_and_criticism |
Assyrian people | The Neo-Aramaic languages, which are in the Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic language family, ultimately descend from Late Old Eastern Aramaic, the lingua franca in the later phase of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, which displaced the East Semitic Assyrian dialect of Akkadian and Sumerian. After being conquered by the Assyrians, many people, including the Arameans, were deported to the Assyrian heartland and elsewhere. Due to a large number of Aramaic-speaking people, the Aramaization of Assyria began. The relationship between Arameans and Assyrians grew stronger, with Aramean scribes working with Assyrian ones.
Around 700 B.C., the Aramaic alphabet replaced cuneiform and became the official writing system of the Assyrian empire. Aramaic was the language of commerce, trade, and communication and became the vernacular language of Assyria in classical antiquity. By the 1st century AD, Akkadian was extinct, although its influence on contemporary Eastern Neo-Aramaic languages spoken by Assyrians is significant and some loaned vocabulary still survives in these languages to this day.
To the native speaker, the language is usually called Surayt, Soureth, Suret or a similar regional variant. A wide variety of dialects exist, mainly Suret, and Surayt. All are classified as Neo-Aramaic languages and are usually written using Syriac script, a derivative of the ancient Aramaic script. Jewish varieties such as Lishanid Noshan, Lishán Didán and Lishana Deni, written in the Hebrew script, are spoken by Assyrian Jews.
There is a considerable amount of mutual intelligibility between Suret dialects. Therefore, these "languages" would generally be considered to be dialects rather than separate languages. The Jewish Aramaic languages of Lishan Didan and Lishanid Noshan share a partial intelligibility with these varieties. The mutual intelligibility between Suret and Surayt/Turoyo is, depending on the dialect, limited to partial, and may be asymmetrical.
Being stateless, Assyrians are typically multilingual, speaking both their native language and learning those of the societies they reside in. While many Assyrians have fled from their traditional homeland recently, a substantial number still reside in Arabic-speaking countries speaking Arabic alongside the Neo-Aramaic languages and is also spoken by many Assyrians in the diaspora. The most commonly spoken languages by Assyrians in the diaspora are English, German and Swedish. Historically many Assyrians also spoke Turkish, Armenian, Azeri, Kurdish, and Persian and a smaller number of Assyrians that remain in Iran, Turkey (Istanbul and Tur Abdin) and Armenia still do today.
Many loanwords from the aforementioned languages exist in the Neo-Aramaic languages, with the Iranian languages and Turkish being the greatest influences overall. Only Turkey is reported to be experiencing a population increase of Assyrians in the four countries constituting their historical homeland, largely consisting of Assyrian refugees from Syria and a smaller number of Assyrians returning from the diaspora in Europe. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assyrian_people |
Maqama | The maqāma are typically understood to be short picaresques told by a fictitious narrator about a low-class trickster protagonist who uses disguises, refined language and sophisticated rhetoric to swindle onlookers out of their money. In the case of the Maqāmāt al-Harīrī, the same narrator al-Harīth tells of his numerous encounters with the roguish protagonist Abu Zayd, in various cities and under varying circumstances. The maqāmāt are known for their use of badi’ (ornate linguistic style) interspersed with saj’ (rhyming prose). Like much Arabic literature of its time, the maqāmāt also typically blended serious or genuine narratives and tone (jidd) with humor and jest (hazl). Many scholars propose that the events and characters within the maqāmāt are primarily vehicles through which the author can showcase his own literary, poetic and rhetorical skills.
There have been attempts to schematize loose plot outlines for the maqāmāt. J. Hämeen-Anttila puts forth the following pattern for a typical maqāma:Isnad → General Introduction → Link → Episode Proper → Recognition Scene → Envoi (→ Finale)Alain Qian expands on this structure somewhat. The isnad (citation or “backing” used to verify the legitimacy of a statement, most commonly used in verifying hadith) lends a sense of credibility to the narrator, even if he is known to be fictional. In the general introduction the narrator tells the audience where he was and/or what he was doing in the city in question, providing context for the anecdote to follow. The link transitions from general introduction into the episode proper, where the events of the anecdote are relayed. After a time in the anecdote itself, the narrator and the audience (those of whom that are familiar with the genre) both recognize the protagonist of the anecdote as the recurring roguish character. After this recognition scene the maqāma is ended with envoi (summation in verse), followed occasionally by a finale in which the narrator and protagonist part ways.
A different schema for Maqāmāt al-Harīrī has been proposed by K. Okazaki, similar to Anttila’s except for its mirror-like structure:
“Arrival of the narrator in town → Encounter with the protagonist → Speech (poetry) → Reward → Recognition ← Reproach ← Justification (Poetry) ← Parting"In this proposed schema the arrows do not indicate chronology but rather the rise and fall of narrative suspense (in a manner not unlike Gustav Freytag’s plot pyramid). The proposed structure illustrates that the narrator arrives in a city and comes across the protagonist, often drawn to them by their eloquent speech and pOor dress. The protagonist is often employing this speech to the end of asking for money or other aid. After he receives his reward, the narrator sees through the protagonist’s disguise and recognizes him as the recurring protagonist Abu Zayd, then tells Abu Zayd off for his continual abuse of others’ good faith and charity. Abu Zayd justifies his actions in verse and the two part ways. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maqama |
Hussein bin Ali, King of Hejaz | After the Caliphate was abolished by the Turkish Grand National Assembly, Hussein was proclaimed as Caliph. The accounts on the official date and proceedings vary, some place the beginning of the Caliphate on 3 March 1924, when Hussein would have declared himself Caliph at his son Abdullah's winter camp in Shunah, Transjordan. Other accounts, such as a Reuters dispatch, instead set the date as March 7, 1924, and describe Hussein bin Ali being elected as a caliph by Muslims from "Mesopotamia, Transjordan, and Hejaz." A third counting of the official date takes place when he received the homage of the majority of the Arab population in Amman as the caliph, on March 11, 1924. Finally, a fourth version places the date on Friday, March 14, 1924, when Hussein is evidently enthroned as caliph in Baghdad during the Friday prayer. In any case, all sources agree on a date in March 1924, shortly after the abolition of the Ottoman caliphate by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. Separately, he made statements in support of the Ottoman dynasty, which had been ruined and exiled from Turkey. In this regard, he declared:The services rendered by the Ottoman family to Islam and Muslims are undeniable; their heroism cannot be belittled. The recent decision regarding the family [exile] has pierced the hearts and saddened the spirits of Muslims. Therefore, we see it as an obligation of Islamic brotherhood to meet the needs of the family and prevent them from experiencing financial difficulties. Those who wish to participate in this great endeavor should express their intentions to our representatives in Mecca.
In the same perspective, he financially supported the members of the exiled Ottoman dynasty to prevent them from being ruined. Despite his complicated financial and economic situation, he provided them with 2400 liras. The claim to the title was recognized by a large part of the Hejazi, Levantine and more generally Arabic Muslim population. He also received the support of Mehmed VI, on March 18, 1924, one of the last Ottoman Caliphs and the last Ottoman Sultan, according to The Times and Vatan, that reported that he supported him as the new Caliph.
The French viewed this proclamation as "the worst possible solution," in the words of Hubert Lyautey, who also defended that the Ottoman Caliphate was better for French interests than the Sharifian Caliphate. They believed that having a new influential caliph could risk reviving pan-Islamism, causing instability in French Muslim colonies in the event of a conflict, and potentially giving the Red Sea to the British. As a result, the French did not support it at all, preferring to wait and see how events unfolded. Meanwhile, they had the Sultan of Morocco ready to assume the caliph title if necessary, offering the French a caliph who was more aligned with their interests, albeit less significant.
To reinforce his proclamation and establish legal foundations for his caliphate, Hussein convened an Islamic Congress at Mecca in 1924, it comprised both Sunni and Shia Muslims and was thus arguably one of the most inclusive Islamic Congresses in history. The Congress held twelve sessions before being indefinitely adjourned due to the advance of Saudi forces.
His Caliphate only lasted for a few months, though, because he was invaded and defeated quickly by Abdulaziz ibn Saud. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hussein_bin_Ali,_King_of_Hejaz |
Sinai insurgency | On 1 January 2021, a roadside bomb killed two members of Egypt's security forces and wounded five others near Bir al-Abd in the northern Sinai Peninsula.
On 9 February 2021, local sources reported that six fighters of the tribal militias supporting the Egyptian regime had been killed and another fighter had been abducted in central Sinai in an ISIS ambush.
On 22 February 2021, ISIS operatives fired at an Egyptian army patrol south of Sheikh Zuweid, near a roadblock. One soldier was killed and two others were wounded.
On 27 February 2021, IS operatives exploded an IED targeting an Egyptian foot patrol. The explosion killed 3 Egyptian soldiers including a colonel, Ahmad Abdel Mohsen. One other soldier was also wounded.
On 11 March 2021, IS claimed responsibility for killing a father and his son because they were 'collaborating' with Egyptian authorities.
In March 2021, Human Rights Watch accused the Egyptian armed forces of violating international human rights law and committing war crimes by demolishing more than 12,300 residential and commercial buildings and 6,000 hectares of farmland since 2013 in North Sinai.
On 22 March 2021, The Egyptian forces managed to eliminate Saleem Al-Hamadiin, a veteran commander of ISIS, in a joint operation with the local tribes in the village of Al-Barth, south of Rafah.
On 5 April 2021, ISIL released photos showing the execution of an alleged spy, who was apparently working for the Egyptian authorities.
On 17 April, ISIS released footage of them executing a Coptic Christian and 2 other tribal fighters. They issued the execution footage as a 'warning to the Christians of Egypt'. In the same release, they also released videos of sniping and IED attacks and an attack on Egyptian tribal forces, leaving at least 4 tribesmen dead.
On 1 May, ISIS operatives broke into houses in Al-Amal, south of Al-Arish, searching for suspected collaborators with the Egyptian army. Being unable to find them, they executed three of their relatives
On 30 May, Colonel Khaled Al-Arian was killed by an ISIS sniper attack on an Egyptian army patrol in Sheikh Zuweid, in northern Sinai. IS also released photos of them executing two alleged 'collaborators', supposedly working with the Egyptian army.
On 4 June, an Egyptian officer was killed in Sinai: Ahmad Jum'ah, an intelligence officer with the rank of lieutenant colonel, was killed in the detonation of an IED in northern Sinai. The attack was blamed on ISIS.
On 14 June, a group of ISIS militants including a commander were killed during an Egyptian army raid on a farm in Bir al-Abd.
On 31 July, ISIS militants ambushed a group of Egyptian soldiers at their security checkpoint in Sheikh Zuweid, northern Sinai. 5 Egyptian soldiers were killed and 6 more were wounded. 3 ISIS militants were also killed in the shootout.
On 1 August, it was reported that 89 extremists were killed in northern Sinai, compared to eight Egyptian soldiers. Meanwhile, 13 tunnel entrances were destroyed at the borders with the Gaza Strip and Israel.
On 9 August, an ISIS IED was activated south of Rafah against an Egyptian army vehicle killing Mohammad Abd Motagalli, an Egyptian army colonel.
On 12 August, the Egyptian armed forces eliminated 13 terrorists in northern and central Sinai. 9 soldiers were killed and wounded during the exchange of fire.
On 25 August 2 Egyptian soldiers were killed by ISIL snipers whilst conducting operations in northern Sinai. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinai_insurgency |
History of philosophy | The next period in Chinese philosophy began with the emergence of the Song dynasty in 960 CE. Some scholars consider this period to end with the Opium Wars in 1840, while others extend it to the establishment of the Republic of China in 1912. During this era, neo-Confucianism became particularly influential. Unlike earlier forms of Confucianism, Neo-Confucianism placed greater emphasis on metaphysics, largely in response to similar developments in Daoism and Buddhism. It rejected the Daoist and Buddhist focus on non-being and emptiness, instead centering on the concept of li as the positive foundation of metaphysics. Li is understood as the rational principle that underlies being and governs all entities. It also forms the basis of human nature and is the source of virtues. Li is often contrasted with qi, which is seen as a material and vital force.
The later part of the Qing dynasty and the subsequent modern period were marked by an encounter with Western philosophy, including the ideas of philosophers like Plato, Kant, and Mill, as well as movements like pragmatism. However, Marx's ideas of class struggle, socialism, and communism were particularly significant. His critique of capitalism and his vision of a classless society led to the development of Chinese Marxism. In this context, Mao Zedong (1893–1976) played a dual role as both a philosopher who expounded these ideas and a revolutionary leader committed to their practical implementation. Chinese Marxism diverged from classical Marxism in several ways. For instance, while classical Marxism assigns the proletariat the responsibility for both the rise of the capitalist economy and the subsequent socialist revolution, in Mao's Marxism, this role is assigned to the peasantry under the guidance of the Communist Party.
Traditional Chinese thought also remained influential during the modern period. This is exemplified in the philosophy of Liang Shuming (1893–1988), who was influenced by Confucianism, Buddhism, and Western philosophy. Liang is often regarded as a founder of New Confucianism. He advocated for a balanced life characterized by harmony between humanity and nature as the path to true happiness. Liang criticized the modern European attitude for its excessive focus on exploiting nature to satisfy desires, and he viewed the Indian approach, with its focus on the divine and renunciation of desires, as an extreme in the opposite direction. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_philosophy |
Cuneiform | The archaic cuneiform script was adopted by the Akkadian Empire from the 23rd century BC (short chronology). The Akkadian language being East Semitic, its structure was completely different from Sumerian. The Akkadians found a practical solution in writing their language phonetically, using the corresponding Sumerian phonetic signs. Still, many of the Sumerian characters were retained for their logographic value as well: for example the character for "sheep" was retained, but was now pronounced immerum, rather than the Sumerian udu. Such retained individual signs or, sometimes, entire sign combinations with logographic value are known as Sumerograms, a type of heterogram.
The East Semitic languages employed equivalents for many signs that were distorted or abbreviated to represent new values because the syllabic nature of the script as refined by the Sumerians was not intuitive to Semitic speakers. From the beginning of the Middle Bronze Age (20th century BC), the script evolved to accommodate the various dialects of Akkadian: Old Akkadian, Babylonian and Assyrian. At this stage, the former pictograms were reduced to a high level of abstraction, and were composed of only five basic wedge shapes: horizontal, vertical, two diagonals and the Winkelhaken impressed vertically by the tip of the stylus. The signs exemplary of these basic wedges are:
AŠ (B001, U+12038) 𒀸: horizontal;
DIŠ (B748, U+12079) 𒁹: vertical;
GE23, DIŠ tenû (B575, U+12039) 𒀹: downward diagonal;
GE22 (B647, U+1203A) 𒀺: upward diagonal;
U (B661, U+1230B) 𒌋: the Winkelhaken.
Except for the Winkelhaken, which has no tail, the length of the wedges' tails could vary as required for sign composition.
Signs tilted by about 45 degrees are called tenû in Akkadian, thus DIŠ is a vertical wedge and DIŠ tenû a diagonal one. If a sign is modified with additional wedges, this is called gunû or "gunification"; if signs are cross-hatched with additional Winkelhaken, they are called šešig; if signs are modified by the removal of a wedge or wedges, they are called nutillu.
"Typical" signs have about five to ten wedges, while complex ligatures can consist of twenty or more (although it is not always clear if a ligature should be considered a single sign or two collated, but distinct signs); the ligature KAxGUR7 consists of 31 strokes.
Most later adaptations of Sumerian cuneiform preserved at least some aspects of the Sumerian script. Written Akkadian included phonetic symbols from the Sumerian syllabary, together with logograms that were read as whole words. Many signs in the script were polyvalent, having both a syllabic and logographic meaning. The complexity of the system bears a resemblance to Old Japanese, written in a Chinese-derived script, where some of these Sinograms were used as logograms and others as phonetic characters.
This "mixed" method of writing continued through the end of the Babylonian and Assyrian empires, although there were periods when "purism" was in fashion and there was a more marked tendency to spell out the words laboriously, in preference to using signs with a phonetic complement. Yet even in those days, the Babylonian syllabary remained a mixture of logographic and phonemic writing. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuneiform |
State of Somaliland | Initially the British government planned to delay protectorate of British Somaliland independence in favour of a gradual transfer of power. The arrangement would allow local politicians to gain more political experience in running the protectorate before official independence. However, strong pan-Somali nationalism and a landslide victory in the earlier elections encouraged them to demand independence and unification with the Trust Territory of Somaliland under Italian Administration (the former Italian Somaliland).
The British stated that it would be prepared to grant independence to the then protectorate of British Somaliland, with the intention that the territory would unite with the Trust Territory of Somaliland. The Legislative Council of British Somaliland passed a resolution in April 1960 requesting independence and union with the Trust Territory of Somaliland, which was scheduled to gain independence on 1 July that year. The legislative councils of both territories agreed to this proposal following a joint conference in Mogadishu.
Muhammad Haji Ibrahim Egal, who had previously served as an unofficial member of the former British Somaliland protectorate's Executive Council and the leader of Government Business in the Legislative Council, became the prime minister of Somaliland.
On 26 June 1960, the former British Somaliland protectorate obtained independence as Somaliland, with the Trust Territory of Somaliland due to follow suit five days later. The following day, on 27 June 1960, the newly convened Somaliland Legislative Assembly approved a bill that would formally allow for the union of Somaliland with the Trust Territory of Somaliland on 1 July 1960.
There were also fears of clashes with populations in Ethiopia.
Following unification on 1 July 1960, a government was formed by Abdullahi Issa, with Abdulcadir Muhammed Aden as President of the Somali National Assembly, Aden Abdullah Osman Daar as President and Abdirashid Ali Shermarke as Prime Minister, later to become President (from 1967 to 1969). On 20 July 1961, and through a popular referendum, the Somali people ratified a new constitution, which was first drafted in 1960. The constitution was widely regarded as unfair in the former Somaliland, however, and over 60% of the northern voters were against it in the referendum. Regardless, it was signed into law. Widespread dissatisfaction spread among the north's population, and British-trained officers attempted a revolt to end the union in December 1961. Their uprising failed, and Somaliland continued to be marginalized by the south during the next decades. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_Somaliland |
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Palestinian territories | In 1922, after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire that ruled Greater Syria for four centuries (1517–1917), the British Mandate for Palestine was established. Large-scale Jewish immigration from abroad, mainly from Eastern Europe took place during the British Mandate, though Jewish immigration started during the Ottoman period. The future of Palestine was hotly disputed between Arabs and Jews. In 1947, the total Jewish ownership of land in Palestine was 1,850,000 dunams or 1,850 square kilometres (714 sq mi), which is 7.04% of the total land of Palestine. Public property or "crown lands", the bulk of which was in the Negev, belonging to the government of Palestine may have made up as much as 70% of the total land; with the Arabs, Christians and others owning the rest.
The 1947 United Nations Partition Plan proposed a division of Mandate Palestine between an Arab and a Jewish state, with Jerusalem and the surrounding area to be a corpus separatum under a special international regime. The regions allotted to the proposed Arab state included what became the Gaza Strip, and almost all of what became the West Bank, as well as other areas.
The Partition Plan was passed by the UN General Assembly in November 1947. The Partition Plan was accepted by the Jewish leadership, but rejected by the Arab leaders. The Arab League threatened to take military measures to prevent the partition of Palestine and to ensure the national rights of the Palestinian Arab population. One day before the expiration of the British Mandate for Palestine, on 14 May 1948, Israel declared its independence within the borders of the Jewish State set out in the Partition Plan. US President Harry Truman recognized the State of Israel de facto the following day. The Arab countries declared war on the newly formed State of Israel heralding the start of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. Arab countries announced "an intervention in Palestine to restore law and order", heralding the start of the 1948 Palestine War.
After the 1947–1949 Palestine war, the 1949 Armistice Agreements established the separation lines between the combatants, leaving Israel in control of some of the areas designated for the Arab state under the Partition Plan, Transjordan in control of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, Egypt in control of the Gaza Strip and Syria in control of the Himmah Area.
In 1950, Jordan annexed the West Bank. Only the United Kingdom formally recognized the annexation of the West Bank, excluding the case of East Jerusalem which was de facto recognized. In the Gaza Strip the Arab League formed the All-Palestine Government, which operated under Egypt occupation.
Article 24 of the Palestinian National Covenant of 1964, which established the Palestine Liberation Organization, stated: "This Organization does not exercise any territorial sovereignty over the West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, on the Gaza Strip or in the Himmah Area" (i.e. the areas of the former Mandate Palestine controlled by Jordan, Egypt and Syria, respectively).
Israel captured both territories in the 1967 Six-Day War, as well as other territory belonging to Egypt and Syria. Since then, these territories have been designated Israeli-occupied territories. Immediately after the war, on 19 June 1967, the Israeli government offered to return the Golan Heights to Syria, the Sinai to Egypt and most of the West Bank to Jordan in exchange for peace. At the Khartoum Summit in September, the Arab parties responded to this overture by declaring "no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel and no negotiations with Israel."
UN Security Council Resolution 242 introduced the "Land for Peace" formula for normalizing relations between Israel and its neighbors. This formula was used when Israel returned the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt in 1979 in exchange for a peace treaty. While that treaty mentioned a "linkage" between Israeli–Egyptian peace and Palestinian autonomy, the formerly Egyptian-occupied territory in Gaza was excluded from the agreement, and remained under Israeli control.
The Oslo Accords of the early 1990s between the Palestine Liberation Organization and Israel led to the creation of the Palestinian Authority. This was an interim organization created to administer a limited form of Palestinian self-governance in the territories for a period of five years during which final-status negotiations would take place. The Palestinian Authority carried civil responsibility in some rural areas, as well as security responsibility in the major cities of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Although the five-year interim period expired in 1999, the final status agreement has yet to be concluded despite attempts such as the 2000 Camp David Summit, the Taba summit, and the unofficial Geneva Accords. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_territories |
Hafsid architecture | Almost nothing of the Hafsid royal palaces have survived to the present day, although some written descriptions are provided by historical writers like Ibn Khaldun. These sources describe a variety of palaces and gardens, many of them built on the outskirts or suburbs of Tunis. One such structure was the Qubbat Asarak, a large pavilion structure with a wide staircase at its entrance, built by al-Mustansir in 1253.: 211–212 Another palace built by the same ruler, the Abu Fihr Palace, was described as an enclosed garden containing a large water basin flanked by two pavilions with marble columns and wooden roofs. Water features were characteristic of earlier Ifriqiyan palaces, while the two pavilions appear to be a feature shared with Andalusi and western Maghrebi architecture of the same era, possibly of Almohad origin.: 212 Yet another palace built by al-Mustansir, the Ras al-Tabiya Palace, was described by a later Flemish writer as having four buildings arranged in a cross formation around a courtyard paved with colourful tiles. A fountain in the center of the courtyard fed four pools around it. This configuration was similar to a riad garden and recalls the layout of the later Badi Palace in Marrakesh.: 312 A vaulted underground passage allowed the women of the harem to travel privately to a park. The Bardo Palace (today a national museum) was also begun by the Hafsids in the 15th century, and is mentioned in historical records for the first time during the reign of Abu Faris.: 208 All of these examples were built on the outskirts of Tunis.
The last surviving Hafsid structure to have been built is the 'Abdeliya Palace in present-day La Marsa (on the coast near Tunis), which is the only Hafsid palace to survive in any form. It was originally built in 1500, but may even contain some older Almohad foundations. It was significantly restored in later periods and thus preserves none of its original decoration, except for the capitals of its columns. It may have served as a kind of seaside retreat for the Hafsid rulers, probably standing amidst gardens.: 212–213 It was one of three buildings that stood here, but the other two buildings have not been preserved. The building is entered through a triple-arched portico and contains a large rectangular courtyard with two porticos facing each other on either side. The courtyard is surrounded by domed or vaulted chambers. One of the courtyard porticos leads to a large T-shaped reception room (maq'ad), including a domed area at the back which projects outward from the rest of the building. The presence of many windows, which was unusual in the normally introverted domestic architecture of this era, most likely allowed for better enjoyment of the garden setting.: 212–213 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hafsid_architecture |
Lebanese Greek Orthodox Christians | The Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch adheres to the Eastern Orthodox Church, which is composed of several autocephalous jurisdictions united by common doctrine and by their use of the Byzantine rite. They are the second largest Christian denomination within Christianity in Lebanon. Historically, these churches grew out of the four Eastern Patriarchates (Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, and Constantinople) of the original five major episcopal sees (the Pentarchy) of the Roman Empire, which included Rome. The final split between Rome and the Eastern Churches, who came to oppose the views and claims of the Popes of Rome, took place in 1054. From that time, with the exception of a brief period of reunion in the fifteenth century, the Eastern Churches have continued to reject the claims of the Patriarchate of Rome (the Catholic Church) to universal supremacy and have rejected the concept of papal infallibility. Doctrinally, the main point at issue between the Eastern and Western Churches is that of the procession of the Holy Spirit, and there are also divergences in ritual and discipline.
The Greek Orthodox include many free-holders, and the community is less dominated by large landowners than other Christian denominations. In present-day Lebanon, Eastern Orthodox Christians have become increasingly urbanized, and form a major part of the commercial and professional class of Beirut and other cities. Many are found in the Southeast (Nabatieh/Beqaa) and North, near Tripoli. They are highly educated and well-versed in finance. The Greek Orthodox church has become known in the Arab world, possibly because it exists in various parts of the region. The Greek Orthodox church has often served as a bridge between Lebanese Christians and the Arab countries.
Lebanese Greek Orthodox Christians have a long and continuous association with Eastern Orthodox Churches in European countries like Greece, Cyprus, Russia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Romania. The church exists in many parts of the Arab world and Greek Orthodox Christians have often been noted; historically, it has had fewer dealings with Western countries than the Maronite Church, but it does have strong connections to Russia and Greece. The Lebanese Greek Orthodox Christians are believed to constitute about 8% of the total population of Lebanon, including the Palestinian Greek Orthodox community, many of whom have been given Lebanese citizenship.
Greek Orthodox Christians support a variety of political parties and factions, including non-sectarian parties such as the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, the Lebanese Communist Party, and the Democratic Left Movement; and Christian parties such as the Free Patriotic Movement, the Marada Movement, the Lebanese Forces, and the Kataeb. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebanese_Greek_Orthodox_Christians |
First Syrian Republic | With the fall of France in 1940 during World War II, Syria came under the control of the Vichy Government until the British and Free French invaded and occupied the country in July 1941. Syria proclaimed its independence again in 1941 but it was not until 1 January 1944 that it was recognized as an independent republic.
In the 1940s, Britain secretly advocated the creation of a Greater Syrian state that would secure Britain preferential status in military, economic and cultural matters, in return for putting a complete halt to Jewish ambition in Palestine. France and the United States opposed British hegemony in the region, which eventually led to the creation of Israel.
On 27 September 1941, Free France proclaimed, by virtue of, and within the framework of the Mandate, the independence and sovereignty of the Syrian State. The proclamation said "the independence and sovereignty of Syria and Lebanon will not affect the juridical situation as it results from the Mandate act. Indeed, this situation could be changed only with the agreement of the Council of the League of Nations, with the consent of the Government of the United States, a signatory of the Franco-American Convention of 4 April 1924, and only after the conclusion between the French Government and the Syrian and Lebanese Governments of treaties duly ratified in accordance with the laws of the French Republic.
Benqt Broms said that it was important to note that there were several founding members of the United Nations whose statehood was doubtful at the time of the San Francisco Conference and that the Government of France still considered Syria and Lebanon to be mandates.
Duncan Hall said "Thus, the Syrian mandate may be said to have been terminated without any formal action on the part of the League or its successor. The mandate was terminated by the declaration of the mandatory power, and of the new states themselves, of their independence, followed by a process of piecemeal unconditional recognition by other powers, culminating in formal admission to the United Nations. Article 78 of the Charter ended the status of tutelage for any member state: 'The trusteeship system shall not apply to territories which have become Members of the United Nations, relationship among which shall be based on respect for the principle of sovereign equality.'" So when the UN officially came into existence on 24 October 1945, after ratification of the United Nations Charter by the five permanent members, as both Syria and Lebanon were founding member states, the French mandate for both was legally terminated on that date and full independence attained.
On 29 May 1945, France bombed Damascus and tried to arrest its democratically elected leaders. While French planes were bombing Damascus, Prime Minister Faris al-Khoury was at the founding conference of the United Nations in San Francisco, presenting Syria's claim for independence from the French Mandate.
Syrian independence was de jure attained on 24 October 1945. Continuing pressure from Syrian nationalist groups and British pressure forced the French to evacuate their last troops on 17 April 1946. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Syrian_Republic |
The Merchant of Venice | English society in the Elizabethan and Jacobean era has been described as "judeophobic". English Jews had been expelled under Edward I in 1290 and were not permitted to return until 1656 under the rule of Oliver Cromwell. Poet John Donne, who was Dean of St Paul's Cathedral and a contemporary of Shakespeare, gave a sermon in 1624 perpetuating the Blood Libel – the entirely unsubstantiated antisemitic lie that Jews ritually murdered Christians to drink their blood and achieve salvation. In Venice and in some other places, Jews were required to wear a yellow or red hat at all times in public to make sure that they were easily identified, and had to live in a ghetto.
Shakespeare's play may be seen as a continuation of this tradition. The title page of the Quarto indicates that the play was sometimes known as The Jew of Venice in its day, which suggests that it was seen as similar to Marlowe's early 1590s work The Jew of Malta. One interpretation of the play's structure is that Shakespeare meant to contrast the mercy of the main Christian characters with the Old Testament vengefulness of a Jew, who lacks the religious grace to comprehend mercy. Similarly, it is possible that Shakespeare meant Shylock's forced conversion to Christianity to be a "happy ending" for the character, as, to a Christian audience, it saves his soul and allows him to enter Heaven.
Regardless of what Shakespeare's authorial intent may have been, the play has been made use of by antisemites throughout the play's history. The Nazis used the usurious Shylock for their propaganda. Shortly after Kristallnacht in 1938, The Merchant of Venice was broadcast for propagandistic ends over the German airwaves. Productions of the play followed in Lübeck (1938), Berlin (1940), and elsewhere within the Nazi territory.
In a series of articles called Observer, first published in 1785, British playwright Richard Cumberland created a character named Abraham Abrahams, who is quoted as saying, "I verily believe the odious character of Shylock has brought little less persecution upon us, poor scattered sons of Abraham, than the Inquisition itself." Cumberland later wrote a successful play, The Jew (1794), in which his title character, Sheva, is portrayed sympathetically, as both a kindhearted and generous man. This was the first known attempt by a dramatist to reverse the negative stereotype that Shylock personified.
The depiction of Jews in literature throughout the centuries bears the close imprint of Shylock. With slight variations much of English literature up until the 20th century depicts the Jew as "a monied, cruel, lecherous, avaricious outsider tolerated only because of his golden hoard". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Merchant_of_Venice |
Berenice IV | Berenice was the daughter of Ptolemy XII Auletes and probably Cleopatra V Tryphaena. She was the sister of the famous Pharaoh Cleopatra VII, Arsinoe IV, Ptolemy XIII Theos Philopator and Ptolemy XIV.
In 59 BC Julius Caesar was one of the consuls of Rome. It was believed that the annexation of Egypt was part of his own political programme, the excuse being that the king of Egypt, Ptolemy XII Auletes, was illegitimate and had no right to rule. Ptolemy Auletes responded by buying Caesar's support at huge expense, and the Romans passed a law to recognise Ptolemy Auletes as legitimate king of Egypt. The treaty however said nothing about Cyprus, where another Ptolemy, the brother of Ptolemy Auletes, was king.
In 58 BC the Romans annexed Cyprus, forcing the deposed king and brother of Auletes into suicide. The loss of Cyprus, and the poor state of the Egyptian economy following the bribes to Caesar, triggered civil unrest in Ptolemy Auletes' capital Alexandria. Unable to quash the unrest on his own, Ptolemy Auletes went in 58 BC to Rome to ask for military support, leaving his family behind in Egypt. In his absence, the Alexandrines declared him deposed, and in his place nominated his daughter Berenice IV Epiphaneia and (according to the ancient historian Porphyry) "[Auletes'] eldest daughter" Cleopatra VI Tryphaena as joint monarchs. Some, though not all, modern historians believe Porphyry made an error here, and that Cleopatra VI Tryphaena was in fact Ptolemy XII Auletes' wife Cleopatra V Tryphaena.
Unable to muster up immediate support from the Romans, Ptolemy Auletes was initially unable take his kingdom back from the two queens. From 58 till the end of 57 he resided in Rome or at Pompey's villa in the Alban hills, busily working upon the senators by bribes or promises, and procuring the assassination of envoys sent from Alexandria to Rome; he then left Rome and went to Ephesus, and lived in the sacred precinct of Artemis. In the meantime Cleopatra Tryphaena is believed to have died in 57 B.C. of unknown causes, leaving the young Berenice sole queen in Alexandria.
As a lone woman ruling Egypt, she was expected to marry and have a man as a co-regent. Her advisors first tried to arrange a marriage with two Seleucid princes, both descended from Ptolemy VIII. The first was a son of Cleopatra Selene of Syria: he died whilst negotiations were in progress. The second was a grandson of Tryphaena and Antiochus VIII Grypus called Philip (possibly Philip II Philoromaeus): he was forbidden by the Roman governor of Syria Aulus Gabinius to accept the invitation. The Alexandrines then, thirdly, arranged a marriage with a man called Seleucus, connected to the Seleucid royal house. He may have been another son of Cleopatra Selene of Syria, perhaps Seleucus VII Philometor; alternatively he may have been an illegitimate son of one of the Seleucid kings. When he arrived in Alexandria, the Alexandrines were shocked by his vulgar appearance and manners, and nicknamed him Kybiosaktes, "Salt-fish-monger". Berenice, after a few days of marriage, found she was unable to bear his coarseness and vulgarity, and felt that he could not command the respect of the populace: she had him strangled. The court then arranged a marriage with a Greek called Archelaus. Archelaus had been appointed prince-pontiff at the temple of the Great Mother at Comana in Pontus by Pompey, and claimed to be a son of King Mithridates VI of Pontus (and, if so, to be distantly related in blood to the Ptolemies). Strabo instead says his father was Archelaus, one of the chief marshals of Mithridates VI in the First Mithridatic War who defected to the Romans. At that time Archelaus was an associate of Aulus Gabinius, and had hoped to join with him on an expedition against the Parthians. Gabinius furthermore had become suspicious of Archelaus's associations with the Egyptians, and had him arrested. Persuaded though that Archelaus was no threat, and perhaps bribed, Gabinius voluntarily released him. In the winter 56‑55 Archelaus came to Egypt, married Berenice, and was proclaimed king.
In the spring of 55 Ptolemy Auletes and a Roman force invaded Egypt. Berenice and Archelaus were defeated, and Archelaus died in battle. Ptolemy Auletes was installed once more as king in Alexandria by the Romans. One of Ptolemy Auletes' first acts after his restoration was to execute his daughter Berenice, for the crime of usurping his throne.
He would later bequeath his throne to two siblings of Berenice IV: Cleopatra VII and Ptolemy XIII. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berenice_IV |
Kingdom of Jerusalem | Immediately after the First Crusade, land was distributed to loyal vassals of Godfrey, forming numerous feudal lordships within the kingdom. This was continued by Godfrey's successors. The number and importance of the lordships varied throughout the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and many cities were part of the royal domain. The king was assisted by a number of officers of state. The king and the royal court were normally located in Jerusalem, but due to the prohibition on Muslim inhabitants, the capital was small and underpopulated. The king just as often held court at Acre, Nablus, Tyre, or wherever else he happened to be. In Jerusalem, the royal family lived firstly on the Temple Mount, before the foundation of the Knights Templar, and later in the palace complex surrounding the Tower of David; there was another palace complex in Acre.
Because the nobles tended to live in Jerusalem rather than on estates in the countryside, they had a larger influence on the king than they would have had in Europe. The nobles, along with the bishops, formed the haute cour (high court), which was responsible for confirming the election of a new king (or a regent if necessary), collecting taxes, minting coins, allotting money to the king, and raising armies. The haute cour was the only judicial body for the nobles of the kingdom, hearing criminal cases such as murder, rape, and treason, and simpler feudal disputes such as the recovery of slaves, sales and purchases of fiefs, and default of service. Punishments included forfeiture of land and exile, or in extreme cases death. The first laws of the kingdom were, according to tradition, established during Godfrey of Bouillon's short reign, but were more probably established by Baldwin II at the Council of Nablus in 1120. Benjamin Z. Kedar argued that the canons of the Council of Nablus were in force in the 12th century but had fallen out of use by the thirteenth. Marwan Nader questions this and suggests that the canons may not have applied to the whole kingdom at all times. The most extensive collection of laws, together known as the Assizes of Jerusalem, were written in the mid-13th century, although many of them are purported to be twelfth-century in origin.
There were other, lesser courts for non-nobles and non-Latins; the Cour des Bourgeois provided justice for non-noble Latins, dealing with minor criminal offences such as assault and theft, and provided rules for disputes between non-Latins, who had fewer legal rights. Special courts such as the Cour de la Fond (for commercial disputes in the markets) and the Cour de la Mer (an admiralty court) existed in the coastal cities. The extent to which native Islamic and Eastern Christian courts continued to function is unknown, but the ra'is probably exercised some legal authority on a local level. The Cour des Syriens judged non-criminal matters among the native Christians (the "Syriacs"). For criminal matters, non-Latins were to be tried in the Cour des Bourgeois (or even the Haute Cour if the crime was sufficiently severe).
The Italian communes were granted almost complete autonomy from the very early days of the Kingdom, thanks to their military and naval support in the years following the First Crusade. This autonomy included the right to administer their own justice, although the kinds of cases that fell under their jurisdiction varied at different times.
The king was recognised as head of the Haute Cour, although he was legally only primus inter pares. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Jerusalem |
Al-Jawf Province | Al-Jawf has long held regional importance because of its strategic location on the Incense Road. The Assyrians considered the Kingdom of Qedar, whose capital of Dumat al-Jandal is located in Al-Jawf, to be a threat due to its hostility to Assyrian control. It was in this period that the first reference to the Arabs appears in the historical record on a monument built in 853 BC to memorialize of the Battle of Qarqar. The Qedarite Queen Zabibe is listed among the monarchs who had paid tribute to Assyrian King Tiglath-Pileser III.
Queen Samsi of Qedar later rebelled against Tiglath-Pileser III in alliance with the King of Damascus. Assyria suppressed the rebellion, killing 9,400 Qedarite warriors and capturing thousands of prisoners of war. Queen Samsi, realizing that the cause was lost, surrendered and declared obedience to the Assyrian monarchy. Tiglath-Pileser III restored her to the throne and appointed an emmissary with an army of 10,000 men to monitor her.
Hostilities continued under the reign of Queen Yatie, who supported of the Chaldeans under Marduk-apla-iddina II in their successful defense of Babylon against an Assyrian army commanded by King Sennacherib. Queen Yatie also sent her brother to participate in the battle for the city of Kish in 703 BC.
Queen Yatie's successor, Queen Te'el-hunu, was defeated by Sennacherib's forces and retreated to Dumat al-Jandal in 688 BC. Sennacherib captured her there along with the Princess Tabua and transported them to Nineveh.
During the reign of the Assyrian King Esarhaddon the Qedarite King Hazael travelled to the Assyrian capital of Nineveh bearing gifts in an attempt to reacquire sacred relics taken by the Assyrians from Dumat al-Jandal. Esarhaddon accepted and appointed the Princess Tabua as Hazael's co-regent. Yatia succeeded Hazael as King of Qedarites and was quickly met with a rebellion demanding independence from the Assyrians. The rebellion was ultimately suppressed by Assyrian forces.
King Yatia in turn rebelled against Esarhaddon while the latter was campaigning in Egypt against the Pharaoh Taharqa. Esarhaddon's army defeated Yatia and once again seized sacred relics from the Qederites, though Yatia himself survived. Esarhaddon was succeeded by his son Ashurbanipal in 668 BC, and following Ashurbanipal's ascension to the throne King Yatia travelled to Ninevah to request the return of the sacred relics and swear loyalty to the Assyrian state. Following the return of the relics, however, Yatia refused to pay tribute to Assyria and launched a revolt against Assyrian suzerainty. Ashurbanipal sent an army that crushed the uprising and forced Yatia into exile. Resistance to Assyrian power continued under Yatia's successors King Amoladi and Queen Attia, who had also previously been married to Yatia. The new king launched a failed attack on the Assyrian state and was captured by King Kamish of Moab. Amoladi and Attia were taken to Nineveh where they were punished by Ashurbanipal.
Ashurbanipal then appointed Abb Yatia Bin Tari King of the Qedarites, but the move backfired as Abb Yatia backed Ashurbanipal's older brother Shamash-shum-ukin when he launched a rebellion to usurp the throne in 652 BC. Abb Yatia failed to enter Babylon with his army and was routed by forces loyal to Ashurbanipal. After once again pleading fealty to the Assyrian crown he was allowed to remain King of Qedar. Abb Yatia rebelled once again with the support of the former Qedari King Yatia bin Hazael. This time, however, Ashurbanipal launched a major campaign against the Kingdom of Qedar, definitively ending the Qedarite resistance. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Jawf_Province |
Mamluk Sultanate | The sultans were products of the military hierarchy, entry into which was essentially restricted to mamluks. Awlad al-nas could enter and rise high within the hierarchy, but typically did not enter military service. Instead, many entered into mercantile, scholastic or other civilian careers. The army Baybars inherited consisted of Kurdish and Turkic tribesmen, refugees from the Ayyubid armies of Syria, and other troops from armies dispersed by the Mongols. After the Battle of Ain Jalut, Baybars restructured the army into three components: the Royal Mamluk regiment, the soldiers of the emirs, and the halqa (non-mamluk soldiers). The Royal Mamluks, who were under the direct command of the sultan, were the highest-ranking body within the army, entry into which was exclusive. The Royal Mamluks were the private corps of the sultan. The lower-ranking emirs also had their own corps, akin to private armies, which were also mobilized by the sultan when needed. As emirs were promoted, the number of soldiers in their corps increased, and when rival emirs challenged each other's authority, they often utilized their forces, leading to major disruptions of civilian life. The halqa had inferior status to the mamluk regiments. It had its own administrative structure and was under the direct command of the sultan. The halqa regiments declined in the 14th century when professional non-mamluk soldiers generally stopped joining the force.
The Ayyubid army had lacked a clear and permanent hierarchical system and one of Baybars's early reforms was creating such a hierarchy. To that end, he a ranking system for emirs of ten, forty and one hundred, each indicating the number of mamluks were assigned to an emir's command. An emir of one hundred could further be assigned one thousand mounted troops during battle. Baybars instituted uniformity within the army and ended the improvised nature of the Ayyubid forces in Egypt and Syria. Baybars and Qalawun standardized the undefined Ayyubid policies of distributing iqtaʿat to emirs. This reform created a clear link between an emir's rank and the size of his iqtaʿ. Baybars started biweekly inspections of the troops to verify sultanic orders were implemented, in addition to the periodic inspections where he distributed new arms to the troops. Beginning under Qalawun, the sultan and the military administration recorded all emirs in the empire and defined their roles as part of the right or left flanks of the army during wartime.
Gradually, as mamluks filled administrative and courtier posts within the state, Mamluk innovations to the Ayyubid hierarchy were developed. The offices of ustadar (majordomo), hajib (chamberlain), amir jandar (commander of the arsenal) and khazindar (treasurer), which existed during the Ayyubid period, were preserved, but Baybars added the offices of dawadar (secretary or adviser), amir akhur (commander of the royal stables), ru'us al-nawab (chief of the mamluk corps) and amir majlis (commander of the audience). These additional offices were largely ceremonial posts and were closely connected to the military hierarchy.
The ustadar (from the Arabic ustadh al-dar, lit. 'master of the house') was the sultan's chief of staff, responsible for organizing the royal court's daily activities, managing the sultan's personal budget, and supervising all of the buildings of the Citadel of Cairo and its staff. The ustadar was often referred to as the ustadar al-aliya (grand master of the house) to distinguish from his subordinate ustadar saghirs (lesser majordomos) who oversaw specific aspects of the court and citadel, such as the sultan's treasury, private property, and the kitchens of the citadel. Emirs had their own ustadars. The ustadar al-aliya became a powerful office in the late 14th century, particularly under Barquq and al-Nasir Faraj, who transferred the responsibilities of the special bureau for their mamluks to the authority of the ustadar, turning the latter into the state's chief financial official. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mamluk_Sultanate |
Lebanese space program | The Lebanese Rocket Society which was led by Manoug Manougian consisted of a small group of students from the Haigazian University. The society developed into the wider Lebanese space program and it produced the first rockets of the Arab World, which were capable of suborbital flight.
In November 1960, a group of Haigazian College students got together under the guidance of Manoug Manougian (a Mathematics and Physics instructor) to form the Haigazian College Rocket Society (HCRS).
With an initial budget of 750 Lebanese pounds donated by the late MP Emile Bustani, the members of the HCRS: Simon Aprahamian, Garabed Basmadjian, Hampartsum Karageuzian, Hrair Kelechian, Michael Ladah and John Tilkian, set out to prepare single and multistage solid fuel rockets.
Aspects of the first single-stage rocket were assigned to each student. As a result of the lack of required equipment, the group was obliged to resort to flight testing without any fuel tests in the laboratories. After a number of failures, the project was finally successful.
In April 1961, a single-stage solid propellant rocket was launched and reached an altitude of about one kilometer. With further improvements of the solid fuel system, a similar rocket called HCRS-3 was launched all the way up to 2 km.
The Lebanese President, Fouad Chehab, as a result of these experiments, met with the members of HCRS and granted financial assistance for the project (10 thousand LL for 1961 and 15 thousand LL for 1962).
During the academic year 1961–1962, the society worked on two-stage rockets with further improvements of the separation system, solid fuel system, and vehicle design. On May 25, 1962, HCRS-7 Cedar was Launched up to 11.5 km, and the Lebanese Army was responsible for the security of the launch. In the summer of 1962, two more rockets, Cedar llB and Cedar llC, were launched to a distance of 20 km.
Due to the successes of the HCRS, new members joined and a new group was formed in 1962, it was called the Lebanese Rocket Society (LRS).
The LRS was directed by a main committee of six members: M. Manougian of Haigazian College (director), P. Mourad of AUB (advisor), Karamanougian of Haigazian college, J. Sfeir (electronic engineer), E. Kai (engineer geodesist), and an officer expert in ballistics (granted by the Army). Further tests were planned on design and construction of multistage rockets. Hart supervised the works of the HCRS while Manougian was in the U.S. Members of the HCRS at the college were: Hampartzum Karaguezian, Hrair Aintablian, Hrair Sahagian, Jirair Zenian, and Jean Jack Guvlekjian.
On November 21, 1962, Cedar-3, a three stages solid propellant rocket prepared by the Haigazian group was launched. It had a length of 6.80 m and weight of 1250 kg.
After several other launchings, an accident occurred during the summer of 1964, which hospitalized 2 students who fortunately recovered. However, the launch was ended, and no accidents have taken place since.
In 1963, a Cedar IV rocket was launched and reached 90 miles (140 km) altitude, putting it close to the altitude of satellites in Low Earth Orbit. The rocket was later commemorated on a stamp.
The final launch by the Lebanon Rocket Society was in 1966. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebanese_space_program |
Battle of Khartoum (2023–present) | The Sudanese Army launched an offensive in several areas of the three cities on 11 June. Initial clashes broke out along the Halfaya and Manshia bridges, Kafouri, the southern neighborhoods, and north of the Armored Corps. Both the RSF and SAF reported fighting on Al Shajara avenue, near the SAF Armored Corps, with the RSF alleging that they were tightening their siege on the corps. Resistance committees in Karari announced that fighting occurred at the SAF-controlled Halfaya bridge roundabout. The RSF also ambushed an SAF convoy between Haj Youssef and Kafouri. The SAF also launched attacks near Kobari Bridge from the Signal Corps. Shelling also occurred in the southern neighborhoods. Air raids occurred in El Ghaba street of Khartoum, El Salha of Omdurman, and Sharq En Nil of Bahri.
The SAF accused the RSF during the offensive of mixing in with civilians, and targeting civilian households in El Azhari and El Salama neighborhoods of southern Khartoum. The army also announced the death of Brigadier General Abdelrahman El Tayeb, who was killed during the battle for Halfaya Bridge. The SAF alleged that "dozens" of RSF were killed in the first stage of the offensive. Five people were killed in the shelling of El Azhari and El Salama. The next day, that toll grew to 18 people killed in the shellings. Three people were killed in the Muzdalifa and Maygoma areas of Bahri on 11 and 12 June as well.
On 13 June, RSF fighters stormed the residence of the Somali ambassador to Sudan. Clashes also continued around Halfaya and the Wadi Sayyidna airbase. RSF and Sudanese officers also targeted the sites of different newspapers and journalists across Khartoum in mid-June, with journalists from El Intibaha, El Tayar, and El Sharq El Awsat all being targeted. The next day, clashes continued in Haj Youssef and Sharq El Nil, both of which were under RSF control. Some fighting was reported in the El Mohandesin area of Omdurman and El Shajara in Khartoum, but otherwise, the day was relatively calm. Ceasefire talks between the RSF and SAF began in Djibouti, mediated by National Congress Party officials from the former al-Bashir regime. On 16 June, four siblings were killed in El Kadisiya, Sharq En Nil, and eight civilians were killed in Omdurman. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Khartoum_(2023%E2%80%93present) |
De materia medica | Writing in The Great Naturalists, the historian of science David Sutton describes De materia medica as "one of the most enduring works of natural history ever written" and that "it formed the basis for Western knowledge of medicines for the next 1,500 years."
The historian of science Marie Boas writes that herbalists depended entirely on Dioscorides and Theophrastus until the 16th century, when they finally realized they could work on their own. She notes also that herbals by different authors, such as Leonhart Fuchs, Valerius Cordus, Lobelius, Rembert Dodoens, Carolus Clusius, John Gerard and William Turner, were dominated by Dioscorides, his influence only gradually weakening as the 16th-century herbalists "learned to add and substitute their own observations".
Early science and medicine historian Paula Findlen, writing in the Cambridge History of Science, calls De materia medica "one of the most successful and enduring herbals of antiquity, [which] emphasized the importance of understanding the natural world in light of its medicinal efficiency", in contrast to Pliny's Natural History (which emphasized the wonders of nature) or the natural history studies of Aristotle and Theophrastus (which emphasized the causes of natural phenomena). Medicine historian Vivian Nutton, in Ancient Medicine, writes that Dioscorides's "five books in Greek On Materia medica attained canonical status in Late Antiquity." Science historian Brian Ogilvie calls Dioscorides "the greatest ancient herbalist", and De materia medica "the summa of ancient descriptive botany", observing that its success was such that few other books in his domain have survived from classical times. Further, his approach matched the Renaissance liking for detailed description, unlike the philosophical search for essential nature (as in Theophrastus's Historia Plantarum). A critical moment was the decision by Niccolò Leoniceno and others to use Dioscorides "as the model of the careful naturalist—and his book De materia medica as the model for natural history."
The Dioscorides translator and editor Tess Anne Osbaldeston notes that "For almost two millennia Dioscorides was regarded as the ultimate authority on plants and medicine", and that he "achieved overwhelming commendation and approval because his writings addressed the many ills of mankind most usefully." To illustrate this, she states that "Dioscorides describes many valuable drugs including aconite, aloes, bitter apple, colchicum, henbane, and squill". The work mentions the painkillers willow (leading ultimately to aspirin, she writes), autumn crocus and opium, which however is also narcotic. Many other substances that Dioscorides describes remain in modern pharmacopoeias as "minor drugs, diluents, flavouring agents, and emollients ... [such as] ammoniacum, anise, cardamoms, catechu, cinnamon, colocynth, coriander, crocus, dill, fennel, galbanum, gentian, hemlock, hyoscyamus, lavender, linseed, mastic, male fern, marjoram, marshmallow, mezereon, mustard, myrrh, orris (iris), oak galls, olive oil, pennyroyal, pepper, peppermint, poppy, psyllium, rhubarb, rosemary, rue, saffron, sesame, squirting cucumber (elaterium), starch, stavesacre (delphinium), storax, stramonium, sugar, terebinth, thyme, white hellebore, white horehound, and couch grass—the last still used as a demulcent diuretic." She notes that medicines such as wormwood, juniper, ginger, and calamine also remain in use, while "Chinese and Indian physicians continue to use liquorice". She observes that the many drugs listed to reduce the spleen may be explained by the frequency of malaria in his time. Dioscorides lists drugs for women to cause abortion and to treat urinary tract infection; palliatives for toothache, such as colocynth, and others for intestinal pains; and treatments for skin and eye diseases. As well as these useful substances, she observes that "A few superstitious practices are recorded in De materia medica," such as using Echium as an amulet to ward off snakes, or Polemonia (Jacob's ladder) for scorpion stings.
In the view of the historian Paula De Vos, De materia medica formed the core of the European pharmacopoeia until the end of the 19th century, suggesting that "the timelessness of Dioscorides' work resulted from an empirical tradition based on trial and error; that it worked for generation after generation despite social and cultural changes and changes in medical theory".
At Mount Athos in northern Greece Dioscorides's text was still in use in its original Greek into the 20th century, as observed in 1934 by Sir Arthur Hill, Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew:
At Karyes there is an official Botanist Monk ... he was a remarkable old Monk with an extensive knowledge of plants and their properties. Though fully gowned in a long black cassock he traveled very quickly, usually on foot, and sometimes on a mule, carrying his 'Flora' with him in a large, black, bulky bag. Such a bag was necessary since his 'Flora' was nothing less than four manuscript folio volumes of Dioscorides, which apparently he himself had copied out. This Flora he invariably used for determining any plant which he could not name at sight, and he could find his way in his books and identify his plants—to his own satisfaction—with remarkable rapidity. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_materia_medica |
Canaan | Ann Killebrew has shown that cities such as Jerusalem were large and important walled settlements in the pre-Israelite
Middle Bronze IIB and the Israelite Iron Age IIC period (c. 1800–1550 and c. 720–586 BC), but that during the intervening Late Bronze (LB) and Iron Age I and IIA/B Ages sites like Jerusalem were small and relatively insignificant and unfortified towns.
Just after the Amarna period, a new problem arose which was to trouble the Egyptian control of southern Canaan (the rest of the region now being under Assyrian control). Pharaoh Horemhab campaigned against Shasu (Egyptian = "wanderers") living in nomadic pastoralist tribes, who had moved across the Jordan River to threaten Egyptian trade through Galilee and Jezreel. Seti I (c. 1290 BC) is said to have conquered these Shasu, Semitic-speaking nomads living just south and east of the Dead Sea, from the fortress of Taru (Shtir?) to "Ka-n-'-na". After the near collapse of the Battle of Kadesh, Rameses II had to campaign vigorously in Canaan to maintain Egyptian power. Egyptian forces penetrated into Moab and Ammon, where a permanent fortress garrison (called simply "Rameses") was established.
Some believe the "Habiru" signified generally all the nomadic tribes known as "Hebrews", and particularly the early Israelites of the period of the "judges", who sought to appropriate the fertile region for themselves. However, the term was rarely used to describe the Shasu. Whether the term may also include other related ancient Semitic-speaking peoples such as the Moabites, Ammonites and Edomites is uncertain.
There is little evidence that any major city or settlement in the southern Levant was destroyed around 1200 BC. At Lachish, The Fosse Temple III was ritually terminated while a house in Area S appears to have burned in a house fire as the most severe evidence of burning was next to two ovens while no other part of the city had evidence of burning. After this though the city was rebuilt in a grander fashion than before. For Megiddo, most parts of the city did not have any signs of damage and it is only possible that the palace in Area AA might have been destroyed though this is not certain. While the monumental structures at Hazor were indeed destroyed, this destruction was in the mid-13th century BC long before the end of the Late Bronze Age began. However, many sites were not burned to the ground around 1200 BC including: Asqaluna, Ashdod_(ancient_city), Tell es-Safi, Tel Batash, Tel Burna, Tel Dor, Tel Gerisa, Tell Jemmeh, Khirbet Rabud, Tel Zeror, and Tell Abu Hawam among others.
Despite many theories which claim that trade relations broke down after 1200 BC in the southern Levant, there is ample evidence that trade with other regions continued after the end of the Late Bronze Age in the Southern Levant. Archaeologist Jesse Millek has shown that while the common assuption is that trade in Cypriot and Mycenaean pottery ended around 1200 BC, trade in Cypriot pottery actually largely came to an end at 1300, while for Mycenaean pottery, this trade ended at 1250 BC, and destruction around 1200 BC could not have affected either pattern of international trade since it ended before the end of the Late Bronze Age. He has also demonstrated that trade with Egypt continued after 1200 BC. Archaeometallurgical studies performed by various teams have also shown that trade in tin, a non-local metal necessary to make bronze, did not stop or decrease after 1200 BC, even though the closest source of the metal were modern Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, or perhaps even Cornwall, England. Lead from Sardinia was still being imported to the southern Levant after 1200 BC during the early Iron Age. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canaan |
Emirate of Ras Al Khaimah | The annual Ras Al Khaimah Half Marathon, first held in 2007, resulted in a world record from Samuel Wanjiru in 2007 and the second fastest run of all time from Patrick Makau Musyoki in 2009. Kenya's 19-year-old Stephen Kiprop won the 2019 edition of the half marathon in a course record-equaling 58 minutes and 42 seconds, the fastest time ever recorded by a teenager.
In the 2020 iteration, Ethiopia's Ababel Yeshaneh broke the women's half marathon world record by 20 seconds with a time of 1:04:31, eclipsing the previous record of 1:04:51 set by Kenyan Joyciline Jepkosgei in Valencia in 2017.
The UAE Awafi Festival is an annual cultural and heritage festival held in the Ras Al Khaimah desert. It is a three-week event, held in December or January, one attraction being a sand dune race. There is a heritage village with traditional food and dance, as well as shops for food and souvenirs.
The Terry Fox Run RAK is a yearly charity run organized in Ras Al Khaimah to support cancer research in the UAE. The first event was organized in 2010. Participation in this event has grown from hundreds to thousands since its inception, averaging about 5,000 participants in recent years.
Ras Al Khaimah Art is an annual event that has taken place since 2013, organised by the Al Qasimi Foundation for Policy Research. It started with just 26 artists but by 2018 that number had grown to 84. The not-for-profit festival takes place every February–March and since 2019 has taken place at the redeveloped Al Jazirah Al Hamra Heritage Village.
Each year, a number of events are lined up in Ras Al Khaimah to mark the United Arab Emirates' National Day, usually involving an air show by the Fursan Al Emarat aerobatics team and a free concert featuring some of the best singers in the Arab world.
In 2018, Ras Al Khaimah became the new host for the season-ending tournament on the Challenge Tour, the second tier of European Tour golf. The "Road to Ras Al Khaimah" ends with the Ras Al Khaimah Challenge Tour Grand Final played at Al Hamra Golf Course.
2022 marked the start of the Ras Al Khaimah Championship golf event, a top-tier European Tour event bringing the top players on the tour to Al Hamra Golf Club each February. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emirate_of_Ras_Al_Khaimah |
Sudanese transition to democracy (2019–2021) | The deal was described on 5 July as including the creation of a "transparent and independent investigation" into the events that followed the 2019 Sudanese coup d'état, including the Khartoum massacre. On 8 July, Associated Press described the investigation as "Sudanese". The 17 July written political agreement stated that the investigation committee "may seek any African support if needed."
The 4 August Draft Constitutional Declaration refers to the investigation in Article 7.(16) as an element of the "Mandate of the Transitional Period", defining the scope as "violations committed on 3 June 2019, and events and incidents where violations of the rights and dignity of civilian and military citizens were committed." The investigation committee is to be created within a month of the Prime Minister's nomination, under an "order" that "guarantees that it will be independent and possess full powers to investigate and determine the timeframe for its activities".
Immunity
According to an anonymous military official present at pre–5 July negotiations and quoted by The Christian Science Monitor, US negotiators led by Donald E. Booth proposed that TMC members be guaranteed immunity from prosecution in the investigation. The military official stated, "The Americans demanded a deal as soon as possible. Their message was clear: power-sharing in return for guarantees that nobody from the council will be tried." On 13 July, the FFC opposed 3 June Khartoum massacre suspects being members of the investigating committee.
The 17 July written deal does not refer to immunity for TMC members. On 25 July, Mohamed El Hafiz of the FFC legal committee stated its requests for changes to a draft of the constitutional declaration. This included the removal of a draft article that would have given immunity from prosecution to TMC and Sovereign Council leaders. El Hafiz said that neither absolute nor procedural immunity would be accepted for any leader. On 31 July, TMC leader al-Burhan "confirmed that the members of the [junta] do not desire immunity". On 1 August, the FFC accepted that Sovereign Council members could have "procedural immunity", defined to mean that Sovereign Council members would have immunity that could be lifted by a two-thirds supermajority vote of the legislative council.
In the 4 August Draft Constitutional Declaration, Article 21 gives procedural immunity to members of the Sovereignty Council, the Cabinet, the Transitional Legislative Council, governors of provinces and heads of regions, with 21.(2) giving the Transitional Legislative Council the right to lift that immunity by a simple majority.
Creation
The Khartoum massacre investigation commission, headed by human rights lawyer Nabil Adib, was nominated on 20 October 2019 by Prime Minister Hamdok. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudanese_transition_to_democracy_(2019%E2%80%932021) |
Mahdist State | In this troubled atmosphere, Muhammad Ahmad ibn as Sayyid Abd Allah, who combined personal charisma with a religious and political mission, emerged, determined to expel the Turks and restore Islam to its original purity. The son of a Dongola boatbuilder, Muhammad Ahmad had become the disciple of Muhammad ash Sharif, the head of the Sammaniyah Sufi order. Later, as a sheikh of the order, Muhammad Ahmad spent several years in seclusion and gained a reputation as a mystic and teacher.
In 1881, Muhammad Ahmad proclaimed himself the Mahdi ("expected one"). Some of his most dedicated followers regarded him as directly inspired by Allah. He wanted Muslims to reclaim the Quran and hadith as the foundational sources of Islam, creating a just society. Specifically relating to Sudan, he claimed its poverty was a virtue and denounced worldly wealth and luxury. For Muhammad Ahmad, Egypt was an example of wealth leading to impious behavior. Muhammad Ahmad's calls for an uprising found great appeal among the poorest communities along the Nile, as it combined a nationalist, anti-Egyptian agenda with fundamentalist religious certainty.
Even after the Mahdi proclaimed a jihad, or holy war, against the Egyptians, Khartoum dismissed him as a religious fanatic. The Egyptian government paid more attention when his religious zeal turned to denunciation of tax collectors. To avoid arrest, the Mahdi and a party of his followers, the Ansar, made a long march to Kurdufan, where he gained a large number of recruits, especially from the Baggara. From a refuge in the area, he wrote appeals to the sheikhs of the religious orders and won active support or assurances of neutrality from all except the pro-Egyptian Khatmiyyah. Merchants and Arab tribes that had depended on the slave trade responded as well, along with the Hadendoa Beja, who were rallied to the Mahdi by an Ansar captain, Osman Digna.
Ahmad's new polity functioned as a jihad state, run like a military camp. The Mahdiyah equalized its male citizenry in totalitarian asceticism, mandating communal jibba; and firmly excluded women from all public space. The Mahdi dissolved all fiqh, insisting on the literal meaning of the Quran. Sharia courts enforced Islamic law and the Mahdi's precepts, which had the force of law. A contemporary scout on behalf of Muhammad as-Sanusi described the land as "a burning country, dying and reeking of death". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahdist_State |
Ministry of Health (Saudi Arabia) | Healthcare and health infrastructure were a key performance indicators for Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030, a program to increase standards across the Kingdom in a number of fields. Following its introduction in 2013, a number of major milestones were reached. The development of remote health meant that the 937 Call Center received a total of 3 million calls in 2018, this more than doubled from the 1.4 million the year prior.
As part of the ongoing efforts to transform the digital interaction patients have in the country, a new app 'Mawid' was introduced to centralize health bookings. 10 million bookings have been made since its introduction, with five million using the app last year. Seha was also a success, allowing patients to speak remotely to a doctor or medical professional. It is believed that 300,000 people used the app in 2018 alone.
Raising the levels of productivity, efficiency, and quality of performance in the provision of health services in hospitals, the Ministry is implementing the program «Health Performance - Ada'a» towards achieving the Saudi Vision 2030, and currently includes 98.8% of hospitals, where more than 40 indicators are used to measure performance in 7 service hubs, wherein positive results were achieved in reducing waiting periods in emergency and outpatient clinics.
Enhancing Traffic Safety is one of the Kingdom's goals in its 2030 vision. The Minister of Health is part of a ministerial committee overlooking the implementation of many initiatives and projects in all aspects of Traffic Safety dimensions, which focuses on enforcement, engineering, education, and emergency response. These efforts resulted in the reduction of fatalities by 33%, injuries by 21%, and motor vehicle accidents by 34% in the last two years. Fatalities per 100,000 had been reduced from 28.8 in 2016 to 17.7 in 2018. The Kingdom is aiming to be the best in class in road safety by 2030.
To strengthen the role of the private sector, the MOH has introduced electronic licensing services for medical facilities. Prior to the introduction of this license, the process used to take 120 days in many cases. The MOH has also enabled the sector to monitor itself through the self-assessment service, followed by inspections of health establishments to ensure that they are free of harmful health practices. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministry_of_Health_(Saudi_Arabia) |
Ahmadiyya Caliphate | Ahmadi Muslims believe the system of caliphate (Arabic: Khilāfah) to be an ancillary to the system of prophethood, continuing to strive for the objectives for which a prophet is sent and to carry to completion the tasks of reformation and moral training that were seeded by the prophet. The caliphs, as successors to the prophets, lead the community of believers after a prophet's death.
Ahmadis maintain that in accordance with Quranic verses (such as Q24:55) and numerous hadith on the issue, the caliphate can only be established by God Himself and is a divine blessing given to those who believe and work righteousness, upholding the Unity of God. Therefore, any movement to establish the caliphate centered around human endeavours alone is bound to fail, particularly when the condition of the people diverges from the ‘precepts of Prophethood’ (minhājin nabūwwah) and they are as a result disunited. Although the caliph (Arabic: khalifa) in Ahmadiyya is elected, it is believed that God Himself directs the hearts and minds of believers through visions, dreams and spiritual guidance towards a particular individual. No campaigning, speeches or speculation of any kind are permitted. Thus the caliph is designated neither necessarily by right (i.e. the rightful or competent one in the eyes of the people at that time) nor merely by election but primarily by God.
According to Ahmadiyya thought, just as it is not essential for a prophet to be the head of a state, it is not essential for a caliph to be the head of a state, rather the religious and organisational significance of the caliphate is emphasised. It is above all a religious office, with the purpose to uphold, strengthen and spread Islam and maintain the high moral standards within the Muslim community established by Muhammad, who was not merely a political leader but primarily a religious leader. The caliphate is understood as a system dealing with the organisation of believers and relating to the administration (nizām) of the Muslim community whether or not it involves a governmental role. Being based on the 'precept of Prophethood', the institution of caliphate can therefore, like prophethood, exist and flourish without a state. If a caliph does happen to bear governmental authority as a head of state, it is incidental and subsidiary in relation to his overall function as caliph which is applicable to believers transnationally and not limited to one particular state or political entity. The system of caliphate in Islam, thus understood, transcends national sovereignty and ethnic divide, forming a universal supra-national entity and the role of a caliph as the leader of the Muslim community, in such an understanding, surpasses that of a monarch.
Because Muhammad became the head of state at Medina, the Rightly Guided successors after him also happened to be heads of state and – similar to the successors of Moses who led the Israelites after his death and, following the conquest of Canaan, gained control over a territory– functioned as political and military as well as religious leaders. Since Ghulam Ahmad, whom Ahmadis hold to be the promised Mahdi, was, like Jesus, not the head of a state, his successors after him – like the successors of Jesus did – function without attaching themselves to any state, seeking no political role and having no territorial ambition. In terms of the political aspect of the caliphate as envisioned within the Ahmadiyya community, since God's sovereignty is seen as extending over the universe, the ideal polity within Islam is one where the caliph is the spiritual head guiding, in accordance with Islamic principles, a federation or confederation of autonomous states (functioning under any political system or form of government) associated together for the maintenance of peace and cooperating in promoting human welfare throughout the world. Such a framework allows the caliph to relegate, if he sees fit, most or all his secular authority to the elected representatives of the members of such a confederation. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmadiyya_Caliphate |
Education in Bahrain | Quranic schools were the only source of education in Bahrain prior to the 20th century; such schools were primarily dedicated to the study of the Qur'an. The first modern school to open in the country was a missionary elementary school setup in 1899 in Manama by the Reformed Church in America, with the school's syllabus comprising English, Mathematics and the study of Christianity. Leading merchants in the country sent their children to the school, which later became known as the American Mission School. It was renamed Al Raja School in 1980 and operates till the present day.
Parents who could afford to fund their children's studies often sent them to schools in Bombay or Baghdad. Families of a predominately religious background often sent their children to religious institutions in the region, to madrasas in Mecca and al-Hasa in mainland Arabia for Sunni students and to Najaf and Karbala for Shia students. As a result of this traditional religious education, there was a negative stigma attached to the American Mission School and only a few parents were bold enough to send their children to the school. Prior to the establishment of a public school in the country, Shia and Sunni students had limited interactions during their education. This can be attributed to different environments of learning; outside of religious institutions, Shia students acquired knowledge from matams whereas Sunni students did from majlises although neither matam nor majlis were officially recognised as educational institutions in their own right.
Following the end of the First World War, Western ideas became more widespread in the country, culminating in the opening of the first public school of Bahrain, Al-Hidaya Al-Khalifia Boys school, in the island of Muharraq in 1919. The school was founded by prominent citizens of Muharraq and was endorsed by the Bahraini royal family. The country's first Education Committee was established by several leading Bahraini merchants, headed by Shaikh Abdulla bin Isa Al-Khalifa, the son of the then-ruler of Bahrain Isa ibn Ali Al Khalifa, who acted as the de facto Minister of Education. The Education Committee was also responsible for managing the Al-Hidaya Boys school. The school was in fact the brainchild of Shaikh Abdulla, who suggested the idea after returning from post-World War I celebrations in England.
In 1926, a second public school for boys opened up in the capital city, Manama. Two years later, in 1928, the first public school for girls was established. Due to financial constraints suffered by the Education Committee, the Bahraini government took control of the schools in 1930. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Bahrain |
Kingdom of Tlemcen | For most of its history the kingdom was on the defensive, threatened by stronger states to the east and the west.
The nomadic Arabs to the south also took advantage of the frequent periods of weakness to raid the centre and take control of pastures in the south.
The city of Tlemcen was several times attacked or besieged by the Marinids, and large parts of the kingdom were occupied by them for several decades in the fourteenth century.The Marinid Abu Yaqub Yusuf an-Nasr besieged Tlemcen from 1299 to 1307. During the siege he built a new town, al-Mansura, diverting most of the trade to this town. The new city was fortified and had a mosque, baths and palaces. The siege was raised when Abu Yakub was murdered in his sleep by one of his eunuchs.
When the Marinids left in 1307, the Zayyanids promptly destroyed al-Mansura. The Zayyanid king Abu Zayyan I died in 1308 and was succeeded by Abu Hammu I (r. 1308–1318). Abu Hammu was later killed in a conspiracy instigated by his son and heir Abu Tashufin I (r. 1318–1337). The reigns of Abu Hammu I and Abu Tashufin I marked the second apogee of the Zayyanids, a period during which they consolidated their hegemony in the central Maghreb. Tlemcen recovered its trade and its population grew, reaching about 100,000 by around the 1330s. Abu Tashufin initiated hostilities against Ifriqiya while the Marinids were distracted by their internal struggles. He besieged Béjaïa and sent an army into Tunisia that defeated the Hafsid king Abu Yahya Abu Bakr II, who fled to Constantine while the Zayyanids occupied Tunis in 1325.
The Marinid sultan Abu al-Hasan (r. 1331–1348) cemented an alliance with Hafsids by marrying a Hafsid princess. Upon being attacked by the Zayyanids again, the Hafsids appealed to Abu al-Hasan for help, providing him with an excuse to invade his neighbour. The Marinid sultan initiated a siege of Tlemcen in 1335 and the city fell in 1337. Abu Tashufin died during the fighting. Abu al-Hasan received delegates from Egypt, Granada, Tunis and Mali congratulating him on his victory, by which he had gained complete control of the trans-Saharan trade. In 1346 the Hafsid Sultan, Abu Bakr, died and a dispute over the succession ensued. In 1347 Abu al-Hasan annexed Ifriqiya, briefly reuniting the Maghrib territories as they had been under the Almohads.
However, Abu al-Hasan went too far in attempting to impose more authority over the Arab tribes, who revolted and in April 1348 defeated his army near Kairouan. His son, Abu Inan Faris, who had been serving as governor of Tlemcen, returned to Fez and declared that he was sultan. Tlemcen and the central Maghreb revolted. The Zayyanid Abu Thabit I (1348–1352) was proclaimed king of Tlemcen. Abu al-Hasan had to return from Ifriqiya by sea. After failing to retake Tlemcen and being defeated by his son, Abu al-Hasan died in May 1351. In 1352 Abu Inan Faris recaptured Tlemcen. He also reconquered the central Maghreb. He took Béjaïa in 1353 and Tunis in 1357, becoming master of Ifriqiya. In 1358 he was forced to return to Fez due to Arab opposition, where he fell sick and was killed.
The Zayyanid king Abu Hammu Musa II (r. 1359–1389) next took the throne of Tlemcen. He pursued an expansionist policy, pushing towards Fez in the west and into the Chelif valley and Béjaïa in the east. He had a long reign punctuated by fighting against the Marinids or various rebel groups. The Marinids reoccupied Tlemcen in 1360 and in 1370. In both cases, the Marinids found they were unable to hold the region against local resistance. Abu Hammu attacked the Hafsids in Béjaïa again in 1366, but this resulted in Hafsid intervention in the kingdom's affairs. The Hafsid sultan released Abu Hammu's cousin, Abu Zayyan, and helped him in laying claim to the Zayyanid throne. This provoked an internecine war between the two Zayyanids until 1378, when Abu Hammu finally captured Abu Zayyan in Algiers.: 141
The historian Ibn Khaldun lived in Tlemcen for a period during the generally prosperous reign of Abu Hammu Musa II, and helped him in negotiations with the nomadic Arabs. He said of this period, "Here [in Tlemcen] science and arts developed with success; here were born scholars and outstanding men, whose glory penetrated into other countries." Abu Hammu was deposed by his son, Abu Tashfin II (1389–94), and the state went into decline. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Tlemcen |
Tunisian revolution | During a national television broadcast on 28 December, President Ben Ali criticised protesters as "extremist mercenaries" and warned of "firm" punishment. He also accused "certain foreign television channels" of spreading falsehoods and deforming the truth, and called them "hostile to Tunisia". His remarks were ignored and the protests continued.
On 29 December, Ben Ali shuffled his cabinet to remove communications minister Oussama Romdhani, while also announcing changes to the trade and handicrafts, religious affairs, communication and youth portfolios. The next day he also announced the dismissal of the governors of Sidi Bouzid, Jendouba and Zaghouan.
In January 2011, Ben Ali said 300,000 new jobs would be created, though he did not clarify what that meant. He described the protests as "the work of masked gangs" attacking public property and citizens in their homes, and "a terrorist act that cannot be overlooked". Ahmed Najib Chebbi, the leader of the Progressive Democratic Party (PDP), responded that despite official claims of police firing in self-defense "the demonstrations were non-violent and the youths were claiming their rights to jobs" and that "the funeral processions [for those killed on 9 January] turned into demonstrations, and the police fired [at] the youths who were at these [...] processions." He then criticised Ben Ali's comments as the protesters were "claiming their civil rights, and there is no terrorist act...no religious slogans". He further accused Ben Ali of "looking for scapegoats" and dismissed the creation of jobs as empty promises.
Several webloggers and rapper El Général were arrested, but the rapper and some of the bloggers were later released. Reporters Without Borders said the arrest of at least six bloggers and activists, who had either been arrested or had disappeared across Tunisia, was brought to their attention and that there were "probably" others. Tunisian Pirate Party activists Slah Eddine Kchouk, Slim Amamou (later appointed Secretary of State for Sport and Youth by the incoming government) and Azyz Amamy were arrested but later released. Hamma Hammami, the leader of the banned Tunisian Workers' Communist Party and a prominent critic of Ben Ali, was arrested on 12 January, and released two days later.
On 10 January, the government announced the indefinite closure of all schools and universities in order to quell the unrest. Days before departing office, Ben Ali announced that he would not change the present constitution, which would require him to step down in 2014 due to his age.
On 14 January, Ben Ali dissolved his government and declared a state of emergency. The official reason given was to protect Tunisians and their property. People were barred from gathering in groups of more than three, and could be arrested or shot if they tried to run away. Ben Ali called for an election within six months to defuse demonstrations aimed at forcing him out. France24 reported that the military took control of the airport and closed the country's airspace.
On the same day, Ben Ali fled the country for Malta under Libyan protection. His aircraft landed in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, after France rejected a request to land on its territory. Saudi Arabia cited "exceptional circumstances" for their heavily criticised decision to give him asylum, saying it was also "in support of the security and stability of their country". Saudi Arabia demanded Ben Ali remain "out of politics" as a condition for accepting him. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunisian_revolution |
Kuwait | The Kuwait Investment Authority (KIA) is Kuwait's largest sovereign wealth fund specializing in foreign investment. The KIA is the world's oldest sovereign wealth fund. Since 1953, the Kuwaiti government has directed investments into Europe, United States and Asia Pacific. In 2021, the holdings were valued at around $700 billion in assets. It is the 3rd largest sovereign wealth fund in the world.
Kuwait has a leading position in the financial industry in the GCC. The Emir has promoted the idea that Kuwait should focus its energies, in terms of economic development, on the financial industry. The historical preeminence of Kuwait (among the GCC monarchies) in finance dates back to the founding of the National Bank of Kuwait in 1952. The bank was the first local publicly traded corporation in the GCC region. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, an alternative stock market, trading in shares of GCC companies, emerged in Kuwait, the Souk Al-Manakh. At its peak, its market capitalization was the third highest in the world, behind only the United States and Japan, and ahead of the United Kingdom and France.
Kuwait has a large wealth-management industry. Kuwaiti investment companies administer more assets than those of any other GCC country, save the much larger Saudi Arabia. The Kuwait Financial Centre, in a rough calculation, estimated that Kuwaiti firms accounted for over one-third of the total assets under management in the GCC.
The relative strength of Kuwait in the financial industry extends to its stock market. For many years, the total valuation of all companies listed on the Kuwait Stock Exchange far exceeded the value of those on any other GCC bourse, except Saudi Arabia. In 2011, financial and banking companies made up more than half of the market capitalization of the Kuwaiti bourse; among all the GCC states, the market capitalization of Kuwaiti financial-sector firms was, in total, behind only that of Saudi Arabia. In recent years, Kuwaiti investment companies have invested large percentages of their assets abroad, and their foreign assets have become substantially larger than their domestic assets.
Kuwait is a major source of foreign economic assistance to other states through the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development, an autonomous state institution created in 1961 on the pattern of international development agencies. In 1974, the fund's lending mandate was expanded to include all developing countries in the world.
In the past five years, there has been a rise in entrepreneurship and small business start-ups in Kuwait. The informal sector is also on the rise, mainly due to the popularity of Instagram businesses. In 2020, Kuwait ranked fourth in the MENA region in startup funding after the UAE, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuwait |
Refugees of the Syrian civil war | The number of refugees that crossed the Turkish border reached 10,000–15,000 by mid 2011. More than 5,000 returned to Syria between July and August, while most were moved to newly built camps that hosted 7,600 refugees by November. By the end of 2011, the number of refugees were estimated to be 5,500–8,500 in Lebanon, with around 2,500 registered, around 1,500 registered in Jordan (with possibly thousands more unregistered), and thousands had found shelter in Libya.
By April 2012, in the early insurgency phase of the Syrian civil war preceding 10 April ceasefire under the Kofi Annan peace plan, UN reported 200,000 or more Syrians internally displaced, 55,000 registered refugees and an estimated 20,000 not yet registered. 25,000 were registered in Turkey, 10,000 in Lebanon (mostly fleeing fighting in Homs, around 10,000 more were unregistered), 7,000 in Jordan (with 2,000 more unregistered estimated by the UNHCR, 20,000 according to JOHUD and 80,000 arrivals according to Jordanian officials), 800 in Iraq (400 more unregistered). Within Syria, there were 100,000 refugees from Iraq, 70,000 more already returned to Iraq.
In mid 2012, when the peace plan failed and the UN for the first time officially proclaimed Syria to be in a state of civil war, the number of registered refugees increased to more than 110,000. Over 2 days in July, 19,000 Syrians fled from Damascus into Lebanon, as violence inside the city escalated. The first Syrian refugees migrated by sea to the European Union, small numbers found asylum in various countries such as Colombia. Some refugees were turned away from Jordan. By the end of 2012, the UNHCR reported that the number of refugees jumped to well over 750,000 with 135,519 in Turkey; 54,000 in Iraqi Kurdistan and about 9,000 in the rest of Iraq; 150,000 in Lebanon 142,000 in Jordan and over 150,000 in Egypt
An estimated 1.5 million Syrians are refugees by the end of 2013. In 2014, the deteriorating humanitarian situation in neighboring Iraq prompted an influx of Iraqi refugees into north-eastern Syria. By the end of August, the UN estimated 6.5 million people had been displaced within Syria, while more than 3 million had fled to countries such as Lebanon (1.1 million), Jordan (600,000) and Turkey (800,000).
With the beginning of 2015, the European Union struggled to cope with the migrant crisis, its countries entering negotiations and heated political debate over closing or reinforcing borders and quota systems for resettlement of refugees and migrants from different parts of the world. The image of a drowned Syrian toddler's body washed up on a Turkish beach becomes a seminal moment in the refugee crises and global response. National debates and media coverage about the Syrian refugee crises increase markedly, bringing considerable attention to the human costs of the Syrian Civil War, the responsibilities of host countries, pressures forcing refugees to migrate from their host countries, people smuggling, and the responsibilities of third countries to resettle refugees.
In the same year in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt, the Regional Refugee and Resilience Plan (3RP) was launched to better coordinate humanitarian help between UNHCR, governments and NGOs. In 2016, Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey negotiated multi-year agreements with international donors that provided material support, namely the Jordan Compact, the Lebanon Compact, and the EU-Turkey Statement, respectively. The countries hosting the largest numbers of refugees also introduced a number of restrictions on new arrivals. Lebanon stopped new registrations and allows refugees to enter the country only in extreme circumstances. Jordan sealed its border with Syria during most of 2016, because of security concerns over ISIL control, according to government officials. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International criticized Jordanian authorities for not allowing refugees in and suspending aid to the informal encampents reported on the border. Reports from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the National Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International emerged in 2016 that Turkish border guards routinely shoot at Syrian refugees trying to reach Turkey, also, Turkey has forcibly returned thousands of Syrian refugees to war zone since mid-January 2016. The Turkish Foreign Ministry and President Erdoğan denied it.
In 2017, while the conflict in Syria and the reasons for displacement continue, few Syrians are able to leave it, due to more restrictive border management by neighboring countries. In the first half of 2017, an estimated 11 million displacements were recorded and around 250,000 more refugees have been registered in neighboring countries, however it is hard to estimate how many of them crossed the border recently. In the same period, an estimated 50,000 first time asylum applications have been made by Syrians in Europe, and around 100,000 new third country resettlements are planned for 2017. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refugees_of_the_Syrian_civil_war |
Islamic architecture | Turkic peoples began moving into the Middle East from the 8th century onward and, after converting to Islam, became major political and military forces in the region. The first major Turkic dynasty was the Ghaznavids, who ruled from Ghazna in present-day Afghanistan and adopted a Persianate culture. In the second half of the 12th century the Ghurids, of uncertain ethnic origin, replaced them as the major power in the region from northern India to the edge of the Caspian Sea. Among the most remarkable monuments of these two dynasties are a number of ornate brick towers and minarets that have survived as stand-alone structures and whose exact functions are unclear. They include the Tower of Mas'ud III near Ghazna (early 12th century) and the Minaret of Jam built by the Ghurids (late 12th century).
Around the same time, between the late 10th century and the early 13th century, the Turkic Qarakhanids ruled in Transoxiana. This period is regarded as a "classical" age of Central Asian architecture, with many constructions taking place in Bukhara and Samarkand. These include a great congregational mosque in Bukhara, of which only the Kalyan Minaret survives (c. 1127), the nearby Minaret of Vabkent (1141), and several Qarakhanid mausoleums with monumental façades, such as those in Uzgen (present-day Kyrgyzstan) from the second half of the 12th century.
More significant was the arrival of the Seljuk Turks and the formation of the Great Seljuk Empire in the 11th century, which conquered all of Iran and other extensive territories in Central Asia and the Middle East. The most important religious monument from the Great Seljuk period is the Jameh Mosque of Isfahan, which was expanded and modified by various Seljuk patrons in the late 11th century and early 12th century. Two major and innovative domed chambers were added to it in the late 11th century. Four large iwans were then erected around the courtyard around the early 12th century, giving rise to the four-iwan plan. The four-iwan plan revolutionised the form and function of the mosques in the region and introduced new types of buildings involving madrasas and caravanserais which spread through Iran, Anatolia, and Syria. Large caravanserais were built as a way to foster trade and assert Seljuk authority in the countryside. They typically consisted of a building with a fortified exterior appearance, monumental entrance portal, and interior courtyard surrounded by various halls, including iwans. Some notable examples, only partly preserved, are the caravanserais of Ribat-i Malik (c. 1068–1080) and Ribat-i Sharaf (12th century) in Transoxiana and Khorasan, respectively. The Seljuks also continued to build "tower tombs", an Iranian building type from earlier periods, such as the Toghrul Tower built in Rayy (south of present-day Tehran) in 1139. More innovative, however, was the introduction of mausoleums with a square or polygonal floor plan, which later became a common form of monumental tombs. Early examples of this are the two Kharraqan Mausoleums (1068 and 1093) near Qazvin (northern Iran), which have octagonal forms, and the large Mausoleum of Sanjar (c. 1127) in Merv (present-day Turkmenistan), which has a square base.
After the decline of the Great Seljuks in the late 12th century various Turkic dynasties formed smaller states and empires. A branch of the Seljuk dynasty ruled a Sultanate in Anatolia (also known as the Anatolian Seljuks), the Zengids and Artuqids ruled in Northern Mesopotomia (known as the Jazira) and nearby regions, and the Khwarazmian Empire ruled over Iran and Central Asia until the Mongol invasions of the 13th century. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_architecture |
Moorish architecture | In Ifriqiya, the Ribat of Sousse and the Ribat of Monastir are two military structures dated to the late 8th century, making them the oldest surviving Islamic-era monuments in Tunisia – although subjected to later modifications.: 25 The Ribat of Sousse contains a small vaulted room with a mihrab (niche symbolizing the direction of prayer) which is the oldest preserved mosque or prayer hall in North Africa. Another small room in the fortress, located above the front gate, is covered by a dome supported on squinches, which is the oldest example of this construction technique in Islamic North Africa.: 25 The tall cylindrical tower inside the ribat, most likely intended as a lighthouse, has a marble plaque over its entrance inscribed with the name of Ziyadat Allah I and the date 821, which in turn is the oldest Islamic-era monumental inscription to survive in Tunisia.: 25–26
In the 9th century Ifriqiya was controlled by the Aghlabid dynasty, who ruled nominally on behalf of the Abbasid Caliphs in Baghdad but were de facto autonomous. The Aghlabids were major builders and erected many of Tunisia's oldest Islamic religious buildings and practical infrastructure works like the Aghlabid Reservoirs of Kairouan. Much of their architecture, even their mosques, had a heavy and almost fortress-like appearance, but they nonetheless left an influential artistic legacy.: 9–61 : 21–41
One of the most important Aghlabid monuments is the Great Mosque of Kairouan, which was completely rebuilt in 836 by the emir Ziyadat Allah I (r. 817–838), although various additions and repairs were effected later which complicate the chronology of its construction.: 28–32 Its design was a major reference point in the architectural history of mosques in the Maghreb.: 273 The mosque features an enormous rectangular courtyard, a large hypostyle prayer hall, and a thick three-story minaret (tower from which the call to prayer is issued). The prayer hall's layout reflects an early use of the so-called "T-plan", in which the central nave of the hypostyle hall (the one leading to the mihrab) and the transverse aisle running along the qibla wall are wider than the other aisles and intersect in front of the mihrab. The mihrab of the prayer hall is among the oldest examples of its kind, richly decorated with marble panels carved in high-relief vegetal motifs and with ceramic tiles with overglaze and luster.: 30 Next to the mihrab is the oldest surviving minbar (pulpit) in the world, made of richly-carved teakwood panels. Both the carved panels of the minbar and the ceramic tiles of the mihrab are believed to be imports from Abbasid Iraq.: 30–32 An elegant dome in front of the mihrab with an elaborately-decorated drum is one of architectural highlights of this period. Its light construction contrasts with the bulky structure of the surrounding mosque and the dome's drum is elaborately decorated with a frieze of blind arches, squinches carved in the shape of shells, and various motifs carved in low-relief.: 30–32 The mosque's minaret is the oldest surviving one in North Africa and the western Islamic world. Its form was modeled on older Roman lighthouses in North Africa, quite possibly the lighthouse at Salakta (Sullecthum) in particular.: 32 : 138
The Great Mosque of al-Zaytuna in Tunis, which was founded earlier around 698, owes its overall current form to a reconstruction during the reign of the Aghlabid emir Abu Ibrahim Ahmad (r. 856–863). Its layout is very similar to the Great Mosque of Kairouan.: 38–41 Two other congregational mosques in Tunisia, the Great Mosque of Sfax (circa 849) and the Great Mosque of Sousse (851), were also built by the Aghlabids but have different forms.: 36–37 The small Mosque of Ibn Khayrun in Kairouan (also known as the "Mosque of the Three Doors"), dated to 866 and commissioned by a private patron, possesses what is considered by some to be the oldest decorated external façade in Islamic architecture, featuring carved Kufic inscriptions and vegetal motifs. Apart from its limestone façade, most of the mosque was rebuilt at a later period.: 33–34 Another small local mosque from this period is the Mosque of Bu Fatata in Sousse, dated to the reign of Abu Iqal al-Aghlab ibn Ibrahim (r. 838–841), which has a hypostyle prayer hall fronted by an external portico of three arches. Both the Ibn Khayrun and Bu Fatata mosques are early examples of the "nine-bay" mosque, meaning that the interior has a square plan subdivided into nine smaller square spaces, usually vaulted, arranged in three rows of three. This type of layout is found later in al-Andalus and as far as Central Asia, suggesting that it may be a design that was disseminated widely by Muslim pilgrims returning from Mecca.: 33–34 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moorish_architecture |
Senegal River | Christian Europeans soon began attempting to find the sea route to the mouth of the Senegal. The first known effort may have been by the Genoese brothers Vandino and Ugolino Vivaldi, who set out down the coast in 1291 in a pair of ships (nothing more is heard of them). In 1346, the Majorcan sailor, Jaume Ferrer set out on a galley with the explicit objective of finding the "River of Gold" (Riu de l'Or), where he heard that most people along its shores were engaged in the collection of gold and that the river was wide and deep enough for the largest ships. Nothing more is heard of him either. In 1402, after establishing the first European colony on the Canary Islands, the French Norman adventurers Jean de Béthencourt and Gadifer de la Salle set about immediately probing the African coast, looking for directions to the mouth of Senegal.
The project of finding the Senegal was taken up in the 1420s by the Portuguese Prince Henry the Navigator, who invested heavily to reach it. In 1434, one of Henry's captains, Gil Eanes, finally surpassed Cape Bojador and returned to tell about it. Henry immediately dispatched a follow-up mission in 1435, under Gil Eanes and Afonso Gonçalves Baldaia. Going down the coast, they turned around the al-Dakhla peninsula in the Western Sahara and emerged into an inlet, which they excitedly believed to be the mouth of the Senegal River. The name they mistakenly bestowed upon the inlet - "Rio do Ouro" - is a name it would remain stuck with down to the 20th century.
Realizing the mistake, Henry kept pressing his captains further down the coast, and in 1445, the Portuguese captain Nuno Tristão finally reached the Langue de Barbarie, where he noticed the desert end and the treeline begin, and the population change from 'tawny' Sanhaja Berbers to 'black' Wolof people. Bad weather or lack of supplies prevented Tristão from actually reaching the mouth of the Senegal River, but he rushed back to Portugal to report he had finally found the "Land of the Blacks" (Terra dos Negros), and that the "Nile" was surely nearby. Shortly after (possibly still within that same year) another captain, Dinis Dias (sometimes given as Dinis Fernandes) was the first known European since antiquity to finally reach the mouth of the Senegal River. However, Dias did not sail upriver, but instead kept sailing down the Grande Côte to the bay of Dakar.
The very next year, in 1446, the Portuguese slave-raiding fleet of Lançarote de Freitas arrived at the mouth of the Senegal. One of its captains, Estêvão Afonso, volunteered to take a launch to explore upriver for settlements, thus becoming the first European to actually enter the Senegal river. He didn't get very far. Venturing ashore at one point along the river bank, Afonso tried to kidnap two Wolof children from a woodsman's hut. But he ran into their father, who proceeded to chase the Portuguese back to their launch and gave them such a beating that the explorers gave up on going any further, and turned back to the waiting caravels.
Sometime between 1448 and 1455, the Portuguese captain Lourenço Dias opened regular trade contact on the Senegal River, with the Wolof statelets of Waalo (near the mouth of the Senegal River) and Cayor (a little below that), drumming up a profitable business exchanging Mediterranean goods (notably, horses) for gold and slaves. Chronicler Gomes Eanes de Zurara, writing in 1453, still called it the "Nile River", but Alvise Cadamosto, writing in the 1460s, was already calling it the "Senega" [sic], and it is denoted as Rio do Çanagà on most subsequent Portuguese maps of the age. Cadamosto relates the legend that both the Senegal and the Egyptian Nile were branches of the Biblical Gihon River that stems from the Garden of Eden and flows through Ethiopia. He also notes that the Senegal was called "the Niger" by the ancients - probably a reference to Ptolemy's legendary 'Nigir' (Νιγειρ) (below the Gir), which would be later identified by Leo Africanus with the modern Niger River. Much the same story is repeated by Marmol in 1573, with the additional note that both the Senegal River and Gambia River were tributaries of the Niger River. However, the contemporary African atlas of Venetian cartographer Livio Sanuto, published in 1588, sketches the Senegal, the Niger and the Gambia as three separate, parallel rivers.
Portuguese chronicler João de Barros (writing in 1552) says the river's original local Wolof name was Ovedech (which according to one source, comes from "vi-dekh", Wolof for "this river"). His contemporary, Damião de Góis (1567) records it as Sonedech (from "sunu dekh", Wolof for "our river"). Writing in 1573, the Spanish geographer Luis del Marmol Carvajal asserts that the Portuguese called it Zenega, the 'Zeneges' (Berber Zenaga) called it the Zenedec, the 'Gelofes' (Wolofs) call it Dengueh, the 'Tucorones' (Fula Toucouleur) called it Mayo, the 'Çaragoles' (Soninke Sarakole of Ngalam) called it Colle and further along (again, Marmol assuming Senegal was connected to the Niger), the people of Bagamo' (Bambara of Bamako?) called it Zimbala (Jimbala?) and the people of Timbuktu called it the Yça. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senegal_River |
Arabs | Arabic music, while independent and flourishing in the 2010s, has a long history of interaction with many other regional musical styles and genres. It is an amalgam of the music of the Arab people in the Arabian Peninsula and the music of all the peoples that make up the Arab world today. Pre-Islamic Arab music was similar to that of Ancient Middle Eastern music. Most historians agree that there existed distinct forms of music in the Arabian peninsula in the pre-Islamic period between the 5th and 7th century CE. Arab poets of that "Jahili poets", meaning "the poets of the period of ignorance"—used to recite poems with a high notes. It was believed that Jinns revealed poems to poets and music to musicians. By the 11th century, Islamic Iberia had become a center for the manufacture of instruments. These goods spread gradually throughout France, influencing French troubadours, and eventually reaching the rest of Europe. The English words lute, rebec, and naker are derived from Arabic oud, rabab, and naqareh.
A number of musical instruments used in classical music are believed to have been derived from Arabic musical instruments: the lute was derived from the Oud, the rebec (ancestor of violin) from the Maghreb rebab, the guitar from qitara, which in turn was derived from the Persian Tar, naker from naqareh, adufe from al-duff, alboka from al-buq, anafil from al-nafir, exabeba from al-shabbaba (flute), atabal (bass drum) from al-tabl, atambal from al-tinbal, the balaban, the castanet from kasatan, sonajas de azófar from sunuj al-sufr, the conical bore wind instruments, the xelami from the sulami or fistula (flute or musical pipe), the shawm and dulzaina from the reed instruments zamr and al-zurna, the gaita from the ghaita, rackett from iraqya or iraqiyya, geige (violin) from ghichak, and the theorbo from the tarab.
During the 1950s and the 1960s, Arabic music began to take on a more Western tone – artists Umm Kulthum, Abdel Halim Hafez, and Shadia along with composers Mohamed Abd al-Wahab and Baligh Hamdi pioneered the use of western instruments in Egyptian music. By the 1970s several other singers had followed suit and a strand of Arabic pop was born. Arabic pop usually consists of Western styled songs with Arabic instruments and lyrics. Melodies are often a mix between Eastern and Western. Beginning in the mid-1980s, Lydia Canaan, musical pioneer widely regarded as the first rock star of the Middle East | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabs |
George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston | Curzon was the eldest son and the second of the eleven children of Alfred Curzon, 4th Baron Scarsdale (1831–1916), who was the Rector of Kedleston in Derbyshire. George's mother was Blanche (1837–1875), the daughter of Joseph Pocklington Senhouse of Netherhall in Cumberland. He was born at Kedleston Hall, built on the site where his family, who were clergyman and priests, had lived since the 12th century. His mother, exhausted by childbirth, died when George was 16; her husband survived her by 41 years. Neither parent exerted a major influence on Curzon's life. Scarsdale was an austere and unindulgent father who believed that landowners should stay on their land and not indefinitely tour the world for pleasure. He disapproved of the journeys across Asia between 1887 and 1895 which made his son one of the most travelled men to be a member of any British cabinet. An influential presence in Curzon's childhood was that of his brutal, sadistic governess, Ellen Mary Paraman, whose tyranny in the nursery stimulated his combative qualities and encouraged the obsessional side of his nature. Paraman used to beat him and periodically forced him to parade through the village wearing a conical hat bearing the words liar, sneak, and coward. Curzon later noted, "No children well born and well-placed ever cried so much and so justly."
He was educated at Wixenford School, Eton College, and Balliol College, Oxford. His over-intimate relationship at Eton College with Oscar Browning led to the latter's dismissal. A spinal injury incurred while riding during his adolescence was a lifelong impediment to Curzon that required him to wear a metal corset for the remainder of his life.
Curzon was President of the Union and Secretary of the Oxford Canning Club (a Tory political club named for George Canning), but as a consequence of the extent of his time-expenditure on political and social societies, he failed to achieve a first class degree in Greats, although he subsequently won both the Lothian Prize Essay and the Arnold Prize, the latter for an essay on Sir Thomas More, about whom he knew little. In 1883, Curzon received the most prestigious fellowship at the university, a Prize Fellowship at All Souls College. While at Eton and at Oxford, Curzon was a contemporary and close friend of Cecil Spring Rice and Edward Grey. Spring Rice contributed, alongside John William Mackail, to the composition of a famous sardonic doggerel about Curzon that was published as part of The Balliol Masque, about which Curzon wrote in later life "never has more harm been done to one single individual than that accursed doggerel has done to me." It read:
My name is George Nathaniel Curzon,
I am a most superior person.
My cheek is pink, my hair is sleek,
I dine at Blenheim once a week.
When Spring-Rice was assigned to the British Embassy to the United States in 1894–1895, he was suspected by Curzon of trying to prevent Curzon's engagement to the American Mary Leiter, whom Curzon nevertheless married. Spring Rice assumed for a certainty, like many of Curzon's other friends, that Curzon would inevitably become Foreign Secretary: he wrote to Curzon in 1891, 'When you are Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs I hope you will restore the vanished glory of England, lead the European concert, decide the fate of nations, and give me three months' leave instead of two'.
Old texts state that he spent few months in a cottage in Dehradun, India. Though exact records are not available there is a road named after him there (probably near his erstwhile cottage). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Curzon,_1st_Marquess_Curzon_of_Kedleston |
Ancient Egyptian pottery | W. M. Flinders Petrie was the first to attempt a pottery seriation (which he called a 'Sequence dating'), focused on the pottery of the Naqada culture. He published his first study of the relative chronology of the Naqada culture in 1899. His first 'predynastic' corpus was based on the excavations of necropoleis at Naqada, Deir el-Ballas, and Hu. Originally, he identified nine classes and over 700 pottery types. For this typology, he selected 900 intact graves containing five or more types, out of the over 4,000 graves that he had excavated. He produced an index card for each of them and attempted to place these index cards in order. He made two important observations:
White cross-lined pottery practically never occurred with Decorated and Wavy-handled pottery.
The form of the wavy-handled types developed from a bullet-shape to a more cylindrical one, and from functional handles to decorative lines.
After Petrie had arranged all his index cards, he divided them into 50 groups, each consisting of 18 tombs. He defined SD 30 as the starting point, in order to give space for possible earlier cultures which had not then been discovered. He divided the 50 Sequence dates into three groups, which he classified as 'archaeological', 'cultural', and 'chronological', and named them after important find spots: Amratian (SD 30–37), Gerzean (SD 38–60) and Semainean (SD 60–75).
Pietre produced a second corpus of 'protodynastic' pottery, based principally on the finds in the necropolis in Tarchan. In this case, he identified 885 types, but no classes, which made it difficult for him to use this seriation. This second corpus partially overlapped with the earlier, 'predynastic corpus'. He started with SD 76 and continued to SD 86, with SD 83-86 remaining very theoretical, due to the shortage of material from the 2nd dynasty. This time, Petrie based the transition to a new 'sequence date' mainly on typological breaks, which Petrie defined on the basis of the development of the Wavy-handled types. He also linked the sequence dates with the historically dated pottery and objects from the royal graves of the early dynasties at Abydos.
There are some methodological issues with Petrie's classification:
There is no distinction between typology and chronology.
The 'classes' were very heterogeneously defined.
The definitions are not based on strict rules.
Since only tombs with five or more objects were used, the early periods are under-represented.
Regional differences were not considered.
The horizontal distribution of pottery within a cemetery was not treated as an important criterion.
A systematic problem was that whenever new tombs were discovered, new types would need to be defined.
Typology of the wavy-handled pottery, according to Petrie | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_pottery |
Iranian Revolution | Throughout the beginning of the 20th century and prior to the revolution, many women leaders emerged and demanded basic social rights for women. During the reign of Reza Shah, the government mandated the removal of the veil and promoted the education of young girls. However, the push-back of the Shia clerics made progress difficult, and the government had to contain its promotion of basic women's rights to the norms of the patriarchal social hierarchy to accommodate the clerics. After the abdication of Reza Shah in 1941, the discipline of the government decreased, and women were able to further exercise their rights, including the ability to wear the veil if they wanted. More organization of women's groups occurred in the 1960s and 70s, and they used the government's modernization to define and advocate for women's issues. During these decades, women became active in formerly male domains such as the parliament, the cabinet, armed forces, legal professions, and fields of science and technology. Additionally, women achieved the right to vote in 1963. Many of these achievements and rights that Iranian women had gained in the decades leading up to the revolution were reversed by the Islamic Revolution.
The revolutionary government rewrote laws in an attempt to force women to leave the workforce by promoting the early retirement of female government employees, the closing of childcare centers, enforcing full Islamic cover in offices and public places, as well as preventing women from studying in 140 fields in higher education. Women fought back against these changes, and as activist and writer Mahnaz Afkhami writes, "The regime succeeded in putting women back in the veil in public places, but not in resocializing them into fundamentalist norms." After the revolution, women often had to work hard to support their families as the post-revolutionary economy suffered. Women also asserted themselves in the arts, literature, education, and politics.
Women – especially those from traditional backgrounds – participated on a large scale in demonstrations leading up to the revolution. They were encouraged by Ayatollah Khomeini to join him in overthrowing the Pahlavi dynasty. However, most of these women expected the revolution to lead to an increase in their rights and opportunities rather than the restrictions that actually occurred. The policy enacted by the revolutionary government and its attempts to limit the rights of women were challenged by the mobilization and politicization of women that occurred during and after the revolution. Women's resistance included remaining in the work force in large numbers and challenging Islamic dress by showing hair under their head scarves. The Iranian government has had to reconsider and change aspects of its policies towards women because of their resistance to laws that restrict their rights.
Since the revolution, university enrollment and the number of women in the civil service and higher education has risen. and several women have been elected to the Iranian parliament. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Revolution |
Qira'at | Most of the differences between the various readings involve consonant/diacritical marks (I‘jām) and marks (Ḥarakāt) indicating other vocalizations -- short vowels, nunization, glottal stops, long consonants. Differences in the rasm or "skeleton" of the writing are more scarce, since canonical readings were required to comply with at least one of the regional Uthmanic copies (which had a small number of differences).
According to one study (by Christopher Melchert) based on a sample of the ten qira'at/readings, the most common variants (ignoring certain extremely common pronunciation issues) are non-dialectal vowel differences (31%), dialectal vowel differences (24%), and consonantal dotting differences (16%). (Other academic works in English have become available that list and categorise the variants in the main seven canonical readings. Two notable and open access works are those of Nasser and Abu Fayyad.)
The first set of examples below compares the most widespread reading today of Hafs from Asim with that of Warsh from Nafi, which is widely read in North Africa. All have differences in the consonantal/diacritical marking (and vowel markings), but only one adds a consonant/word to the rasm: "then it is what" v. "it is what", where a "fa" consonant letter is added to the verse.
Ḥafs ʿan ʿĀṣim and Warš ʿan Nāfiʿ
While the change of voice or pronouns in these verse may seem confusing, it is very common in the Quran and found even in the same verse. (It is known as iltifāt.)
Q.2:85 the "you" in Hafs refers to the actions of more than one person and the "They" in Warsh is also referring to the actions of more than one person.
Q.15:8 "We" refers to God in Hafs and the "They" in Warsh refers to what is not being sent down by God (The Angels).
Q.19:19 (li-ʾahaba v. li-yahaba) is a well known difference, both for the theological interest in the alternative pronouns said to have been uttered by the angel, and for requiring unusual orthography.
Q.48:17, the "He" in Hafs is referring to God and the "We" in Warsh is also referring to God; this is due to the fact that God refers to Himself in both the singular form and plural form by using the royal "We".
Q.43:19 shows an example of a consonantal dotting difference that gives a different root word, in this case ʿibādu v. ʿinda.
The second set of examples below compares the other canonical readings with that of Ḥafs ʿan ʿĀṣim. These are not nearly as widely read today, though all are available in print and studied for recitation.
Ḥafs ʿan ʿĀṣim and several other canonical readings
Q.5:6 The variant grammatical cases (wa-arjulakum and wa-arjulikum) were adopted for different exegetical views by Sunni and Shīʿi scholars, such that in wudu the feet were either to be washed or rubbed, respectively. The reading of Abū ʿAmr was shared by Ibn Kaṯīr, Šuʿba ʿan ʿĀṣim and Ḥamza.
Q.17:102 and Q20:96 are examples of verbal prefix or suffix variants (the latter also read by al-Kisāʾī).
Q.19:25 has a notably large number of readings for this word (four canonical readings with different subject or verb form, and several non-canonical).
Q.21:104 is an example of active-passive variants.
Q.21.96 is an example of a verb form variant, with Ibn ʿĀmir reading the more intensive verb form II.
Q59.14 is an example of singular-plural variants (also read by Abū ʿAmr). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qira%27at |
Süleymaniye Mosque | As with other imperial mosques in Istanbul, the Süleymaniye Mosque was designed as a külliye, or complex, with adjacent structures to service both religious and cultural needs. The mosque incorporates the everyday needs for an Islamic community such as prayer, education, health and much more. Due to the sloping nature of the site around the mosque, many of the structures are built above massive substructures that created a more level ground. Vaulted rooms existed in these substructures and were probably put to various uses.
The original complex consisted of the mosque itself, four madrasas or religious colleges (medrese), a small primary school (mekteb), a medical school (darüttıb), a hospital (darüşşifa or timarhane), a public kitchen (imaret) that served food to the poor, a caravanserai or guesthouse (tabhane), public baths (hamam), a specialized school (darülhadis) for the learning of hadith, a small domed building for the employees of the cemetery (attached to the latter's southeast wall), and rows of small shops integrated into the outer edges and along the street on the southwest side of the mosque. Many of these structures are still in existence. The former imaret has been converted into a restaurant. The former hospital is now a printing factory owned by the Turkish Army. Just outside the complex walls, to the north is the tomb of architect Sinan. It was completely restored in 1922.
Most of the buildings are classical Ottoman courtyard structures consisting of a rectangular courtyard surrounded by a domed peristyle portico giving access to domed rooms. In the madrasas, Sinan modified some details of the typical layout for functional reasons. The Salis Medrese and Rabı Medrese, located on the northeast side of the mosque where the ground slopes down towards the Golden Horn, have a "stepped" design in which the courtyard descends in three terraces connected by stairs while the domed rooms are built at progressively lower levels alongside it. The current remains of the hadith school (darülhadis) have been crudely restored. It consists of a long line of small vaulted rooms on the eastern edge of the complex. According to Doğan Kuban, the original school must have had a different appearance. The triangular plaza between this structure and the courtyard was once used for weekly wrestling matches.
The two other madrasas, on the southwest side, are known as the Sani Medrese and Evvel Medrese and have regular floor plans on flatter ground. Of the medical school (darüttıb or Tıp Medrese) next to these, not much has survived except for the rooms on the northeast side. All three of these madrasas are fronted by shops on their northeast sides (the sides facing the mosque), which contributed revenues to the complex. This created a market street known as the Tiryaki Çarșısı, the "Antidote Market", due to the former presence of coffee houses and shops devoted to the smoking of hashish. A small primary school (sibyan mekteb), consisting of two domed rooms, is attached to the eastern corner of the Evvel Medrese, though separated from the main building by a narrow garden. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%BCleymaniye_Mosque |
Samaritans | Contemporary scholarship confirms that deportations occurred before and after the Assyrian conquest of the Kingdom of Israel in 722–720 BCE, with varying impacts in Galilee, Transjordan, and Samaria. During the earlier Assyrian invasions, Galilee and Transjordan did experience significant deportations, with entire tribes vanishing; the tribes of Reuben, Gad, Dan, and Naphtali are never again mentioned. Archaeological evidence from these regions shows that a large depopulation process took place there in the late 8th century BCE, with numerous sites being destroyed, abandoned, or feature a long occupation gap. However, archaeological evidence from Samaria, a larger and more populated area, suggests a more mixed picture. While some sites were destroyed or abandoned, major cities such as Samaria and Megiddo were mostly left intact, and other sites show a continuity of occupation. Even if the Assyrians did deport 30,000 people as they claimed, many would have remained in the area. Based on changes in material culture, Zertal estimated that only 10% of the Israelite population of Samaria was deported, while the imported population was no more than a few thousand people, meaning that most Israelites continued residing in Samaria.
Gary N. Knoppers described the demography shifts in Samaria following the Assyrian conquest as: "... not the wholesale replacement of one local population by a foreign population, but rather the diminution of the local population", which he attributed to deaths from war, disease and starvation, forced deportations, and migrations to other regions, particularly south to the Kingdom of Judah. The state-sponsored immigrants who had been forcibly brought into Samaria appear to have generally assimilated into the local population. Nevertheless, the Book of Chronicles records that King Hezekiah of Judah invited members of the tribes of Ephraim, Zebulun, Asher, Issachar and Manasseh to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover after the destruction of Israel. In light of this, it has been suggested that the bulk of those who survived the Assyrian invasions remained in the region. Per this interpretation, the Samaritan community of today is thought to be predominantly descended from those who remained.
The Israeli biblical scholar Shemaryahu Talmon has supported the Samaritan tradition that they are mainly descended from the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh who remained in Israel after the Assyrian conquest. He states that the description of them at 2 Kings 17:24 as foreigners is tendentious and intended to ostracize the Samaritans from those Israelites who returned from the Babylonian exile in 520 BCE. He further states that 2 Chronicles 30:1 could be interpreted as confirming that a large fraction of the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh (i.e., Samaritans) remained in Israel after the Assyrian exile. E. Mary Smallwood wrote that the Samaritans "were the survivors of the pre-Exilic northern kingdom of Israel, diluted by intermarriage with alien settlers," and that they broke away from mainstream Judaism in the 4th century BCE. Archaeologist Eric Cline takes an intermediate view. He believes only 10–20% of the Israelite population (i.e. 40,000 Israelites) were deported to Assyria in 720 BCE. About 80,000 Israelites fled to Judah whilst between 100,000 and 230,000 Israelites remained in Samaria. The latter intermarried with the foreign settlers, thus forming the Samaritans.
The religion of this remnant community is likely distorted by the account recorded in the Books of Kings, which claims that the local Israelite religion was perverted with the injection of foreign customs by Assyrian colonists. In reality, the surviving Samaritans continued to practice Yahwism. This explains why they did not resist Judean kings, such as Hezekiah and Josiah, imposing their religious reforms in Samaria. Magnar Kartveit argues that the people who later became known as Samaritans likely had diverse origins and lived in Samaria and other areas, and it was the temple project on Mount Gerizim that provided the unifying characteristic that allows them to be identified as Samaritans.
Modern genetic studies support the Samaritan narrative that they descend from indigenous Israelites. Shen et al. (2004) formerly speculated that outmarriage with foreign women may have taken place. Most recently the same group came up with genetic evidence that Samaritans are closely linked to Cohanim, and therefore can be traced back to an Israelite population prior to the Assyrian invasion. This correlates with expectations from the fact that the Samaritans retained endogamous and biblical patrilineal marriage customs, and that they remained a genetically isolated population. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samaritans |
Anti-Shi'ism | While Shias and Sunnis have lived side by side in the subcontinent for almost fifteen centuries, anti-Shia violence has been growing consistently for the past three centuries. Anti-Shi'ism has two aspects: shiaphobic literature and hate-crimes. The anti Shia literature that portrays Shias as religiously heretic, morally corrupt, politically traitors and lesser human beings sets the ideological framework for the violence against them. In the medieval period, the Middle East saw bloody clashes between both sects but the Indian subcontinent remained safe and peaceful because of the secular policy of Mughals. Until the end of the seventeenth century AD, only two anti-Shia books were written in India: Minhaj al-Din by Makhdoom-ul Mulk Mullah Abdullah Sultanpuri and Radd-e Rawafiz by Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi.
Sirhindi also wrote this treatise in order to justify the slaughter of shias by Abdullah Khan Uzbek in Mashhad. In this he argues:
Since the Shia permit cursing Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman and one of the chaste wives (of the Prophet), which in itself constitutes infidelity, it is incumbent upon the Muslim ruler, nay upon all people, in compliance with the command of the Omniscient King (Allah), to kill them and to oppress them in order to elevate the true religion. It is permissible to destroy their buildings and to seize their property and belongings.
As far as armed violence is concerned, the medieval period has only few examples of Shias being killed for their beliefs, most notable incidents are the killing of Abdullah Shah Ghazi in 769 AD, the destruction of Multan in 1005 AD, the persecution of Shias at the hands of Sultan Feroz Shah (1351–1388 AD), and the target killing of Mullah Ahmad Thathavi in 1589 AD. However, the killer of Mulla Ahmad Thathavi was served justice by Emperor Akbar. The death of Syed Nurullah Shushtari seems to be politically motivated as Emperor Jahangir disliked his father who did not consider him suitable for the throne, and persecuted men of his court, as an eighteenth century editor of Jahangirnama puts it, "the new sovereign possibly wished to draw a line under the rule of his father and all those associated needed to be sidelined". The region of Srinagar in Kashmir is an exception in Middle Ages with ten bloody Taraaj-e Shia campaigns. Shias faced severe persecution in India in Kashmir for centuries, by the Sunni invaders of the region which resulted in the killing of many Shias and as a result most of them had to flee the region. Plunder, looting and killing virtually devastated the community. History records 10 such Taraajs between 15th to 19th century in 1548, 1585, 1635, 1686, 1719, 1741, 1762, 1801, 1830, and 1872, during which the Shia habitations were plundered, people killed, libraries burnt and their sacred sites desecrated. The community, due to their difficulties, went into the practice of Taqya in order to preserve their lives.
However, in the eighteenth century AD, the number of polemical writings started to increase. It started with Aurangzeb's discrimination against the Shias. The sixth Mughal emperor Aurangzeb Alamgir hated the Shias; he abolished the secular policy of Akbar and tried to establish the superiority of the Sunni sect. He supervised the compilation of an encyclopaedia of religious rulings, called fatawa Alamgiri, in which Shias were said to be heretics. The spiritual leader of Bohra Shias, Sayyid Qutb-ud-din, along with his 700 followers were massacred on the orders of Aurangzeb. He banned the tazia processions. In the century following his death, polemical literature and sectarian killings increased.
Aurengzeb heavily persecuted many Shi‘a communities. ‘Ali Muhammad Khan, whose father accompanied Aurengzeb during his Deccan campaigns, reports:During the reign of the late emperor, tremendous emphasis was placed on matters of the shari‘a and on refuting various [non-Sunni] schools of thought. No efforts were spared in this regard. Many people thus emerged who maintained that, for God's sake, their very salvation lay in this. Because of religious bigotry, which is the bane of humankind, they placed a group under suspicion of Shi‘ism (rafḍ), thus destroying the very ramparts of the castle of their existence [i.e., having them killed], while others were thrown into prison.Shah Waliullah (1703–1762 AD) was among those Sunni clerics who were patronized by the Sunni elite. He started his career by translating the anti-Shia track of Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi, radd-e-rawafiz, into Arabic under the title of al-muqaddima tus-saniyyah fil intisar al-firqa te-sunniya (المقدمۃ الثانیہ فی الانتصار للفرقۃ السنیہ). He continued to criticise the Shias in his books like Qurat-ul Ainain (قراۃ العینین), Azalah-tul Khafa (ازالۃ الخفا), Fayyuz-ul Haramain (فیوض الحرمین), etc. Other Sunni polemics include Najat al-Muminin (نجات المومنین) by Muhammad Mohsin Kashmiri, and Durr-ut Tahqiq (درالتحقیق) by Muhammad Fakhir Allahabadi. In a letter to Sunni nawabs, Shah Waliullah said:
Strict orders should be issued in all Islamic towns forbidding religious ceremonies publicly practised by Hindus such as the performance of Holi and ritual bathing in the Ganges. On the tenth of Muharram, the Shias should not be allowed to go beyond the bounds of moderation, neither should they be rude nor repeat stupid things in the streets or bazars.
When on his and Rohilla's invitation, Ahmad Shah Abdali Durrani conquered Delhi, he expelled Shias. Shias of Kashmir were also massacred in an organised campaign after Afghans took power. In Multan, under the Durrani rule, Shia were not allowed to practise their religion.
Shah Waliullah's eldest son, Shah Abd al-Aziz (1746–1823 AD), hated Shias the most. He compiled most of the anti-Shia books available to him, albeit in his own language and after adding his own ideas, in a single book Tuhfa Asna Ashariya (تحفہ اثنا عشریہ ). Although he did not declare them apostates or non-Muslims, but he considered them lesser human beings just like what he would think about Hindus or other non-Muslims. In a letter he advises Sunnis to not greet Shias first, and if a Shia greets them first, their response should be cold. In his view, Sunnis should not marry Shias, avoid eating their food and the animals slaughtered by a Shia.
Syed Ahmad Barelvi and Shah Ismail Dihlavi took up arms to enforce their puritanical views and migrated to Peshawar region to establish an Islamic Caliphate. They were the pioneers of anti-Shia terrorism in the subcontinent. Barbara Metcalf says:
"A second group of Abuses Syed Ahmad held were those that originated from Shi’i influence. He particularly urged Muslims to give up the keeping of ta’ziyahs. The replicas of the tombs of the martyrs of Karbala taken in procession during the mourning ceremony of Muharram. Muhammad Isma’il wrote,
‘a true believer should regard the breaking of a tazia by force to be as virtuous an action as destroying idols. If he cannot break them himself, let him order others to do so. If this even be out of his power, let him at least detest and abhor them with his whole heart and soul’.
Sayyid Ahmad himself is said, no doubt with considerable exaggeration, to have torn down thousands of imambaras, the building that house the taziyahs".
These attacks were carried out between 1818 and 1820. Rizvi has given more details about time, places and circumstances in which these attacks were carried out.
With the start of direct Crown control after 1857, religious institutions and scholars lost most of the financial support they enjoyed previously. They now had to rely on public funding, the chanda. Secondly, when the colonial government decided to introduce modern societal reforms, and everybody became ascribed to a singular identity in census and politically importance in voting. Thus, politicisation of religion and marking boundaries of the spheres of influence became a financial need of the religious leaders. They started to describe everybody belonging to their sect or religion as one monolithic group of people whose religion was in danger. The third important social change was the printing press which made writing and publishing pamphlets and books easy and cheap. The fourth factor was the railways and postal service; it became easy for communal leaders to travel, communicate and build networks beyond their place of residence. This changed the religious discourse drastically and gave birth to communal and sectarian violence. The puritanical wahhabists had already excluded Azadari from the Sunni Islam, and Arya Samaj and Shudhis started to ask Hindus to refrain from Azadari.
By the start of the 1900s, the majority of Sunnis still observed Muharram. Molana Abdul Shakoor Lakhnavi devised a clever plan to widen the gulf between the Shias and Sunnis. He started to advocate a celebration of victory of Imam Hussain over Yazid. He established a separate Sunni Imambargah at Phul Katora and asked Sunnis to wear red or yellow dress instead of black, and carry a decorated charyari flag instead of the traditional black alam-e-Abbas. Instead of honouring the Sahaba on their birthdays, he started to arrange public meetings under the banner of bazm-e-siddiqi, bazm-e-farooqi and bazm-e-usmani, in the first ten days of Muharram to revere the first three Caliphs and named it Madh-e-Sahaba. He would discuss the lives of the first three Caliphs and attack Shia beliefs. Shias saw it an attempt to sabotage the remembrance of the tragedy of Karbala and started to recite tabarra in response.
After the failure of the Khilafat movement in the 1920s, the political ulema had lost their support in public and Muslims started to follow modern minds like Muhammad Ali Jinnah. To keep themselves relevant, the ulema established a militant Deobandi organisation, Majlis Ahrar-e-Islam, in 1931. They came from neighbouring Malihabad, Kanpur, Delhi, Meerut and from as far as Peshawar. This organisation can be considered as predecessor of Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP). They first agitated against the Ahmedis in Kashmir and now they were looking for an opportunity. It was provided by Molana Abdul shakoor Lakhnavi's son Molana Abdul Shakoor Farooqi. He was a graduate of Darul Uloom Deoband and he had established a seminary in Lucknow in 1931 right on the route of Azadari, called Dar-ul-Muballighin. Molana Abdul Shakoor Farooqi wrote many books and pamphlets. Shias responded by writing rejoinders. As paper had become available in plenty, these writings spread all over subcontinent and caused incidents of violence, though negligible compared to what was happening in UP. Dhulipala says:The problem broke out with renewed vigour in 1936 on Ashura day when two Sunnis disobeyed orders and publicly recited Charyari in the city centre of Lucknow. They were arrested and prosecuted, but then on Chhelum day more Sunnis took part in reciting Charyari and fourteen were arrested. This led to a new agitation by the Lucknow Sunnis in favour of reciting these verses publicly, which came to be known as Madhe Sahaba.Azadari in UP was no more peaceful; it would never be the same again. Violence went so far that on Ashura 1940, a Deobandi terrorist attacked the Ashura procession with a bomb. Hollister writes:"Conflicts between Sunnis and Shias at Muharram are not infrequent. Processions in the cities are accompanied by police along fixed lines of march. The following quotations from a single newspaper are not usual. They indicate what might happen if government did not keep the situation under control: ‘adequate measures avert incidents’, ‘Muharram passed off peacefully’, ‘All shops remained closed in ... in order to avoid incidents’, ‘Several women offered satyagraha in front of the final procession ... about twenty miles from Allahabad. They object to the passing of the procession through their fields’, ‘the police took great precautions to prevent a breach of the peace’, ‘as a sequel to the cane charge by the police on a Mehndi procession the Moslems ... did not celebrate the Muharram today. No ta’zia processions were taken out ... Business was transacted as usual in the Hindu localities’, ‘Bomb thrown on procession’. Not all of these disturbances spring from sectarian differences, but those differences actuate many fracases. Birdwood says that, in Bombay, where the first four days of Muharram are likely to be devoted to visiting each other's tabut khanas, women and children as well as men are admitted, and members of other communities – only the Sunnies are denied ‘simply as a police precaution". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Shi%27ism |
Nishapur | Nishapur has been of importance in Iranian mythology. Before the Islamization of Iran, Zoroastrianism had been the major religion of Nishapur.: 68 Rivand (one of the ancient names of Nishapur) has been mentioned in Avesta and subsequently in Shahnameh. Adur Burzen-Mihr a Zoroastrian fire temple of the highest grade was situated in Rivand Mountains (Binalud mountains) of Nishapur and the lake Rivand of Nishapur was built due to a fight between Ahriman and water (probably by water it was meant Anahita in the Persian text of the Persian wiki). Also, according to Hakim Nishapuri, Dež-e Sɑngi was built by Seth on a giant round soft (flat) stone There are also signs of the influence of Christianity in Nishapur (a street in Nishapur has been called and is still called Masih and also a village on the south of the city was called Masih Abad). After the rise of Islam however, the people living in and near the city of Neyshabur became Muslims. Nishapur and its people have also had an influence on Sufism (an Islamic mystic practice). Poets and Sufis such as Attar of Nishapur who had been born in this city had had a profound influence on Islamic mysticism. In the 10th century, Nishapur had been one of the centers of Ismaili missionary spread in Iran and Greater Khorasan. Most of the Ismailis of Nishapur now live in Dizbad and some in the main city itself. Jama'at Khana Dizbad is the most important Ismaili center in Nishapur today. From the third to the sixth of Hejri Ghamari, Nishapur was one of the centers of Sufism. Most Sufis and Sufi elders in Nishapur were Sunnis and followers of the Shafi'i school.
During the 10th century, Nishapur was a thriving economic center home to many religious scholars and artists. Nishapur was located along the Silk Road. An influential trade route connecting China to the Mediterranean Sea. It was a center for cotton, silk, textile and ceramic production. In efforts to uncover the history of life in this city, the Metropolitan Museum of Art put together an excavation team composed of researchers Joseph Upton, Walter Hauser and Charles Wilkinson. From 1935 to 1940, the team worked to rediscover the ancient city. They were authorized to work under the conditions that half of the material found must be shared with the Iran Bastan Museum in Tehran. Along with pottery, excavators uncovered glass, metalwork, coins and decorated wall fragments. Over the years of excavations, thousands of items were uncovered which provided information on local artistic traditions. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nishapur |
13th century in literature | 1202 – Leonardo Fibonacci writes Liber Abaci, about the modus Indorum, the Hindu–Arabic numeral system, including the use of zero; it is the first major work in Europe to move away from the use of Roman numerals.
1204 – The Imperial Library of Constantinople is destroyed by Christian knights of the Fourth Crusade and its contents burned or sold.
1211 – Hélinand of Froidmont begins compiling his Chronicon.
1215 – Bhiksu Ananda of Kapitanagar completes writing the Buddhist book Arya Astasahasrika Prajnaparamita (Sutra), in gold ink in Ranjana script.
1216 – Roger of Wendover, English monk and chronicler, at St Albans Abbey, begins to cover contemporary events, in his continuation of the chronicle Flores Historiarum.
1217 – Alexander Neckam, English scholar and theologian, writes De naturis rerum ("On the Nature of Things"), a scientific encyclopedia.
1220 – A new shrine built at Canterbury Cathedral in England to house the remains of St Thomas Becket quickly becomes one of Europe's major places of pilgrimage, and the destination of the fictional pilgrims in Geoffrey Chaucer's set of narrative poems The Canterbury Tales, written about 170 years later.
1226: By August – The biographical poem L'histoire de Guillaume le Maréchal, commissioned to commemorate William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke (died 1219), a rare example at this time of a life of a lay person, is completed, probably by a Tourangeau layman called John in the southern Welsh Marches.
1240 – Albert of Stade joins the Franciscan order and begins his chronicle.
1249: September 27 – Chronicler Guillaume de Puylaurens is present at the death of Raymond VII of Toulouse.
1251 – The carving is completed of the Tripitaka Koreana, a collection of Buddhist scriptures recorded on some 81,000 wooden blocks, thought to have been started in 1236.
1258: February 13 – The House of Wisdom in Baghdad is destroyed by forces of the Mongol Empire after the Siege of Baghdad. The waters of the Tigris are said to have run black with ink from the huge quantities of books flung into it, and red from the blood of the philosophers and scientists killed.
1274: May 1 – In Florence, the nine-year-old Dante Alighieri first sees the eight-year-old Beatrice, his lifelong muse.
1276 – Merton College, Oxford, is first recorded as having a collection of books, making its Library the world's oldest in continuous daily use. During the first century of its existence the books are probably kept in a chest.
1283 – Ram Khamhaeng, ruler of the Sukhothai Kingdom, creates the Thai alphabet (อักษรไทย), according to tradition.
1289 – Library of the Collège de Sorbonne, earliest predecessor of the Bibliothèque de la Sorbonne, is founded in Paris.
1298–1299 – Marco Polo dictates his Travels to Rustichello da Pisa while in prison in Genoa, according to tradition.
1300, Easter – The events of Dante's Divine Comedy take place. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/13th_century_in_literature |
Hellenistic period | Southern Italy (Magna Graecia) and south-eastern Sicily had been colonized by the Greeks during the 8th century BC. In 4th-century BC Sicily the leading Greek city and hegemon was Syracuse. During the Hellenistic period the leading figure in Sicily was Agathocles of Syracuse (361–289 BC) who seized the city with an army of mercenaries in 317 BC. Agathocles extended his power throughout most of the Greek cities in Sicily, fought a long war with the Carthaginians, at one point invading Tunisia in 310 BC and defeating a Carthaginian army there. This was the first time a European force had invaded the region. After this war he controlled most of south-east Sicily and had himself proclaimed king, in imitation of the Hellenistic monarchs of the east. Agathocles then invaded Italy (c. 300 BC) in defense of Tarentum against the Bruttians and Romans, but was unsuccessful.
Greeks in pre-Roman Gaul were mostly limited to the Mediterranean coast of Provence, France. The first Greek colony in the region was Massalia, which became one of the largest trading ports of Mediterranean by the 4th century BC with 6,000 inhabitants. Massalia was also the local hegemon, controlling various coastal Greek cities like Nice and Agde. The coins minted in Massalia have been found in all parts of Liguro-Celtic Gaul. Celtic coinage was influenced by Greek designs, and Greek letters can be found on various Celtic coins, especially those of Southern France. Traders from Massalia ventured inland deep into France on the Rivers Durance and Rhône, and established overland trade routes deep into Gaul, and to Switzerland and Burgundy. The Hellenistic period saw the Greek alphabet spread into southern Gaul from Massalia (3rd and 2nd centuries BC) and according to Strabo, Massalia was also a center of education, where Celts went to learn Greek. A staunch ally of Rome, Massalia retained its independence until it sided with Pompey in 49 BC and was then taken by Caesar's forces.
The city of Emporion (modern Empúries), originally founded by Archaic-period settlers from Phocaea and Massalia in the 6th century BC near the village of Sant Martí d'Empúries (located on an offshore island that forms part of L'Escala, Catalonia, Spain), was reestablished in the 5th century BC with a new city (neapolis) on the Iberian mainland. Emporion contained a mixed population of Greek colonists and Iberian natives, and although Livy and Strabo assert that they lived in different quarters, these two groups were eventually integrated. The city became a dominant trading hub and center of Hellenistic civilization in Iberia, eventually siding with the Roman Republic against the Carthaginian Empire during the Second Punic War (218–201 BC). However, Emporion lost its political independence around 195 BC with the establishment of the Roman province of Hispania Citerior and by the 1st century BC had become fully Romanized in culture. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellenistic_period |
Ben | Ben, a character in the 2007 Canadian-American television series Sushi Pack
Ben, a character in the 2009 American romantic comedy-drama movie He's Just Not That Into You
Ben, a rat in the novel Ratman's Notebooks, films Willard and Ben, and theme song sung by Michael Jackson on his LP Ben
Benjamin Florian/Ben, a protagonist of the Descendants franchise (2015–2019)
Gentle Ben, a bear featured in an eponymous 1965 novel, and in television and movie adaptations
Ben C. L. / Soldier Boy, major character in the third season of The Boys
Ben Geller-Willick-Bunch, the son of Ross Geller and Carol and Susan in NBC sitcom Friends
Ben Grimm, also known as the Thing, from Marvel Comics
Ben Gunn, from Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island
Ben Harper, major character in the comedy series My Family
Ben Nooper, a coastguard and supporting character in the animated series Fireman Sam
Ben Kenobi, an alias of Obi-Wan Kenobi, major character in the film saga, Star Wars
Ben Lawson/BEN, an antagonist of the Ben Drowned series (2010–20)
Ben, or Benny, the "1980-something space guy" from The Lego Movie
Old Ben, a bear at the center of the William Faulkner story The Bear
Ben Packer, one of the five main protagonists in Bureau of Alien Detectors
Ben Parker, the uncle of Peter Parker (Spider-Man) from Marvel Comics
Ben, minor character of The Grudge 3
Ben, Bill's twin brother in The Railway Series and the spinoff TV series Thomas and Friends
Ben Richards, main character of The Running Man
Ben Ripley, a major protagonist of the young-adult series, Spy School
Ben Skywalker, a major character in the Star Wars expanded universe
Ben Solo, major character in the Star Wars sequel trilogy
Ben Tennyson, protagonist of the Cartoon Network's Ben 10 media franchise
Ben Urich, investigative journalist for The Daily Bugle in the Marvel Universe
Ben Wyatt, character from Parks and Recreation
Talking Ben, a brown dog and a protagonist of the Talking Tom & Friends media franchise
Ben Taylor, from Postman Pat
Ben Hargreeves, main character in the comic book/Netflix series The Umbrella Academy
Ben Elf, the titular protagonist in the British cartoon Ben and Holly's Little Kingdom
Ben Stone, a father in the TV series Manifest | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben |
Israeli West Bank barrier | In a 2004 advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice, "Israel cannot rely on a right of self-defence or on a state of necessity in order to preclude the wrongfulness of the construction of the wall". The Court asserted that "the construction of the wall, and its associated régime, are contrary to international law."
So in the July 9, 2004 advisory opinion the ICJ advised that the barrier is a violation of international law, that it should be removed, that Arab residents should be compensated for any damage done, and that other states take action to obtain Israel's compliance with the Fourth Geneva Convention. The ICJ said that an occupying power cannot claim that the lawful inhabitants of the occupied territory constitute a "foreign" threat for the purposes of Article 51 of the UN Charter. It also explained that necessity may constitute a circumstance precluding wrongfulness under certain very limited circumstances, but that Article 25 of the International Law Commission's Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts (ARSIWA) bars a defense of necessity if the State has contributed to the situation of necessity. The Court cited illegal interference by the government of Israel with the Palestinian's national right to self-determination; and land confiscations, house demolitions, the creation of enclaves, and restrictions on movement and access to water, food, education, health care, work, and an adequate standard of living in violation of Israel's obligations under international law. The Court also said that Israeli settlements had been established and that Palestinians had been displaced in violation of Article 49, paragraph 6, of the Fourth Geneva Convention. On request of the ICJ, Palestine submitted a copious statement. The UN Fact Finding Mission and several UN Rapporteurs subsequently said that in the movement and access policy there has been a violation of the right not to be discriminated against on the basis of race or national origin.
Israeli supporters of the barrier stood in the plaza near the courthouse, holding the portraits of 927 terror victims. The organization Christians for Israel helped bring the No. 19 bus, on which eleven civilians were killed, to the Hague. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_West_Bank_barrier |
Migrant workers in the Gulf Cooperation Council region | The third wave took off due to rapid economic growth related to the intensified hydrocarbon exploration in the region. This led to the discovery of large quantities of crude oil. Although oil had already been discovered in GCC region during the beginning of the 20th century, the economic benefits of the oil resources were properly actualised during the 1960s and 1970s, as the GCC countries officially gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1971. The author Al Shehabi further argues that a capitalist approach to the economy became increasingly more dominant in the GCC region during this time period. Together with the oil boom, it constituted an important factor explaining the importation of migrant workers and economic development.
The third wave of migration in the GCC can be attributed to the 1960s but intensified during the 1970s, as the increased wealth of the states led to plans of industrialization and modernization. The implementation of these plans increased labor demands, but the GCC countries and their populations did not possess the manpower or knowledge to meet these demands. The relatively small populations in the GCC countries, as well as limited numbers of female workers and male workers of the appropriate age, combined with a plenitude of foreign workers willing to migrate, constitute important "pull" and "push" factors which explain the migration growth of the 1970s. While seven of the Trucial States decided to unite and form the United Arab Emirates after gaining independence from the United Kingdom, an initiative taken by Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan of Abu Dhabi and Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum of Dubai, both Qatar and Bahrain decided to found their own independent states.
During the 1980s and 1990s, while the inflow of foreign workers remained steady, the demographic composition of these migration flows changed. While the initial part of the third wave mainly brought Arab migrant workers to the Persian Gulf region, their numbers declined during the 1980s and 1990s as they were replaced with Southeast Asian migrants. In comparison, there were approximately 2.000.000 migrant workers in the oil-producing countries, of which 68% were Arab workers, while in 1983 the total number of migrant workers had risen to 5.000.000, of which only 55% were Arab migrants. More specifically, in Saudi Arabia the number of Arab migrant workers decreased from 90% to 32% between 1975 and 1985. This change in composition was caused by a change in attitude towards Arab foreign workers. At first, the shared language, religion and culture were seen as benefits by the GCC states. Nevertheless, the rise of Pan-Arabism in the region heightened authorities' fears of political activism and anti-government activities by Arab migrants. Furthermore, the authorities feared that the often low-educated Arab migrants would corrupt the culture of the Arab states of the Persian Gulf. Thus Asia, and specifically India, became the obvious solution for the GCC countries, considering the historical ties, the geographical proximity and the abundance of workers willing to migrate to the Gulf region. All in all, the third wave has resulted in that more than 50% of the workforce in any of the GCC countries consists of migrant workers. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Migrant_workers_in_the_Gulf_Cooperation_Council_region |
Tassili n'Ajjer | The site of Tassili was primarily occupied during the Neolithic period by transhumant pastoralist groups whose lifestyle benefited both humans and livestock. The local geography, elevation, and natural resources were optimal conditions for dry-season camping of small groups. The wadis within the mountain range functioned as corridors between the rocky highlands and the sandy lowlands. The highlands have archaeological evidence of occupation dating from 5500 to 1500 BCE, while the lowlands have stone tumuli and hearths dating between 6000 and 4000 BCE. The lowland locations appear to have been used as living sites, specifically during the rainy season. There are numerous rock shelters within the sandstone forests, strewn with Neolithic artifacts including ceramic pots and potsherds, lithic arrowheads, bowls and grinders, beads, and jewelry.
The transition to pastoralism following the African Humid period during the early Holocene is reflected in Tassili n'Ajjer's archaeological material record, rock art, and zooarchaeology. Further, the occupation of Tassili is part of a larger movement and climate shift within the Central Sahara. Paleoclimatic and paleoenvironment studies started in the Central Sahara around 14,000 BP and then proceeded by an arid period that resulted in narrow ecological niches. However, the climate was not consistent and the Sahara was split between the arid lowlands and the humid highlands. Archaeological excavations confirm that human occupation, in the form of hunter-gather groups, occurred between 10,000 and 7500 BP; following 7500 BP, humans began to organize into pastoral groups in response to the increasingly unpredictable climate. There was a dry period from 7900 and 7200 BP in Tassili that preceded the appearance of the first pastoral groups, which is consistent with other parts of the Saharan-Sahelian belt. The pre-Pastoral pottery excavated from Tassili dates around 9,000–8,500 BP, while the Pastoral pottery is from 7100–6000 BP.
The rock art at Tassili is used in conjunction with other sites, including Dhar Tichitt in Mauritania, to study the development of animal husbandry and trans-Saharan travel in North Africa. Cattle were herded across vast areas as early as 3000–2000 BCE, reflecting the origins and spread of pastoralism in the area. This was followed by horses (before 1000 BCE) and then the camel in the next millennium. The arrival of camels reflects the increased development of trans-Saharan trade, as camels were primarily used as transport in trade caravans. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tassili_n%27Ajjer |
Ammar ibn Yasir | Prior to the events of the Battle of the Camel, a shura was set up in an attempt to decide a successor after ʿUthmān's death; at this meeting, attendees were not in agreement regarding whether retaliation for ʿUthmān's murder was necessary or not. A report of ʻAlqama b. Waqqas al-Laythi of Kinana indicates that ʻAmmār said that they should not seek revenge. Madelung interprets ʻAmmār's behavior at this meeting indicating his desire to keep Talha from gaining power because Talha was in favor of seeking retaliation. ʻAmmār would not have wanted this since "he had been the most active in inciting the rebels to action".
As the battle was developing, ʻAmmār continued to show his support for ʿAlī in multiple ways. ʿAlī first sent him along with al-Hasan to Kufa in order to try to rally the Kufans to help during the upcoming battle. According to one report recorded by al-Tabari, ʻAmmār was questioned upon arrival for participating in ʿUthmān's murder; however, he continued to try to convince the governor, Abu Musa, to take a stance instead of remaining impartial in the conflict. Al-Tabari reports how Abu Musa had encouraged the Kufans to remain neutral because he did not want to participate in inter-Muslim fighting, and he also believed that the Muslim community still owed their allegiance to ʿUthmān because no new successor had been named. An additional transmission of the same event does not mention ʻAmmār's actions against ʿUthmān and instead focuses on his intentions to sway Abu Musa into action.
During the actual battle, ʻAmmār fought on ʿAlī's side. Al-Tabari includes in his history an account in which al-Zubayr is told that ʻAmmār is fighting alongside ʿAlī, and this knowledge causes al-Zubayr to be fearful because he had been with Muhammad and ʻAmmār when Muhammad had told ʻAmmār that he would be killed by "a wicked band of men". Al-Tabari again includes multiple reports of the same event, which in this case is a moment during the battle in which ʻAmmār and al-Zubayr confront each other. In both accounts ʻAmmār approaches al-Zubayr to attack him, when al-Zubayr speaks. In the report from 'Umar b. Shabbah, al-Zubayr asks ʻAmmār, "Do you want to kill me?" whereas in that from 'Amir b. Hafs, al-Zubayr asks, "Are you going to kill me, Abu al Yaqzan?" In both reports, ʻAmmār's response is negative. At the end of the battle, which is successful for ʿAlī's side, ʿAlī orders ʻAmmār and Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr to remove Aisha from her camel and bring her to 'Abdallah ibn Khalaf al-Khuza I's home in Basrah; because Al-Tabari repeatedly cites multiple reports from different transmitters, such variations in the consistency of the incidents' details -at that time- renders the reported nature of the consequential meeting of ʻAmmār and ʻA'ishah unclear: for one account displays ʻA'ishah as hostile towards ʻAmmār, whereas another later report describes the two as being on more amicable terms. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammar_ibn_Yasir |
Islamic architecture | The Abbasid architecture of the Abbasid Caliphate (750–1513) was particularly influenced by Sasanian architecture, which in turn featured elements present since ancient Mesopotamia. Other influences such as ancient Soghdian architecture in Central Asia have also been noted. This was partly a result of the caliphate's political center shifting further east to the new capital of Baghdad, in present-day Iraq. The Abbasids also built other capital cities, such as Samarra in the 9th century, which is now a major archeological site that has provided numerous insights into the evolution of Islamic art and architecture during this time. During the Abbasid Caliphate's golden years in the 8th and 9th centuries, its great power and unity allowed architectural fashions and innovations to spread quickly to other areas of the Islamic world under its influence.
Features from the late Umayyad period, such as vaulting, carved stucco, and painted wall decoration, were continued and elaborated in the Abbasid period. The four-centred arch, a more sophisticated form of the pointed arch, is first attested during the Abbasid period in monuments at Samarra, such as the Qasr al-Ashiq palace, and became widely used in some regions at later periods. Samarra also saw the appearance of new decorative styles, particularly in stucco and plasterwork, which rendered the earlier vegetal motifs of late antique traditions into more abstract and stylized forms, as exemplified by the so-called "beveled" style. These decorative techniques quickly spread to other regions where stucco decoration played a prominent role.
Abbasid mosques all followed the courtyard plan with hypostyle halls. The earliest was the mosque that Caliph al-Mansur built in Baghdad (since destroyed). The Great Mosque of Samarra built by al-Mutawakkil measured 256 by 139 metres (840 by 456 ft), had a flat wooden roof supported by columns, and was decorated with marble panels and glass mosaics. The prayer hall of the Abu Dulaf Mosque at Samarra had arcades on rectangular brick piers running at right angles to the qibla wall. Both of the Samarra mosques have spiral minarets, the only examples in Iraq. A mosque at Balkh in what is now Afghanistan was about 20 by 20 metres (66 by 66 ft) square, with three rows of three square bays, supporting nine vaulted domes.
While the origins of the minaret are uncertain, it is believed that the first true minarets appeared in this period. Several of the Abbasid mosques built in the early ninth century had minaret towers which stood at the northern ends of the building, opposite the central mihrab. Among the most famous of these is the Malwiyya minaret, a stand-alone tower with a "spiral" form built for the Great Mosque of Samarra. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_architecture |
African leopard | The leopard has an exceptional ability to adapt to changes in prey availability, and has a very broad diet. It takes small prey where large ungulates are less common. The known prey of leopards ranges from dung beetles to adult elands, which can reach 900 kg (2,000 lb). In sub-Saharan Africa, at least 92 prey species have been documented in leopard scat, including rodents, birds, small and large antelopes, hyraxes, hares, and arthropods. Leopards generally focus their hunting activity on locally abundant medium-sized ungulates in the 20 to 80 kg (44 to 176 lb) range, while opportunistically taking other prey. Average intervals between ungulate kills range from seven to 12–13 days.
Leopards often hide large kills in trees, a behavior for which great strength is required. There have been several observations of leopards hoisting carcasses of young giraffes, estimated to weigh up to 125 kg (276 lb), i.e. 2–3 times the weight of the leopard, up to 5.7 m (19 ft) into trees.
In Serengeti National Park, leopards were radio-collared for the first time in the early 1970s. Their hunting at night was difficult to watch; the best time for observing them was after dawn. Of their 64 daytime hunts, only three were successful. In this woodland area, they preyed mostly on impalas, both adult and young, and caught some Thomson's gazelles in the dry season. Occasionally, they successfully hunted warthogs, dik-diks, reedbucks, duikers, steenboks, blue wildebeest and topi calves, jackals, Cape hares, guineafowl and starlings. They were less successful in hunting plains zebras, Coke's hartebeests, giraffes, mongooses, genets, hyraxes and small birds. Scavenging from the carcasses of large animals made up a small proportion of their food. In the tropical rainforests of Central Africa, their diet consists of duikers and primates. Some individual leopards have shown a strong preference for pangolins and porcupines.
In North Africa, the leopard preys on Barbary macaque (Macaca sylvanus).
Analysis of leopard scat in Taï National Park revealed that primates are primary leopard prey during the day.
In Gabon's Lope National Park, the most important prey species was found to be the red river hog (Potamochoerus porcus), African buffaloes (Syncerus caffer) and greater cane rats (Thryonomys swinderianus), comprised 13% each of the consumed biomass.
In the Central African Republic's Dzanga-Sangha Complex of Protected Areas, a leopard reportedly attacked and pursued a large western lowland gorilla, but did not catch it. Gorilla parts found in leopard scat indicates that the leopard either scavenged on gorilla remains or killed it. African leopards were observed preying on adult eastern gorillas in the Kisoro area near Uganda's borders with Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_leopard |
Ayyubid dynasty | Intent on restoring the supremacy of Saladin's direct descendants within the Ayyubid family, an-Nasir Yusuf was eventually able to enlist the backing of all of the Syria-based Ayyubid emirs in a common cause against Mamluk-dominated Egypt. By 1250, he took Damascus with relative ease and except for Hama and Transjordan, an-Nasir Yusuf's direct authority stood unbroken from the Khabur River in northern Mesopotamia to the Sinai Peninsula. In December 1250, he attacked Egypt after hearing of al-Mu'azzam Turan-Shah's death and the ascension of Shajar al-Durr. An-Nasir Yusuf's army was much larger and better-equipped than that of the Egyptian army, consisting of the forces of Aleppo, Homs, Hama, and those of Saladin's only surviving sons, Nusrat ad-Din and Turan-Shah ibn Salah ad-Din. Nonetheless, it suffered a major defeat at the hands of Aybak's forces. An-Nasir Yusuf subsequently returned to Syria, which was slowly slipping out of his control.
The Mamluks forged an alliance with the Crusaders in March 1252 and agreed to jointly launch a campaign against an-Nasir Yusuf. King Louis, who had been released after al-Mu'azzam Turan-Shah's murder, led his army to Jaffa, while Aybak intended to send his forces to Gaza. Upon hearing of the alliance, an-Nasir Yusuf immediately dispatched a force to Tell al-Ajjul, just outside Gaza, in order to prevent the junction of the Mamluk and Crusader armies. Meanwhile, the rest of the Ayyubid army was stationed in the Jordan Valley. Realizing that a war between them would greatly benefit the Crusaders, Aybak and an-Nasir Yusuf accepted Abbasid mediation via Najm ad-Din al-Badhirai. In April 1253, a treaty was signed whereby the Mamluks would retain control over all of Egypt and Palestine up to, but not including, Nablus, while an-Nasir Yusuf would be confirmed as the ruler of Muslim Syria. Thus, Ayyubid rule was officially ended in Egypt. After conflict arose between the Mamluks and the Ayyubids reignited, al-Badhirai arranged another treaty, this time giving an-Nasir Yusuf control of the Mamluks' territories in Palestine and al-Arish in Sinai. Instead of placing Ayyubids in charge, however, an-Nasir Yusuf handed Jerusalem to a Mamluk named Kutuk while Nablus and Jenin were given to Baibars.
For over a year after the settlement with the Mamluks, calm settled over an-Nasir Yusuf's reign, but on 11 December 1256 he sent two envoys to the Abbasids in Baghdad seeking formal investiture from the caliph, al-Musta'sim, for his role as "Sultan". This request was connected to an-Nasir's rivalry with Aybak, as the title would be useful in future disputes with the Mamluks. However, the Mamluks had sent their envoys to Baghdad previously to precisely ensure that an-Nasir Yusuf would not gain the title, putting al-Musta'sim in a difficult position.
In early 1257, Aybak was killed in a conspiracy, and was succeeded by his 15-year-old son, al-Mansur Ali, while Saif ad-Din Qutuz held an influential position. Soon after al-Mansur Ali's ascendancy rumors of another conspiracy to which an-Nasir Yusuf had an alleged connection emerged. The accused conspirator, al-Mansur Ali's vizier, Sharaf ad-Din al-Fa'izi, was strangled by Egyptian authorities. The Bahri Mamluks in Syria led by Baibars pressured an-Nasir Yusuf to intervene by invading Egypt, but he would not act, fearing the Bahri dynasty would usurp his throne if they gained Egypt. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayyubid_dynasty |
Telecommunications in Iraq | Calling code: +964
International call prefix: 00
Main lines:
1.9 million main lines in use, 62nd in the world (2012);
833,000 lines in use (2005).
Mobile cellular:
38.22 million (2019)
26.8 million lines, 40th in the world (2012);
9.0 million lines (2005).
Telephone system: Iraq War of 2003 severely disrupted telecommunications throughout Iraq including international connections; repairs to switches and lines destroyed during 2003 continue; widespread government efforts to rebuild domestic and international communications through fiber optic links are in progress; the mobile cellular market has expanded rapidly to some 27 million subscribers at the end of 2012; since 2007 three GSM operators since have expanded beyond their regional roots and offer near country-wide access to second-generation services; third-generation mobile services are not available nationwide; wireless local loop is available in some metropolitan areas and additional licenses have been issued with the hope of overcoming the lack of fixed-line infrastructure; local microwave radio relay connects border regions to Jordan, Kuwait, Syria, and Turkey; international terrestrial fiber-optic connections have been established with Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Kuwait, Jordan, and Iran (2011).
Communications cables: links to the Fiber-Optic Link Around the Globe (FLAG) / FALCON, and the Gulf Bridge International (GBI), and TGN-Gulf international submarine fiber-optic cables have been established (2011).
Satellite earth stations: 2 Intelsat (Atlantic Ocean) and 1 Indian Ocean, 1 Intersputnik (Atlantic Ocean region), and 1 Arabsat (inoperative) (2011).
The 2003 Iraq War severely disrupted telecommunications throughout Iraq, including international connections. The Iraq Reconstruction Management Office (IRMO) under the U.S. State Department assisted the Iraqi Ministry of Communications by advising on the repair of switching capability and helping to devise the regulatory framework and licensing regimes for construction of mobile and satellite communications facilities. Many people and companies were involved in the reconstruction including private and public telecommunications companies from the United States, China, Turkey, and the Middle East. Special recognition must be given to the government of Japan and the World Bank Group for funding the first national microwave networks. Most credit goes to the staff of the Ministry of Communications and their operating personnel, and the numerous large and small service providers, who persevere under difficult working conditions. USAID funded several IT training programs with excellent international specialists as trainers and teachers.
Today the system has undergone a remarkable transformation with high rates of annual investment and a functioning regulatory system, that is not quite independent of the political process, but still provides the framework for a competitive telecommunications regime. In 2013-2014 the system is under stress from renewed fighting between different political factions in Iraq. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_in_Iraq |
Fatimid dynasty | In about 899, Abdallah ibn al-Husayn assumed the leadership of the da'wa. Soon, he began making alterations to the doctrine, which worried Hamdan Qarmat. Abdan went to Salamiyah to investigate the matter, and learned that Abdallah claimed that the expected mahdi was not Muhammad ibn Isma'il, as commonly propagated, but Abdallah himself, and that Abdallah's ancestors, far from being simply the hujjas of the imams, were actually the imams themselves. In a letter to the Yemeni community, Abdallah claimed that 'Muhammad ibn Isma'il' was actually a cover name assumed by each incumbent imam, and denied any particular role of Muhammad ibn Isma'il as the expected mahdi who was to usher in the end times. These doctrinal innovations caused a major rift in the movement, as Hamdan denounced the leadership in Salamiyah, gathered the Iraqi da'is and ordered them to cease the missionary effort. Shortly after this Hamdan "disappeared" from his headquarters, and Abdan was assassinated by Zakarawayh ibn Mihrawayh, who had remained loyal to Salamiyah.
The schism left the early Isma'ili da'wa divided into two factions: those who accepted Abdallah's claims, and continued to follow him, and became the Isma'ilis proper, and those who rejected them and continued to believe in the return of Muhammad ibn Isma'il as mahdi, who became known as the Qarmatians (although anti-Fatimid sources also used the label for the Fatimids themselves). In Iraq and Persia, the community was split between the two factions, but in Bahrayn, the local da'is split off from Salamiyah and established an independent Qarmatian state that lasted into the 1070s. On the other hand, Zakarawayh and his loyalists now began a series of anti-Abbasid uprisings in Iraq and Syria in 902–907, with the support of the Bedouin tribes. Calling themselves the Fatimiyyun, the uprisings enjoyed some ephemeral success, but were eventually suppressed by the still potent Abbasid army. Zakarawayh apparently moved without Abdallah's authorization or prior knowledge, and thus placed him in danger: the Abbasid authorities began a crackdown on the da'wa, and Zakarawayh's sons unwittingly revealed the location and identity of Abdallah to the Abbasids, who launched a man-hunt against him. Already in 902, Abdallah with his household left Salamiyah for Ramla. As the revolts instigated by Zakarawayh were suppressed, Abdallah moved to Tulunid Egypt in early 904. As the Abbasids recovered control of Egypt in the next year, the small party fled again. While his companions expected to head to Yemen, where the Isma'ili da'wa had enjoyed great success, Abdallah turned westward, and established himself at the oasis town of Sijilmasa, in what is now southwestern Morocco, in August 905. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatimid_dynasty |
Peroz I | When Peroz's father Yazdegerd II (r. 438–457) died in 457, he had reportedly not designed a successor and instead—according to the medieval historian al-Tha'alibi—entrusted the task to the elite and the leading marzbans (margraves). Civil war soon followed; Yazdegerd II's eldest son Hormizd III declared himself king at the city of Ray in northern Iran, while Peroz fled to the northeastern part of the empire and began raising an army in order to claim the throne for himself. The brothers' mother, queen Denag, temporarily ruled as regent of the empire from its capital, Ctesiphon. According to eastern sources, Peroz was more worthy for the throne than Hormizd, who they refer to as "unfair". Only the anonymous source known as the Codex Sprenger 30 describes Hormizd as the "braver and better", while describing Peroz as "more learned in religion".
Both brothers seemingly attempted to gain the support of the powers of the neighbouring eastern region of Tokharistan/Bactria in their struggle. The region was then controlled by the Kidarites, along with some of their local vassals, such as the Hephthalites. According to three contemporary letters in the Bactrian language (the language of Tokharistan), the local ruler of the city of Rob (between Kabul and Balkh) Kirdir-Warahran, is given the honorific titles of "glorious through Hormizd" and "true to Peroz", which seemingly indicates that he shifted his allegiance between the two brothers. According to the contemporary Armenian historians Elishe and Ghazar Parpetsi, Peroz was notably supported by the House of Mihran, one of the Seven Great Houses of Iran, while later Persian sources instead report that Peroz fled to the Hephthalites and enlisted their help.
This version, however, has been called "legendary" and "somewhat fanciful" by modern historians. The modern historians Parvaneh Pourshariati, Shapur Shahbazi and Michael Bonner prefer the Armenian version, with the latter suggesting that the Persian account may yield some authenticity, with Peroz enlisting Hephthalite aid through the Mihranids. Elishe and Ghazar give two slightly different accounts of Peroz's struggle against Hormizd. According to the former, Peroz was aided by his Mihranid tutor Raham Mihran, who in 459 captured and executed Hormizd, and then crowned Peroz as shahanshah. The same account is given by Ghazar, with the exception that the Mihranid is named Ashtad Mihran, and was not the tutor, but rather foster father of Peroz. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peroz_I |
Petra | The first European to describe them was the Swiss traveler Johann Ludwig Burckhardt during his travels in 1812. At that time, the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem operated a diocese in al-Karak named Battra (Arabic: باطره, Ancient Greek: Πέτρας) and it was the opinion among the clergy of Jerusalem that Kerak was the ancient city of Petra.
Burckhardt already spoke Arabic fluently, and was on his way to explore the Niger River when he heard stories of a dead city that held the tomb of the Prophet Aaron, and became fascinated with finding the city. He then dressed himself up as a local, and only spoke in Arabic, bringing a goat with him with the intent of sacrificing it in honor of Aaron's Tomb. After one day of exploring, he was convinced that he had found the lost city of Petra.
Léon de Laborde and Louis-Maurice-Adolphe Linant de Bellefonds made the first accurate drawings of Petra in 1828. The Scottish painter David Roberts visited Petra in 1839 and returned to Britain with sketches and stories of the encounter with local tribes, published in The Holy Land, Syria, Idumea, Arabia, Egypt, and Nubia. Frederic Edwin Church, the leading American landscape painter of the 19th century, visited Petra in 1868, and the resulting painting El Khasné, Petra is among his most important and well-documented. Missionary Archibald Forder published photographs of Petra in the December 1909 issue of National Geographic.
Because the structures weakened with age, many of the tombs became vulnerable to thieves, and many treasures were stolen. In 1929, a four-person team consisting of British archaeologists Agnes Conway and George Horsfield, Palestinian physician and folklore expert Tawfiq Canaan and Ditlef Nielsen, a Danish scholar, excavated and surveyed Petra.
The archaeologist Philip Hammond from the University of Utah visited Petra for nearly 40 years. He explained that the local folklore says it was created by the wand of Moses, when he struck the rock to bring forth water for the Israelites. Hammond believed the carved channels deep within the walls and ground were made from ceramic pipes that once fed water for the city, from rock-cut systems on the canyon rim.
In the 1980s, the Bedul Bedouin, once inhabitants of Petra, were relocated by the Jordanian government to the nearby settlement of Umm Sayhoun, a process spanning two decades. This move was part of broader initiatives aimed at settling Bedouin communities and promoting tourism in Petra. With a name meaning "the changing ones" and oral traditions recounting a conversion narrative, the Bedul Bedouins are believed to have adopted Islam later in their history, possibly with Jewish or Nabatean origins. Today, alongside their traditional activities, they engage in local tourism, alongside the more prominent Liyathnah tribe.
Numerous scrolls in Greek and dating to the Byzantine period were discovered in an excavated church near the Temple of the Winged Lions in Petra in December 1993. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petra |
Elam | The Assyrians had utterly destroyed the Elamite nation, but new polities emerged in the area after Assyrian power faded. Among the nations that benefited from the decline of the Assyrians were the Iranian tribes, whose presence around Lake Urmia to the north of Elam is attested from the 9th century BC in Assyrian texts. Some time after that region fell to Madius the Scythian (653 BC), Teispes, son of Achaemenes, conquered Elamite Anshan in the mid 7th century BC, forming a nucleus that would expand into the Persian Empire. They were largely regarded as vassals of the Assyrians, and the Medes, Mannaeans, and Persians paid tribute to Assyria from the 10th century BC until the death of Ashurbanipal in 627 BC. After his death, the Medes played a major role in the destruction of the weakened Assyrian Empire in 612 BC.
The rise of the Achaemenids in the 6th century BC brought an end to the existence of Elam as an independent political power "but not as a cultural entity" (Encyclopædia Iranica, Columbia University). Indigenous Elamite traditions, such as the use of the title "king of Anshan" by Cyrus the Great; the "Elamite robe" worn by Cambyses I of Anshan and seen on the famous winged genii at Pasargadae; some glyptic styles; the use of Elamite as the first of three official languages of the empire used in thousands of administrative texts found at Darius' city of Persepolis; the continued worship of Elamite deities; and the persistence of Elamite religious personnel and cults supported by the crown, formed an essential part of the newly emerging Achaemenid culture in Persian Iran. The Elamites thus became the conduit by which achievements of the Mesopotamian civilizations were introduced to the tribes of the Iranian plateau.
Conversely, remnants of Elamite had "absorbed Iranian influences in both structure and vocabulary" by 500 BC, suggesting a form of cultural continuity or fusion connecting the Elamite and the Persian periods.
Arab sources refer to speakers of "Xūzī" which was not "Hebrew, Aramaic, or Persian" spoken by servants and isolated rural communities in Khuzestan until the 10th century. Scholars such as "von Spiegel, Huart, Spuler, Lazard, Potts, Orsatti, and Tavernier have already suggested or assumed that the language mentioned here is a very late form of Elamite."
The name of "Elam" survived into the Hellenistic period and beyond. In its Greek form, Elymais, it emerges as designating a semi-independent state under Parthian suzerainty during the 2nd century BC to the early 3rd century AD. In Acts 2:8–9 in the New Testament, the language of the Elamitēs is one of the languages heard at the Pentecost. From 410 onwards Elam (Beth Huzaye) was the senior metropolitan province of the Church of the East, surviving into the 14th century. Indian Carmelite historian John Marshal has proposed that the root of Carmelite history in present day India could be traced to the promise of restoration of Elam (Jeremiah 49:39).
In modern Iran, Ilam Province and Khuzestan Province are named after Elam civilization. Khuzestan means land of the Khuzis and Khuzi itself is a Middle Persian name for Elamites. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elam |
Psusennes II | Unlike his immediate predecessor and successor – Siamun and Shoshenq I respectively– Psusennes II is generally less well attested in contemporary historical records even though various versions of Manetho's Epitome credit him with either a 14- or a 35-year reign (generally amended to 15 years by most scholars including the British Egyptologist Kenneth Kitchen).
The German scholar Rolf Krauss has recently argued that Psusennes II's reign was 24 years rather than Manetho's original figure of 14 years. This is based on personal information recorded in the Large Dakhla stela which dates to Year 5 of Shoshenq I; the stela preserves a reference to a land-register from Year 19 of a 'Pharaoh Psusennes'. However, since this document was composed under Shoshenq I, the use of the title Pharaoh before Psusennes here cannot establish whether the king was Psusennes I. The use of Pharaoh as title (as in Pharaoh Shoshenq or Pharaoh Psusennes I) is first attested in the historical records under Siamun.
Moreover, Frederic Payraudeau has observed--in his BIFAO 108 paper which first document the first secure attestation of Psusennes II in the historical record--that the annal document is a geneaological document recording the induction of Nesankhefenmaat into the chapel of Amun-Re in Year 11 of Psusennes II followed by Hor, Nesankhefenmaat's son, in Year 3 of Osorkon II. Since a generation was close to 25 to 30 years in Ancient Egypt and the 21 year reign of Shoshenq I--the successor of Psusennes II and predecessor of Osorkon II--was already skipped over, this strongly suggests that Psusennes II's reign was much closer to 14 years rather than 24 years for a father (Nesankhefenmaat) to be succeeded by his son (Hor) within a short 25-30 year period argues Payraudeau.
In Year 5 of Shoshenq I, this king and the founder of the 22nd Dynasty, dispatched a certain Ma (i.e., Libyan) subordinate named Wayheset to the desert oasis town of Dakhla in order to restore Shoshenq I's authority over the western oasis region of Upper Egypt. Wayheset's titles include Prince and Governor of the Oasis. His activities are recorded in the Large Dakhla stela. This stela states that Wayheset adjudicated in a certain water dispute by consulting a land-register which is explicitly dated to Year 19 of a "Pharaoh Psusennes" in order to determine the water rights of a man named Nysu-Bastet. Kitchen notes that this individual made an appeal to the Year 19 cadastral land-register of king Psusennes belonging to his mother, which historians assumed was made some "80 years" before during the reign of Psusennes I. The land register recorded that certain water rights were formerly owned by Nysu-Bastet's mother Tewhunet in Year 19 of a king Psusennes. This ruler was generally assumed by Egyptologists to be Psusennes I rather than Psusennes II since the latter's reign was believed to have lasted only 14–15 years. Based on the land register evidence, Wayheset ordered that these watering rights should now be granted to Nysu-Bastet himself. However, if the oracle dated to Year 19 of Psusennes I as many scholars traditionally assumed, Nysu-Bastet would have been separated from his mother by a total of 80 years from this date into Year 5 of Shoshenq I—a figure which is highly unlikely since Nysu-Bastet would not have waited until extreme old age to uphold his mother's watering rights. This implies that the aforementioned king Psusennes here must be identified with Psusennes II instead—Shoshenq I's immediate predecessor and, more significantly, that Psusennes II enjoyed a minimum reign of 19 years.
The term "mother" in ancient Egypt could also be an allusion to an ancestress, the matriarch of a lineage whereby Nysu-Bastet may have been petitioning for his hereditary water rights that belonged to his grandmother, whose family name was Tewhunet. However, this argument does not account for the use of Pharaoh as a title in the Dakhla stela—a literary device which first occurs late during the reign of Siamun, an Egyptian king who ruled between 45 and 64 years after Year 19 of Psusennes I.
The most significant component of the Great Dakhla stela is its palaeography: the use of the title Pharaoh Psusennes. A scholar named Helen Jacquet-Gordon believed in the 1970s that the large Dakhla stela belonged to Shoshenq III's reign due to its use of the title 'Pharaoh' directly with the ruling king's birth name—i.e., "Pharaoh Shoshenq"—which was an important palaeographical development in Egyptian history. Throughout the Old, Middle and New Kingdoms of Ancient Egypt, the word pharaoh was never employed as a title such as Mr. and Mrs. or attached to a king's nomen such as Pharaoh Ramesses or Pharaoh Amenhotep; instead, the word 'pr-`3' or pharaoh was used as a noun to refer to the activities of the king (i.e., it was "Pharaoh" who ordered the creation of a temple or statue, or the digging of a well, etc.). Rolf Krauss aptly observes that the earliest attested use of the word pharaoh as a title is documented in Year 17 of the 21st Dynasty king Siamun from Karnak Priestly Annals fragment 3B while a second use of the title [Pharaoh] [birth name] occurs during Psusennes II's reign where a hieratic graffito in the Ptah chapel of the Abydos temple of Seti I explicitly refers to Psusennes II as the "High Priest of Amen-Re, King of the Gods, the Leader, Pharaoh Psusennes." Consequently, the practice of attaching the title pr-`3 or pharaoh with a king's royal birth name had already started prior to the beginning of Shoshenq I's reign, let alone Shoshenq III. Hence, the Shoshenq mentioned in the large Year 5 Dakhla stela must have been Shoshenq I while the Psusennes mentioned in the same document likewise can only be Psusennes II which means that only 5 years (or 10 years if Psusennes II ruled Egypt for 24 years) would separate Nysu-Bastet from his mother. The additional fact that the Large Dakhla stela contains a Year 5 IV Peret day 25 lunar date has helped date the aforementioned king Shoshenq's accession to 943 BC and demonstrates that the ruler here must be Shoshenq I, not Shoshenq III who ruled a century later. Helen Jacquet-Gordon did not know of the two prior examples pertaining to Siamun and Psusennes II. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psusennes_II |
Ontological argument | Charles Hartshorne and Norman Malcolm are primarily responsible for introducing modal versions of the argument into the contemporary debate. Both claimed that Anselm had two versions of the ontological argument, the second of which was a modal logic version. According to James Harris, this version is represented by Malcolm thus:If it [that than which nothing greater can be conceived] can be conceived at all it must exist. For no one who denies or doubts the existence of a being a greater than which is inconceivable, denies or doubts that if it did exist its nonexistence, either in reality or in the understanding, would be impossible. For otherwise it would not be a being a greater than which cannot be conceived. But as to whatever can be conceived but does not exist: if it were to exist its nonexistence either in reality or in the understanding would be possible. Therefore, if a being a greater than which cannot be conceived, can even be conceived, it must exist.Hartshorne says that, for Anselm, "necessary existence is a superior manner of existence to ordinary, contingent existence and that ordinary, contingent existence is a defect." For Hartshorne, both Hume and Kant focused only upon whether what exists is greater than what does not exist. However, "Anselm's point is that what exists and cannot not exist is greater than that which exists and can not exist." This avoids the question of whether or not existence is a predicate.
Referring to the two ontological arguments proposed by Anselm in Chapters 2 and 3 of his Proslogion, Malcolm supported Kant's criticism of Anselm's argument in Chapter 2: that existence cannot be a perfection of something. However, he identified what he sees as the second ontological argument in Chapter 3 which is not susceptible to such criticism.
In Anselm's second argument, Malcolm identified two key points: first, that a being whose non-existence is logically impossible is greater than a being whose non-existence is logically possible, and second, that God is a being "than which a greater cannot be conceived". Malcolm supported that definition of God and suggested that it makes the proposition of God's existence a logically necessarily true statement (in the same way that "a square has four sides" is logically necessarily true). Thus, while rejecting the idea of existence itself being a perfection, Malcolm argued that necessary existence is a perfection. This, he argued, proved the existence of an unsurpassably great necessary being.
Jordan Sobel writes that Malcolm is incorrect in assuming that the argument he is expounding is to be found entirely in Proslogion chapter 3. "Anselm intended in Proslogion III not an independent argument for the existence of God, but a continuation of the argument of Proslogion II." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontological_argument |
Al-Farabi | English
Al-Farabi's Commentary and Short Treatise on Aristotle's De interpretatione, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981.
Short Commentary on Aristotle's Prior Analytics, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1963.
Al-Farabi on the Perfect State, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985.
Alfarabi, The Political Writings. Selected Aphorisms and Other Texts, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001.
Alfarabi, The Political Writings, Volume II. "Political Regime" and "Summary of Plato's Laws, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2015.
Alfarabi's Philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, translated and with an introduction by Muhsin Mahdi, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001.
Fusul al-Madani: Aphorisms of the Statesman Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1961.
"Al-Farabi's Long Commentary on Aristotle's Categoriae in Hebrew and Arabic", In Studies in Arabic and Islamic Culture, Vol. II, edited by Abrahamov, Binyamin. Ramat: Bar-Ilan University Press, 2006.
Texts translated by D. M. Dunlop:
"The Existence and Definition of Philosophy. From an Arabic text ascribed to al-Farabi", Iraq, 1951, pp. 76–93).
"Al-Farabi's Aphorisms of the Statesman", Iraq, 1952, pp. 93–117.
"Al-Farabi's Introductory Sections on Logic", The Islamic Quarterly, 1955, pp. 264–282.
"Al-Farabi's Eisagoge", The Islamic Quarterly, 1956, pp. 117–138.
"Al-Farabi's Introductory Risalah on Logic", The Islamic Quarterly, 1956, pp. 224–235.
"Al-Farabi's Paraphrase of the Categories of Aristotle [Part 1]", The Islamic Quarterly, 1957, pp. 168–197.
"Al-Farabi's Paraphrase of the Categories of Aristotle [Part 2]", The Islamic Quarterly, 1959, pp. 21–54.
French
Idées des habitants de la cité vertueuse. Translated by Karam, J. Chlala, A. Jaussen. 1949.
Traité des opinions des habitants de la cité idéale. Translated by Tahani Sabri. Paris: J. Vrin, 1990.
Le Livre du régime politique, introduction, traduction et commentaire de Philippe Vallat, Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2012.
Spanish
Catálogo De Las Ciencias, Madrid: Imp. de Estanislao Maestre, 1932.
La ciudad ideal. Translated by Manuel Alonso. Madrid: Tecnos, 1995.
"Al-Farabi: Epístola sobre los sentidos del término intelecto", Revista Española de filosofía medieval, 2002, pp. 215–223.
El camino de la felicidad, trad. R. Ramón Guerrero, Madrid: Ed. Trotta, 2002
Obras filosóficas y políticas, trad. R. Ramón Guerrero, Madrid: Ed. Trotta, 2008.
Las filosofías de Platón y Aristóteles. Con un Apéndice: Sumario de las Leyes de Platón. Prólogo y Tratado primero, traducción, introducción y notas de Rafael Ramón Guerrero, Madrid, Ápeiron Ediciones, 2017.
Portuguese
A cidade excelente. Translated by Miguel Attie Filho. São Paulo: Attie, 2019.
German
Der Musterstaat. Translated by Friedrich Dieterici. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1895. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Farabi |
Battle of Jenin (2002) | The battle attracted widespread international attention due to allegations by Palestinians that a massacre had been committed. Reporters from various international media outlets quoted local residents who described houses being bulldozed with families still inside, helicopters firing indiscriminately into civilian areas, ambulances being prevented from reaching the wounded, summary executions of Palestinians, and stories of bodies being driven away in trucks or left in the sewers and bulldozed. Saeb Erekat, a Palestinian cabinet minister, accused the Israelis of trying to cover up the killing of civilians. The CNN correspondent noted that due to the IDF closure of the camp, there was "no way of confirming" the stories. During and immediately after the battle, the United Nations and several human rights NGOs also expressed concern about the possibility of a massacre. A British forensic expert who was part of an Amnesty International team granted access to Jenin on April 18 said, "the evidence before us at the moment doesn't lead us to believe that the allegations are anything other than truthful and that therefore there are large numbers of civilian dead underneath these bulldozed and bombed ruins that we see."
Israel denied charges of a massacre, and a lone April 9 report in the Israeli press stating Foreign Minister Shimon Peres privately referred to the battle as a "massacre" was immediately followed by a statement from Peres expressing concern that "Palestinian propaganda is liable to accuse Israel that a 'massacre' took place in Jenin rather than a pitched battle against heavily armed terrorists."
Subsequent investigations and reports by the United Nations, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Time magazine, and the BBC all concluded there was no massacre of civilians, with estimated death tolls of 46–55 people among reports by the IDF, the Jenin office of the United Nations, and the Jenin Hospital. A team of four Palestinian-appointed investigators reporting to Fatah numbered total casualties of 56, as disclosed by Kadoura Mousa Kadoura, the director of Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement for the northern West Bank.
The UN report to the Secretary General noted "Palestinians had claimed that between 400 and 500 people had been killed, fighters and civilians together. They had also claimed a number of summary executions and the transfer of corpses to an unknown place outside the city of Jenin. The number of Palestinian fatalities, on the basis of bodies recovered to date, in Jenin and the refugee camp in this military operation can be estimated at around 55." While noting the number of civilian deaths might rise as rubble was cleared, the report continued, "nevertheless, the most recent estimates by UNRWA and ICRC show that the number of missing people is constantly declining as the IDF releases Palestinians from detention." Human Rights Watch completed its report on Jenin in early May, stating "there was no massacre," but accusing the IDF of war crimes, and Amnesty International's report concluded "No matter whose figures one accepts, "there was no massacre." Amnesty's report specifically observed that "after the IDF temporarily withdrew from Jenin refugee camp on April 17, UNRWA set up teams to use the census lists to account for all the Palestinians (some 14,000) believed to be resident of the camp on April 3, 2002. Within five weeks all but one of the residents was accounted for." A BBC report later noted, "Palestinian authorities made unsubstantiated claims of a wide-scale massacre," and a reporter for The Observer opined that what happened in Jenin was not a massacre. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Jenin_(2002) |
Ancient Greek temple | These components allowed the realisation of a variety of different plan types in Greek temple architecture. The simplest example of a Greek temple is the templum in antis, a small rectangular structure sheltering the cult statue. In front of the naos, a small porch or pronaos was formed by the protruding naos walls, the antae. The pronaos was linked to the naos by a door. To support the superstructure, two columns were placed between the antae (distyle in antis). When equipped with an opisthodomos with a similar distyle in antis design, this is called a double anta temple. A variant of that type has the opisthodomos at the back of the naos indicated merely by half-columns and shortened antae, so that it can be described as a pseudo-opisthodomos.
If the porch of a temple in antis has a row of usually four or six columns in front of its whole breadth, the temple is described as a prostylos or prostyle temples. The whole pronaos may be omitted in this case or just leave the antae without columns. An amphiprostylos or amphiprostyle repeats the same column setting at the back.
In contrast, the term peripteros or peripteral designates a temple surrounded by ptera (colonnades) on all four sides, each usually formed by a single row of columns. This produces an unobstructed surrounding portico, the peristasis, on all four sides of the temple. A Hellenistic and Roman form of this shape is the pseudoperipteros, where the side columns of the peristasis are indicated only by engaged columns or pilasters directly attached to the external naos walls.
A dipteros or dipteral is equipped with a double colonnade on all four sides, sometimes with further rows of columns at the front and back. A pseudodipteros has engaged columns in the inner row of columns at the sides.
Circular temples form a special type. If they are surrounded by a colonnade, they are known as peripteral tholoi. Although of sacred character, their function as a temple can often not be asserted. A comparable structure is the monopteros, or cyclostyle which, however, lacks a naos.
To clarify ground plan types, the defining terms can be combined, producing terms such as: peripteral double anta temple, prostyle in antis, peripteral amphiprostyle, etc. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Greek_temple |
Arab nationalism | A number of Arab revolts against the European powers took place following the establishment of the British and French mandates. Resentment of British rule culminated in the Iraqi revolt of 1920. The uprising which was carried out by the urban population as well as the rural tribes of Iraq ended in 1921. The British drastically changed their policy in Iraq afterwards. Although the mandate was still in place officially, the British role was virtually reduced to an advisory one. In 1925, the Druze of southern Syria under the leadership of Sultan al-Atrash revolted against French rule. The revolt subsequently spread throughout Syria, particularly in Damascus where an uprising by the citizens took place. The French responded by systematically bombarding the city, resulting in thousands of deaths. The revolt was put down by the end of the year, but it is credited with forcing the French to take more steps to ensure Syrian independence. In Egypt, resentment of British hegemony led to wide-scale revolts across the country in 1919. As a result of three-year negotiations following the uprising, the British agreed to allow Egypt's official independence in 1922, but their military still held great influence in the country. The political leaders of the Egyptian revolution espoused Egyptian nationalism, rather than an Arab nationalist alternative.
The relative independence of Egypt, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and North Yemen encouraged Arab nationalists to put forward programs of action against colonial powers in the region. According to historian Youssef Choueiri, the "first public glimmerings" of a pan-Arab approach occurred in 1931, during the convention of World Islamic Congress in Jerusalem which highlighted Muslim fears of the increasing growth of Zionism in Palestine. Arab delegates held a separate conference and for the first time delegates from North Africa, Egypt, the Arabian Peninsula and the Fertile Crescent convened together to discuss Arab matters. A pan-Arabist covenant was proclaimed centering on three main articles: the Arab countries form an integral and indivisible whole. Hence the Arab nation does not accept or recognize the divisions of whatever nature to which it has been subjected, all efforts in every Arab country are to be directed towards the achievement of total independence within one single unity. Every endeavor which confines political activities to local or regional issues is to be fought against, and since colonialism is, in all its forms and manifestations, incompatible with the dignity and paramount aims of the Arab nation, the Arab nation rejects it and will resist it with all the means at its disposal.
The Association of Algerian Muslim Ulama founded in 1931 was a major Islamist and Arab nationalist movement in French Algeria. Its motto was "Islam is our religion, Algeria is our homeland, Arabic is our language", and it emphasized on the Arab-Islamic national identity of Algeria, becoming the strongest defender of Arab and Muslim culture and a major provider of education in Arabic. Its founder Abdelhamid ibn Badis identified Islam, Arabism, and nationalism as the three main components of the Algerian national character distinct from France, while his fellow 'alim Ahmad Tawfiq al-Madani (1889–1983) wrote extensive historical writings in Arabic celebrating the Muslim and Arab ancestors of Algeria. The association also attracted Algerian public attention to what was happening in Mandatory Palestine, describing the events in Palestine in 1936 as an "insult to all Muslim countries and a degradation of Arabism" and events in 1947 as "test set up by God in order to examine the Muslims and the Arabs' faith". It also stressed the view that Palestine belongs to all Arabs and not only to Palestinians. In 1955, it joined the Arab nationalist National Liberation Front's insurgency against France in the Algerian War.
Plans for a near-future conference were made, but never came into play due to Faysal's death in 1933 (delegates chose Faysal of Iraq to be their patron and he agreed to provide moral and material support for the movement) and fierce British opposition. However, the Arab Independence Party was formed by Palestinian and Iraqi activists from al-Fatat as a direct result of the Jerusalem conference on 13 August 1932. Most of the AIP's activities were centered in the Palestinian political field, but the party also worked towards achieving Arab unity and solidarity as a means to strengthen Arab resistance against the British Mandate in Palestine and increased Jewish settlement occurring there. In August 1933, the League of Nationalist Action (LNA) was founded in Lebanon by Western-educated professional civil service groups with the aims of creating a common Arab market and industrial base as well as the abolishment of customs barriers between the Arab countries. By proposing agrarian reforms to limit the power of landowners, abolishing what they considered "feudalism" and promoting the growth of an industry, the LNA sought to undermine the absentee landlords in the Levant who tended to encourage local nationalism and were open to working with European authorities or Jewish land purchasers. The LNA enjoyed a level of popularity throughout the 1930s, but did not survive into the 1940s.
Following the killing of the Syrian Arab guerrilla leader Izz ad-Din al-Qassam by British forces in Ya'bad, Arab-Jewish tensions in Palestine reached a climax. Anti-Zionist sentiments reached a boiling point on 15 April 1936, when an armed group of Arabs killed a Jewish civilian after intercepting his car near the village of Bal'a. After Jews retaliated by killing two Arab farmers near Jaffa, this sparked an Arab revolt in Palestine. The AIP along with Palestinian notables selected popular leader and Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin al-Husseini to lead the uprising. The Arab Higher Committee (AHC), a national committee bringing together Arab factions in Palestine, was established to coordinate the uprising. To protest increased Jewish immigration, a general strike was declared and a political, economic, and social boycott of Jews soon ensued.
The events in Palestine followed similar anti-colonial activities in Egypt, Syria and Algeria which helped inspire the uprising. In Egypt, week-long anti-British demonstrations had eventually resulted in the restoration of the Egyptian constitution while in Syria, a general strike held in January–February 1936 led to major negotiations for an independence deal with the French government. The British took a firm stance against the nationalist revolt in Palestine, dissolving the AHC forcing al-Husayni into exile in Lebanon in 1937. In Algeria, hostility towards the Jewish community saw an attack in Constantine in the summer of 1934 in which a number of Jews were killed, in response to the events in Palestine. Al-Husayni, who leaned more towards Palestinian nationalism, was instrumental in organizing the pan-Arab Bloudan Conference on 9 September 1937 in Syria which gathered 524 delegates from across the Arab world, although al-Husayni himself was not in attendance. According to author Adeeb Dawisha, although the uprising had been quelled by 1939, it greatly "contributed to the growth of Arab nationalist sentiment" and began the development of "solidarity" between Arab governments.
Meanwhile, a clandestine Arab nationalist society was formed in Iraq in 1938 which came to be known as Arab Nationalist Party (ANP). The ANP typically confined itself to influencing events and leaders in Iraq rather than taking the lead of a mass nationalist movement. King Ghazi of Iraq was one such leader. Ghazi intended to build a strong Iraqi army and actively sought to annex Kuwait. Many Arab nationalist politicians from Kuwait, who favored independence particularly after the discovery of oil there in 1938, were provided safe haven in Iraq after being repressed by the quasi-rulers of the sheikhdom, the Al Sabah family (Kuwait was still a British territory at the time). Ghazi died in a car accident in 1939, prompting a number of his army officers to allege the king was assassinated by British forces. That same year, al-Husayni arrived in Baghdad after escaping from Lebanon, giving a morale boost to the pan-Arab dimension in Iraqi politics. The prime minister at the time, Nuri al-Said and the regent king 'Abd al-Ilah, did not harbor the pan-Arabist sympathies Ghazi espoused.
Rashid Ali al-Gaylani succeeded al-Said as Prime Minister in March 1940 and took a neutral position regarding World War II, opening dialogue with the German government which was at war with Britain. Under great pressure from the latter, al-Gaylani resigned on 31 January 1941 and al-Said took his place. The perceived British interjection in Iraq's internal affairs angered Arab nationalist officers in the army, leading a group of them to overthrow the government in April and install al-Gaylani as Prime Minister. To counter a British military response to the coup, al-Gaylani enlisted the support of Germany, but the German military did not arrive to aid the Arab nationalist government. With pro-German Vichy France having taken control of neighboring Syria, Britain reoccupied Iraq in May to prevent it from joining the Axis powers. By 1 June, al-Gaylani and al-Husayni fled to the country for Germany, while the army officers who carried out the coup were captured and executed.
Al-Husayni became increasingly acquainted with Adolf Hitler, the Nazi leader of Germany, and other Nazi officials and attempted to coordinate Nazi and Arab policies to solve what he believed was the "Jewish problem" in Palestine. In one of the mufti's speeches he asked Arabs to unite and "kill the Jews wherever you find them." Throughout World War II, the Nazi government, seeking to take advantage of widespread anti-imperialist feelings in the Middle East, had broadcast antisemitic messages tailored to Arabic-speaking Muslims in the Middle East via radio.
The conflict in Iraq provoked anger and frustration throughout the Arab world and the British acknowledged the rapid growth of Arab nationalist feeling among the Arab population, large segments of which saw the events in Iraq as a valiant struggle against imperialism. British Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden, officially stated Britain's support of strong pan-Arab ties in a bid to ease anti-British sentiments in the region. The events of the region influenced the creation of the Arab Union Club in Egypt in 1942 which called for developing stronger ties between Egypt and the Arab world. Branches were subsequently opened in Baghdad, Beirut, Jaffa and Damascus, and Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa El-Nahas adopted its platform, pledging to help protect "the interests and rights" of the "sister Arab nations" and explore the "question of Arab unity." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_nationalism |
Mashallah ibn Athari | Anonymous (2018) [14th century]. "An Irish Astronomical Tract". Translated by Power, Afaula. University College Cork. Retrieved 10 May 2023.
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Durant, Will (1950). The Age of Faith: A History of Medieval Civilization – Christian, Islamic, and Judaic – from Constantine to Dante A.D. 325–1300. Vol. 4. New York: Simon and Schuster. OCLC 869431083.
Dodge, Bayard (1970). The Fihrist of al-Nadim: a Tenth-Century Survey of Muslim Culture (PDF). Vol. 2. New York: Columbia University Press. OCLC 59215780.
Dykes, Benjamin N., ed. (2008). Works of Sahl and Masha'allah. Translated by Dykes, Benjamin N. Cazimi Press. ISBN 978-19345-8-602-0. Archived from the original (PDF) on 14 November 2009.
Gunther, Robert Theodore (1920). Chaucer and Messahalla on the Astrolabe. Early Science in Oxford. Vol. 5. Oxford: University of Oxford. OCLC 1042928106.
Hill, Donald R. (1994). Islamic Science and Engineering. Edinburgh, UK: Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 978-0-7486-0457-9.
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Thomson, Ron B. (2022). Pseudo-Masha’allah, On the Astrolabe: A Critical Edition of the Latin Text with English Translation. Toronto: Volumes Publishing. ISBN 978-1-7782705-2-9 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mashallah_ibn_Athari |
Roman Empire | The Roman Empire was one of the largest in history, with contiguous territories throughout Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. The Latin phrase imperium sine fine ("empire without end") expressed the ideology that neither time nor space limited the Empire. In Virgil's Aeneid, limitless empire is said to be granted to the Romans by Jupiter. This claim of universal dominion was renewed when the Empire came under Christian rule in the 4th century. In addition to annexing large regions, the Romans directly altered their geography, for example cutting down entire forests.
Roman expansion was mostly accomplished under the Republic, though parts of northern Europe were conquered in the 1st century, when Roman control in Europe, Africa, and Asia was strengthened. Under Augustus, a "global map of the known world" was displayed for the first time in public at Rome, coinciding with the creation of the most comprehensive political geography that survives from antiquity, the Geography of Strabo. When Augustus died, the account of his achievements (Res Gestae) prominently featured the geographical cataloguing of the Empire. Geography alongside meticulous written records were central concerns of Roman Imperial administration.
The Empire reached its largest expanse under Trajan (r. 98–117), encompassing 5 million km2. The traditional population estimate of 55–60 million inhabitants accounted for between one-sixth and one-fourth of the world's total population and made it the most populous unified political entity in the West until the mid-19th century. Recent demographic studies have argued for a population peak from 70 million to more than 100 million. Each of the three largest cities in the Empire – Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch – was almost twice the size of any European city at the beginning of the 17th century.
As the historian Christopher Kelly described it:
Then the empire stretched from Hadrian's Wall in drizzle-soaked northern England to the sun-baked banks of the Euphrates in Syria; from the great Rhine–Danube river system, which snaked across the fertile, flat lands of Europe from the Low Countries to the Black Sea, to the rich plains of the North African coast and the luxuriant gash of the Nile Valley in Egypt. The empire completely circled the Mediterranean ... referred to by its conquerors as mare nostrum—'our sea'.
Trajan's successor Hadrian adopted a policy of maintaining rather than expanding the empire. Borders (fines) were marked, and the frontiers (limites) patrolled. The most heavily fortified borders were the most unstable. Hadrian's Wall, which separated the Roman world from what was perceived as an ever-present barbarian threat, is the primary surviving monument of this effort. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Empire |
Human history | The early modern period in Europe was an era of intense intellectual ferment. The Renaissance – the "rebirth" of classical culture, beginning in Italy in the 14th century and extending into the 16th – comprised the rediscovery of the classical world's cultural, scientific, and technological achievements, and the economic and social rise of Europe. This period is also celebrated for its artistic and literary attainments. Petrarch's poetry, Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron, and the paintings and sculptures of Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo are some of the great works of the age. After the Renaissance came the Reformation, an anti-clerical theological and social movement that resulted in the creation of Protestant Christianity. The Renaissance also engendered a culture of inquisitiveness which ultimately led to humanism and the Scientific Revolution, an effort to understand the natural world through direct observation and experiment. The success of the new scientific techniques inspired attempts to apply them to political and social affairs, known as the Enlightenment, by thinkers such as John Locke and Immanuel Kant. This development was accompanied by secularization as a continued decline of the influence of religious beliefs and authorities in the public and private spheres. Johannes Gutenberg's invention of movable type printing in 1440 helped spread the ideas of the new intellectual movements.
In addition to changes wrought by incipient capitalism and colonialism, early modern Europeans experienced an increase in the power of the state. Absolute monarchs in France, Russia, the Habsburg lands, and Prussia produced powerful centralized states, with strong armies and efficient bureaucracies, all under the control of the king. In Russia, Ivan the Terrible was crowned in 1547 as the first tsar of Russia, and by annexing the Turkic khanates in the east, transformed Russia into a regional power, eventually replacing the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth as a major power in Eastern Europe. The countries of Western Europe, while expanding prodigiously through technological advances and colonial conquest, competed with each other economically and militarily in a state of almost constant war. Wars of particular note included the Thirty Years' War, the War of the Spanish Succession, the Seven Years' War, and the French Revolutionary Wars. The French Revolution, starting in 1789, laid the groundwork of liberal democracy by overthrowing monarchy. It led to the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte and the subsequent Napoleonic Wars of the early 19th century. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_history |
Battle of Annual | At Afrau, on the coast, Spanish warships evacuated the garrison. At Zoco el Telata de Mtalsa, in the south, Spanish troops and civilians retreated to the French Zone. Spanish survivors of the battle retreated some 80 kilometres (50 mi) to the spread-out fortified base of Monte Arruit, which was built between 1912 and 1916 and located south of Melilla. There, a stand was attempted under the leadership of General Felipe Navarro. As the position was surrounded, and cut off from water and supplies, General Berenguer authorised its surrender on August 9. The Rifians did not respect the conditions of surrender and killed 3,000 Spanish soldiers. General Navarro was taken prisoner, along with 534 military personnel and 53 civilians; they were ransomed some years later.
Melilla was only some 40 kilometres (25 mi) away, but the garrison there was in no position to help since the city was almost defenceless and lacked properly-trained troops. The exhausted and demoralised survivors of Annual who reached Melilla were in no condition to reinforce the existing garrison effectively. However, the Rifian forces had largely dispersed following the capture of Monte Arruit, leaving Abd-el-Krim with insufficient men to lay siege to Melilla. In addition, citizens of other European nations lived in Melilla, and he did not wish to risk international intervention. Abd-el-Krim later stated that to have been his greatest mistake.
Spain quickly assembled about 14,000 reinforcements from elite units of the Army of Africa, which had been operating south of Tetuan in the Western Zone. They mainly comprised units of the Spanish Legion who had been newly raised in 1920, and Moroccan regulares. Transferred to Melilla by sea, the reinforcements enabled the city to be held and Monte Arruit to be retaken by the end of November.
The Spaniards may have lost up to 22,000 soldiers at Annual and in the subsequent fighting. The German historian Werner Brockdorff states that only 1,200 of the 20,000 Spanish troops escaped alive, but that estimate of losses is contradicted by the Spanish official inquiry. Rifian casualties were reportedly only 800. The final official figures for the Spanish death toll, both at Annual and during the subsequent rout which took Rifian forces to the outskirts of Melilla, were reported to the Cortes Generales as 13,192 killed, including Moroccan colonial forces.
Materiel lost by the Spanish, in the summer of 1921 and especially in the Battle of Annual, included 11,000 rifles, 3,000 carbines, 1,000 muskets, 60 machine guns, 2,000 horses, 1,500 mules, 100 cannons, and a large quantity of ammunition. Abd el Krim remarked later: "In just one night, Spain supplied us with all the equipment which we needed to carry on a big war." Other sources give the booty seized by the Rifians as 20,000 Mauser rifles, 400 Hotchkiss machine guns, and 120 to 150 Schneider artillery pieces. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Annual |
Chronology of the ancient Near East | At least as far back as the reign of Thutmose I, Egypt took a strong interest in the ancient Near East. At times they occupied portions of the region, a favor returned later by the Assyrians. Some key synchronisms:
Battle of Kadesh, involving Ramses II of Egypt ("Year 5 III Shemu day 9") and Muwatalli II of the Hittite empire. This would be 12 May 1274 BC, in the usually accepted Egyptian chronology. Recorded by both Egyptian (Kadesh inscriptions) and Hittite records.
Peace treaty (Egyptian–Hittite peace treaty) between Ramses II of Egypt, in his 21st year of reign (roughly 1259 BC) and Hattusili III of the Hittites. Hieroglyphic copies were found at the temple of Amun at Karnak and at the Ramesseumand. Fragmentary Akkadian cuneiform fragments were found at Hattusa.
Amenhotep III (Amenophis III) marries the daughter of Shuttarna II of Mitanni. There is also a record of messages from the pharaoh to Kadashman-Enlil I of Babylon in the Amarna Letter (EA1–5). Other Amarna letters link Amenhotep III to Burnaburiash II of Babylon (EA6) and Tushratta of Mitanni (EA17–29) as well.
Akhenaten (Amenhotep IV) married the daughter of Tushratta of Mitanni (as did his father Amenhotep III), leaving a number of records. He also corresponded with Burna-Buriash II of Babylon (EA7–11, 15), and Ashuruballit I of Assyria (EA15–16)
Bay an official of the Egyptian queen Twosret, in a tablet (RS 86.2230) found at Ras Shamra, was in communication with Ammurapi, the last ruler of Ugarit. Bay was in office from approximately 1194–1190 BC. This sets an upper limit on the destruction date of Ugarit.
Pottery seals of the Egyptian pharaoh Pepi I have been found in the wreckage of the city of Ebla, destroyed by Naram-Sin of Akkad.
There are problems with using Egyptian chronology. Besides some minor issues of regnal lengths and overlaps, there are three long periods of poorly documented chaos in the history of ancient Egypt, the First, Second, and Third Intermediate Periods, whose lengths are doubtful. This means the Egyptian Chronology actually comprises three floating chronologies. The chronologies of Mesopotamia, the Levant and Anatolia depend significantly on the chronology of Ancient Egypt. To the extent that there are problems in the Egyptian chronology, these issues will be inherited in chronologies based on synchronisms with Ancient Egypt. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronology_of_the_ancient_Near_East |
Sharifian Caliphate | When the Ottomans, aware of his religious importance, asked Hussein bin Ali to join them in the jihad they had proclaimed against the Triple Entente powers, he refused, considering this jihad illegitimate. On November 1, 1916, as the British sought to inquire about Hussein bin Ali's stance on the caliphate issue, he expressed through his son that he aligned himself with the opinion of the ulama of Mecca, who would have deemed it illegitimate. However, he stated that he preferred to leave the decision to the ulama.
In 1917, after the proclamation of independence of the Arab Kingdom, the ulamas of Mecca announced a series of reasons why the Ottoman Caliphate would be illegitimate and Hussein bin Ali would be legitimate:What does the Mohammedan world say of the Beni Osman who pretend to be Caliphs of Islam, while for many years they were like puppets in the hands of the Janissaries; tossed about, dethroned, and killed by them, in a manner contrary to the laws and doctrines established in the books of religion on the accession and dethronement of Caliphs – which facts are recorded in their history? (...) We want those who are present here to tell you who are far away that we shall confess before Almighty God, on the last day, that today we do not know of any Moslem ruler more righteous and fearing God than the son of His Prophet who is now on the throne of the Arab country. We do not know any one more zealous than he in religion, more observant of the law of God in words and deeds, and more capable of managing our affairs in such a way as would please God. The people of the Holy Land have proclaimed him their King simply because, in so doing, they would be serving their religion and country.
Despite this Hussein continued to attack the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) while sparing the Ottoman caliph. For example, in a statement published in 1917, Hussein declared: "It will be the opening of our disassociation from it, except for the name of its Sultan, which we have kept sacred until now, in reverence to the legacy of his ancestors and in the hope of someone emerging to rescue his country from the dominance of the Turanian faction. And Allah is the one in control and the one with the final word."
Before officially assuming the title, in March 1919, he was acclaimed by the Muslim residents of Jaffa when he liberated the city. In their declaration, the inhabitants affirmed: "The Muslim residents of Jaffa gathered in their grand mosque and pledged their allegiance to Your Majesty, the Islamic caliphate. They recited benevolent prayers to support your glorious Arab throne and expressed gratitude to the Almighty, who restored the sacred caliphate to its rightful owners." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharifian_Caliphate |
Ayyubid dynasty | Intent on restoring the supremacy of Saladin's direct descendants within the Ayyubid family, an-Nasir Yusuf was eventually able to enlist the backing of all of the Syria-based Ayyubid emirs in a common cause against Mamluk-dominated Egypt. By 1250, he took Damascus with relative ease and except for Hama and Transjordan, an-Nasir Yusuf's direct authority stood unbroken from the Khabur River in northern Mesopotamia to the Sinai Peninsula. In December 1250, he attacked Egypt after hearing of al-Mu'azzam Turan-Shah's death and the ascension of Shajar al-Durr. An-Nasir Yusuf's army was much larger and better-equipped than that of the Egyptian army, consisting of the forces of Aleppo, Homs, Hama, and those of Saladin's only surviving sons, Nusrat ad-Din and Turan-Shah ibn Salah ad-Din. Nonetheless, it suffered a major defeat at the hands of Aybak's forces. An-Nasir Yusuf subsequently returned to Syria, which was slowly slipping out of his control.
The Mamluks forged an alliance with the Crusaders in March 1252 and agreed to jointly launch a campaign against an-Nasir Yusuf. King Louis, who had been released after al-Mu'azzam Turan-Shah's murder, led his army to Jaffa, while Aybak intended to send his forces to Gaza. Upon hearing of the alliance, an-Nasir Yusuf immediately dispatched a force to Tell al-Ajjul, just outside Gaza, in order to prevent the junction of the Mamluk and Crusader armies. Meanwhile, the rest of the Ayyubid army was stationed in the Jordan Valley. Realizing that a war between them would greatly benefit the Crusaders, Aybak and an-Nasir Yusuf accepted Abbasid mediation via Najm ad-Din al-Badhirai. In April 1253, a treaty was signed whereby the Mamluks would retain control over all of Egypt and Palestine up to, but not including, Nablus, while an-Nasir Yusuf would be confirmed as the ruler of Muslim Syria. Thus, Ayyubid rule was officially ended in Egypt. After conflict arose between the Mamluks and the Ayyubids reignited, al-Badhirai arranged another treaty, this time giving an-Nasir Yusuf control of the Mamluks' territories in Palestine and al-Arish in Sinai. Instead of placing Ayyubids in charge, however, an-Nasir Yusuf handed Jerusalem to a Mamluk named Kutuk while Nablus and Jenin were given to Baibars.
For over a year after the settlement with the Mamluks, calm settled over an-Nasir Yusuf's reign, but on 11 December 1256 he sent two envoys to the Abbasids in Baghdad seeking formal investiture from the caliph, al-Musta'sim, for his role as "Sultan". This request was connected to an-Nasir's rivalry with Aybak, as the title would be useful in future disputes with the Mamluks. However, the Mamluks had sent their envoys to Baghdad previously to precisely ensure that an-Nasir Yusuf would not gain the title, putting al-Musta'sim in a difficult position.
In early 1257, Aybak was killed in a conspiracy, and was succeeded by his 15-year-old son, al-Mansur Ali, while Saif ad-Din Qutuz held an influential position. Soon after al-Mansur Ali's ascendancy rumors of another conspiracy to which an-Nasir Yusuf had an alleged connection emerged. The accused conspirator, al-Mansur Ali's vizier, Sharaf ad-Din al-Fa'izi, was strangled by Egyptian authorities. The Bahri Mamluks in Syria led by Baibars pressured an-Nasir Yusuf to intervene by invading Egypt, but he would not act, fearing the Bahri dynasty would usurp his throne if they gained Egypt. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayyubid_dynasty |
Isma'ilism | The Dawoodi Bohras are a very close-knit community who seeks advice from Dai on spiritual and temporal matters.
Dawoodi Bohras is headed by the Dāʻī al-Mutlaq, who is appointed by his predecessor in office. The Dāʻī al-Mutlaq appoints two others to the subsidiary ranks of māzūn (Arabic Maʾḏūn مأذون) "licentiate" and Mukāsir (Arabic: مكاسر). These positions are followed by the rank of ra'sul hudood, bhaisaheb, miya-saheb, shaikh-saheb, and mulla-saheb, which are held by several of Bohras. The 'Aamil or Saheb-e Raza who is granted the permission to perform the religious ceremonies of the believers by the Dāʻī al-Mutlaq and also leads the local congregation in religious, social, and community affairs, is sent to each town where a sizable population of believers exists. Such towns normally have a masjid (commonly known as a mosque) and an adjoining jamaa'at-khaana (assembly hall) where socio-religious functions are held. The local organizations which manage these properties and administer the social and religious activities of the local Bohras report directly to the central administration of the Dāʻī al-Mutlaq.
While the majority of Dawoodi Bohras have traditionally been traders, it is becoming increasingly common for them to become professionals. Some choose to become Doctors, consultants or analysts as well as a large contingent of medical professionals. Dawoodi Bohras are encouraged to educate themselves in both religious and secular knowledge, and as a result, the number of professionals in the community is rapidly increasing. Dawoodi Bohras believe that the education of women is equally important as that of men, and many Dawoodi Bohra women choose to enter the workforce. Al Jamea tus Saifiyah (The Arabic Academy) in Mumbai, Surat, Nairobi and Karachi is a sign to the educational importance in the Dawoodi community. The academy has an advanced curriculum that encompasses religious and secular education for both men and women.
Today there are approximately one million Dawoodi Bohra. The majority of these reside in India and Pakistan, but there is also a significant diaspora residing in the Middle East, East Africa, Europe, North America and the Far East.
The ordinary Bohra is highly conscious of his identity, and this is especially demonstrated at religious and traditional occasions by the appearance and attire of the participants. Dawoodi Bohra men wear a traditional white three-piece outfit, plus a white and gold cap (called a topi), and women wear the rida, a distinctive form of the commonly known burqa which is distinguished from other forms of the veil due to it often being in color and decorated with patterns and lace. The rida's difference from the burqa, however, is significant beyond just the colour, pattern, and lace. The rida does not call for covering of women's faces like the traditional veil. It has a flap called the 'pardi' that usually hangs on the back like the hood of a jacket but it is not used to conceal the face. This is representative of the Dawoodi Bohra community's values of equality and justice for women, which they believe, is a tenet of the Fatimid Imamate's evolved understanding of Islam and the true meaning of women's chastity in Islam. The Dawoodi Bohra community also do not prevent their women from coming to mosques, attending religious gatherings or going to places of pilgrimage. It is often regarded as the most peaceful sect of Islam and an example of true Sufism; it has been critically acclaimed on several occasions even by Western governments such as those of the United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden, and particularly the United States for its progressive outlook towards gender roles, adoption of technology, promotion of literature, crafts, business and secular values. However, the Dawoodi Bohras are highly single-minded about inter-caste or inter-faith marriage. They do not oppose it but do not encourage it either. If a Dawoodi Bohra member does marry into another caste or religion, he or she is usually advised to ask his or her spouse to convert to Islam and, specifically, into the community.
They believe that straying away from the community implies straying away from Ma'ad – the ultimate objective of this life and the meaning of the teachings of Islam, which is to return to where all souls come from and re-unite with Allah. Besides, converting someone to Islam has high spiritual and religious significance as doctrines espouse that making someone a Muslim or Mu'min confers the Sawab (the reward of good deeds) equivalent to that of 40 Hajjs and 40 Umrahs (visiting Mecca and the Kaaba during days other than that of Hajj).
The position of Da'i al-Mutlaq is currently disputed after the demise of the 52nd Da'i al-Mutlaq of the Dawoodi Bohra community, Mohammed Burhanuddin. Two claimants emerged for the position of 53rd Da'i al-Mutlaq, Mufaddal Saifuddin and Khuzaima Qutbuddin, and a case is pending in the Bombay High Court to resolve the matter. Qutbuddin has since died and appointed his son Taher Fakhruddin as his successor. Ultimately the court ruled in favor of Mufaddal Saifuddin as the righteous successor of the community
Besides speaking the local languages, the Dawoodis have their own language called Lisānu l-Dāʻwat "Tongue of the Dāʻwat". This is written in the Persian alphabet but is derived from Urdu, Gujarati, and Arabic and Persian. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isma%27ilism |
Sasanian Empire | Some scholars of Zoroastrianism such as Mary Boyce have speculated that it is possible that the yasna service was lengthened during the Sassanid era "to increase its impressiveness". This appears to have been done by joining the Gathic Staota Yesnya with the haoma ceremony. Furthermore, it is believed that another longer service developed, known as the Visperad, which derived from the extended yasna. This was developed for the celebration of the seven holy days of obligation (the Gahambars plus Nowruz) and was dedicated to Ahura Mazda.
While the very earliest Zoroastrians eschewed writing as a form of demonic practice, the Middle Persian Zand, along with much secondary Zoroastrian literature, was recorded in writing during the Sassanid era for the first time. Many of these Zoroastrian texts were original works from the Sassanid period. Perhaps the most important of these works was the Bundahishn—the mythical Zoroastrian story of Creation. Other older works, some from remote antiquity, were possibly translated from different Iranian languages into Middle Persian during this period. For example, two works, the Drakht-i Asurig (Assyrian Tree) and Ayadgar-i Zareran (Exploits of Zarter) were probably translated from Parthian originals.
Of great importance for Zoroastrianism was the creation of the Avestan alphabet by the Sassanids, which enabled the accurate rendering of the Avesta in written form (including in its original language/phonology) for the first time. The alphabet was based on the Pahlavi one, but rather than the inadequacy of that script for recording spoken Middle Persian, the Avestan alphabet had 46 letters, and was well suited to recording Avestan in written form in the way the language actually sounded and was uttered. The Persian magi were therefore finally able to record all surviving ancient Avestan texts in written form. As a result of this development, the Sasanian Avesta was then compiled into 21 nasks (divisions) to correspond with the 21 words of the Ahunavar invocation.
An important literary text, the Khwaday-Namag (Book of Kings), was composed during the Sasanian era. This text is the basis of the later Shahnameh of Ferdowsi. Another important Zoroastrian text from the Sasanian period includes the Dadestan-e Menog-e Khrad (Judgments of the Spirit of Wisdom). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sasanian_Empire |
Muslim world | The best known work of fiction from the Islamic world is One Thousand and One Nights, a compilation of folk tales from Sanskrit, Persian, and later Arabian fables. The concept had been influenced by a pre-Islamic Persian prototype Hezār Afsān (Thousand Fables) that relied on particular Indian elements. It reached its final form by the 14th century; the number and type of tales have varied from one manuscript to another. This work has been very influential in the West since it was translated in the 18th century, first by Antoine Galland. Imitations were written, especially in France. Various characters from this epic have themselves become cultural icons in Western culture, such as Aladdin, Sinbad the Sailor and Ali Baba.
An example of Arabic poetry and Persian poetry on romance is Layla and Majnun, dating back to the Umayyad era in the 7th century. It is a tragic story of undying love. Ferdowsi's Shahnameh, the national epic of Greater Iran, is a mythical and heroic retelling of Persian history. Amir Arsalan was also a popular mythical Persian story.
Ibn Tufayl (Abubacer) and Ibn al-Nafis were pioneers of the philosophical novel. Ibn Tufail wrote the first Arabic novel Hayy ibn Yaqdhan (Philosophus Autodidactus) as a response to Al-Ghazali's The Incoherence of the Philosophers, and then Ibn al-Nafis also wrote a novel Theologus Autodidactus as a response to Ibn Tufail's Philosophus Autodidactus. Both of these narratives had protagonists (Hayy in Philosophus Autodidactus and Kamil in Theologus Autodidactus) who were autodidactic feral children living in seclusion on a desert island, both being the earliest examples of a desert island story. However, while Hayy lives alone with animals on the desert island for the rest of the story in Philosophus Autodidactus, the story of Kamil extends beyond the desert island setting in Theologus Autodidactus, developing into the earliest known coming of age plot and eventually becoming the first example of a science fiction novel.
Theologus Autodidactus, written by the Arabian polymath Ibn al-Nafis (1213–1288), deals with various science fiction elements such as spontaneous generation, futurology, the end of the world and doomsday, resurrection, and the afterlife. Rather than giving supernatural or mythological explanations for these events, Ibn al-Nafis attempted to explain these plot elements using the scientific knowledge of biology, astronomy, cosmology and geology known in his time. Ibn al-Nafis' fiction explained Islamic religious teachings via science and Islamic philosophy. Translations of Ibn Tufail's Philosophus Autodidactus appeared in Latin (1671), English (1708), German, and Dutch. These European-language translations may have later inspired Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe and Robert Boyle's The Aspiring Naturalist. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_world |
Sunni Islam | The fall, at the end of World War I of the Ottoman Empire, the biggest Sunni empire for six centuries, brought the caliphate to an end. This resulted in Sunni protests in far off places including the Khilafat Movement in India, which was later on upon gaining independence from Britain divided into Sunni dominated Pakistan and secular India. Pakistan, the most populous Sunni state at its dawn, was later partitioned into Pakistan and Bangladesh. The demise of Ottoman caliphate also resulted in the emergence of Saudi Arabia, a dynastic absolute monarchy that championed the reformist doctrines of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab; the eponym of the Wahhabi movement. This was followed by a considerable rise in the influence of the Wahhabi, Salafiyya, Islamist and Jihadist movements that revived the doctrines of the Hanbali theologian Taqi Al-Din Ibn Taymiyyah (1263–1328 C.E/ 661–728 A.H), a fervent advocate of the traditions of the Sunni Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal. The expediencies of Cold War resulted in the radicalisation of Afghan refugees in Pakistan who fought the communist regime backed by USSR forces in Afghanistan giving birth to the Taliban movement. After the fall of communist regime in Afghanistan and the ensuing civil war, Taliban wrestled power from the various Mujahidin factions in Afghanistan and formed a government under the leadership of Mohammed Omar, who was addressed as the Emir of the faithful, an honorific way of addressing the caliph. The Taliban regime was recognised by Pakistan and Saudi Arabia till after 9/11, perpetrated by Osama bin Laden – a Saudi national by birth and harboured by the Taliban – took place, resulting in a war on terror launched against the Taliban.
The sequence of events of the 20th century has led to resentment in some quarters of the Sunni community due to the loss of pre-eminence in several previously Sunni-dominated regions such as the Levant, Mesopotamia, the Balkans, the North Caucasus and the Indian sub continent. The latest attempt by a radical wing of Salafi-Jihadists to re-establish a Sunni caliphate was seen in the emergence of the militant group ISIL, whose leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is known among his followers as caliph and Amir-al-mu'mineen, "The Commander of the Faithful". Jihadism is opposed from within the Muslim community (known as the ummah in Arabic) in all quarters of the world as evidenced by turnout of almost 2% of the Muslim population in London protesting against ISIL.
Following the puritan approach of Ibn Kathir, Muhammad Rashid Rida, etc. many contemporary Tafsir (exegetic treatises) downplay the earlier significance of Biblical material (Isrā'iliyyāt). Half of the Arab commentaries reject Isrā'iliyyāt in general, while Turkish tafsir usually partly allow referring to Biblical material. Nevertheless, most non-Arabic commentators regard them as useless or not applicable. A direct reference to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict could not be found. It remains unclear whether the refusal of Isrā'iliyyāt is motivated by political discourse or by traditionalist thought alone. The usage of tafsir'ilmi is another notable characteristic of modern Sunni tafsir. Tafsir'ilmi stands for alleged scientific miracles found in the Qur'an. In short, the idea is that the Qur'an contains knowledge about subjects an author of the 7th century could not possibly have. Such interpretations are popular among many commentators. Some scholars, such as the Commentators of Al-Azhar University, reject this approach, arguing the Qur'an is a text for religious guidance, not for science and scientific theories that may be disproved later; thus tafsir'ilmi might lead to interpreting Qur'anic passages as falsehoods. Modern trends of Islamic interpretation are usually seen as adjusting to a modern audience and purifying Islam from alleged alterings, some of which are believed to be intentional corruptions brought into Islam to undermine and corrupt its message. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunni_Islam |
Principality of Antioch | After the fall of Edessa in 1144, Antioch was attacked by Nur ad-Din during the Second Crusade. Much of the eastern part of the Principality was lost, and Raymond was killed at the battle of Inab in 1149. Baldwin III of Jerusalem was technically regent for Raymond's widow Constance until 1153 when she married Raynald of Châtillon. Raynald, too, immediately found himself in conflict with the Byzantines, this time in Cyprus; he made peace with Manuel I Comnenus in 1158, and the next year Manuel arrived to take personal control of the Principality. From thence the Principality of Antioch was to be a vassal of Byzantium until Manuel's death in 1180. Although this arrangement meant that the Principality had to provide a contingent for the Byzantine Army (troops from Antioch participated in an attack on the Seljuk Turks in 1176), it also safeguarded the City against Nur ad-Din at a time when it was in serious danger of being overrun.
Raynald was taken prisoner by the Muslims in 1160, and the regency fell to the Patriarch of Antioch (Raynald was not released until 1176, and never returned to Antioch). Meanwhile, Manuel married Constance's daughter Maria, but as Constance was only nominally in charge of Antioch, she was deposed in 1163 and replaced by her son Bohemond III. Bohemond was taken captive by Nur ad-Din the following year at the Battle of Harim, and the Orontes River became the permanent boundary between Antioch and Aleppo. Bohemond returned to Antioch in 1165, and married one of Manuel's nieces; he was also convinced to install a Greek Orthodox patriarch in the city.
The Byzantine alliance came to an end with the death of the Emperor Manuel in 1180. Antioch was deprived of the Empire's protection, which had been enough to frighten Nur ad-Din away from intervening in the area for the preceding twenty years. Nevertheless, with help from the fleets of the Italian city-states, Antioch survived Saladin's assault on the Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1187. Neither Antioch nor Tripoli participated in the Third Crusade, although the remnants of Frederick Barbarossa's army briefly stopped in Antioch in 1190 to bury their king. Bohemond III's son, also named Bohemond, had become count of Tripoli after the Battle of Hattin, and Bohemond III's eldest son Raymond married an Armenian princess in 1194. Bohemond III died in 1201.
Bohemond's death resulted in a struggle for control between Antioch, represented by Bohemond of Tripoli, and Armenia, represented by Bohemond III's grandson Raymond-Roupen. Bohemond of Tripoli, as Bohemond IV, took control by 1207, but Raymond briefly ruled as a rival from 1216 to 1219. Bohemond died in 1233, and Antioch, ruled by his son Bohemond V, played no important role in the Fifth Crusade, Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II's struggles to take back Jerusalem in the Sixth Crusade, or Louis IX of France's Seventh Crusade. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Antioch |
Politics of the Palestinian National Authority | The United Nations General Assembly recognized the PLO as the "representative of the Palestinian people" in Resolution 3210 and Resolution 3236, and granted the PLO observer status on 22 November 1974 in Resolution 3237. On 12 January 1976 the UN Security Council voted 11–1 with 3 abstentions to allow the Palestinian Liberation Organization to participate in a Security Council debate without voting rights, a privilege usually restricted to UN member states. It was admitted as a full member of the Asia group on 2 April 1986.
After the 1988 Palestinian Declaration of Independence, the PLO's representation was renamed Palestine. On 7 July 1998, this status was extended to allow participation in General Assembly debates, though not in voting.
By September 2012, with their application for full membership stalled due to the inability of Security Council members to 'make a unanimous recommendation', the Palestine Authority had decided to pursue an upgrade in status from "observer entity" to "non-member observer state". On 27 November it was announced that the appeal had been officially made, and would be put to a vote in the General Assembly on November 29, where their status upgrade was expected to be supported by a majority of states. In addition to granting Palestine "non-member observer state status", the draft resolution "expresses the hope that the Security Council will consider favourably the application submitted on 23 September 2011 by the State of Palestine for admission to full membership in the United Nations, endorses the two state solution based on the pre-1967 borders, and stresses the need for an immediate resumption of negotiations between the two parties."
On Thursday, 29 November 2012, In a 138–9 vote (with 41 abstaining) UN General Assembly resolution 67/19 passed, upgrading Palestine to "non-member observer state" status in the United Nations. The new status equates Palestine's with that of the Holy See. The change in status was described by The Independent as "de facto recognition of the sovereign state of Palestine".
The vote was a historic benchmark for the sovereign State of Palestine and its citizens; it was a diplomatic setback for Israel and the United States. Status as an observer state in the UN will allow the State of Palestine to join treaties and specialised UN agencies, such as the International Civil Aviation Organisation, the Law of the Seas Treaty and the International Criminal Court. It shall permit Palestine to claim legal rights over its territorial waters and air space as a sovereign state recognised by the UN. It shall also provide the citizens of Palestine with the right to sue for control of the territory that is rightfully theirs in the International Court of Justice and with the legal right to bring war-crimes charges, mainly those relating to the illegal occupation of the State of Palestine, against Israel in the International Criminal Court.
The UN has permitted Palestine to title its representative office to the UN as "The Permanent Observer Mission of the State of Palestine to the United Nations". Palestine has started to retitle its name accordingly on postal stamps, official documents and passports; moreover, it has instructed its diplomats to officially represent "State of Palestine", as opposed to the "Palestine National Authority". Additionally, on 17 December 2012, UN Chief of Protocol Yeocheol Yoon decided that "the designation of 'State of Palestine' shall be used by the Secretariat in all official United Nations documents", thus recognising the PLO-proclaimed State of Palestine as being sovereign over the territories of Palestine and its citizens under international law. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_the_Palestinian_National_Authority |
Aceh | Administratively, the province now is subdivided into eighteen regencies (kabupaten) and five autonomous cities (kota). The capital and the largest city is Banda Aceh, located on the coast near the northern tip of Sumatra. When originally devised in 1956, the province comprised the city of Banda Aceh and six regencies – Aceh Besar, Pidie, North Aceh, East Aceh, Central Aceh, and West Aceh; however on 14 November 1956 a seventh regency (South Aceh) was created from the southeastern districts of West Aceh Regency. A second city (Sabang City) was separated from Aceh Besar on 10 June 1965 and Southeast Aceh Regency from part of Central Aceh on 4 June 1974; three additional regencies were formed in 1999 – Aceh Singkil from part of South Aceh Regency on 20 April, and Bireuen (from part of North Aceh Regency) and Simeulue (from part of West Aceh Regency) on 4 October.
The towns of Lhokseumawe and Langsa were given separate city status (from parts of North Aceh Regency and of East Aceh Regency respectively) on 21 June 2001, and five additional regencies were created on 10 April 2002 – Aceh Jaya and Nagan Raya (both from parts of West Aceh Regency), Aceh Tamiang (from part of East Aceh Regency), Gayo Lues (from part of Southeast Aceh Regency) and Southwest Aceh (from part of South Aceh Regency). Bener Meriah Regency was created on 19 December 2003 (from part of Central Aceh Regency), and Pidie Jaya Regency (from part of Pidie Regency) and Subulussalam City (from part of Aceh Singkil Regency) on 2 January 2007. Some other local areas are pushing to create new autonomous areas, usually with the stated goal of enhancing local control over politics and development.
The cities and regencies (subdivided into the 289 districts or kecamatan of Aceh), are listed below with their areas and their populations at the 2010 census and the 2020 census, together with the officially estimated population as at mid 2023.
Aceh is unique in Indonesia in grouping its villages into mukims. These are sometimes related to traditional indigenous communities. Beginning in September 2023, the Indonesian government provided legal recognition to the claims of some mukims over customary forests.
The province comprises two of Indonesia's 84 national electoral districts to elect members to the People's Representative Council.
The Aceh I Electoral District consists of 12 of the regencies in the province (Simeulue, Aceh Singkil, South Aceh, Southeast Aceh, West Aceh, Aceh Besar, Pidie, Southwest Aceh, Aceh Jaya, Gayo Lues, Nagan Raya and Pidie Jaya), together with the cities of Bandar Aceh, Sabang and Subulussalam, and elects 7 members to the People's Representative Council.
The Aceh II Electoral District consists of the remaining 6 regencies (East Aceh, Central Aceh, Bireuen, North Aceh, Aceh Tamiang and Bener Meriah), together with the cities of Langsa and Lhokseumawe, and elects 6 members to the People's Representative Council. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aceh |
Popular Mobilization Forces | The PMF trace their origins to the so-called Special Groups, a US term to designate groups of the Iraqi insurgency which were Shiite, supported and funded by the Iranian Quds Force, as opposed to Ba'atahist loyalist or radical sunni salafi jihadist insurgents. The Special Groups fought both the US-led Coalition forces, but also the afforementioned Ba'ath and sunni insurgent in a sectarian conflict. Originally, there were seven forces in the PMF, which had been operating with Nouri al-Maliki's support since early 2014. These were:
Badr Organization
Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq
Kata'ib Hezbollah
Kata'ib Sayyid al-Shuhada
Harakat Hezbollah al-Nujaba
Kata'ib al-Imam Ali
Kata'ib Jund al-Imam
According to Faleh A. Jabar and Renad Mansour for the Carnegie Middle East Center, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki used these forces to combat the emergence of ISIL and maintain his influence in predominantly Sunni areas.
The People's Mobilization Forces (PMF) were formed by the Iraqi government on 15 June 2014 after top Iraqi Shia cleric Ali al-Sistani's non-sectarian fatwa on "Sufficiency Jihad" on 13 June. The fatwa called for defending Iraqi cities, particularly Baghdad, and to participate in the counter-offensive against ISIL, following the Fall of Mosul on 10 June 2014. The forces brought together a number of Shia militias, most of which receive direct support from Iran, along with a small number of Sunni tribesmen by uniting existing militias under the "People's Mobilization Committee" of the Iraqi Ministry of Interior in June 2014. The forces would fall under the umbrella of the state's security services and within the legal frameworks and practices of the Ministry of Interior. On 19 December 2016, Iraqi President Fuad Masum approved a law passed by parliament in November that incorporated PMU in the country's armed forces. The pro-Assad website Al-Masdar News reports that, with this incorporation, the PMU are now subject to the supreme commander of the national armed forces and will no longer be affiliated to any political or social group. However, many of these irregulars have continued to operate independently of the Iraqi state.
On 21 March 2017, the PMU announced the launch of a special forces course, in order to create a Special Forces Division. The training program covered a variety of missions with direction from the Iraqi Special Operations Forces. On December 11, 2017, the PMU began to be entirely consolidated under the Iraqi Armed Forces, following a call by Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani to integrate. However, as late as May 2018, this integration had yet to take place, and PMF members remained without the same wages and privileges as soldiers in the regular Iraqi Armed Forces.
According to some sources, the Popular Mobilization Forces have made a fundamental difference on the battlefield, as they have undermined the superiority of ISIL at the level of guerrilla warfare, as well as at the level of the psychological operations. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popular_Mobilization_Forces |
French Algeria | According to Ben Kiernan, colonization and genocidal massacres proceeded in tandem. Within the first three decades (1830–1860) of French conquest, between 500,000 and 1,000,000 Algerians, out of a total of 3 million, were killed due to war, massacres, disease and famine. Atrocities committed by the French during the Algerian War during the 1950s against Algerians include deliberate bombing and killing of unarmed civilians, rape, torture, executions through "death flights" or burial alive, thefts and pillaging. Up to 2 million Algerian civilians were also deported in internment camps.
During the Pacification of Algeria (1835-1903) French forces engaged in a scorched earth policy against the Algerian population. Colonel Lucien de Montagnac stated that the purpose of the pacification was to "destroy everything that will not crawl beneath our feet like dogs" The scorched earth policy, decided by Governor General Thomas Robert Bugeaud, had devastating effects on the socio-economic and food balances of the country: "we fire little gunshot, we burn all douars, all villages, all huts; the enemy flees across taking his flock." According to Olivier Le Cour Grandmaison, the colonization of Algeria led to the extermination of a third of the population from multiple causes (massacres, deportations, famines or epidemics) that were all interrelated. Returning from an investigation trip to Algeria, Tocqueville wrote that "we make war much more barbaric than the Arabs themselves [...] it is for their part that civilization is situated."
French forces deported and banished entire Algerian tribes. The Moorish families of Tlemcen were exiled to the Orient, and others were emigrated elsewhere. The tribes that were considered too troublesome were banned, and some took refuge in Tunisia, Morocco and Syria or were deported to New Caledonia or Guyana. Also, French forces also engaged in wholesale massacres of entire tribes. All 500 men, women and children of the El Oufia tribe were killed in one night, while all 500 to 700 members of the Ouled Rhia tribe were killed by suffocation in a cave. The Siege of Laghouat is referred by Algerians as the year of the "Khalya ," Arabic for emptiness, which is commonly known to the inhabitants of Laghouat as the year that the city was emptied of its population. It is also commonly known as the year of Hessian sacks, referring to the way the captured surviving men and boys were put alive in the hessian sacks and thrown into dug-up trenches.
From 8 May to June 26, 1945, the French carried out the Sétif and Guelma massacre, in which between 6,000 and 80,000 Algerian Muslims were killed. Its initial outbreak occurred during a parade of about 5,000 people of the Muslim Algerian population of Sétif to celebrate the surrender of Nazi Germany in World War II; it ended in clashes between the marchers and the local French gendarmerie, when the latter tried to seize banners attacking colonial rule. After five days, the French colonial military and police suppressed the rebellion, and then carried out a series of reprisals against Muslim civilians. The army carried out summary executions of Muslim rural communities. Less accessible villages were bombed by French aircraft, and cruiser Duguay-Trouin, standing off the coast in the Gulf of Bougie, shelled Kherrata. Vigilantes lynched prisoners taken from local jails or randomly shot Muslims not wearing white arm bands (as instructed by the army) out of hand. It is certain that the great majority of the Muslim victims had not been implicated in the original outbreak. The dead bodies in Guelma were buried in mass graves, but they were later dug up and burned in Héliopolis.
During the Algerian War (1954-1962), the French used deliberate illegal methods against the Algerians, including (as described by Henri Alleg, who himself had been tortured, and historians such as Raphaëlle Branche) beatings, torture by electroshock, waterboarding, burns, and rape. Prisoners were also locked up without food in small cells, buried alive, and thrown from helicopters to their death or into the sea with concrete on their feet. Claude Bourdet had denounced these acts on 6 December 1951, in the magazine L'Observateur, rhetorically asking, "Is there a Gestapo in Algeria? ."
D. Huf, in his seminal work on the subject, argued that the use of torture was one of the major factors in developing French opposition to the war. Huf argued, "Such tactics sat uncomfortably with France's revolutionary history, and brought unbearable comparisons with Nazi Germany. The French national psyche would not tolerate any parallels between their experiences of occupation and their colonial mastery of Algeria." General Paul Aussaresses admitted in 2000 that systematic torture techniques were used during the war and justified it. He also recognized the assassination of lawyer Ali Boumendjel and the head of the FLN in Algiers, Larbi Ben M'Hidi, which had been disguised as suicides. Bigeard, who called FLN activists "savages ," claimed torture was a "necessary evil ." To the contrary, General Jacques Massu denounced it, following Aussaresses's revelations and, before his death, pronounced himself in favor of an official condemnation of the use of torture during the war.
In June 2000, Bigeard declared that he was based in Sidi Ferruch, a torture center where Algerians were murdered. Bigeard qualified Louisette Ighilahriz's revelations, published in the Le Monde newspaper on June 20, 2000, as "lies." An ALN activist, Louisette Ighilahriz had been tortured by General Massu. However, since General Massu's revelations, Bigeard has admitted the use of torture, although he denies having personally used it, and has declared, "You are striking the heart of an 84-year-old man." Bigeard also recognized that Larbi Ben M'Hidi was assassinated and that his death was disguised as a suicide.
In 2018 France officially admitted that torture was systematic and routine. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Algeria |
Abd Allah al-Mahdi Billah | Al-Mahdi apparently also entertained hopes of a pincer movement against Egypt from two sides, with the support of his missionaries in the Yemen. It was not to be: Ibn al-Fadl, who had conquered most of Yemen from his base in the south of the country, renounced al-Mahdi and proclaimed himself as the mahdi in August 911.
The reasons for this are unclear, but are likely related to the contemporary processes of disillusionment with al-Mahdi in Ifriqiya, and the news of the execution of Abu Abdallah al-Shi'i. Al-Mahdi had also sent a letter to the Yemeni faithful, addressing concerns as to his identity and documenting his supposed genealogy. This letter caused much unease and dissension, for al-Mahdi effectively repudiated the title of 'Proof of God' and the notion of a 'second Muhammad', which had been associated with the mahdi until then and in whose name Abu Abdallah had proclaimed his victory. In the same letter, he claimed descent from Ja'far al-Sadiq, the last common imam recognized by Twelvers and Isma'ilis alike, via al-Sadiq's eldest son Abdallah al-Aftah, whom he named as the father of his own great-grandfather, Abdallah al-Akbar. Not only did this contradict all previous Isma'ili propaganda, which emphasized that the legitimate imamate had followed the line of al-Sadiq's younger son Isma'il, but the claimed genealogy was patently false: Abdallah al-Aftah died young, and was commonly known to not have had any offspring. The same letter further upended previous doctrine by emphasizing that though he was the expected mahdi, his rule would not bring about the end times, but merely represent another link in a line of imams that was to continue endlessly into the future, thereby contradicting all millennialist expectations vested in his person.
The other Isma'ili da'i in the Yemen, Ibn Hawshab, remained loyal to al-Mahdi, but was forced to capitulate against Ibn al-Fadl's forces, and hand over his son Ja'far as a hostage. Both da'is died within a few months of each other in 915—Ibn al-Fadl was said to have been poisoned by agents of al-Mahdi posing as physicians—leading to the swift collapse of Isma'ili rule in the Yemen. By 917 the Sunni Yu'firids had completed the reconquest of the country in the name of the Abbasid caliph. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abd_Allah_al-Mahdi_Billah |
Tunisian campaign | The first two years of the war in North Africa were characterized by chronic supply shortages and transport problems. The North African coast has few natural harbors and the British base at Alexandria on the Nile delta was some 2,100 km (1,300 mi) by road from the main Italian port at Tripoli in Libya. Smaller ports at Benghazi and Tobruk were 1,050 km (650 mi) and 640 km (400 mi) west of Alexandria on the Litoranea Balbo (Via Balbia) running along a narrow corridor along the coast. Control of the central Mediterranean was contested by the British and Italian navies, which were equally matched and exerted a reciprocal constraint supply through Alexandria, Tripoli, Benghazi and Tobruk, although the British could supply Egypt via the long route through the Atlantic around the Cape of Good Hope and by the Indian Ocean into the Red Sea.
The chronic difficulty in the supply of military forces in the desert led to several indecisive victories by both sides and long fruitless advances along the coast. The Italian invasion of Egypt by the 10th Army in 1940, advanced 97 km (60 mi) into Egypt and more than 1,600 km (1,000 mi) in a straight line from Tripoli, 600 km (370 mi) from Benghazi and 320 km (200 mi) from Tobruk. The Western Desert Force (WDF) fought a delaying action as it fell back to Mersa Matruh (Matruh), then began Operation Compass, a raid and counter-attack into Libya. The 10th Army was destroyed and the WDF occupied El Agheila, some 970 km (600 mi) from Alexandria. With the arrival of the German Afrika Korps, the Axis counter-attacked in Operation Sonnenblume and in April 1941 reached the limit of their supply capacity at the Egyptian border but failed to recapture Tobruk.
In November 1941 the British Eighth Army recovered, helped by the short supply distance from Alexandria to the front line and launched Operation Crusader, relieving the Siege of Tobruk and again reached El Agheila. The Eighth Army was soon pushed back to Gazala west of Tobruk and at the Battle of Gazala in May 1942, the Axis pushed them all the way back to El Alamein, only 160 km (100 mi) from Alexandria. In 1942, the Royal Navy and Italian Navy were still disputing the Mediterranean but the British hold on Malta, and intelligence from Ultra, allowed the Royal Air Force to sink more Italian supply ships. Large quantities of supplies became available to the British from the United States and the supply situation of the Eighth Army eventually resolved. With the Eighth Army no longer constrained, the Axis were driven westwards from Egypt following the Second Battle of El Alamein in November 1942. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunisian_campaign |
History of medieval Arabic and Western European domes | The architectural rules for dome transitional zones established by the Fatimids and Ayyubids were not continued by the Bahri Mamluks, who innovated in structural, decorative, and constructive techniques. Internally, the squinches of the zone of transition developed into miniaturized and pointed versions that were used row upon row over the entire expanded zone and bordered above and below by plain surfaces. Early examples include the domes of Salihiyya Madrasa (1283-1284), which has interior squinches filled in with stalactite pendentives, the Mausoleum of Sultan Qalawun (1284-1285), which has no interior zone of transition, and the mausoleum of Al-Ashraf Khalil (1288), which uses stalactite squinches.
The wooden dome with wooden squinches over the mihrab of the Mosque of Ibn Tulun appears to have been restored by Sultan Lajin in 1295-1296. An apparently wooden dome from 1334 in a reception hall of the Qasr al-Ablaq palace of Al-Nasir Muhammad at Cairo Citadel is known from drawings of the ruins made in 1822. Al-Nasir Muhammad's dome over the Dar al-'Adl (1333-1334), a building dubbed the "Divan of Joseph" in a 19th century engraving, was the most impressive of the Citadel. The dome of Al-Nasir Muhammad Mosque (1335) is the earliest extant wooden dome with stalactite pendentives. The wooden example at the Mausoleum of Sultan Hasan has stone arches behind the wooden pendentives to provide structural support. Such pendentives in brick or stone are not used until the middle of the 14th century.
Examples of brick pendentives of the Syrian type, which act structurally as squinches, were used at the so-called mausoleum of Al-Minūfī in the Southern Cemetery of Cairo (early 14th century), which also featured a lantern at the top of the dome, and the mausoleum of Küčük at Aqsunqur Mosque (1346-1347). The dome of the "mausoleum of Āqsunqur/Ibrāhīm al-Ansārī" (1370-1371) uses a hybrid corner support system that has been called a "pendentive-squinch". This hybrid system, with the lower part a squinch and upper part a pendentive, or vice-versa, would become common in Cairo beginning in the second half of the 14th century. The border of the supporting walls and the transition zone were often marked by a moulding or inscription band. Sultaniyya Mausoleum (1369-1370) is an example. The twin-domes of the Sultaniyya complex (c. 1360) are unusual in that they have muqarnas at the base of their external ribs, a feature of ribbed domes in Persia.
Al-Nasir Muhammad reportedly ordered all royal buildings to be built of stone in order to prevent fire. In the first half of the fourteenth century, stone blocks replaced bricks as the primary building material in the dome construction of Mamluk Egypt, with the brick domes being only 20 percent of those constructed around 1322. Although they kept roughly the same proportions, the shift from brick to stone is also associated with an increase in the average span and height of about 3 to 4 meters, and a decrease in the thickness of the domes. The stone domes are generally 8 to 10 meters in diameter and 7 to 11 meters high. The dome over the tomb of An-Nasir Hasan is 69 feet wide and dates to 1356. The earliest type of stone transition zone was used at the Mosque of Aydumur al-Bahlawan (1346), a scallop-niche suitable for small domes. Others of the same type are at the Mausoleum of Sunqur al-Muẓaffar and the Mausoleum of Yūnus al-Dawādār (before 1382). The earliest stone pendentives in Cairo were those in the vestibule of the Mosque-Madrasa of Sultan Hasan (1356-1362).
Decoration for these first stone domes was initially the same external ribbing as earlier brick domes, and such brick domes would continue to be built throughout the Mamluk period, but more elaborate patterns of carving were introduced through the beginning of the sixteenth century. Early stones domes were plastered externally when not cut precisely enough, but improvements in technique over time would make this unnecessary. Spiral ribs were developed in the 1370s and zigzag patterns were common both by the end of the fourteenth century and again at the end of the fifteenth century. Early stone domes were sometimes plastered externally and internally. Examples include the Madrasa of Tatar al-Hijaziya (1348-1360) and al-Qāșid (c. 1335). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_medieval_Arabic_and_Western_European_domes |
Arab nationalism | After the Second World War, Gamal Abdel Nasser, the leader of Egypt, was a significant player in the rise of Arab nationalism. Opposed to the British control of the Suez Canal Zone and concerned at Egypt becoming a Cold War battleground Nasser pushed for a collective Arab security pact within the framework of the Arab League. A key aspect of this was the need for economic aid that was not dependent on peace with Israel and the establishment of U.S. or British military bases within Arab countries. Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal and directly challenged the dominance of the Western powers in the region. At the same time he opened Egypt up as a Cold War zone by receiving aid and arms shipments from the Soviet bloc countries that were not dependent on treaties, bases and peace accords. However, because of the connotations for Cold War dominance of the region, Egypt also received aid from the US, who sought to promote the emerging Arab nationalism as a barrier to communism.
Gamal Abdel Nasser was a major supporter of the Algerian independence movement, whose mixture of Arab nationalism and revolution appealed to the Arabs in North Africa. He provided financial, diplomatic and military support to the National Liberation Front, and based the Algerian provisional government in Cairo. This played a major role in France's decision to wage war against him during the 1956 Suez Crisis. Albert Camus argued that Algerian nationalism was closely tied to Nasserism and Pan-Arabism in an essay titled 'Algeria 1958'. Algerian president Houari Boumédiène, who pursued Arab socialist and Pan-Arabist policies, drafted a new Algerian constitution in 1976 which declared "the unity of the Arab people is written in the community of the destinies of these people. When there will be the conditions for a unity based on the liberation of the popular masses, Algeria will engage itself in the promotion of the formulas of union, integration or fusion that may fully respond to the legitimate and deep aspirations of the Arab people". Like his predecessor Ahmed Ben Bella, he imposed Arab socialism as the state ideology and declared Islam the state religion, however he was more assertive than Ben Bella in carrying out Arabization to reverse French colonization, especially between 1970 and 1977.
The question of Palestine and opposition to Zionism became a rallying point for Arab nationalism from both a religious perspective and a military perspective. The fact that the Zionists were Jewish promoted a religious flavor to the xenophobic rhetoric and strengthened Islam as a defining feature of Arab nationalism. The humiliating defeat in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War strengthened the Arabs' resolve to unite in favor of a pan-Arab nationalist ideal. With the revival of the Palestinian nationalist movement, a debate circled between those who believed that pan-Arab unity would bring about destruction of Israel (the view advocated by the Arab Nationalist Movement) or whether the destruction of Israel would bring about pan-Arab unity (the view advocated by Fatah).
Pan-Arabism was initially a secular movement. Arab nationalists generally rejected religion as a main element in political identity, and promoted the unity of Arabs regardless of sectarian identity. However, the fact that most Arabs were Muslims was used by some as an important building block in creating a new Arab national identity. An example of this was Michel Aflaq, founder along with Salah al-Din al-Bitar and Zaki al-Arsuzi of the Ba'ath Party in Syria in the 1940s. Aflaq, thought himself a Christian, viewed Islam as a testament to the "Arab genius", and once said "Muhammed was the epitome of all the Arabs. So let all the Arabs today be Muhammed." Since the Arabs had reached their greatest glories through the expansion of Islam, Islam was seen as a universal message as well as an expression of secular genius on the part of the Arab peoples. Islam had given the Arabs a "glorious past", which was very different from the "shameful present". In effect, the troubles of the Arab presence were because the Arabs had diverged from their "eternal and perfect symbol", Islam. The Arabs needed to have a "resurrection" (ba'ath in Arabic). After the Ba'athist military coups in Iraq and Syria in the 1960s, the Ba'athists "contributed very little to the development of all-Arab nationalism, which was its original raison d'etre."
Another example of the occasional mingled of Arab nationalism and Islamic revivalist sentiment was from Hasan al-Banna, the founder of the earliest and largest revivalist organization, the Muslim Brotherhood. While in theory Islamic revivalists (for example Sayyid Qutb) were implacably opposed to nationalism as a European pollution intended to weaken Islamic unity, al-Banna "had regarded the transfer of power to non-Arabs after the first four 'Rightfully Guided' caliphs as the true reason for the decline of Islam."
Meanwhile, King Faisal of Saudi Arabia sought to counter the influences of Arab nationalism and communism in the region by promoting pan-Islamism as an alternative. He called for the establishment of the Muslim World League, visiting several Muslim countries to advocate the idea. He also engaged in a propaganda and media war with Nasser. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_nationalism |
Upper Mesopotamia | Al-Jazirah is extremely important archeologically. This is the area where the earliest signs of agriculture and domestication of animals have been found, and thus the starting point leading to civilization and the modern world. Al-Jazirah includes the mountain Karaca Dağ in southern Turkey, where the closest relative to modern wheat still grows wild. At several sites (e.g. Hallan Çemi, Abu Hureyra, Mureybet) we can see a continuous occupation from a hunter-gathering lifestyle (based on hunting, and gathering and grinding of wild grains) to an economy based mainly on growing (still wild varieties of) wheat, barley and legumes from around 9000 BC (see PPNA). Domestication of goats and sheep followed within a few generations, but did not become widespread for more than a millennium (see PPNB). Weaving and pottery followed about two thousand years later.
From Al-Jazirah the idea of farming along with the domesticated seeds spread first to the rest of the Levant and then to North-Africa, Europe and eastwards through Mesopotamia all the way to present-day Pakistan (see Mehrgarh).
Earlier archeologists worked on the assumption that agriculture was a prerequisite to a sedentary lifestyle, but excavations in Israel and Lebanon surprised science by showing that a sedentary lifestyle actually came before agriculture (see the Natufian culture). Further surprises followed in the 1990s with the spectacular finds of the megalithic structures at Göbekli Tepe in south-eastern Turkey. The earliest of these apparently ritual buildings are from before 9000 BC—over five thousand years older than Stonehenge—and thus the absolute oldest known megalithic structures anywhere. As far as current knowledge goes, there were no firmly established farming societies during that time period. Farming appeared to be in an experimental stage, serving primarily as a supplement to ongoing hunting and gathering practices. This raises questions about whether (semi)sedentary hunter-gatherer communities were sufficiently affluent and numerous to coordinate and carry out large-scale communal construction projects. Alternatively, it suggests the possibility that well-established agricultural societies may have existed much earlier than previously recognized. Notably, Göbekli Tepe is located just 32 km from Karaca Dağ.
The questions raised by Göbekli Tepe have led to intense and creative discussions among archeologists of the Middle East. Excavations at Göbekli Tepe continues, only about 5 percent has been revealed so far. Sumerians are theorized to have evolved from the Samarra culture of northern Mesopotamia. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_Mesopotamia |
Agriculture in Lebanon | Banning dangerous pesticides, the ministry of agriculture banned 110 pesticides in 1998, including aldrin, dieldrin, endrin and DDT.
Safe handling of obsolete pesticides, FAO supported a project in 1998 (US$101,000) to assist the Lebanese government in eliminating a stock of 8.5 tonnes of pesticides and train the staff of the Agricultural Research Institute to manage and handle the pesticides stock.
Phasing out methyl bromide, the ministry of economy initiated the Methyl Bromide Alternatives Project in May 1999. The project has shown the efficiency of all available alternatives to methyl bromide over four consecutive growing seasons in 19 sites around the country, totaling 52 greenhouses covering a total area of 20.5 km2.
Land reclamation projects:
Provided assistance, either financial or technical, to 1407 farmers.
Reclaimed 756 hectares of abandoned lands.
Supported the construction of several earth-lined hill lakes (total capacity of 5,300,000 m3) and cement reservoirs (total capacity 500,000 m3).
Terraced approximately 16,000 hectares. This is equivalent to 6.3% of the total surface area currently under cultivation.
Improving water management, Canal 800 (a series of surface water distribution networks) and the IRMP will convert/add 32,255 hectares to irrigated agriculture. These irrigation schemes are designed to tap surface water resources and may therefore alleviate current demand pressure on groundwater.
Promoting organic farming, the introduction and improvement of certified and labeled organic produce to local and foreign markets.
In September 1995, Lebanon through the Ministry of Agriculture signed the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). Lebanon has requested assistance from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the German Agency for Technical Cooperation (GTZ) to support the implementation of the convention and to establish a National Action Programme for Combating Desertification, which was launched in June 2003. The NAP project has four immediate goals:
Promotion of Innovative Trade Initiatives Promoted to Increase Market Opportunities for Dryland Products
Sub-national and Local Level NAP Priority Projects Implemented
Developing a National Resource Mobilization Strategy for UNCCD/NAP Implementation
Flood Risk Management and Water Harvesting for Livelihood Recovery in Baalback-Hermel | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_Lebanon |
Chishti Order | The Encyclopedia of Islam divides Chishti history into four periods:
Era of the great shaykhs (c. 597/1200 to 757/1356)
Era of the provincial khānaḳāhs (8th/14th & 9th/15th centuries)
Rise of the Ṣābiriyya branch (9th/15th century onwards)
Revival of the Niẓāmiyya branch (12th/18th century onwards)
The order was founded by Abu Ishaq Shami ("the Syrian") who taught Sufism in the town of Chisht, some 95 miles east of Herat in present-day western Afghanistan. Before returning to Syria, where he is now buried next to Ibn Arabi at Jabal Qasioun, Shami initiated, trained and deputized the son of the local emir, Abu Ahmad Abdal. Under the leadership of Abu Ahmad's descendants, the Chishtiya, as they are also known, flourished as a regional mystical order.
The founder of the Chishti Order in South Asia was Moinuddin Chishti. He was born in the province of Silistan in eastern Persia around 536 AH (1141 CE) into a sayyid family claiming descent from Muhammad. When he was just nine, he memorized the Qur'an, thus becoming a hafiz. His father died when he was a teenager; Moinuddin inherited the family grinding mill and orchard. He sold everything and gave the proceeds to the poor. He traveled to Balkh and Samarkand, where he studied the Qur'an, hadith, and fiqh. He looked for something beyond scholarship and law and studied under the Chishti shaykh Usman Harooni (Harvani). He moved to Lahore and then to Ajmer, where he died. His tomb, in Ajmer, is the Dargah Sharif, a popular shrine and pilgrimage site.
Moinuddin was followed by Qutab-ud-Din Bakhtyar Kaki and Farīduddīn Mas'ūd 'Baba Farid'. After Fariduddin, the Chishti Order of South Asia split into two branches. Each branch was named after one of Fariduddin's successors.
Nizamuddin Auliya – the Chishti Nizami branch
Alauddin Sabir Kaliyari – the Chishti-Sabiri branch
It was after Nizamuddin Auliya that the Chishti Sufism chain spread throughout the Indian Peninsula. Two prominent lines of transmission arose from Nizamuddin Auliya, one from his disciple Nasiruddin Chiragh Dehlavi and the other from another disciple, Akhi Siraj Aainae Hind, who migrated to West Bengal from Delhi on Nizamuddin Auliya's order. Siraj Aanae Hind was followed by his notable disciple Alaul Haq Pandavi settled in Pandava, West Bengal itself. From this chain of transmission another prominent sub-branch of Chishti way emerged known as Ashrafia Silsila after the illustrious saint Ashraf Jahangir Semnani, who was the disciple of Alaul Haq Pandavi in the thirteen century A.D. Later, yet other traditions branched from the Chishti lineage; in many cases they merged with other popular Sufi orders in South Asia.
As a result of this merging of the Chishti order with other branches, most Sufi masters now initiate their disciples in all the four major orders of South Asia: Chishti, Suhrawadi, Qadri, and Naqshbandi. They do however teach devotional practices typical of the order with which they are primarily associated.
The Chishti order has also absorbed influences and merged at times with various antinomian faqiri Sufi groups, especially the Qalandar. Some Chishtis both past and present have lived as renunciants or as wandering dervish.
The first Chishti master in the West was Ḥazrat Pīr-o-Murshid 'Ināyat Khān, who came to the West in 1910 and established centers in Europe and the U.S. His lineage-successors were Pīr Vilāyat 'Ināyat Khān (d. 2004) and Pīr Zīa 'Ināyat-Khān, the current head of the 'Ināyatīyya. This tariqat is unusual in that it accepts seekers of all faiths without asking conversion to formal Islam, a controversial practice but which is customary in the Nizāmi branch going back to Nizāmuddīn Auliya and later made written policy by Shah Kalīmullāh Jahanabadi in the early 1700s CE.
In 1937 the Sufi imam Al-Hajj Wali Akram founded the First Cleveland Mosque, made his Sufi affiliation public and during the 1950s started to introduce new members to the Chishti, making the mosque the first public Sufi center of the United States. In more recent times, a more contemporary expression of traditional Chishti Sufi practices can be found in the establishment of the Ishq-Nuri Tariqa in the 1960s, as a branch of the Chishti-Nizami silsila.
In addition, a number of mixed-Sufi type groups or movements in Islam, have also been influenced by the Chishti Order proper. The best known and most widespread example is of the Jamaat Ahle Sunnat, a Sunni Muslim sect with a huge international following, which is in essence not a proper Sufi organization, though adopting many Sufi customs and traditions. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chishti_Order |
Hassan II of Morocco | Hassan's first official foreign visit as King was to attend the 1st Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement, which took place in September 1961 in Belgrade.
In the Cold War era, Hassan allied Morocco with the West generally, and with the United States and France in particular. His obituary in The New York Times described him as "a monarch oriented to the west". There were close and continuing ties between the royal government and the CIA, who helped to reorganize Morocco's security forces in 1960. During Hassan's tenure as prime minister, Morocco controversially accepted Soviet military aid and made overtures towards Moscow. During an interview, he stated that "as an Islamic people, [Morocco has] the right to practice bigamy. We can wed East and West and be faithful to both".
In 1975, he created the Al-Quds Committee, a non-governmental organization aimed to "preserve the Arab-Muslim character" of Jerusalem. It works on the restoration of mosques and the creation of hospitals and schools in the city. The committee also gives out scholarship to students living in the city, as well as donating equipment to schools and kindergartens. Hassan also admitted Norbert Calmels, a French member of the Holy See and one of his personal friends, to the Academy of the Kingdom of Morocco. Calmels was responsible for bringing about a rapprochement between Islam and Christianity.
Hassan was alleged to have covertly cooperated with the State of Israel and Israeli intelligence. In what was termed Operation Yachin, he negotiated for the migration of over 97,000 Moroccan Jews to Israel from 1961 to 1964 in exchange for weapons and training for Morocco's security forces and intelligence agencies. The Moroccan Jewish community was historically among the largest in the Muslim world. In an arrangement financed by the American Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), Hassan was paid a sum of $500,000 along with $100 for each of the first 50,000 Moroccan Jews to be migrated to Israel, and $250 for each Jewish emigrant thereafter.
Hassan served as a mediator between Arab countries and Israel. In 1977, he served as a key backchannel in peace talks between Egypt and Israel, hosting secret meetings between Israeli and Egyptian officials; these meetings led to the Egypt–Israel peace treaty.
According to Shlomo Gazit, during an interview with Yedioth Ahronoth, then-leader of the Military Intelligence Directorate, Hassan invited Mossad and Shin Bet agents to bug the Casablanca hotel hosting the 1965 Arab League summit to record conversations of participating Arab leaders. This information was instrumental in Israel's victory in the Six-Day War. Ronen Bergman claimed in his book, Rise And Kill First, that Israeli intelligence then supplied information leading to Mehdi Ben Barka's capture and assassination. Bergman also alleged that the Moroccan DST and Mossad collaborated in a 1996 plot to assassinate Osama bin Laden, the plot involved a woman close to bin Laden who was an informant for the DST, however, the mission was aborted due to rising tensions between Morocco and Israel.
Relations with Mauritania remained strained due to Moroccan claims to the entirety of Mauritanian territory, with Morocco only recognizing Mauritania as a sovereign state in 1969, nearly a decade after the latter's declaration of independence. In 1984, as a result of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) joining the Organisation of African Unity two years prior, Hassan declared the suspension of Morocco's membership of the organisation. Morocco entered into a diplomatic crisis with Burkinabé President Thomas Sankara following his decision to recognize the SADR.
Hassan was close to Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran, even hosting him in 1979 when he was exiled. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hassan_II_of_Morocco |
Persian Gulf Residency | British interest in the Persian Gulf originated in the sixteenth century and steadily increased as British India's importance rose in the imperial system of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In the beginning, the agenda was primarily of a commercial character. Realizing the region's significance, the English fleet supported the Persian emperor Shāh Abbās in expelling the Portuguese from Hormuz Island in 1622. In return, the East India Company ("the Company") was permitted to establish a trading post in the coastal city of Bandar 'Abbās, which became their principal port in the Persian Gulf. Empowered by the charter of Charles II in 1661, the Company was responsible for conducting British foreign policy in the Persian Gulf, as well as concluding various treaties, agreements and engagements with Persian Gulf states in its capacity as the Crown's regional agent.
In 1763, the British East India Company established a residency at Bushehr, on the Persian side of the Gulf: this was followed by another residency in Basra several years later. The arrival in Persia in 1807 of a large French mission under General Gardane galvanized the British, both in London and Calcutta. They responded by sending a mission under Sir Harford Jones, which resulted in establishing the Preliminary Treaty of Friendship and Alliance with the Shah in 1809. Despite being modified during subsequent negotiations, this treaty provided the framework within which Anglo–Persian foreign relations operated for the next half century. Britain appointed Harford Jones as their first resident envoy to the Persian court in 1808. Until the appointment of Charles Alison as Minister in Tehran in 1860, the envoy and his staff were, with rare exceptions, almost exclusively recruited from the East India Company.
In the absence of formal diplomatic relations, the political resident conducted all necessary negotiations with Persian authorities and was described by Sir George Curzon as "the Uncrowned King of the Persian Gulf." Whether Persia liked it or not, the political resident had at his disposal naval forces with which to suppress piracy, slave trading, and gun running, and to enforce quarantine regulations; he also could, and did, put landing parties and punitive expeditions ashore on the Persia coast. In 1822, the Bushehr and Basra residencies were combined, with Bushehr serving as headquarters for the new position of "British Resident for the Persian Gulf." A chief political resident was the chief executive officer of the political unit, and he was subordinate to the Governor of Bombay until 1873 and the Governor-General of India until 1947, when India became independent. In 1858, the East India Company’s agency was transferred to the India Office, who assumed authority of British foreign policy with Persian Gulf states: this responsibility went to the Foreign Office on 1 April 1947. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_Gulf_Residency |
Neolithic Revolution | Despite the significant technological advance and advancements in knowledge, arts and trade, the Neolithic revolution did not lead immediately to a rapid growth of population. Its benefits appear to have been offset by various adverse effects, mostly diseases and warfare.
The introduction of agriculture has not necessarily led to unequivocal progress. The nutritional standards of the growing Neolithic populations were inferior to that of hunter-gatherers. Several ethnological and archaeological studies conclude that the transition to cereal-based diets caused a reduction in life expectancy and stature, an increase in infant mortality and infectious diseases, the development of chronic, inflammatory or degenerative diseases (such as obesity, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular diseases) and multiple nutritional deficiencies, including vitamin deficiencies, iron deficiency anemia and mineral disorders affecting bones (such as osteoporosis and rickets) and teeth. Average height went down from 5'10" (178 cm) for men and 5'6" (168 cm) for women to 5'5" (165 cm) and 5'1" (155 cm), respectively, and it took until the twentieth century for average human height to come back to the pre-Neolithic Revolution levels.
The traditional view is that agricultural food production supported a denser population, which in turn supported larger sedentary communities, the accumulation of goods and tools, and specialization in diverse forms of new labor. Food surpluses made possible the development of a social elite who were not otherwise engaged in agriculture, industry or commerce, but dominated their communities by other means and monopolized decision-making. Nonetheless, larger societies made it more feasible for people to adopt diverse decision making and governance models. Jared Diamond (in The World Until Yesterday) identifies the availability of milk and cereal grains as permitting mothers to raise both an older (e.g. 3 or 4 year old) and a younger child concurrently. The result is that a population can increase more rapidly. Diamond, in agreement with feminist scholars such as V. Spike Peterson, points out that agriculture brought about deep social divisions and encouraged gender inequality. This social reshuffle is traced by historical theorists, like Veronica Strang, through developments in theological depictions. Strang supports her theory through a comparison of aquatic deities before and after the Neolithic Agricultural Revolution, most notably the Venus of Lespugue and the Greco-Roman deities such as Circe or Charybdis: the former venerated and respected, the latter dominated and conquered. The theory, supplemented by the widely accepted assumption from Parsons that “society is always the object of religious veneration”, argues that with the centralization of government and the dawn of the Anthropocene, roles within society became more restrictive and were rationalized through the conditioning effect of religion; a process that is crystallized in the progression from polytheism to monotheism. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neolithic_Revolution |
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