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Origins of the Six-Day War | Before UNEF could be deployed in 1956 negotiations were necessary with the compliant host country, Egypt, Israel having refused to host the peacekeepers.
A key principle governing the stationing and functioning of UNEF, and later of all other peacekeeping forces, was the consent of the host Government. Since it was not an enforcement action under Chapter VII of the Charter, UNEF could enter and operate in Egypt only with the consent of the Egyptian Government. This principle was clearly stated by the General Assembly in adopting resolution 1001 (ES-I) of 7 November 1956 concerning the establishment of UNEF. ... The Secretary-General impressed upon those authorities that the Force provided a guarantee for the withdrawal of foreign forces from Egypt and that, since it would come only with Egypt's consent, it could not stay or operate in Egypt if that consent were withdrawn. ... Moreover, because Israel refused to accept UNEF on its territory, the Force had to be deployed only on the Egyptian side of the border, and thus its functioning was entirely contingent upon the consent of Egypt as the host country. Once that consent was withdrawn, its operation could no longer be maintained.
Rostow is of a contrary opinion that "Egyptian commitments of the period were broken one by one, the last being the request for the removal of U.N.E.F." In another publication Rostow adds detail: "One of the most important terms of the agreement was set out in an aide memoire by Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld: if Egypt ever tried unilaterally to remove the United Nations peacekeeping forces in the Sinai, or to close the Straits of Tiran, the Secretary-General would call the Security Council into session immediately and block such initiatives until a peaceful resolution of the conflict could be reached." Oren, however, confirms Egypt's right as follows: "That (UNEF) presence, however, hung on a legal fiction. The "good-faith agreement" forged by Dag Hammarskjöld in 1957, according to which Egypt would consult with the General Assembly and the UNEF Advisory Council before altering the force's mandate, was in no way binding. The Egyptians could, in fact, dismiss UNEF whenever they chose. Bunche (UN expert on Middle East diplomacy) fully adhered to the secretary-general's position that Egypt had a sovereign right to dismiss UNEF’, however imprudent that decision might be." Further contrary to Rostow's position, the Secretary-General in 1967, U Thant, specifically addressed the Hammarskjöld memoire during the build-up of tension, declaring that the 1957 memorandum by the late Secretary-General, which had interpreted the agreement on UNEF between the United Nations and Egypt as meaning that an Egyptian request for UNEF withdrawal would have to be referred to the General Assembly, was “a purely private” understanding by Mr. Hammarskjöld and not binding either on the present Secretary-General or on Egypt. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origins_of_the_Six-Day_War |
Approximations of π | Many other expressions for π were developed and published by Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan. He worked with mathematician Godfrey Harold Hardy in England for a number of years.
Extremely long decimal expansions of π are typically computed with the Gauss–Legendre algorithm and Borwein's algorithm; the Salamin–Brent algorithm, which was invented in 1976, has also been used.
In 1997, David H. Bailey, Peter Borwein and Simon Plouffe published a paper (Bailey, 1997) on a new formula for π as an infinite series:
π
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{\displaystyle \pi =\sum _{k=0}^{\infty }{\frac {1}{16^{k}}}\left({\frac {4}{8k+1}}-{\frac {2}{8k+4}}-{\frac {1}{8k+5}}-{\frac {1}{8k+6}}\right).}
This formula permits one to fairly readily compute the kth binary or hexadecimal digit of π, without having to compute the preceding k − 1 digits. Bailey's website contains the derivation as well as implementations in various programming languages. The PiHex project computed 64 bits around the quadrillionth bit of π (which turns out to be 0).
Fabrice Bellard further improved on BBP with his formula:
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{\displaystyle \pi ={\frac {1}{2^{6}}}\sum _{n=0}^{\infty }{\frac {{(-1)}^{n}}{2^{10n}}}\left(-{\frac {2^{5}}{4n+1}}-{\frac {1}{4n+3}}+{\frac {2^{8}}{10n+1}}-{\frac {2^{6}}{10n+3}}-{\frac {2^{2}}{10n+5}}-{\frac {2^{2}}{10n+7}}+{\frac {1}{10n+9}}\right)}
Other formulae that have been used to compute estimates of π include:
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{\displaystyle {\frac {\pi }{2}}=\sum _{k=0}^{\infty }{\frac {k!}{(2k+1)!!}}=\sum _{k=0}^{\infty }{\frac {2^{k}k!^{2}}{(2k+1)!}}=1+{\frac {1}{3}}\left(1+{\frac {2}{5}}\left(1+{\frac {3}{7}}\left(1+\cdots \right)\right)\right)}
Newton.
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{\displaystyle {\frac {1}{\pi }}={\frac {2{\sqrt {2}}}{9801}}\sum _{k=0}^{\infty }{\frac {(4k)!(1103+26390k)}{(k!)^{4}396^{4k}}}}
Srinivasa Ramanujan.
This converges extraordinarily rapidly. Ramanujan's work is the basis for the fastest algorithms used, as of the turn of the millennium, to calculate π.
In 1988, David Chudnovsky and Gregory Chudnovsky found an even faster-converging series (the Chudnovsky algorithm):
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10005
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{\displaystyle {\frac {1}{\pi }}={\frac {1}{426880{\sqrt {10005}}}}\sum _{k=0}^{\infty }{\frac {(6k)!(13591409+545140134k)}{(3k)!(k!)^{3}(-640320)^{3k}}}}
.
The speed of various algorithms for computing pi to n correct digits is shown below in descending order of asymptotic complexity. M(n) is the complexity of the multiplication algorithm employed. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Approximations_of_%CF%80 |
Six-Day War | Further south, on 5 June, the 8th Armored Brigade under Colonel Albert Mandler, initially positioned as a ruse to draw off Egyptian forces from the real invasion routes, attacked the fortified bunkers at Kuntilla, a strategically valuable position whose capture would enable Mandler to block reinforcements from reaching Um-Katef and to join Sharon's upcoming attack on Nakhl. The defending Egyptian battalion outnumbered and outgunned, fiercely resisted the attack, hitting a number of Israeli tanks. Most of the defenders were killed, and only three Egyptian tanks, one of them damaged, survived. By nightfall, Mandler's forces had taken Kuntilla.
With the exceptions of Rafah and Khan Yunis, Israeli forces had initially avoided entering the Gaza Strip. Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan had expressly forbidden entry into the area. After Palestinian positions in Gaza opened fire on the Negev settlements of Nirim and Kissufim, IDF Chief of Staff Yitzhak Rabin overrode Dayan's instructions and ordered the 11th Mechanized Brigade under Colonel Yehuda Reshef to enter the Strip. The force was immediately met with heavy artillery fire and fierce resistance from Palestinian forces and remnants of the Egyptian forces from Rafah.
By sunset, the Israelis had taken the strategically vital Ali Muntar ridge, overlooking Gaza City, but were beaten back from the city itself. Some 70 Israelis were killed, along with Israeli journalist Ben Oyserman and American journalist Paul Schutzer. Twelve members of UNEF were also killed. On the war's second day, 6 June, the Israelis were bolstered by the 35th Paratroopers Brigade under Colonel Rafael Eitan and took Gaza City along with the entire Strip. The fighting was fierce and accounted for nearly half of all Israeli casualties on the southern front. However, Gaza rapidly fell to the Israelis.
Meanwhile, on 6 June, two Israeli reserve brigades under Yoffe, each equipped with 100 tanks, penetrated the Sinai south of Tal's division and north of Sharon's, capturing the road junctions of Abu Ageila, Bir Lahfan, and Arish, taking all of them before midnight. Two Egyptian armoured brigades counterattacked, and a fierce battle took place until the following morning. The Egyptians were beaten back by fierce resistance coupled with airstrikes, sustaining heavy tank losses. They fled west towards Jabal Libni. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six-Day_War |
Constantine the Great | Following Galerius' recognition of Constantine as caesar, Constantine's portrait was brought to Rome, as was customary. Maxentius mocked the portrait's subject as the son of a harlot and lamented his own powerlessness. Maxentius, envious of Constantine's authority, seized the title of emperor on 28 October 306. Galerius refused to recognize him but failed to unseat him. Severus was sent against Maxentius in April 307, but during the campaign, Severus' armies, previously under command of Maxentius' father Maximian, defected, and Severus was seized and imprisoned. Maximian, brought out of retirement by his son's rebellion, left for Gaul to confer with Constantine. He offered to marry his daughter Fausta to Constantine and elevate him to augustan rank. In return, Constantine would reaffirm the old family alliance between Maximian and Constantius and offer support to Maxentius' cause in Italy. Constantine accepted and married Fausta in Trier in summer 307. Constantine gave Maxentius his meagre support, offering Maxentius political recognition.
Constantine remained aloof from the Italian conflict, however. Over the spring and summer of 307, he had left Gaul for Britain to avoid any involvement in the Italian turmoil; now, instead of giving Maxentius military aid, he sent his troops against Germanic tribes along the Rhine. In 308, he raided the territory of the Bructeri and made a bridge across the Rhine at Colonia Agrippinensium (Cologne). In 310, he marched to the northern Rhine and fought the Franks. When not campaigning, he toured his lands advertising his benevolence and supporting the economy and the arts. His refusal to participate in the war increased his popularity among his people and strengthened his power base in the West. Maximian returned to Rome in the winter of 307–308 but soon fell out with his son. In early 308, after a failed attempt to usurp Maxentius' title, Maximian returned to Constantine's court.
On 11 November 308, Galerius called a general council at the military city of Carnuntum (Petronell-Carnuntum, Austria) to resolve the instability in the western provinces. In attendance were Diocletian, briefly returned from retirement, Galerius, and Maximian. Maximian was forced to abdicate again and Constantine was again demoted to caesar. Licinius, one of Galerius' old military companions, was appointed augustus in the western regions. The new system did not last long: Constantine refused to accept the demotion and continued to style himself as augustus on his coinage, even as other members of the Tetrarchy referred to him as a caesar on theirs. Maximinus was frustrated that he had been passed over for promotion while the newcomer Licinius had been raised to the office of augustus and demanded that Galerius promote him. Galerius offered to call both Maximinus and Constantine "sons of the augusti", but neither accepted the new title. By the spring of 310, Galerius was referring to both men as augusti. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantine_the_Great |
Battle of Jenin (2002) | On April 18, as Israeli troops began pulling out of Jenin and Nablus, UN envoy Terje Roed-Larsen entered the camp. He told reporters that the devastation was, "horrific beyond belief," and relayed his view that it was "morally repugnant" that Israel had not allowed emergency workers into the camp after the battle with Palestinian gunmen had ended. On April 19, the United Nations Security Council unanimously passed Resolution 1405 to send a fact-finding mission to Jenin. Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres told Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary-General, that Israel would welcome a UN official "to clarify the facts", saying "Israel has nothing to hide regarding the operation in Jenin. Our hands are clean". Abed Rabbo said the mission was, "the first step toward making Sharon stand trial before an international tribunal".
The composition of the fact-finding team was announced on April 22. Led by former Finnish President, Martti Ahtisaari, the other two members were Cornelio Sommaruga, former president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (controversial in Israel for previous "Red Swastika" remarks), and Sadako Ogata, the former UN high commissioner for refugees who was Japan's special envoy on Afghan reconstruction.
Official Israeli sources expressed surprise that they were not consulted as to the composition of the team, adding that, "We expected that the operational aspects of the fact-finding mission would be carried out by military experts." On April 22, Israeli Defense Minister, Benjamin Ben-Eliezer expressed his disappointment at the team's make-up, and his hope that the mission would not overstep its mandate. Peres asked Annan to deny reports that the mission would look into events outside the refugee camp, and that the findings would have legal validity. Annan said the findings would not be legally binding, and that the mission would only investigate events inside the camp, but may have to interview residents currently displaced outside.
On April 23, Gideon Saar, the cabinet secretary, threatened to ban the team from entering Jenin. In private discussions, Giora Eiland, Major General and Head of the IDF Operation Branch, convinced Shaul Mofaz that the team would ask to investigate officers and soldiers, and that it might accuse Israel of war crimes, paving the way for the sending of an international force. Sharon accepted Eiland and Mofaz's position, and announced Israel's decision that the UN team was no longer acceptable on April 24, citing the lack of military experts. The US rebuked Sharon's decision, and a White House official said, "We were the sponsors of that and we want it implemented as written. We support the initiative of the secretary general."
Annan initially refused to delay the mission. Expressing Israeli sentiment that the world ignored its victims, Ben-Eliezer said: "In the last month alone, 137 people were slaughtered by Palestinians and nearly 700 wounded. Is there any one who is investigating that?" Saeb Erekat accused Israel of "trying to sabotage the mission. I believe that they have a big thing to hide." On April 25, the UN agreed to postpone the arrival of the team by two days, and acceded to an Israeli request that two military officers be added to the team. Annan said talks with Israel had been, "very, very constructive and I'm sure we'll be able to sort out our differences". Peres said that a delay would give the Israeli cabinet the opportunity to discuss the mission before the team arrived.
Avi Pazner, an Israeli Government spokesman, said he expected the UN mission to investigate "terrorist activity" and guarantee immunity for Israeli soldiers. Israel Radio reported that Israel was also pushing for the right for both sides to review the team's report before its presentation to Annan. Following a lengthy cabinet meeting on April 28, Reuven Rivlin, the Israeli Communications Minister, told reporters that the UN had reneged on its agreements with Israel over the team, and so it would not be allowed to arrive. Speaking for the cabinet, he said that the composition of the team and its terms of reference made it inevitable that its report would blame Israel.
The UN Security Council convened the following day to discuss Israel's decision not to grant entry to the UN team. Meanwhile, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee lobby in Washington was called to pressure Annan and George W. Bush. On April 30, Annan urged that the UN team, which had been waiting in Geneva to start its mission, be disbanded, and it was on May 2. On May 4, Israel was isolated in an open debate in the Security Council. The deputy US ambassador to the UN, James Cunningham, said it was "regrettable" Israel had decided not to cooperate with the fact-finding team. Nasser Al-Kidwa, the Palestinian observer to the UN, said the council failed to give Annan its full support, and had caved to "blackmailing" by the Israeli Government. The General Assembly passed a resolution condemning Israel's military action in Jenin by 74 votes to four, with 54 abstentions. The Bush administration supported Israel as part of a deal in which Sharon agreed to lift the siege of the Mukataa in Ramallah. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Jenin_(2002) |
Marinid Sultanate | Not many Marinid textiles have survived, but it is assumed that luxurious silks continued to be made as in previous periods. The only reliably-dated Marinid textiles extant today are three impressive banners which were captured from Sultan Abu al-Hasan's army in the Battle of Rio Salado in 1340 by Alfonso XI. Today they are housed at the Cathedral of Toledo. Ibn Khaldun wrote that Abu al-Hasan possessed hundreds of silk and gold banners which were displayed in palaces or on ceremonial occasions, while both the Marinid and Nasrid armies carried many colourful banners with them into battle. They thus had great symbolic value and were deployed on many occasions.
The oldest of the three banners is dated, according to its inscription, to May or June 1312 (Muharram 712 AH). It was made in the "kasbah" (royal citadel) of Fes for Sultan Abu Sa'id Uthman (father of Abu al-Hasan). The banner measures 280 by 220 cm and is made of predominantly green silk taffeta, along with decorative motifs woven in blue, white, red, and gold thread. Its visual layout shares other general similarities with the so-called Banner of Las Navas de Tolosa from the earlier Almohad period (13th century). The central part of the banner is filled with a grid of sixteen green circles containing short religious statements in small cursive inscriptions. This area is contained in turn within a large rectangular frame. The band of the frame is filled with monumental and ornamental inscriptions in white Kufic letters whose style is similar to the Kufic inscriptions carved into the walls of the Marinid madrasas of Fes, which in turn are derived from earlier Kufic inscriptions found in Almohad architecture. These inscriptions feature a selection of Qur'anic verses very similar to those found in the same positions in the Banner of Las Navas de Tolosa (mainly Qur'an 61:10-11). At the four corners of the rectangular band are roundels containing golden cursive letters against a deep blue background, whose inscriptions attribute victory and salvation to God. The whole rectangular band is in turn lined on both its inner and outer edges by smaller inscription bands of Qur'anic verses. Lastly, the bottom edge of the banner is filled with two lines of red cursive script detailing the titles and lineage of Abu Sa'id Uthman and the date of the banner's fabrication.
The second banner was made for Abu al-Hasan and is dated, according to its inscriptions, to Jumada II 740 AH (corresponding to either December 1339 or January 1340). It measures 347 by 267 centimeters. It is made with similar weaving techniques as its older counterpart and uses the same overall visual arrangement, although this time the predominant colour is yellow, with details woven in blue, red, gold thread, or different shades of yellow. It features a grand Arabic inscription in cursive letters along its top edge which calls for the victory of its owner, Abu al-Hasan. The central part of the banner once again has sixteen circles, arranged in a grid formation, each containing a small Arabic cursive inscription that repeats either the words "Eternal power and infinite glory" or "Perpetual joy and infinite glory". These circles are in turn contained within a large rectangular frame whose band is occupied by four more cursive inscriptions, of moderate size, which again call for Abu al-Hasan's victory while attributing all victory to God. Four more small inscriptions are contained within circles at the four corners of this frame. Finally, the bottom edge of the banner is occupied by a longer inscription, in small cursive letters again, which gives the full titles and lineage of Abu al-Hasan.
A third banner, undated and less well-preserved, is also believed to date from Abu al-Hasan's time. It is curious for the fact that its inscriptions are painted onto the fabric instead of woven into it, while the orientation of its inscriptions is inversed or "mirrored". Some scholars have suggested that it may have been a cheaper reproduction of Abu al-Hasan's banner intended for the use by soldiers or that it was intended as a template drawn by the calligrapher from which artisans could weave the real banner (and as weaving was done from the back, the letters would have to appear reversed from the weaver's perspective during production). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marinid_Sultanate |
Sasanian Empire | The Persians had long known of the Egyptian calendar, with its 365 days divided into 12 months. However, the traditional Zoroastrian calendar had 12 months of 30 days each. During the reign of Ardashir I, an effort was made to introduce a more accurate Zoroastrian calendar for the year, so 5 extra days were added to it. These 5 extra days were named the Gatha days and had a practical as well as religious use. However, they were still kept apart from the 'religious year', so as not to disturb the long-held observances of the older Zoroastrian calendar.
Some difficulties arose with the introduction of the first calendar reform, particularly the pushing forward of important Zoroastrian festivals such as Hamaspat-maedaya and Nowruz on the calendar year by year. This confusion apparently caused much distress among ordinary people, and while the Sassanids tried to enforce the observance of these great celebrations on the new official dates, much of the populace continued to observe them on the older, traditional dates, and so parallel celebrations for Nowruz and other Zoroastrian celebrations would often occur within days of each other, in defiance of the new official calendar dates, causing much confusion and friction between the laity and the ruling class. A compromise on this by the Sassanids was later introduced, by linking the parallel celebrations as a 6-day celebration/feast. This was done for all except Nowruz.
A further problem occurred as Nowruz had shifted in position during this period from the spring equinox to autumn, although this inconsistency with the original spring-equinox date for Nowruz had possibly occurred during the Parthian period too.
Further calendar reforms occurred during the later Sassanid era. Ever since the reforms under Ardashir I there had been no intercalation. Thus with a quarter-day being lost each year, the Zoroastrian holy year had slowly slipped backwards, with Nowruz eventually ending up in July. A great council was therefore convened and it was decided that Nowruz be moved back to the original position it had during the Achaemenid period—back to spring. This change probably took place during the reign of Kavad I in the early 6th century. Much emphasis seems to have been placed during this period on the importance of spring and on its connection with the resurrection and Frashegerd. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sasanian_Empire |
Hellenistic period | Hellenistic warfare was a continuation of the military developments of Iphicrates and Philip II of Macedon, particularly his use of the Macedonian phalanx, a dense formation of pikemen, in conjunction with heavy companion cavalry. Armies of the Hellenistic period differed from those of the classical period in being largely made up of professional soldiers and also in their greater specialization and technical proficiency in siege warfare. Hellenistic armies were significantly larger than those of classical Greece relying increasingly on Greek mercenaries (misthophoroi; men-for-pay) and also on non-Greek soldiery such as Thracians, Galatians, Egyptians and Iranians. Some ethnic groups were known for their martial skill in a particular mode of combat and were highly sought after, including Tarantine cavalry, Cretan archers, Rhodian slingers and Thracian peltasts. This period also saw the adoption of new weapons and troop types such as Thureophoroi and the Thorakitai who used the oval Thureos shield and fought with javelins and the machaira sword. The use of heavily armored cataphracts and also horse archers was adopted by the Seleucids, Greco-Bactrians, Armenians and Pontus. The use of war elephants also became common. Seleucus received Indian war elephants from the Mauryan empire, and used them to good effect at the battle of Ipsus. He kept a core of 500 of them at Apameia. The Ptolemies used the smaller African elephant.
Hellenistic military equipment was generally characterized by an increase in size. Hellenistic-era warships grew from the trireme to include more banks of oars and larger numbers of rowers and soldiers as in the Quadrireme and Quinquereme. The Ptolemaic Tessarakonteres was the largest ship constructed in Antiquity. New siege engines were developed during this period. An unknown engineer developed the torsion-spring catapult (c. 360 BC) and Dionysios of Alexandria designed a repeating ballista, the Polybolos. Preserved examples of ball projectiles range from 4.4 to 78 kg (9.7 to 172.0 lb). Demetrius Poliorcetes was notorious for the large siege engines employed in his campaigns, especially during the 12-month siege of Rhodes when he had Epimachos of Athens build a massive 160 ton siege tower named Helepolis, filled with artillery. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellenistic_period |
Salafi movement | Due to its approach of rejecting taqlid, Salafiyya school is considered as deviant by certain ulema (clerics) of the orthodox Sunnis like Ash'arite and Maturidite schools, who champion themselves as the Sunni Islamic orthodoxy and believe Taqlid of the four madhabs to be wajib (obligatory) for the matter of Fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence). Some of these Orthodox Sunni scholars also accuse Salafis of falling into certain forms of unapparent tajsim and tashbih in 'Aqidah which they consider as deviation from orthodox Sunni doctrines, while clarifying that this deviancy does not expel them from the fold of Islam.
Some scholars of the Al-Azhar University of Cairo produced a work of religious opinions entitled al-Radd (The Response) to refute various views of the Salafi movement. Al-Radd singles out numerous Salafi aberrations – in terms of ritual prayer alone it targets for criticism the following Salafi claims:
The claim that it is prohibited to recite God's name during the minor ablution [Fatwa 50];
The claim that it is obligatory for men and women to perform the major ablution on Friday [Fatwa 63];
The claim that it is prohibited to own a dog for reasons other than hunting [Fatwa 134];
The claim that it is prohibited to use alcohol for perfumes [Fatwa 85].
One of the authors of al-Radd, the Professor of Law Anas Abu Shady states that, "they [the Salafis] want to be everything to everyone. They're interested not only in the evident (al-zahir), although most of their law goes back to the Muhalla [of the Ẓāhirī scholar Ibn Hazm], but they also are convinced that they alone understand the hidden (al-batin)!"
Sunni critics of Salafism accuse Salafis of altering the actual teachings of Ahmad ibn Hanbal and that of the other eponyms of the four Sunni legal schools. The Syrian Ash'arite scholar Mohamed Said Ramadan Al-Bouti wrote a number of works refuting Salafism including Al-La Madhhabiyya (Abandoning the Madhhabs) is the most dangerous Bid‘ah Threatening the Islamic Shari'a (Damascus: Dar al-Farabi 2010) and Al-Salafiyya was a blessed epoch, not a school of thought (Damascus: Dar al-Fikr, 1990). The latter is perhaps the most widespread refutation of Salafism in the twentieth century.
Numerous academic rebuttals of Salafism have been produced in the English language by modernists such as Khaled Abou El Fadl of the UCLA School of Law, and by Sufi intellectuals like Timothy Winter of Cambridge University and G.F. Haddad. According to El Fadl, Islamist militant groups such as Al-Qaeda "derive their theological premises from the intolerant Puritanism of the Wahhabi and Salafi creeds". He claimed that the intolerance and alleged endorsement of terrorism manifest in the fringe elements of Wahhabism and Salafism was due to a deviation from Muslim historical traditions. El-Fadl also argued that the Salafi methodology "drifted into stifling apologetics" by the 1960s, marked by "anxiety" to "render Islam compatible with modernity". These apologetic efforts sought the defense of Islamic traditions from the onslaught of Westernization; while simultaneously maintaining the supremacy of Islam and its compatibility with modernity. However, according to El Fadl, such efforts were being increasingly tainted by political opportunism and an unwillingness for critical engagement with the Islamic traditions.
The Saudi government has been criticised by the British tabloid The Independent, for its role in the destruction of early Islamic heritage sites in Arabia. There has been controversies over the recent expansionist projects in Mecca and Medina that destroyed historically important Islamic heritage sites to make way for "skyscrapers, shopping malls and luxury hotels". The actions of the Saudi government stirred controversy across the Muslim world and Islamic activists across all sects, including Salafis, Sufis, Shias, etc. ;condemned the actions of the Saudi government.
Abu Ammaar Yasir Qadhi, an American Islamic cleric and former Salafi, has critiqued what he perceived as the hostility of the movement against non-Salafi Muslims, as well as its lack of intellectualism. While noting his own belief that the of following the generations of the Salaf is "a fundamental part" of Islamic faith, he has stated his disagreement with the methodological approach of Salafism. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salafi_movement |
Tulunids | Ahmad ibn Tulun founded his own capital, al-Qatā'i, north of the previous capital Fustat, where he seated his government. One of the dominant features of this city, and indeed the feature that survives today, was the Mosque of Ibn Tulun. The mosque is built in a Samarran style that was common in the period during which the caliphate had shifted capitals from Baghdad to Samarra. This style of architecture was not just confined to religious buildings, but secular ones also. Surviving houses of the Tulunid period have Samarran-style stucco panels.
Ḵh̲umārawayh's reign exceeded his father's in spending. He built luxuriant palaces and gardens for himself and those he favored. To the Tulunid Egyptians, his "marvellous" blue-eyed palace lion exemplified his prodigality. His stables were so extensive that, according to popular lore, Khumarawaih never rode a horse more than once. Though he squandered the dynastic wealth, he also encouraged a rich cultural life with patronage of scholarship and poetry. His protégé and the teacher of his sons was the famed grammarian Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad Muslim (d. 944). An encomium was written by Ḳāsim b . Yaḥyā al-Maryamī (d. 929) to celebrate Khumarawaih's triumphs on the battlefield.
Through the mediation of his closest adviser, al-Ḥusayn ibn Jaṣṣāṣ al-Jawharī, Khumārawayh arranged for one of the great political marriages of medieval Islamic history. He proposed his daughter's marriage to a member of the caliphal family in Baghdad. The marriage between the Tulunid princess Ḳaṭr al-Nadā with the Abbasid caliph al-Mu'tadid took place in 892. The exorbitant marriage included an awesome dowry estimated at between 400,000 and one million dinars. Some speculate that the splendours of the wedding were a calculated attempt by the Abbasids to ruin the Tulunids. The tale of the splendid nuptials of Ḳaṭr al-Nadā lived on in the memory of the Egyptian people well into the Ottoman period, and were recorded in the chronicles and the folk-literature. The marriage's importance arises from its exceptional nature: the phenomenon of marriage between royal families is rare in Islamic history. The concept of dowry given by the bride's family has also been absent in Islamic marriages, where mahr, or bride price has been the custom.
Aḥmad ibn Ṭūlūn's support to Sunni scholars also allowed for the development in Egypt of Islamic sciences, especially hadith transmission, which contributed to the Islamization of the hinterland. The official support granted by ibn Ṭūlūn to the Shafi'i school of Islamic jurisprudence did much to resuscitate and popularize it after it went into decline during the Mihna. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulunids |
Edessa | The Byzantine Empire often tried to retake Edessa, especially under Romanos I Lekapenos, who obtained from the inhabitants the "Image of Edessa", an ancient portrait of Christ, and solemnly transferred it to Constantinople, August 16, 944. This was the final great achievement of Romanus's reign. This venerable and famous image, which was certainly at Edessa in 544, and of which there is an ancient copy in the Vatican Library, was looted and brought to the West by the Republic of Venice in 1207 following the Fourth Crusade. The city was ruled shortly thereafter by Marwanids.
In 1031 Edessa was given up to the Byzantines under George Maniakes by its Arab governor. It was retaken by the Arabs, and then successively held by the Romans, the Armenians, the Seljuq dynasty (1087), an Armenian named Thoros who gained independence from the Turks (1094), and the Crusaders (1098), who established there the County of Edessa and kept the city until 1144, when it was again captured by Imad ad-Din Zengi, and most of its inhabitants were allegedly slaughtered together with the Latin archbishop. These events are known to us chiefly through the Armenian historian Matthew, who had been born at Edessa. In 1144 the city had an Armenian population of 47,000. In 1146, the city was briefly recaptured by the crusaders and lost after a few days. In the words of Steven Runciman, "the whole Christian population was driven into exile [and t]he great city, which claimed to be the oldest Christian commonwealth in the world, was left empty and desolate, and has never recovered to this day."
The Ayyubid Sultanate's leader Saladin acquired the town from the Zengids in 1182. During Ayyubid rule, Edessa had a population of approximately 24,000. The Sultanate of Rûm took Edessa in June 1234, but sometime in late 1234 or 1235, the Ayyubid sultan Al-Kamil re-acquired it. After Edessa had been recaptured, Al-Kamil ordered the destruction of its Citadel. Not long after, the Mongols had made their presence known in Edessa in 1244. Later, the Ilkhanate sent troops to Edessa in 1260 at which point the town voluntarily submitted to them. The populace of Edessa were thus saved from being massacred by the Mongols. Edessa was also held by the Mamluk Sultanate, and the Aq Qoyunlu. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edessa |
Arameans | Arameans were mostly defined by their use of the West Semitic Old Aramaic language (1100 BCE – 200 CE), which was first written using the Phoenician alphabet but over time modified to a specifically-Aramaic alphabet.
Aramaic first appeared in history during the opening centuries of the Iron Age, when several newly-emerging chiefdoms decided to use it as a written language. The process coincided with a change from syllabic cuneiform to alphabetic scribal culture and the rise of a novel style of public epigraphy, which was formerly unattested in Syria-Palestine. The language is considered a sister branch of the idiom used in the Bronze-Age city-state of Ugarit, on the one hand, and Canaanite, which comprises languages further south in the speech area such as Hebrew, Phoenician, and Moabite, on the other hand. All three branches can be subsumed under the more general rubric Northwest Semitic and thus share a common origin. The earliest direct witnesses of Aramaic, which were composed between the 10th and 8th centuries BC, are unanimously subsumed under the term "Old Aramaic". The early writings exhibit variation and anticipate the enormous linguistic diversity within the Aramaic language group. Despite the variation, they are connected by common literary forms and formulaic expressions.
As early as the 8th century BCE, Aramaic competed with the East Semitic Akkadian language and script in Assyria and Babylonia and then spread throughout the Near East in various dialects. By around 800 BCE, Aramaic had become the lingua franca of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, which continued during the Achaemenid period as Imperial Aramaic. Although it was marginalized by Greek during the Hellenistic period, Aramaic in its varying dialects remained unchallenged as the common language of all Semitic peoples of the region until the Arabs' Islamic conquest of Mesopotamia in the 7th century AD, when the language became gradually superseded by Arabic.
The vernacular dialects of Eastern Old Aramaic, spoken during the Neo-Assyrian, Neo-Babylonian, and Achaemenid Persian empires, developed into various Eastern Middle Aramaic dialects. Among these were the Aramaic dialects of the ancient region of Osrhoene, one of which later became the liturgical language of Syriac Christianity. In the first centuries AD, the Christian Bible was translated into Aramaic and by the 4th century, the local Aramaic dialect of Edessa (Syriac: Urhay) had evolved into a literary language known as Edessan Aramaic (Syriac: Urhaya). Since Edessan Aramaic (Urhaya) was the primary liturgical language of Aramaic Christianity, it also became known as Edessan Syriac and was later defined by Western scholars as Classical Syriac. This laid the foundation for the term Syriac Christianity. The Eastern Orthodox patriarchates were dominated by Greek episcopate and Greek linguistic and cultural traditions. The use of the Aramaic language in liturgical and literary life among Melkites of Jewish descent persisted throughout the Middle Ages until the 14th century, as exemplified in the use of a specific regional dialect known as Christian Palestinian Aramaic or Palestinian Syriac in the Palestine region, Transjordan and Sinai.
Descendant Neo-Aramaic languages of the Eastern Aramaic branch continue to serve as the spoken and written languages of the Assyrians, Mandeans and Mizrahi Jews. These languages are primarily found in Iraq, northwestern Iran, southeastern Turkey and northeastern Syria, and to a lesser extent, in migrant communities in Armenia, Georgia, Russia, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan and Azerbaijan, as well as in Assyrian diaspora communities in the West, particularly in the United States, Canada, Great Britain, Sweden, Australia and Germany.
Western Neo-Aramaic, the only surviving modern variety of the Western branch, is now spoken by Muslims and Christians solely in Maaloula and Jubb'adin in the Qalamoun mountains of southwestern Syria.
During the early modern period, the study of the Aramaic language, both ancient and modern, was initiated among Western scholars. This led to the formation of Aramaic studies as a broader multidisciplinary field, encompassing the study of the cultural and historical heritage of Aramaic. The linguistic and historical aspects of Aramaic studies have been further expanded since the 19th century through archaeological excavations of ancient sites in the Near East. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arameans |
Sumerian language | In the Old Babylonian period and after it, the Sumerian used by scribes was influenced by their mother tongue, Akkadian, and sometimes more generally by imperfect acquisition of the language. As a result, various deviations from its original structure occur in texts or copies of texts from these times. The following effects have been found in the Old Babylonian period:
confusion of the animate and inanimate gender, resulting in use of incorrect gender pronouns;
occasional use of the animate plural -ene with inanimates;
occasional use of the directive case marker -/e/ with animates;
changes in the use of the nominal case markers so as to parallel the use of Akkadian prepositions, whereas the verbal case markers remain unchanged, resulting in mismatches between nominal and verbal case;
generalized use of terminative -/še/ to express direction, displacing locative -/a/ as the expression of illative and sublative meanings ("into" and "onto") and directive -/e/ as the expression of achieving contiguity with something;
treatment of the prefix sequences /b/-/i/- and /n/-/i/-, which originally could mark the causee in transitive verbs, as causative markers even with intransitive verbs;
dropping of final -/m/ in the copula -/am/ and sometimes its replacement with -/e/;
occurrence of -/e/ as a marû 3rd person singular marker even in intransitive verbs;
occurrence of -/n/- as a transitive subject prefix in forms with a 1st (and, rarely, also 2nd) person ergative participant;
occurrence of pre-stem pronominal prefixes in ḫamṭu referring to an intransitive subject;
occasional incorporation of the constituent noun of the phrasal verb into the verb stem: e.g. ki-ag̃2 or ki ...ki-ag̃2 instead of ki ...ag̃2 "to love";
confusion of the locative case (-/a/) and the directive case (-/e/), as well as the various prefix-case combinations;
occasional use of the ergative/directive ending -/e/ instead of the genitive case marker -/a(k)/.
For Middle Babylonian and later texts, additional deviations have been noted:
loss of the contrast between the phonemes g (/g/) and g̃ (/ŋ/), with the latter merging into the former, and use of the signs for g also for words with original g̃
omission of the ergative marker -/e/ and apparent loss of the notion of an ergative case;
use of 𒆤 -ke4, originally expressing a sequence of the genitive marker -/ak/ and the ergative marker -/e/, simply as a marker of the genitive, equivalent to -/a(k)/ alone;
use of the ablative -/ta/ instead of the locative -/a/;
omission of the genitive marker -/a(k)/;
use of infrequent words, sometimes inappropriately, apparently extracted from lexical lists.
use of Emesal forms in non-Emesal contexts: e.g. /umun/ "lord" and /gašan/ "lady" (instead of 𒂗 en and 𒎏 nin), moreover written with the innovated logograms 𒌋 and 𒃽, respectively. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumerian_language |
Moncef Marzouki | On 12 December 2011, the Constituent Assembly of Tunisia, a body elected to govern the country and draft a new constitution, elected Marzouki as interim president, with 155 votes for, 3 against, and 42 blank votes. Blank votes were the result of a boycott from the opposition parties, who considered the new mini-constitution of the country an undemocratic one. He was the first president who was not an heir to the legacy of the country's founding president, Habib Bourguiba.
On 14 December, one day after his accession to office, he appointed Hamadi Jebali of the moderate Islamist Ennahda Movement as Prime Minister. Jebali presented his government on 20 December.
On 3 May 2012, Nessma TV owner Nabil Karoui and two others were convicted of "blasphemy" and "disturbing public order". The charges stemmed from the network's decision to broadcast a dubbed version of the 2007 Franco-Iranian film Persepolis, which includes several visual depictions of God. Karoui was fined 2,400 dinars for the broadcast, while the station's programming director and the president of the women's organization which provided dubbing for the film were fined 1,200 dinars. Responding to the verdict, Marzouki stated to members of the press in the presidential palace in Tunis, "I think this verdict is bad for the image of Tunisia. Now people in the rest of the world will only be talking about this when they talk about Tunisia."
As President, Marzouki played a leading role in establishing Tunisia's Truth and Dignity Commission in 2014, as a key part of creating a national reconciliation.
In March 2014, President Marzouki lifted the state of emergency that had been in place since the outbreak of the 2011 revolution, and a top military chief said soldiers stationed in some of the country's most sensitive areas would return to their barracks. The decree from President Marzouki said the state of emergency ordered in January 2011 is lifted across the country immediately. The state of emergency was imposed by longtime President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and maintained after he was overthrown. It was repeatedly renewed.
In April 2014, he cut his pay by two-thirds, citing the state's need to be a model in dealing with the deteriorating financial situation.
Marzouki was defeated by Beji Caid Essebsi in the November–December 2014 presidential election, and Essebsi was sworn in as President on 31 December 2014, succeeding Marzouki. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moncef_Marzouki |
Islamic State | IS is a theocracy, proto-state, or quasi-state, and a Salafi jihadist group. The organization's ideology has been described as a hybrid of Qutbism, Takfirism, Salafism, Salafi jihadism, Wahhabism, and Sunni Islamist fundamentalism. Although IS claims to adhere to the Salafi theology of Ibn Taymiyyah, it rebels against traditional Salafi interpretations as well as the four Sunni schools of law and anathematises the majority of Salafis as heretics. IS ideologues rarely uphold adherence to Islamic scholarship and law manuals for reference, mostly preferring to derive rulings based on self-interpretation of the Qur'an and Muslim traditions. Other ideologies may include Anti-Yazidi sentiment, Anti-Shia sentiment, Anti-Christian sentiment, Anti-Hindu sentiment, Anti-LGBT sentiment, Antisemitism and Misogyny
According to Robert Manne, there is a "general consensus" that the ideology of the Islamic State is "primarily based upon the writings of the radical Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood theoretician Sayyid Qutb". The Muslim Brotherhood began the trend of political Islamism in the 20th century, seeking gradual establishment of a new Caliphate, a comprehensive Islamic society ruled by sharia law. Qutb's doctrines of Jahiliyya (pre-Islamic ignorance), Hakimiyya (Divine Sovereignty), and Takfir of entire societies formed a radicalised vision of the Muslim Brotherhood's political Islam project. Qutbism became the precursor to all Jihadist thought, from Abdullah Azzam to Zawahiri and to Daesh. Alongside Sayyid Qutb, the most invoked ideological figures of IS include Ibn Taymiyya, Abdullah Azzam, and Abu Bakr Naji.
Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, the first Emir of ISI, was radicalised as a Muslim Brotherhood member during his youth. Motaz Al-Khateeb states that religious texts and Islamic jurisprudence "alone cannot explain the emergence" of Daesh since the Muslim Brotherhood and Daesh "draw on the same Islamic jurisprudence" but "are diametrically opposite" in strategy and behavior. Through the official statement of beliefs originally released by al-Baghdadi in 2007 and subsequently updated since June 2014, ISIL defined its creed as "a middle way between the extremist Kharijites and the lax Murji'ites".: 38 ISIL's ideology represents radical Jihadi-Salafi Islam, a strict, puritanical form of Sunni Islam. Muslim organisations like Islamic Networks Group (ING) in America have argued against this interpretation of Islam. ISIL promotes religious violence, and regards Muslims who do not agree with its interpretations as infidels or apostates.
According to Hayder al Khoei, ISIL's philosophy is represented by the symbolism in the Black Standard variant of the legendary battle flag of Muhammad that it has adopted: the flag shows the Seal of Muhammad within a white circle, with the phrase above it, "There is no god but Allah". This symbolism is said to symbolize ISIL's belief that it represents the restoration of the caliphate of early Islam, with all the political, religious and eschatological ramifications that this would imply.
Abu Abdullah al-Muhajir, an Egyptian Jihadist theoretician and ideologue is considered as the key inspiration for early figures of IS. Al-Muhajir's legal manual on violence, Fiqh ad-Dima (The Jurisprudence of Jihad or The Jurisprudence of Blood), was adopted by ISIL as its standard reference for justifying its extraordinary acts of violence. The book has been described by counter-terrorism scholar Orwa Ajjoub as rationalising and justifying "suicide operations, the mutilation of corpses, beheading, and the killing of children and non-combatants." His theological and legal justifications influenced ISIL, al-Qaeda, and Boko Haram, as well as several other jihadi terrorist groups. Numerous media outlets have compared his reference manual to Abu Bakr Naji's Management of Savagery, widely read among ISIS's commanders and fighters.
ISIL adheres to global jihadist principles and follows the hard-line ideology of al-Qaeda and many other modern-day jihadist groups.
For their guiding principles, the leaders of the Islamic State ... are open and clear about their almost exclusive commitment to the Wahhabi movement of Sunni Islam. The group circulates images of Wahhabi religious textbooks from Saudi Arabia in the schools it controls. Videos from the group's territory have shown Wahhabi texts plastered on the sides of an official missionary van.
According to The Economist, Saudi practices followed by the group include the establishment of religious police to root out "vice" and enforce attendance at salat prayers, the widespread use of capital punishment, and the destruction or re-purposing of any non-Sunni religious buildings. Bernard Haykel has described ISIL leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's creed as "a kind of untamed Wahhabism". Senior Saudi religious leaders have issued statements condemning ISIL and attempting to distance the group from official Saudi religious beliefs.
What connection, if any, there is between Salafi-Jihadism of Daesh and Wahhabism and Salafism proper is disputed. ISIS borrowed two elements of Qutbism and 20th century Islamism into its version of Wahhabi worldview. While Wahhabism shuns violent rebellion against earthly rulers, ISIS embraces political call to revolutions. While historically Wahhabis were not champion activists of a Caliphate, ISIS borrowed the idea of restoration of a global Caliphate.
Although the religious character of ISIS is mostly Wahhabi, it departs from Wahhabi tradition in four critical aspects: dynastic alliance, call to establish a global caliphate, sheer violence, and apocalyptism.
ISIS did not follow the pattern of the first three Saudi states in allying the religious mission of the Najdi ulema with the Al Saud family, rather they consider them apostates. The call for a global caliphate is another departure from Wahhabism. The caliphate, understood in Islamic law as the ideal Islamic polity uniting all Muslim territories, does not figure much in traditional Najdi writings. Ironically, Wahhabism emerged as an anti-caliphate movement.
Although violence was not absent in the First Saudi State, Islamic State's displays of beheading, immolation, and other forms of violence aimed at inspiring fear are not in imitation of early Saudi practices. They were introduced by Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, former leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, who took inspiration from the Egyptian Jihadi scholar, Abu Abdallah Al Muhajir. It is the latter's legal manual on violence, popularly known as Fiqh ad-Dima (The Jurisprudence of Blood), that is the Islamic State's standard reference for justifying its acts of violence. The Islamic State's apocalyptic dimension also lacks a mainstream Wahhabi precedent.
ISIL aims to return to the early days of Islam, rejecting all innovations in the religion, which it believes corrupts its original spirit. It condemns later caliphates and the Ottoman Empire for deviating from what it calls pure Islam and seeks to revive the original Qutbist project of the restoration of a global caliphate that is governed by a strict Salafi-Jihadi doctrine. Following Salafi-Jihadi doctrines, ISIL condemns the followers of secular law as disbelievers, putting the current Saudi Arabian government in that category.
ISIL believes that only a legitimate authority can undertake the leadership of jihad and that the first priority over other areas of combat, such as fighting non-Muslim countries, is the purification of Islamic society. For example, ISIL regards the Palestinian Sunni group Hamas as apostates who have no legitimate authority to lead jihad and see fighting Hamas as the first step towards confrontation by ISIL with Israel.
Yemeni journalist Abdulelah Haider Shaye said:
The Islamic State was drafted by Sayyid Qutb, taught by Abdullah Azzam, globalized by Osama bin Laden, transferred to reality by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and implemented by al-Baghdadis: Abu Omar and Abu Bakr.
The Islamic State added a focus on sectarianism to a layer of radical views. In particular, it linked itself to the Salafi-jihadi movement that evolved out of the Afghan jihad. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_State |
Al-Maqrizi | A direct student of Ibn Khaldun, al-Maqrīzī was born in Cairo and spent most of his life in Egypt. When he presents himself in his books he usually stops at the 10th forefather although he confessed to some of his close friends that he can trace his ancestry to al-Mu‘izz li-Dīn Allāh – first Fatimid caliph in Egypt and the founder of al-Qahirah – and even to Ali ibn Abi Talib. He was trained in the Hanafite school of law. Later, he switched to the Shafi'ite school and finally to the Zahirite school. Maqrizi studied theology under one of the primary masterminds behind the Zahiri Revolt, and his vocal support and sympathy with that revolt against the Mamluks likely cost him higher administrative and clerical positions with the Mamluk regime. The name Maqrizi was an attribution to a quarter of the city of Baalbek, from where his paternal grandparents hailed. Maqrizi confessed to his contemporaries that he believed that he was related to the Fatimids through the son of al-Muizz. Ibn Hajar preserves the most memorable account: his father, as they entered the al-Hakim Mosque one day, told him "My son, you are entering the mosque of your ancestor." However, his father also instructed al-Maqrizi not to reveal this information to anyone he could not trust; Walker concludes:
Ultimately it would be hard to conclude that al-Maqrizi conceived any more than an antiquarian interest in the Fatimids. His main concern seems more likely to be the meaning they and their city might have for the present, that is, for Mamluk Egypt and its role in Islam. (p. 167)
In 1385, he went on the Islamic pilgrimage, the Hajj. For some time he was secretary in a government office, and in 1399 became inspector of markets for Cairo and northern Egypt. This post he soon gave up to become a preacher at the Mosque of 'Amr ibn al 'As, president of the al-Hakim Mosque, and a lecturer on tradition. In 1408, he went to Damascus to become inspector of the Qalanisryya and lecturer. Later, he retired into private life at Cairo.
In 1430, he again went on Hajj with his family and travelled for some five years. His learning was great, his observation accurate and his judgement good, but his books are largely compilations, and he does not always acknowledge the sources upon which he relied. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Maqrizi |
Concubinage | Concubinatus was a monogamous union recognized socially and to some extent legally as an alternative to marriage in the Roman Empire. Concubinage was practiced most often in couples when one partner, almost always the man, belonged to a higher social rank, especially the senatorial order, who were penalized for marrying below their class. The female partner was a concubina; the term concubinus is used of men mainly in a same-sex union or to deprecate a relationship in which the woman was dominant.
The use of the term concubina in epitaphs for family memorials indicates that the role was socially acceptable. A man was not allowed to have both a concubina and a wife (uxor) at the same time, but a single tombstone might list multiple wives and/or concubinae serially. By contrast, the pejorative paelex referred to a concubine who was a sexual rival to a wife—in early Rome, most often a war captive and hence unwillingly—and by late antiquity was loosely equivalent to "prostitute". However, in Latin literature concubinae are often disparaged as slaves kept as sexual luxuries in the literal sense of "bedmate". The distinction is that the use of an enslaved woman was not concubinatus in the legal sense, which might involve a signed document, though even an informal concubine had some legal protections that placed her among the more privileged slaves of the household.
Concubines occupied an entire chapter, now fragmentary, in the 6th-century compilation of Roman law known as the Digest, but concubinatus was never a fully realized legal institution. It evolved in ad hoc response to Augustan moral legislation that criminalized some forms of adultery and other consensual sexual behaviors among freeborn people (ingenui) outside marriage. Even Roman legal experts had trouble parsing the various forms of marriage, the status of a concubina, and whether an extramarital sexual relationship was adultery or permissible pleasure-seeking with a prostitute, professional entertainer, or slave.
Roman emperors not infrequently took a concubina, often a freedwoman, rather than remarrying after the death of their wife to avoid the legal complications pertaining to succession and inheritance. Caenis, the freedwoman and secretary of Antonia Minor, was Vespasian's wife "in all but name", according to Suetonius, until her death in AD 74. Roman manumission law also allowed a slave-owner to free the slave and enter into concubinatus or a regular marriage. Epitaphs indicate that both partners in concubinatus might also be freedpersons, for reasons that are not entirely clear.
A slave lacked the legal personhood to marry under Roman law or to contract concubinatus, but the heterosexual union of two slaves, or a freedperson and a slave, might be recognized as an intention to marry when both partners gained the legal status that permitted them to do so. In this quasi-marital union, called contubernium, chidren seem often to have been desired, in contrast to concubinatus, in which children more often were viewed as complications and there was no intention to marry. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concubinage |
Hegra (Mada'in Salih) | The Nabatean site of Hegra was built around a residential zone and its oasis during the 1st century CE. The sandstone outcroppings were carved to build the necropolis. A total of four necropolis sites have survived, which featured 131 monumental rock-cut tombs spread out over 13.4 km (8.3 mi), many with inscribed Nabatean epigraphs on their façades:
Non-monumental burial sites, totaling 2,000, are also part of the place. A closer observation of the façades indicates the social status of the buried person—the size and ornamentation of the structure reflect the wealth of the person. Some façades had plates on top of the entrances providing information about the grave owners, the religious system, and the masons who carved them. Many graves indicate military ranks, leading archaeologists to speculate that the site might once have been a Nabatean military base, meant to protect the settlement's trading activities.
The Nabatean kingdom was not just situated at the crossroad of trade but also of culture. This is reflected in the varying motifs of the façade decorations, borrowing stylistic elements from Assyria, Phoenicia, Egypt and Hellenistic Alexandria, combined with the native artistic style. Roman decorations and Latin scripts also figured on the troglodytic tombs when the territory was annexed by the Roman Empire. In contrast to the elaborate exteriors, the interiors of the rock-cut structures are severe and plain.
A religious area, known as "Jabal Ithlib," is located to the north-east of the site. It is believed to have been originally dedicated to the Nabatean deity Dushara. A narrow corridor, 40 metres (131 ft) long between the high rocks and reminiscent of the Siq in Petra, leads to the hall of the Diwan, a Muslim's council-chamber or law-court. Small religious sanctuaries bearing inscriptions were also cut into the rock in the vicinity.
The residential area is located in the middle of the plain, far from the outcrops. The primary material of construction for the houses and the enclosing wall was sun-dried mudbrick. Few vestiges of the residential area remain.
Water is supplied by 130 wells, situated in the western and north-western part of the site, where the water table was at a depth of only 20 m (66 ft). The wells, with diameters ranging 4–7 m (13–23 ft), were cut into the rock, although some, dug in loose ground, had to be reinforced with sandstone. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hegra_(Mada%27in_Salih) |
History of painting | Ancient Egypt, a civilization with very strong traditions of architecture and sculpture (both originally painted in bright colours) also had many mural paintings in temples and buildings, and painted illustrations on papyrus manuscripts. Egyptian wall painting and decorative painting is often graphic, sometimes more symbolic than realistic. Egyptian painting depicts figures in bold outline and flat silhouette, in which symmetry is a constant characteristic. Egyptian painting has close connection with its written language – called Egyptian hieroglyphs. Painted symbols are found amongst the first forms of written language. The Egyptians also painted on linen, remnants of which survive today. Ancient Egyptian paintings survived due to the extremely dry climate. The ancient Egyptians created paintings to make the afterlife of the deceased a pleasant place. The themes included journey through the afterworld or their protective deities introducing the deceased to the gods of the underworld. Some examples of such paintings are paintings of the gods and goddesses Ra, Horus, Anubis, Nut, Osiris and Isis. Some tomb paintings show activities that the deceased were involved in when they were alive and wished to carry on doing for eternity. In the New Kingdom and later, the Book of the Dead was buried with the entombed person. It was considered important for an introduction to the afterlife.
To the north of Egypt was the Minoan civilization centered on the island of Crete. The wall paintings found in the palace of Knossos are similar to that of the Egyptians but much more free in style. Mycenaean Greece, beginning around 1600 BC, produced similar art to that of Minoan Crete. Ancient Greek art during the Greek Dark Age became far less complex, but the renewal of Greek civilization throughout the Mediterranean during Archaic Greece brought about new forms of Greek art with the Orientalizing style.
Ancient Greece had skilled painters, sculptors (though both endeavours were regarded as mere manual labour at the time), and architects. The Parthenon is an example of their architecture that has lasted to modern days. Greek marble sculpture is often described as the highest form of Classical art. Painting on pottery of Ancient Greece and ceramics gives a particularly informative glimpse into the way society in Ancient Greece functioned. Black-figure vase painting and Red-figure vase painting gives many surviving examples of what Greek painting was. Some famous Greek painters on wooden panels who are mentioned in texts are Apelles, Zeuxis and Parrhasius, however few examples of Ancient Greek panel painting survive, mostly just written descriptions by their contemporaries or later Romans. Zeuxis lived in 5–6 BC and was said to be the first to use sfumato. According to Pliny the Elder, the realism of his paintings was such that birds tried to eat the painted grapes. Apelles is described as the greatest painter of Antiquity for perfect technique in drawing, brilliant color and modeling.
Roman art was influenced by Greece and can in part be taken as a descendant of ancient Greek painting. However, Roman painting does have important unique characteristics. Surviving Roman paintings include wall paintings and frescoes, many from villas in Campania, in Southern Italy at sites such as Pompeii and Herculaneum. Such painting can be grouped into four main "styles" or periods and may contain the first examples of trompe-l'œil, pseudo-perspective, and pure landscape. Almost the only painted portraits surviving from the Ancient world are a large number of coffin-portraits of bust form found in the Late Antique cemetery of Al-Fayum. Although these were neither of the best period nor the highest quality, they are impressive in themselves, and give an idea of the quality that the finest ancient work must have had. A very small number of miniatures from Late Antique illustrated books also survive, and a rather larger number of copies of them from the Early Medieval period. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_painting |
Menelik II | Menelik II is argued to be the founder of modern Ethiopia. Before Menelik's colonial conquests, Ethiopia and Adal Sultanate had been devastated by numerous wars, the most recent of which was fought in the 16th century. In the intervening period, military tactics had not changed much. In the 16th century, the Portuguese Bermudes documented depopulation and widespread atrocities against civilians and combatants (including torture, mass killings, and large-scale slavery) during several successive Gadaa conquests led by Aba Gedas of territories located north of Genale river (Bali, Amhara, Gafat, Damot, Adal. Warfare in the region essentially involved acquiring cattle and slaves, winning additional territories, gaining control over trade routes, carrying out ritual requirements, or securing trophies to prove masculinity.
Menelik’s clemency to Ras Mengesha Yohannes, whom he made hereditary Prince of his native Tigray, was ill-repaid by a long series of revolts. In 1898, Menelik crushed a rebellion by Ras Mengesha Yohannes (who died in 1906). After this, Menelik directed his efforts to the consolidation of his authority, and to a degree, to the opening up of his country to outside influences. The League of Nations in 1920 reported that after the invasion of Menelik's forces into non-Abyssinian lands of Somalis, Harari, Oromo, Sidama, Shanqella, etc., the inhabitants were enslaved and heavily taxed by the Gabbar system leading to depopulation.
Menelik brought together many of the northern territories through political consensus. The exception was Gojjam, which offered tribute to the Shewan Kingdom following its defeat at the Battle of Embabo. Most of the western and central territories like Jimma, Welega Province and Chebo surrendered to Menelik's invading forces with no resistance. Native armed soldiers of Ras Gobana Dacche, Ras Mikael Ali, Habtegyorgis Dinegde, Balcha Aba Nefso and were allied to Menelik's Shewan army which campaigned to the south to incorporate more territories.
Beginning in the 1870s, Menelik set off from the central province of Shewa to reunify 'the lands and people of the South, East, and West into an empire. This period of expansions has been referred to by some as the 'Agar Maqnat' - roughly translating to some type of 'Cultivation' of land. The people incorporated by Menelik through conquest were the southerners – Oromo, Sidama, Gurage, Wolayta and other groups.: 2 Historian Raymond Jonas describes the conquest of the Emirate of Harar by Menelik as "brutal".
In territories incorporated peacefully like Jimma, Leka, and Wolega the former order was preserved and there was no interference in their self-government; in areas incorporated after war, the appointed new rulers did not violate the peoples' religious beliefs and they treated them lawfully and justly. However, in the territories incorporated by military conquest, Menelik's army carried out atrocities against civilians and combatants including torture, mass killings, and large scale slavery. Large scale atrocities were also committed against the Dizi people and the people of the Kaficho kingdom. Some estimates that the number of people killed as a result of the conquest from war, famine and atrocities go into the millions. Based on convergent subjugation approaches, cooperation between Menelik and Belgian king Leopold II were attempted more than once. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menelik_II |
Foreign relations of Saudi Arabia | After World War II (1939–1945) and during the Cold War (c. 1947–1991), Saudi Arabia maintained an anti-Communist, anti-secular Arab-nationalist policy, often working with the leading anti-communist power, the United States. Following the 1973 oil crisis, when Saudi Arabia and other Arab oil exporters embargoed the United States and its allies for their support of Israel, oil revenues increased dramatically, and the Kingdom worked to become the leading Islamic state, spending generously to advance Islam and particularly its conservative school (known as Wahhabism). Supporters see this as having purified and unified the Islamic faith; other commentators claim it has eroded regional Islamic cultures. (Examples of the acculturizing effect of Saudi aid can be seen among the Minangkabau and the Acehnese in Indonesia, as well as among the people of the Maldives. The Wahhabi form of Islam is also perceived in the West as a source of Islamist extremism.
Saudi Arabia and its oil policy were significant factors in the proxy wars of the Cold War prior to the downfall of Soviet Communism in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Saudi Arabia helped to finance not just the Afghan Mujahideen but also non-Muslim anti-communists. It also seriously harmed the Soviet Communist cause by stabilizing oil prices "throughout the 1980s, just when the Russians were desperate to sell energy in order to keep up with huge hikes in American military spending."
Following King Fahd's stroke in 1995, Abdullah, then Crown Prince, assumed responsibility for foreign policy. A marked change in U.S.-Saudi relations occurred, as Abdullah sought to put distance between his policies and the unpopular pro-Western policies of King Fahd. Abdullah took a more independent line from the US and concentrated on improving regional relations, particularly with Iran. Several long-standing border disputes were resolved, including significantly reshaping the Saudi border with Yemen. The new approach resulted in increasingly strained relations with the US. Despite this, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia remained close. In 1998 Abdullah paid a state visit to Washington and met with U.S. President Bill Clinton.
In 2003 Abdullah's new policy was reflected in the Saudi government's refusal to support or to participate in the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Some US critics saw this as an attempt by the Saudi royal family to placate the kingdom's Islamist radicals. That same year Saudi and U.S. government officials agreed to the withdrawal of all U.S. military forces from Saudi soil. After ascending the throne, King Abdullah (r. 2005–2015) followed a more activist foreign policy and continued to push-back on US policies which were unpopular in Saudi Arabia (for example, refusing to provide material assistance to support the new Iraqi government). However, increasingly, in common with the US, fear and mistrust of Iran became a significant factor in Saudi policy. In 2010 leaked diplomatic cableds revealed that King Abdullah had urged the U.S. to attack Iran in order to "cut off the head of the snake". Saudi Arabia has long since used its alliance with the United States as a counterbalance to Iran's influence in the Middle East, and Saudi Arabia and other Arab states of the Persian Gulf have looked to the United States for protection against Iran.
Relations with the US and other Western countries became further strained by the fact that Saudi Arabia has been a source of Islamist terrorist activity world-wide. Osama bin Laden and 15 out of the 19 September 11 attacks hijackers were Saudi nationals, though some officials argue that bin Laden planned this deliberately in an attempt to strain U.S.-Saudi relations, and former Central Intelligence Agency director James Woolsey described Saudi Arabian Wahhabism as "the soil in which al-Qaeda and its sister terrorist organizations are flourishing". Some in the U.S. Government also believe that the royal family, through its long and close relations with Wahhabi clerics, had laid the groundwork for the growth of militant groups like al-Qaeda ,and that after the attacks had done little to help track the militants or prevent future atrocities.
As announced at the 2009 Arab League summit, Saudi Arabia had intended to participate in the Arab Customs Union to be established in 2015 and in an Arab common market to be established by 2020.
Following the wave of early-2011 protests and revolutions affecting the Arab world, Saudi Arabia offered asylum to deposed President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia, and King Abdullah telephoned President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt (prior to Mubarak's deposition) to offer his support.
Saudi military forces and their allies became involved in conflict in Yemen (on Saudi Arabia's southern borders) from March 2015 onwards. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_relations_of_Saudi_Arabia |
Roman Egypt | The imperially-appointed archiereus for Alexandria and All Egypt was responsible for the administrative management of the temples, beyond those of the imperial cult, dedicated to Graeco-Roman deities and the ancient Egyptian gods.: 95 He controlled access to the priesthoods of the Egyptian cults: the ritual circumcision of candidates was subject to his approval and he mediated disputes involving temples, wielding some judicial powers.: 93 As sponsors of temple cults, emperors appeared in traditional pharaonic regalia on carved temple reliefs.: 435 Similarly, Egyptian gods were sometimes shown wearing Roman military garb, particularly Anubis and Horus.: 439
The history of Egyptian temples in Roman times can be studied particularly well in some settlements at the edges of the Faiyum: Archaeological evidence, along with lots of written sources on the daily life of the priests, are available from Bakchias, Narmouthis, Soknopaiou Nesos, Tebtunis, and Theadelphia. For instance, temples can be seen supporting each other by asking colleagues to assist when there was a shortage of staff, but also competing with each other for spheres of influence. When temples came into conflict with authorities, then mainly with lower administrative officials, who belonged to the local population themselves; the Roman procurators intervened in these conflicts, if at all, then in a moderating manner.
The Julio-Claudian emperors Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero all sponsored religious monuments and institutions at Coptos and Dendera.: 13 Tiberius is known to have patronized monuments at Armant, Aswan, Athribis, Debod, Diospolis Parva, Edfu, Karnak, Kom Ombo, Luxor, Philae and at the Temple of Shenhur.: 13 Claudius's patronage is recorded at Aswan, Athribis, Esna, Kom Ombo, and at Philae.: 13 Nero is recorded as having sponsored Egyptian elites at the Dakhla Oasis in the Western Desert, and at Karanis and Akoris, as well as at Aswan and Kom Ombo.: 13 During the short reigns of Galba and of the contestants in the Year of the Four Emperors after the fall of Nero, images of both Otho and Galba were carved in reliefs at Medinet Habu, a Pharaonic temple dating from the Eighteenth Dynasty, but no monuments to Vitellius are known.: 13
The Flavian emperors Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian are all known to have been responsible for works at Esna.: 14 Both Vespasian and his older son Titus sponsored work at the Dakhla Oasis, with Vespasian also the sponsor of work at Medinet Habu.: 14 Vespasian and his younger son Domitian were both credited with patronage of works at Kom Ombo and Silsila, and Domitian's sponsorship was also recorded at Akhmim, Armant, Dendera, and Philae.: 14 185 scenes in many temples show Domitian, concentrated in the oases and in Upper Egypt; his name was in some places removed as a result of his damnatio memoriae.: 413 After Domitian's assassination, the emperor Nerva's patronage of Egyptian temples is recorded only at Esna.: 14 Nerva's adoptive heir Trajan continued to lend imperial sponsorship to Egyptian cults, with his patronage recorded at Dendera, Esna, Gebelein, Kalabsha, Kom Ombo, Medinet Habu, and Philae.: 14 During Hadrian's tour of Egypt in 130–131, the emperor founded the new Hellenistic polis of Antinoöpolis at the point where Antinous drowned in the Nile and instituted a cult of Antinous as Osiris, to whom a death by drowning was sacrosanct.: 15 Hadrian commissioned the Barberini obelisk to commemorate his late lover's funeral rites, including the Egyptian opening of the mouth ceremony; the obelisk was erected in Rome and the cult of Antinous was propagated throughout the provinces.: 15 Hadrian also sponsored building work at Philae, and both he and his successor Antoninus Pius sponsored work at Armant, Dendera, and Esna.: 16 The reign of Antoninus Pius – also patron of building works at Coptos, Medamud, Medinet Habu, and Tod – saw the last substantial building work on Egyptian temples.: 16 After those of Antoninus Pius found at Medinet Habu, Deir el-Shelwit, and Dendera, no further imperial cartouches are known from the regions of Thebes and the western oases.: 413 From the reign of Marcus Aurelius, who is recorded as having rededicated an offering to Hathor originally made by Ptolemy VIII Physcon, the rate of new temple building and decoration slackened.: 413 Commodus was recorded as Pharaonic sponsor of temples at Armant, Esna, Kom Ombo and Philae, the last emperor to be widely honoured in this way in surviving monuments; a general lack of resources and the political turbulence after Commodus's assassination was probably responsible.: 18 The name of his successor Pertinax (r. 193) is recorded at the Temple of Tutu at Kellis.: 182 After inscriptions of Commodus, Greek inscriptions are no longer found in the temples of the Faiyum.: 413 It is possible that the reform of Septimius Severus at the turn of the 3rd century aggravated the decline of the Egyptian temples; the mētropoleis now given administrative control over the temples of their nomoi did not prioritize their upkeep.: 413
With a carved relief at Esna, Septimius Severus was commemorated, together with his son and co-augustus Caracalla, his wife Julia Domna the augusta, and their younger son Geta, on the occasion of the imperial tour of Egypt in 199–200.: 18 Caracalla's own titles are recorded at Philae, Ombos, in Middle Egypt, and in the Delta.: 413 After he murdered his brother and co-augustus Geta, his image was removed from their father's monument relief at Esna as part of the damnatio memoriae imposed by Caracalla.: 19 Caracalla's successor was Macrinus, whose patronage is recorded only at Kom Ombo; evidence of his successor Elagabalus in Egypt has not survived, and neither is the patronage of Severus Alexander recorded.: 19
Monumental temple-building and decoration among the Egyptian cults ceased altogether in the early 3rd century.: 413 After Philip the Arab's cartouche was added to the temple wall at Esna, his successor Decius's cartouche was carved into it, the last known instance of this long-established practice of usurping pharaohs' erasure of their predecessors' dynastic legacy.: 21 Philip the Arab's reign saw the last Roman inscription found in the Temple of Kalabsha; at some time thereafter the site was abandoned by the Romans.: 22 At Tahta in Middle Egypt, the cartouche of Maximinus Daza was added to a since-ruined temple, along with other additions; he is the last Roman emperor known to have been recorded in official hieroglyphic script.: 25–26 The last Buchis bull of Hermonthis (Armant) was born in the reign of Licinius and died in the reign of Constantius II; the cartouche on its funerary stela, dedicated in 340, is the last of all.: 413 : 28 Under the Theodosian dynasty, during the joint reigns of Theodosius the Great and his sons Arcadius and Honorius, an inscription at Philae's Temple of Harendotes commemorated the birthday of Osiris in the 110th anno Diocletiani (24 August 394), the latest hieroglyphic inscription to be dated securely.: 30 : 413
Caligula allowed the worship of Egyptian gods in Rome, which had been formally forbidden since Augustus's reign.: 12 In Rome, and at Beneventum (Benevento), Domitian established new temples to the Egyptian gods Isis and Serapis.: 14 A general "Egyptomania" followed Hadrian's tour of the country, and Hadrian's Villa at Tibur (Tivoli) included an Egyptian-themed area known as the Canopus.: 16 Hadrian may have been advised on religious matters by Pancrates, a poet and priest of Egypt.: 15 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Egypt |
Sharia | The domain of furūʿ al-fiqh (lit. branches of fiqh) is traditionally divided into ʿibādāt (rituals or acts of worship) and muʿāmalāt (social relations). Many jurists further divided the body of substantive jurisprudence into "the four quarters", called rituals, sales, marriage and injuries. Each of these terms figuratively stood for a variety of subjects. For example, the quarter of sales would encompass partnerships, guaranty, gifts, and bequests, among other topics. Juristic works were arranged as a sequence of such smaller topics, each called a "book" (kitab). The special significance of ritual was marked by always placing its discussion at the start of the work.
Some historians distinguish a field of Islamic criminal law, which combines several traditional categories. Several crimes with scripturally prescribed punishments are known as hudud. Jurists developed various restrictions which in many cases made them virtually impossible to apply. Other crimes involving intentional bodily harm are judged according to a version of lex talionis that prescribes a punishment analogous to the crime (qisas), but the victims or their heirs may accept a monetary compensation (diya) or pardon the perpetrator instead; only diya is imposed for non-intentional harm. Other criminal cases belong to the category of taʿzīr, where the goal of punishment is correction or rehabilitation of the culprit and its form is largely left to the judge's discretion. In practice, since early on in Islamic history, criminal cases were usually handled by ruler-administered courts or local police using procedures which were only loosely related to Sharia.
The two major genres of furūʿ literature are the mukhtasar (concise summary of law) and the mabsut (extensive commentary). Mukhtasars were short specialized treatises or general overviews that could be used in a classroom or consulted by judges. A mabsut, which usually provided a commentary on a mukhtasar and could stretch to dozens of large volumes, recorded alternative rulings with their justifications, often accompanied by a proliferation of cases and conceptual distinctions. The terminology of juristic literature was conservative and tended to preserve notions which had lost their practical relevance. At the same time, the cycle of abridgement and commentary allowed jurists of each generation to articulate a modified body of law to meet changing social conditions. Other juristic genres include the qawāʿid (succinct formulas meant to aid the student remember general principles) and collections of fatwas by a particular scholar.
Classical jurisprudence has been described as "one of the major intellectual achievements of Islam" and its importance in Islam has been compared to that of theology in Christianity. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharia |
Zionism | The arrival of Zionist settlers to Palestine in the late 19th century is widely seen as the start of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.: 70
Zionists wanted to create a Jewish state in Palestine with as much land, as many Jews, and as few Palestinian Arabs as possible. In response to Ben-Gurion's 1938 quote that "politically we are the aggressors and they [the Palestinians] defend themselves", Israeli historian Benny Morris says, "Ben-Gurion, of course, was right. Zionism was a colonizing and expansionist ideology and movement", and that "Zionist ideology and practice were necessarily and elementally expansionist." Morris describes the Zionist goal of establishing a Jewish state in Palestine as necessarily displacing and dispossessing the Arab population.
The practical issue of establishing a Jewish state in a majority non-Jewish and Arab region was a fundamental issue for the Zionist movement. Zionists used the term "transfer" as a euphemism for the removal, or ethnic cleansing, of the Arab Palestinian population. According to Benny Morris, "the idea of transferring the Arabs out... was seen as the chief means of assuring the stability of the 'Jewishness' of the proposed Jewish State".
In fact, the concept of forcibly removing the non-Jewish population from Palestine was a notion that garnered support across the entire spectrum of Zionist groups, including its farthest left factions, from early on in the movement's development. The concept of transfer was not only seen as desirable but also as an ideal solution by the Zionist leadership. The notion of forcible transfer was so appealing to this leadership that it was considered the most attractive provision in the Peel Commission. Indeed, this sentiment was deeply ingrained to the extent that Ben Gurion's acceptance of partition was contingent upon the removal of the Palestinian population. He would go as far as to say that transfer was such an ideal solution that it "must happen some day". It was the right wing of the Zionist movement that put forward the main arguments against transfer, their objections being primarily on practical rather than moral grounds.
According to Morris, the idea of ethnically cleansing the land of Palestine was to play a large role in Zionist ideology from the inception of the movement. He explains that "transfer" was "inevitable and inbuilt into Zionism" and that a land which was primarily Arab could not be transformed into a Jewish state without displacing the Arab population. Further, the stability of the Jewish state could not be ensured given the Arab population's fear of displacement. He explains that this would be the primary source of conflict between the Zionist movement and the Arab population. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zionism |
Bajuni people | The Bajuni people collectively refer to themselves and are known as Wabajuni. They speak Kibajuni, a dialect of the Bantu Swahili language. Kibajuni is only spoken by the Bajuni people and is an important indicator of their ethnicity. This is essential because the ethnicity of the Bajuni defines their social standing in the Somali patrilineal clan structure. As the Bajuni are not considered 'real' (i.e. ethnically integrated) Somalis, they are the least empowered of the Somali clans, and are often disregarded or discriminated against by many members of other Somali clans.
The term homa, which means fever or high temperature, is derived directly from Arabic. However, many Bajuni use the term baridi or cold to refer to both the homa of standard Swahili and any sickness. As a result, someone suffering with baridi is sick.
The Bajuni have a treasure of songs and poetry. Aside from the well-known mashairi and t'endi from the rest of the Swahili coast, there are also vave and randa, farmer songs, and kimayi, a fisherfolk song. All of these, as well as lengthy oral traditions known to the majority of the community's elder male members, typically refer to events that occurred around and before the Orma advance. Because oral recollections of events before the sixteenth century, whether official or impromptu, accord in basic outline but differ in detail, what follows is a recap of the areas of agreement.
The Watamu Bajuni call themselves waungwana, meaning freeborn. Any slave ancestry has largely been forgotten, and other communities accept Bajuni claims of freeborn status. Although the Bajuni retain ties to the villages from where they relocated to Watamu, movement allows for the re-definition of ethnicity and rank. "Slaves" (wachumwa) are now considered outsiders, and local Giriama are treated and behave as a servant class. Intermarriage between Bajuni and Giriama, on the other hand, undermines the master-servant relationship. Such encounters are typically facilitated by Giriama, refers to as "intermediary Swahili," or people who seek to become Swahili through the adoption of Islam and Swahili culture.
Bajuni men wear kikoy, a Swahili blanket wrapped around the waist like a shirt, and rubber thongs on their feet.
Bajun ladies wear discrete black veils that reveal just their eyes to the outside world. A woman would traditionally wear a ring through the center of her nose, a gold disk through one pierced nostril, and numerous earrings through the tops of her ears. These are now considered outmoded. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bajuni_people |
Pseudo-Kufic | Numerous instances of pseudo-Kufic are known from European art from around the 10th to the 15th century. Pseudo-Kufic inscriptions were often used as decorative bands in the architecture of Byzantine Greece from the mid 11th century to mid-12th century, and in decorative bands around religious scenes in French and German wall paintings from the mid-12th to mid-13th century, as well as in contemporary manuscript illuminations. Pseudo-Kufic would also be used as writing or as decorative elements in textiles, religious halos or frames. Many are visible in the paintings of Giotto (c. 1267 – 1337).
From 1300 to 1600, according to Rosamond Mack, the Italian imitations of Arabic script tend to rely on cursive Arabic rather than Kufic, and therefore should better be designated by the more generalist term of "pseudo-Arabic". The habit of representing gilt halos decorated with pseudo-Kufic script seems to have disappeared in 1350, but was revived around 1420 with the work of painters such as Gentile da Fabriano, who was probably responding to artistic influence in Florence, or Masaccio, who was influenced by Gentile, although his own script was "jagged and clumsy", as well as Giovanni Toscani or Fra Angelico, in a more Gothic style.
From around 1450, northern Italian artists also started to incorporate pseudo-Islamic decorative devices in their paintings. Francesco Squarcione started the trend in 1455, and he was soon followed by his main pupil, Andrea Mantegna. In the 1456–1459 San Zeno Altarpiece, Mantegna combines pseudo-Islamic script in halos and garment hems (see detail), to depiction of Mamluk book-bindings in the hand of San Zeno (see detail), and even to a Turkish carpet at the feet of the Virgin Mary (see detail).
The exact reason for the incorporation of pseudo-Kufic or pseudo-Arabic in Medieval or early Renaissance painting is unclear. It seems that Westerners mistakenly associated 13-14th century Middle-Eastern scripts as being identical with the scripts current during Jesus's time, and thus found natural to represent early Christians in association with them: "In Renaissance art, pseudo-Kufic script was used to decorate the costumes of Old Testament heroes like David". Another reason might be that artist wished to express a cultural universality for the Christian faith, by blending together various written languages, at a time when the church had strong international ambitions.
Pseudo-Hebrew is also sometimes seen, as in the mosaics at the back of the apse and the base of the dome in Marco Marziale's Circumcision, which do not use actual Hebrew characters. It was especially common in German works.
Finally pseudo-Arabic elements became rare after the second decade of the 16th century. According to Rosamond Mack: "The Eastern scripts, garments, and halos disappeared when the Italians viewed the Early Christian era in an antique Roman context." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudo-Kufic |
Egyptian mythology | The development of Egyptian myth is difficult to trace. Egyptologists must make educated guesses about its earliest phases, based on written sources that appeared much later. One obvious influence on myth is the Egyptians' natural surroundings. Each day the sun rose and set, bringing light to the land and regulating human activity; each year the Nile flooded, renewing the fertility of the soil and allowing the highly productive farming that sustained Egyptian civilization. Thus the Egyptians saw water and the sun as symbols of life and thought of time as a series of natural cycles. This orderly pattern was at constant risk of disruption: unusually low floods resulted in famine, and high floods destroyed crops and buildings. The hospitable Nile valley was surrounded by harsh desert, populated by peoples the Egyptians regarded as uncivilized enemies of order. For these reasons, the Egyptians saw their land as an isolated place of stability, or maat, surrounded and endangered by chaos. These themes—order, chaos, and renewal—appear repeatedly in Egyptian religious thought.
Another possible source for mythology is ritual. Many rituals make reference to myths and are sometimes based directly on them. But it is difficult to determine whether a culture's myths developed before rituals or vice versa. Questions about this relationship between myth and ritual have spawned much discussion among Egyptologists and scholars of comparative religion in general. In ancient Egypt, the earliest evidence of religious practices predates written myths. Rituals early in Egyptian history included only a few motifs from myth. For these reasons, some scholars have argued that, in Egypt, rituals emerged before myths. But because the early evidence is so sparse, the question may never be resolved for certain.
In private rituals, which are often called "magical", the myth and the ritual are particularly closely tied. Many of the myth-like stories that appear in the rituals' texts are not found in other sources. Even the widespread motif of the goddess Isis rescuing her poisoned son Horus appears only in this type of text. The Egyptologist David Frankfurter argues that these rituals adapt basic mythic traditions to fit the specific ritual, creating elaborate new stories (called historiolas) based on myth. In contrast, J. F. Borghouts says of magical texts that there is "not a shred of evidence that a specific kind of 'unorthodox' mythology was coined... for this genre."
Much of Egyptian mythology consists of origin myths, explaining the beginnings of various elements of the world, including human institutions and natural phenomena. Kingship arises among the gods at the beginning of time and later passed to the human pharaohs; warfare originates when humans begin fighting each other after the sun god's withdrawal into the sky. Myths also describe the supposed beginnings of less fundamental traditions. In a minor mythic episode, Horus becomes angry with his mother Isis and cuts off her head. Isis replaces her lost head with that of a cow. This event explains why Isis was sometimes depicted with the horns of a cow as part of her headdress.
Some myths may have been inspired by historical events. The unification of Egypt under the pharaohs, at the end of the Predynastic Period around 3100 BC, made the king the focus of Egyptian religion, and thus the ideology of kingship became an important part of mythology. In the wake of unification, gods that were once local patron deities gained national importance, forming new relationships that linked the local deities into a unified national tradition. Geraldine Pinch suggests that early myths may have formed from these relationships. Egyptian sources link the mythical strife between the gods Horus and Set with a conflict between the regions of Upper and Lower Egypt, which may have happened in the late Predynastic era or in the Early Dynastic Period.
After these early times, most changes to mythology developed and adapted preexisting concepts rather than creating new ones, although there were exceptions. Many scholars have suggested that the myth of the sun god withdrawing into the sky, leaving humans to fight among themselves, was inspired by the breakdown of royal authority and national unity at the end of the Old Kingdom (c. 2686 BC – 2181 BC). In the New Kingdom (c. 1550–1070 BC), minor myths developed around deities like Yam and Anat who had been adopted from Canaanite religion. In contrast, during the Greek and Roman eras (332 BC–641 AD), Greco-Roman culture had little influence on Egyptian mythology. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_mythology |
Afghanistan | The country's natural resources include: coal, copper, iron ore, lithium, uranium, rare earth elements, chromite, gold, zinc, talc, barite, sulfur, lead, marble, precious and semi-precious stones, natural gas, and petroleum. In 2010, US and Afghan government officials estimated that untapped mineral deposits located in 2007 by the US Geological Survey are worth at least $1 trillion.
Michael E. O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution estimated that if Afghanistan generates about $10 billion per year from its mineral deposits, its gross national product would double and provide long-term funding for critical needs. The United States Geological Survey (USGS) estimated in 2006 that northern Afghanistan has an average 460 million m3 (2.9 billion bbl) of crude oil, 440 billion m3 (15.7 trillion cu ft) of natural gas, and 67 billion L (562 million US bbl) of natural gas liquids. In 2011, Afghanistan signed an oil exploration contract with China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) for the development of three oil fields along the Amu Darya river in the north.
The country has significant amounts of lithium, copper, gold, coal, iron ore, and other minerals. The Khanashin carbonatite in Helmand Province contains 1,000,000 tonnes (980,000 long tons; 1,100,000 short tons) of rare earth elements. In 2007, a 30-year lease was granted for the Aynak copper mine to the China Metallurgical Group for $3 billion, making it the biggest foreign investment and private business venture in Afghanistan's history. The state-run Steel Authority of India won the mining rights to develop the huge Hajigak iron ore deposit in central Afghanistan. Government officials estimate that 30% of the country's untapped mineral deposits are worth at least $1 trillion. One official asserted that "this will become the backbone of the Afghan economy" and a Pentagon memo stated that Afghanistan could become the "Saudi Arabia of lithium". The lithium reserves of 21 Mio. tons could amount to the ones of Bolivia, which is currently viewed as the country with the largest lithium reserves. Other larger deposits are the ones of bauxite and cobalt.
Access to biocapacity in Afghanistan is lower than world average. In 2016, Afghanistan had 0.43 global hectares of biocapacity per person within its territory, much less than the world average of 1.6 global hectares per person. In 2016 Afghanistan used 0.73 global hectares of biocapacity per person—their ecological footprint of consumption. This means they use just under double as much biocapacity as Afghanistan contains. As a result, Afghanistan is running a biocapacity deficit.
In September 2023, the Taliban signed mining contracts worth $6.5 billion, with extractions based on gold, iron, lead, and zinc in the provinces of Herat, Ghor, Logar, and Takhar. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghanistan |
Hasan ibn Ali | Veccia Vaglieri finds certain variants of the treaty impossible to reconcile. She lists several conditions in the early sources and questions their veracity, including an annual payment of one or two million dirhams to Hasan, a single payment of five million dirhams from the treasury of Kufa, annual revenues from variously named districts in Persia, succession of Hasan to Mu'awiya or a council (shura) after Mu'awiya, and preference for the Banu Hashim over the Banu Umayyad in pensions. Another condition was that Mu'awiya should end the ritual cursing of Ali in mosques, writes Mavani.
Jafri similarly notes that the terms are recorded differently and ambiguously by al-Tabari, Dinawari, Ibn Abd al-Barr, and Ibn al-Athir, while al-Ya'qubi and al-Mas'udi (d. 956) are silent about them. In particular, Jafri finds the timing of Mu'awiya's carte blanche problematic in al-Tabari's account. Al-Tabari also mentions a single payment of five million dirhams to Hasan from the treasury of Kufa, which Jafri rejects because the treasury of Kufa was already in Hasan's possession at the time. He adds that Ali regularly emptied the treasury and distributed the funds among the public, and this is also reported by Veccia Vaglieri. Jafri then argues that the most comprehensive account is the one given by Ahmad ibn A'tham, probably taken from al-Mada'ini, who recorded the terms in two parts. The first part is the conditions proposed by Abd Allah ibn Nawfal, who negotiated on Hasan's behalf with Mu'awiya in Maskin. The second part is what Hasan stipulated in carte blanche. These two sets of conditions together encompass all the conditions scattered in the early sources.
Jafri thus concludes that Hasan's final conditions in carte blanche were that Mu'awiya should act according to the Quran, sunna, and the conduct of the Rashidun caliphs, that the people should remain safe, and that the successor to Mu'awiya should be appointed by a council. These conditions are echoed by Madelung, who adds that Hasan made no financial stipulations in his peace proposal and Mu'awiya consequently made no payments to him, contrary to the "Umayyad propaganda" reflected in the account of al-Zuhri, quoted by al-Tabari. Since Ali and his house rejected the conduct of Abu Bakr and Umar in the shura after Umar in 23/644, Jafri believes that the clause about following the Rashidun caliphs was inserted by later Sunni authors. That Mu'awiya agreed to an amnesty for the supporters of Ali indicates that the revenge for Uthman was a pretext for him to seize the caliphate, according to Jafri. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasan_ibn_Ali |
Middle Ages | Charlemagne continued the Frankish tradition of dividing his empire between his sons, but only one son – Louis the Pious (r. 814–40) – was still alive by 813. Louis's reign was marked by divisions of the empire among his sons and civil wars between various alliances of father and sons. Three years after his death, his three surviving sons divided the empire among themselves in the Treaty of Verdun. A kingdom between the Rhine and Rhone rivers was created for Lothair I (r. 817–55) to go with his lands in Italy, and his imperial title was recognised. Louis the German (r. 843–76) controlled the eastern lands in modern-day Germany. Charles the Bald (r. 843–77) received the western Frankish lands making up most of modern-day France. Charlemagne's grandsons and great-grandsons divided their kingdoms among their descendants, eventually destroying all internal cohesion.
There was a brief reunion of the empire by Charles the Fat in 884, although its units retained separate administrations. By his death, early in 888, the Carolingians were close to extinction; non-dynastic claimants assumed power in most of the successor states, such as the Parisian count Odo in Francia (r. 888–98). In the eastern lands, the dynasty ended with the death of Louis the Child (r. 899–911) and the selection of the Franconian duke Conrad I (r. 911–18) as king. The dynasty was restored in West Francia in 898 and 936, but the last Carolingians could not control the aristocracy. In 987, the dynasty was replaced with the crowning of powerful aristocrat Hugh Capet (r. 987–96) as king.
Frankish culture and the Carolingian methods of state administration had a significant impact on neighboring peoples. Frankish threat triggered the formation of new states along the empire's eastern frontier: Bohemia, Moravia, and Croatia. The breakup of the Carolingian Empire was accompanied by invasions, migrations, and raids by external foes. The Atlantic and northern shores were harassed by the Vikings, who also raided the British Isles and settled there. In 911, the Viking chieftain Rollo (d. c. 931) received permission from the Frankish king Charles the Simple (r. 898–922) to settle in present-day Normandy. The eastern parts of the Frankish kingdoms, especially Germany and Italy, were under continual Magyar assault until the invaders were defeated at the Battle of Lechfeld in 955. In the Mediterranean, Arab pirates launched regular raids against Italy and southern France; the Aghlabids conquered Sicily, and the Umayyads of Al-Andalus annexed the Balearic Islands. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Ages |
Berber carpet | Modern industrialized Berber carpets are distinguished by a loop pile construction type that gives a similar appearance to the distinct knot of traditionally woven Berber carpets. The modern carpets usually contain small flecks of dark colour on lighter shades of background colours resembling a natural undyed version of the traditional carpets. They generally consist of a plain colour mix with no pattern, and are relatively cheap and durable. Popular for areas with significantly heavy use such as offices. The distinctive knot texture and appearance of traditional hand-woven Berber carpets today are generally woven in brightly coloured designs that are different from other oriental rugs.
Handmade and usually homemade Berber carpets are still an active industry in many rural areas of Berber countries. Many Berber families earn their primary income from building-up carpets manually and selling them in local markets, merchants and tourists. Traditional Berber carpets differ from modern mass-produced Berber carpets that are usually found in industrialized markets. They often employ cultural designs and are typically made of natural materials
Today, there are numerous types of modern Berber carpet made from a wide variety of materials, Nylon, Olefin fibre and wool are the most frequently used materials. Tunisian Berber carpets and rugs, usually called "Mergoum", which still preserve techniques inherited from ancestral weaving methods. Tunisian authorities are still controlling every piece to guarantee quality and that 'Berber' spirit in designs, patterns and symbols knotted so only wool is permitted with a total ban of any synthetic material, then each rug or carpet is sealed with a red wax sign (of Tunisian handicrafts authorities).
In other countries, Olefin is the most frequently used and most affordable material, and carpets with blends of the different materials are also available.
Berber carpet is highly durable and is often found in offices, schools, and other high traffic areas. It is stain resistant as well, and is generally more affordable than thicker plush carpets. To care about it is recommended by most professionals that Moroccan Olefin Berber should be cleaned using a low-moisture or dry cleaning process. Traditional steam cleaning with high alkaline detergents can cause potential pH burns in the olefin. These appear as large yellow or brown splotches. Yellow or brown spots also may be tannin bleed from the sugars in natural fibre carpets that are drawn to the top by improper drying usually caused by overwetting. There are carpet chemicals that can remove most of this yellowing or browning but they are very expensive, and it would be better to not get the yellowing or browning. A better, but more difficult, method may be to dry the carpet from the bottom. This method would generally require lifting up some of the carpet to install a carpet fan under the carpet, and using hot air, not just room temperature air. Regrettably, many of these stains can be permanent if not corrected immediately by a professional carpet cleaner. As with all carpets, Berber should be cleaned every 6 to 12 months to prevent permanent wear patterns. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berber_carpet |
Equatorial Guinea | Spain had not occupied the large area in the Bight of Biafra to which it had right by treaty, and the French had busily expanded their occupation at the expense of the territory claimed by Spain. Madrid only partly backed the explorations of men like Manuel Iradier who had signed treaties in the interior as far as Gabon and Cameroon, leaving much of the land out of "effective occupation" as demanded by the terms of the 1885 Berlin Conference. More important events such as the conflict in Cuba and the eventual Spanish–American War kept Madrid busy at an inopportune moment. Minimal government backing for mainland annexation came as a result of public opinion and a need for labour on Fernando Pó.
The eventual treaty of Paris in 1900 left Spain with the continental enclave of Río Muni, a mere 26,000 km2 out of the 300,000 stretching east to the Ubangi river which the Spaniards had initially claimed. The tiny enclave was far smaller than what the Spaniards had considered themselves rightfully entitled to under their claims and the Treaty of El Pardo. The humiliation of the Franco-Spanish negotiations, combined with the disaster in Cuba led to the head of the Spanish negotiating team, Pedro Gover y Tovar committing suicide on the voyage home on 21 October 1901. Iradier himself died in despair in 1911, and it would be decades before his achievements would be recognised by Spanish popular opinion when the port of Cogo was renamed Puerto Iradier in his honour.
The opening years of the twentieth century saw a new generation of Spanish immigrants. Land regulations issued in 1904–1905 favoured Spaniards, and most of the later big planters arrived from Spain after that. An agreement made with Liberia in 1914 to import cheap labor greatly favoured wealthy men with ready access to the state, and the shift in labor supplies from Liberia to Río Muni increased this advantage. Due to malpractice however, the Liberian government eventually ended the treaty after embarrassing revelations about the state of Liberian workers on Fernando Pó in the Christy Report which brought down the country's president Charles D. B. King in 1930.
The greatest constraint to economic development was a chronic shortage of labour. Pushed into the interior of the island and decimated by alcohol addiction, venereal disease, smallpox, and sleeping sickness, the indigenous Bubi population of Bioko refused to work on plantations. Working their own small cocoa farms gave them a considerable degree of autonomy.
By the late nineteenth century, the Bubi were protected from the demands of the planters by Spanish Claretian missionaries, who were very influential in the colony and eventually organised the Bubi into little mission theocracies reminiscent of the famous Jesuit reductions in Paraguay. Catholic penetration was furthered by two small insurrections in 1898 and 1910 protesting conscription of forced labour for the plantations. The Bubi were disarmed in 1917, and left dependent on the missionaries. Serious labour shortages were temporarily solved by a massive influx of refugees from German Kamerun, along with thousands of white German soldiers who stayed on the island for several years.
Between 1926 and 1959 Bioko and Río Muni were united as the colony of Spanish Guinea. The economy was based on large cacao and coffee plantations and logging concessions and the workforce was mostly immigrant contract labour from Liberia, Nigeria, and Cameroun. Between 1914 and 1930, an estimated 10,000 Liberians went to Fernando Po under a labour treaty that was stopped altogether in 1930.
With Liberian workers no longer available, planters of Fernando Po turned to Río Muni. Campaigns were mounted to subdue the Fang people in the 1920s, at the time that Liberia was beginning to cut back on recruitment. There were garrisons of the colonial guard throughout the enclave by 1926, and the whole colony was considered 'pacified' by 1929.
The Spanish Civil War had a major impact on the colony. A group of 150 Spanish whites, including the Governor-General and Vice-Governor-General of Río Muni, created a socialist party called the Popular Front in the enclave which served to oppose the interests of the Fernando Pó plantation owners. When the War broke out Francisco Franco ordered Nationalist forces based in the Canaries to ensure control over Equatorial Guinea. In September 1936 Nationalist forces backed by Falangists from Fernando Pó, similarly to what happened in Spain proper, took control of Río Muni, which under Governor-General Luiz Sanchez Guerra Saez and his deputy Porcel had backed the Republican government. By November the Popular Front and its supporters had been defeated and Equatorial Guinea secured for Franco. The commander in charge of the occupation, Juan Fontán Lobé, was appointed Governor-General by Franco and began to exert more effective Spanish control over the enclave interior.
Río Muni had a small population, officially a little over 100,000 in the 1930s, and escape across the frontiers into Cameroun or Gabon was very easy. Also, the timber companies needed increasing numbers of workers, and the spread of coffee cultivation offered an alternative means of paying taxes. Fernando Pó thus continued to suffer from labour shortages. The French only briefly permitted recruitment in Cameroun, and the main source of labour came to be Igbo smuggled in canoes from Calabar in Nigeria. This resolution to the worker shortage allowed Fernando Pó to become one of Africa's most productive agricultural areas after the Second World War. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equatorial_Guinea |
Córdoba, Spain | Under rule of the Banu Yahwar, Cordobese power did not extend far from the city, as other independent polities emerged in the rest of the former caliphate. An estimation of 65,000 inhabitants has been proposed for 11th-century Córdoba.
In 1070, forces from the Abbadid Taifa of Seville entered Córdoba to help in the defence of the city, which had been besieged by al-Mamun of Toledo, ruler of Toledo, yet they took control and expelled the last ruler of the taifa of Córdoba, Abd-Al Malik, forcing him to exile. Al-Mamun did not cease in his efforts to take the city, and making use of a Sevillian renegade who murdered the Abbadid governor, he triumphantly entered the city on 15 February 1075, only to die there barely five months later, apparently poisoned.: 40 Córdoba was seized by force in March 1091 by the Almoravids. In 1121, the population revolted against the abuses of the Almoravid governor.
Sworn enemies of the Almoravid dynasty, the "Wolf King" Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Saʿd ibn Mardanīsh and his stepfather ibn Hamušk allied with Alfonso VIII of Castile and laid siege to Córdoba by 1158–1160, ravaging the surroundings but failing to take the city.
Almohad caliph Abdallah al-Adil appointed Al-Bayyasi (brother of Zayd Abu Zayd) as governor of Córdoba in 1224, only to see the later became independent from Caliphal rule. Al-Bayyasi asked Ferdinand III of Castile for help and Córdoba revolted against him. Years later, in 1229, the city submitted to the authority of Ibn Hud, disavowing him in 1233, joining instead the territories under Muhammad Ibn al-Aḥmar, ruler of Arjona and soon-to-be emir of Granada.
Ferdinand III entered the city on 29 June 1236, following a siege of several months. According to Arab sources, Córdoba fell on 23 Shawwal 633 (that is, on 30 June 1236, a day later than Christian tradition). Upon the city's conquest the mosque was converted into a Catholic cathedral dedicated to the Virgin Mary (Santa Maria). This was also followed by the return to Santiago de Compostela of the church bells that had been looted by Almanzor and moved to Córdoba by Christian war prisoners in the late 10th century. Ferdinand III granted the city a fuero in 1241; it was based on the Liber Iudiciorum and in the customs of Toledo, yet formulated in an original way. Unlike the case of other kingdoms of the Crown of Castile, the wider Kingdom of Córdoba distinctly lacked realengo (royal demesne) council towns other than the capital city itself. In addition, the military orders had a comparatively lesser presence across the realm. The city was divided into 14 colaciones, and numerous new church buildings were added.
By the end of the 13th century, the land belonging to the council of Córdoba peaked at about 12,000 km2. It progressively reduced upon creation of new lordships, amounting to about 9,000 km2 by the end of the middle ages.
The city's surrounding countryside was raided during the 1277–78 Marinid expedition in the Guadalquivir valley. In 1282, in the context of the problematic succession of Alfonso X of Castile, an army formed by the latter's supporters as well as Marinid forces laid siege to the city (where prince Sancho was) for 21 days. The city council had indeed joined a newly created brotherhood in 1282 together with other councils of the Upper Guadalquivir defending Sancho's dynastic rights against Alfonso's regal authoritarianism.
Many decades after during the Third Siege of Gibraltar in 1333, a diversionary Granadian army raided the countryside of Cordoba and encamped on the far side of the Roman Bridge of Cordoba. However the diversionary army had to return to Gibraltar to help their Marinid counterparts so no further action was taken. In 1368, during the Castilian Civil War, the city, loyal to the Trastámara side, was attacked by forces supporting of Peter I, with Granadan backing. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%C3%B3rdoba,_Spain |
BP | Helge Lund succeeded Carl-Henric Svanberg on 1 January 2019 as chairman of BP Plc board of directors, and Bernard Looney succeeded Bob Dudley on 5 February 2020 as chief executive. Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, BP claimed that it would "accelerate the transition to a lower carbon economy and energy system" after announcing that the company had to write down $17.5 billion for the second quarter of 2020.
On 29 June 2020, BP sold its petrochemicals unit to Ineos for $5 billion. The business was focused on aromatics and acetyls. It had interests in 14 plants in Asia, Europe and the U.S., and achieved production of 9.7 million metric tons in 2019. On 30 June 2020, BP sold all its Alaska upstream operations and interests, including interests in Prudhoe Bay Oil Field, to Hilcorp for $5.6 billion. On 14 December 2020, it sold its 49% stake in the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System to Harvest Alaska.
In September 2020, BP formed a partnership with Equinor to develop offshore wind and announced it will acquire 50% non-operating stake in the Empire Wind off New York and Beacon Wind off Massachusetts offshore wind farms. The deal is expected to be completed at the first half of 2021. In December 2020, BP acquired a majority stake in Finite Carbon, the largest forest carbon offsets developer in the United States.
In response to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, BP announced that it would sell its 19.75% stake in Rosneft, although no timeline was announced. At the time of BP's decision, Rosneft's activities accounted for around half of BP's oil and gas reserves and a third of its production. BP's decision came after the British government expressed concern about BP's involvement in Russia. However, BP remained a Rosneft shareholder throughout the whole 2022 year, which caused some criticism from the Ukrainian president's office.
In October 2022, BP announced that it would be acquiring Archaea Energy Inc., a renewable natural gas producer, for $4.1 billion. In December 2022, it was announced BP had completed the acquisition of Archaea Energy Inc. for $3.3 billion. In November 2022, the company announced a large increase in profit for the period from July to September due to the high fuel prices caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
In February 2023, BP reported record annual profits, on a replacement cost basis, for the year 2022. On that basis, 2022 profits were more than double than in 2021, and they were also the biggest profits in the whole 114-year long history of BP.
After 10 years of force majeure, BP, Eni and Sonatrach resumed exploration in their blocks in the Ghadames Basin (A-B) and offshore Block C in August 2023, continuing their contract obligations.
BP increased its dividend by 10% year-on-year in early 2024 and accelerated share buybacks. It has already announced $1.75 billion before reporting first quarter results and intends to announce a $3.5 billion share buyback in the first half of the year.
Murray Auchincloss became CEO in January 2024.
In June 2024, BP announced the acquisition of Bunge Bioenergia from Bunge Global for US$1.4 billion. The purchase will increase BP's ethanol production to 50,000 barrels per day. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BP |
Ash'arism | The Ashʿarī school of Islamic theology holds that:
God is all-powerful (omnipotent).
Good is what God commands—as revealed in the Quran and the ḥadīth—and is by definition just; evil is what God forbids and is likewise unjust. Right and wrong are in no way determined intuitively or naturally, they are not objective realities. (Divine command theory)
Because of Divine omnipotence, there are no "natural laws" (of things like thermodynamics or gravity), because such laws would put limitations on His actions. There are, however, Divine "customs", whereby "certain so-called 'effects'" usually follow certain "causes" in the natural world.
Also because of Divine power, all human acts—even the decision to raise a finger—are created by God. This had caused controversy earlier in Islamic history because human acts are what humans are judged for when being sent to heaven (jannah) or hell (jahannam). Ashʿaris reconciled the doctrines of free will, justice, and divine omnipotence, with their own doctrine of kasb ("acquisition"), by which human beings "acquire" responsibility for their actions, although these "actions are willed and created by God". Humans still possess free will (or, more accurately, freedom of intention) under this doctrine, although their freedom is limited to the power to decide between the given possibilities God has created. (This doctrine is now known in Western philosophy as occasionalism.)
The Quran is the uncreated word of God, that is, it was not created by God, but like God has always been. It can also be said to be created when it takes on a form in letters or sound.
The unique nature and attributes of God cannot be understood fully by human reason and the physical senses.
Reason is God-given and must be employed over the source of knowledge.
Intellectual inquiry is decreed by the Quran and the Islamic prophet Muhammad, therefore the interpretation (tafsīr) of the Quran and the ḥadīth should keep developing with the aid of older interpretations.
Only God knows the heart, who belongs to the faithful and who does not.
God has "absolute freedom" to "punish or reward as He wills", and so may forgive the sins of those in Hell.
Support of kalām (rationalistic Islamic theology). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ash%27arism |
Paul Bowles | In Paris, Bowles became a part of Gertrude Stein's literary and artistic circle. On her advice, he made his first visit to Tangier with Aaron Copland in the summer of 1931. They took a house on the mountain above Tangier Bay. Bowles later made Morocco his full-time home, and it inspired many of his short stories. From Tangier he returned to Berlin, where he met British writers Stephen Spender and Christopher Isherwood. (Isherwood was reportedly so taken with him that he named a character Sally Bowles in his novel after him.) The next year, Bowles returned to North Africa, traveling through other parts of Morocco, the Sahara, Algeria, and Tunisia.
In 1937, Bowles returned to New York. Over the next decade, he established a solid reputation as a composer, collaborating with Orson Welles, Tennessee Williams, and others on music for stage productions, as well as orchestral pieces.
In 1938, he married Jane Auer, an author and playwright. It was an unconventional marriage; their intimate relationships were reportedly with people of their own sex, but the couple maintained close personal ties with each other. During this time the couple joined the Communist Party of USA but soon left the organization after Bowles was ejected from the party.
Bowles has frequently been featured in anthologies as a gay writer, although he regarded such categories as both absurd and irrelevant. After a brief sojourn in France, the couple were prominent among the literary figures of New York throughout the 1940s. They briefly lived in February House in late 1939, using burlesque dancer Gypsy Rose Lee's room while she was performing in Chicago, but clashed with Benjamin Britten over use of the piano for composing, and other housemates over their noisy bedroom fantasies. Bowles also worked under Virgil Thomson as a music critic at the New York Herald Tribune. His zarzuela, The Wind Remains, based on a poem by Federico García Lorca, was performed in 1943 with choreography by Merce Cunningham and conducted by Leonard Bernstein. His translation of Jean-Paul Sartre's play Huis Clos (No Exit), directed by John Huston, won a Drama Critic's Award in 1943.
In 1945, Bowles began writing prose again, beginning with a few short stories including "A Distant Episode". His wife Jane, he said, was the main influence upon his taking up fiction as an adult, when she published her first novel Two Serious Ladies (1943). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Bowles |
War against the Islamic State | On 12 August 2014, the United Kingdom deployed six Tornado GR4 strike aircraft to RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus to help coordinate its humanitarian aid airdrops in Northern Iraq. On 16 August 2014, following the completion of humanitarian aid airdrops, the Tornado GR4s, along with an RC-135 Rivet Joint signals intelligence aircraft, were re-tasked to provide aerial surveillance to coalition forces.
In early September 2014, British Prime Minister David Cameron began voicing his support for British airstrikes against ISIL in Iraq. Weeks later, Parliament was recalled and Members debated whether or not to authorise airstrikes. The seven-hour debate resulted in overwhelming support for airstrikes, with 524 votes in favour and 43 votes against.
On 27 September 2014, the first armed sortie took place over Iraq. A pair of Tornado GR4s left Cyprus armed with laser-guided bombs, supported by a Voyager aerial refueling tanker. Ultimately, the aircraft did not locate any targets requiring immediate air attack and so gathered intelligence for coalition forces instead. The Royal Air Force (RAF) conducted its first airstrike on 30 September 2014. A pair of Tornado GR4s engaged an ISIL heavy weapon position and an armed pickup truck using a laser-guided bomb and air-to-surface missile.
On 3 October 2014, the RAF deployed two additional Tornado aircraft to bring its deployed fleet up to eight aircraft. During the same month, it was also confirmed that the Royal Navy was involved in anti-ISIL operations in a support role, with air defence destroyer HMS Defender providing escort to U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush as she launched aircraft into Iraq and Syria. Nick Clegg, then Deputy Prime Minister, also disclosed during an interview that there was a nuclear attack submarine armed with Tomahawk cruise missiles deployed to the region.
On 16 October 2014, the Ministry of Defence announced it would deploy MQ-9 Reaper drones to assist with surveillance, although, Defence Secretary Michael Fallon stated that the drones could also conduct airstrikes if required. The first Reaper drone strike occurred weeks later in Bayji, north of Baghdad, against a group of ISIL militants which had been laying improvised explosive devices. As of September 2015, a year after operations first began, more than 330 ISIL fighters had been killed by British airstrikes in Iraq, without any civilian casualties.
In addition to operations over Iraq, the United Kingdom had also intervened in Syria by 21 October 2014, making it the first Western country, other than the United States, to do so. However, British aircraft were not permitted to carrying out airstrikes until Parliament had voted to give its authorization. Despite this, the Royal Air Force carried out a drone strike in Syria on 21 August 2015, against two UK-born ISIL fighters which had been plotting attacks against the United Kingdom. Prime Minister David Cameron insisted that it was a lawful act of self-defense.
Since the authorization of airstrikes in Iraq, Prime Minister David Cameron had made persistent calls for airstrikes in Syria; however, he affirmed that no airstrikes would take place until after a vote in Parliament. On 2 December 2015, following the November 2015 Paris attacks and United Nations Security Council Resolution 2249, David Cameron opened a ten-hour debate in Parliament on Syrian airstrikes, which ended with a final vote. 397 MPs voted in favour of airstrikes, whilst 223 voted against. Airstrikes commenced two hours after the vote, taking place in eastern Syria against the ISIL-held Oman oilfield. Defence Secretary Michael Fallon also subsequently announced that the UK's "strike force" based in Cyprus would double, with the addition of six Eurofighter Typhoons and two Tornado GR4s.
In addition to airstrikes, the United Kingdom has also made significant contributions towards the coalition's ISTAR capabilities. The Royal Air Force has deployed Sentinel R1, Sentry AEW1, RC-135W Rivet Joint and Shadow R1 aircraft to gather surveillance, in addition to Tornado GR4 and MQ-9 Reaper strike aircraft. In September 2015, the United Kingdom was responsible for a third of all coalition surveillance flights over Iraq and Syria, with the Tornado GR4s RAPTOR reconnaissance pod accounting for 60% of the coalition's entire tactical reconnaissance in Iraq alone.
In December 2016, the Telegraph reported that Secretary of State for Defence Sir Michael Fallon said "The British Army have trained over 31,000 Iraqi and Peshmerga who are taking the fight to Daesh" It was also reported that the Royal Air Force is operating at its most intense for 25 years in a single theatre of operation which far outstripped the UK involvement in the Iraq War and the War in Afghanistan (2001–2014), with RAF jets having dropped 11 times more bombs on Syria and Iraq in the preceding 12 months than they had in the busiest year of action in Afghanistan a decade previously. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_against_the_Islamic_State |
Tigray People's Liberation Front | After the Tigray War significantly reshaped the region's political landscape, the TPLF faced deepening divisions following the signing of the Pretoria Agreement. These divisions emerged between two factions: a 'hardline' group led by TPLF chairman Debretsion Gebremichael and a 'conciliatory' group led by deputy chairperson Getachew Reda. The power struggle between the Debretsion and Getachew has raised concerns of the creation of a volatile political environment that could reignite the civil war. The TPLF also suffers a crisis of legitimacy among the Tigrayan population following the war. In July 2024, the TPLF released a statement announcing it faced an unprecedented 'severe test' that has brought the party to the verge of disintegration. The statement accused senior leaders of putting their personal interests above the party, thus threatening its existence.
During August 2024, the National Election Board of Ethiopia (NEBE) rejected the TPLF's request to reinstate its pre-war legal status. On 12 August, chairman Debretsion declared that NEBE's decision undermined the TPLF's 50-year legacy and violated the Pretoria deal which had ended the Tigray War during November 2022. Following the decision, the federal government announced that the issue of TPLF registration and legality had been resolved. NEBE also warned against the convening a congress without the election boards approval or monitoring.
On 13 August 2024, the TPLF began its controversial 14th party congress in Mekelle, ignoring the NEBE's warning. The last congress had been held in September 2018. The general assembly comes amid escalating political infighting within the TPLF and has been boycotted by 14 members of the party's central committee, including deputy chair Getachew. Getachew described the congress as, “illegal movements by a group that does not represent the TPLF" several days before it was due to be held. Ethiopian PM Abiy Ahmed warned that the TPLF could find itself in a war if it went ahead with holding the congress. As the six day long meeting commenced on 13 August, an Ethiopian government minister accused the TPLF of “practically nullifying” the Pretoria agreement and threatening the relative peace in Tigray since the end of the conflict. During opening remarks of the congress Debretsion stated that the ongoing congress was unprecedented and warned that the party's situation had “gone from bad to worse”. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tigray_People%27s_Liberation_Front |
Saffron | The saffron crocus, unknown in the wild, probably descends from Crocus cartwrightianus. It is a triploid that is "self-incompatible" and male sterile; it undergoes aberrant meiosis and is hence incapable of independent sexual reproduction—all propagation is by vegetative multiplication via manual "divide-and-set" of a starter clone or by interspecific hybridisation.
Crocus sativus thrives in the Mediterranean maquis, an ecotype superficially resembling the North American chaparral, and similar climates where hot and dry summer breezes sweep semi-arid lands. It can nonetheless survive cold winters, tolerating frosts as low as −10 °C (14 °F) and short periods of snow cover. Some reports suggest saffron can tolerate an air temperature range from −22 to 40 °C. Irrigation is required if grown outside of moist environments such as Kashmir, where annual rainfall averages 1,000–1,500 mm (40–60 in); saffron-growing regions in Greece (500 mm or 20 in annually) and Spain (400 mm or 16 in) are far drier than the main cultivating Iranian regions. What makes this possible is the timing of the local wet seasons; generous spring rains and drier summers are optimal. Rain immediately preceding flowering boosts saffron yields; rainy or cold weather during flowering promotes disease and reduces yields. Persistently damp and hot conditions harm the crops, and rabbits, rats, and birds cause damage by digging up corms. Nematodes, leaf rusts, and corm rot pose other threats. Yet Bacillus subtilis inoculation may provide some benefit to growers by speeding corm growth and increasing stigma biomass yield.
The plants fare poorly in shady conditions; they grow best in full sunlight. Fields that slope towards the sunlight are optimal (i.e., south-sloping in the Northern Hemisphere). Planting is mostly done in June in the Northern Hemisphere, where corms are lodged 7–15 cm (3–6 in) deep; its roots, stems, and leaves can develop between October and February. Planting depth and corm spacing, in concert with climate, are critical factors in determining yields. Mother corms planted deeper yield higher-quality saffron, though they form fewer flower buds and daughter corms. Italian growers optimise thread yield by planting 15 cm (6 in) deep and in rows 2–3 cm (3⁄4–1+1⁄4 in) apart; depths of 8–10 cm (3–4 in) optimise flower and corm production. Greek, Moroccan, and Spanish growers employ distinct depths and spacings that suit their locales.
C. sativus prefers friable, loose, low-density, well-watered, and well-drained clay-calcareous soils with high organic content. Traditional raised beds promote good drainage. Soil organic content was historically boosted via application of some 20–30 tonnes per hectare (9–13 short tons per acre) of manure. Afterwards, and with no further manure application, corms were planted. After a period of dormancy through the summer, the corms send up their narrow leaves and begin to bud in early autumn. Only in mid-autumn do they flower. Harvests are by necessity a speedy affair: after blossoming at dawn, flowers quickly wilt as the day passes. All plants bloom within a window of one or two weeks. Stigmas are dried quickly upon extraction and (preferably) sealed in airtight containers. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saffron |
Mandate for Palestine | Discussions about the assignment of the region's control began immediately after the war ended and continued at the Paris Peace Conference and the February 1920 Conference of London, and the assignment was made at the April 1920 San Remo conference. The Allied Supreme Council granted the mandates for Palestine and Mesopotamia to Britain, and those for Syria and Lebanon to France.
In anticipation of the Peace Conference, the British devised a "Sharifian Solution" to "[make] straight all the tangle" of their various wartime commitments. This proposed that three sons of Sharif Hussein – who had since become King of the Hejaz, and his sons emirs (princes) – would be installed as kings of newly created countries across the region agreed between McMahon and Hussein in 1915. The Hashemite delegation to the Paris Peace Conference, led by Hussein's third son Emir Faisal, had been invited by the British to represent the Arabs at the conference; they had wanted Palestine to be part of the proposed Arab state, and later modified this request to an Arab state under a British mandate. The delegation made two initial statements to the peace conference. The 1 January 1919 memorandum referred to the goal of "unit[ing] the Arabs eventually into one nation", defining the Arab regions as "from a line Alexandretta – Persia southward to the Indian Ocean". The 29 January memorandum stipulated that "from the line Alexandretta – Diarbekr southward to the Indian Ocean" (with the boundaries of any new states) were "matters for arrangement between us, after the wishes of their respective inhabitants have been ascertained", in a reference to Woodrow Wilson's policy of self-determination. In his 6 February 1919 presentation to the Paris Peace Conference, Faisal (speaking on behalf of King Hussein) asked for Arab independence or at least the right to choose the mandatory. The Hashemites had fought with the British during the war, and received an annual subsidy from Britain; according to the confidential appendix to the August 1919 King-Crane Commission report, "the French resent the payment by the English to the Emir Faisal of a large monthly subsidy, which they claim covers a multitude of bribes, and enables the British to stand off and show clean hands while Arab agents do dirty work in their interest."
The World Zionist Organization delegation to the Peace Conference – led by Chaim Weizmann, who had been the driving force behind the Balfour Declaration – also asked for a British mandate, asserting the "historic title of the Jewish people to Palestine". The confidential appendix to the King-Crane Commission report noted that "The Jews are distinctly for Britain as mandatory power, because of the Balfour declaration." The Zionists met with Faisal two weeks before the start of the conference in order to resolve their differences; the resulting Faisal–Weizmann Agreement was signed on 3 January 1919. Together with letter written by T. E. Lawrence in Faisal's name to Felix Frankfurter in March 1919, the agreement was used by the Zionist delegation to argue that their plans for Palestine had prior Arab approval; however, the Zionists omitted Faisal's handwritten caveat that the agreement was conditional on Palestine being within the area of Arab independence.
The French privately ceded Palestine and Mosul to the British in a December 1918 amendment to the Sykes–Picot Agreement; the amendment was finalised at a meeting in Deauville in September 1919. Matters were confirmed at the San Remo conference, which formally assigned the mandate for Palestine to the United Kingdom under Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations. Although France required the continuation of its religious protectorate in Palestine, Italy and Great Britain opposed it. France lost the religious protectorate but, thanks to the Holy See, continued to enjoy liturgical honors in Mandatory Palestine until 1924 (when the honours were abolished). As Weizmann reported to his WZO colleagues in London in May 1920, the boundaries of the mandated territories were unspecified at San Remo and would "be determined by the Principal Allied Powers" at a later stage. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandate_for_Palestine |
Indian maritime history | The region around the Indus river began to show visible increase in both the length and the frequency of maritime voyages by 3000 BCE. Optimum conditions for viable long-distance voyages existed in this region by 2900 BCE. Mesopotamian inscriptions indicate that Indian traders from the Indus valley—carrying copper, hardwoods, ivory, pearls, carnelian, and gold—were active in Mesopotamia during the reign of Sargon of Akkad (c. 2300 BCE). Gosch & Stearns write on the Indus Valley's pre-modern maritime travel: Evidence exists that Harappans were bulk-shipping timber and special woods to Sumer on ships and luxury items such as lapis lazuli. The trade in lapis lazuli was carried out from northern Afghanistan over eastern Iran to Sumer but during the Mature Harappan period an Indus colony was established at Shortugai in Central Asia near the Badakshan mines and the lapis stones were brought overland to Lothal in Gujarat and shipped to Oman, Bahrain and Mesopotamia.
Archaeological research at sites in Mesopotamia, Bahrain, and Oman has led to the recovery of artefacts traceable to the Indus Valley civilisation, confirming the information on the inscriptions. Among the most important of these objects are stamp seals carved in soapstone, stone weights, and colourful carnelian beads....Most of the trade between Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley was indirect. Shippers from both regions converged in Persian Gulf ports, especially on the island of Bahrain (known as Dilmun to the Sumerians). Numerous small Indus-style artefacts have been recovered at locations on Bahrain and further down the coast of the Arabian Peninsula in Oman. Stamp seals produced in Bahrain have been found at sites in Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley, strengthening the likelihood that the island may have acted as a redistribution point for goods coming from Mesopotamia and the Indus area....There are hints from the digs at Ur, a major Sumerian city-state on the Euphrates, that some Indus Valley merchants and artisans (bead makers) may have established communities in Mesopotamia.
The world's first dock at Lothal (2400 BCE) was located away from the main current to avoid deposition of silt. Modern oceanographers have observed that the Harappans must have possessed great knowledge relating to tides in order to build such a dock on the ever-shifting course of the Sabarmati, as well as exemplary hydrography and maritime engineering. This was the earliest known dock found in the world, equipped to berth and service ships. It is speculated that Lothal engineers studied tidal movements, and their effects on brick-built structures, since the walls are of kiln-burnt bricks. This knowledge also enabled them to select Lothal's location in the first place, as the Gulf of Khambhat has the highest tidal amplitude and ships can be sluiced through flow tides in the river estuary. The engineers built a trapezoidal structure, with north–south arms of average 21.8 metres (71.5 ft), and east–west arms of 37 metres (121 ft).
Excavations at Golbai Sasan in Odisha have shown a Neolithic culture dating to as early as ca. 2300 BC, followed by a Chalcolithic (copper age) culture and then an Iron Age culture starting around 900 BC. Tools found at this site indicate boat building, perhaps for coastal trade. Fish bones, fishing hooks, barbed spears and harpoons show that fishing was an important part of the economy. Some artefacts of the Chalcolithic period are similar to artefacts found in Vietnam, indicating possible contact with Indochina at a very early period.
Indians had already been trading with Egypt for a long time even before the conquest of Egypt by the Romans. At the end of 1st century BCE Indian products reached the Romans during the rule of Augustus, and the Roman historian Strabo mentions an increase in Roman trade with India following the Roman annexation of Egypt. Recent excavations at Berenike in Egypt have confirmed, there was a small community of Indian Buddhists at Alexandria, the greatest of all Roman ports. A large number of significant finds have been made providing evidence of the cargo from the Malabar Coast and the presence of Tamil people from South India and Jaffna being at this last outpost of the Roman Empire. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_maritime_history |
Pseudo-Geber | Islamic alchemy was held in high esteem by 13th century European alchemists, and the author adopted the name of an illustrious predecessor, as was usual practice at the time.
The authorship of Geber (Jabir ibn Hayyan) was first questioned in the late 19th century by the studies of Kopp, Hoefer, Berthelot, and Lippmann. The corpus is clearly influenced by medieval Islamic writers (especially by Abu Bakr al-Razi, and to a lesser extent, the eponymous Jabir).
The identity of the author remains uncertain.
He may have lived in Italy or Spain, or both. Some books in the Geber corpus may have been written by authors that post-date the author of the Summa Perfectionis, as most of the other books in the corpus are largely recapitulations of the Summa Perfectionis. Crosland (1962) refers to Geber as "a Latin author" while still emphasizing the identity of the author being "still in dispute".
William R. Newman has argued that the author of the Summa perfectionis may have been Paul of Taranto, a tentative identification which is often accepted as likely.
The estimated date for the first four books is 1310, and they could not date from much before that because no reference to the Summa Perfectionis is found anywhere in the world before or during the 13th century. For example, there is no mention in the 13th century writings of Albertus Magnus and Roger Bacon.
The degree of dependence of the corpus from actual Islamic sources is somewhat disputed:
Brown (1920) asserted that the pseudo-Geber Corpus contained "new and original facts" not known from Islamic alchemy, specifically mention of
nitric acid, aqua regia, oil of vitriol and silver nitrate. Already in the 1920s, Eric John Holmyard criticized the claim of pseudo-Geber being "new and original" compared to medieval Islamic alchemy, arguing for direct derivation from Islamic authors.
Holmyard later argued that the then-recent discovery of Jabir's The Book of Seventy diminished the weight of the argument of there being "no Arabic originals" corresponding to pseudo-Geber,
By 1957, Holmyard was willing to admit that "the general style of the works is too clear and systematic to find a close parallel in any of the known writings of the Jabirian corpus" and that they seemed to be "the product of an occidental rather than an oriental mind" while still asserting that the author must have been able to read Arabic and most likely worked in Moorish Spain.
With Brown (1920), Karpenko and Norris (2002) still assert that the first documented occurrence of aqua regia is in pseudo-Geber's De inventione veritatis. By contrast, Ahmad Y. Al-Hassan (2005) claimed that Islamic texts dated to before the 13th century, including the works of Jabir and Abu Bakr al-Razi, did in fact contain detailed descriptions of substances such as nitric acid, aqua regia, vitriol, and various nitrates,
and Al-Hassan in 2009 argued that the pseudo-Gerber Corpus was a direct translation of a work originally written in Arabic, pointing to a number of Arabic Jabirian manuscripts which already contain much of the theories and practices that Berthelot previously attributed to the Latin corpus. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudo-Geber |
Punic people | It is unclear when the Phoenicians began to seriously colonize North Africa. Writers in antiquity, such as Pliny the Elder, dated the beginning of the colonization efforts to the 12th and 11th centuries BC, as several legends describe interactions between Phoenician colonists and famous figures from the Trojan War, such as Aeneas. Archaeological evidence, on the other hand, generally implies that the colonies began in the 8th century BC as, barring a few exceptional sites, any material evidence of Phoenician habitation before this time period is lacking.
The Phoenician colonial system was motivated by economic opportunity, not expansionist ideology and, as such, the Phoenicians lacked the numbers or even the desire to establish an "empire" overseas. The colonies were therefore independent city-states, though most were relatively small, probably having a population of less than 1,000. Some colonies, such as Carthage, were able to grow much larger. Effectively establishing a monopoly on the continent's natural resources, the colonies' wealth exploded, which was compounded by an influx of Phoenician traders fleeing from increasing tributary obligations to foreign powers and trade interference.
Within a century, the population of Carthage rose to 30,000, meanwhile, the "mother city" of Tyre, once the economic and political capital of Phoenicia, began to lose its status in the seventh century BC. Phoenicia was eventually conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire, by which point Carthage had become the wealthiest and most powerful of all the Phoenician colonies. Around this time, a distinct culture began to emerge from the admixture of local customs with Phoenician traditions, which also gave rise to a nascent sense of national identity. Tyre's status and power continued to diminish under Neo-Assyrian, and subsequently Neo-Babylonian, vassalage, and by the sixth century BC, its voluntary submission to the Achaemenid Empire had severely circumscribed what little power it retained. Its status as the pre-eminent Phoenician city was then usurped by its rival city-state, Sidon – but Sidon too was under Persian subjugation, leading the way for Carthage to fill the power vacuum as the leading Phoenician political power. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punic_people |
Dole plc | In 1899, industrialist James Dole moved to Hawaii. James was the cousin of Sanford B. Dole, who had helped overthrow the Kingdom of Hawaii in 1893, and became the governor of Hawaii in 1898. Two years after James Dole's arrival, he formed the Hawaiian Pineapple Company (HPC). The HPC delivered its first shipment of canned pineapple in 1903. Early products of the Hawaiian Pineapple Company were not marketed under a particular brand name, often assuming the names of the distributors.: 150 In the early 20th century, pineapple was still relatively unknown, and James Dole and other growers mounted an awareness campaign in magazines in what the company now refers to as one of the first nationwide advertising campaigns in the United States. In 1927, the HPC began stamping its cans with the Dole brand name, with numbers to indicate the grade. These stamps ensured the Dole name would still be visible even if the label was changed by a distributor.: 154
The company made technological advances in the early decades of the 20th century in processing the fruit—most notably the Ginaca Machine, created in 1911—that made canning pineapple commercially viable. In 1922, Dole purchased the Hawaiian island Lanai and turned it into the largest pineapple plantation in the world. The same year, Castle & Cooke acquired 33% of the company via lease agreement. In 1927, the HPC began stamping its cans with the "Dole" brand.: 151, 154 By the end of the 1920s, the company grew more than 75% of all pineapples in the world. However, the Hawaiian Pineapple Company struggled to stay financially sound during the Great Depression and Castle & Cooke took control of it in 1932.: 149 The HPC was renamed the "Dole Company" and became a subsidiary of Castle & Cooke in 1961. Two years later, the company began expanding its fruit growing operations into southeast Asia, opening plantations and canneries in the Philippines and Thailand.
While the HPC was getting established, the tropical fruit trade was growing in Central and South America, primarily with the banana trade. One of the major players in that trade, the Standard Fruit and Steamship Company, was established in 1906 by the Vaccaro brothers and Salvador D'Antoni as Vaccaro Brothers and Company. However, the quartet had been making shipments of tropical fruit such as bananas and coconuts, as well as other items, since 1899.: 2, 4, 16 The firm grew rapidly in its early years, establishing a headquarters in La Ceiba, Honduras, purchasing housing and cargo ships, and building rail and telephone lines at its plantations.: 14,16 The company's rapid growth has been attributed to the destruction of property records in the early 20th century, leading the firm to take control of large swaths of land with the support of the Honduran government.: 145 In 1924, the firm went public as the Standard Fruit and Steamship Company.: 91-92 In the 1920s, as Panama disease was destroying crops of the Gros Michel banana, Standard Fruit began looking for other cultivars to grow, settling on the Cavendish banana. Switching to the Cavendish allowed Standard Fruit to become the largest banana producer in the world by the 1960s. Standard Fruit merged with Castle & Cooke in 1968.: 292-293
While these companies were forming in the United States, the McCanns expanded their operations in Ireland, opening a store in Dundalk in 1902. In the 1950s, the McCanns began consolidating with other companies in Ireland, creating United Fruit Importers and then Fruit Importers of Ireland, which became a publicly traded company. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dole_plc |
Raskamboni Movement | Alliance for the Reliberation of Somalia - Asmara wing (ARS-A) and JABISO militias, which were aligned with al-Shabaab in Hiiraan and Mogadishu refused to support the Ras Kamboni Brigades, meanwhile Muaskar Anole remained neutral. The fighting led to a split within the Ras Kamboni Brigades, with a faction led by Ahmed Madoobe fighting against al-Shabaab and a faction led by Hassan al-Turki siding with al-Shabaab.
The Battle of Kismayo was won by al-Shabaab, which then expelled Madobe's Ras Kamboni Brigades from the city. In the battles that followed, in November 2009, Madobe's forces were overpowered by al-Shabaab and its local allies. It was then forced to withdraw from the Lower Jubba region and most of southern Somalia. In February 2010, al-Turki's branch declared a merger with al-Shabaab.
On 20 December 2010, Hizbul Islam merged with al-Shabaab and the Raskamboni movement then allied with Ahlu Sunna Waljama'a and the Transitional Federal Government.
The Raskamboni engaged al-Shabab militiamen on March 13, 2011, in the village of Dif. The movement claimed to have destroyed a number of Al-Shabaab military vehicles in the fighting, which left at least five dead.
On April 3, 2011, the Raskamboni movement, in conjunction with Transitional Federal Government forces and the Kenyan Air Force, captured the border town Dhobley from Al-Shabab.
In July 2012, it was reported that they staged a rescue operation to free four kidnapped aid workers from the Norwegian Refugee Council.
In September 2012, a reconstituted Somali National Army assisted by AMISOM troops and Raskamboni militia reportedly re-captured Kismayo from Al-Shabaab insurgents during the Battle of Kismayo (2012).
In February 2014, Al-Shabaab militants launched a string of attacks in Kismayo targeting Raskamboni members, including an IED that tore through a vehicle carrying the group's members and killed several civilians. On 19 February, Raskamboni militants began an intensive search operation in the city after the group's security chief, Isse Kamboni, was shot dead by one of his bodyguards, a former Al-Shabaab member. According to eye-witnesses, Raskamboni subsequently started hunting down Al-Shabaab suspects. Many Raskomboni fighters were seen patrolling the streets, and more than 150 civilians were detained at the local police stations in connection with Isse's assassination. Seven civilian deaths were also reported during the clampdown with some accusing the militia of using the clampdown as an excuse to stifle dissent. Hundreds of elders and businessmen had earlier fled the city. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raskamboni_Movement |
2012–2013 Egyptian protests | On 8 July, Mohamed Morsi issued a decree calling back into session the dissolved parliament for 10 July 2012. Morsi's decree also called for new parliamentary elections to be held within 60 days of the adoption of a new constitution for the country, which was tentatively expected for late 2012. A constitutional assembly selected by the erstwhile parliament had been formed and had begun the work of drafting the constitution. The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) held an emergency meeting in response to the decree, but adjourned the meeting without making an announcement.
On 9 July, Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi's order to reconvene parliament was rejected by Egypt's Supreme Constitutional Court which said after meeting on 9 July 2012 that all its rulings and decisions, including its judgement that part of the election for parliament was unconstitutional and which led in return to the assembly's dissolution by the SCAF, are final, not subject to appeal and binding for all state institutions. With its ruling the court asserted that Morsi had no right to reconvene parliament after the court ordered it dissolved in June 2012. Though the constituent assembly tasked with drawing up Egypt's new constitution was functioning, after being selected by the dissolved parliament, the SCAF also gave itself the power to choose a new assembly if the current one ran into any problems according to Al Jazeera. In its 9 July statement the military council said its constitutional declaration which gave it broad powers "came as a result of the political, legal and constitutional circumstances that the country was facing" and added that the declaration "ensures the continuity of state institutions and the [military council] until a new constitution is drafted". The military said it was "confident" that all state institutions will respect constitutional declarations.
On 10 July, Egypt's parliament convened despite dissolution, but the session was adjourned by Speaker Saad al-Katatni after the members of parliament approved Katatni's proposal that the parliament seek legal advice from the Court of Cassation on how to implement the supreme court's ruling. Thousands gathered in Cairo in protest of a ruling by Egypt's Supreme Constitutional Court to freeze the decree issued by President Mohamed Morsi to reinstate the Islamist-led parliament. While the Supreme Constitutional Court ruled that Morsi did not have the right to reconstitute the body, it also threatened the new president with the equivalent of contempt of court if he continued to reject its decisions. Parliament asked Egypt's Court of Cassation to essentially overrule the aspect of the Supreme Constitutional Court's decision holding that the whole Parliament must be immediately dissolved because of flaws in the electoral system used to fill a third of the seats. The Administrative Court (whose function is the review of executive actions), besides the Supreme Constitutional Court (whose function is the review of statutes) and Court of Cassation (whose function is the handling of appeals of lower court rulings) one of the three highest Courts in Egypt, was also weighing that question and has said it would issue its own ruling on 17 July.
On 11 July, Egypt's President Mohamed Morsi declared he would seek dialogue with political forces and judicial authorities to resolve the row over the dissolved parliament. He also said that he would respect Egypt's Supreme Constitutional Court ruling that blocked his decision to call the nation's parliament back into session.
On 14 July, the parliament's request to examine Egypt's Supreme Constitutional Court ruling that dissolved the Islamist-led assembly was rebuffed by the Court of Cassation. Egypt's highest appeals court unanimously ruled on 14 July 2012 it had no jurisdiction over the implementation of the 14 June 2012 constitutional court ruling.
On 16 July, more than 20000 workers at Egypt's largest textiles manufacturing company, which saw major strikes in 2006 and 2008, began their first day of strikes demanding an increase in wages and more government investment in their sector.
On 19 July, the Administrative Judiciary Court of the State Council put on hold all appeals against the formulation of the Constituent Assembly, tasked with drafting a new constitution, until the court decided on 30 July 2012 on suits calling for a change of the judge presiding over the case. The court was also looking at a case filed against the supplementary constitutional decree released by the Supreme Council of Armed Forces days before President Mohamed Morsi's inauguration, and another against the president's decision to bring back the People's Assembly, parliament's lower house that SCAF dissolved after the Supreme Constitutional Court ruled the parliamentary elections law unconstitutional. The court ruled lack of jurisdiction on both cases and referred the latter back to the Supreme Constitutional Court. Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi ordered to release 572 people detained by the Egyptian military in the 2011 protests, and reduced the sentence of 16 others from life sentence to seven years in jail.
On 30 July, the Administrative Judiciary Court of the State Council ruled on 30 July to postpone the case calling for the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly to 24 September, giving the assembly enough time to complete the drafting of Egypt's new constitution. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012%E2%80%932013_Egyptian_protests |
Hellenistic-era warships | Lucien Basch (1989) "Le 'navire invaincu à neuf rangées de rameurs' de Pausanias (I, 29.1) et le 'Monument des Taureaux', à Delos", in TROPIS III, ed. H. Tzalas, Athens. ISBN 978-1-107-00133-6
Casson, Lionel (1991). The Ancient Mariners (2nd ed.). Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-01477-9.
Casson, Lionel (1995). Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 0-8018-5130-0.
Casson, Lionel (1994). "The Age of the Supergalleys". Ships and Seafaring in Ancient Times. University of Texas Press. ISBN 0-292-71162-X. Archived from the original on 2016-10-14. Retrieved 2019-09-07.
Coates, John F. (1995). "The Naval Architecture and Oar Systems of Ancient Galleys". In Morrison, John S.; Gardiner, Robert (eds.). The Age of the Galley: Mediterranean Oared Vessels Since Pre-Classical Times. London: Conway Maritime Press. pp. 127–141. ISBN 0-85177-554-3.
Ferreiro, Larrie D. (2010). "The Aristotelian Heritage in Early Naval Architecture, From the Venice Arsenal to the French Navy, 1500–1700". Theoria: An International Journal for Theory, History and Foundations of Science. 25 (2): 227–241. doi:10.1387/theoria.617. hdl:10810/39435. S2CID 170627252.
Foley, Vernon; Soedel, Werner (April 1981). "Ancient oared warships". Scientific American. 244 (4): 116–129. Bibcode:1981SciAm.244d.148F. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0481-148.
Goldsworthy, Adrian (2000). The Fall of Carthage: The Punic Wars 265–146 BC. Cassell. ISBN 0-304-36642-0.
Meijer, Fik (1986). A History of Seafaring in the Classical World. Croom and Helm. ISBN 0-312-00075-8.
J. S. Morrison and R. T. Williams, Greek Oared Ships: 900–322 BC, Cambridge University Press, 1968.
Morrison, John S.; Coates, John F. (1996). Greek and Roman Oared Warships. Oxford: Oxbow Books. ISBN 1-900188-07-4.
Morrison, John S. (1995). "Hellenistic Oared Warships 399-31 BC". In Morrison, John S.; Gardiner, Robert (eds.). The Age of the Galley: Mediterranean Oared Vessels Since Pre-Classical Times. London: Conway Maritime Press. pp. 66–77. ISBN 0-85177-554-3.
Murray, William (2012). The Age of Titans, the Rise and Fall of the Great Hellenistic Navies. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-538864-0.
Rankov, Boris (2013). "Ships and Shipsheds". Shipsheds of the Ancient Mediterranean. Cambridge University Press. pp. 76–101.
de Souza, Philip (2008). "Naval Forces". In Sabin, Philip; van Wees, Hans; Whitby, Michael (eds.). The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Warfare, Volume 1: Greece, the Hellenistic world and the rise of Rome. Cambridge University Press. pp. 357–367. ISBN 978-0-521-85779-6. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellenistic-era_warships |
Sinbad the Sailor | "Sinbad the Sailor" (1920) artwork by Paul Klee (Swiss-German artist, 1879–1940).
In 1950, St. John Publications published a one shot comic called Son of Sinbad.
In 1958, Dell Comics published a one shot comic based on the film The 7th Voyage of Sinbad.
In 1963, Gold Key Comics published a one shot comic based on the film Captain Sinbad.
In 1965, Dell Comics published a 3 issue series called Sinbad Jr.
in 1965 Gold Key Comics published a 2 issue mini-series called The Fantastic Voyages of Sinbad.
In 1974 Marvel Comics published a two issue series based on the film The Golden Voyage of Sinbad in Worlds Unknown #7 and #8. They then published a one shot comic based on the film The 7th Voyage of Sinbad in 1975 with Marvel Spotlight #25.
In 1977, the British comic company General Book Distributors, published a one shot comic/magazine based on the film Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger.
In 1988, Catalan Communications published the one shot graphic novel The Last Voyage of Sinbad written by Jan Strnad and drawn by Richard Corben.
In 1989 Malibu Comics published a 4 issue mini-series called Sinbad, and followed that up with another 4 issue mini-series called Sinbad Book II: In the House of God In 1991.
In 2001, Marvel Comics published a one shot comic that teamed Sinbad with the Fantastic Four called Fantastic 4th Voyage of Sinbad.
In 2007, Bluewater Comics published a 3 issue mini-series called Sinbad: Rogue of Mars.
In 2008, the Lerner Publishing Group published a graphic novel called Sinbad: Sailing into Peril.
In 2009, Zenescope Entertainment debuted Sinbad in their Grimm Fairy Tales universe having him appearing as a regular ongoing character. He first appeared in his own 14 issue series called 1001 Arabian Nights: The Adventures of Sinbad. Afterwards he appeared in various issues of the Dream Eater saga, as well as the 2011 Annual, Giant-Size, and Special Edition one-shots.
In 2012, a graphic novel called Sinbad: The Legacy, published by Campfire Books, was released. He appears in the comic book series Fables written by Bill Willingham, and as the teenaged Alsind in the comic book series Arak, Son of Thunder—which takes place in the 9th century AD—written by Roy Thomas.
In Alan Moore's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier, Sinbad appears as the Immortal Orlando's lover of thirty years, until he leaves for his 8th Voyage and never returns.
In The Simpsons comic book series "Get Some Fancy Book Learnin'", Sinbad's adventures are parodied as "Sinbart the Sailor".
"The Last Voyage of Sinbad" by Richard Corben and Jan Strnad originally appeared as "New Tales of the Arabian Nights" serialized in Heavy Metal magazine, issues #15–28 (1978–79) and was later collected and reprinted as a trade paperback book.
Sinbad is a major character in the Japanese manga series Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic written and illustrated by Shinobu Ohtaka. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinbad_the_Sailor |
Yemeni civil war (2014–present) | After several weeks of street protests against the Hadi administration, which made cuts to fuel subsidies that were unpopular with the group, the Houthis fought the Yemen Army forces under the command of General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar. In a battle that lasted only a few days, Houthi fighters seized control of Sanaa, the Yemeni capital, in September 2014. The Houthis forced Hadi to negotiate an agreement to end the violence, in which the government resigned and the Houthis gained an unprecedented level of influence over state institutions and politics.
In January 2015, unhappy with a proposal to split the country into six federal regions, Houthi fighters seized the presidential compound in Sanaa. The power play prompted the resignation of President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi and his ministers. The Houthi political leadership then announced the dissolution of parliament and the formation of a Revolutionary Committee to govern the country on 6 February 2015.
On 21 February, one month after Houthi militants confined Hadi to his residence in Sanaʽa, he slipped out of the capital and traveled to Aden. In a televised address from his hometown, he declared that the Houthi takeover was illegitimate and indicated he remained the constitutional president of Yemen. His predecessor as president, Ali Abdullah Saleh—who had been widely suspected of aiding the Houthis during their takeover of Sanaʽa the previous year—publicly denounced Hadi and called on him to go into exile.
On 19 March 2015, the troops loyal to Hadi clashed with those who refused to recognize his authority in the Battle of Aden Airport. The forces under General Abdul-Hafez al-Saqqaf were defeated, and al-Saqqaf fled toward Sanaʽa. In apparent retaliation for the routing of al-Saqqaf, warplanes reportedly flown by Houthi pilots bombed Hadi's compound in Aden.
After the 20 March 2015 Sanaa mosque bombings, in a televised speech, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, the leader of the Houthis, said his group's decision to mobilize for war was "imperative" under current circumstances and that Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and its affiliates—among whom he counts Hadi—would be targeted, as opposed to southern Yemen and its citizens. President Hadi declared Aden to be Yemen's temporary capital while Sanaʽa remained under Houthi control.
Also, the same day as the mosque bombings, al-Qaeda militants captured the provincial capital of Lahij, Al Houta District after killing about 20 soldiers before being driven out several hours later.
Hadi reiterated in a speech on 21 March 2015 that he was the legitimate president of Yemen and declared, "We will restore security to the country and hoist the flag of Yemen in Sanaʽa, instead of the Iranian flag." He also declared Aden to be Yemen's "economic and temporary capital" due to the Houthi occupation of Sanaʽa, which he pledged would be retaken.
In Sanaa, the Houthi Revolutionary Committee appointed Major General Hussein Khairan as Yemen's new Defence Minister and placed him in overall command of the military offensive. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yemeni_civil_war_(2014%E2%80%93present) |
Crusades | The Crusades of 1239–1241, also known as the Barons' Crusade, were a series of crusades to the Holy Land that, in territorial terms, were the most successful since the First Crusade. The major expeditions were led separately by Theobald I of Navarre and Richard of Cornwall. These crusades are sometimes discussed along with that of Baldwin of Courtenay to Constantinople.
In 1229, Frederick II and the Ayyubid sultan al-Kamil, had agreed to a ten-year truce. Nevertheless, Gregory IX, who had condemned this truce from the beginning, issued the papal bull Rachel suum videns in 1234 calling for a new crusade once the truce expired. A number of English and French nobles took the cross, but the crusade's departure was delayed because Frederick, whose lands the crusaders had planned to cross, opposed any crusading activity before the expiration of this truce. Frederick was again excommunicated in 1239, causing most crusaders to avoid his territories on their way to the Holy Land.
The French expedition was led by Theobald I of Navarre and Hugh of Burgundy, joined by Amaury of Montfort and Peter of Dreux. On 1 September 1239, Theobald arrived in Acre, and was soon drawn into the Ayyubid civil war, which had been raging since the death of al-Kamil in 1238. At the end of September, al-Kamil's brother as-Salih Ismail seized Damascus from his nephew, as-Salih Ayyub, and recognised al-Adil II as sultan of Egypt. Theobald decided to fortify Ascalon to protect the southern border of the kingdom and to move against Damascus later. While the Crusaders were marching from Acre to Jaffa, Egyptian troops moved to secure the border in what became the Battle at Gaza. Contrary to Theobald's instructions and the advice of the military orders, a group decided to move against the enemy without further delay, but they were surprised by the Muslims who inflicted a devastating defeat on the Franks. The masters of the military orders then convinced Theobald to retreat to Acre rather than pursue the Egyptians and their Frankish prisoners. A month after the battle at Gaza, an-Nasir Dā'ūd, emir of Kerak, seized Jerusalem, virtually unguarded. The internal strife among the Ayyubids allowed Theobald to negotiate the return of Jerusalem. In September 1240, Theobald departed for Europe, while Hugh of Burgundy remained to help fortify Ascalon.
On 8 October 1240, the English expedition arrived, led by Richard of Cornwall. The force marched to Jaffa, where they completed the negotiations for a truce with Ayyubid leaders begun by Theobald just a few months prior. Richard consented, the new agreement was ratified by Ayyub by 8 February 1241, and prisoners from both sides were released on 13 April. Meanwhile, Richard's forces helped to work on Ascalon's fortifications, which were completed by mid-March 1241. Richard entrusted the new fortress to an imperial representative, and departed for England on 3 May 1241.
In July 1239, Baldwin of Courtenay, the young heir to the Latin Empire, travelled to Constantinople with a small army. In the winter of 1239, Baldwin finally returned to Constantinople, where he was crowned emperor around Easter of 1240, after which he launched his crusade. Baldwin then besieged and captured Tzurulum, a Nicaean stronghold seventy-five miles west of Constantinople.
Although the Barons' Crusade returned the kingdom to its largest size since 1187, the gains would be dramatically reversed a few years later. On 15 July 1244, the city was reduced to ruins during the siege of Jerusalem and its Christians massacred by the Khwarazmian army. A few months later, the Battle of La Forbie permanently crippled Christian military power in the Holy Land. The sack of the city and the massacre which accompanied it encouraged Louis IX of France to organise the Seventh Crusade. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusades |
Sultanate of Mogadishu | The Sultanate of Mogadishu dates back to at least the 10th century based on Mogadishan coins minted and bearing dates from that period.
These coins also bear reference to early sultans with the earliest being Isma’il ibn Muhammad during the period of 923-24.
Following his visit to the city, the 12th-century historian Yaqut al-Hamawi visited Mogadishu and called it the richest and most powerful city in the region and described it as an Islamic center on the Indian Ocean.
In the 13th century, the Sultanate of Mogadishu through its trade with medieval China had acquired enough of a reputation in Asia to attract the attention of Kublai Khan. According to Marco Polo, Kublai Khan sent an envoy to Mogadishu to spy out the sultanate but the delegation was captured and imprisoned. Kublai Khan then sent another envoy to treat for the release of the earlier Mongol delegation sent to Africa.
Archaeological excavations have recovered many coins from China, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam. The majority of the Chinese coins date to the Song dynasty, although the Ming dynasty and Qing dynasty "are also represented," according to Richard Pankhurst.
A well known hypothesis for the origin of the name of Madagascar is that the name is a corrupted transliteration of Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia and an important medieval port on the Indian Ocean. This would have resulted from 13th-century Venetian explorer Marco Polo confusing the two locations in his memoirs, in which he mentions the land of Madageiscar to the south of Socotra. This name would then have been popularized on Renaissance maps by Europeans.
One of the first documents written that might explain why Marco Polo called it Madagascar is in a 1609 book by Jerome Megiser. In this work, Jerome Megiser describes an event in which the kings of Mogadishu and Adal went to Madagascar with huge fleet of between twenty five twenty six thousand men, in-order to invade the rich island of Taprobane or Sumatra but a tempest threw them off course and they landed on the coasts of Madagascar conquering it and signing a treaty with the inhabitants. They remained for eight months and erected at different points of the island eight pillars on which they engraved "Magadoxo", a name which later, by corruption became Madagascar
Jan Huyghen van Linschoten, a Dutch traveler who copied Portuguese works and maps, confirmed this event by saying "Madagascar has its name from 'makdishu' (Mogadishu)" whose "Shayk" invaded it.
In the 13th century, the Sultanate of Mogadishu through its trade with medieval China had acquired enough of a reputation in Asia to attract the attention of Kublai Khan. According to Marco Polo, the Mongol Emperor sent an envoy to Mogadishu to spy out the sultanate but the delegation was captured and imprisoned. Kublai Khan then sent another envoy to treat for the release of the earlier Mongol delegation sent to Africa.
Archaeological excavations have recovered many coins from China, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam. According to Richard Pankhurst, the majority of the Chinese coins date to the Song dynasty, although the Ming dynasty and Qing dynasty "are also represented".
In the early 13th century, Mogadishu along with other coastal and interior Somali cities in southern Somalia and eastern Abyssinia came under the Ajuran Sultanate control and experienced another Golden Age. By the 1500s, Mogadishu was no longer a vassal state and became a full-fledged city under the Ajuran. An Ajuran family, Muduffar, established a dynasty in the city, thus combining two entities together for the next 350 years, the fortunes of the urban cities in the interior and coast became the fortunes of the other.
During his travels, Ibn Sa'id al-Maghribi (1213–1286) noted that Mogadishu city had already become the leading Islamic center in the region. By the time of the Moroccan traveller Ibn Battuta's appearance on the Somali coast in 1331, the city was at the zenith of its prosperity. He described Mogadishu as "an exceedingly large city" with many rich merchants, which was famous for its high quality fabric that it exported to Egypt, among other places.
He also describes the hospitality of the people of Mogadishu and how locals would put travelers up in their home to help the local economy. Battuta added that the city was ruled by a Somali sultan, Abu Bakr ibn Shaikh 'Umar, who had a Barbara origin, and spoke the Mogadishan Somali and the Arabic language with equal fluency. The sultan also had a retinue of wazirs (ministers), legal experts, commanders, royal eunuchs, and other officials at his beck and call. Ibn Khaldun (1332 to 1406) noted in his book that Mogadishu was a massive metropolis. He also claimed that the city was a very populous with many wealthy merchants.
This period gave birth to notable figures such as Abd al-Aziz of Mogadishu who was described as the governor and island chief of Maldives by Ibn Battuta After him is named the Abdul-Aziz Mosque in Mogadishu which has remained there for centuries.
Duarte Barbosa, the famous Portuguese traveler wrote about Mogadishu (c 1517–1518):It has a king over it, and is a place of great trade in merchandise. Ships come there from the kingdom of Cambay (India) and from Aden with stuffs of all kinds, and with spices. And they carry away from there much gold, ivory, beeswax, and other things upon which they make a profit. In this town there is plenty of meat, wheat, barley, and horses, and much fruit: it is a very rich place.
The Sultanate of Mogadishu sent ambassadors to China to establish diplomatic ties, creating the first ever recorded African community in China and the most notable was Sa'id of Mogadishu who was the first African man to set foot in China. In return, Emperor Yongle, the third emperor of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), dispatched one of the largest fleets in Chinese history to trade with the sultanate. The fleet, under the leadership of the famed Hui Muslim Zheng He, arrived at Mogadishu, while the city was at its zenith. Along with gold, frankincense and fabrics, Zheng brought back the first ever African wildlife to China, which included hippos, giraffes and gazelles.
Vasco Da Gama, who passed by Mogadishu in the 15th century, noted that it was a large city with houses of four or five storeys high and big palaces in its centre and many mosques with cylindrical minarets. In the 16th century, Duarte Barbosa noted that many ships from the Kingdom of Cambaya sailed to Mogadishu with cloths and spices for which they in return received gold, wax and ivory. Barbosa also highlighted the abundance of meat, wheat, barley, horses, and fruit on the coastal markets, which generated enormous wealth for the merchants.
Mogadishu, the center of a thriving weaving industry known as toob benadir (specialized for the markets in Egypt and Syria), together with Merca and Barawa also served as transit stops for Swahili merchants from Mombasa and Malindi and for the gold trade from Kilwa. Jewish merchants from the Hormuz also brought their Indian textile and fruit to the Somali coast in exchange for grain and wood.
In 1542, the Portuguese commander João de Sepúvelda led a small fleet on an expedition to the Somali coast. During this expedition he briefly attacked Mogadishu, capturing an Ottoman ship and firing upon the city, which compelled the sultan of Mogadishu to sign a peace treaty with the Portuguese.
According to the 16th-century explorer, Leo Africanus indicates that the native inhabitants of the Mogadishu polity were of the same origins as the denizens of the northern people of Zeila the capital of Adal Sultanate.
They were generally tall with an olive skin complexion, with some being darker. They would wear traditional rich white silk wrapped around their bodies and have Islamic turbans and coastal people would only wear sarongs, and spoke Arabic as a lingua franca. Their weaponry consisted of traditional Somali weapons such as swords, daggers, spears, battle axe, and bows, although they received assistance from its close ally the Ottoman Empire and with the import of firearms such as muskets and cannons.
Most were Muslims, although a few adhered to heathen bedouin tradition; there were also a number of Abyssinian Christians further inland. Mogadishu itself was a wealthy, and well-built city-state, which maintained commercial trade with kingdoms across the world. The metropolis city was surrounded by walled stone fortifications. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sultanate_of_Mogadishu |
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