1.
Jerusalem
–
Jerusalem is a city located on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is considered a city in the three major Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. During its long history, Jerusalem has been destroyed at least twice, besieged 23 times, attacked 52 times, the part of Jerusalem called the City of David was settled in the 4th millennium BCE. In 1538, walls were built around Jerusalem under Suleiman the Magnificent, today those walls define the Old City, which has been traditionally divided into four quarters—known since the early 19th century as the Armenian, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim Quarters. The Old City became a World Heritage Site in 1981, and is on the List of World Heritage in Danger, Modern Jerusalem has grown far beyond the Old Citys boundaries. These foundational events, straddling the dawn of the 1st millennium BCE, the sobriquet of holy city was probably attached to Jerusalem in post-exilic times. The holiness of Jerusalem in Christianity, conserved in the Septuagint which Christians adopted as their own authority, was reinforced by the New Testament account of Jesuss crucifixion there, in Sunni Islam, Jerusalem is the third-holiest city, after Mecca and Medina. As a result, despite having an area of only 0, outside the Old City stands the Garden Tomb. Today, the status of Jerusalem remains one of the issues in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. During the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, West Jerusalem was among the captured and later annexed by Israel while East Jerusalem, including the Old City, was captured. Israel captured East Jerusalem from Jordan during the 1967 Six-Day War and subsequently annexed it into Jerusalem, one of Israels Basic Laws, the 1980 Jerusalem Law, refers to Jerusalem as the countrys undivided capital. All branches of the Israeli government are located in Jerusalem, including the Knesset, the residences of the Prime Minister and President, the international community does not recognize Jerusalem as Israels capital, and the city hosts no foreign embassies. Jerusalem is also home to some non-governmental Israeli institutions of importance, such as the Hebrew University. In 2011, Jerusalem had a population of 801,000, of which Jews comprised 497,000, Muslims 281,000, a city called Rušalim in the Execration texts of the Middle Kingdom of Egypt is widely, but not universally, identified as Jerusalem. Jerusalem is called Urušalim in the Amarna letters of Abdi-Heba, the name Jerusalem is variously etymologized to mean foundation of the god Shalem, the god Shalem was thus the original tutelary deity of the Bronze Age city. The form Yerushalem or Yerushalayim first appears in the Bible, in the Book of Joshua, according to a Midrash, the name is a combination of Yhwh Yireh and the town Shalem. The earliest extra-biblical Hebrew writing of the word Jerusalem is dated to the sixth or seventh century BCE and was discovered in Khirbet Beit Lei near Beit Guvrin in 1961. The inscription states, I am Yahweh thy God, I will accept the cities of Judah and I will redeem Jerusalem, or as other scholars suggest, the mountains of Judah belong to him, to the God of Jerusalem
2.
Fatimid Caliphate
–
The Fatimid Caliphate was an Ismaili Shia Islamic caliphate that spanned a large area of North Africa, from the Red Sea in the east to the Atlantic Ocean in the west. The dynasty ruled across the Mediterranean coast of Africa and ultimately made Egypt the centre of the caliphate, at its height the caliphate included in addition to Egypt varying areas of the Maghreb, Sudan, Sicily, the Levant, and Hijaz. The Fatimids claimed descent from Fatima bint Muhammad, the daughter of Islamic prophet Muhammad, in 921 the Fatimids established the Tunisian city of Mahdia as their new capital. In 948 they shifted their capital to Al-Mansuriya, near Kairouan in Tunisia, in 969 they conquered Egypt and established Cairo as the capital of their caliphate, Egypt became the political, cultural, and religious centre of their empire. The ruling class belonged to the Ismaili branch of Shiism, as did the leaders of the dynasty, the existence of the caliphate marked the only time the descendants of Ali through Fatimah were united to any degree and the name Fatimid refers to Fatimah. The different term Fatimite is sometimes used to refer to the caliphates subjects, after the initial conquests, the caliphate often allowed a degree of religious tolerance towards non-Ismaili sects of Islam, as well as to Jews, Maltese Christians, and Egyptian Coptic Christians. The Fatimid caliphate was also distinguished by the role of Berbers in its initial establishment and in helping its development, especially on the military. During the late eleventh and twelfth centuries the Fatimid caliphate declined rapidly and he founded the Ayyubid dynasty and incorporated the Fatimid state into the Abbasid Caliphate. The Fatimid regime lasted until the twelfth century, though its leaders made little headway in persuading the Egyptian population. The Fatimid Caliphates religious ideology originated in an Ismaili Shia movement launched in the 9th century in Salamiyah, Syria by their eighth Imam and he claimed descent through Ismail, the seventh Ismaili Imam, from Fatimah and her husband ʻAlī ibn-Abī-Tālib, the first Shīʻa Imām. Thus his name was al-Fātimiyyūn Fatimid, the eighth to tenth Imams, remained hidden and worked for the movement against the periods times rulers. According to legend, Abdullah and his son were fulfilling a prophecy that the mahdi would come from Mesopotamia to Sijilmasa. They hid among the population of Sijilmasa, then an independent emirate, for four years under the countenance of the Midrar rulers, al-Mahdi was supported by dedicated Shiite Abu Abdullah al-Shii, and al-Shii started his preaching after he encountered a group of Muslim North African during his hajj. These men bragged about the country of the Kutama in western Ifriqiya, and the hostility of the Kutama towards, and their independence from. This triggered al-Shii to travel to the region, where he started to preach the Ismaili doctrine, the Berber peasants, who had been oppressed for decades by the corrupt Aghlabid rule, would prove themselves to be a perfect basis for sedition. Instantly, al-Shii began conquering cities in the region, first Mila, then Sétif, Kairouan, and eventually Raqqada, in 909 Al-Shii sent a large expedition force to rescue the Mahdi, conquering the Khariji state of Tahert on its way there. After gaining his freedom, Abdullah al-Mahdi Billah became the leader of the state and assumed the position of imam. The Fatimids existed during the Islamic Golden Age, the dynasty was founded in 909 by the eleventh Imam ʻAbdullāh al-Mahdī Billah
3.
Muslim world
–
The terms Muslim world and Islamic world commonly refer to the Islamic community, comprising all those who adhere to the religion of Islam, or to societies where Islam is practiced. In a modern sense, these terms refer to countries where Islam is widespread. In the modern era, most of the Muslim world came under influence or colonial domination of European powers. The nation states emerged in the post-colonial era have adopted a variety of political and economic models. As of 2015, over 1.7 billion or about 23. 4% of the population are Muslims including the 4. 4% who live as minorities. Muslim history involves the history of the Islamic faith as a religion, the history of Islam began in Arabia with the Islamic prophet Muhammads first recitations of the Quran in the 7th century in the month of Ramadan. However, Islam under the Rashidun Caliphate grew rapidly, a century after the death of last Islamic prophet Muhammad, the Islamic empire extended from Spain in the west to Indus in the east. The Islamic Golden Age coincided with the Middle Ages in the Muslim world, starting with the rise of Islam and establishment of the first Islamic state in 622. The end of the age is given as 1258 with the Mongolian Sack of Baghdad, or 1492 with the completion of the Christian Reconquista of the Emirate of Granada in Al-Andalus. The Abbasids were influenced by the Quranic injunctions and hadiths, such as the ink of a scholar is more holy than the blood of a martyr, that stressed the value of knowledge. The major Islamic capital cities of Baghdad, Cairo, and Córdoba became the intellectual centers for science, philosophy, medicine. Between the 8th and 18th centuries, the use of glaze was prevalent in Islamic art. Tin-opacified glazing was one of the earliest new technologies developed by the Islamic potters, the first Islamic opaque glazes can be found as blue-painted ware in Basra, dating to around the 8th century. Another contribution was the development of fritware, originating from 9th century Iraq, other centers for innovative ceramic pottery in the Old world included Fustat, Damascus and Tabriz. The original concept is derived from a pre-Islamic Persian prototype Hezār Afsān that relied on particular Indian elements and it reached its final form by the 14th century, the number and type of tales have varied from one manuscript to another. All Arabian fantasy tales tend to be called Arabian Nights stories when translated into English, regardless of whether they appear in The Book of One Thousand and this work has been very influential in the West since it was translated in the 18th century, first by Antoine Galland. Imitations were written, especially in France, various characters from this epic have themselves become cultural icons in Western culture, such as Aladdin, Sinbad the Sailor and Ali Baba. A famous example of Arabic poetry and Persian poetry on romance is Layla and Majnun and it is a tragic story of undying love much like the later Romeo and Juliet, which was itself said to have been inspired by a Latin version of Layla and Majnun to an extent
4.
Islamic Golden Age
–
This period is traditionally said to have ended with the collapse of the Abbasid caliphate due to Mongol invasions and the Sack of Baghdad in 1258 AD. A few contemporary scholars place the end of the Islamic Golden Age as late as the end of 15th to 16th centuries, the metaphor of a golden age began to be applied in 19th-century literature about Islamic history, in the context of the western aesthetic fashion known as Orientalism. There is no definition of term, and depending on whether it is used with a focus on cultural or on military achievement. During the early 20th century, the term was used only occasionally, the Muslim government heavily patronized scholars. The money spent on the Translation Movement for some translations is estimated to be equivalent to twice the annual research budget of the United Kingdom’s Medical Research Council. The best scholars and notable translators, such as Hunayn ibn Ishaq, had salaries that are estimated to be the equivalent of professional athletes today, the House of Wisdom was a library established in Abbasid-era Baghdad, Iraq by Caliph al-Mansur. During this period, the Muslims showed a strong interest in assimilating the knowledge of the civilizations that had been conquered. They also excelled in fields, in particular philosophy, science. For a long period of time the personal physicians of the Abbasid Caliphs were often Assyrian Christians, among the most prominent Christian families to serve as physicians to the caliphs were the Bukhtishu dynasty. Throughout the 4th to 7th centuries, Christian scholarly work in the Greek, the House of Wisdom was founded in Baghdad in 825, modelled after the Academy of Gondishapur. It was led by Christian physician Hunayn ibn Ishaq, with the support of Byzantine medicine, many of the most important philosophical and scientific works of the ancient world were translated, including the work of Galen, Hippocrates, Plato, Aristotle, Ptolemy and Archimedes. Many scholars of the House of Wisdom were of Christian background, the use of paper spread from China into Muslim regions in the eighth century, arriving in Al-Andalus on the Iberian peninsula, present-day Spain in the 10th century. It was easier to manufacture than parchment, less likely to crack than papyrus, Islamic paper makers devised assembly-line methods of hand-copying manuscripts to turn out editions far larger than any available in Europe for centuries. It was from countries that the rest of the world learned to make paper from linen. Ibn Rushd and Ibn Sina played a role in saving the works of Aristotle, whose ideas came to dominate the non-religious thought of the Christian. Ibn Sina and other such as al-Kindi and al-Farabi combined Aristotelianism and Neoplatonism with other ideas introduced through Islam. Arabic philosophic literature was translated into Latin and Ladino, contributing to the development of modern European philosophy, during this period, non-Muslims were allowed to flourish relative to treatment of religious minorities in the Christian Byzantine Empire. The Jewish philosopher Moses Maimonides, who lived in Andalusia, is an example, in epistemology, Ibn Tufail wrote the novel Hayy ibn Yaqdhan and in response Ibn al-Nafis wrote the novel Theologus Autodidactus
5.
Geography and cartography in medieval Islam
–
Medieval Islamic geography was based on Hellenistic geography and reached its apex with Muhammad al-Idrisi in the 12th century. After its beginnings in the 8th century based on Hellenistic geography, various Islamic scholars contributed to its development, and the most notable include Al-Khwārizmī, Abū Zayd al-Balkhī, and Abu Rayhan Biruni. Islamic cartographers inherited Ptolemys Almagest and Geography in the 9th century and these works stimulated an interest in geography but were not slavishly followed. Having received Greek writings directly and without Latin intermediation, Arabian and Persian geographers made no use of European-style T-O maps, muslim scientists made many of their own contributions to geography and the earth sciences. In the 11th century, the Uyghur scholar Mahmud al-Kashgari was the first to draw a map of the Turkic peoples of Central Asia. These medieval developments influenced Chinese geography under the Mongol Empire and they also provided the underpinnings of the cartographic work of the Ottoman cartographer Piri Reis. History of geography History of cartography Notes Citations Bibliography How Greek Science Passed to the Arabs by De Lacy OLeary Islamic Geography in the Middle Ages
6.
Arabic
–
Arabic is a Central Semitic language that was first spoken in Iron Age northwestern Arabia and is now the lingua franca of the Arab world. Arabic is also the language of 1.7 billion Muslims. It is one of six languages of the United Nations. The modern written language is derived from the language of the Quran and it is widely taught in schools and universities, and is used to varying degrees in workplaces, government, and the media. The two formal varieties are grouped together as Literary Arabic, which is the language of 26 states. Modern Standard Arabic largely follows the standards of Quranic Arabic. Much of the new vocabulary is used to denote concepts that have arisen in the post-Quranic era, Arabic has influenced many languages around the globe throughout its history. During the Middle Ages, Literary Arabic was a vehicle of culture in Europe, especially in science, mathematics. As a result, many European languages have borrowed many words from it. Many words of Arabic origin are found in ancient languages like Latin. Balkan languages, including Greek, have acquired a significant number of Arabic words through contact with Ottoman Turkish. Arabic has also borrowed words from languages including Greek and Persian in medieval times. Arabic is a Central Semitic language, closely related to the Northwest Semitic languages, the Ancient South Arabian languages, the Semitic languages changed a great deal between Proto-Semitic and the establishment of the Central Semitic languages, particularly in grammar. Innovations of the Central Semitic languages—all maintained in Arabic—include, The conversion of the suffix-conjugated stative formation into a past tense, the conversion of the prefix-conjugated preterite-tense formation into a present tense. The elimination of other prefix-conjugated mood/aspect forms in favor of new moods formed by endings attached to the prefix-conjugation forms, the development of an internal passive. These features are evidence of descent from a hypothetical ancestor. In the southwest, various Central Semitic languages both belonging to and outside of the Ancient South Arabian family were spoken and it is also believed that the ancestors of the Modern South Arabian languages were also spoken in southern Arabia at this time. To the north, in the oases of northern Hijaz, Dadanitic and Taymanitic held some prestige as inscriptional languages, in Najd and parts of western Arabia, a language known to scholars as Thamudic C is attested
7.
Arabs
–
Arabs are an ethnic group inhabiting the Arab world. They primarily live in the Arab states in Western Asia, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, the Arabs are first mentioned in the mid-ninth century BCE as a tribal people dwelling in the central Arabian Peninsula. The Arabs appear to have been under the vassalage of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, tradition holds that Arabs descend from Ishmael, the son of Abraham. The Arabian Desert is the birthplace of Arab, there are other Arab groups as well that spread in the land and existed for millennia. Before the expansion of the Caliphate, Arab referred to any of the largely nomadic Semitic people from the northern to the central Arabian Peninsula and Syrian Desert. Presently, Arab refers to a number of people whose native regions form the Arab world due to spread of Arabs throughout the region during the early Arab conquests of the 7th and 8th centuries. The Arabs forged the Rashidun, Umayyad and the Abbasid caliphates, whose borders reached southern France in the west, China in the east, Anatolia in the north, and this was one of the largest land empires in history. The Great Arab Revolt has had as big an impact on the modern Middle East as the World War I, the war signaled the end of the Ottoman Empire. They are modern states and became significant as distinct political entities after the fall and defeat, following adoption of the Alexandria Protocol in 1944, the Arab League was founded on 22 March 1945. The Charter of the Arab League endorsed the principle of an Arab homeland whilst respecting the sovereignty of its member states. Beyond the boundaries of the League of Arab States, Arabs can also be found in the global diaspora, the ties that bind Arabs are ethnic, linguistic, cultural, historical, identical, nationalist, geographical and political. The Arabs have their own customs, language, architecture, art, literature, music, dance, media, cuisine, dress, society, sports, the total number of Arabs are an estimated 450 million. This makes them the second largest ethnic group after the Han Chinese. Arabs are a group in terms of religious affiliations and practices. In the pre-Islamic era, most Arabs followed polytheistic religions, some tribes had adopted Christianity or Judaism, and a few individuals, the hanifs, apparently observed monotheism. Today, Arabs are mainly adherents of Islam, with sizable Christian minorities, Arab Muslims primarily belong to the Sunni, Shiite, Ibadi, Alawite, Druze and Ismaili denominations. Arab Christians generally follow one of the Eastern Christian Churches, such as the Maronite, Coptic Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, Greek Catholic, or Chaldean churches. Listed among the booty captured by the army of king Shalmaneser III of Assyria in the Battle of Qarqar are 1000 camels of Gi-in-di-buu the ar-ba-a-a or Gindibu belonging to the Arab
8.
Geographer
–
A geographer is a scholar whose area of study is geography, the study of Earths natural environment and human society. Although geographers are historically known as people who make maps, map making is actually the field of study of cartography, geographers do not study only the details of the natural environment or human society, but they also study the reciprocal relationship between these two. For example, they study how the natural environment contributes to the human society, in particular, physical geographers study the natural environment while human geographers study human society. There is a painting by Johannes Vermeer titled The Geographer. These paintings are thought to represent the growing influence and rise in prominence of scientific enquiry in Europe at the time of their painting. Human geography, including Urban geography, cultural geography, economic geography, political geography, historical geography, marketing geography, health geography, and social geography
9.
Palestinians
–
Despite various wars and exoduses, roughly one half of the worlds Palestinian population continues to reside in historic Palestine, the area encompassing the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and Israel. Of the Palestinian population who live abroad, known as the Palestinian diaspora, the history of a distinct Palestinian national identity is a disputed issue amongst scholars. Palestinian was used to refer to the nationalist concept of a Palestinian people by Palestinian Arabs in a limited way until World War I, Modern Palestinian identity now encompasses the heritage of all ages from biblical times up to the Ottoman period. Founded in 1964, the Palestine Liberation Organization is an organization for groups that represent the Palestinian people before the international community. Since 1978, the United Nations has observed an annual International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, herodotus also employs the term as an ethnonym, as when he speaks of the Syrians of Palestine or Palestinian-Syrians, an ethnically amorphous group he distinguishes from the Phoenicians. Herodotus makes no distinction between the Jews and other inhabitants of Palestine, the Greek word reflects an ancient Eastern Mediterranean-Near Eastern word which was used either as a toponym or ethnonym. In Ancient Egyptian Peleset/Purusati has been conjectured to refer to the Sea Peoples, among Semitic languages, Akkadian Palaštu is used of Philistia and its 4 city states. Biblical Hebrews cognate word Plištim, is usually translated Philistines, the Arabic word Filastin has been used to refer to the region since the time of the earliest medieval Arab geographers. It appears to have used as an Arabic adjectival noun in the region since as early as the 7th century CE. The Arabic newspaper Falasteen, published in Jaffa by Issa and Yusef al-Issa, the first Zionist bank, the Jewish Colonial Trust, was founded at the Second Zionist Congress and incorporated in London in 1899. The JCT was intended to be the instrument of the Zionist Organization. On 27 February 1902, a subsidiary of this Trust called the Anglo-Palestine Company was established in London with the assistance of Zalman David Levontin and this Company was to become the future Bank Leumi. Following the 1948 establishment of Israel, the use and application of the terms Palestine and Palestinian by, for example, the English-language newspaper The Palestine Post, founded by Jews in 1932, changed its name in 1950 to The Jerusalem Post. Jews in Israel and the West Bank today generally identify as Israelis, Arab citizens of Israel identify themselves as Israeli and/or Palestinian and/or Arab. Anyone born, after that date, of a Palestinian father – whether in Palestine or outside it – is also a Palestinian. Thus, the Jews of Palestine were/are also included, although limited only to the Jews who had resided in Palestine until the beginning of the Zionist invasion. The Charter also states that Palestine with the boundaries it had during the British Mandate, is a territorial unit. The although the timing and causes behind the emergence of a distinctively Palestinian national consciousness among the Arabs of Palestine are matters of scholarly disagreement
10.
Mecca
–
Mecca or Makkah is a city in the Hejaz region of Saudi Arabia that is also capital of the Makkah Region. The city is located 70 km inland from Jeddah in a valley at a height of 277 m above sea level. Its resident population in 2012 was roughly 2 million, although more than triple this number every year during the hajj period held in the twelfth Muslim lunar month of Dhu al-Hijjah. Mecca is home to the Kaaba, by majority description Islams holiest site, Mecca was long ruled by Muhammads descendants, the sharifs, acting either as independent rulers or as vassals to larger polities. It was conquered by Ibn Saud in 1925, during this expansion, Mecca has lost some historical structures and archaeological sites, such as the Ajyad Fortress. Today, more than 15 million Muslims visit Mecca annually, including several million during the few days of the Hajj, as a result, Mecca has become one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the Muslim world, despite the fact that non-Muslims are prohibited from entering the city. The Saudi government adopted Makkah as the spelling in the 1980s. The full official name is Makkah al-Mukarramah or Makkatu l-Mukarramah, which means Mecca the Honored, the ancient or early name for the site of Mecca is Bakkah. An Arabic language word, its etymology, like that of Mecca, is obscure, the form Bakkah is used for the name Mecca in the Quran in 3,96, while the form Mecca is used in 48,24. In South Arabic, the language in use in the portion of the Arabian Peninsula at the time of Muhammad. Other references to Mecca in the Quran call it Umm al-Qurā, another name of Mecca is Tihamah. Arab and Islamic tradition holds that the wilderness of Paran, broadly speaking, is the Tihamah, yaqut al-Hamawi, the 12th century Syrian geographer, wrote that Fārān was an arabized Hebrew word. One of the names of Mecca mentioned in the Torah, Mecca is governed by the Municipality of Mecca, a municipal council of fourteen locally elected members headed by a mayor appointed by the Saudi government. As of May 2015, the mayor of the city was Dr. Osama bin Fadhel Al-Bar, Mecca is the capital of the Makkah Region, which includes neighboring Jeddah. The provincial governor was prince Abdul Majeed bin Abdulaziz Al Saud from 2000 until his death in 2007, on 16 May 2007, prince Khalid bin Faisal Al Saud was appointed as the new governor. The early history of Mecca is still disputed, as there are no unambiguous references to it in ancient literature prior to the rise of Islam. The Roman Empire took control of part of the Hejaz in 106 AD, ruling cities such as Hegra, even though detailed descriptions were established of Western Arabia by Rome, such as by Procopius, there are no references of a pilgrimage and trading outpost such as Mecca. The first direct mention of Mecca in external literature occurs in 741 AD in the Byzantine-Arab Chronicle, claims have been made this could be a reference to the Kaaba in Mecca
11.
Palestine (region)
–
Palestine is a geographic region in Western Asia between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. It is sometimes considered to include adjoining territories, the name was used by Ancient Greek writers, and was later used for the Roman province Syria Palaestina, the Byzantine Palaestina Prima, and the Islamic provincial district of Jund Filastin. The region comprises most of the claimed for the biblical regions known as the Land of Israel. Historically, it has known as the southern portion of wider regional designations such as Canaan, Syria, ash-Sham. The boundaries of the region have changed throughout history, today, the region comprises the State of Israel and the Palestinian territories in which the State of Palestine was declared. Modern archaeology has identified 12 ancient inscriptions from Egyptian and Assyrian records recording likely cognates of Hebrew Pelesheth, the term Peleset is found in five inscriptions referring to a neighboring people or land starting from c.1150 BCE during the Twentieth dynasty of Egypt. Neither the Egyptian nor the Assyrian sources provided clear regional boundaries for the term, approximately a century later, Aristotle used a similar definition for the region in Meteorology, in which he included the Dead Sea. The term is accepted to be a translation of the Biblical name Peleshet. The term is used in the Septuagint, who used a transliteration Land of Phylistieim different from the contemporary Greek place name Palaistínē. Following the Muslim conquest, place names that were in use by the Byzantine administration generally continued to be used in Arabic, Modern archaeologists and historians of the region refer to their field of study as Levantine archaeology. The region was among the earliest in the world to see human habitation, agricultural communities, during the Bronze Age, independent Canaanite city-states were established, and were influenced by the surrounding civilizations of ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Phoenicia, Minoan Crete, and Syria. Between 1550–1400 BCE, the Canaanite cities became vassals to the Egyptian New Kingdom who held power until the 1178 BCE Battle of Djahy during the wider Bronze Age collapse. The region became part of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from c.740 BCE, in 539 BCE, the Babylonian empire was replaced by the Achaemenid Empire. In the 330s BCE, Macedonian ruler Alexander the Great conquered the region and it ultimately fell to the Seleucid Empire between 219–200 BCE. In 116 BCE, a Seleucid civil war resulted in the independence of certain regions including the Hasmonean principality in the Judaean Mountains, from 110 BCE, the Hasmoneans extended their authority over much of Palestine, creating a Judaean–Samaritan–Idumaean–Ituraean–Galilean alliance. The Judaean control over the region resulted in it also becoming known as Judaea. Between 73–63 BCE, the Roman Republic extended its influence into the region in the Third Mithridatic War, conquering Judea in 63 BCE, and splitting the former Hasmonean Kingdom into five districts. The three-year Ministry of Jesus, culminating in his crucifixion, is estimated to have occurred from 28–30 CE, in 70 CE, Titus sacked Jerusalem, resulting in the dispersal of the citys Jews and Christians to Yavne and Pella
12.
International Standard Book Number
–
The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial Number, identifies periodical publications such as magazines, the ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 in the United Kingdom by David Whitaker and in 1968 in the US by Emery Koltay. The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108, the United Kingdom continued to use the 9-digit SBN code until 1974. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978, an SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prefixing the digit 0. For example, the edition of Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns, published by Hodder in 1965, has SBN340013818 -340 indicating the publisher,01381 their serial number. This can be converted to ISBN 0-340-01381-8, the check digit does not need to be re-calculated, since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland European Article Number EAN-13s. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an ebook, a paperback, and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, a 13-digit ISBN can be separated into its parts, and when this is done it is customary to separate the parts with hyphens or spaces. Separating the parts of a 10-digit ISBN is also done with either hyphens or spaces, figuring out how to correctly separate a given ISBN number is complicated, because most of the parts do not use a fixed number of digits. ISBN issuance is country-specific, in that ISBNs are issued by the ISBN registration agency that is responsible for country or territory regardless of the publication language. Some ISBN registration agencies are based in national libraries or within ministries of culture, in other cases, the ISBN registration service is provided by organisations such as bibliographic data providers that are not government funded. In Canada, ISBNs are issued at no cost with the purpose of encouraging Canadian culture. In the United Kingdom, United States, and some countries, where the service is provided by non-government-funded organisations. Australia, ISBNs are issued by the library services agency Thorpe-Bowker
13.
Wikisource
–
Wikisource is an online digital library of free content textual sources on a wiki, operated by the Wikimedia Foundation. Wikisource is the name of the project as a whole and the name for each instance of that project, the projects aims are to host all forms of free text, in many languages, and translations. Originally conceived as an archive to store useful or important historical texts, the project officially began in November 24,2003 under the name Project Sourceberg. The name Wikisource was adopted later that year and it received its own domain name seven months later, the project has come under criticism for lack of reliability but it is also cited by organisations such as the National Archives and Records Administration. The project holds works that are either in the domain or freely licensed, professionally published works or historical source documents, not vanity products. Verification was initially made offline, or by trusting the reliability of digital libraries. Now works are supported by online scans via the ProofreadPage extension, some individual Wikisources, each representing a specific language, now only allow works backed up with scans. While the bulk of its collection are texts, Wikisource as a whole hosts other media, some Wikisources allow user-generated annotations, subject to the specific policies of the Wikisource in question. Wikisources early history included several changes of name and location, the original concept for Wikisource was as storage for useful or important historical texts. These texts were intended to support Wikipedia articles, by providing evidence and original source texts. The collection was focused on important historical and cultural material. The project was originally called Project Sourceberg during its planning stages, in 2001, there was a dispute on Wikipedia regarding the addition of primary source material, leading to edit wars over their inclusion or deletion. Project Sourceberg was suggested as a solution to this, perhaps Project Sourceberg can mainly work as an interface for easily linking from Wikipedia to a Project Gutenberg file, and as an interface for people to easily submit new work to PG. Wed want to complement Project Gutenberg--how, exactly, and Jimmy Wales adding like Larry, Im interested that we think it over to see what we can add to Project Gutenberg. It seems unlikely that primary sources should in general be editable by anyone -- I mean, Shakespeare is Shakespeare, unlike our commentary on his work, the project began its activity at ps. wikipedia. org. The contributors understood the PS subdomain to mean either primary sources or Project Sourceberg, however, this resulted in Project Sourceberg occupying the subdomain of the Pashto Wikipedia. A vote on the name changed it to Wikisource on December 6,2003. Despite the change in name, the project did not move to its permanent URL until July 23,2004, since Wikisource was initially called Project Sourceberg, its first logo was a picture of an iceberg
14.
Guy Le Strange
–
He was born in Hunstanton, Norfolk and died in Cambridge. Palestine Under the Moslems, A Description of Syria and the Holy Land from A. D.650 to 1500, london, Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund. Baghdad during the Abbasid Caliphate, from contemporary Arabic and Persian sources, Mesopotamia and Persia under the Mongols, in the fourteenth century A. D. From the Nuzhat-al-Ḳulūb of Ḥamd-Allah Mustawfī, the Lands of the Eastern Caliphate, Mesopotamia, Persia, and Central Asia, from the Moslem Conquest to the Time of Timur. New York, Barnes & Noble, Inc
15.
Palestine Exploration Fund
–
The Palestine Exploration Fund is a British society based in London. It was founded in 1865 and is the oldest known organization in the world created specifically for the study of the Levant region, today now known as Palestine. Consequently, it had a relationship with Corps of Royal Engineers. The beginnings of the Palestine Exploration Fund are rooted in a society founded by British Consul James Finn. Many photographs of Palestine have survived from this period, on 22 June 1865, a group of Biblical archaeologists and clergymen financed the fund, with initial funding of £300. The most notable of the founders were Arthur P. Stanley, the Dean of Westminster, and George Grove and its founders established the fund for the purpose of investigating the Archaeology, Geography, manners, customs and culture, Geology and Natural History of the Holy Land. It is interesting to note that the General Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund recognized a connection with the earlier Society. The preliminary meeting of the Society of the Palestine Exploration Fund took place in the Jerusalem Chamber of Westminster Abbey, William Thomson, the Archbishop of York, read out the original prospectus at the first organisational meeting, ur object is strictly an inductive inquiry. No country should be of so much interest to us as that in which the documents of our Faith were written, at the same time no country more urgently requires illustration. Even to a traveller in the Holy Land the Bible becomes, in its form, and therefore to some extent in its substance. Much would be gained by. bringing to light the remains of so many races and generations which must lie concealed under the accumulation of rubbish and ruins on which those villages stand. The PEF conducted many early excavations of biblical and post biblical sites around the Levant, as well as studies involving natural history, anthropology, history, in 1867, Charles Warren led PEFs biggest expedition. Warren and his team improved the topography of Jerusalem and discovered the ancient water systems that lay beneath the city of Jerusalem, the water system was later named Warrens Shaft, after Charles Warren, due to the discovery. Scattered over the world, a people without a country and it was one of the earliest usages by a prominent politician of a phrase which was to become widely used by advocates of Jewish settlement in Palestine. In 1878, the Treasurers statement listed over 130 local associations in the United Kingdom, there were also branches in Canada and Australia as well as Gaza City and Jerusalem. Expenditure in 1877 amounted to £2,959 14s 11d, regarding the latter, great emphasis was placed upon the nomenclature Holy Land, so the notion of religion could never have been far away. Also stress was laid upon the fact that The Society numbers among its supporters Christians, originally the survey was led by a Captain Stewart but he was forced home due to ill health. He was replaced by Major Wilson with Lieutenant Conder, following the death of Tyrwhitt Drake from malaria Lieutenant Kitchener joined the group
16.
Zedekiah's Cave
–
Zedekiahs Cave — also called Solomons Quarries — is a 5-acre underground meleke limestone quarry that runs the length of five city blocks under the Muslim Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. It was carved over a period of thousand years and is a remnant of the largest quarry in Jerusalem, stretching from Jeremiahs Grotto. The cave has great importance to Freemasons, the cave is open to the public Sunday through Thursday for a small admission fee and there are guided tours. In addition to Zedekiahs Cave and Solomons Quarries, this site has been called Zedekiahs Grotto, Suleimans Cave, the Royal Caverns, the Arabic name Migharat al-Kitan, has also been used, the cavern is thought to have been once used as a storage place for cotton. The entrance to Zedekiahs Cave is just beneath the Old City wall, beyond the narrow entrance, the cave slopes down into a vast 300-foot-long auditorium-like chamber. Drops of water, known as “Zedekiahs tears”, trickle through the ceiling, beyond the “auditorium” are a series of artificial galleries hewn by ancient stonecutters into chaotic, sometimes bizarre, patterns and formations. Paths give access to every corner of the system, which takes at least 30 minutes to explore thoroughly. In a few places the stones are marked by Arabic, Greek, Armenian and English charcoal, several plaques explaining some of the myriad legends associated with the site have been mounted on the cave walls. From entrance to the farthest point, the cave extends about 650 feet and its maximum width is about 330 feet and its depth is generally about 30 feet below the street level of the Muslim Quarter, although there are several lower levels and blocked tunnels too. Only the mouth of Zedekiahs Cave is a natural phenomenon, the interior of the cavern was carved by slaves and laborers over a period of several thousand years. Herod the Great used the quarry at Zedekiahs Cave for building blocks in the renovation of the Temple and its retaining walls. Stone from the quarry may also have used for the building projects of Herod Agrippa I. The subterranean quarry would have been usable in all seasons and any weather, the Roman Jewish historian Flavius Josephus writes about the Royal Caverns of the Old City, which may have been a reference to Zedekiahs Cave. The midrash Numbers Rabbah mentions the cave, One who observed the Sabbath in a cave, even though it be like the cave of Zedekiah, which was eighteen miles long, may walk through the whole of it. Suleiman the Magnificent, the Ottoman sultan who built the present walls around the Old City, also mined the quarry. In 1854 the American missionary James Turner Barclay followed rumors of a cavern near the Damascus Gate. Barclay and his two sons returned secretly at night and explored the cave, in 1969, A Jewish archeologist Dan Avadan uncovered a crude carving of a cherub in a small niche in the cave. It had two narrow wings that opened like a pair of scissors, a curled tail and a bearded human head under a conical headdress
17.
Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi
–
Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī, formerly Latinized as Algoritmi, was a Persian mathematician, astronomer, and geographer during the Abbasid Caliphate, a scholar in the House of Wisdom in Baghdad. In the 12th century, Latin translations of his work on the Indian numerals introduced the decimal number system to the Western world. Al-Khwārizmīs The Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing presented the first systematic solution of linear and he is often considered one of the fathers of algebra. He revised Ptolemys Geography and wrote on astronomy and astrology, some words reflect the importance of al-Khwārizmīs contributions to mathematics. Algebra is derived from al-jabr, one of the two operations he used to solve quadratic equations, algorism and algorithm stem from Algoritmi, the Latin form of his name. His name is also the origin of guarismo and of algarismo, few details of al-Khwārizmīs life are known with certainty. He was born in a Persian family and Ibn al-Nadim gives his birthplace as Khwarezm in Greater Khorasan, muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari gives his name as Muḥammad ibn Musá al-Khwārizmiyy al-Majūsiyy al-Quṭrubbaliyy. The epithet al-Qutrubbulli could indicate he might instead have come from Qutrubbul and this would not be worth mentioning if a series of errors concerning the personality of al-Khwārizmī, occasionally even the origins of his knowledge, had not been made. Recently, G. J. Toomer. with naive confidence constructed an entire fantasy on the error which cannot be denied the merit of amusing the reader. Regarding al-Khwārizmīs religion, Toomer writes, Another epithet given to him by al-Ṭabarī, al-Majūsī, Ibn al-Nadīms Kitāb al-Fihrist includes a short biography on al-Khwārizmī together with a list of the books he wrote. Al-Khwārizmī accomplished most of his work in the period between 813 and 833, douglas Morton Dunlop suggests that it may have been possible that Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī was in fact the same person as Muḥammad ibn Mūsā ibn Shākir, the eldest of the three Banū Mūsā. Al-Khwārizmīs contributions to mathematics, geography, astronomy, and cartography established the basis for innovation in algebra, on the Calculation with Hindu Numerals written about 825, was principally responsible for spreading the Hindu–Arabic numeral system throughout the Middle East and Europe. It was translated into Latin as Algoritmi de numero Indorum, al-Khwārizmī, rendered as Algoritmi, led to the term algorithm. Some of his work was based on Persian and Babylonian astronomy, Indian numbers, al-Khwārizmī systematized and corrected Ptolemys data for Africa and the Middle East. Another major book was Kitab surat al-ard, presenting the coordinates of places based on those in the Geography of Ptolemy but with improved values for the Mediterranean Sea, Asia and he also wrote on mechanical devices like the astrolabe and sundial. He assisted a project to determine the circumference of the Earth and in making a map for al-Mamun. When, in the 12th century, his works spread to Europe through Latin translations, the Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing is a mathematical book written approximately 830 CE. The term algebra is derived from the name of one of the operations with equations described in this book
18.
Ahmad ibn Fadlan
–
For a long time, only an incomplete version of the account was known, as transmitted in the geographical dictionary of Yāqūt, published in 1823 by Christian Martin Frähn. Only in 1923 was a manuscript discovered by Zeki Validi Togan in the Astane Quds Museum, Mashhad, the manuscript, Razawi Library MS5229, dates from the 13th century and consists of 420 pages. Besides other geographical treatises, it contains a version of Ibn Fadlans text. Additional passages not preserved in MS5229 are quoted in the work of the 16th century Persian geographer Amīn Rāzī called Haft Iqlīm. Ibn Fadlan was sent from Baghdad in 921 to serve as the secretary to an ambassador from the Abbasid Caliph al-Muqtadir to the iltäbär of the Volga Bulgaria, on 21 June 921, a diplomatic party led by Susan al-Rassi, a eunuch in the caliphs court, left Baghdad. Primarily, the purpose of their mission was to explain Islamic law to the recently converted Bulgar peoples living on the bank of the Volga River in what is now Russia. Additionally, the embassy was sent in response to a request by the king of the Volga Bulgars to help them against their enemies, Ibn Fadlan served as the groups religious advisor and lead counselor for Islamic religious doctrine and law. e. The Varangians on the Volga trade route, all told, the delegation covered some 4000 kilometers. Ibn Fadlan’s envoy reached the Volga Bulgar capital on 12 May 922, when they arrived, Ibn Fadlan read aloud a letter from the caliph to the Bulgar khan, and presented him with gifts from the caliphate. One noteworthy aspect of the Volga Bulgars that Ibn Fadlan focused on was their religion, for example, Ibn Fadlan details in his encounter that the Volga Bulgar Khan commits an error in his prayer exhortations by repeating the prayer twice. Consequently, many of the peoples and societies to Ibn Fadlan were like asses gone astray and they have no religious bonds with God, nor do they have recourse to reason. The Rūs appear as traders who set up shop on the river nearby the Bolğar camp. They are described as having bodies tall as palm-trees, with blond hair and they are tattooed from fingernails to neck with dark blue or dark green tree patterns and other figures and that all men are armed with an axe, sword and long knife. Ibn Fadlan describes the Rus as perfect physical specimens and the hygiene of the Rūsiyyah as disgusting and considers them vulgar, in that, his account contrasts with that of the Persian traveler Ibn Rustah, whose impressions of the Rus were more favourable. He also describes in detail the funeral of one of their chieftains. Some scholars believe that it took place in the modern Balymer complex, Ibn Rustah Nabidh Volga Bulgaria Saqf al-Alam James E. Montgomery, Ibn Fadlan and the Rūsiyyah, Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies 3. Editions and translations Ibn Faḍlān, Aḥmad, Frähn, Christian Martin, Ibn Foszląns und anderer Araber Berichte über die Russen älterer Zeit. Text und Übersetzung mit kritisch-philologischen Ammerkungen, nebst drei Breilagen über sogenannte Russen-Stämme und Kiew, die Warenger und das Warenger-Meer, und das Land Wisu, ebenfalls nach arabischen Schriftstellern
19.
Al-Masudi
–
Al-Mas‘udi was an Arab historian and geographer. He is sometimes referred to as the Herodotus of the Arabs, Al-Mas‘udi was one of the first to combine history and scientific geography in a large-scale work, The Meadows of Gold and Mines of Gems, a world history. Al-Mas‘udi states that he was born in Baghdad and that he was a descendant of Abdullah Ibn Masud, however, little else is known about his early years. He mentions his association with many scholars in the lands through which he travelled, however, most of what is known of him comes from his own works. Although Ahamd Shboul questions the full extent of al-Mas‘udis travels, even his more conservative estimation is impressive, Other writers include Sri Lanka and China among his travels. Lunde and Stone in the introduction to their English translation state that received much information on China from Abu Zaid al-Sirafi whom he met on the coast of the Persian Gulf. In Syria al-Mas‘udi met Leo of Tripoli, Leo was a Byzantine admiral who converted to Islam. From him the historian received much of his information about Byzantium and he spent his last years in Syria and Egypt. In Egypt he found a copy of a Frankish king list from Clovis to Louis IV that had written by an Andalusian bishop. There is not much known about how he supported himself during such extensive travels within, Lunde and Stone speculate that like many travelers he may have been involved in trade. Near the ending of the The Meadows of Gold, al-Mas‘udi wrote, the extant version is only an earlier draft from 947, not the revised 956 edition. Lunde and Stone note that al-Mas‘udi in his Tanbih states that the edition of Muruj adh-dhahab contained 365 chapters. They also note the stark contrast between contemporary European conditions confronting say the author of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and this highly literate Islamic world. Ahmad Shboul mentions the rich blend of Greek philosophy, Persian literature, Indian mathematics and this enabled the society of the day to manifest a knowledge seeking, perceptive and analytical attitude. There was an association of scholarly minded people in this highly civilized atmosphere. Al-Mas‘udi was a pupil or junior colleague of a number of prominent intellectuals, including the philologists al-Zajjaj, ibn Duraid, Niftawayh and he was acquainted with famous poets, including Kashajim, whom he probably met in Aleppo. He was well read in philosophy, knowing the works of al-Kindi and al-Razi, the Aristotelian thought of al-Farabi, al-Mas‘udis extant writings do not confirm his meeting with his contemporaries al-Razi and al-Farabi, however such meetings were highly likely. He does record his meeting with al-Farabis pupil Yahya ibn Adi, in addition he was familiar with the medical work of Galen, with Ptolemaic astronomy, with the geographical work of Marinus and with the studies of Islamic geographers and astronomers
20.
Istakhri
–
Abu Ishaq Ibrahim ibn Muhammad al-Farisi al Istakhri was a Persian medieval geographer in medieval Islam and traveler of the 10th century. Estakhri created the earliest known account of windmills and his Arabic language works included masalik al-mamalik and Suwar al-Aqaaleem. He was a traveller whose geographical work has translated into German by Mordtmann. When Istakhari was in the Indus Valley he met another celebrated traveller, list of Iranian scientists World Map of al-Istakhri Bosworth, Clifford Edmund. The Encyclopedia of Islam, Volume 6, de Goeje, M. J. ed. Bibliotheca Geographorum Arabicorum, vol 1, Viae Regnorum descriptio ditionis Moslemicae auctore Abu Ishák al-Fárisí al-Istakhrí. The oriental geography of Ebn Haukal, an Arabian traveller of the tenth century, - Note, in fact, it is a work by Istakhri
21.
Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact theories
–
Two classical cases of pre-Columbian contact have widespread support amongst the scientific and scholarly mainstream. There is considerable evidence in support of successful explorations which led to Norse settlement of Greenland, the scientific and scholarly responses to other pre-Columbian contact claims have varied. Some such contact claims are examined in reputable peer-reviewed sources, Norse journeys to Greenland and Canada are supported by historical and archaeological evidence. It was named a World Heritage site by UNESCO in 1978 and it is also notable for its possible connection with the attempted colony of Vinland established by Leif Erikson around the same period or, more broadly, with Norse exploration of the Americas. Few sources describing contact between peoples and Norse people exist. Contact between the Thule people and Norse between the 12th or 13th centuries is known, the Norse Greenlanders called these incoming settlers skrælingar. Conflict between the Greenlanders and the skrælings is recorded in the Icelandic Annals, the term skrælings is also used in the Vínland sagas, which relate to events during the 10th century, when describing trade and conflict with native peoples. The sweet potato, which is native to the Americas, was widespread in Polynesia when Europeans first reached the Pacific. Sweet potato has been radiocarbon-dated in the Cook Islands to 1000 CE and it has been suggested that it was brought by Polynesians who had traveled to South America and back, or that South Americans brought it to the Pacific. It is possible that the plant could successfully float across the ocean if discarded from the cargo of a boat, phylogenetic analysis supports the hypothesis of at least two separate introductions of sweet potatoes from South America into Polynesia, including one before and one after European contact. A team of academics headed by the University of Yorks Mummy Research Group and BioArch, while examining a Peruvian mummy at the Bolton Museum, before this it was thought that Peruvian mummies were naturally preserved. The resin, found to be that of an Araucaria conifer related to the monkey puzzle tree, was from a variety found only in Oceania and probably New Guinea. Radiocarbon dating of both the resin and body by the University of Oxfords radiocarbon laboratory confirmed they were essentially contemporary, researchers including Kathryn Klar and Terry Jones have proposed a theory of contact between Hawaiians and the Chumash people of Southern California between 400 and 800 CE. Tomoloo, the Chumash word for such a craft, may derive from kumulaau, the analogous Tongva term, tiiat, is unrelated. If it occurred, this left no genetic legacy in California or Hawaii. In recent years, evidence has emerged suggesting a possibility of contact between the Mapuche people of south-central Chile and Polynesians. Chicken bones found at the site El Arenal in the Arauco Peninsula, the bones found in Chile were radiocarbon-dated to between 1304 and 1424, before the arrival of the Spanish. Chicken DNA sequences taken were matched to those of chickens in American Samoa and Tonga, dutch linguists and specialists in Amerindian languages Willem Adelaar and Pieter Muysken have suggested that two lexical items may be shared by Polynesian languages and languages of South America
22.
Ibn Hawqal
–
Muḥammad Abū’l-Qāsim Ibn Ḥawqal was a 10th-century Muslim Arab writer, geographer, and chronicler. His famous work, written in 977, is called Ṣūrat al-’Arḍ, the date of his death is not precisely known. On the basis of his writings, he died after 368 H /978 C. E, what little is known of his life is extrapolated from his book, which was a revision and extension of the Masālik ul-Mamālik of Istakhri. That itself was an edition of the Ṣuwar al-aqālīm of Ahmed ibn Sahl al-Balkhi. Ibn Hawqal was clearly more than an editor, he was a traveler who spent much of his writing about the areas. He spent the last 30 years of his traveling to remote parts of Asia. One of his travels brought him 20° south of the equator along the East African coast, one of the things he noticed was that there were large numbers of people living in areas that the Greeks, working from logic rather than experience, said must be uninhabitable. His descriptions were, at the time, considered to be accurate, Ṣūrat al-’Arḍ included a detailed description of Muslim-held Spain and particularly Sicily. Ibn Hawqal recorded that the area of Fraxinet was richly cultivated by its Muslim inhabitants, in doing this he frequently exaggerates, he depicts the Christian population of Palermo as being uncivilised and barbaric. He also mentions the Lands of the Romans, the used by the Muslim world -and the Byzantines themselves- to describe the Byzantine Empire. He also mentions and published a map of Sindh, he mentions the geography and culture of Sindh. Ibn Hauqals work was published by M. J. de Goeie, an anonymous epitome of the book was written in 1233. Muslim scholars List of Shia Muslims James, Preston Everett, all Possible Worlds, A History of Geography. This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh. Vernet, J. Ibn Ḥawqal Abūl-Qāsim Muḥammad, encyclopaedia of the history of science, technology, and medicine in non-western cultures
23.
Al-Biruni
–
Abū Rayḥān Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad Al-Bīrūnī, known as Al-Biruni in English, was an Iranian scholar and polymath from Khwarezm. He studied almost all fields of science and was compensated for his research, royalty and powerful members of society sought out Al-Biruni to conduct research and study in order to uncover certain findings. He lived during the Islamic Golden Age, in which scholarly thought went hand in hand with the thinking and methodology of the Islamic religion. In addition to type of influence, Al-Biruni was also influenced by other nations, such as the Greek. He was conversant in Khwarezmian, Persian, Arabic, Sanskrit and he spent a large part of his life in Ghazni in modern-day Afghanistan, capital of the Ghaznavid dynasty which was based in what is now central-eastern Afghanistan. In 1017 he traveled to the Indian subcontinent and authored Tarikh Al-Hind after exploring the Hindu faith practised in India and he was given the title founder of Indology. He was a writer on customs and creeds of various nations. He also made contributions to Earth sciences, and is regarded as the father of geodesy for his important contributions to that field and he was born in the outer district of Kath, the capital of the Afrighid dynasty of Khwarezm. The word Biruni means from the outer-district in Persian, and so became his nisba. Al-Birunis relatives also took interest in the studies of science as well and he even had ties to royalty as there are links in his family to the families of prestigious elites. In order to conduct his research, Al-Biruni used different types of methods to tackle the different fields he studied, people consider Al-Biruni to be one of the greatest scientists in history and especially of Islam because of his discoveries and methodology. He lived during the Islamic Golden Age, which promoted astronomy and he was sympathetic to the Afrighids, who were overthrown by the rival dynasty of Mamunids in 995. He left his homeland for Bukhara, then under the Samanid ruler Mansur II the son of Nuh, there he corresponded with Avicenna and there are extant exchanges of views between these two scholars. In 998, he went to the court of the Ziyarid amir of Tabaristan and he also visited the court of the Bavandid ruler Al-Marzuban. Accepting the definite demise of the Afrighids at the hands of the Mamunids and their court at Gorganj was gaining fame for its gathering of brilliant scientists. In 1017, Mahmud of Ghazni took Rey, most scholars, including al-Biruni, were taken to Ghazni, the capital of the Ghaznavid dynasty. Biruni was made court astrologer and accompanied Mahmud on his invasions into India and he was forty-four years old when he went on the journeys with Mahmud of Ghazni. Biruni became acquainted with all related to India
24.
Mahmud al-Kashgari
–
Mahmud ibn Hussayn ibn Muhammed al-Kashgari was an 11th-century Uyghur scholar and lexicographer of the Turkic languages from Kashgar. His father, Hussayn, was the mayor of Barsgan, a town in the part of the lake of Issyk-Kul. Al-Kashgari studied the Turkic languages of his time and in Baghdad he composed the first comprehensive dictionary of Turkic languages and it was intended for use by the Abbasid Caliphate, the new, Arab allies of the Turks. His book also included the first known map of the inhabited by Turkic peoples. This map is housed at the National Library in Istanbul and he advocated monolingualism and the linguistic purism of the Turkic languages, and held a belief in the superiority of nomadic people over urban populations. Most of his Turkic-speaking contemporaries were bilingual in Tajik, which was then the urban, the most elegant of the dialects belongs to those who know only one language, who do not mix with Persians and who do not customarily settle in other lands. Those who have two languages and who mix with the populace of the cities have a certain slurring in their utterances, the Muslim Kara-Khanid Turks performed Jihad against Buddhist Uyghur Turks during the Islamicisation and Turkicisation of Xinjiang. The non-Muslim Turks worship of Tengri was mocked and insulted by the Muslim Turk Mahmud al-Kashgari, the Yabaqu were a Turkic people. Buddhist origin words like toyin and Burxān or Furxan had negative connotations to Muslim Turks, Kashghari viewed the least Persian mixed Turkic dialects as the purest and the most elegant. Muslim writers like Marwazī and Mahmud Kashghārī had more up to date information about China in their writings, Ṣīn is originally three fold, Upper, in the east which is called Tawjāch, middle which is Khitāy, lower which is Barkhān in the vicinity of Kashgar. But know Tawjāch is known as Maṣīn and Khitai as Ṣīn, China was called after the Toba rulers of the Northern Wei by the Turks, pronounced by them as Tamghāj, Tabghāj, Tafghāj or Tawjāch. Machin, Mahachin, Chin, and Sin were all names of China, and when they migrated to Eastern parts their lands became disjoined and their provinces divided, and there was a king in China and a king in Qitai and a king in Yugur. Some researchers think that Mahmud al-Kashgari died in 1102 at the age of 97 in Upal, a city southwest of Kashgar. There is now a mausoleum erected on his gravesite, but some modern authors reject this assertion, saying that the date of his death is just unknown. Some claim Mahmad Kashghari was Hazrat Mullam and he is claimed by Uyghur, Kyrgyz, and Uzbek nationalists as part of their respective ethnic groups. An oriental study university, situated in the city of Bishkek in post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan, was named after Makhmud Kashghari. UNESCO declared 2008 the Year of Mahmud al-Kashgari, yusuf Khass Hajib Svat Soucek, A History of Inner Asia, Cambridge University Press,2002. Die Tierbezeichnungen bei Mahmud al-Kaschgari, eine Untersuchung aus sprach- und kulturhistorischer Sicht, in Marco Polos Footsteps by John F. Burns of New York Times Divanu Lugati-t Türk Dizini كتاب ديوان لغات الترك كتاب ديوان لغات الترك Chinese
25.
Muhammad al-Idrisi
–
Muhammed al-Idrisi was born in Ceuta, then belonging to the Almoravids. Al-Idrisi was born into the large Hammudid family of North Africa and Al-Andalus, Al-Idrisi was born in the city of Ceuta, where his great-grandfather had been forced to settle after the fall of Hammudid Málaga to the Zirids of Granada. He spent much of his life travelling through North Africa and Al-Andalus. He visited Anatolia when he was barely 16 and his travels took him to many parts of Europe including Portugal, the Pyrenees, the French Atlantic coast, Hungary, and Jórvík. Because of conflict and instability in Al-Andalus al-Idrisi joined contemporaries such as Abu al-Salt in Sicily, for Roger it was inscribed on a massive disc of solid silver, two metres in diameter. On the geographical work of al-Idrisi, S. P. Scott wrote in 1904, not only is its historical information most interesting and valuable, but its descriptions of many parts of the earth are still authoritative. For three centuries geographers copied his maps without alteration, the mechanical genius of the author was not inferior to his erudition. Al-Idrisi inspired Islamic geographers such as Ibn Battuta, Ibn Khaldun and his map also inspired Christopher Columbus and Vasco Da Gama. Al-Idrisi in his famous Tabula Rogeriana mentioned Irlandah-al-Kabirah, according to him, from the extremity of Iceland to that of Great Ireland, the sailing time was one day. Although historians note that both al-Idrisi and the Norse tend to understate distances, the location this reference is thought to have possibly pointed to. Al-Idrisi mentioned that Chinese junks carried leather, swords, iron and he mentions the glassware of the city of Hangzhou and labels Quanzhous silk as the best. As well as the maps, al-Idrisi produced a compendium of information with the title Kitab nuzhat al-mushtaq fikhtiraq al-afaq. The title has been translated as The book of pleasant journeys into faraway lands or The pleasure of him who longs to cross the horizons and it has been preserved in nine manuscripts, seven of which contain maps. The translated title of this work attracted favourable comment from the team selecting lists of names for features expected to be discovered by the New Horizons probe reconnoitring the Pluto system, the Al-Idrisi Montes is a geographical feature in that system named after him. This was one of the first Arabic books ever printed, the first translation from the original Arabic was into Latin. The Maronites Gabriel Sionita and Joannes Hesronita translated a version of the text which was published in Paris in 1619 with the rather misleading title of Geographia nubiensis. Not until the middle of the 19th century was a translation of the Arabic text published. This was a translation into French by Pierre Amédée Jaubert, more recently sections of the text have been translated for particular regions
26.
Ibn Jubayr
–
Ibn Jubayr, also written Ibn Jubair, Ibn Jobair, and Ibn Djubayr, was a geographer, traveller and poet from al-Andalus. His travel chronicle describes the pilgrimage he made to Mecca from 1183 to 1185 and his chronicle describes Saladins domains in Egypt and the Levant which he passed through on his way to Mecca. Ibn Jubayr was born in 1145 A. D. in Valencia and he was a descendant of Abdal-Salam ibn Jabayr who in 740 A. D. had accompanied an army sent by the Caliph of Damascus to put down a Berber uprising in his Spanish provinces. Ibn Jubayr studied in the town of Játiva where his father worked as a civil servant and he later became secretary to the Almohad governor of Granada. In the introduction to his Rihla Ibn Jubayr explains the reason for his travels, as secretary for the ruler of Granada in 1182, he was forced, under threat, to drink seven cups of wine. Seized by remorse, the ruler then filled seven cups of gold dinars which he gave him, to expiate his godless act, although forced upon him, Ibn Jubayr decided to perform the duty of Hajj to Mecca. He left Granada on 3 February 1183 accompanied by a physician from the city, Ibn Jubayr left Granada and crossed over the Strait of Gibraltar to Ceuta, then under Muslim rule. He boarded a Genoese ship on February 24,1183 and set sail for Alexandria and his sea journey took him past the Balearic Islands and then across to the west coast of Sardinia. Whilst offshore he heard of the fate of 80 Muslim men, women and children who had abducted from North Africa and were being sold into slavery. Between Sardinia and Sicily the ship ran into a severe storm and he said of the Italians and Muslims on board who had experience of the sea that all agreed that they had never in their lives seen such a tempest. After the storm the ship went on past Sicily, Crete and then turned south and he arrived in Alexandria on March 26. Everywhere that Ibn Jubayr travelled in Egypt he was full of praise for the new Sunni ruler and he points out that when the Nile does not flood enough, Saladin remits the land tax from the farmers. Ibn Jubayr is, on the hand, very disparaging of the previous Shia dynasty of the Fatimids. Of Cairo, Ibn Jubayr notes, are the colleges and hostels erected for students, in those colleges students find lodging and tutors to teach them the sciences they desire, and also allowances to cover their needs. The care of the sultan also grants them baths, hospitals, and the appointment of doctors who can come to visit them at their place of stay. One of the Sultan Saladins other generous acts was that day two thousand loaves of bread were distributed to the poor. Also impressing Ibn Jubayr in that city was the number of mosques, upon arrival at Alexandria Ibn Jubayr was angered by the customs officials who insisted on taking zakat from the pilgrims, regardless of whether they were obliged to pay it or not. In the city he visited the Lighthouse of Alexandria, which at time was still standing
27.
Saadi Shirazi
–
Abū-Muhammad Muslih al-Dīn bin Abdallāh Shīrāzī, better known by his pen-name Saadi, also known as Saadi of Shiraz, was one of the major Persian poets and literary men of the medieval period. He is not only famous in Persian-speaking countries, but has been quoted in western sources as well and he is recognized for the quality of his writings and for the depth of his social and moral thoughts. Saadi is widely recognized as one of the greatest poets of the literary tradition. 1210, his father died when he was a child and he narrates memories of going out with his father as a child during festivities. In his youth, Saadi experienced poverty and hardship and left his native town for Baghdad to pursue a better education. As a young man he enrolled at the Nizamiyya University, where he studied in Islamic sciences, law, governance, history, Arabic literature, and Islamic theology. The unsettled conditions following the Mongol invasion of Khwarezm and Iran led him to wander for thirty years abroad through Anatolia, Syria, Egypt, in his writings he mentions the qadis, muftis of Al-Azhar, the grand bazaar, music and art. At Halab, Saadi joins a group of Sufis who had fought arduous battles against the Crusaders, Saadi was captured by Crusaders at Acre where he spent seven years as a slave digging trenches outside its fortress. He was later released after the Mamluks paid ransom for Muslim prisoners being held in Crusader dungeons, Saadi visited Jerusalem and then set out on a pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina. It is believed that he may have also visited Oman and other lands in the south of the Arabian Peninsula, because of the Mongol invasions he was forced to live in desolate areas and met caravans fearing for their lives on once-lively silk trade routes. Saadi lived in isolated refugee camps where he met bandits, Imams, men who owned great wealth or commanded armies, intellectuals. While Mongol and European sources gravitated to the potentates and courtly life of Ilkhanate rule and he sat in remote tea houses late into the night and exchanged views with merchants, farmers, preachers, wayfarers, thieves, and Sufi mendicants. For twenty years or more, he continued the same schedule of preaching, advising, Saadis works reflect upon the lives of ordinary Iranians suffering displacement, agony and conflict during the turbulent times of the Mongol invasion. Saadi mentions honey-gatherers in Azarbaijan, fearful of Mongol plunder and he finally returns to Persia where he meets his childhood companions in Isfahan and other cities. At Khorasan Saadi befriends a Turkic Emir named Tughral, Saadi joins him and his men on their journey to Sindh where he meets Pir Puttur, a follower of the Persian Sufi grand master Shaikh Usman Marvandvi. He also refers in his writings about his travels with a Turkic Amir named Tughral in Sindh, India, Tughral later enters service of the wealthy Delhi Sultanate, and Saadi is invited to Delhi and later visits the Vizier of Gujarat. During his stay in Gujarat, Saadi learns more about the Hindus and visits the temple of Somnath. Saadi came back to Shiraz before 1257 CE /655 AH, Saadi has mourned in his poetry the fall of Abbasid Caliphate and Baghdads destruction by Mongol invaders led by Hulagu in February 1258
28.
Ibn Sa'id al-Maghribi
–
Ibn Said was born at Alcalá la Real near Granada to a prominent family many of whose members were literary figures, and grew up in Marrakesh. He subsequently studied in Seville and stayed in Tunis, Alexandria, Cairo, Jerusalem, at the age of 30, he undertook a pilgrimage to Mecca. He was also a friend of the Muladi poet Ibn Mokond Al-Lishboni. His last years were spent in Tunis, and he died there in 1286, Ibn Said al-Maghribi wrote or compiled at least forty works on various branches of knowledge. Abū Muḥammad al-Ḥijārī completed 6 volumes, ‘Abd al-Malik added to them, two of ‘Abd al-Maliks sons added more, Ibn Saids father worked on it further, and Ibn Said completed it. Part of the Mughrib circulated separately as Rāyāt al-mubarrizīn wa-ghāyāt al-mumayyazīn and it is, in the words of Louis Cromption, perhaps the most important of the various medieval Andalucian poetry anthologies. His aim in compiling the collection seems to have been to show that produced in the West was as good as anything the East had to offer. As an indefatigable traveller, Ibn Said was profoundly interested in geography, in 1250 he wrote his Kitab bast al- ard fi t -t ul wa-l-ard. His Kitab al-Jughrafiya embodies the experience of his travels through the Muslim world. He also gives an account of parts of northern Europe including Ireland and Iceland and he visited Armenia and was at the Court of Hulagu Khan from 1256 to 1265. He also wrote a history of the Maghreb, which at that time include Islamic Iberia and this book is midway between an anthology of poetry and a geography, collecting information on the poets of Maghreb organized by geographical origin. When you look at him you see dark night opening, giving way to dawn, sons of Shem and Ham live harmoniously in him, and take no care for the words of would-be troublemakers. Mens eyes light up when they see reflected in his beauty the clear strong black,1, pp. 68–96 His history of the world and Islamic literature, ms. Edition by Ibrahim al-Ibyari, Cairo 1968 Arberry, A. J, moorish poetry, a translation of the pennants, an anthology compiled in 1243 by the andalusian ibn said. The Banners of the Champions of Ibn Said al-Maghribi, translated by James Bellamy and Patricia Steiner
29.
Ibn al-Nafis
–
Ala-al-din abu Al-Hassan Ali ibn Abi-Hazm al-Qarshi al-Dimashqi, known as Ibn al-Nafis, was an Arab physician mostly famous for being the first to describe the pulmonary circulation of the blood. The work of Al-Nafis regarding the right sided circulation pre-date the much later work of William Harveys De motu cordis, both theories attempt to explain circulation. Apart from medicine, Ibn al-Nafis learned jurisprudence, literature and theology and he was an expert on the Shafii school of jurisprudence and an expert physician. He also performed several human dissections during the course of his work, the number of medical textbooks written by al-Nafis in his lifetime is estimated at more than 110 volumes. Ibn al-Nafis was taught by the founder of a school in Damascus. Al-Nafis taught and practiced at his own, then lesser known hospital in Egypt and he became the chief physician there and personal physician for prominent political leaders, thus becoming also an authority among practitioners of medicine. Prior to his death, he donated his house and personal library to Qalawun Hospital or, as it was also known and he died on December 17,1288, in Cairo. In 1236, Al-Nafis moved to Egypt to teach jurisprudence in Cairo at al-Masruriyya and his name is found among those of other scholars, which gives insight into how well he was regarded in the study and practice of religious law. He wrote Kitab al-Shamil fi ‘l-Sina’a al-Tibbiyya around his 30s and it comprised 300 volumes of notes, but only 80 of these were published. His writings are cataloged in many libraries around the world, including the Cambridge University Library, the Bodleian Library, Kitab al-Shamil is a book that went unpublished, but it gives insight into his view of medicine and human relations. His surgical technique had three stages, step one was to give the patient information on how it was to be performed and the knowledge it was based on. The second step was to perform the surgery itself, the final step was to have a post-surgery appointment and a routine of checkups. There is also a description of a responsibility when working with nurses, patients. The most voluminous of his books is Al-Shamil fi al-Tibb, which was planned to be an encyclopedia comprising 300 volumes, was left incomplete upon his death, the manuscript is available in Damascus. His book on ophthalmology is largely an original contribution and his most famous work is The Summary of Law. Another famous work, also a contribution, was on the effects of diet on health. His Al-Risalah al-Kamiliyyah fil Siera al-Nabawiyyah, translated in the West under the title Theologus Autodidactus, is claimed by some to be the first theological novel and he also wrote a number of commentaries on the topics of law and medicine. Commentaries include one on Hippocrates book, several volumes on Avicennas The Canon of Medicine, Sharh Abidhimya li-Buqrat, Sharh Masa’il Hunayn, al-Muhadhdhab fi ‘l-Kuhl, Bughyat al-Talibin wa Hujjat al-Mutatabbibn
