1.
State of Palestine
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The State of Palestine claims the West Bank and Gaza Strip with East Jerusalem as the designated capital. Most of the areas claimed by the State of Palestine have been occupied by Israel since 1967 in the aftermath of the Six-Day War and its independence was declared on 15 November 1988 by the Palestine Liberation Organization in Algiers as a government-in-exile. Since the British Mandate, the term Palestine has been associated with the area that currently covers the State of Israel, the West Bank. In 1947, the UN adopted a plan for a two-state solution in the remaining territory of the mandate. The plan was accepted by the Jewish leadership but rejected by the Arab leaders, on the eve of final British withdrawal, the Jewish Agency for Israel declared the establishment of the State of Israel according to the proposed UN plan. During the war, Israel gained additional territories that were designated to be part of the Arab state under the UN plan, Egypt occupied the Gaza Strip and Transjordan occupied the West Bank. Egypt initially supported the creation of an All-Palestine Government, but disbanded it in 1959, Transjordan never recognized it and instead decided to incorporate the West Bank with its own territory to form Jordan. The annexation was ratified in 1950 but was rejected by the international community, the Six-Day War in 1967, when Egypt, Jordan, and Syria fought against Israel, ended with Israel being in occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, besides other territories. In 1964, when the West Bank was controlled by Jordan, the Palestinian National Charter of the PLO defines the boundaries of Palestine as the whole remaining territory of the mandate, including Israel. Following the Six-Day War, the PLO moved to Jordan, the October 1974 Arab League summit designated the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people and reaffirmed their right to establish an independent state of urgency. In November 1974, the PLO was recognized as competent on all matters concerning the question of Palestine by the UN General Assembly granting them observer status as an entity at the UN. In spite of this decision, the PLO did not participate at the UN in its capacity of the State of Palestines government, in 1979, through the Camp David Accords, Egypt signaled an end to any claim of its own over the Gaza Strip. In July 1988, Jordan ceded its claims to the West Bank—with the exception of guardianship over Haram al-Sharif—to the PLO, in November 1988, the PLO legislature, while in exile, declared the establishment of the State of Palestine. In the month following, it was recognised by many states, including Egypt. In the Palestinian Declaration of Independence, the State of Palestine is described as being established on the Palestinian territory, the UN membership application submitted by the State of Palestine also specified that it is based on the 1967 borders. During the negotiations of the Oslo Accords, the PLO recognised Israels right to exist, after Israel took control of the West Bank from Jordan and Gaza Strip from Egypt, it began to establish Israeli settlements there. These were organised into Judea and Samaria district and Hof Aza Regional Council in the Southern District, in 1980, Israel decided to freeze elections for these councils and to establish instead Village Leagues, whose officials were under Israeli influence. Later this model became ineffective for both Israel and the Palestinians, and the Village Leagues began to break up, with the last being the Hebron League, dissolved in February 1988
2.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
3.
Palestine grid
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The Palestine grid was the geographic coordinate system used in Mandatory Palestine. The system was chosen by the Survey Department of the Government of Palestine in 1922, the projection used was the Cassini-Soldner projection. The central meridian was chosen as that passing through a marker on the hill of Mar Elias Monastery south of Jerusalem, the false origin of the grid was placed 100 km to the south and west of the Ali el-Muntar hill that overlooks Gaza city. The unit length for the grid was the kilometre, the British units were not even considered, at the time the grid was established, there was no intention of mapping the lower reaches of the Negev Desert, but this did not remain true. The fact that those regions would have negative north-south coordinate then became a source of confusion. For some military purposes,1000 was added to the coordinates of all locations. During World War II, a Military Palestine Grid was used that was similar to the Palestine Grid, the difference between the two projections was only a few meters. It was replaced by the Israeli Transverse Mercator grid in 1994, the Palestine grid is still commonly used to specify locations in the historical and archaeological literature. The basic way of specifying a location on the Palestine grid is to write the east-west coordinate followed by the north-south coordinate using 3 digits each, for example, the Dome of the Rock is at 172132. This specifies the location within one kilometer, if more precision is required, extra digits can be added to each coordinate, for example,17241317 gives the Dome of the Rock to within 100 meters. Many authors separate the two coordinates with punctuation for readability purposes, for example 172-132 or 172/132
4.
Arabic
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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
5.
Palestinians
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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
6.
West Bank
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The West Bank shares boundaries to the west, north, and south with Israel, and to the east, across the Jordan River, with Jordan. The West Bank also contains a significant section of the western Dead Sea shore, the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, has a land area of 5,640 km2 plus a water area of 220 km2, consisting of the northwest quarter of the Dead Sea. As of July 2015 it has an population of 2,785,366 Palestinians, and approximately 371,000 Israeli settlers. The international community considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, illegal under international law and this annexation was recognized only by Britain, Iraq and Pakistan. The term was chosen to differentiate the west bank of the River Jordan from the east bank of this river, the neo-Latin name Cisjordan or Cis-Jordan is the usual name for the territory in the Romance languages and Hungarian. The name West Bank, however, has become the standard usage for this entity in English. The analogous Transjordan has historically used to designate the region now roughly comprising the state of Jordan. From 1517 through 1917, the now known as the West Bank was under Ottoman rule as part of the provinces of Syria. At the 1920 San Remo conference, the victorious Allied powers allocated the area to the British Mandate of Palestine, the San Remo Resolution adopted on 25 April 1920 incorporated the Balfour Declaration of 1917. It and Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations were the basic documents upon which the British Mandate for Palestine was constructed. Faced with the determination of Emir Abdullah to unify Arab lands under the Hashemite banner, the West Bank area, was conquered by Jordan during the 1948 war with the new state of Israel. In 1947, it was designated as part of a proposed Arab state by the United Nations partition plan for Palestine. 1949 Armistice Agreements defined the boundary between Israel and Jordan. In 1950, Transjordan annexed the area west of the Jordan River, naming it West Bank or Cisjordan, Jordan ruled over the West Bank from 1948 until 1967. Jordans annexation was never recognized by the international community, with the exception of the United Kingdom. King Abdullah of Jordan had been crowned King of Jerusalem by the Coptic Bishop on 15 November 1948. and granted Palestinian Arabs in the West Bank, in June 1967, the West Bank and East Jerusalem were captured by Israel as a result of the Six-Day War. With the exception of East Jerusalem and the former Israeli-Jordanian no mans land, the Israeli settlements were, on the other hand, administered subsequently as Judea and Samaria Area directly by Israel. Since the 1993 Oslo Accords, the Palestinian Authority officially controls a geographically non-contiguous territory comprising approx, 11% of the West Bank which remains subject to Israeli incursions
7.
Qalqilya
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Qalqilya, is a Palestinian city in the West Bank. Qalqilya serves as the center of the Qalqilya Governorate. In the official 2007 census the city had a population of 41,739, Qalqilya is surrounded by the Israeli West Bank barrier with a narrow gap in the east controlled by the Israeli military and a tunnel to Hableh. The vicinity of Qalqilya has been populated since prehistoric times, as attested to by the discovery of flint tools. In 1596, Qalqilya appeared in Ottoman tax registers as a village in the nahiya of Bani Sab in the Liwa of Nablus and it had a population of 13 Muslim households and paid taxes on wheat, barley, summercrops, olives, and goats or beehives. In 1882, Qalqilya was described as A large somewhat straggling village, with cisterns to the north, according to the Qalqilya Municipality, the modern city was founded in 1893 by residents of nearby Baqat al-Hatab. A municipal council to administer Qalqilya was established in 1909, in the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Qalqilya had a population of 2,803, increasing in the 1931 census to 3,867, in a total of 796 houses. In 1945 the population of Qalqilya was 5,850, all Arabs, of this,3701 dunams were for citrus and bananas,3,232 were plantations and irrigable land,16,197 used for cereals, while 273 dunams were built-up land. In the wake of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, and after the 1949 Armistice Agreements, during the war, many inhabitants from nearby and currently depopulated villages, including Kafr Saba, Abu Kishk, Miska, Biyar Adas and Shaykh Muwannis fled to Qalqilya as refugees. On the night of 10 October 1956 the Israeli army launched a raid against Qalqilya police station, the attack was ordered by Moshe Dayan and involved several thousand soldiers. During the fighting a paratroop company was surrounded by Jordanian troops, eighteen Israelis and between 70 and 90 Jordanians were killed in the operation. Qalqilya was occupied by Israeli forces during the Six-Day War in 1967, after the conquest of Qalqilya in 1967, dozens of its inhabitants were evicted by Israel to Jordan, and at least 850 buildings were razed. In his memoirs, Moshe Dayan described the destruction as a punishment that was designed to chase the inhabitants away, the villagers were eventually allowed to return and the reconstruction of damaged houses was financed by the military authorities. In September 1967, a census found 8,922 persons, as part of the 1993 Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization, control of Qalqilya was transferred to the Palestinian National Authority on 17 December 1995. In 2003, the Israeli West Bank barrier was built, encircling the town, in November 2015, Israel arrested what it alleged to be a network of 24 Hamas militants active in the city. Qalqilya is located in the northwestern West Bank, straddling the border with Israel, Qalqilya has an average elevation of 57 meters above sea level. The average annual rainfall 587.4 millimeters and the annual temperature is 19 degrees Celsius. The 1997 census by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics recorded Qalqilyas population to be 22,168, the majority of the inhabitants were Palestinian refugees or their descendants
8.
Mas-ha
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Mas-ha is a Palestinian village located in the Salfit Governorate in the northern West Bank,37 kilometers southwest of Nablus. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, it had a population of 2,003 in 2007, potsherds from the Byzantine, Byzantine/Umayyad, Crusader/Ayyubid and Mamluk era have been found. Potsherds from the early Ottoman era have also been found, masha appeared in 1596 Ottoman tax registers as being in the Nahiya of Jabal Qubal of the Liwa of Nablus. It had a population of five households, all Muslim, and paid taxes on wheat, barley, summercrops, olive trees, occasional revenues, goats and beehives, and a press for olives or grapes. French explorer Victor Guérin passed by the village in 1870, and estimated it as having about 300-350 inhabitants, in 1882 the Palestine Exploration Funds Survey of Western Palestine described Mes-ha as a good-sized village, with a high central house, but partly ruinous. It is supplied by cisterns, and the houses are of stone, in 1945 the population was 110, all Muslim while the total land area was 8,263 dunams, according to an official land and population survey. Of this,1,612 were allocated for plantations and irrigable land,2,482 for cereals, in the wake of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, and after the 1949 Armistice Agreements, Mas-ha came under Jordanian rule. After the Six-Day War in 1967, Mas-ha has been under Israeli occupation
9.
Sherd
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Occasionally, a piece of broken pottery may be referred to as a shard. While the spelling shard is generally reserved for referring to fragments of glass vessels, the etymology is connected with the idea of breakage, from Old English sceard, related to Old Norse skarth, notch, and Middle High German scharte, notch. A sherd or potsherd that has been used by having writing painted or inscribed on it can be more referred to as an ostracon. The analysis of sherds is widely used by archaeologists to date sites and develop chronologies, due to their characteristics and high resistance to natural. Some characteristics of sherds useful to archaeologists include temper, form and these characteristics can be used to determine the kinds of resources and technologies used at the site. Archaeologists often classify sherds by the part of the vessel from which the sherd came. For example, sherds may be categorized as rim sherds, body sherds, rim sherds are fragments of a vessels rim, while base sherds are fragments of the vessels base. Body sherds are fragments of ceramic that are not identified as rim sherds or base sherds, other categories might include fragments of handles or lids. While all types of sherds carry valuable information, rim sherds, shepard, Anna O. Ceramics for the Archaeologist
10.
Iron Age
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The Iron Age is an archaeological era, referring to a period of time in the prehistory and protohistory of the Old World when the dominant toolmaking material was iron. It is commonly preceded by the Bronze Age in Europe and Asia with exceptions, meteoric iron has been used by humans since at least 3200 BC. Ancient iron production did not become widespread until the ability to smelt ore, remove impurities. The start of the Iron Age proper is considered by many to fall between around 1200 BC and 600 BC, depending on the region, the earliest known iron artifacts are nine small beads dated to 3200 BC, which were found in burials at Gerzeh, Lower Egypt. They have been identified as meteoric iron shaped by careful hammering, meteoric iron, a characteristic iron–nickel alloy, was used by various ancient peoples thousands of years before the Iron Age. Such iron, being in its metallic state, required no smelting of ores. Smelted iron appears sporadically in the record from the middle Bronze Age. While terrestrial iron is abundant, its high melting point of 1,538 °C placed it out of reach of common use until the end of the second millennium BC. Tins low melting point of 231, similarly, recent archaeological remains of iron working in the Ganges Valley in India have been tentatively dated to 1800 BC. By the Middle Bronze Age, increasing numbers of smelted iron objects appeared in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, African sites are turning up dates as early as 1200 BC. Modern archaeological evidence identifies the start of iron production in around 1200 BC. Between 1200 BC and 1000 BC, diffusion in the understanding of iron metallurgy and use of objects was fast. As evidence, many bronze implements were recycled into weapons during this time, more widespread use of iron led to improved steel-making technology at lower cost. Thus, even when tin became available again, iron was cheaper, stronger, and lighter, and forged iron implements superseded cast bronze tools permanently. Increasingly, the Iron Age in Europe is being seen as a part of the Bronze Age collapse in the ancient Near East, in ancient India, ancient Iran, and ancient Greece. In other regions of Europe, the Iron Age began in the 8th century BC in Central Europe, the Near Eastern Iron Age is divided into two subsections, Iron I and Iron II. Iron I illustrates both continuity and discontinuity with the previous Late Bronze Age, during the Iron Age, the best tools and weapons were made from steel, particularly alloys which were produced with a carbon content between approximately 0. 30% and 1. 2% by weight. Steel weapons and tools were nearly the same weight as those of bronze, however, steel was difficult to produce with the methods available, and alloys that were easier to make, such as wrought iron, were more common in lower-priced goods
11.
Achaemenid Empire
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The Achaemenid Empire, also called the Persian Empire, was an empire based in Western Asia, founded by Cyrus the Great. The empires successes inspired similar systems in later empires and it is noted in Western history as the antagonist of the Greek city-states during the Greco-Persian Wars and for the emancipation of the Jewish exiles in Babylon. The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, was built in a Hellenistic style in the empire as well. By the 7th century BC, the Persians had settled in the portion of the Iranian Plateau in the region of Persis. From this region, Cyrus the Great advanced to defeat the Medes, Lydia, Alexander, an avid admirer of Cyrus the Great, conquered the empire in its entirety by 330 BC. Upon his death, most of the former territory came under the rule of the Ptolemaic Kingdom and Seleucid Empire. The Persian population of the central plateau reclaimed power by the second century BC under the Parthian Empire, the historical mark of the Achaemenid Empire went far beyond its territorial and military influences and included cultural, social, technological and religious influences as well. Many Athenians adopted Achaemenid customs in their lives in a reciprocal cultural exchange. The impact of Cyruss edict is mentioned in Judeo-Christian texts, the empire also set the tone for the politics, heritage and history of modern Iran. Astronomical year numbering Dates are approximate, consult particular article for details Due to the duration of their reigns, Smerdis, Xerxes II. The Persian nation contains a number of tribes as listed here, the Pasargadae, Maraphii, and Maspii, upon which all the other tribes are dependent. Of these, the Pasargadae are the most distinguished, they contain the clan of the Achaemenids from which spring the Perseid kings. Other tribes are the Panthialaei, Derusiaei, Germanii, all of which are attached to the soil, the Achaemenid Empire was created by nomadic Persians. The Achaemenid Empire was not the first Iranian empire, as by 6th century BC another group of ancient Iranian peoples had established the short lived Median Empire. The Iranian peoples had arrived in the region of what is today Iran c.1000 BC and had for a number of centuries fallen under the domination of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, based in northern Mesopotamia. However, the Medes and Persians, Cimmerians, Persians and Chaldeans played a role in the overthrow of the Assyrian empire. The term Achaemenid means of the family of the Achaemenis/Achaemenes, despite the derivation of the name, Achaemenes was himself a minor seventh-century ruler of the Anshan in southwestern Iran, and a vassal of Assyria. At some point in 550 BC, Cyrus rose in rebellion against the Medes, eventually conquering the Medes and creating the first Persian empire
12.
Hellenistic period
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It is often considered a period of transition, sometimes even of decadence or degeneration, compared to the enlightenment of the Greek Classical era. The Hellenistic period saw the rise of New Comedy, Alexandrian poetry, the Septuagint, Greek science was advanced by the works of the mathematician Euclid and the polymath Archimedes. The religious sphere expanded to include new gods such as the Greco-Egyptian Serapis, eastern deities such as Attis and Cybele, the Hellenistic period was characterized by a new wave of Greek colonization which established Greek cities and kingdoms in Asia and Africa. This resulted in the export of Greek culture and language to new realms. Equally, however, these new kingdoms were influenced by the cultures, adopting local practices where beneficial, necessary. Hellenistic culture thus represents a fusion of the Ancient Greek world with that of the Near East, Middle East and this mixture gave rise to a common Attic-based Greek dialect, known as Koine Greek, which became the lingua franca through the Hellenistic world. Scholars and historians are divided as to what event signals the end of the Hellenistic era, Hellenistic is distinguished from Hellenic in that the first encompasses the entire sphere of direct ancient Greek influence, while the latter refers to Greece itself. The word originated from the German term hellenistisch, from Ancient Greek Ἑλληνιστής, from Ἑλλάς, Hellenistic is a modern word and a 19th-century concept, the idea of a Hellenistic period did not exist in Ancient Greece. Although words related in form or meaning, e. g, the major issue with the term Hellenistic lies in its convenience, as the spread of Greek culture was not the generalized phenomenon that the term implies. Some areas of the world were more affected by Greek influences than others. The Greek population and the population did not always mix, the Greeks moved and brought their own culture. While a few fragments exist, there is no surviving historical work which dates to the hundred years following Alexanders death. The works of the major Hellenistic historians Hieronymus of Cardia, Duris of Samos, the earliest and most credible surviving source for the Hellenistic period is Polybius of Megalopolis, a statesman of the Achaean League until 168 BC when he was forced to go to Rome as a hostage. His Histories eventually grew to a length of forty books, covering the years 220 to 167 BC, another important source, Plutarchs Parallel Lives though more preoccupied with issues of personal character and morality, outlines the history of important Hellenistic figures. Appian of Alexandria wrote a history of the Roman empire that includes information of some Hellenistic kingdoms, other sources include Justins epitome of Pompeius Trogus Historiae Philipicae and a summary of Arrians Events after Alexander, by Photios I of Constantinople. Lesser supplementary sources include Curtius Rufus, Pausanias, Pliny, in the field of philosophy, Diogenes Laertius Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers is the main source. Ancient Greece had traditionally been a collection of fiercely independent city-states. After the Peloponnesian War, Greece had fallen under a Spartan hegemony, in which Sparta was pre-eminent but not all-powerful
13.
Byzantine Empire
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It survived the fragmentation and fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD and continued to exist for an additional thousand years until it fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. During most of its existence, the empire was the most powerful economic, cultural, several signal events from the 4th to 6th centuries mark the period of transition during which the Roman Empires Greek East and Latin West divided. Constantine I reorganised the empire, made Constantinople the new capital, under Theodosius I, Christianity became the Empires official state religion and other religious practices were proscribed. Finally, under the reign of Heraclius, the Empires military, the borders of the Empire evolved significantly over its existence, as it went through several cycles of decline and recovery. During the reign of Maurice, the Empires eastern frontier was expanded, in a matter of years the Empire lost its richest provinces, Egypt and Syria, to the Arabs. This battle opened the way for the Turks to settle in Anatolia, the Empire recovered again during the Komnenian restoration, such that by the 12th century Constantinople was the largest and wealthiest European city. Despite the eventual recovery of Constantinople in 1261, the Byzantine Empire remained only one of several small states in the area for the final two centuries of its existence. Its remaining territories were annexed by the Ottomans over the 15th century. The Fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 finally ended the Byzantine Empire, the term comes from Byzantium, the name of the city of Constantinople before it became Constantines capital. This older name of the city would rarely be used from this point onward except in historical or poetic contexts. The publication in 1648 of the Byzantine du Louvre, and in 1680 of Du Canges Historia Byzantina further popularised the use of Byzantine among French authors, however, it was not until the mid-19th century that the term came into general use in the Western world. The Byzantine Empire was known to its inhabitants as the Roman Empire, the Empire of the Romans, Romania, the Roman Republic, Graikia, and also as Rhōmais. The inhabitants called themselves Romaioi and Graikoi, and even as late as the 19th century Greeks typically referred to modern Greek as Romaika and Graikika. The authority of the Byzantine emperor as the legitimate Roman emperor was challenged by the coronation of Charlemagne as Imperator Augustus by Pope Leo III in the year 800. No such distinction existed in the Islamic and Slavic worlds, where the Empire was more seen as the continuation of the Roman Empire. In the Islamic world, the Roman Empire was known primarily as Rûm, the Roman army succeeded in conquering many territories covering the entire Mediterranean region and coastal regions in southwestern Europe and north Africa. These territories were home to different cultural groups, both urban populations and rural populations. The West also suffered heavily from the instability of the 3rd century AD
14.
Umayyad Caliphate
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The Umayyad Caliphate, also spelled Omayyad, was the second of the four major caliphates established after the death of Muhammad. This caliphate was centred on the Umayyad dynasty, hailing from Mecca, Syria remained the Umayyads main power base thereafter, and Damascus was their capital. The Umayyads continued the Muslim conquests, incorporating the Caucasus, Transoxiana, Sindh, the Maghreb and the Iberian Peninsula into the Muslim world. At its greatest extent, the Umayyad Caliphate covered 11,100,000 km2 and 62 million people, the Umayyad Caliphate was secular by nature. At the time, the Umayyad taxation and administrative practice were perceived as unjust by some Muslims, Muhammad had stated explicitly during his lifetime that Abrahamic religious groups, should be allowed to practice their own religion, provided that they paid the jizya taxation. The welfare state of both the Muslim and the poor started by Umar ibn al Khattab had also continued, financed by the zakat tax levied only on Muslims. Muawiyas wife Maysum was also a Christian, the relations between the Muslims and the Christians in the state were stable in this time. Prominent positions were held by Christians, some of whom belonged to families that had served in Byzantine governments, the employment of Christians was part of a broader policy of religious assimilation that was necessitated by the presence of large Christian populations in the conquered provinces, as in Syria. This policy also boosted Muawiyas popularity and solidified Syria as his power base, the rivalries between the Arab tribes had caused unrest in the provinces outside Syria, most notably in the Second Muslim Civil War of AD 680–692 and the Berber Revolt of 740–743. During the Second Civil War, leadership of the Umayyad clan shifted from the Sufyanid branch of the family to the Marwanid branch. A branch of the family fled across North Africa to Al-Andalus, where they established the Caliphate of Córdoba, according to tradition, the Umayyad family and Muhammad both descended from a common ancestor, Abd Manaf ibn Qusai, and they originally came from the city of Mecca. Muhammad descended from Abd Manāf via his son Hashim, while the Umayyads descended from Abd Manaf via a different son, Abd-Shams, the two families are therefore considered to be different clans of the same tribe. However Muslim Shia historians suspect that Umayya was a son of Abd Shams so he was not a blood relative of Abd Manaf ibn Qusai. Umayya was later discarded from the noble family, Sunni historians disagree with this and view Shia claims as nothing more than outright polemics due to their hostility to the Umayyad family in general. While the Umayyads and the Hashimites may have had bitterness between the two clans before Muhammad, the rivalry turned into a case of tribal animosity after the Battle of Badr. The battle saw three top leaders of the Umayyad clan killed by Hashimites in a three-on-three melee and this fueled the opposition of Abu Sufyan ibn Harb, the grandson of Umayya, to Muhammad and to Islam. Abu Sufyan sought to exterminate the adherents of the new religion by waging another battle with Muslims based in Medina only a year after the Battle of Badr and he did this to avenge the defeat at Badr. The Battle of Uhud is generally believed by scholars to be the first defeat for the Muslims, as they had incurred greater losses than the Meccans
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Crusader states
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The name also refers to other territorial gains made by medieval Christendom against Muslim and pagan adversaries. The Crusader States in the Levant were the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the Principality of Antioch, the County of Tripoli, the Eastern Romans, or Byzantines, partially recovered lost territory on numerous occasions but over time gradually lost all but Anatolia and parts of Thrace and the Balkans. In the West, the Roman Catholic kingdoms of northern Iberia launched a series of known as the Reconquista to reconquer the peninsula from the Arabized Berbers known as Moors. The conquered Iberian principalities are not customarily called Crusader states, except for the Kingdom of Valencia, professor Barber indicates that, in the Crusader State of the Kingdom of Jerusalem the Holy Sepulchre was added to in the 7th century and rebuilt in 1022, after a previous collapse. The situation represented an existential threat for the Eastern Orthodox Byzantine Empire. The Emperor sent a plea to the Pope in Rome to send military aid with the goal of restoring the formerly Christian territories to Christian rule, the result was a series of western European military campaigns into the eastern Mediterranean, known as the Crusades. The first four Crusader states were created in the Levant immediately after the First Crusade, The first Crusader state, the Principality of Antioch, founded in 1098, lasted until 1268. The Kingdom of Jerusalem, founded in 1099, lasted until 1291, the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia had its origins before the Crusades, but was granted the status of a kingdom by Pope Innocent III, and later became fully westernized by the Lusignan dynasty. During the Third Crusade, the Crusaders founded the Kingdom of Cyprus, Richard I of England conquered Cyprus on his way to Holy Land. The Templars promptly returned the island to Richard who resold it to the displaced King of Jerusalem Guy of Lusignan in 1192. For much of its history under the Lusignan Kings, Cyprus was a prosperous Medieval Kingdom, the Kingdoms decline began when it became embroiled in the dispute between the Italian Merchant Republics of Genoa and Venice. Indeed, the Kingdoms decline can be traced to a war with Genoa in 1373–74 which ended with the Genoese occupying the principal port City of Famagusta. Eventually with the help of Venice, the Kingdom recovered Famagusta but by then it was too late and in any event, venetian rule over Cyprus lasted for just over 80 years until 1571, when the Ottoman Empire under Sultan Selim II Sarkhosh invaded and captured the entire island. These states faced the attacks of the Byzantine Greek successor states of Nicaea and Epirus, thessalonica and the Latin Empire were reconquered by the Byzantine Greeks by 1261. Descendants of the Crusaders continued to rule in Athens and the Peloponnesus until the 15th century when the area was conquered by the Ottoman Empire. The military order of the Knights Hospitaller of Saint John established itself on Rhodes in 1310, with influx of new blood. The island of Kastellorizo was taken by the Knights of St, other neighbouring territories temporarily under the order were, the cities of Smyrna, Attaleia, the city of Salona and the islands of Ikaria and Kos, all now in Greece. The coins minted in Jerusalem during the 12th century show patriarchal crosses with various modifications, coins minted under Henry I show a cross with four dots in the four quarters, but the Jerusalem cross proper appears only on a coin minted under John II
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Ayyubid dynasty
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The Ayyubid dynasty was a Muslim dynasty of Kurdish origin, founded by Saladin and centered in Egypt. The dynasty ruled much of the Middle East during the 12th and 13th centuries, Saladin had been the vizier of Fatimid Egypt before toppling the Fatimids in 1171. Three years later, he proclaimed himself sultan following the death of his former master, most of the Kingdom of Jerusalem fell to Saladin after his victory at the Battle of Hattin in 1187. However, the Crusaders regained control of Palestines coastline in the 1190s, by then, local Muslim dynasties had driven out the Ayyubids from Yemen, the Hejaz, and parts of Mesopotamia. After his death in 1249, as-Salih Ayyub was succeeded in Egypt by al-Muazzam Turanshah, however, the latter was soon overthrown by the Mamluk generals who had repelled a Crusader invasion of the Nile Delta. This effectively ended Ayyubid power in Egypt, attempts by the emirs of Syria, led by an-Nasir Yusuf of Aleppo, in 1260, the Mongols sacked Aleppo and conquered the Ayyubids remaining territories soon after. The Mamluks, who expelled the Mongols, maintained the Ayyubid principality of Hama until deposing its last ruler in 1341 and this period was also marked by an Ayyubid process of vigorously strengthening Sunni Muslim dominance in the region by constructing numerous madrasas in their major cities. The progenitor of the Ayyubid dynasty, Najm ad-Din Ayyub ibn Shadhi, belonged to the Kurdish Rawadiya tribe, Ayyubs ancestors settled in the town of Dvin, in northern Armenia. The Rawadiya were the dominant Kurdish group in the Dvin district, circumstances became unfavorable in Dvin when Turkish generals seized the town from its Kurdish prince. Shadhi left with his two sons Ayyub and Asad ad-Din Shirkuh and his friend Mujahid ad-Din Bihruz—the military governor of northern Mesopotamia under the Seljuks—welcomed him and appointed him governor of Tikrit. After Shadhis death, Ayyub succeeded him in governance of the city with the assistance of his brother Shirkuh, together they managed the affairs of the city well, gaining them popularity from the local inhabitants. In the meantime, Imad ad-Din Zangi, the ruler of Mosul, was defeated by the Abbasids under Caliph al-Mustarshid, in his bid to escape the battlefield to Mosul via Tikrit, Zangi took shelter with Ayyub and sought his assistance in this task. Ayyub complied and provided Zangi and his companions boats to cross the Tigris River, as a consequence for assisting Zangi, the Abbasid authorities sought punitive measures against Ayyub. Simultaneously, in an incident, Shirkuh killed a close confidant of Bihruz on charges that he had sexually assaulted a woman in Tikrit. The Abbasid court issued arrest warrants for both Ayyub and Shirkuh, but before the brothers could be arrested, they departed Tikrit for Mosul in 1138. When they arrived in Mosul, Zangi provided them all the facilities they needed. Ayyub was made commander of Baalbek and Shirkuh entered the service of Zangis son, according to historian Abdul Ali, it was under the care and patronage of Zangi that the Ayyubid family rose to prominence. In 1164, Nur al-Din dispatched Shirkuh to lead a force to prevent the Crusaders from establishing a strong presence in an increasingly anarchic Egypt
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Mamluk Sultanate (Cairo)
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The Mamluk Sultanate was a medieval realm spanning Egypt, the Levant, and Hejaz. It lasted from the overthrow of the Ayyubid Dynasty until the Ottoman conquest of Egypt in 1517, historians have traditionally broken the era of Mamlūk rule into two periods—one covering 1250–1382, the other, 1382–1517. Western historians call the former the Baḥrī period and the latter the Burjī due to the dominance of the regimes known by these names during the respective eras. Contemporary Muslim historians refer to the divisions as the Turkish. The Mamlūk state reached its height under Turkic rule with Arabic culture, the sultanates ruling caste was composed of Mamluks, soldiers of predominantly Cuman-Kipchaks, Circassian, Abkhazian, Oghuz Turks and Georgian slave origin. While Mamluks were purchased, their status was above ordinary slaves, Mamluks were considered to be true lords, with social status above citizens of Egypt. Though it declined towards the end of its existence, at its height the sultanate represented the zenith of medieval Egyptian and Levantine political, economic, the term Mamluk Sultanate is a modern historiographical term. The Arabic sources for the period of the Bahri Mamluks refer to the dynasty as the State/Realm of the Turks, other official names used were State of the Circassians. A variant thereof emphasized the fact that the Circassians were Turkish-speaking, the term Mongol State was used during Sultan al-Adil Kitbughas rule, who was of Mongol extraction. Dawlatāl Qalāwūn or Dawlat Banī Qalāwūn which means Qalāwūnī State/Dynasty which have ruled for hundred years between 1279 and 1382, al-dawla al-Ẓāhiriyya which meant Ẓāhirī state/dynasty which is the dynasty of Baibars and his two sons al-Said Barakah and Solamish. This dynasty have ruled consecutively for 19 years, Mamluk was a term defined as owned slave, distinguishing the mamluk from the garya and ghulam, which referred to household slaves. After thorough training in fields such as martial arts, court etiquette and Islamic sciences. However, they were expected to remain loyal to their master. Mamluks had formed a part of the state or military apparatus in Syria and Egypt since at least the 9th century, each Ayyubid sultan and high-ranking emir had a private mamluk corps. Most of the mamluks in the Ayyubids service were ethnic Kipchak Turks from Central Asia and they were highly committed to their masters, who they often referred to as father, and were in turn treated more as kinsmen than as slaves by their masters. These mamluks became known as the Salihiyyah, to provision his mamluks, as-Salih forcibly seized the iqtaʿat of his predecessors emirs. Despite his close relationship with his mamluks, tensions existed between as-Salih and the Salihiyyah, and a number of Salihi mamluks were imprisoned or exiled throughout as-Salihs reign. Tensions between as-Salih and his mamluks came to a later in 1249 when Louis IX of Frances forces captured Damietta in their bid to conquer Egypt during the Seventh Crusade
18.
Mosque
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A mosque is a place of worship for followers of Islam. There are strict and detailed requirements in Sunni jurisprudence for a place of worship to be considered a mosque, many mosques have elaborate domes, minarets, and prayer halls, in varying styles of architecture. Mosques originated on the Arabian Peninsula, but are now found in all inhabited continents, the mosque serves as a place where Muslims can come together for salat as well as a center for information, education, social welfare, and dispute settlement. The imam leads the congregation in prayer, the first mosque in the world is often considered to be the area around the Kaaba in Mecca now known as the Masjid al-Haram. Others regard the first mosque in history to be the Quba Mosque in present-day Medina since it was the first structure built by Muhammad upon his emigration from Mecca in 622. The Islamic Prophet Muhammad went on to another mosque in Medina. Built on the site of his home, Muhammad participated in the construction of the mosque himself and helped pioneer the concept of the mosque as the focal point of the Islamic city. The Masjid al-Nabawi introduced some of the still common in todays mosques, including the niche at the front of the prayer space known as the mihrab. The Masjid al-Nabawi was also constructed with a courtyard, a motif common among mosques built since then. Mosques had been built in Iraq and North Africa by the end of the 7th century, the Imam Husayn Shrine in Karbala is reportedly one of the oldest mosques in Iraq, although its present form – typical of Persian architecture – only goes back to the 11th century. The shrine, while operating as a mosque, remains one of the holiest sites for Shia Muslims, as it honors the death of the third Shia imam. The Mosque of Amr ibn al-As was reportedly the first mosque in Egypt, serving as a religious, like the Imam Husayn Shrine, though, nothing of its original structure remains. With the later Shia Fatimid Caliphate, mosques throughout Egypt evolved to include schools, hospitals and it was the first to incorporate a square minaret and includes naves akin to a basilica. Those features can also be found in Andalusian mosques, including the Grand Mosque of Cordoba, still, some elements of Visigothic architecture, like horseshoe arches, were infused into the mosque architecture of Spain and the Maghreb. The first mosque in East Asia was reportedly established in the 8th century in Xian, however, the Great Mosque of Xian, whose current building dates from the 18th century, does not replicate the features often associated with mosques elsewhere. Indeed, minarets were initially prohibited by the state, mosques in western China were more likely to incorporate elements, like domes and minarets, traditionally seen in mosques elsewhere. In turn, the Javanese style influenced the styles of mosques in Indonesias Austronesian neighbors—Malaysia, Brunei, Muslim empires were instrumental in the evolution and spread of mosques. Although mosques were first established in India during the 7th century, reflecting their Timurid origins, Mughal-style mosques included onion domes, pointed arches, and elaborate circular minarets, features common in the Persian and Central Asian styles
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Church (building)
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A church building, often simply called a church, is a building used for Christian religious activities, particularly worship services. The term in its sense is most often used by Christians to refer to their religious buildings. In traditional Christian architecture, the church is arranged in the shape of a Christian cross. When viewed from plan view the longest part of a cross is represented by the aisle, towers or domes are often added with the intention of directing the eye of the viewer towards the heavens and inspiring church visitors. The earliest identified Christian church was a church founded between 233 and 256. During the 11th through 14th centuries, a wave of building of cathedrals, a cathedral is a church, usually Roman Catholic, Anglican, Oriental Orthodox or Eastern Orthodox, housing the seat of a bishop. In standard Greek usage, the word ecclesia was retained to signify both a specific edifice of Christian worship, and the overall community of the faithful. This usage was retained in Latin and the languages derived from Latin, as well as in the Celtic languages. In the Germanic and some Slavic languages, the word kyriak-ós/-ē/-ón was adopted instead, in Old English the sequence of derivation started as cirice, then churche, and eventually church in its current pronunciation. German Kirche, Scottish kirk, Russian церковь, etc. are all similarly derived, according to the New Testament, the earliest Christians did not build church buildings. Instead, they gathered in homes or in Jewish worship places like the Second Temple or synagogues, the earliest archeologically identified Christian church is a house church, the Dura-Europos church, founded between 233 and 256. During the 11th through 14th centuries, a wave of building of cathedrals, in addition to being a place of worship, the cathedral or parish church was used by the community in other ways. It could serve as a place for guilds or a hall for banquets. Mystery plays were performed in cathedrals, and cathedrals might also be used for fairs. The church could be used as a place to thresh and store grain, a common architecture for churches is the shape of a cross. These churches also often have a dome or other large vaulted space in the interior to represent or draw attention to the heavens. Other common shapes for churches include a circle, to represent eternity, or an octagon or similar star shape, another common feature is the spire, a tall tower on the west end of the church or over the crossing. The Latin word basilica was used to describe a Roman public building
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Ottoman Syria
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Ottoman Syria became organized by the Ottomans upon conquest from the Mamluks in the early 16th century into eyalets of Damascus and Aleppo. Eyalet of Tripoli was formed in 1579 and later Eyalet of Adana was split from Aleppo, in 1660, Eyalet of Safed was established and shortly afterwards renamed Eyalet of Sidon. The eyalets were later transformed into the Vilayet of Syria, the Vilayet of Aleppo, before 1516, Syria was part of the Mamluk Empire centered in Egypt. The Ottoman Sultan Selim I conquered Syria in 1516 after defeating the Mamlukes at the Battle of Marj Dabiq near Aleppo in northern Syria. Selim carried on his victorious campaign against the Mamlukes and conquered Egypt in 1517 following the Battle of Ridanieh, when he first seized Syria in 1516, Selim I kept the administrative subdivisions of the Mamluk period unchanged. After he came back from Egypt in July 1517, he reorganized Syria into one province or eyalet named Şam. The eyalet was subdivided into districts or sanjaks. In 1549, Syria was reorganized into two eyalets, the northern Sanjak of Aleppo became the center of the new Eyalet of Aleppo. At this time, the eyalets became as follows, The Eyalet of Aleppo included the Sanjaks of Aleppo, Adana, Marash, Aintab, the Eyalet of Tripoli included the Sanjaks of Tripoli, Latakia, Hama and Homs. The Eyalet of Damascus included the Sanjaks of Damascus, Beirut, Sidon, Acre, Safad, Nablus, Jerusalem, Gaza and it was later renamed the Eyalet of Sidon, and later, the Eyalet of Beirut. In 1833, the Syrian provinces were ceded to Muhammed Ali of Egypt in the Convention of Kutahya, the firman stated that The governments of Candia and Egypt are continued to Mahomet Ali. In this period, the Sublime Portes firmans of 1839 and, more decisively, the former resented the implied loss of superiority and recurrently assaulted and massacred Christian communities — in Aleppo in 1850, in Nablus in 1856, and in Damascus and Lebanon in 1860. In 1872 Jerusalem and the towns became the Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem. The Geographical Dictionary of the World, published in 1906, describes Syria as and it comprises the vilayet of Syria, or of Damascus, the vilayet of Beirut, the part of the vilayet of Aleppo, and the mutessarrifliks of Jerusalem and the Lebanon. Palestine is included in Syria, comprising the mutessarriflik of Jerusalem and part of the vilayets of Beirut and Syria. The designation Syria is sometimes used in wider sense so as to include the whole of the vilayet of Aleppo and the Zor Sanjak and it included that part of the country which was afterwards detached from it to form the mandated territory of Palestine
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Nablus Sanjak
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The District of Nablus also known as the Sanjak of Nablus is an administrative area that existed throughout Ottoman rule of Ottoman Syria and to a lesser extent during British rule. From the 17th to the early 20th century it maintained its autonomy of Ottoman rule, mostly due to the mountainous terrain, the rulers of the district composed of several Arab families, some originating from northern Syrian cities, some from Balqa and others were indigenous to Nablus. The primary noble families were the Tuqan, Jarrar, Abd al-Hadi, Jayyusi, Nimr, Rayyan, Qasim, Atut, al-Hajj Muhammad, Ghazi, sanjaq Nablus comprised five nahiyas, Jammain East, Jammain West, Mashariq Nablus, Wadi al-Shair and Sharawiyya. Jammain East was headed by the Qasim clan, Jammain West by the Rayyan, Wadi al-Shair by the Sayf and al-Ahfa clans, Mashariq Nablus by the Hajj Muhammad clan, the Tuqan, Nimr and Abd al-Hadi families controlled Nablus. The District of Nablus was economically active in growing olives which they used to produce oil, olive wood baskets. Cotton was also a cash crop. Most economic activity was based in Nablus, however the surrounding towns, in return, the ruling families protected the villages and met municipal needs
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Muslim
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A Muslim is someone who follows or practices Islam, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion. Muslims consider the Quran, their book, to be the verbatim word of God as revealed to the Islamic prophet. They also follow the teachings and practices of Muhammad as recorded in traditional accounts, Muslim is an Arabic word meaning one who submits. Most Muslims will accept anyone who has publicly pronounced Shahadah as a Muslim, the shahadah states, There is no god but the God and Muhammad is the last messenger of the God. The testimony authorized by God in the Quran that can found in Surah 3,18 states, There is no god except God, which in Arabic, is the exact testimony which God Himself utters, as well as the angels and those who possess knowledge utter. The word muslim is the active participle of the verb of which islām is a verbal noun, based on the triliteral S-L-M to be whole. A female adherent is a muslima, the plural form in Arabic is muslimūn or muslimīn, and its feminine equivalent is muslimāt. The Arabic form muslimun is the stem IV participle of the triliteral S-L-M, the ordinary word in English is Muslim. It is sometimes transliterated as Moslem, which is an older spelling, the word Mosalman is a common equivalent for Muslim used in Central Asia. Until at least the mid-1960s, many English-language writers used the term Mohammedans or Mahometans, although such terms were not necessarily intended to be pejorative, Muslims argue that the terms are offensive because they allegedly imply that Muslims worship Muhammad rather than God. Other obsolete terms include Muslimite and Muslimist, musulmán/Mosalmán is a synonym for Muslim and is modified from Arabic. In English it was sometimes spelled Mussulman and has become archaic in usage, the Muslim philosopher Ibn Arabi said, A Muslim is a person who has dedicated his worship exclusively to God. Islam means making ones religion and faith Gods alone. The Quran states that men were Muslims because they submitted to God, preached His message and upheld His values. Thus, in Surah 3,52 of the Quran, Jesus disciples tell him, We believe in God, and you be our witness that we are Muslims. In Muslim belief, before the Quran, God had given the Tawrat to Moses, the Zabur to David and the Injil to Jesus, who are all considered important Muslim prophets. The most populous Muslim-majority country is Indonesia, home to 12. 7% of the worlds Muslims, followed by Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Egypt. About 20% of the worlds Muslims lives in the Middle East and North Africa, Sizable minorities are found in India, China, Russia, Ethiopia. The country with the highest proportion of self-described Muslims as a proportion of its population is Morocco
23.
Palestine Exploration Fund
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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
24.
Sanniriya
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Sanniriya is a Palestinian town in the Qalqilya Governorate in the western area of the West Bank, located south of Qalqilya and 36 kilometers southwest of Nablus. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, the village had a population of approximately 2,780 inhabitants in 2007, Sanniriya was founded in the 14th century by Issa as-Saniri, a holy man from Syria, who is buried in the village. Because of his tomb which is venerated by the inhabitants, religious festivals were held in the village. The prominent clans of the immediate area today—Sheikh, Omar, Ahmad, the Abu Hadgi clan migrated to Sanniriya from Deir Istiya. Potsherds from the Mamluk era has been found in the village, and the mosque has a burial chamber. In 1870, during the late Ottoman era, the French explorer Victor Guérin visited the village, many of the houses appeared newly built, only some cisterns appeared old. At the highest point of the hill was a small mosque, in 1882 the Palestine Exploration Funds Survey of Western Palestine the village, was described as a small stone village, on a ridge, surrounded with olives, supplied by cisterns. In 1945 the population of Sanniriya was 990 Arabs, while the land area was 12,685 dunams, according to an official land. Of this,2,895 were allocated for plantations and irrigable land,4,432 for cereals, in the wake of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, and after the 1949 Armistice Agreements, Husan came under Jordanian rule. The Ahmad and Omar clans began to work the fields west of the village where the land was suitable for agriculture in the 1930s. However, in the 1950s, in order to avoid continuous long-distance travels, because of the migration of the two clans, Younis and Sheikh became the dominant families of Sanniriya. Initially, at the beginning of Jordanian rule in the 1950s, increased income in the village allowed for the inhabitants to dig the first public well in Sanniriya in 1964. Sanniriya was not involved in the 1967 Six-Day War between Israel and a coalition of Arab states which ended in the occupation of the village as well as all of the West Bank by the former. However, in 1969, several residents participated in a battle against Israeli forces in the Jordan Valley, today those settlements are separated from Sanniriya proper by the West Bank barrier, constructed following the Second Intifada. During the First Intifada that began in 1987, a number of residents were imprisoned for participation in the uprising, welcome To Sanniriya Survey of Western Palestine, Map 14, IAA, Wikimedia commons Sanniriya Village, ARIJ Sanniriya Village Profile, ARIJ Sanniriya, aerial photo, ARIJ
25.
Library of Congress
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The Library of Congress is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the de facto national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States, the Library is housed in three buildings on Capitol Hill in Washington, D. C. it also maintains the Packard Campus in Culpeper, Virginia, which houses the National Audio-Visual Conservation Center. The Library of Congress claims to be the largest library in the world and its collections are universal, not limited by subject, format, or national boundary, and include research materials from all parts of the world and in more than 450 languages. Two-thirds of the books it acquires each year are in other than English. The Library of Congress moved to Washington in 1800, after sitting for years in the temporary national capitals of New York. John J. Beckley, who became the first Librarian of Congress, was two dollars per day and was required to also serve as the Clerk of the House of Representatives. The small Congressional Library was housed in the United States Capitol for most of the 19th century until the early 1890s, most of the original collection had been destroyed by the British in 1814, during the War of 1812. To restore its collection in 1815, the bought from former president Thomas Jefferson his entire personal collection of 6,487 books. After a period of growth, another fire struck the Library in its Capitol chambers in 1851, again destroying a large amount of the collection. The Library received the right of transference of all copyrighted works to have two copies deposited of books, maps, illustrations and diagrams printed in the United States. It also began to build its collections of British and other European works and it included several stories built underground of steel and cast iron stacks. Although the Library is open to the public, only high-ranking government officials may check out books, the Library promotes literacy and American literature through projects such as the American Folklife Center, American Memory, Center for the Book, and Poet Laureate. James Madison is credited with the idea for creating a congressional library, part of the legislation appropriated $5,000 for the purchase of such books as may be necessary for the use of Congress. And for fitting up an apartment for containing them. Books were ordered from London and the collection, consisting of 740 books and 3 maps, was housed in the new Capitol, as president, Thomas Jefferson played an important role in establishing the structure of the Library of Congress. The new law also extended to the president and vice president the ability to borrow books and these volumes had been left in the Senate wing of the Capitol. One of the only congressional volumes to have survived was a government account book of receipts and it was taken as a souvenir by a British Commander whose family later returned it to the United States government in 1940. Within a month, former president Jefferson offered to sell his library as a replacement
26.
Claude Reignier Conder
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Claude Reignier Conder was an English soldier, explorer and antiquarian. He was a great-great-grandson of Louis-François Roubiliac, Conder was educated at University College London and the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. He became a lieutenant in the Corps of Royal Engineers in 1870 and he retired with the rank of colonel in 1904. Conder joined the expedition to Egypt in 1882, under Sir Garnet Wolseley and he was appointed a deputy assistant adjutant and quartermaster-general on the staff of the intelligence department. In Egypt his perfect knowledge of Arabic and of Eastern people proved most useful and he was present at the action of Kassassin, the Battle of Tel el-Kebir, and the advance to Cairo, but then, seized with typhoid fever, he was invalided home. For his services he received the war medal with clasp for Tel el-Kebir, the Khedives bronze star, the work of surveying the country of Palestine commenced again only in late February 1877, without Conder. Conder was first proposed as a candidate for the Jack the Ripper murders by the author Tom Slemen. H, Kitchener, The Survey of Western Palestine, memoirs of the topography, orography, hydrography, and archaeology. London, Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund, vol 1 The full text, archive. org, Can download PDF. Conder, Claude Reignier and H. H. Kitchener, The Survey of Western Palestine, memoirs of the topography, orography, hydrography, London, Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund. Vol 2 The full text, archive. org, Can download PDF, Conder, Claude Reignier and H. H. Kitchener, The Survey of Western Palestine, memoirs of the topography, orography, hydrography, and archaeology. London, Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund, vol 3 The full text, archive. org, Can download PDF. Measuring Jerusalem, the Palestine Exploration Fund and British interests in the Holy Land, la fortaleza de Herodes y el último bastión de los Zelotes
27.
Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener
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His term as Commander-in-Chief of the Army in India saw him quarrel with another eminent proconsul, the Viceroy Lord Curzon, who eventually resigned. Kitchener then returned to Egypt as British Agent and Consul-General, in 1914, at the start of the First World War, Kitchener became Secretary of State for War, a Cabinet Minister. Kitchener died on 5 June 1916 when HMS Hampshire sank west of the Orkney Islands and he was making his way to Russia in order to attend negotiations when the ship struck a German mine. He was one of more than 600 killed on board the ship, Kitchener was born in Ballylongford near Listowel, County Kerry, in Ireland, son of army officer Henry Horatio Kitchener and Frances Anne Chevallier. His father had recently bought land in Ireland under a scheme to encourage the purchase of land after selling his commission. They then moved to Switzerland where the young Kitchener was educated at Montreux, then at the Royal Military Academy, pro-French and eager to see action, he joined a French field ambulance unit in the Franco-Prussian War. His father took him back to England after he caught pneumonia after ascending in a balloon to see the French Army of the Loire in action. Commissioned into the Royal Engineers on 4 January 1871, his service in France had violated British neutrality, and he was reprimanded by the Duke of Cambridge, the commander-in-chief. He served in Palestine, Egypt, and Cyprus as a surveyor, learned Arabic, Sir Walter Kitchener, had also entered the army, and was Governor of Bermuda from 1908 to 1912. In 1874, at age 24, Kitchener was assigned by the Palestine Exploration Fund to a mapping-survey of the Holy Land, replacing Charles Tyrwhitt-Drake, who had died of malaria. Conder and Kitchener’s expedition became known as the Survey of Western Palestine because it was confined to the area west of the Jordan River. The survey collected data on the topography and toponymy of the area, as well as local flora, the results of the survey were published in an eight-volume series, with Kitchener’s contribution in the first three tomes. This survey has had an effect on the Middle East for several reasons, The ordnance survey serves as the basis for the grid system used in the modern maps of Israel. The collection of data compiled by Conder and Kitchener are still consulted by archaeologists, the survey itself effectively delineated and defined the political borders of the southern Levant. For instance, the border between Israel and Lebanon is established at the point in upper Galilee where Conder and Kitchener’s survey stopped. In 1878 having completed the survey of Western Palestine, Kitchener was sent to Cyprus to undertake a survey of newly acquired British protectorate. Then in 1879 he became vice-consul in Anatolia, in 1883 Kitchener became a Freemason. On 4 January 1883 Kitchener was promoted to captain, given the Turkish rank bimbashi, Egypt had recently become a British puppet state, its army led by British officers, although still nominally under the sovereignty of the Khedive and his nominal overlord the Sultan of Turkey
28.
International Standard Book Number
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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
29.
Israel Finkelstein
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Israel Finkelstein Until the 9th century BCE, Jerusalem was restricted to the mound on the Temple Mount and ruled over a modest area in the southern highlands. B) The first expansion of Jerusalem came in the 9th century BCE, perhaps in its second half, Remains of the Iron IIA were unearthed south of al-Aqsa Mosque, above the Gihon Spring and to the south of the Dung Gate of the Old City. C) The most impressive phase in the settlement history of Jerusalem commenced in the late 8th century BCE, at that time Jerusalem expanded dramatically, to include the entire City of David ridge, as well as the Western Hill. This expansion was the result of the arrival of Israelite refugees after the demise of the Northern Kingdom in 722-720 BCE and these groups brought with them traits of Northern material culture, and more important – their foundation myths, royal traditions and heroic stories. These Northern traditions were incorporated into the Judahite Bible. Finkelstein noted that in the Persian Period, Jerusalem was limited to the mound on the Temple Mount – and even there was sparsely settled – and that Yehud of that time was also thinly settled. As the description of the construction of the wall of Jerusalem in Nehemiah 3 must relate to the big city, the same holds true, in his opinion, for the genealogies in 1 Chronicles. Finkelstein then looked into the accounts of Judahite monarchs in 2 Chronicles and he called attention to similarities between these texts and 1 Maccabees, and proposed to understand Chronicles as representing legitimacy needs of the Hasmoneans. This means that at least 2 Chronicles dates to the late 2nd century BCE, • Yitzhak Meitlis, The Judean Hill Country in the Middle Bronze Age,1997. • David Ilan, Northeastern Israel in the Iron Age I, Cultural, Economic and Political Structures, • Assaf Yasur-Landau, Social Aspects of Aegean Settlement in the Southern Levant at the end of the 2nd Millennium BCE,2003. • Alon Shavit, Settlement Patterns in the Southern Coastal Plain in the Iron II,2004, • Yuval Gadot, Tel Aphek at the End of the Late Bronze Age and the Beginning of the Iron Age, Typological, Chronological and Cultural Implications,2004. • Aharon Sasson, Animal Husbandry in Light of Zooarchaeological Research in Stratum II at Tel Beer-sheba,2004, • Liora Kolska Horwitz, Diachronic Patterns of Animal Exploitation in the Sinai Peninsula,2006. • Norma Franklin, State Formation in the Northern Kingdom of Israel, • Alexander Fantalkin, The Contacts between the Greek World and the Southern Levant, during the Sixth-Seventh Centuries BCE,2008. • Arad Haggi, Harbours in Phoenicia, Israel and Philistia in the 9th - 7th Centuries BCE, Archaeology Finds, • Amir Sumaki-Fink, The History and Archaeology of Alalah in the Late Bronze Age,2009. • Yifat Thareani-Sussely, A Town in the Desert, Geographical, Economic, • Eran Arie, In the land of the valley, Settlement, Social and Cultural Processes in the Jezreel Valley from the End of the Late Bronze Age to the Formation of the Monarchy,2012. • David Friesem, Formation Processes Related to the Degradation of Mud Brick Structures, • Michael Toffolo, Correlating the Iron Age in the Eastern Mediterranean, Contexts, Site Formation Processes and Chronology,2014. • Shirly Ben-Dor Evian, Egypt and Philistia in the Early Iron Age, The Historical Record, • Karen Covello-Paran, The Jezreel Valley during the Intermediate Bronze Age, Social and Cultural Landscapes,2015. • Elon Heymans, The Early History of Money and Monetary Exchange in the Eastern Mediterranean Iron Age, • Efrat Bocher, The Material Culture in Judah and Samaria during the Persian Period
30.
Tel Aviv
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Tel Aviv-Yafo is a major city in Israel, located on the countrys Mediterranean coastline. It is the center and the technology hub of Israel, with a population of 432,892. Tel Aviv is the largest city in the Gush Dan region of Israel, Tel Aviv is also a focal point in the high-tech concentration known as the Silicon Wadi. Tel Aviv is governed by the Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality, headed by Ron Huldai, Tel Aviv is a global city, and is the thirty eighth most important financial center in the world. Tel Aviv is known to have the third-largest economy of any city in the Middle East after Abu Dhabi and Kuwait City, the city receives over a million international visitors annually. Known as The City that Never Sleeps and a party capital, it has a lively nightlife, the city was founded in 1909 by Jewish immigrants on the outskirts of the ancient port city of Jaffa. It is named after the Hebrew translation of Theodor Herzls 1902 novel, Altneuland, the modern citys first neighbourhoods had already been established in 1886, the first being Neve Tzedek. Immigration by mostly Jewish refugees meant that the growth of Tel Aviv soon outpaced Jaffas, Tel Aviv and Jaffa were merged into a single municipality in 1950, two years after the establishment of the State of Israel. Tel Avivs White City, designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2003, Tel Aviv is the Hebrew title of Theodor Herzls Altneuland, translated from German by Nahum Sokolow. The name was chosen in 1910 from several suggestions, including Herzliya and it was found fitting as it embraced the idea of a renaissance in the ancient Jewish homeland. Aviv is Hebrew for spring, symbolizing renewal, and tel is a man-made mound accumulating layers of civilization built one over the other and symbolizing the ancient. Although founded in 1909 as a settlement on the sand dunes North of Jaffa. The marketing pamphlets advocating for its establishment in 1906, wrote, In this city we will build the streets so they have roads and sidewalks and electric lights. Every house will have water wells that will flow through pipes as in every modern European city. Since 1886, Jewish settlers had founded new neighborhoods outside Jaffa on the current territory of Tel Aviv, the first was Neve Tzedek, built on lands owned by Aharon Chelouche and inhabited primarily by Mizrahi Jews. Other neighborhoods were Neve Shalom, Yafa Nof, Achva, Ohel Moshe, Kerem HaTeimanim, once Tel Aviv received city status in the 1920s, those neighborhoods joined the newly formed municipality, now becoming separated from Jaffa. The Second Aliyah led to further expansion, in 1906, a group of Jews, among them residents of Jaffa, followed the initiative of Akiva Aryeh Weiss and banded together to form the Ahuzat Bayit society. The societys goal was to form a Hebrew urban centre in an environment, planned according to the rules of aesthetics
31.
Edward Henry Palmer
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Edward Henry Palmer — known as E. H. Palmer — was an English orientalist and explorer, Palmer was born in Green Street, Cambridge the son of a private schoolmaster. He was orphaned at an age and brought up by an aunt. He was educated at The Perse School, and as a schoolboy showed the characteristic bent of his mind by picking up the Romani language, from school he was sent to London as a clerk in the city. Palmer disliked this life, and varied it by learning French and Italian, in 1859 he returned to Cambridge, almost dying of tuberculosis. He matriculated at St Johns College in November 1863, and in 1867 was elected a fellow on account of his attainments as an orientalist, especially in Persian and Hindustani. During his residence at St Johns he catalogued the Persian, Arabic and Turkish manuscripts in the university library, in 1867 he published a treatise on Oriental mysticism, based on the Maksad-i-Aksa of Aziz ibn Mohammad Nafasi. They completed this journey on foot and without escort, making friends among the Bedouin, to whom Palmer was known as Abdallah Effendi. After a visit to the Lebanon and to Damascus, where he made the acquaintance of Sir Richard Burton, then consul there, he returned to England in 1870 by way of Constantinople, at Vienna he met Arminius Vambéry. In the close of the year 1871 he became Lord Almoners Professor of Arabic at Cambridge University, married and his salary was small, and his affairs were further complicated by the long illness of his wife, who died in 1878. In 1881, two years after his marriage, he left Cambridge, and joined the staff of the Standard to write on non-political subjects. He was called to the English bar in 1874, early in 1882 Palmer was asked by the government to go to the East and assist the Egyptian expedition by his influence over the Arabs of the El-Tih desert. He was instructed, apparently, to prevent the Arab sheikhs from joining the Egyptian rebels and he went to Gaza without an escort, made his way safely through the desert to Suez, an exploit of singular boldness, and was highly successful in his negotiations with the Bedouin. On this journey he and his companions were led into an ambush and their remains, recovered after the war by the efforts of Sir Charles Warren, now lie in St Pauls Cathedral. Palmers highest qualities appeared in his travels, especially in the adventures of his last journeys. His brilliant scholarship is displayed rather in the works he wrote in Persian and other Eastern languages than in his English books and his scholarship was wholly Eastern in character, and lacked the critical qualities of the modern school of Oriental learning in Europe. All his works show a great range and very versatile talent. He also did service in editing the Name Lists of the Palestine Exploration
32.
Municipality (Palestinian Authority)
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In the territories administrated by the Palestinian Authority, a municipality is an administrative unit of local government similar to a city. They were established and decided after the creation of the Local Government Ministry of the Palestinian National Authority in 1994, all municipalities are assigned by the Local Government Ministry. Municipal council members and mayors are elected by the residents of the particular locality, Municipalities are divided into four sectors depending on their population and importance to their particular governorate. Municipality A - Primary municipalities or district capitals of the governorates and their municipal councils consists of 13 members and a chairman in addition to the elected mayor. Municipality B - Municipalities that have populations of over 8,000 inhabitants or have had an existence as local councils under Israeli administration. Their municipal councils consist of 13 members and a chairperson, municipality C - Municipalities that have populations of 4, 000-8,000. Most were recently approved by the Palestinian National Authority, there are 47 C-level municipalities that are governed by 11-member councils. Municipality D - Municipalities with populations of over 1,000, there are 220 D-level municipalities that are governed by 9-member councils. List of cities in Palestinian Authority areas Palestinian refugee camps The Crisis of Local Government Institution in Palestine, a case study Abdulnasser Makky
33.
Azzun
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According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics census, Azzun, together with the adjacent villages of Islah and Izbat al-Tabib, had a population of over 8,900 in 2007. The vast majority of the inhabitants are Muslim, with a very small Christian minority, just north of the village six -seven dry stone towers were examined in 1873. The best-preserved had six courses standing, and part of the roof, the locals stated that they were ancient vineyard towers. Azzun was a site of battle - part of Napoleon Bonapartes campaign in Ottoman Syria, an Arab poet, Ibrahim Touqan was quoted as saying, by means of Azzun, how soaked the blood Franks mother valley. They attacked the French army while it was marching towards Acre, especially near the valley of Azzun, the participation of the inhabitants and local leaders of Nablus in the struggle against Napoleon reflects a territorial sense in resistance to a foreign army. They fought for their homeland and interests, sheikh Yussuf Jarrar wrote a poem asking the inhabitants, especially the prominent families of Jabal Nablus, to march towards Acre in order to fight the French. In 1852 the American scholar Edward Robinson visited the village, which he described as having 290 males, in 1882, the Palestine Exploration Funds Survey of Western Palestine described Azzun as a small village lying low on the hill-side, with several wells and olives on every side. In 1945 the population of Azzun, together with Nabi Ilyas and Islah, was 1,190,1,170 Muslims and 20 Christians, who owned 23,496 dunams of land according to an official land and population survey. Of this,5,494 dunams were for plantations and irrigable land,1,420 were used for cereals, after the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Azzun was under Jordanian rule. After the Six-Day War, Azzun has been under Israeli occupation, in 1996 a municipal council was established to administer Azzuns civil affairs. The council has eleven members appointed by the Palestinian government, in 2012, the villages of Islah and Izbat al-Tabib were merged into the municipality of Azzun upon a decree of the Palestinian Ministry of Local Government. In 2008, the unemployment rate was 19%. In 2012, it had increased sharply to 39%, today, the town consists of 9,130 dunams of which 1,209 dunams is built-up area. There are four mosques located in the town, most of the population works in agriculture and herding or trade and handicrafts, while the 19% work in public sectors. The major families of Azzun are the ‘Adwan, Badwan, Radwan, Salim, Hussein, Sweidan, Zamari, Abu Hanniya, Odah, Hawashah, Tabib, Suleiman, Radi, Mas’ud and Abu Dayyah. Welcome To Azzun Survey of Western Palestine, Map 11, IAA, Wikimedia commons Azzun, ARIJ Azzun, ARIJ Development Priorities and Needs in ‘Azzun, ARIJ
34.
Hableh
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Hableh is a Palestinian village located in the Qalqilya Governorate in the northwestern West Bank. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics census, the town had a population of 6,016 in 2007, Habla is located just east of the Green Line, about 1-mile southeast of the Palestinian town of Qalqilya as the crow flies, in the West Bank. About a dozen tombs, with loculi have been found, together with cisterns, the type of tombs indicate that they are Christian. Ancient remains of a mosque and houses have been found in the village, during the period of Ottoman rule over Palestine, Hableh appeared in Ottoman tax registers in 1596, where it is listed as forming part of the Nahiya of Jabal Qubal in the Liwa of Nablus. It had a population of 41 Muslim households, pierre Jacotin called the village Hableh on his map in 1799. Camping on the ground to the south of the village and north of a wali on a low hill, Robinson. Most of these had round openings, some one or two steps by which one could descend into them to draw water. All appeared to be ancient, and only one was still in use, victor Guérin, who visited Hableh in 1870, said it contained 800 inhabitants, and that a few of the houses, but principally the village mosque, were built using large stones of apparent antiquity. He too noted the presence of ancient rock-cut formations around the village, in 1882, the Palestine Exploration Funds Survey of Western Palestine described Hableh as a village of moderate size, evidently an ancient site, surrounded with cisterns and tombs. The houses are principally of stone, in the wake of World War I, British military governors were established in Palestines major cities and the deputy for the governor in Nablus was stationed in Habla. During the mandate period, Hableh formed part of the Tulkarm Subdistrict, by the end of the mandate period, in 1945, the population had increased to 580. The village lands covered an area of 10,903 dunams,8,391 of which were owned by Arabs,570 by Jews, and 1,942 of which were public lands. A total of 28 dunams were for citrus and bananas,169 dunams for plantations and irrigable land,6,847 for cereals, in the wake of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, and after the 1949 Armistice Agreements, Hableh came under Jordanian rule. After the Six-Day War in 1967, Hableh has been under Israeli occupation, inhabitants of Habla were among the 10,000 Palestinians displaced as a result of the 1967 war. According to Nur Masalha, Israeli forces evicted civilians and deliberately destroyed Habla among a number of villages during the war. That same day, a resident of Hiblah was shot in the head by Israeli soldiers who fired at Palestinians trying to stop the bulldozers. In February of the year, it was reported that the security fence being built on Hiblas land would be 22 kilometers long. The construction of the Israeli West Bank barrier to the north of the village in the first decade of the 21st century changed the life of Hablas inhabitants, Palestinian labourers line up every day before 5am at gate no.1393 in the barbed wire fence surrounding Habla
35.
Kafr Qaddum
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Kafr Qaddum is a Palestinian town in the northern West Bank, located 13 kilometers west of Nablus and 17 kilometers east of Qalqilya in the Qalqilya Governorate. Surrounding towns include Jit to the east and Hajjah to the south, according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, the town had a population of approximately 3,500 inhabitants in mid-year 2006. Kafr Qaddums total land area consists of nearly 19,000 dunams and its built-up area consists of 529 dunams. Olive groves make up 80% of the land, 15% is used for vegetation purposes. After 2002, over 75% of the population became jobless as business became the other alternative for income generation. Emigration has registered a record level during the past two years, ranging between 10-15% of the total population, since 2003, the road between Kafr Qaddum and Nablus is blocked thus elongating the travel distance by 14 km. Since July 2011, weekly demonstrations have been held in a demand to re-open the road, Kafr Qaddum appeared in 1596 Ottoman tax registers as being in the Nahiya of Jabal Qubal of the Liwa of Nablus. It had a population of 19 households and 2 bachelors, all Muslim, the villagers paid taxes on wheat, barley, summercrops, olives, and goats or beehives, and a press for olives or grapes. In 1945 the population was 1,240, all Muslims, with 18,931 dunams of land, according to an official land and population survey. Of this,2,945 dunams were for plantations or irrigated land,7,184 for cereals, in the wake of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, and after the 1949 Armistice Agreements, Kafr Qaddum came under Jordanian rule. After the Six-Day War in 1967, Kafr Qaddum has been under Israeli occupation, in the Mitzpe Yishai neighborhood of the illegal Israeli settlement Kedumim, there are issues that the Israelis have improperly taken control of private Palestinian land. The Israeli Civil Administration calls it theft, though it occurred in an orderly manner, the roadblock makes it difficult for people to reach their farmlands because they are prohibited from driving, so they must walk on foot and carry their equipment and harvest. It also delays the fifteen minute journey to Nablus to forty minutes, in 2012, an Israeli soldier was under investigation for the theft of a large sum of money and gold from during a raid against a resident of Kafr Qaddum. On 2 January 2014, 85-year-old Saeed Jaser Alim became the first Palestinian casualty of conflict with Israel in 2014, villagers say Israeli soldiers fired teargas canisters at them, one of which entered his home, and he subsequently died. In January 2014, a force of Israeli soldiers entered the village in the middle of the night
36.
Kafr Thulth
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Kafr Thulth is a Palestinian town located on high, flat land south of Azzoun,28 kilometers south of Tulkarm in the Qalqilya Governorate. The average elevation is 270 meters above sea level, according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, the towns population was 3,921 in the 2007 census. Kafr in arabic means village and Thulth means three or a third and this Arabic name preserves the place name of Baal-shalisha, an ancient village believed to have been located 3.5 miles to the south at a site known in modern times as Khirbat Sirisya. Kafr Thulth is bordered by Azzun to the south, Sanniriya and Biddya villages to the east, Kafr Thulths land was extended to the border of the Auja stream and by the 19th century the towns total land area was about 50-60,000 dunams. There are several ruins or khirbets in Kafr Thulth, Khirbet Kharab, Located in the direction of the town, with one water well. Khirbet al-Baiad, It is on the west side of Kafr Thulth at about 800 meters distance and it has wells and cafes but it has no ruins, or marks, like Kufur Qaria. Khirbet al-Basateen, To the south west of Kafr Thulth, it has wells, Khirbet Khuraish, Named after Sheikh Mohammad Al-Kheerashi, who worked as Imam of Al-Aqsa mosque, and died in 1033 Higri. Khirbet Shuhadi, It is an old place and it is located on the east side of Kafr Thulth within the land of Diristia may be refer to Romantic age, Khirbet Abdul Rahim, It has well and walls. It had a population of 13 households and 1 batchelor, all Muslims and they paid taxes on wheat, barley, summer crops, occasional revenues, goats and/or beehives. In 1835, Kafr Thulth was included in a village list drawn up by Edward Robinson, part of Jurat Merda, in 1852, Robinson described Kafr Thulth as a ruin, and the same did Victor Guérin in 1870. However, later researchers have noted that only saw Kafr Thulth from a distance, and might have had it mixed up with the ruin Kufr Qara. In 1882 the Palestine Exploration Funds Survey of Western Palestine described the village as a village on high ground. It was in ruins in 1852, but has now a few inhabitants and this town considered as one of towns that plant olive trees and producing a lot of olive oil. So there are three places for squeezing olive fruit in order to get oil out of it, most of people in Kafr Thulth like to breed different kinds of animals and birds like sheep. There are four schools in town, including males and females, the importance of Kafr Thulth secondary school is obvious because other surrounded villages joined in this school, in spite of having schools in place
