1.
Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region
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The Kūhistoni Badakhshon Autonomous Region is an autonomous region in eastern Tajikistan. Located in the Pamir Mountains, it makes up 45% of the area of the country. The territory was claimed by the Chinese and Russian empires and the Emirate of Afghanistan, the Qing rulers of China claimed control of the entire Pamir Mountains, but Qing military units only controlled the passes just east of Tashkorgan Town. Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region was created in January 1925 and it was attached to Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic after the republics creation in 1929. During the 1950s, the inhabitants of Gorno-Badakhshan, including many ethnic Pamiris, were forcibly relocated to southwestern Tajikistan. Gorno-Badakhshan absorbed some of the territory of the Gharm Oblast when that territory was dissolved in 1955, when the civil war broke out in Tajikistan in 1992, the local government in Gorno-Badakhshan declared independence from the Republic of Tajikistan. During the civil war many Pamiris were targeted for killing by rival groups, later the Gorno-Badakhshan government backed down from its calls for independence. Gorno-Badakhshan remains a region within Tajikistan. In 2012, the region saw a series of clashes between the Tajik military and militants loyal to former warlord Tolib Ayombekov after the latter was accused of murdering a Tajik general, darvoz District is the western beak of the province. West-central Gorno-Badakhshan is mostly a series of east-west mountain ranges separated by valleys of rivers flow into the Panj River. The districts correspond the river valleys, murghob District occupies the eastern half of the province and is mostly a desolate plateau with high mountains on the west. Within Tajikistan the regions western border is with the Districts of Republican Subordination, the population of GBAO increased from 160,900 to 206,000 between the censuses in 1989 and 2000. The population as of January 2008 is estimated at 218,000, according to the State Statistical Committee of Tajikistan, the main ethnic group in GBAO are Pamiris. The remainder of the population is ethnic Kyrgyz and other nationalities, the largest city in GBAO is Khorugh, population 29,000, the second largest is Murghab, with about 4,000 residents. GBAO is home to a number of languages and dialects of the Pamir languages group. The Pamiri language speakers represented in Gorno-Badakshan are speakers of Shughni, Rushani, Wakhi, Ishkashimi, Sarikoli, Bartangi, Khufi, Yazgulyam, vanji, formerly spoken in the Vanj River valley, became extinct in the 19th century. There is a population of Kyrgyz speakers in the Murghab district. Russian and Tajik are also spoken throughout GBAO
2.
Tajikistan
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Tajikistan, officially the Republic of Tajikistan, is a mountainous, landlocked country in Central Asia with an estimated 8 million people in 2013, and an area of 143,100 km2. It is bordered by Islamic Republic of Afghanistan to the south, the Republic of Uzbekistan to the west, the Kyrgyz Republic to the north, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan lies to the south, separated by the narrow Wakhan Corridor. Traditional homelands of Tajik people included present-day Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Uzbekistan, a civil war was fought almost immediately after independence, lasting from 1992 to 1997. Since the end of the war, newly established political stability, Tajikistan is a presidential republic consisting of four provinces. Most of Tajikistans 8 million people belong to the Tajik ethnic group, many Tajiks also speak Russian as their second language. Mountains cover more than 90% of the country and it has a transition economy that is highly dependent on remittances, aluminium and cotton production. Tajikistan means the Land of the Tajiks, the suffix -stan is Persian for place of or country and Tajik is, most likely, the name of a pre-Islamic tribe. Tajikistan appeared as Tadjikistan or Tadzhikistan in English prior to 1991 and this is due to a transliteration from the Russian, Таджикистан. In Russian, there is no single letter j to represent the phoneme /ʤ/ and дж, Tadzhikistan is the most common alternate spelling and is widely used in English literature derived from Russian sources. Tadjikistan is the spelling in French and can occasionally be found in English language texts, the way of writing Tajikistan in the Perso-Arabic script is. The earliest recorded history of the dates back to about 500 BCE when much, if not all. After the regions conquest by Alexander the Great it became part of the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom, northern Tajikistan was part of Sogdia, a collection of city-states which was overrun by Scythians and Yuezhi nomadic tribes around 150 BCE. The Silk Road passed through the region and following the expedition of Chinese explorer Zhang Qian during the reign of Wudi commercial relations between Han China and Sogdiana flourished. Sogdians played a role in facilitating trade and also worked in other capacities, as farmers, carpetweavers, glassmakers. Later the Hephthalite Empire, a collection of tribes, moved into the region. Central Asia continued in its role as a crossroads, linking China, the steppes to the north. It was temporarily under the control of the Tibetan empire and Chinese from 650–680, the Samanid Empire,819 to 999, restored Persian control of the region and enlarged the cities of Samarkand and Bukhara which became the cultural centres of Iran and the region was known as Khorasan. The Kara-Khanid Khanate conquered Transoxania and ruled between 999–1211, during Genghis Khans invasion of Khwarezmia in the early 13th century the Mongol Empire took control over nearly all of Central Asia
3.
Afghanistan
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Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located within South Asia and Central Asia. It has a population of approximately 32 million, making it the 42nd most populous country in the world. It is bordered by Pakistan in the south and east, Iran in the west, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan in the north and its territory covers 652,000 km2, making it the 41st largest country in the world. The land also served as the source from which the Kushans, Hephthalites, Samanids, Saffarids, Ghaznavids, Ghorids, Khiljis, Mughals, Hotaks, Durranis, the political history of the modern state of Afghanistan began with the Hotak and Durrani dynasties in the 18th century. In the late 19th century, Afghanistan became a state in the Great Game between British India and the Russian Empire. Following the Third Anglo-Afghan War in 1919, King Amanullah unsuccessfully attempted to modernize the country and it remained peaceful during Zahir Shahs forty years of monarchy. A series of coups in the 1970s was followed by a series of wars that devastated much of Afghanistan. The name Afghānistān is believed to be as old as the ethnonym Afghan, the root name Afghan was used historically in reference to a member of the ethnic Pashtuns, and the suffix -stan means place of in Persian. Therefore, Afghanistan translates to land of the Afghans or, more specifically in a historical sense, however, the modern Constitution of Afghanistan states that he word Afghan shall apply to every citizen of Afghanistan. An important site of historical activities, many believe that Afghanistan compares to Egypt in terms of the historical value of its archaeological sites. The country sits at a unique nexus point where numerous civilizations have interacted and it has been home to various peoples through the ages, among them the ancient Iranian peoples who established the dominant role of Indo-Iranian languages in the region. At multiple points, the land has been incorporated within large regional empires, among them the Achaemenid Empire, the Macedonian Empire, the Indian Maurya Empire, and the Islamic Empire. Archaeological exploration done in the 20th century suggests that the area of Afghanistan has been closely connected by culture and trade with its neighbors to the east, west. Artifacts typical of the Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic, Bronze, urban civilization is believed to have begun as early as 3000 BCE, and the early city of Mundigak may have been a colony of the nearby Indus Valley Civilization. More recent findings established that the Indus Valley Civilisation stretched up towards modern-day Afghanistan, making the ancient civilisation today part of Pakistan, Afghanistan, in more detail, it extended from what today is northwest Pakistan to northwest India and northeast Afghanistan. An Indus Valley site has found on the Oxus River at Shortugai in northern Afghanistan. There are several smaller IVC colonies to be found in Afghanistan as well, after 2000 BCE, successive waves of semi-nomadic people from Central Asia began moving south into Afghanistan, among them were many Indo-European-speaking Indo-Iranians. These tribes later migrated further into South Asia, Western Asia, the region at the time was referred to as Ariana
4.
Pashto
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Pashto, known in Persian literature as Afghānistani and in Urdu and Hindi literature as Paṭhānī, is the South-Central Asian language of the Pashtuns. Its speakers are called Pashtuns or Pukhtuns and sometimes Afghans or Pathans and it is an Eastern Iranian language, belonging to the Indo-European family. Pashto is one of the two languages of Afghanistan, and it is the second-largest regional language of Pakistan, mainly spoken in the west and northwest of the country. Pakistans Federally Administered Tribal Areas are almost 100% Pashto-speaking, while it is the majority language of the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pashto is the main language among the Pashtun diaspora around the world. The total number of Pashto-speakers is estimated to be 45–60 million people worldwide, Pashto belongs to the Northeastern Iranian group of the Indo-Iranian branch, but Ethnologue lists it as Southeastern Iranian. Pashto has two main groups, “soft” and “hard”, the latter known as Pakhto. As a national language of Afghanistan, Pashto is primarily spoken in the east, south, and southwest, the exact numbers of speakers are unavailable, but different estimates show that Pashto is the mother tongue of 45–60% of the total population of Afghanistan. In Pakistan Pashto is spoken as a first language by about 15. 42% of Pakistans 170 million people and it is the main language of the Pashtun-majority regions of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Federally Administered Tribal Areas and northern Balochistan. It is also spoken in parts of Mianwali and Attock districts of the Punjab province and in Islamabad, modern Pashto-speaking communities are found in the cities of Karachi and Hyderabad in Sindh. Other communities of Pashto speakers are found in Tajikistan, and further in the Pashtun diaspora, there are also communities of Pashtun descent in the southwestern part of Jammu and Kashmir. Pashto is one of the two languages of Afghanistan, along with Dari. Since the early 18th century, all the kings of Afghanistan were ethnic Pashtuns except for Habibullah Kalakani, Persian as the literary language of the royal court was more widely used in government institutions while Pashto was spoken by the Pashtun tribes as their native tongue. Although officially strengthening the use of Pashto, the Afghan elite regarded Persian as a “sophisticated language, king Zahir Shah thus followed suit after his father Nadir Khan had decreed in 1933, that both Persian and Pashto were to be studied and utilized by officials. Thus Pashto became a language, a symbol for Afghan nationalism. The status of language was reaffirmed in 1964 by the constitutional assembly when Afghan Persian was officially renamed to Dari. The lyrics of the anthem of Afghanistan are in Pashto. In Pakistan, Urdu and English are the two official languages, Pashto has no official status at the federal level. On a provincial level, Pashto is the language of Khyber Pukhtunkhwa, Federally Administered Tribal Areas
5.
Persian language
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Persian, also known by its endonym Farsi, is one of the Western Iranian languages within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan and it is mostly written in the Persian alphabet, a modified variant of the Arabic script. Its grammar is similar to that of many contemporary European languages, Persian gets its name from its origin at the capital of the Achaemenid Empire, Persis, hence the name Persian. A Persian-speaking person may be referred to as Persophone, there are approximately 110 million Persian speakers worldwide, with the language holding official status in Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan. For centuries, Persian has also been a cultural language in other regions of Western Asia, Central Asia. It also exerted influence on Arabic, particularly Bahrani Arabic. Persian is one of the Western Iranian languages within the Indo-European family, other Western Iranian languages are the Kurdish languages, Gilaki, Mazanderani, Talysh, and Balochi. Persian is classified as a member of the Southwestern subgroup within Western Iranian along with Lari, Kumzari, in Persian, the language is known by several names, Western Persian, Parsi or Farsi has been the name used by all native speakers until the 20th century. Since the latter decades of the 20th century, for reasons, in English. Tajiki is the variety of Persian spoken in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan by the Tajiks, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term Persian as a language name is first attested in English in the mid-16th century. Native Iranian Persian speakers call it Fārsi, Farsi is the Arabicized form of Pārsi, subsequent to Muslim conquest of Persia, due to a lack of the phoneme /p/ in Standard Arabic. The origin of the name Farsi and the place of origin of the language which is Fars Province is the Arabicized form of Pārs, in English, this language has historically been known as Persian, though Farsi has also gained some currency. Farsi is encountered in some literature as a name for the language. In modern English the word Farsi refers to the language while Parsi describes Zoroastrians, some Persian language scholars such as Ehsan Yarshater, editor of Encyclopædia Iranica, and University of Arizona professor Kamran Talattof, have also rejected the usage of Farsi in their articles. The international language-encoding standard ISO 639-1 uses the code fa, as its system is mostly based on the local names. The more detailed standard ISO 639-3 uses the name Persian for the dialect continuum spoken across Iran and Afghanistan and this consists of the individual languages Dari and Iranian Persian. Currently, Voice of America, BBC World Service, Deutsche Welle, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty also includes a Tajik service and an Afghan service. This is also the case for the American Association of Teachers of Persian, The Centre for Promotion of Persian Language and Literature, Persian is an Iranian language belonging to the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European family of languages
6.
Russian language
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Russian is an East Slavic language and an official language in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and many minor or unrecognised territories. Russian belongs to the family of Indo-European languages and is one of the four living members of the East Slavic languages, written examples of Old East Slavonic are attested from the 10th century and beyond. It is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia and the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages and it is also the largest native language in Europe, with 144 million native speakers in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Russian is the eighth most spoken language in the world by number of native speakers, the language is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Russian is also the second most widespread language on the Internet after English, Russian distinguishes between consonant phonemes with palatal secondary articulation and those without, the so-called soft and hard sounds. This distinction is found between pairs of almost all consonants and is one of the most distinguishing features of the language, another important aspect is the reduction of unstressed vowels. Russian is a Slavic language of the Indo-European family and it is a lineal descendant of the language used in Kievan Rus. From the point of view of the language, its closest relatives are Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Rusyn. An East Slavic Old Novgorod dialect, although vanished during the 15th or 16th century, is considered to have played a significant role in the formation of modern Russian. In the 19th century, the language was often called Great Russian to distinguish it from Belarusian, then called White Russian and Ukrainian, however, the East Slavic forms have tended to be used exclusively in the various dialects that are experiencing a rapid decline. In some cases, both the East Slavic and the Church Slavonic forms are in use, with different meanings. For details, see Russian phonology and History of the Russian language and it is also regarded by the United States Intelligence Community as a hard target language, due to both its difficulty to master for English speakers and its critical role in American world policy. The standard form of Russian is generally regarded as the modern Russian literary language, mikhail Lomonosov first compiled a normalizing grammar book in 1755, in 1783 the Russian Academys first explanatory Russian dictionary appeared. By the mid-20th century, such dialects were forced out with the introduction of the education system that was established by the Soviet government. Despite the formalization of Standard Russian, some nonstandard dialectal features are observed in colloquial speech. Thus, the Russian language is the 6th largest in the world by number of speakers, after English, Mandarin, Hindi/Urdu, Spanish, Russian is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Education in Russian is still a choice for both Russian as a second language and native speakers in Russia as well as many of the former Soviet republics. Russian is still seen as an important language for children to learn in most of the former Soviet republics, samuel P. Huntington wrote in the Clash of Civilizations, During the heyday of the Soviet Union, Russian was the lingua franca from Prague to Hanoi
7.
Simplified Chinese characters
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Simplified Chinese characters are standardized Chinese characters prescribed in the Table of General Standard Chinese Characters for use in mainland China. Along with traditional Chinese characters, it is one of the two character sets of the contemporary Chinese written language. The government of the Peoples Republic of China in mainland China has promoted them for use in printing since the 1950s and 1960s in an attempt to increase literacy and they are officially used in the Peoples Republic of China and Singapore. Traditional Chinese characters are used in Hong Kong, Macau. Overseas Chinese communities generally tend to use traditional characters, Simplified Chinese characters may be referred to by their official name above or colloquially. Strictly, the latter refers to simplifications of character structure or body, character forms that have existed for thousands of years alongside regular, Simplified character forms were created by decreasing the number of strokes and simplifying the forms of a sizable proportion of traditional Chinese characters. Some simplifications were based on popular cursive forms embodying graphic or phonetic simplifications of the traditional forms, some characters were simplified by applying regular rules, for example, by replacing all occurrences of a certain component with a simplified version of the component. Variant characters with the pronunciation and identical meaning were reduced to a single standardized character. Finally, many characters were left untouched by simplification, and are identical between the traditional and simplified Chinese orthographies. Some simplified characters are very dissimilar to and unpredictably different from traditional characters and this often leads opponents not well-versed in the method of simplification to conclude that the overall process of character simplification is also arbitrary. In reality, the methods and rules of simplification are few, on the other hand, proponents of simplification often flaunt a few choice simplified characters as ingenious inventions, when in fact these have existed for hundreds of years as ancient variants. However, the Chinese government never officially dropped its goal of further simplification in the future, in August 2009, the PRC began collecting public comments for a modified list of simplified characters. The new Table of General Standard Chinese Characters consisting of 8,105 characters was promulgated by the State Council of the Peoples Republic of China on June 5,2013, cursive written text almost always includes character simplification. Simplified forms used in print have always existed, they date back to as early as the Qin dynasty, One of the earliest proponents of character simplification was Lubi Kui, who proposed in 1909 that simplified characters should be used in education. In the years following the May Fourth Movement in 1919, many anti-imperialist Chinese intellectuals sought ways to modernise China, Traditional culture and values such as Confucianism were challenged. Soon, people in the Movement started to cite the traditional Chinese writing system as an obstacle in modernising China and it was suggested that the Chinese writing system should be either simplified or completely abolished. Fu Sinian, a leader of the May Fourth Movement, called Chinese characters the writing of ox-demons, lu Xun, a renowned Chinese author in the 20th century, stated that, If Chinese characters are not destroyed, then China will die. Recent commentators have claimed that Chinese characters were blamed for the problems in China during that time
8.
Traditional Chinese characters
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Traditional Chinese characters are Chinese characters in any character set that does not contain newly created characters or character substitutions performed after 1946. They are most commonly the characters in the character sets of Taiwan, of Hong Kong. Currently, a number of overseas Chinese online newspapers allow users to switch between both sets. In contrast, simplified Chinese characters are used in mainland China, Singapore, the debate on traditional and simplified Chinese characters has been a long-running issue among Chinese communities. Although simplified characters are taught and endorsed by the government of Mainland China, Traditional characters are used informally in regions in China primarily in handwriting and also used for inscriptions and religious text. They are often retained in logos or graphics to evoke yesteryear, nonetheless, the vast majority of media and communications in China is dominated by simplified characters. Taiwan has never adopted Simplified Chinese characters since it is ruled by the Republic of China, the use of simplified characters in official documents is even prohibited by the government in Taiwan. Simplified characters are not well understood in general, although some stroke simplifications that have incorporated into Simplified Chinese are in common use in handwriting. For example, while the name of Taiwan is written as 臺灣, similarly, in Hong Kong and Macau, Traditional Chinese has been the legal written form since colonial times. In recent years, because of the influx of mainland Chinese tourists, today, even government websites use simplified Chinese, as they answer to the Beijing government. This has led to concerns by residents to protect their local heritage. In Southeast Asia, the Chinese Filipino community continues to be one of the most conservative regarding simplification, while major public universities are teaching simplified characters, many well-established Chinese schools still use traditional characters. Publications like the Chinese Commercial News, World News, and United Daily News still use traditional characters, on the other hand, the Philippine Chinese Daily uses simplified. Aside from local newspapers, magazines from Hong Kong, such as the Yazhou Zhoukan, are found in some bookstores. In case of film or television subtitles on DVD, the Chinese dub that is used in Philippines is the same as the one used in Taiwan and this is because the DVDs belongs to DVD Region Code 3. Hence, most of the subtitles are in Traditional Characters, overseas Chinese in the United States have long used traditional characters. A major influx of Chinese immigrants to the United States occurred during the half of the 19th century. Therefore, the majority of Chinese language signage in the United States, including street signs, Traditional Chinese characters are called several different names within the Chinese-speaking world
9.
Pinyin
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Pinyin, or Hànyǔ Pīnyīn, is the official romanization system for Standard Chinese in mainland China, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan. It is often used to teach Standard Chinese, which is written using Chinese characters. The system includes four diacritics denoting tones, Pinyin without tone marks is used to spell Chinese names and words in languages written with the Latin alphabet, and also in certain computer input methods to enter Chinese characters. The pinyin system was developed in the 1950s by many linguists, including Zhou Youguang and it was published by the Chinese government in 1958 and revised several times. The International Organization for Standardization adopted pinyin as a standard in 1982. The system was adopted as the standard in Taiwan in 2009. The word Hànyǔ means the language of the Han people. In 1605, the Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci published Xizi Qiji in Beijing and this was the first book to use the Roman alphabet to write the Chinese language. Twenty years later, another Jesuit in China, Nicolas Trigault, neither book had much immediate impact on the way in which Chinese thought about their writing system, and the romanizations they described were intended more for Westerners than for the Chinese. One of the earliest Chinese thinkers to relate Western alphabets to Chinese was late Ming to early Qing Dynasty scholar-official, the first late Qing reformer to propose that China adopt a system of spelling was Song Shu. A student of the great scholars Yu Yue and Zhang Taiyan, Song had been to Japan and observed the effect of the kana syllabaries. This galvanized him into activity on a number of fronts, one of the most important being reform of the script, while Song did not himself actually create a system for spelling Sinitic languages, his discussion proved fertile and led to a proliferation of schemes for phonetic scripts. The Wade–Giles system was produced by Thomas Wade in 1859, and it was popular and used in English-language publications outside China until 1979. This Sin Wenz or New Writing was much more sophisticated than earlier alphabets. In 1940, several members attended a Border Region Sin Wenz Society convention. Mao Zedong and Zhu De, head of the army, both contributed their calligraphy for the masthead of the Sin Wenz Societys new journal. Outside the CCP, other prominent supporters included Sun Yat-sens son, Sun Fo, Cai Yuanpei, the countrys most prestigious educator, Tao Xingzhi, an educational reformer. Over thirty journals soon appeared written in Sin Wenz, plus large numbers of translations, biographies, some contemporary Chinese literature, and a spectrum of textbooks
10.
Dungan language
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The Dungan language /ˈdʊŋɡɑːn/ is a Sinitic language spoken primarily Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan by the Dungan people, an ethnic group related to the Hui people of China. Although it is derived from the Central Plains Mandarin of Gansu and Shaanxi, it is written in Cyrillic and contains loanwords. The Hui of Northwestern China would normally speak the same Mandarin dialect as the Han people in the same area, the Hui traders in the bazaars would be able to use Arabic or Persian numbers when talking between themselves, to keep their communications secret from Han bystanders. While not constituting a separate language, these words, phrases and turns of speech, known as Huihui hua, served as markers of group identity. As early 20th century travellers in Northwestern China would note, the Mohammedan Chinese have to some extent a vocabulary, in the Soviet Union, a written standard of the Dungan language was developed, based on a Gansu dialect, rather than the Beijing base of Standard Chinese. The language was used in the schools in Dungan villages, the first Dungan-language newspaper was established in 1932, it continues publication today in weekly form. There is a degree of mutual intelligibility between Dungan and various Mandarin dialects. The Shaanxi and Gansu Mandarin dialects are understood by Dungans, Dungan is spoken primarily in Kyrgyzstan, with speakers in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Russia as well. The Dungan ethnic group are the descendants of refugees from China who migrated west into Central Asia, Chinese varieties usually have different classifiers for different types of nouns, with northern varieties tending to have fewer classifiers than southern ones. 個 is the only found in the Dungan language, though not the only measure word. Like other Chinese varieties, Dungan is tonal, there are two main dialects, one with 4 tones, and the other, considered standard, with 3 tones in the final position in phonetic words and 4 tones in the nonfinal position. The corresponding table compares current Dungan spelling, old Dungan spelling, pinyin, using Standard Chinese vowels as basis, each vowel and its respective current Dungan spelling is presented below, along with the old Dungan spelling, using pinyin, and IPA. Note that the correspondence between Dungan vowels and Standard Chinese vowels is not perfect, vowel constructs that can be used as independent syllable without consonants are shown in parenthesis. There are rhotacised vowels, as well as some syllables only seen in words from Russian, Kyrgyz. Furthermore, the acrolects of Dungan and Gansu/Shaanxi Mandarin have diverged due to time. During the 20th century, translators and intellectuals introduced many neologisms and calques into the Chinese language, as a result of these borrowings, the equivalent standard Chinese terms are not widely known or understood among the Dungan. The modern Dungan language is the only spoken Chinese that is written in the Cyrillic alphabet and it is a Russian-based alphabet plus five special letters, Җ, Ң, Ү, Ә, and Ў. Note The letters Ъ and Ь are only used to write Russian loanwords Dungan is unique in that it is one of the few varieties of Chinese that is not normally written using Chinese characters
11.
Xiao'erjing
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It is used on occasion by many ethnic minorities who adhere to the Islamic faith in China, and formerly by their Dungan descendants in Central Asia. Soviet writing reforms forced the Dungan to replace Xiaoerjing with a Roman alphabet and later a Cyrillic alphabet, Xiaoerjing is written from right to left, as with other writing systems using the Perso-Arabic script. This makes it a true abugida, both of these practices are in contrast to the practice of omitting the short vowels in the majority of the languages for which the Arabic script has been adopted. This is possibly due to the importance of the vowel in a Chinese syllable. Xiaoerjing does not have a single, standard name, in Ningxia, Gansu, Inner Mongolia, Qinghai, western Shaanxi and the Northwestern provinces, the script is referred to as Xiǎoérjǐn. According to A. Kalimov, a famous Dungan linguist, the Dungan of the former Soviet Union called this script щёҗин, since the arrival of Islam during the Tang Dynasty, many Arabic or Persian speaking people migrated into China. Centuries later, these peoples assimilated with the native Han Chinese, many Chinese Muslim students attended madrasas to study Classical Arabic and the Quran. Because these students had a basic understanding of Chinese characters but would have a better command of the spoken tongue once assimilated. This was often done by writing notes in Chinese to aid in the memorization of surahs and this method was also used to write Chinese translations of Arabic vocabulary learned in the madrasas. Thus, a system of writing the Chinese language with Arabic script gradually developed and standardized to some extent, currently, the oldest known artifact showing signs of Xiaoerjing is a stone stele in the courtyard of Daxue Xixiang Mosque in Xian in the province of Shaanxi. The stele shows inscribed Quranic verses in Arabic as well as a note of the names of the inscribers in Xiaoerjing. The stele was done in the year AH740 in the Islamic calendar, some old Xiaoerjing manuscripts are preserved in the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of the Russian Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg, Russia. Xiaoerjing can be divided into two sets, the Mosque system, and the Daily system, the Mosque system is the system used by pupils and imams in mosques and madrasahs. It contains much Arabic and Persian religious lexicon, and no usage of Chinese characters and this system is relatively standardised, and could be considered a true writing system. The Daily system is the used by the less educated for letters. Often simple Chinese characters are mixed in with the Arabic script, mostly discussing non-religious matters and this practice can differ drastically from person to person. The system would be devised by the writer himself, with ones own understanding of the Arabic and Persian alphabets, often, only the letters sender and the letters receiver can understand completely what is written, while being very difficult for others to read. Unlike Hui Muslims in other areas of China, Muslims of the northwest provinces of Shaanxi and Gansu had no knowledge of the Han Kitab or Classical Chinese, Xiaoerjing was used to annotate in Chinese, foreign language Islamic documents in languages like Persian
12.
Ming dynasty
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The Ming dynasty was the ruling dynasty of China – then known as the Empire of the Great Ming – for 276 years following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming, described by some as one of the greatest eras of orderly government, although the primary capital of Beijing fell in 1644 to a rebellion led by Li Zicheng, regimes loyal to the Ming throne – collectively called the Southern Ming – survived until 1683. He rewarded his supporters and employed them as a counterweight against the Confucian scholar-bureaucrats. One, Zheng He, led seven enormous voyages of exploration into the Indian Ocean as far as Arabia, the rise of new emperors and new factions diminished such extravagances, the capture of the Zhengtong Emperor during the 1449 Tumu Crisis ended them completely. The imperial navy was allowed to fall into disrepair while forced labor constructed the Liaodong palisade, haijin laws intended to protect the coasts from Japanese pirates instead turned many into smugglers and pirates themselves. The growth of Portuguese, Spanish, and Dutch trade created new demand for Chinese products and produced an influx of Japanese. This abundance of specie remonetized the Ming economy, whose money had suffered repeated hyperinflation and was no longer trusted. While traditional Confucians opposed such a prominent role for commerce and the newly rich it created, combined with crop failure, floods, and epidemic, the dynasty collapsed before the rebel leader Li Zicheng, who was defeated by the Manchu-led Eight Banner armies who founded the Qing dynasty. The Mongol-led Yuan dynasty ruled before the establishment of the Ming dynasty, consequently, agriculture and the economy were in shambles, and rebellion broke out among the hundreds of thousands of peasants called upon to work on repairing the dykes of the Yellow River. A number of Han Chinese groups revolted, including the Red Turbans in 1351, the Red Turbans were affiliated with the White Lotus, a Buddhist secret society. Zhu Yuanzhang was a peasant and Buddhist monk who joined the Red Turbans in 1352. In 1356, Zhus rebel force captured the city of Nanjing, with the Yuan dynasty crumbling, competing rebel groups began fighting for control of the country and thus the right to establish a new dynasty. In 1363, Zhu Yuanzhang eliminated his archrival and leader of the rebel Han faction, Chen Youliang, in the Battle of Lake Poyang, arguably the largest naval battle in history. Known for its ambitious use of ships, Zhus force of 200,000 Ming sailors were able to defeat a Han rebel force over triple their size, claimed to be 650. The victory destroyed the last opposing rebel faction, leaving Zhu Yuanzhang in uncontested control of the bountiful Yangtze River Valley, Zhu Yuanzhang took Hongwu, or Vastly Martial, as his era name. Hongwu made an effort to rebuild state infrastructure. He built a 48 km long wall around Nanjing, as well as new palaces, Hongwu organized a military system known as the weisuo, which was similar to the fubing system of the Tang dynasty. With a growing suspicion of his ministers and subjects, Hongwu established the Jinyiwei, some 100,000 people were executed in a series of purges during his rule
13.
Provinces of Afghanistan
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Afghanistan is made up of 34 provinces. The provinces of Afghanistan are the administrative divisions. Each province encompasses a number of districts or usually over 1,000 villages, Provincial governments are led by a governor who is appointed by the President of Afghanistan. Each province is represented in the government of Afghanistan by two members in the House of Elders, one is elected by the provincial council to a four-year term while the second is elected by the district councils to a three-year term. Representation in the House of the People is directly from the districts, although in each province and they are appointed by the President of Afghanistan. Provincial governors have played a role in the reconstruction of the Afghan state following the creation of the new government under Hamid Karzai. According to international security scholar, Dipali Mukhopadhyay, many of the governors are former warlords who have been incorporated into the political system. List of current governors of Afghanistan Districts of Afghanistan Afghanistan Information Management Services Provincial Governors
14.
Music of Badakhshan
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Badakhshan is a region of Tajikistan and Afghanistan with a unique musical heritage, especially that of the remote Pamiri Ismailis. Badakhshans unique folk scene is said to be characteristed by the use of many chromatized tones in a melodic range. Lutes are an important part of Badakhshani music, especially the three-stringed shortneck lute played with a wooden plectrum. Other instruments include the ney, a kind of flute, and the Ghaychak, a spiked fiddle, Badakhshani music has a characteristic throaty, nasal sound which is a distinguishing characteristic of the areas vocal style. The madah is a kind of religious poetry, accompanied by rubabs and/or tanbyr with at least one daf. Takhmina of Avesto from Gorno-Badakhshan, Tajikistan
15.
Patera
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In the material culture of classical antiquity, a phiale or patera is a shallow ceramic or metal libation bowl. It often has an indentation in the center underside to facilitate holding it. It typically has no handles, and no feet, although the two terms may be used interchangeably, particularly in the context of Etruscan culture, phiale is more common in reference to Greek forms, and patera in a Roman setting. Libation was a central and vital aspect of ancient Greek religion and it is one of the basic religious acts that define piety in ancient Greece, dating back to the Bronze Age and even prehistoric Greece. Libations were a part of life, and the pious might perform them every day in the morning and evening. A libation most often consisted of mixed wine and water, but could also be unmixed wine, honey, oil, water, the form of libation called spondē is typically the ritualized pouring of wine from a jug or bowl held in the hand. The most common ritual was to pour the liquid from an oinochoē into a phiale, the Greeks stood when they prayed, either with their arms uplifted, or in the act of libation with the right arm extended to hold the phiale. After the wine offering was poured from the phiale, the remainder of the contents was drunk by the celebrant, in Roman art, the libation is shown performed at an altar, mensa, or tripod. It was the simplest form of sacrifice, and could be a sufficient offering by itself, the introductory rite to an animal sacrifice included an incense and wine libation onto a burning altar. Both emperors and divinities are frequently depicted, especially on coins, scenes of libation and the patera itself commonly signify the quality of pietas, religious duty or reverence. In architecture, oval features on plaster friezes on buildings may be called paterae, parabiago patera, which is actually a platter or plate
16.
Dionysus
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Dionysus is the god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness, fertility, theatre and religious ecstasy in ancient Greek religion and myth. Wine played an important role in Greek culture, and the cult of Dionysus was the religious focus for its unrestrained consumption. He may have been worshipped as early as c, 1500–1100 BC by Mycenean Greeks, traces of Dionysian-type cult have also been found in ancient Minoan Crete. His origins are uncertain, and his cults took many forms, some are described by ancient sources as Thracian, in some cults, he arrives from the east, as an Asiatic foreigner, in others, from Ethiopia in the South. He is a god of epiphany, the god that comes and his festivals were the driving force behind the development of Greek theatre. The earliest cult images of Dionysus show a male, bearded and robed. He holds a staff, tipped with a pine-cone and known as a thyrsus. Later images show him as a beardless, sensuous, naked or half-naked androgynous youth, in its fully developed form, his central cult imagery shows his triumphant, disorderly arrival or return, as if from some place beyond the borders of the known and civilized. His procession is made up of female followers and bearded satyrs with erect penises, some are armed with the thyrsus. The god himself is drawn in a chariot, usually by exotic beasts such as lions or tigers and this procession is presumed to be the cult model for the followers of his Dionysian Mysteries. He is also known as Bacchus, the adopted by the Romans. His thyrsus, sometimes wound with ivy and dripping with honey, is both a beneficent wand and a used to destroy those who oppose his cult and the freedoms he represents. As Eleutherios, his wine, music and ecstatic dance free his followers from self-conscious fear and care and those who partake of his mysteries are possessed and empowered by the god himself. The cult of Dionysus is also a cult of the souls, his maenads feed the dead through blood-offerings and he is sometimes categorised as a dying-and-rising god. Some scholars believe that Dionysus is a syncretism of a local Greek nature deity, Dionysus had a strange birth that evokes the difficulty in fitting him into the Olympian pantheon. His mother was a woman, Semele, the daughter of king Cadmus of Thebes, and his father was Zeus. Zeus wife, Hera, discovered the affair while Semele was pregnant, appearing as an old crone, Hera befriended Semele, who confided in her that Zeus was the actual father of the baby in her womb. Hera pretended not to believe her, and planted seeds of doubt in Semeles mind, curious, Semele demanded of Zeus that he reveal himself in all his glory as proof of his godhood
17.
British Museum
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The British Museum is dedicated to human history, art and culture, and is located in the Bloomsbury area of London. The British Museum was established in 1753, largely based on the collections of the physician, the museum first opened to the public on 15 January 1759, in Montagu House, on the site of the current building. Although today principally a museum of art objects and antiquities. Its foundations lie in the will of the Irish-born British physician, on 7 June 1753, King George II gave his formal assent to the Act of Parliament which established the British Museum. They were joined in 1757 by the Old Royal Library, now the Royal manuscripts, together these four foundation collections included many of the most treasured books now in the British Library including the Lindisfarne Gospels and the sole surviving copy of Beowulf. The British Museum was the first of a new kind of museum – national, belonging to neither church nor king, freely open to the public, sloanes collection, while including a vast miscellany of objects, tended to reflect his scientific interests. The addition of the Cotton and Harley manuscripts introduced a literary, the body of trustees decided on a converted 17th-century mansion, Montagu House, as a location for the museum, which it bought from the Montagu family for £20,000. The Trustees rejected Buckingham House, on the now occupied by Buckingham Palace, on the grounds of cost. With the acquisition of Montagu House the first exhibition galleries and reading room for scholars opened on 15 January 1759. During the few years after its foundation the British Museum received several gifts, including the Thomason Collection of Civil War Tracts. A list of donations to the Museum, dated 31 January 1784, in the early 19th century the foundations for the extensive collection of sculpture began to be laid and Greek, Roman and Egyptian artefacts dominated the antiquities displays. Gifts and purchases from Henry Salt, British consul general in Egypt, beginning with the Colossal bust of Ramesses II in 1818, many Greek sculptures followed, notably the first purpose-built exhibition space, the Charles Towneley collection, much of it Roman Sculpture, in 1805. In 1816 these masterpieces of art, were acquired by The British Museum by Act of Parliament. The collections were supplemented by the Bassae frieze from Phigaleia, Greece in 1815, the Ancient Near Eastern collection also had its beginnings in 1825 with the purchase of Assyrian and Babylonian antiquities from the widow of Claudius James Rich. The neoclassical architect, Sir Robert Smirke, was asked to draw up plans for an extension to the Museum. For the reception of the Royal Library, and a Picture Gallery over it, and put forward plans for todays quadrangular building, much of which can be seen today. The dilapidated Old Montagu House was demolished and work on the Kings Library Gallery began in 1823, the extension, the East Wing, was completed by 1831. The Museum became a site as Sir Robert Smirkes grand neo-classical building gradually arose
18.
Tajiks
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Tajik is a general designation for a wide range of Persian-speaking people of Iranian origin, with traditional homelands in present-day Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Uzbekistan. Alternative names for the Tajiks are Fārsī, Fārsīwān, and Dīhgān, not all Tajiks speak a variety of modern Persian. They may speak any one of the extant Iranian languages, for example, the Tajiks of China are actually Pamiris and speak the Eastern Iranic Pamiri languages and are distinct from more western Tajiks. The Bactrian and the Sogdian people are the ancestors of modern-day Tajiks. The ancestors of the Tajiks constituted the core of the ancient population of Khwārezm and Bactria, over the course of time, the eastern Iranian dialect that was used by the ancient Tajiks eventually gave way to Farsi, a western dialect spoken in Iran and Afghanistan. In later works, Frye expands on the complexity of the origins of the Tajiks. The geographical division between the eastern and western Iranians is often considered historically and currently to be the desert Dasht-e Kavir, according to Encyclopaedia Iranica, The most plausible and generally accepted origin of the word is Middle Persian tāzīk ‘Arab’, or an Iranian cognate word. Hence the Turks of Central Asia adopted a variant of the Iranian word, täžik, for example, the rulers of the south Indian Chalukya dynasty and Rashtrakuta dynasty also referred to the Arabs as Tajika in the 8th and 9th century. Iranians soon accepted it as an ethnonym, as is shown by a Persian court official’s referring to mā tāzikān “we Tajiks”, the distinction between Turk and Tajik became stereotyped to express the symbiosis and rivalry of the nomadic military executive and the urban civil bureaucracy. The 15th century Turkic-speaking poet Mīr Alī Šer Navāī also used Tajik as a reference to Persians, Tajiks are a substantial minority in Uzbekistan, as well as in overseas communities. Historically, the ancestors of the Tajiks lived in a territory in Central Asia than now. According to the World Factbook, Tajiks make up about 27% of the population in Afghanistan, although in the past, some non-Pashto speaking tribes were identified as Tajik, for example the Furmuli. Tajiks comprise around 79. 9% of the population of Tajikistan, in the 1926 and 1937 Soviet censuses, the Yaghnobis and Pamiri language speakers were counted as separate nationalities. After 1937, these groups were required to register as Tajiks, according to official statistics, Surxondaryo Province accounts for 24. 4% of all Tajiks in Uzbekistan, with another 34. 3% in Samarqand and Bukhara provinces. Official statistics in Uzbekistan state that the Tajik community comprises 5% of the total population. However, these numbers do not include ethnic Tajiks who, for a variety of reasons and it is only in the last population census that the nationality could be reported not according to the passport, but freely declared on the basis of the respondents ethnic self-identification. This had the effect of increasing the Tajik population in Uzbekistan from 3. 9% in 1979 to 4. 7% in 1989, expert estimates suggest that Tajiks may make up 35% of Uzbekistans population. According to the 1999 population census, there were 26,000 Tajiks in Kazakhstan, according to official statistics, there were about 47,500 Tajiks in Kyrgyzstan in 2007, up from 42,600 in the 1999 census and 33,500 in the 1989 census
19.
Pamiris
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The Pamiris are composed of people who speak the Pamiri languages, the indigenous language in the Gorno-Badakhshan autonomous province. In the Pamiri languages, the Pamiris refer to themselves as Pamiri or Badakhshani, in China, Pamiris are referred to as ethnic Tajiks. In Afghanistan, they are recognized as ethnic Pamiris and the Afghan National Anthem mention Pamiris in the list of groups of Afghanistan. In 1929 Gorno-Badakhshan was attached to the newly formed republic of Tajikistan, some Tajik scholars claim Pamiri languages to be a dialects of Tajik language and there has been a long running debate as to whether the Pamiris constituted a nationality separate from Tajiks. In the 1926 and 1937 Soviet censuses Rushani, Shugni and Wakhis were counted as separate nationalities, after 1937 these groups were required to register as Tajiks. During the Soviet period many Pamiris migrated to the Vakhsh River Valley and settled in Qurghonteppa Oblast, in the 1980s debate raged in Tajikistan about the official status of the Pamiri languages in the republic. After the independence of Tajikistan in 1991 Pamiri nationalism stirred and the Pamiri nationalist political party Lali Badakhshan took power in Gorno-Badakhshan, anti-government protests took place in the provinces capital, Khorog, and in 1992 the republic declared itself an independent country. In the early 1990s there was a movement amongst Pamiris to separate Gorno-Badakhshan from Tajikistan, Pamiris are predominantly Nizārī Ismāīlī Shia and follow the Aga Khan. The Aga Khan Foundation became the primary non-governmental organization in Gorno-Badakhshan, there are also Sunni Pamiris currently numbering at approximately a few thousand
20.
Kyrgyz people
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The Kyrgyz people are a Turkic ethnic group native to Central Asia, primarily Kyrgyzstan. There are several theories on the origin of ethnonym Kyrgyz and it is often said to be derived from the Turkic word kyrk, with -iz being an old plural suffix, so Kyrgyz literally means a collection of forty tribes. A rival myth, recorded in 1370 in the Yuán Shǐ, the original root of the ethnonym appears to have been the word kirkün, probably meaning field people. This and the Chinese transcription Tse-gu suggest that the ethnonym was Kirkut and/or Kirkur. By the time of the Mongol Empire, the meaning of the word kirkun had apparently been forgotten – as was shown by variations in readings of it across different reductions of the Yuán Shǐ and this may have led to the adoption of Kyrgyz and its mythical explanation. When distinction had to be made, more specific terms were used, the Kyrgyz proper were known as the Kara-Kirghiz, and the Kazakhs were named the Kaisaks. or Kirghiz-Kazaks. They were described in Tang Dynasty texts as having red hair and green eyes, while those with dark hair, in Chinese sources, these Kyrgyz tribes were described as fair-skinned, green- or blue-eyed and red-haired people with a mixture of European and Mongol features. According to recent historical findings, Kyrgyz history dates back to 201 BC, the Yenisei Kyrgyz lived in the upper Yenisey River valley, central Siberia. In Late Antiquity the Yenisei Kyrgyz were a part of the Tiele people, later, in the Early Middle Ages, the Yenisei Kyrgyz were a part of the confederations of the Göktürk and Uyghur Khaganates. In 840 a revolt led by the Yenisei Kyrgyz brought down the Uyghur Khaganate, by the 16th century the carriers of the ethnonym Kirgiz lived in South Siberia, Xinjiang, Tian Shan, Pamir-Alay, Middle Asia, Urals, in Kazakhstan. Though it is impossible to directly identify the Yenisei and Tien Shan Kyrgyz. Also, there follow from the oldest notes about the Kyrgyz that the mention of Kyrgyz ethnonym originates from the 6th century. The Kyrgyz as ethnic group are mentioned quite unambiguously in the time of Genghis Khan rule, the genetic makeup of the Kyrgyz is consistent with their origin as a mix of tribes. For instance, 63% of modern Kyrgyz men of Jumgal District share Haplogroup R1a1 with Ishkashimis, Tajiks of Panjikent, Pashtuns, low diversity of Kyrgyz R1a1 indicates a founder effect within the historical period. Other groups of Kyrgyz show considerably lower haplogroup R frequencies and almost lack haplogroup N, west Eurasian mtDNA ranges from 27% to 42. 6% in the Kyrgyz with Haplogroup mtDNA H being the most predominant marker at 21. 3% among the Kyrgyz. They are considered to be a people that were created by a combination of Mongol, Khitan and they generally have an East Asian appearance like their neighbours the Kazakhs, in contrast to the mostly Caucasoid Tajiks and the mixed-looking Uzbeks. The Kyrgyz state reached its greatest extent after defeating the Uyghur Khaganate in 840 AD, the Kirghiz qaghan assisted the Tang dynasty in destroying the Uyghur Khaganate and rescuing the Princess Taihe from the Uyghurs. They also killed a Uyghur khagan in the process, then Kyrgyz quickly moved as far as the Tian Shan range and maintained their dominance over this territory for about 200 years
21.
Uzbeks
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The Uzbeks are a Turkic ethnic group, the largest Turkic ethnic group in Central Asia. They comprise the majority population of Uzbekistan but are found as a minority group in Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Russia. Uzbek diaspora communities also exist in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the origin of the word Uzbek remains disputed. One view holds that it is named after Oghuz Khagan, also known as Oghuz Beg. Another states that the name means independent or the lord itself, from Oʻz, before, 5th century, what is todays Uzbekistan was part of Sogdia, mainly inhabited by Sogdians, an Indo-Iranian people. It was part of the Achaemenid Empire and later part of Sasanian Empire, from 5th to 6th century, what is todays Uzbekistan was part of the Hephthalite Empire. From 6th to 8th century, what is todays Uzbekistan was under the rule of Göktürk Khanate, Turkic and Chinese migration into central Asia occurred during the Chinese Tang Dynasty, and Chinese armies commanded by Turkic generals stationed in large parts of central Asia. But Chinese influence ended with the An Lushan rebellion, from the 9th century on, Transoxania was under the rule of Turkic Kara-Khanid Khanate, their arrival in Transoxania signalled a definitive shift from Iranian to Turkic predominance in Central Asia. Kara-Khanid ruler Sultan Satuq Bughra Khan was the first Turkic ruler to convert Islam, in the 12th century, Transoxania was conquered by Qara Khitai, a sinicized Khitan dynasty, they brought to Central Asia the Chinese system of government. In the 13th century, Kara-Khanid Khanate was destroyed by the Turkic Khwarazmian dynasty, the language-shift from Middle Iranian to Turkic and New Persian was predominantly the result of an elite dominance process. This process was boosted during the Mongol conquest when millions were either killed or pushed further south to the Pamir region. The modern Uzbek language is derived from the Chagatai language which gained prominence in the Timurid Empire. The modern Uzbek population represents varying degrees of diversity derived from the high traffic routes through Central Asia. Once populated by Iranian tribes and other Indo-European people, Central Asia experienced numerous invasions emanating out of Mongolia that would affect the region. According to recent genetic genealogy testing from a University of Oxford study, high levels of haplogroup 10 and its derivative, haplogroup 36, are found in most of the Altaic-speaking populations and are a good indicator of the genetic impact of these nomadic groups. The difference could be due to the density of the different geographical areas. Eastern regions of Central Asia must have had a low density at the time. Thus, the estimate from North-East Asia is high in the east
22.
Ethnic group
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An ethnic group or ethnicity is a category of people who identify with each other based on similarities, such as common ancestral, language, social, cultural or national experiences. Unlike other social groups, ethnicity is often an inherited status based on the society in which one lives, in some cases, it can be adopted if a person moves into another society. Ethnic groups, derived from the historical founder population, often continue to speak related languages. By way of language shift, acculturation, adoption and religious conversion, it is possible for individuals or groups to leave one ethnic group. Ethnicity is often used synonymously with terms such as nation or people. In English, it can also have the connotation of something exotic, generally related to cultures of more recent immigrants, the largest ethnic groups in modern times comprise hundreds of millions of individuals, while the smallest are limited to a few dozen individuals. Conversely, formerly separate ethnicities can merge to form a pan-ethnicity, whether through division or amalgamation, the formation of a separate ethnic identity is referred to as ethnogenesis. The term ethnic is derived from the Greek word ἔθνος ethnos, the inherited English language term for this concept is folk, used alongside the latinate people since the late Middle English period. In Early Modern English and until the mid-19th century, ethnic was used to mean heathen or pagan, as the Septuagint used ta ethne to translate the Hebrew goyim the nations, non-Hebrews, non-Jews. The Greek term in antiquity could refer to any large group, a host of men. In the 19th century, the term came to be used in the sense of peculiar to a race, people or nation, the abstract ethnicity had been used for paganism in the 18th century, but now came to express the meaning of an ethnic character. The term ethnic group was first recorded in 1935 and entered the Oxford English Dictionary in 1972, depending on the context that is used, the term nationality may either be used synonymously with ethnicity, or synonymously with citizenship. The process that results in the emergence of an ethnicity is called ethnogenesis, the Greeks at this time did not describe foreign nations but had also developed a concept of their own ethnicity, which they grouped under the name of Hellenes. Herodotus gave an account of what defined Greek ethnic identity in his day, enumerating shared descent. Whether ethnicity qualifies as a universal is to some extent dependent on the exact definition used. Many social scientists, such as anthropologists Fredrik Barth and Eric Wolf and they regard ethnicity as a product of specific kinds of inter-group interactions, rather than an essential quality inherent to human groups. According to Thomas Hylland Eriksen, the study of ethnicity was dominated by two distinct debates until recently, one is between primordialism and instrumentalism. In the primordialist view, the participant perceives ethnic ties collectively, as a given, even coercive
23.
Isma'ilism
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Ismāʿīlism is a branch of Shia Islam. Ismailis believe in the oneness of God, as well as the closing of divine revelation with Muhammad, the Ismāʿīlī and the Twelvers both accept the same initial Imams from the descendants of Muhammad through his daughter Fatimah and therefore share much of their early history. Both groups see the family of Muhammad as divinely chosen, infallible, and guided by God to lead the Islamic community, Ismaili thought is heavily influenced by neoplatonism. There are also a significant number of Ismāʿīlīs in Central Asia, Ismailism shares its beginnings with other early Shi‘i sects that emerged during the succession crisis that spread throughout the early Muslim community. From the beginning, the Shia asserted the right of Ali, cousin of Muhammad and this also included his two sons, who were the grandsons of Muhammad through his daughter Fatimah. Soon after his ascendancy, Aisha, the third of the Prophets wives, claimed along with Usmans tribe, the Ummayads, ‘Ali voted against it as he believed that situation at that time demanded a peaceful resolution of the matter. Both parties could rightfully defend their claims, but due to escalated misunderstandings, following this battle, Muawiya, the Umayyad governor of Syria, also staged a revolt under the same pretences. ‘Ali led his forces against Muawiya until the side of Muawiya held copies of the Quran against their spears, ‘Ali accepted this, and an arbitration was done which ended in his favor. A group among Alis army believed that subjecting his legitimate authority to arbitration was tantamount to apostasy and this group was known as the Khawarij and ‘Ali wished to defeat their forces before they reached the cities where they would be able to blend in with the rest of the population. While he was unable to do this, he defeated their forces in subsequent battles. Regardless of these defeats, the Kharijites survived and became a problematic group in Islamic history. The Entrusted Imam is an Imam in the full sense except that the lineage of the Imamate must continue through the Permanent Imam. However, the caliphate was soon taken over by Muawiya. Even some of Ali’s early followers regarded him as “an absolute and divinely guided leader who could demand of them the kind of loyalty that would have been expected for the Prophet. ”For example, one of Ali’s supporters who also was devoted to the Prophet said to him, “our opinion is your opinion. The early followers of ‘Ali seem to have taken his guidance as “right guidance” deriving from Divine support, in other words, ‘Ali’s guidance was seen to be the expression of God’s will and the Qur’anic message. This spiritual and absolute authority of ‘Ali was known as walayah and it was inherited by his successors, the Imams. In the first century after the Prophet, the sunnah was not specifically defined as “Sunnah of the Prophet” but was used in connection to Abu Bakr, ‘Umar, Uthman. The idea of “Hadith” or traditions ascribed to the Prophet was not mainstream nor was Hadith criticism, even the earliest legal texts by Malik b
24.
Sunni Islam
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Sunni Islam is the largest group of Islam. Its name comes from the word Sunnah, referring to the behavior of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. According to Sunni tradition, Muhammad did not clearly designate a successor and this contrasts with the Shia view, which holds that Muhammad intended his son-in-law and cousin Ali ibn Abi Talib to succeed him. Political tensions between Sunnis and Shias continued with varying intensity throughout Islamic history and they have been exacerbated in recent times by ethnic conflicts, as of 2009, Sunni Muslims constituted between 87–90% of the worlds Muslim population. Sunni Islam is the worlds largest religious denomination, followed by Catholicism and its adherents are referred to in Arabic as ahl as-sunnah wa l-jamāʻah or ahl as-sunnah for short. In English, its doctrines and practices are sometimes called Sunnism, while adherents are known as Sunni Muslims, Sunnis, Sunnites, Sunni Islam is sometimes referred to as orthodox Islam. The Quran, together with hadith and binding juristic consensus form the basis of all traditional jurisprudence within Sunni Islam, sunnī, also commonly referred to as Sunnīism, is a term derived from sunnah meaning habit, usual practice, custom, tradition. The Muslim use of this term refers to the sayings and living habits of the prophet Muhammad, in Arabic, this branch of Islam is referred to as ahl as-sunnah wa l-jamāʻah, the people of the sunnah and the community, which is commonly shortened to ahl as-sunnah. One common mistake is to assume that Sunni Islam represents a normative Islam that emerged during the period after Muhammads death, and that Sufism and Shiism developed out of Sunni Islam. This perception is due to the reliance on highly ideological sources that have been accepted as reliable historical works. Both Sunnism and Shiaism are the end products of centuries of competition between ideologies. Both sects used each other to further cement their own identities and doctrines, the first four caliphs are known among Sunnis as the Rashidun or Rightly-Guided Ones. Sunni recognition includes the aforementioned Abu Bakr as the first, Umar who established the Islamic calendar as the second, Uthman as the third, Sunnis believe that the companions of Muhammad were the best of Muslims. Support for this view is found in the Quran, according to Sunnis. Sunnis also believe that the companions were true believers since it was the companions who were given the task of compiling the Quran, furthermore, narrations that were narrated by the companions are considered by Sunnis to be a second source of knowledge of the Muslim faith. A study conducted by the Pew Research Center in 2010 and released January 2011 found that there are 1.62 billion Muslims around the world, Islam does not have a formal hierarchy or clergy. Leaders are informal, and gain influence through study to become a scholar of Islamic law, according to the Islamic Center of Columbia, South Carolina, anyone with the intelligence and the will can become an Islamic scholar. During Midday Mosque services on Fridays, the congregation will choose a person to lead the service
25.
Nasir Khusraw
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He was born in Qabodiyon, a village in middle-age Bactria in the ancient Greater Iranian province of Khorasan, now in modern Tajikistan and died in Yamagan, now Afghanistan. He is considered one of the poets and writers in Persian literature. The Safarnama, an account of his travels, is his most famous work, Nasir Khusraw was born in 1004 AD, in Qabodiyon. He later chose Merv for his residence, and was the owner of a house and garden there. Until A. H.437, he worked as a secretary and revenue collector for the Seljuk sultan Toghrul Beg, or rather for his brother Jaghir Beg, the emir of Khorasan. The minute sketches of Jerusalem and its environs are even today of practical value. D. and he died in Yamagan in present-day northern Afghanistan. Safarnama Safarnama is his most famous work, after 1000 years, his Safarnama is still readable for Persian-speaking people. Gushayish wa Rahayish Another work of Nasir Khusraw is the Persian philosophical work Gushayis wa Rahayish which has translated into English by F. M. Hunzai under the title, Knowledge and Liberation, the work discusses creation, questions related to the soul, epistemology, creation, and Ismaili Islamic doctorines. From a linguistic point of view, the work is an example of philosophical writing in new Persian. It is the strain which runs, although in a somewhat lower key. It concludes with a vision of a beautiful work of spirits who have stripped off the fetters of earthly cares and sorrows and revel in the pure light of divine wisdom. Book on Mathematics Nasir Khusraw wrote a book on mathematics which has now been lost and he states in his other work that he could, not find one single scholar throughout all of Khorasan and eastern lands like myself could grapple with the solutions to these problems. The following poem speaks to this aspect of Khusraws poetry, by Nasir-i Khusrau Translated by Iraj Bashiri Copyright, Iraj Bashiri,2004 Reproach not the Firmament deep and blue, Forget thy stubborn nature to reveal a clue. Neither expect from the Firmament any joy, When your own star you knowingly destroy, Fruitless trees are, at best, fuel for fire, Fruitless men, alike, to oblivion retire. Forget about fragrant tresses and lips sweet, About hedges, lavish not praise on a filthy creature, With dastardly deeds as its only feature. Adore not with verse the Lie or the Greed, Smite down the infidels’ most cherished creed, be not Unsuri, who groveling worshiped Mahmud, Lavished on him all flattery and paean he could. I pledge never to sprinkle before the swine, These precious, the poetry of Nasir Khusraw is replete with advice and wisdom
26.
Ancient history
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Ancient history is the aggregate of past events from the beginning of recorded human history and extending as far as the Early Middle Ages or the Postclassical Era. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, beginning with Sumerian Cuneiform script, the term classical antiquity is often used to refer to history in the Old World from the beginning of recorded Greek history in 776 BC. This roughly coincides with the date of the founding of Rome in 753 BC, the beginning of the history of ancient Rome. In India, ancient history includes the period of the Middle Kingdoms, and, in China. Historians have two major avenues which they take to better understand the ancient world, archaeology and the study of source texts, primary sources are those sources closest to the origin of the information or idea under study. Primary sources have been distinguished from secondary sources, which cite, comment on. Archaeology is the excavation and study of artefacts in an effort to interpret, archaeologists excavate the ruins of ancient cities looking for clues as to how the people of the time period lived. The study of the ancient cities of Harappa, Mohenjo-daro, the city of Pompeii, an ancient Roman city preserved by the eruption of a volcano in AD79. Its state of preservation is so great that it is a window into Roman culture and provided insight into the cultures of the Etruscans. The Terracotta Army, the mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor in ancient China, the discovery of Knossos by Minos Kalokairinos and Sir Arthur Evans. The discovery of Troy by Heinrich Schliemann, most of what is known of the ancient world comes from the accounts of antiquitys own historians. Although it is important to take account the bias of each ancient author. Some of the more notable ancient writers include Herodotus, Thucydides, Arrian, Plutarch, Polybius, Sima Qian, Sallust, Livy, Josephus, Suetonius, furthermore, the reliability of the information obtained from these surviving records must be considered. Few people were capable of writing histories, as literacy was not widespread in almost any culture until long after the end of ancient history, the earliest known systematic historical thought emerged in ancient Greece, beginning with Herodotus of Halicarnassus. He was also the first to distinguish between cause and immediate origins of an event, the Roman Empire was one of the ancient worlds most literate cultures, but many works by its most widely read historians are lost. Indeed, only a minority of the work of any major Roman historian has survived, prehistory is the period before written history. The early human migrations in the Lower Paleolithic saw Homo erectus spread across Eurasia 1.8 million years ago, the controlled use of fire occurred 800,000 years ago in the Middle Paleolithic. 250,000 years ago, Homo sapiens emerged in Africa, 60–70,000 years ago, Homo sapiens migrated out of Africa along a coastal route to South and Southeast Asia and reached Australia
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Lapis lazuli
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Lapis lazuli, or lapis for short, is a deep blue, semi-precious stone prized since antiquity for its intense color. As early as the 7th millennium BC, lapis lazuli was mined in the Sar-i Sang mines, in Shortugai, Lapis was highly valued by the Indus Valley Civilisation. Lapis beads have been found at burials in Mehrgarh, the Caucasus. It was used in the mask of Tutankhamun. At the end of the Middle Ages, lapis lazuli began to be exported to Europe, where it was ground into powder and made into ultramarine, today, mines in northeast Afghanistan and Pakistan are still the major source of lapis lazuli. Important amounts are produced from mines west of Lake Baikal in Russia. Smaller quantities are mined in Italy, Mongolia, the United States, the name Lapis lazuli came to be associated with its color. The English word azure, French azur, Italian azzurro, Polish lazur, Romanian azur and azuriu, Portuguese and Spanish azul, the most important mineral component of lapis lazuli is lazurite, a feldspathoid silicate mineral with the formula 861-2. Most lapis lazuli also contains calcite, sodalite, and pyrite, some samples of lapis lazuli contain augite, diopside, enstatite, mica, hauynite, hornblende, nosean, and sulfur-rich löllingite geyerite. Lapis lazuli usually occurs in marble as a result of contact metamorphism. The intense blue color is due to the presence of the radical anion in the crystal. An electronic excitation of one electron from the highest doubly filled molecular orbital into the lowest singly occupied orbital results in an intense absorption line at λmax ~617 nm. Lapis lazuli is found in limestone in the Kokcha River valley of Badakhshan province in northeastern Afghanistan, Afghanistan was the source of lapis for the ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilizations, as well as the later Greeks and Romans. Ancient Egyptians obtained this material through trade from Afghanistan, during the height of the Indus Valley Civilisation about 2000 BC, the Harappan colony now known as Shortugai was established near the lapis mines. In addition to the Afghan deposits, lapis is also extracted in the Andes and it is mined in smaller amounts in Angola, Argentina, Burma, Pakistan, Canada, Italy, India, and in the United States in California and Colorado. Lapis takes an excellent polish and can be made into jewelry, carvings, boxes, mosaics, ornaments, small statues, during the Renaissance, Lapis was ground and processed to make the pigment ultramarine for use in frescoes and oil painting. Its usage as a pigment in oil paint largely ended in the early 19th century when a chemically identical synthetic variety became available, Lapis lazuli is commercially synthesized or simulated by the Gilson process, which is used to make artificial ultramarine and hydrous zinc phosphates. It may also be substituted by spinel or sodalite, or by dyed jasper or howlite, Lapis lazuli has been mined in Afghanistan and exported to the Mediterranean world and South Asia since the Neolithic age
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4th millennium BC
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The 4th millennium BC spans the years 4000 through 3000 BC. Some of the changes in human culture during this time included the beginning of the Bronze Age and the invention of writing. The city states of Sumer and the kingdom of Egypt were established, world population in the course of the millennium doubled, approximately from 7 to 14 million people. C.4000 BC—First neolithic settlers in the island of Thera, Greece, C.4000 BC—Beaker from Susa is made. It is now at Musée du Louvre, Paris, 4000–2000 BC—People and animals, a detail of rock-shelter painting in Cogul, Lleida, Spain, are painted. It is now at Museo Arqueológico, Barcelona, C.3900 BC—5.9 kiloyear event, one of the most intense aridification events during the Holocene. It ended the Neolithic Subpluvial and likely initiated the most recent desiccation of the Sahara desert, triggering migration to river valleys, babylonian influence predominant in Mediterranean regions of Asia. In Colombia, circa 3600 BC, first rupestrian art Chiribiquete,3600 BC—Construction of the Ġgantija megalithic temple complex on the Island of Gozo, Malta, the worlds oldest extant unburied free-standing structures, and the worlds oldest religious structures. 3600–3000 BC—Construction of the Ta Ħaġrat and Kordin III temples on Malta,3500 Metalcasting began in the Mohenjodaro area. C.3500 BC—Figures of a man and a woman, from Cernavodă and they are now at National Historical Museum, Bucharest. 3500–3400 BC—Jar with boat designs, from Hierakonpolis is created, 3500–2340 BC—First cities developed in Southern Mesopotamia. The cuneiform script proper emerges from pictographic proto-writing in the later 4th millennium, mesopotamias proto-literate period spans the 35th to 32nd centuries. The first documents written in the Sumerian language date to the 31st century. 3300–2900 BC—Construction of the Newgrange solar observatory/passage tomb in Ireland, 3300—Bronze Age starts in Indus Valley. C.3300 BC—Ötzi the Iceman dies near the border between Austria and Italy, only to be discovered in 1991 buried in a glacier of the Ötztal Alps. His cause of death is believed to be homicide, 3250–3000 BC—Construction of three megalithic temples at Tarxien, Malta. 3200–2500 BC—Construction of the Ħaġar Qim megalithic temple complex on Malta, C.3150 BC—Predynastic period ended in Ancient Egypt. The period includes 1st and 2nd Dynasties, C.3150 BC a lesser Tollmanns hypothetical bolide event may have occurred
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Silk Road
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While the term is of modern coinage, the Silk Road derives its name from the lucrative trade in silk carried out along its length, beginning during the Han dynasty. The Han dynasty expanded Central Asian sections of the routes around 114 BCE, largely through missions and explorations of the Chinese imperial envoy. The Chinese took great interest in the safety of their trade products, though silk was certainly the major trade item exported from China, many other goods were traded, as well as religions, syncretic philosophies, and various technologies. Diseases, most notably plague, also spread along the Silk Routes, in addition to economic trade, the Silk Road was a route for cultural trade among the civilizations along its network. The main traders during antiquity included the Chinese, Arabs, Turkmens, Indians, Persians, Somalis, Greeks, Syrians, Romans, Georgians, Armenians, Bactrians, in June 2014, UNESCO designated the Changan-Tianshan corridor of the Silk Road as a World Heritage Site. The Silk Road derives its name from the lucrative Eurasian silk and horse trade, the German terms Seidenstraße and Seidenstraßen were coined by Ferdinand von Richthofen, who made seven expeditions to China from 1868 to 1872. The term Silk Route is also used, although the term was coined in the 19th century, it did not gain widespread acceptance in academia or popularity among the public until the 20th century. The first book entitled The Silk Road was by Swedish geographer Sven Hedin in 1938, the fall of the Soviet Union and Iron Curtain in 1989 led to a surge of public and academic interest in Silk Road sites and studies in the former Soviet republics of Central Asia. Use of the term Silk Road is not without its detractors and he notes that traditional authors discussing East-West trade such as Marco Polo and Edward Gibbon never labelled any route as a silk one in particular. From the 2nd millennium BCE, nephrite jade was being traded from mines in the region of Yarkand, some remnants of what was probably Chinese silk dating from 1070 BCE have been found in Ancient Egypt. The Great Oasis cities of Central Asia played a role in the effective functioning of the Silk Road trade. This style is reflected in the rectangular belt plaques made of gold and bronze, with other versions in jade. The tomb of a Scythian prince near Stuttgart, Germany, dated to the 6th century BCE, was excavated and found to have not only Greek bronzes but also Chinese silks. Scythians accompanied the Assyrian Esarhaddon on his invasion of Egypt, soghdian Scythian merchants played a vital role in later periods in the development of the Silk Road. By the time of Herodotus, the Royal Road of the Persian Empire ran some 2,857 km from the city of Susa on the Karun to the port of Smyrna on the Aegean Sea. It was maintained and protected by the Achaemenid Empire and had postal stations, by having fresh horses and riders ready at each relay, royal couriers could carry messages the entire distance in nine days, while normal travellers took about three months. The next major step in the development of the Silk Road was the expansion of the Greek empire of Alexander the Great into Central Asia and this later became a major staging point on the northern Silk Route. They continued to expand eastward, especially during the reign of Euthydemus, there are indications that he may have led expeditions as far as Kashgar in Chinese Turkestan, leading to the first known contacts between [China and the West around 200 BCE
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Silk
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Silk is a natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be woven into textiles. The protein fiber of silk is composed mainly of fibroin and is produced by insect larvae to form cocoons. The best-known silk is obtained from the cocoons of the larvae of the mulberry silkworm Bombyx mori reared in captivity, Silk is produced by several insects, but generally only the silk of moth caterpillars has been used for textile manufacturing. There has been research into other types of silk, which differ at the molecular level. Silk is mainly produced by the larvae of insects undergoing complete metamorphosis, Silk production also occurs in Hymenoptera, silverfish, mayflies, thrips, leafhoppers, beetles, lacewings, fleas, flies, and midges. Other types of arthropod produce silk, most notably various arachnids such as spiders, the word silk comes from Old English sioloc, from Greek σηρικός serikos, silken, ultimately from an Asian source. Several kinds of silk, which are produced by caterpillars other than the mulberry silkworm, have been known and used in China, South Asia. However, the scale of production was far smaller than for cultivated silks. Thus, the way to obtain silk suitable for spinning into textiles in areas where commercial silks are not cultivated was by tedious. Commercial silks originate from reared silkworm pupae, which are bred to produce a silk thread with no mineral on the surface. The pupae are killed by either dipping them in boiling water before the adult moths emerge or by piercing them with a needle. These factors all contribute to the ability of the cocoon to be unravelled as one continuous thread. Wild silks also tend to be difficult to dye than silk from the cultivated silkworm. Genetic modification of domesticated silkworms is used to facilitate the production of more types of silk. Silk fabric was first developed in ancient China, the earliest example of silk fabric is from 3630 BC, and it was used as wrapping for the body of a child from a Yangshao culture site in Qingtaicun at Xingyang, Henan. Legend gives credit for developing silk to a Chinese empress, Leizu, because of its texture and lustre, silk rapidly became a popular luxury fabric in the many areas accessible to Chinese merchants. Silk was in demand, and became a staple of pre-industrial international trade. In July 2007, archaeologists discovered intricately woven and dyed silk textiles in a tomb in Jiangxi province, Silk is described in a chapter on mulberry planting by Si Shengzhi of the Western Han
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Marco Polo
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He learned the mercantile trade from his father and uncle, Niccolò and Maffeo, who travelled through Asia and met Kublai Khan. In 1269, they returned to Venice to meet Marco for the first time, the three of them embarked on an epic journey to Asia, returning after 24 years to find Venice at war with Genoa, Marco was imprisoned and dictated his stories to a cellmate. He was released in 1299, became a merchant, married. He died in 1324 and was buried in the church of San Lorenzo in Venice, Marco Polo was not the first European to reach China, but he was the first to leave a detailed chronicle of his experience. This book inspired Christopher Columbus and many other travellers, there is a substantial literature based on Polos writings, he also influenced European cartography, leading to the introduction of the Fra Mauro map. Marco Polo was born in 1254 in Venice Republic and his exact date and place of birth are archivally unknown. Some historians mentioned that he was born on September 15 but that date is not endorsed by mainstream scholarship, Marco Polos birthplace is generally considered Venice, but also varies between Constantinople, and the island of Korčula. There is dispute as to whether the Polo family is of Venetian origin, the first recorded Polo is Venetian Domenico Polo who was mentioned in 971 regarding the prohibition of trade with the Arabs. Later other Polos were also mentioned in the service of the realm, whether they were related with the family of Marco Polo is uncertain, but this could indicate that his ancestors travelled between Venice and Dalmatia. Some of the first indications of where his family originated and were resident come from Venetian documents and manuscripts. Some scholars argued that this account could go along with the note from Il Milione that his father and uncle, Niccolò and Maffeo Polo, the non-Venetian i. e. Sanuto also mentioned a captain from Korčula, Antonio di Polo. Moule cited two early 17th century Venetian manuscripts questi ueneno de dalmatia, Polo questi uene de Dalmatia, scholars etymologically argued that his family name derives from Latin Paulus, the name of a certain bird species, or like Albert tSerstevens considered - from Eastern origin. However, the habitat of the shorebird is non-existent on Korčula, the surname Polo seems related with other widespread Dalmatian surnames. The lack of evidence makes the Korčula theory as a specific birthplace strongly disputed, in 1168, his great-uncle, Marco Polo, borrowed money and commanded a ship in Constantinople. His grandfather, Andrea Polo of the parish of San Felice, had three sons, Maffeo, yet another Marco, and the travellers father Niccolò and this genealogy, described by Ramusio, is not universally accepted as there is no additional evidence to support it. His father, Niccolò Polo, a merchant, traded with the Near East, becoming wealthy, Niccolò and his brother Maffeo set off on a trading voyage before Marcos birth. In 1260, Niccolò and Maffeo, while residing in Constantinople, then the capital of the Latin Empire, foresaw a political change, they liquidated their assets into jewels and moved away. According to The Travels of Marco Polo, they passed through much of Asia, and met with Kublai Khan and their decision to leave Constantinople proved timely
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Balas ruby
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Spinel is the magnesium aluminium member of the larger spinel group of minerals. It has the formula MgAl2O4 in the crystal system. Its name comes from Latin spina, balas ruby is an old name for a rose-tinted variety of spinel. Spinel crystallizes in the system, common crystal forms are octahedra. It has an imperfect cleavage and a conchoidal fracture. Its hardness is 8, its gravity is 3. 5–4.1. It may be colorless, but is usually shades of red, blue, green, yellow, brown, black. There is a natural white spinel, now lost, that surfaced briefly in what is now Sri Lanka. The Samarian Spinel is the largest known spinel in the world, the transparent red spinels were called spinel-rubies or balas rubies. In the past, before the arrival of modern science, spinels, after the 18th century the word ruby was only used for the red gem variety of the mineral corundum and the word spinel came to be used. Balas is derived from Balascia, the ancient name for Badakhshan, mines in the Gorno Badakhshan region of Tajikistan was for centuries the main source for red and pink spinels. Spinel has long been found in the gravel of Sri Lanka and in limestones of the Badakshan Province in modern-day Afghanistan and Tajikistan. Recently gem quality spinels also found in the marbles of Luc Yen, Mahenge and Matombo, Tsavo and in the gravels of Tunduru and this is why spinel and ruby are often found together. Spinel, 2O4, is common in peridotite in the uppermost Earths mantle, Spinel, Al2O4, is a common mineral in the Ca-Al-rich inclusions in some chondritic meteorites. Synthetic spinel, accidentally produced in the middle of the 18th century, has described more recently in scientific publications in 2000 and 2004. By 2015, transparent spinel was being made in sheets and other shapes through sintering, synthetic spinel which looks like glass but has notably higher strength against pressure, can also have applications in military and commercial use. Spinel group Ceylonite The Samarian Spinel, the largest known spinel in the world, part of the Iranian Crown Jewels Black Princes Ruby Deer, Howie, an Introduction to the Rock-Forming Minerals, Longman, pp. 424–433, ISBN 0-582-44210-9. Gemstones of the World 3rd edition, Sterling, pp. 116–117, Spinel structure at the University of Wisconsin - Green Bay Spinel structure at the Institut for materials science of the University of Kiel Value of Spinel
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Sultan Muhammad (Badakhshan)
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Sultan Muhhammad was a 15th-century ruler of Badakhshan. He was the last ruler of the region to be a descendant of Alexander the Great, Abu Said Mirza, ruler of the Timurid Empire, killed Muhammad and supplanted him as ruler of the territory. Shah Sultan Muhammads family boasted of their descent from Alexander the Great and they contended that they had swayed the scepter of Badakhshan from three thousand years. He had six daughters, one was married to Sultan Masud Kabuli, who was a descendant of Amir Timur, Sultanum Begum, married to Sultan Abu Said Mirza, and bore him Abubakr Mirza
34.
Alexander the Great
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Alexander III of Macedon, commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon and a member of the Argead dynasty. He was born in Pella in 356 BC and succeeded his father Philip II to the throne at the age of twenty and he was undefeated in battle and is widely considered one of historys most successful military commanders. During his youth, Alexander was tutored by Aristotle until the age of 16, after Philips assassination in 336 BC, he succeeded his father to the throne and inherited a strong kingdom and an experienced army. Alexander was awarded the generalship of Greece and used this authority to launch his fathers Panhellenic project to lead the Greeks in the conquest of Persia, in 334 BC, he invaded the Achaemenid Empire and began a series of campaigns that lasted ten years. Following the conquest of Anatolia, Alexander broke the power of Persia in a series of battles, most notably the battles of Issus. He subsequently overthrew Persian King Darius III and conquered the Achaemenid Empire in its entirety, at that point, his empire stretched from the Adriatic Sea to the Indus River. He sought to reach the ends of the world and the Great Outer Sea and invaded India in 326 BC and he eventually turned back at the demand of his homesick troops. Alexander died in Babylon in 323 BC, the city that he planned to establish as his capital, without executing a series of planned campaigns that would have begun with an invasion of Arabia. In the years following his death, a series of civil wars tore his empire apart, resulting in the establishment of several states ruled by the Diadochi, Alexanders surviving generals, Alexanders legacy includes the cultural diffusion which his conquests engendered, such as Greco-Buddhism. He founded some twenty cities that bore his name, most notably Alexandria in Egypt, Alexander became legendary as a classical hero in the mold of Achilles, and he features prominently in the history and mythic traditions of both Greek and non-Greek cultures. He became the measure against which military leaders compared themselves, and he is often ranked among the most influential people in human history. He was the son of the king of Macedon, Philip II, and his wife, Olympias. Although Philip had seven or eight wives, Olympias was his wife for some time. Several legends surround Alexanders birth and childhood, sometime after the wedding, Philip is said to have seen himself, in a dream, securing his wifes womb with a seal engraved with a lions image. Plutarch offered a variety of interpretations of dreams, that Olympias was pregnant before her marriage, indicated by the sealing of her womb. On the day Alexander was born, Philip was preparing a siege on the city of Potidea on the peninsula of Chalcidice. That same day, Philip received news that his general Parmenion had defeated the combined Illyrian and Paeonian armies, and it was also said that on this day, the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, burnt down. This led Hegesias of Magnesia to say that it had burnt down because Artemis was away, such legends may have emerged when Alexander was king, and possibly at his own instigation, to show that he was superhuman and destined for greatness from conception
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Abu Sa'id Mirza
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Abū Saʿīd was the great-grandson of Timur, the grandson of Miran Shah, and the nephew of Ulugh Beg. He was the grandfather of Babur, by his son Umar Sheikh Mirza and he raised an army but failed to gain a foothold in Samarkand or Bukhara, established his base at Yasi and conquered much of Turkestan in 1450. In June 1451, he captured Samarkand with the aid of the Uzbek Turks under Abūl-Khayr Khān, thus securing rulership of the part of Timurs Empire. Abu Said formed many political connections during his rule, including to the Uzbeks, the Qara Qoyunlu Turkmen, and he has been linked to Khwāja ʿUbaydullah Aḥrār at the time of his accession in Samarqand. He also sought support at the shrine of Ahmad Yasavi in Yasi, women could also be caught up in the court intrigues. As mentioned in Aubin and discussed more fully by Manz, Abū Saʿīd’s execution of Gawhar Shād, Timur was viewed negatively by the contemporary chroniclers. Abū Saʿīd does not seem to have engaged in large-scale building projects. This and the Aq Sarāy shifted the elite living space while the ruler was in Herat to outside the city walls, “marking a conscious break with the past. ”Other public works credited to Abū Saʿīd include repairs to the Gulistān dam “while at the same time appropriating the lands it watered”
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Timurid Empire
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The empire was founded by Timur, a warlord of Turco-Mongol lineage who established the empire between 1370 and his death in 1405. He envisioned himself as the restorer of the Mongol Empire of Genghis Khan. In the 16th century, Babur, a Timurid prince from Ferghana, invaded Kabulistan and established a kingdom there. Timur conquered large parts of Central Asia, primarily Transoxiana and Khorasan, from 1363 onwards with various alliances, acting officially in the name of Suurgatmish, the Chagatai khan, he subjugated Transoxania and Khwarazm in the years that followed. The western Chagatai khans were continually dominated by Timurid princes in the 15th and 16th centuries, Timur began a campaign westwards in 1380, invading the various successor states of the Ilkhanate. By 1389, he had removed the Kartids from Herat and advanced into mainland Persia where he enjoyed many successes and this included the capture of Isfahan in 1387, the removal of the Muzaffarids from Shiraz in 1393, and the expulsion of the Jalayirids from Baghdad. In 1394–95, he triumphed over the Golden Horde, following his campaign in Georgia. Tokhtamysh, the khan of the Golden Horde, was a rival to Timur in the region. He also subjugated Multan and Dipalpur in modern-day Pakistan in 1398, Timur gave the north Indian territories to a non-family member, Khizr Khan, whose Sayyid dynasty replaced the defeated Tughlaq dynasty of the Sultanate of Delhi. Delhi became a vassal of the Timurids but obtained independence in the following the death of Timur. In 1400–1401 he conquered Aleppo, Damascus and eastern Anatolia, in 1401 he destroyed Baghdad and this made Timur the most preeminent Muslim ruler of the time, as the Ottoman Empire plunged into civil war. Meanwhile, he transformed Samarkand into a capital and seat of his realm. Timur appointed his sons and grandsons to the governorships of the different parts of his empire. After his death in 1405, the family fell into disputes and civil wars. Due to the fact that the Persian cities were desolated by wars, the cost of Timurs conquests amount to the deaths of possibly 17 million people. Shahrukh Mirza, fourth ruler of the Timurids, dealt with Kara Koyunlu, but, Jahan Shah drove the Timurids to eastern Iran after 1447 and also briefly occupied Herat in 1458. After the death of Jahan Shah, Uzun Hasan, bey of the Ak Koyunlu, by 1500, the divided and wartorn Timurid Empire had lost control of most of its territory, and in the following years was effectively pushed back on all fronts. Persia, the Caucasus, Mesopotamia, and Eastern Anatolia fell quickly to the Shiite Safavid dynasty, secured by Shah Ismail I in the following decade
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Babur
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He was a direct descendant of Turco-Mongol conqueror Timur from the Barlas clan, through his father, and also a descendant of Genghis Khan through his mother. Babur was the eldest son of Umar Sheikh Mirza and he ascended the throne of Fergana in 1495 at the age of twelve and faced rebellion from his own relatives. He conquered Samarkand two years later, only to lose the city of Fergana soon after, in his attempt to reconquer Fergana, he lost control of Samarkand. In 1501, his attempt to both cities went in vain as he was defeated by Muhammad Shaybani Khan. In 1504, he conquered Kabul, which was under the rule of the infant heir of Ulugh Begh. Babur formed a partnership with Safavid ruler Ismail I and reconquered parts of central Asia, including Samarkand, only to lose it. After losing Samarkand for the time, Babur turned his attention to creating his empire in north India. In 1524, Daulat Khan Lodi, a rebel of the Lodhi dynasty, invited Babur to overthrow Ibrahim, Babur defeated Ibrahim Lodi at the First Battle of Panipat in 1526 and founded the Mughal empire. However, he faced opposition, this time from Rana Sanga of Mewar who considered Babur a foreigner. The Rana was defeated at the Battle of Khanwa, notable among his sons are Humayun, Kamran Mirza and Hindal Mirza. Babur died in 1530 and was succeeded by Humayun, according to Baburs wishes, he was buried in Bagh-e-Babur in Kabul, Afghanistan. Being a patrilineal descendant of Timur, Babur considered himself a Timurid and Turk and he is considered a national hero in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. Many of his poems also have become popular folk songs and he wrote his autobiography, Baburnama, in Chaghatai Turkic and this was translated into Persian during Akbars reign. Ẓahīr-ud-Dīn is Arabic for Defender of the Faith, and Muhammad honours the Islamic prophet, the name is generally taken in reference to the Persian babr, meaning tiger. The word repeatedly appears in Ferdowsis Shahnameh and was borrowed into the Turkic languages of Central Asia. The choice of vowel would nominally be restricted to one of the four front vowels, hence babr → babür, thackston argues for an alternate derivation from the PIE word beaver, pointing to similarities between the pronunciation Bābor and the Russian bobr. Babur bore the royal titles Badshah and al-ṣultānu l-ʿazam wa l-ḫāqān al-mukkarram pādshāh-e ġāzī and he and later Mughal emperors used the title of mirza when they were princes. Baburs memoirs form the source for details of his life
38.
Kandahar
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Kandahar or Qandahar is the second-largest city in Afghanistan, with a population of about 491,500 as of 2012. Formerly called Alexandria Arachosia, the city is named after Alexander the Great, Kandahar is the capital of Kandahar Province, located in the south of the country at an altitude of 1,010 m above sea level. The Arghandab River runs along the west of the city, the city of Kandahar has a population of 557,118. It has 15 districts and a land area of 27,337 hectares. The total number of dwellings in Kandahar is 61,902, Kandahar is one of the most culturally significant cities of the Pashtuns and has been their traditional seat of power for more than 200 years. It is a trading center for sheep, wool, cotton, silk, felt, food grains, fresh and dried fruit. The region produces fine fruits, especially pomegranates and grapes, and the city has plants for canning, drying, and packing fruit, the area is believed to be the birthplace of cannabis indica. The region around Kandahar is one of the oldest known human settlements, Alexander the Great had laid-out the foundation of what is now Old Kandahar in the 4th century BC and gave it the Ancient Greek name Αλεξάνδρεια Aραχωσίας. Many empires have long fought over the city due to its location along the trade routes of southern, central. In 1709, Mirwais Hotak made the region an independent kingdom, in 1747, Ahmad Shah Durrani, founder of the last Afghan empire, made it the capital of modern Afghanistan. A temple to the deified Alexander as well as an inscription in Greek and Aramaic by Emperor Ashoka, Ibn Batutta mentions Kandahar in the 14th century by describing it as a large and prosperous town three nights journey from Ghazni. It has been then mentioned extensively by Mughal Emperor Babur and others, an alternative story describes Khandahar as Gandhara in Mahabharata ruled by Suvala and later by Shakuni. The princess of Hastinapur, Gandhari was born in Gandhara, a folk etymology offered is that the word kand or qand in Persian and Pashto means candy. The name Candahar or Kandahar in this form probably translates to candy area and this probably has to do with the location being fertile and historically known for producing fine grapes, pomegranates, apricots, melons and other sweet fruits. Ernst Herzfeld claimed Kandahar perpetuated the name of the Indo-Parthian king Gondophares, excavations of prehistoric sites by archaeologists such as Louis Dupree and others suggest that the region around Kandahar is one of the oldest human settlements known so far. Early peasant farming villages came into existence in Afghanistan ca.5000 B. C. or 7000 years ago, deh Morasi Ghundai, the first prehistoric site to be excavated in Afghanistan, lies 27 km southwest of Kandahar. Another Bronze Age village mound site with multiroomed mud-brick buildings dating from the same period sits nearby at Said Qala, Bronze Age pottery, copper and bronze horse trappings and stone seals were found in the lowermost levels in the nearby cave called Shamshir Ghar. In the Seistan, southwest of these Kandahar sites, two teams of American archaeologists discovered sites relating to the 2nd millennium B. C, while the Diadochi were warring amongst themselves, the Mauryan Empire was developing in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent
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Humayun
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Like his father, Babur, he lost his kingdom early but regained it with the aid of the Safavid dynasty of Persia, with additional territory. At the time of his death in 1556, the Mughal Empire spanned almost one million square kilometres, in December 1530 Humayun succeeded his father as ruler of the Mughal territories in the Indian subcontinent. At the age of 23, Humayun was an inexperienced ruler when he came to power and his half-brother Kamran Mirza inherited Kabul and Lahore, the northernmost parts of their fathers empire. Mirza was to become a rival of Humayun. Humayun lost Mughal territories to the Pashtun noble, Sher Shah Suri, Humayuns return from Persia was accompanied by a large retinue of Persian noblemen and signalled an important change in Mughal court culture. The Central Asian origins of the dynasty were largely overshadowed by the influences of Persian art, architecture, language, there are many stone carvings and thousands of Persian manuscripts in India dating from the time of Humayun. Subsequently, Humayun further expanded the Empire in a short time, leaving a substantial legacy for his son. His peaceful personality, patience and non-provocative methods of speech earned him the title ’Insān-i-Kamil, among the Mughals. The decision of Babur to divide the territories of his empire between two of his sons was unusual in India, although it had been a common Central Asian practice since the time of Genghis Khan. Unlike most monarchies, which practised primogeniture, the Timurids followed the example of Genghis, although under that system only a Chingissid could claim sovereignty and khanal authority, any male Chinggisid within a given sub-branch had an equal right to the throne. While Genghis Khans Empire had been divided between his sons upon his death, almost every Chinggisid succession since had resulted in fratricide. Timur himself had divided his territories among Pir Muhammad, Miran Shah, Khalil Sultan and Shah Rukh, upon Baburs death, Humayuns territories were the least secure. He had ruled only four years, and not all umarah viewed Humayun as the rightful ruler, indeed, earlier, when Babur had become ill, some of the nobles had tried to install his uncle, Mahdi Khwaja, as ruler. Although this attempt failed, it was a sign of problems to come, when Humayun came to the throne of the Mughal Empire, several of his brothers revolted against him. Another brother Khalil Mirza supported Humayun but was assassinated, the Emperor commenced construction of a tomb for his brother in 1538, but this was not yet finished when Humayun was forced to flee to Persia. Sher Shah destroyed the structure and no work was done on it after Humayuns restoration. Humayun had two rivals for his lands, Sultan Bahadur of Gujarat to the southwest and Sher Shah Suri settled along the river Ganges in Bihar to the east. Humayuns first campaign was to confront Sher Shah Suri, halfway through this offensive Humayun had to abandon it and concentrate on Gujarat, where a threat from Ahmed Shah had to be met
40.
Kamran Mirza
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Kamran Mirza, sometimes known simply as Kamran, was the second son of Babur, the founder of the Mughal Empire and the first Mughal Emperor. Kamran Mirza was born in Kabul to Baburs wife Gulrukh Begum and he was still in charge of the northern part of the newly formed empire, when his father died in 1530. According to the Mughal historian Abul Fazl, Babur’s last words to Humayun were “do nothing against your brothers, even though they may deserve it. ”In 1538 Kamran first crossed into India, bringing with him 12,000 soldiers, while Humayun was away fighting in Bengal. He appeared to have come in order to put down the rebellion of his brother Hindal against Humayun, however, despite Humayun’s calls for help, Kamran offered him no aid whatsoever. After Humayun returned from his defeat at the Battle of Chausa, seeing no chance of furthering his ambition, Kamran withdrew back to Lahore. Sher Shah defeated Humayun in the battle of Kanauj in May 1540 and he ordered Humayun to leave India. Humayun went back to Kabul but Kamran was unwilling to hand the city over to his brother, at this point Kamran went behind Humayuns back and offered to support Sher Shah, if the latter would give him the Punjab in return. At this point Humayun was urged by his advisors to put his brother to death, after a series of disastrous attempts to retake his throne, Humayun crossed the Indus in 1543. Rather than welcoming him, Kamran sent his younger brother Askari out to catch him, Humayun managed to escape his brother’s clutches though and sought refuge in the court of the ruler of Persia, Shah Tahmasp I. When Humayun was in Persia, Kamran offered the Shah the city of Kandahar if he would hand his brother over to him, Shah Tahmasp favoured Humayun in this fraternal squabble however, and provided him with troops with which he defeated Kamran. Humayun was able to enter Kabul in November 1545 in a takeover, as Kamran’s rule had been oppressive. Islam Shah arrested him and deputed his trusted adviser Hemu to hand over Kamran to Humayun at Kabul, the only significant architectural structure built by Kamran exists today in Lahore, Pakistan. It is called Kamran ki Baradari, bara means twelve and dar means doors. Kamran ki baradari was a building on the bank of River Ravi. The river changed its course time, with the result that the Baradari stands not on the bank. Although Humayun resisted the pressure to put his rebellious brother to death, Humayun then sent him off to perform the Hajj to Mecca, where he died in 1557. After his death his daughter was married Akbar, the children were executed
41.
Kabul
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Kabul is the capital of Afghanistan as well as its largest city, located in the eastern section of the country. According to a 2015 estimate, the population of the city was around 3,678,033 which includes all the ethnic groups. Rapid urbanization had made Kabul the worlds 64th largest city and the fifth fastest-growing city in the world, Kabul is said to be over 3,500 years old, mentioned since at least the time of the Achaemenid Empire. The city is at a location along the trade routes of South and Central Asia. It has been part of the Achaemenids, Seleucids, Mauryans, Kushans, Kabul Shahis, Saffarids, Ghaznavids, Later, it was controlled by the Mughal Empire until finally becoming part of the Durrani Empire in 1747. The city is located high up in a valley between the Hindu Kush mountains. Kabul became the capital of Afghanistan during the reign of Timur Shah Durrani, in the early 19th century, the British occupied the city but were compelled to abandon it. Relations between Afghanistan and Great Britain were later established, the city was occupied by the Soviets in 1979 but they too abandoned it after the 1988 Geneva Accords were signed. A civil war in the 1990s between various rebel groups destroyed much of the city, resulting in many casualties, since the removal of the Taliban from power in late 2001, the city gradually began rebuilding itself with assistance by the international community. Despite the many terrorist attacks by elements, the city is growing and developing. The city is divided into about 18 districts, the Kabul International Airport is located in the Wazir Akbar Khan district a few miles from the foreign embassies. The Parliament of Afghanistan, built by India, is located in the Kārte Seh district, Kabul, also spelled Cabool, Caubul, Kabol, or Cabul. The word Kubhā is mentioned in the Rigveda, one of the four sacred texts of Hinduism, and the Avesta. The Rigveda praises it as a city, a vision of paradise set in the mountains. The area in which the Kabul valley sits was ruled by the Medes before falling to the Achaemenids, there is a reference to a settlement called Kabura by the rulers of the Achaemenid Empire, It became a center of Zoroastrianism followed by Buddhism and Hinduism. The region became part of the Seleucid Empire but was given to the Indian Maurya Empire. The Greco-Bactrians captured Kabul from the Mauryans in the early 2nd century BC, indo-Scythians expelled the Indo-Greeks by the mid 1st century BC, but lost the city to the Kushan Empire about 100 years later. Some historians ascribe Kabul the Sanskrit name of Kamboja and it is mentioned as Kophes or Kophene in some classical writings
42.
Sindh
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Sindh /sɪnd/ is one of the four provinces of Pakistan, in the southeast of the country. Historically home to the Sindhi people, it is locally known as the Mehran. It was formerly known as Sind until 1956, Sindh is the third largest province of Pakistan by area, and second largest province by population after Punjab. Sindh is bordered by Balochistan province to the west, and Punjab province to the north, Sindh also borders the Indian states of Gujarat and Rajasthan to the east, and Arabian Sea to the south. Sindhs climate is noted for hot summers and mild winters, the provincial capital of Sindh is Pakistans largest city and financial hub, Karachi. Sindh has Pakistans second largest economy with Karachi being its capital hosts the headquarters of several multinational banks. Sindh is home to a portion of Pakistans industrial sector. The remainder of Sindh has an agriculture based economy, and produces fruit, food consumer items, Sindh is also the centre of Pakistans pharmaceutical industry. Sindh is known for its culture which is strongly influenced by Sufism. Several important Sufi shrines are located throughout the province which attract millions of annual devotees, Sindh also has Pakistans highest percentage of Hindu residents. Karachi and other centres of Sindh have seen ethnic tensions between the native Sindhis and the Muhajirs boil over into violence on several occasions. Sindh is home to two UNESCO World Heritage Sites - the Historical Monuments at Makli, and the Archaeological Ruins at Moenjodaro, the word Sindh is derived from the Sanskrit language and is adapted from the Sanskrit term Sindhu which literally means river hence a reference to Indus River. Spelling of its name as Sind was discontinued in 1988 by an amendment passed in Sindh Assembly. The Greeks who conquered Sindh in 325 BC under the command of Alexander the Great rendered it as Indós, the ancient Iranians referred to everything east of the river Indus as hind from the word Sindh. When the British arrived in the 17th century in India, then ruled by the Maratha Empire, they applied the Greek version of the name Sindh to all of South Asia, calling it India. The name of Pakistan is actually an acronym in which the letter s is derived from the first letter in Sindh, Sindhs first known village settlements date as far back as 7000 BCE. Permanent settlements at Mehrgarh, currently in Balochistan, to the west expanded into Sindh and this culture blossomed over several millennia and gave rise to the Indus Valley Civilization around 3000 BCE. The primitive village communities in Balochistan were still struggling against a difficult highland environment and this was one of the most developed urban civilizations of the ancient world
43.
Balkh
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Balkh was an ancient city and centre of Buddhism, Islam, and Zoroastrianism in what is now northern Afghanistan. Today it is a town in the province of Balkh, about 20 kilometers northwest of the provincial capital, Mazar-e Sharif. It was one of the cities of Khorasan, since the latters earliest history. Marco Polo described Balkh as a noble and great city, the ancient city of Balkh was known to the Ancient Greeks as Bactra, giving its name to Bactria. It was mostly known as the centre and capital of Bactria or Tokharistan, Balkh is now for the most part a mass of ruins, situated some 12 km from the right bank of the seasonally flowing Balkh River, at an elevation of about 365 m. Outside the town was a large Buddhist monastery later known as Naubahar, french Buddhist Alexandra David-Néel associated Shambhala with Balkh, also offering the Persian Sham-i-Bala, elevated candle as an etymology of its name. In a similar vein, the Gurdjieffian J. G. Bennett published speculation that Shambalha was Shams-i-Balkh, the name of the province or country appears in Old Persian inscriptions as Bāxtri, i. e. Bakhtri. It is written in the Avesta as Bāxδi, from this came the intermediate form Bāxli, Sanskrit Bahlīka for Bactrian, and by transposition the modern Persian Balx, i. e. Balkh, and Armenian Bahl. Balkh is considered to be the first city to which the Indo-Iranian tribes moved from the North of Amu Darya, the Arabs called it Umm Al-Belaad or Mother of Cities due to its antiquity. The city was traditionally a center of Zoroastrianism, the name Zariaspa, which is either an alternate name for Balkh or a term for part of the city, may derive from the important Zoroastrian fire temple Azar-i-Asp. Balkh was regarded as the place where Zoroaster first preached his religion, the changing climate has led to desertification since antiquity, when the region was very fertile. For a long time the city and country was the seat of the dualistic Zoroastrian religion. Armenian sources state that the Arsacid Dynasty of the Parthian Empire established its capital in Balkh, there is a long-standing tradition that an ancient shrine of Anahita was to be found here, a temple so rich it invited plunder. Alexander the Great married Roxana of Bactria after killing the king of Balkh, the city was the capital of the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom and was besieged for three years by the Seleucid Empire. Balkh town is well-known to Buddhist countries because of two great Buddhist monks of Afghanistan – Trapusa and Bahalika, there are two stupas over their relics. According to a legend, Buddhism was introduced in Balkh by Bhallika, disciple of Buddha. He was a merchant of the region and had come from Bodhgaya, in literature, Balkh has been described as Balhika, Valhika or Bahlika. First Vihara at Balkh was built for Bhallika when he returned home after becoming a Buddhist monk, Xuanzang visited Balkh in 630 when it was a flourishing centre of Hinayana Buddhism
44.
Akbar
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Abul-Fath Jalal-ud-din Muhammad, popularly known as Akbar I and later Akbar the Great, was a Mughal Emperor from 1556 until his death. He was the ruler of the Mughal Dynasty in India. Akbar succeeded his father, Humayun, under a regent, Bairam Khan, a strong personality and a successful general, Akbar gradually enlarged the Mughal Empire to include nearly all of the Indian Subcontinent north of the Godavari river. His power and influence, however, extended over the country because of Mughal military, political, cultural. To unify the vast Mughal state, Akbar established a system of administration throughout his empire and adopted a policy of conciliating conquered rulers through marriage. To preserve peace and order in a religiously and culturally diverse empire, Mughal India developed a strong and stable economy, leading to commercial expansion and greater patronage of culture. Akbar himself was a patron of art and culture, holy men of many faiths, poets, architects and artisans adorned his court from all over the world for study and discussion. Akbars courts at Delhi, Agra, and Fatehpur Sikri became centres of the arts, letters, perso-Islamic culture began to merge and blend with indigenous Indian elements, and a distinct Indo-Persian culture emerged characterised by Mughal style arts, painting, and architecture. A simple, monotheistic cult, tolerant in outlook, it centred on Akbar as a prophet, for which he drew the ire of the ulema, many of his courtiers followed Din-i-Ilahi as their religion as well, as many believed that Akbar was a prophet. One famous courtier who followed this religion was Birbal. Akbars reign significantly influenced the course of Indian history, during his rule, the Mughal empire tripled in size and wealth. He created a military system and instituted effective political and social reforms. By abolishing the tax on non-Muslims and appointing them to high civil and military posts, he was the first Mughal ruler to win the trust. He had Sanskrit literature translated, participated in festivals, realising that a stable empire depended on the co-operation. Thus, the foundations for an empire under Mughal rule was laid during his reign. Akbar was succeeded as emperor by his son, Jahangir, defeated in battles at Chausa and Kannauj in 1539–40 by the forces of Sher Shah Suri Mughal emperor Humayun fled westward to Sindh. There he met and married the then 14-year-old Hamida Banu Begum, daughter of Shaikh Ali Akbar Jami, a teacher of Humauyuns younger brother Hindal Mirza. Jalal ud-din Muhammad Akbar was born the year on 15 October 1542 at the Rajput Fortress of Umerkot in Sindh
45.
Jalalabad
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Jalalabad /dʒəˈlæləˌbæd/, formerly called Adina Pur as documented by the 7th century Hsüan-tsang, is a city in eastern Afghanistan. Located at the junction of the Kabul River and Kunar River near the Laghman valley and it is linked by approximately 155 kilometres of highway with Kabul to the west. Major industries include papermaking, as well as agricultural products including oranges, rice, Jalalabad is one of the leading trading centres with neighbouring Pakistan. The city of Jalalabad has a population of 356,274 and it has 6 districts and a total land area of 12,796 Hectares. The total number of dwellings in this city are 39,586, the Jalalabad territory fell to the Maurya Empire, which was led by Chandragupta Maurya. The Mauryas introduced Jainism, Hinduism and Buddhism to the region, seleucus is said to have agreed a peace treaty with Chandragupta by giving control of the territory south of the Hindu Kush to the Mauryas upon intermarriage and receipt of 500 elephants. As soon as the forces, therefore, of all the confederates were united, a battle was fought, in which Antigonus was slain, having consolidated power in the northwest, Chandragupta pushed east towards the Nanda Empire. Afghanistans significant ancient tangible and intangible Buddhist heritage is recorded through wide-ranging archeological finds, including religious, Buddhist doctrines are reported to have reached as far as Balkh even during the life of the Buddha, as recorded by Husang Tsang. In this context a legend recorded by Husang Tsang refers to the first two lay disciples of Buddha, Trapusa and Bhallika responsible for introducing Buddhism in that country. Originally these two were merchants of the kingdom of Balhika, as the name Bhalluka or Bhallika probably suggests the association of one with that country and they had gone to India for trade and had happened to be at Bodhgaya when the Buddha had just attained enlightenment. Faxian visited and worshiped the sacred Buddhist sites such as of The Shadow of the Buddha in Nagarhara, in 630 AD Xuan Zang, the famous Chinese Buddhist monk, visited Jalalabad and a number of other locations nearby. The city was a center of Gandharas Greco-Buddhist culture in the past until it was conquered by Muslim Arabs in the 11th century. However, not everyone converted to Islam at that period as some still refused to accept it, in Hudud-al-Alam, written in 982 CE, there is reference to a village near Jalalabad where the local king used to have many Hindu, Muslim and Afghan wives. The region became part of the Afghan Ghaznavid Empire in the 10th century, later, it was controlled by the successor Ghurids until the Mongols invaded the area. It then became part of the Timurids, the modern city gained prominence during the reign of Babur, founder of the Mughal Empire. Babur had chosen the site for this city which was built by his grandson Jalal-uddin Mohammad Akbar in 1560, the Battle of Jellalabad in 1842 was an Afghan siege of the isolated British outpost at Jellalabad about 130 kilometres east of Kabul. The siege was lifted after five months when a British counterattack routed the Afghans, the outpost was no more than a wide place in the road with a fort, held by about 2,000 troops under General Sir Robert Sale. After the massacre of the British force during their retreat from Kabul in January 1842, the British managed to beat off the assaults, and even captured 300 sheep from the besieging force when rations ran short
Tajikistan-Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region, in the north and 
Afghanistan-Badakhshan Province in the south
Tajikistan, and 
Afghanistan, over the Panj river in Khwahan and Shuro-obod.
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Badakshan". Encyclopædia Britannica. 3 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 182–183.
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the 
Badakhshan
