1.
Great Turkish Invasion
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The term has it origin in the 12th-century Georgian chronicle and is accepted in the modern scholarship of Georgia. The Seljuqs made their first appearances in Georgia in the 1060s and these intruders were part of the same wave of the Turkish movement which inflicted a crushing defeat on the Byzantine army at Manzikert in 1071. Although the Georgians were able to recover from Alp Arslans invasion, in the 1070s, Georgia was twice attacked by the sultan Malik Shah I, but the Georgian king George II was still able to fight back at times. In 1080, George II was surprised, in the vicinity of Queli, by a large Turkish force led by Aḥmad, probably of the Mamlān dynasty, George was put to flight, through Adjara, to Abkhazia. The Turks conquered Kars from the Georgians and returned to their bases laden with booty and this was soon followed by even larger inroads, led by Yaʿqub and ʿIsā-Böri. The key towns of Kutaisi and Artanuji and the vibrant Christian hermitages of Klarjeti were all burnt down and those who survived the fighting had to flee to the mountains, where many of them found their death of cold and starvation. Georges acceptance of the Seljuq suzerainty did not bring a peace for Georgia. The Turks continued their movement into the Georgian territory to make use of the rich herbage of the Kura valley. These inroads and settlements had an effect on Georgias economic. Cultivated lands were turned into pastures for the nomads and peasant farmers were compelled to seek safety in the mountains, the contemporary Georgian chronicler laments that in those times there was neither sowing nor harvest. The land was ruined and turned into forest, in place of men beasts, insufferable oppression fell on all the inhabitants of the land, it was unparalleled and far worse than all ravages heard of or experienced. A similar situation was found in neighboring Armenia as related in Aristakes Lastivertsis chronicle, to make the things worse, a severe earthquake struck the southern provinces of Georgia, devastating Tmogvi and the surrounding area on April 16,1088. The great nobles of Georgia capitalized on weakening of the power to promote their autonomy. Aghsartan was able to him by offering submission to Malik Shah. Such was the situation in Georgia, when, in 1089, by 1099, the year when Jerusalem fell to the Crusaders, David felt strong enough to withhold annual tribute paid to the Seljuqs. A history of the Georgian people, from the beginning down to the Russian conquest in the nineteenth century, Georgia and the Anatolian Turks in the 12th and 13th centuries. The making of the Georgian nation, thomson, Robert W. Rewriting Caucasian history, the medieval Armenian adaptation of the Georgian chronicles, the original Georgian texts and the Armenian adaptation
2.
Tbilisi
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Tbilisi, commonly known by its former name Tiflis, is the capital and the largest city of Georgia, lying on the banks of the Kura River with a population of roughly 1.5 million inhabitants. Founded in the 5th century by the monarch of Georgias ancient precursor the Kingdom of Iberia, Tbilisi has since served, with intermissions, as the capital of various Georgian kingdoms and republics. Under Russian rule, from 1801 to 1917 Tiflis was the seat of the Imperial Viceroy governing both sides of the entire Caucasus. Tbilisis varied history is reflected in its architecture, which is a mix of medieval, classical, Middle Eastern, Art Nouveau, historically, Tbilisi has been home to people of diverse cultural, ethnic, and religious backgrounds, though it is overwhelmingly Eastern Orthodox Christian. Archaeological studies of the region have indicated human settlement in the territory of Tbilisi as early as the 4th millennium BC, according to an old legend, the present-day territory of Tbilisi was covered by forests as late as 458. One widely accepted variant of the legend of Tbilisis founding states that King Vakhtang I Gorgasali of Georgia went hunting in the wooded region with a falcon. The Kings falcon allegedly caught or injured a pheasant during the hunt, King Vakhtang became so impressed with the hot springs that he decided to cut down the forest and build a city on the location. The name Tbilisi derives from Old Georgian Tbilisi, and further from Tpili, the name Tbili or Tbilisi was therefore given to the city because of the areas numerous sulphuric hot springs that came out of the ground. King Dachi I Ujarmeli, who was the successor of Vakhtang I Gorgasali, Tbilisi was not the capital of a unified Georgian state at that time and did not include the territory of Colchis. It was, however, the city of Eastern Georgia/Iberia. During his reign, King Dachi I oversaw the construction of the wall that lined the citys new boundaries. From the 6th century, Tbilisi grew at a steady pace due to the favourable and strategic location which placed the city along important trade. Tbilisis favourable and strategic location did not necessarily bode well for its existence as Eastern Georgias/Iberias capital, in the year 627, Tbilisi was sacked by the Byzantine/Khazar armies and later, in 736–738, Arab armies entered the town under Marwan II Ibn-Muhammad. After this point, the Arabs established an emirate centered in Tbilisi, in 764, Tbilisi, still under Arab control was once again sacked by the Khazars. In 853, the armies of Arab leader Bugha Al-Turki invaded Tbilisi in order to enforce its return to Abbasid allegiance, the Arab domination of Tbilisi continued until about 1050. In 1068, the city was again sacked, only this time by the Seljuk Turks under Sultan Alp Arslan. In 1122, after fighting with the Seljuks that involved at least 60,000 Georgians and up to 300,000 Turks. After the battles for Tbilisi concluded, David moved his residence from Kutaisi to Tbilisi, making it the capital of a unified Georgian State, from 12–13th centuries, Tbilisi became a dominant regional power with a thriving economy and a well-established social system/structure
3.
Kingdom of Georgia
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The Kingdom of Georgia, also known as the Georgian Empire, was a medieval monarchy which emerged in circa 1008 AD. It reached its Golden Age of political and economic strength during the reign of King David IV, a predominantly Christian, Georgian-speaking realm, it was the principal historical precursor of present-day Georgia. Lasting for several centuries, the fell to the Mongol invasions in the 13th century. The Kingdoms geopolitical situation further worsened after the Fall of Constantinople, as a result of these processes, by the end of the 15th century Georgia turned into an isolated, fractured Christian enclave, surrounded by hostile Turco-Iranic neighbors. The ascendancy of the Bagrationi dynasty can be traced to the 8th century, the restoration of the Georgian kingship begins in AD888, when Adarnase IV of Iberia took the title of King of Georgians. The United Kingdom of Georgia was established in 1008, in this year, Bagrat III, son of Gurgen II, became the ruler of the Kingdom of Western Georgia, including the Principalities of Imereti, Samegrelo, Abkhazeti, Guria and Svaneti. Bagrats mother was Queen Gurandukht, a daughter of George II of Abkhazia, the first decades of the 9th century saw the rise of a new Georgian state in Tao-Klarjeti. Ashot Courapalate of the family of Bagrationi liberated from the Arabs the territories of former southern Iberia. In practice, however, the region functioned as an independent country with its capital in Artanuji. The hereditary title of Curopalates was kept by the Bagrationi family, the first united Georgian monarchy was formed at the end of the 10th century when Curopalate David invaded the Earldom of Kartli-Iberia. Three years later, after the death of his uncle Theodosius the Blind, King of Egrisi-Abkhazia, in 1001 Bagrat added Tao-Klarjeti to his domain as a result of Davids death. In 1008–1010, Bagrat annexed Kakheti and Hereti, thus becoming the first king of a united Georgia in both the east and west, in 1071, the Seljuq army destroyed the united Byzantine-Armenian and Georgian forces in the Battle of Manzikert. By 1081, all of Armenia, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, Syria, in Georgia, only the mountainous areas of Abkhazia, Svaneti, Racha, and Khevi–Khevsureti remained out of Seljuq control and served as a relatively safe havens for numerous refugees. The rest of the country was dominated by the conquerors who destroyed the cities and fortresses, looted the villages, in fact, by the end of the 1080s, Georgians were outnumbered in the region by the invaders. The Golden Age began with the reign of David IV, the son of George II and Queen Helena, in 1121, he decisively defeated much larger Turkish armies during the Battle of Didgori, with fleeing Seljuq Turks being run down by pursuing Georgian cavalry for several days. A huge amount of booty and prisoners were captured by Davids army, David IV made particular emphasis on removing the vestiges of unwanted eastern influences, which the Georgians considered forced, in favor of the traditional Christian and Byzantine overtones. As part of this effort he founded the Gelati Monastery, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, David also played a personal role in reviving Georgian religious hymnography, composing the Hymns of Repentance, a sequence of eight free-verse psalms. In this emotional repentance of his sins, David sees himself as reincarnating the Biblical David, with a relationship to God
4.
Georgia (country)
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Georgia is a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. The capital and largest city is Tbilisi, Georgia covers a territory of 69,700 square kilometres, and its 2016 population is about 3.72 million. Georgia is a unitary, semi-presidential republic, with the government elected through a representative democracy, during the classical era, several independent kingdoms became established in what is now Georgia. The kingdoms of Colchis and Iberia adopted Christianity in the early 4th century, a unified Kingdom of Georgia reached the peak of its political and economic strength during the reign of King David IV and Queen Tamar in the 12th and early 13th centuries. Thereafter the kingdom declined and eventually disintegrated under hegemony of various powers, including the Mongols, the Ottoman Empire. Russian rule over Georgia was eventually acknowledged in various treaties with Iran. Since the establishment of the modern Georgian republic in April 1991, post-communist Georgia suffered from civil, the countrys Western orientation soon led to the worsening of relations with Russia, culminating in the brief Russo-Georgian War in August 2008. Georgia is a member of the United Nations, the Council of Europe, and it contains two de facto independent regions, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which gained limited international recognition after the 2008 Russo-Georgian War. Georgia and a part of the international community consider the regions to be part of Georgias sovereign territory under Russian military occupation. Georgia probably stems from the Persian designation of the Georgians – gurğān, in the 11th and 12th centuries adapted via Syriac gurz-ān/gurz-iyān, starting with the Persian word gurğ/gurğān, the word was later adopted in numerous other languages, including Slavic and West European languages. This term itself might have established through the ancient Iranian appellation of the near-Caspian region. The self-designation used by ethnic Georgians is Kartvelebi, the medieval Georgian Chronicles present an eponymous ancestor of the Kartvelians, Kartlos, a great-grandson of Japheth. However, scholars agree that the word is derived from the Karts, the name Sakartvelo consists of two parts. Its root, kartvel-i, specifies an inhabitant of the core central-eastern Georgian region of Kartli, ancient Greeks and Romans referred to early western Georgians as Colchians and eastern Georgians as Iberians. Today the full, official name of the country is Georgia, before the 1995 constitution came into force the countrys name was the Republic of Georgia. The territory of modern-day Georgia was inhabited by Homo erectus since the Paleolithic Era, the proto-Georgian tribes first appear in written history in the 12th century BC. The earliest evidence of wine to date has found in Georgia. In fact, early metallurgy started in Georgia during the 6th millennium BC, the classical period saw the rise of a number of early Georgian states, the principal of which was Colchis in the west and Iberia in the east
5.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
6.
Seljuk Empire
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The Seljuk Empire or Great Seljuk Empire was a medieval Turko-Persian Sunni Muslim empire, originating from the Qynyq branch of Oghuz Turks. The Seljuk Empire controlled a vast area stretching from the Hindu Kush to eastern Anatolia, from their homelands near the Aral sea, the Seljuks advanced first into Khorasan and then into mainland Persia before eventually conquering eastern Anatolia. The Seljuk empire was founded by Tughril Beg in 1037, Tughril was raised by his grandfather, Seljuk-Beg, who was in a high position in the Oghuz Yabgu State. Seljuk gave his name to both the Seljuk empire and the Seljuk dynasty, the Seljuks united the fractured political scene of the eastern Islamic world and played a key role in the first and second crusades. Highly Persianized in culture and language, the Seljuks also played an important role in the development of the Turko-Persian tradition, the Seljuqs were allied with the Persian Samanid shahs against the Qarakhanids. The Samanid fell to the Qarakhanids in Transoxania, however, whereafter the Ghaznavids arose, the Seljuqs became involved in this power struggle in the region before establishing their own independent base. Tughril was the grandson of Seljuq and brother of Chaghri, under whom the Seljuks wrested an empire from the Ghaznavids, initially the Seljuqs were repulsed by Mahmud and retired to Khwarezm, but Tughril and Chaghri led them to capture Merv and Nishapur. Later they repeatedly raided and traded territory with his successors across Khorasan and Balkh, in 1040 at the Battle of Dandanaqan, they decisively defeated Masud I of the Ghaznavids, forcing him to abandon most of his western territories to the Seljuqs. In 1055, Tughril captured Baghdad from the Shia Buyids under a commission from the Abbasids, arslans decisive victory at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071 effectively neutralized the Byzantine resistance to the Turkish invasion of Anatolia. He authorized his Turkmen generals to carve their own out of formerly Byzantine Anatolia. Malikshāh moved the capital from Rey to Isfahan and it was during his reign that the Great Seljuk Empire reached its zenith. The Iqta military system and the Nizāmīyyah University at Baghdad were established by Nizām al-Mulk, the Abbasid Caliph titled him The Sultan of the East and West in 1087. The Seljuq power was at its zenith under Malikshāh I, the Seljuq dominion was established over the ancient Sasanian domains, in Iran and Iraq, and included Anatolia as well as parts of Central Asia and modern Afghanistan. The Seljuk rule was modelled after the organization common in Turkic and Mongol nomads. Under this organization, the member of the paramount family assigned family members portions of his domains as autonomous appanages. When Malikshāh I died in 1092, the split as his brother. Malikshāh I was succeeded in Anatolia by Kilij Arslan I, who founded the Sultanate of Rum, and in Syria by his brother Tutush I. In Persia he was succeeded by his son Mahmud I, whose reign was contested by his three brothers Barkiyaruq in Iraq, Muhammad I in Baghdad, and Ahmad Sanjar in Khorasan
7.
Artuqids
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The Artquids or Artuqid dynasty was a Turkmen dynasty that ruled in Eastern Anatolia, Northern Syria and Northern Iraq in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The Artuqid dynasty took its name from its founder, Zaheer-ul-Daulah Artuk Bey, the Artuqid rulers viewed the state as the common property of the dynasty members. Artuqid rulers commissioned many buildings, such as mosques, bazaars, bridges, hospitals. They left an important cultural heritage by contributing to literature and the art of metalworking, the door and door handles of the great Mosque of Cizre are unique examples of Artuqid metal working craftsmanship, which can be seen in the Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum in Istanbul, Turkey. The dynasty was founded by Artuk Bey, son of Eksük, Tutush appointed Artuq governor of Jerusalem in 1086. Artuq died in 1091, and his sons Sökmen and Ilghazi were expelled from Jerusalem by the Fatimid vizier al-Afdal Shahanshah in 1098, the Fatimids lost the city to the crusaders the following year. Sokman and Ilghazi set themselves up in Diyarbakır, Mardin, and Hasankeyf in the Jezirah, Sokman, bey of Mardin, defeated the crusaders at the Battle of Harran in 1104. Ilghazi succeeded Sokman in Mardin and imposed his control over Aleppo at the request of the qadi Ibn al-Khashshab in 1118, in 1119 Ilgazi defeated the crusader Principality of Antioch at the Battle of Ager Sanguinis. In 1121 a Seljuq-Artuqid alliance, commanded by Mehmed I of Great Seljuq, Ilghazi died in 1122, and although his nephew Balak nominally controlled Aleppo, the city was really controlled by Ibn al-Khashshab. Al-Kashshab was assassinated in 1125, and Aleppo fell under the control of Zengi of Mosul, after the death of Balak, the Artuqids were split between Harput, Hasankeyf and Mardin. Sokmans son Davud, bey of Hasankeyf, died in 1144, Kara Aslan allied with Joscelin II of Edessa against the Zengids, and while Joscelin was away in 1144, Zengi recaptured Edessa, the first of the Crusader states to fall. Hasankeyf became a vassal of Zengi as well, Kara Aslans son Nur ad-Din Muhammad allied with the Ayyubid sultan Saladin against the Sultan of Rum Kilij Arslan II, whose daughter had married Nur ad-Din Muhammad. In the peace settlement with Kilij Arslan, Saladin gained control of the Artuqid territory, even though the Artuqids were still technically vassals of Mosul, with Artuqid support, however, Saladin eventually took control of Mosul as well. The Artuklu dynasty remained in command of upper Mesopotamia. The Hasankeyf branch conquered Diyarbakır in 1198 and its center was moved here, the Harput branch was destroyed by the Sultanate of Rum due to following a slippery policy between the Ayyubids and Seljuqs. The Mardin branch survived for longer, but as a vassal of the Ayyubids, Sultanate of Rum, Il-Khanate, karakoyunlu captured Mardin and finally put an end to Artuklu rule in 1409. Despite their constant preoccupation with war, members of the Artuklu dynasty left many architectural monuments and they made the most significant additions to Diyarbakır City Walls. Urfa Gate was rebuilt by Muhammad, son of Kara Arslan, a large caravanserai in Mardin as well as the civil engineering feat of Malabadi Bridge are still in regular use in our day
8.
Eldiguzids
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Down to the death in war 1194 of Toghril b. Thereafter, they were in effect an independent dynasty, until the expansion of the Mongols. Atabeg was the title conferred upon the Turkic officers who served as guardians of minor Seljuq rulers, in the political circumstances of the time, Atabegs were not only tutors and vice-regents of their princes, but also de facto rulers. At the height of Eldiguzid power, their territory stretched from Isfahan in the south to the borders of Kingdom of Georgia and Shirvan in the north. However, closer to the end of their reign amidst continuous conflicts with the Kingdom of Georgia, eldegiz chose Barda as his residence, and attracted the local emirs to his camp. From 1161, the Seljuq princes at Hamadan fell under the control of the Atabeg of Azerbaijan, Shams ad-Din Ildeniz became the ruler of the remainder of the north Iran and South Caucasus of the Seljuq empire. He was taking every measure to consolidate the power of his own appointed, the word Azam was added to his title and he was also known as Atabek-e Azam. All of the subsequent rulers used to hold this title. During his reign, Ildeniz could subdue a spacious territory between the Caucasus and Persian Gulf, the territory belonging to him stretched from the gate of Tiflis up to Mekran. He had possessed Azerbaijan, Arran, Shirvan, Djibal, Hamedan, Gilan, Mazandaran, Isfahan, the Atabegs of Mosul, Kerman and Fars as well as the feudalists of Shirvan, Khuzestan, Hilat, Arzan-ar-Rhum and Maraga became his liegemen. Georgia, whose army was strengthened by 40,000 Kipchak Turkic warriors, was the strongest antagonist of the Shams al-Din Ildeniz, in 1138, Georgian king Demetre I, attacked the earthquake-ridden city of Ganja. While leaving the city, his troops carried off the iron gate of Ganja as their trophy. From 1161 onwards they began to make plundering raids on Ani, Dvin, Ganja, Nakhchivan, Ildeniz formed a union with other Seljuqids in the beginning of the 1160s to fight against the Georgians, and in 1163 the allies inflicted a defeat on king George III of Georgia. In response to this defeat, the king of Georgia occupied Ganja in 1165, the Georgians took several fields in Azerbaijan and they could reach such faraway cities as Nakhchivan and Beylakan. As a rule, Georgians used to be paid their tribute, in 1173, Atabeg Ildeniz began his big campaign against Georgia but he was defeated. Atabeg’s troops retreated and Ildeniz died in 1174 in Nakhchivan, Pahlavan transferred his capital from Nakhchivan to Hamadan in western Iran, and made his younger brother, Qizil Arslan Othman, the ruler of Azerbaijan. In 1174, Qizil Arslan captured Tabriz, which became his capital. Jahan Pahlavan suppressed all rebellious emirs and appointed faithful mamluks to key positions and he apportioned each of them any region or town as iqta. The twelve years of his rule are considered the most peaceful period of the state’s existence
9.
Shaddadids
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The Shaddadids were a dynasty of Kurdish origin who ruled in various parts of Armenia and Arran from 951 to 1174 AD. Through their long tenure in Armenia, they intermarried with the Bagratuni royal family of Armenia. They began ruling in the city of Dvin, and eventually ruled other major cities, such as Bardhaa, a cadet line of the Shaddadids were given the cities of Ani and Tbilisi as a reward for their service to the Seljuqs, to whom they became vassals. From 1047 to 1057, the Shaddadids were engaged in wars against the Byzantine army. The area between the rivers Kura and Arax was ruled by a Shaddadid dynasty, in 951, Muhammad bin Shaddadid established himself at Dvin. Unable to hold Dvin against Musafirid incursion, he fled to the Armenian Kingdom of Vaspurakan and his son, Ali Lashkari bin Muhammad, ended Musafirid influence in Arran by taking Ganja in 971. He later expanded into Transcaucasia as far north as Shamkur and as far east as Bardhaa, the reign of his brother, Marzuban bin Muhammad, also lasted only a few years. Muhammad bin Shaddadids third son, al-Fadl I ibn Muhammad, expanded his territory during his lengthy reign and he took Dvin from Armenian Bagratids in 1022, and his campaigns against them met with varying degrees of success. He also raided the Khazars in 1030, while holding parts of Azerbaijan, later that year, while returning from a successful campaign in Georgia, his army encountered Georgian and Armenian forces and was decisively defeated. The poet Qatran Tabrizi praised Ali II Lashkari for his victory over Armenian and Georgian princes during his stay in Ganja, Abul-Aswar Shavur I ibn al-Fadl I took power in 1049 with Ganja as his capital. He was the last independent ruling Shaddadid until 1067, when Tugrul I arrived at Ganja, with this, the Seljuqs imposed direct rule over Arran and ended Shaddadid influence there. As their influence continued to decline, Abul-Aswars son, al-Fadl II ibn Shavur I, was captured by the Georgians, a cadet branch of Shaddadids continued to rule in Ani and Tbilisi as vassals of the Great Seljuq Empire until 1175, when Malik-Shah I deposed al-Fadl III. Shavur Abul-Aswar Shavur II Fadl IV b, kurds, from Home of Tour Armenia A Chronology of World Political History Arran, By, C. E. Bosworth, From Encyclopaedia Iranica, page 522
10.
Emirate of Tbilisi
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The Emirs of Tbilisi ruled over the parts of today’s eastern Georgia from their base in the city of Tbilisi, from 736 to 1080. Since then, the city has been the capital of Georgia to this day, the Arabs first appeared in Georgia, namely in Kartli in 645. It was not, however, until 735, when they succeeded in establishing their control over a large portion of the country. In that year, Marwan II took hold of Tbilisi and much of the lands and installed there an Arab emir. During the Arab period, Tbilisi grew into a center of trade between the Islamic world and northern Europe, beyond that, it functioned as a key Arab outpost and a buffer province facing the Byzantine and Khazar dominions. Over time, Tbilisi became largely Muslim, but the Islamic influences were strictly confined to the city itself, Tbilisi was a large city with a strong double wall pierced by three gates. It lay on both banks of the Kura River, and the two parts were connected by a bridge of boats, the contemporary geographers especially mention its thermal springs, which supplied the baths with constant hot waters. The houses were built, to the surprise of contemporary Arab travelers. In the first half of the century, Tbilisi is said to have been the second largest, after Derbend. The Abbasid Caliphate weakened after the Abbasid civil war in the 810s, at the same time, the emirate became a target of the resurgent Georgian Bagrationi dynasty who were expanding their territory from Tao-Klarjeti across Georgian lands. The Emirate of Tbilisi grew in strength under Ishaq ibn Ismail. He withheld his annual payment of tribute to Baghdad, and declared his independence from the Caliph, the Abbasids chose not to rebuild the city extensively, and as a result the Muslim prestige and authority in the region began to wane. Beginning in the 1020s, the Georgian kings pursued a contradictory but generally expansionist policy against the emirs of Tbilisi, the territories of the emirate shrank to Tbilisi and its immediate environs. However, the Seljuk invasions of the 1070s–1080s thwarted the Georgian advance, Georgian King David IV’s victories over the Seljuk Turks inflicted a final blow to Islamic Tbilisi, and a Georgian army entered the city in 1122, ending four hundred years of Muslim rule. The office of emir —now an appointed Georgian royal official—survived in Tbilisi, as well as big cities of Georgia, into the 18th century. Khalil Isa b. ash-Sheikh ash-Shayban Ibrahim Gabuloc Jaffar I b, Jaffar Fadlun of Ganja According to Georgian sources between 1062 and 1068 and again between 1080 and 1122 council of elders rule Emirate of Tbilisi
11.
Shah-Armens
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This region comprised most of Bitlis and Van provinces and parts of Batman, Muş, Siirt and Diyarbakır. The dynasty is also called Sökmenli in reference to the founder of the principality, Sökmen el-Kutbî, literally Sökmen the Slave. The Ahlatshah Sökmenli should not be confused with the Artuqid branch of Sökmenli, another title Sökmen and his descendants assumed, as heirs to the local Armenian princes according to Clifford Edmund Bosworth, was the Persian title Shah-i Arman, often rendered as Ermenshahs. The Beylik was founded by the Turkish slave commander Sökmen who took over Ahlat in 1100, Ahlatshahs were closely tied to Great Seljuq institutions, although they also followed independent policies like the wars against Georgia in alliance with their neighbors to the north, the Saltukids. They also acquired links with the branch of the Artuqid dynasty based in Meyyafarikin, becoming part of a nexus of Turkish principalities in Upper Mesopotamia, the Ahlatshahs reached their brightest period under the fifty-seven-year reign of Sökmen II. He was married to a relative of the Saltukid ruler Saltuk. Since Sökmen II was childless, the beylik was seized by a series of slave commanders after his death, in 1207, the beylik was taken over by the Ayyubids, who had long coveted Ahlat. The Ahlatshahs left a number of historic tombstones in and around the city of Ahlat. Local administrators are trying to have the tombstones included in UNESCOs World Heritage List
12.
Alans
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The Alans were an Iranian nomadic pastoral people of antiquity. The name Alan is an Iranian dialectical form of Aryan, a common self-designation of the Indo-Iranians, possibly related to the Massagetae, the Alans have been connected by modern historians with the Central Asian Yancai and Aorsi of Chinese and Roman sources, respectively. Having migrated westwards and become dominant among the Sarmatians on the Pontic Steppe, at the time they had settled the region north of the Black Sea, and frequently raided the Parthian Empire and the Caucasian provinces of the Roman Empire. In 215–250 AD their power on the Pontic Steppe was broken by the Goths, upon the Hunnic defeat of the Goths on the Pontic Steppe around 375 AD, many of the Alans migrated westwards along with various Germanic tribes. They crossed the Rhine in 406 AD along with the Vandals and Suebi, settling in Orléans, around 409 AD they joined the Vandals and Suebi in the crossing of the Pyrenees into the Iberian Peninsula, settling in Lusitania and Carthaginiensis. The Iberian Alans were soundly defeated by the Visigoths 418 AD, the Alans who remained under Hunnic rule founded a powerful kingdom in the North Caucasus in the Middle Ages, which ended with the Mongol invasions in the 13th century AD. These Alans are said to be the ancestors of the modern Ossetians, the Alans spoke an Eastern Iranian language which derived from Scytho-Sarmatian and which in turn evolved into modern Ossetian. The various forms of Alan – Greek, Ἀλανοί Alanoi, Chinese, 阿蘭聊 Alanliao in the 2nd century, 阿蘭 Alan in the 3rd century – and Iron and later Alanguo are derived from Iranian dialectal forms of Aryan. These and other variants of Aryan were common self-designations of the Indo-Iranians, scarcer spellings include Alauni or Halani. The Alans were also known over the course of their history by another group of related names including the variations Asi, As and it is this name that is the root of the modern Ossetian. The first mentions of names that historians link with the Alani appear at almost the time in texts from the Mediterranean, Middle East. In the 1st century AD, the Alans migrated westwards from Central Asia, the Alans are mentioned in the Vologeses inscription which reads that Vologeses I, the Parthian king c. 51–78 AD, in the 11th year of his reign, battled Kuluk, the contemporary Jewish historian, Josephus supplements this inscription. Now there was a nation of the Alans, which we have formerly mentioned somewhere as being Scythians and these Alans therefore plundered the country without opposition, and with great ease, and proceeded as far as Armenia, laying waste all before them. The fact that the Alans invaded Parthia through Hyrcania shows that at the time many Alans were still based north-east of the Caspian Sea, by the early 2nd century AD the Alans were in firm control of the Lower Volga and Kuban. These lands had earlier occupied by the Aorsi and the Siraces. It is likely that the Alans influence stretched further westwards, encompassing most of the Sarmatian world, in 135 AD, the Alans made a huge raid into Asia Minor via the Caucasus, ravaging Media and Armenia. They were eventually driven back by Arrian, the governor of Cappadocia, in 215–250 AD, the Germanic Goths expanded south-eastwards and broke the Alan dominance on the Pontic Steppe
13.
Kipchaks
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The Kipchak were a Turkic nomadic people. The Cuman-Kipchak confederation was a predecessor of the Kazakh Khanate and, later, the Kipchaks described their name as meaning hollow tree, as it was, according to them, inside a hollow tree that their original human ancestress gave birth to her son. They are called Polovtsy in Russian and Ukrainian and similar names in other Slavic languages, the Kipchaks were a tribal confederation that originally settled on the River Irtysh, possibly connected to the Kimäks. According to Ukrainian anthropologists, Kipchaks had racial characteristics of Caucasians and Mongoloids, namely a broad flat face, researcher E. P. Alekseeva drew attention to the fact that European Kipchak stone images have both Mongoloid and Caucasoid faces. However, in her opinion, Kipchaks, who settled in Georgia in the first half of the 12th century, were predominantly Caucasoid in appearance with some admixture of Mongoloid traits and they were already joined by Cumans. In the course of the Turkic expansion they migrated into Siberia, eventually they occupied a vast territory in the Eurasian steppe, stretching from north of the Aral Sea westward to the region north of the Black Sea, establishing a state known as Desht-i Qipchaq. Cumans expanded further westward, by the 11th century reaching Moldavia, Wallachia, in 1089, they were defeated by Ladislaus I of Hungary, and again by Knyaz Vladimir Monomakh of the Rus in the 12th century. They were finally crushed by the Mongols in 1241, after the fall of the Mongol Empire, the Golden Horde rulers continued to hold Saraj until 1502. The Cumans fled to Hungary, and some of their warriors became mercenaries for the Latin crusaders, members of the Bahri dynasty, the first dynasty of Mamluks in Egypt, were Kipchaks/Cumans, one of the most prominent examples was Sultan Baybars, born in Solhat, Crimea. Some Kipchaks served in the Yuan dynasty and became the Kharchins, the Kipchaks and Cumans spoke a Turkic language whose most important surviving record is the Codex Cumanicus, a late 13th-century dictionary of words in Kipchak, Cuman, and Latin. The presence in Egypt of Turkic-speaking Mamluks also stimulated the compilation of Kipchak/Cuman-Arabic dictionaries, some Kipchaks and Cumans are also known to have converted to Christianity, around the 11th century, at the suggestion of the Georgians as they allied in their conflicts against the Muslims. A great number were baptized at the request of the Georgian king David IV, from 1120, there was a Kipchak national Christian church and an important clergy. Following the Mongol conquest, Islam rose in popularity among the Kipchaks of the Golden Horde, during the 16th and 17th centuries the Turkic language among the Armenian communities of the Kipchak people was Armeno-Kipchak. They were settled in the Lviv and Kamianets-Podilskyi areas of what is now Ukraine, the modern Northwestern branch of the Turkic language is often referred to as the Kipchak branch. The languages in this branch are considered to be descendants of the Kipchak language. Some of the traditionally included are the Karachays, Siberian Tatars, Nogays, Bashkirs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Volga Tatars. There is also a village named Kipchak in Crimea, kypshak is one of the constituent tribes of the Middle Horde confederation of the Kazakh people. The name Kipchak also occurs as a surname in Kazakhstan, some of the descendants of the Kipchaks are the Bashkirian clan Qipsaq
14.
Crusades
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The First Crusade arose after a call to arms in a 1095 sermon by Pope Urban II. Urban urged military support for the Byzantine Empire and its Emperor, Alexios I, the response to Urbans preaching by people of many different classes across Western Europe established the precedent for later Crusades. Volunteers became Crusaders by taking a vow and receiving plenary indulgences from the church. Some were hoping for apotheosis at Jerusalem, or forgiveness from God for all their sins, others participated to satisfy feudal obligations, gain glory and honour, or find opportunities for economic and political gain. Many modern Historians have polarised opinions of the Crusaders behaviour under Papal sanction, to some it was incongruous with the stated aims and implied moral authority of the papacy and the Crusades, to the extent that on occasions that the Pope excommunicated Crusaders. Crusaders often pillaged as they travelled, while their leaders retained control of captured territory rather than returning it to the Byzantines. During the Peoples Crusade thousands of Jews were murdered in what is now called the Rhineland massacres, Constantinople was sacked during the Fourth Crusade rendering the reunification of Christendom impossible. These tales consequently galvanised medieval romance, philosophy and literature, but the Crusades also reinforced the connection between Western Christendom, feudalism, and militarism. Crusade is not a term, instead the terms iter for journey or peregrinatio for pilgrimage were used. Not until the word crucesignatus for one who was signed with the cross was adopted at the close of the century was specific terminology developed. The Middle English equivalents were derived from old French, croiserie in the 13th–15th centuries, croisade appeared in English c1575, and continued to be the leading form till c1760. By convention historians adopt the term for the Christian holy wars from 1095, the Crusades in the Holy Land are traditionally counted as nine distinct campaigns, numbered from the First Crusade of 1095–99 to the Ninth Crusade of 1271/2. Usage of the term Crusade may differ depending on the author, pluralists use the term Crusade of any campaign explicitly sanctioned by the reigning Pope. This reflects the view of the Roman Catholic Church that every military campaign given Papal sanction is equally valid as a Crusade, regardless of its cause, justification, generalists see Crusades as any and all holy wars connected with the Latin Church and fought in defence of their faith. Popularists limit the Crusades to only those that were characterised by popular groundswells of religious fervour – that is, only the First Crusade, Medieval Muslim historiographers such as Ali ibn al-Athir refer to the Crusades as the Frankish Wars. The term used in modern Arabic, ḥamalāt ṣalībiyya حملات صليبية, campaigns of the cross, is a loan translation of the term Crusade as used in Western historiography. The Islamic prophet Muhammad founded Islam in the Arabian Peninsula, the resulting unified polity in the seventh and eighth centuries led to a rapid expansion of Arab power. This influence stretched from the northwest Indian subcontinent, across Central Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, southern Italy, tolerance, trade, and political relationships between the Arabs and the Christian states of Europe waxed and waned
15.
David IV of Georgia
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David IV, also known as David the Builder, of the Bagrationi dynasty, was a king of Georgia from 1089 until his death in 1125. His reforms of the army and administration enabled him to reunite the country, a friend of the church and a notable promoter of Christian culture, he was canonized by the Georgian Orthodox Church. Epigraphic data also provide evidence for the use of Davids other epithet. Scholars in Georgia favor David IV, his namesake predecessors being, David I Curopalates, David II Magistros, the year of Davids birth can be calculated from the date of his accession to the throne recorded in the Life of King of Kings David, written c. 1123–1126, as koronikon 309, that is,1089, when he was 16 years old, thus, he would have been born in koronikon 293 or 294, that is, c. According to the source, he died in koronikon 345. Professor Cyril Toumanoff gives 1070 and 24 January 1125 as the dates for David, the earliest known document that makes mention of David is the royal charter of his father, George II of Georgia, granted to the Mghvime monastery and dated to 1073. According to the Life of King of Kings David, David was the son of George II. The contemporaneous Armenian chronicler Matthew of Edessa mentions Davids brother Totorme, the name of Davids mother, Elene, is recorded in a margin note in the Gospel of Matthew from the Tskarostavi monastery, she is otherwise unknown. David bore the name of the biblical king-prophet, from whom the Georgian Bagratids claimed their descent, Davids father, George II, was confronted by a major threat to the kingdom of Georgia. Watching his kingdom slip into chaos, George II ceded the crown to his 16-year-old son David in 1089, Davids formal cooption into government may have occurred even earlier, in 1083, when George II left Georgia for the negotiations at the court of the Seljuq sultan Malik-Shah I. Despite his age, he was involved in Georgia’s political life. Backed by his tutor and an influential churchman George of Chqondidi, David IV pursued a purposeful policy, between 1089–1100, King David organized small detachments of his loyal troops to restore order and destroy isolated enemy troops. David also supported the establishment and gradual expansion of a well-organized and highly effective spy network and he began the resettlement of devastated regions and helped to revive major cities. In 1101, King David captured the fortress of Zedazeni, a point in his struggle for Kakheti and Hereti. In 1093, he arrested the powerful feudal lord Liparit Baghvashi, an enemy of the Georgian crown. After the death of Liparit’s son Rati, David abolished their duchy of Kldekari in 1103, by 1099 David IVs power was considerable enough that he was able to refuse paying tribute to the Turks. By that time, he rejected a Byzantine title of panhypersebastos thus indicating that Georgia would deal with the Byzantine Empire only on a parity basis
16.
Demetrius I of Georgia
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Demetrius I, from the Bagrationi dynasty, was King of Georgia from 1125 to 1156. He is also known as a poet, Demetrius was the eldest son of King David the Builder by his first wife Rusudan. As a commander, he took part in his father’s battles, particularly at Didgori, Demetrius succeeded on his father’s death on January 24,1125. With his ascent to the throne, the Seljuk Turks attacked the Georgian-held city of Ani, Demetrius I had to compromise and ceded the city to a Seljuk ruler under terms of vassalage. In 1139, he raided the city of Ganja in Arran. He brought the gate of the defeated city to Georgia and donated it to Gelati Monastery at Kutaisi. Despite this brilliant victory, Demetrius could hold Ganja only for a few years, in 1130, Demetrius revealed a plot of nobles, probably involving the kings half-brother Vakhtang. The King arrested the conspirators and executed one of their leaders, Ioanne Abuletisdze, in 1154 David, Demetriuss elder son forced his father to abdicate and become a monk, receiving the monastic name Damian. However, David died six months later and King Demetrius was restored to the throne, David was survived by his son Demna who was regarded by the aristocratic opposition as a lawful pretender. He died in 1156 and was buried at Gelati Monastery and he is regarded as a saint in the Orthodox Church and his feast day is celebrated on May 23 on the Eastern Orthodox liturgical calendar. Shen Khar Venakhi, a hymn to the Virgin Mary, is the most famous of them, family of David IV of Georgia The Bagrationi Dynasty Listen to the hymn “Thou Art the Vineyard” St Damiane the King and Hymnographer Orthodox synaxarion
17.
Cumans
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The Cumans were a Turkic nomadic people comprising the western branch of the Cuman-Kipchak confederation. After the Mongol invasion, many sought asylum in Hungary, as many Cumans had settled in Hungary, Bulgaria, the Cumans were fierce and formidable nomadic warriors of the Eurasian steppe who exerted an enduring impact on the medieval Balkans. They were numerous, culturally sophisticated and militarily powerful, the Cumans also had a pre-eminent role in the Fourth Crusade and in the creation of the Second Bulgarian Empire. Cuman and Kipchak tribes joined politically to create the Cuman-Kipchak confederation, the Cuman language is attested in some medieval documents and is the best-known of the early Turkic languages. The Codex Cumanicus was a manual that was written to help Catholic missionaries communicate with the Cuman people. The basic instrument of Cuman political success was military force, which dominated each of the warring Balkan factions. It is also unclear whether a particular name refers to the Cumans alone. However, in Turkic languages qu, qun, qūn, quman or qoman means pale, sallow, cream coloured, pale yellow, in East Slavic languages and Polish, they are known as the Polovtsy, derived from the Slavic root *polvъ pale, light yellow, blonde. Polovtsy or Polovec is often said to be derived from the Old East Slavic polovŭ yellow, the old Ukrainian word polovtsy, derived from polovo straw – means blond, pale yellow. The western Cumans, or Polovtsy, were also called Sorochinetses by the Rus, a similar etymology may have been at work in the name of the Sary people, who also migrated westward ahead of the Qun. An alternative etymology of Polovtsy is also possible, the Slavic root *pȍlje field, in Germanic languages, the Cumans were called Folban, Vallani or Valwe – all derivations of old Germanic words for pale. In the German account by Adam of Bremen, and in Matthaios of Edessa, the Hungarian term for the Cumans is Kun, which in Old Hungarian meant nomad, but was later applied solely to the Cumans. This confederation and their living together may have made it difficult for historians to write exclusively about either nation, the latter seven clans eventually settled in Hungary. The ethnic origins of the Cumanians are uncertain, Robert Wolff states that it is conjectured that ethnically the Cumans may not originally have been Turkic. The Greek philosopher Strabo refers to the Darial Gorge as Porta Caucasica, the writings of al Marwazi state that the Qun people came from the northern Chinese borders – the land of Qitay. After leaving the lands of the Khitans, they entered the territory of the Shari/Sari people, Marwazi wrote that the Qun were Nestorian Christians. It cannot be established whether the Cumans conquered the Kipchaks or whether they represent the western mass of largely Kipchak-Turkic speaking tribes. A victim of the Cuman migration to the west was the Kimek Khanate, due to this, Kimek tribal elements were represented amongst the Cuman-Kipchaks
18.
Franks
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Some Franks raided Roman territory, while other Frankish tribes joined the Roman troops of Gaul. In later times, Franks became the rulers of the northern part of Roman Gaul. The Salian Franks lived on Roman-held soil between the Rhine, Scheldt, Meuse, and Somme rivers in what is now Northern France, Belgium, the kingdom was acknowledged by the Romans after 357 CE. Following the collapse of Rome in the West, the Frankish tribes were united under the Merovingians, who succeeded in conquering most of Gaul in the 6th century, which greatly increased their power. The Merovingian dynasty, descendants of the Salians, founded one of the Germanic monarchies that would absorb large parts of the Western Roman Empire, the Frankish state consolidated its hold over the majority of western Europe by the end of the 8th century, developing into the Carolingian Empire. This empire would gradually evolve into the state of France and the Holy Roman Empire, in the Middle Ages, the term Frank was used in the east as a synonym for western European, as the Franks were then rulers of most of Western Europe. The Franks in the east kept their Germanic language and became part of the Germans, Dutch, Flemings, the Franconian languages, which are called Frankisch in Dutch or Fränkisch in German, originated at least partly in the Old Frankish language of the Franks. Nowadays, the German and Dutch names for France are Frankreich and Frankrijk, respectively, the name Franci was originally socio-political. To the Romans, Celts, and Suebi, the Franks must have seemed alike, they looked the same and spoke the same language, so that Franci became the name by which the people were known. Within a few centuries it had eclipsed the names of the tribes, though the older names have survived in some place-names, such as Hesse. Following the precedents of Edward Gibbon and Jacob Grimm, the name of the Franks has been linked with the word frank in English and it has been suggested that the meaning of free was adopted because, after the conquest of Gaul, only Franks were free of taxation. It is traditionally assumed that Frank comes from the Germanic word for javelin, there is also another theory that suggests that Frank comes from the Latin word francisca meaning. Words in other Germanic languages meaning fierce, bold or insolent, eumenius addressed the Franks in the matter of the execution of Frankish prisoners in the circus at Trier by Constantine I in 306 and certain other measures, Ubi nunc est illa ferocia. Feroces was used often to describe the Franks, contemporary definitions of Frankish ethnicity vary both by period and point of view. According to their law and their custom, writing in 2009, Professor Christopher Wickham pointed out that the word Frankish quickly ceased to have an exclusive ethnic connotation. North of the River Loire everyone seems to have considered a Frank by the mid-7th century at the latest. Two early sources describe the origin of the Franks are a 7th-century work known as the Chronicle of Fredegar. Neither of these works are accepted by historians as trustworthy, compared with Gregory of Tourss Historia Francorum, the chronicle describes Priam as a Frankish king whose people migrated to Macedonia after the fall of Troy
19.
Bagratid Armenia
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Ashots prestige rose as he was courted by both Byzantine and Arab leaders eager to maintain a buffer state near their frontiers. The Caliphate recognized Ashot as prince of princes in 862 and, later on, the establishment of the Bagratuni kingdom later led to the founding of several other Armenian principalities and kingdoms, Taron, Vaspurakan, Kars, Khachen and Syunik. Unity among all states was sometimes difficult to maintain while the Byzantines. Under the reign of Ashot III, Ani became the capital and grew into a thriving economic. The first half of the 11th century saw the decline and eventual collapse of the kingdom, the weakening of the Sassanian Empire during the 7th century led to the rise of another regional power, the Muslim Arabs. The Umayyad Arabs had conquered vast swaths of territory in the Middle East and, turning north, theodore Rshtuni, the Armenian Curopalates, signed a peace treaty with the Caliphate although the continuing war with the Arabs and Byzantines soon lead to further destruction throughout Armenia. In 661, Armenian leaders agreed to submit under Muslim rule while the latter conceded to recognize Grigor Mamikonian from the powerful Mamikonian nakharar family as ishkhan of Armenia, known as al-Arminiya with its capital at Dvin, the province was headed by an ostikan, or governor. However, Umayyad rule in Armenia grew in cruelty in the early 8th century, revolts against the Arabs spread throughout Armenia until 705, when under the pretext of meeting for negotiations, the Arab ostikan of Nakhichevan massacred almost all of the Armenian nobility. The rebellions failure also resulted in the disintegration of the Mamikonian house which lost most of the land it controlled. A third and final rebellion, stemming from similar grievances as the second, was launched in 774 under the leadership of Mushegh Mamikonian, the Bagratuni family had done its best to improve its relations with the Abbasid caliphs ever since they took power in 750. Fortunately for the Armenians, the number of Arabs residing in Armenia never grew in number to form a majority nor were the emirates fully subordinate to the Caliph. As historian George Bournoutian observes, this fragmentation of Arab authority provided the opportunity for the resurgence of the Bagratuni family headed by Ashot Msaker, the brothers, however, were unable to resolve their differences with one another nor able to form a unified front against the Muslims. In 857, Smbat had been succeeded by his son Ashot I and he assumed the title prince of princes in 862 and appointed his brother Abas sparapet, as they began to push the Arabs out from their base in Tayk. His initial efforts to expel the ostikan of Arminiya failed, although this did not dissuade him in taking advantage of the Byzantine-Arab rivalry. A synod of Armenian church leaders was convoked and a letter laden with equivocal wording sent to Constantinople was able to sustain a temporary agreement between the two churches, in any case, religious differences mattered little to the Byzantines in consideration of the menace the Arabs continued to pose. This act was not lost on Basil who similarly sent a crown to Ashot, Ashot relocated his throne to the fortress-city of Bagaran and it was here where his coronation ceremony was held sometime in 884 or 885. Thus, Ashot restored the Armenian monarchy and became Armenias first king since 428 and he secured the favor of both the Byzantines and Arabs but ultimately showed loyalty to Basil and chose to conclude an alliance with the Byzantines in 885. Ashot was not the sole Armenian prince of the region yet he commanded the support of the other princes who recognized his authority in his becoming of king
20.
Shirvanshah
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Shirvanshah, also spelled as Shīrwān Shāh or Sharwān Shāh, was the title of the rulers of Shirvan, located in modern Azerbaijan, from the mid-9th century to the early 16th century. The title remained in a family, the Yazidids, an originally Arab but gradually Persianized dynasty. The Shirvanshah established a state in Shirvan. The title Shirvanshah dates back to pre-Islamic times, ibn Khordadbeh mentions the Shirvanshah as one of the local rulers who received their title from the first Sassanid emperor, Ardashir I. From the late 8th century, Shirvan was under the rule of the members of the Arab family of Yazid ibn Mazyad al-Shaybani and his descendants, the Yazidids, would rule Shirvan as independent princes until the 14th century. By origin, the Yazidids were Arabs of the Shayban tribe and belonged to high ranking generals, in the chaos that engulfed the Abbasid Caliphate after the death of the Caliph al-Mutawakkil in 861, the great-grandson of Yazid b. Mazyad Shaybani, Haytham ibn Khalid, declared independent and assume the ancient title of Shirvanshah. The dynasty continuously ruled the area of Shirvan either as an independent state or a state until the Safavid times. A translation of important work into English language was published by the orientalist Vladimir Minorsky in 1958. We can also discern the progressive Persianisation of this originally Arab family, according to Encyclopedia of Islam, After the Shah Yazid b. Ahmad, Arab names give way to Persian ones like Manūčihr, Ḳubādh, Farīdūn, according to Vladimir Minorsky, the most likely explanation of the Iranicisation of this Arab family could be marriage link with the family of the ancient rulers of Shabaran. He further states, The attraction of a Sassanian pedigree proved stronger than the recollection of Shaybani lineage. The coat of arms with two lions could be a reminder of the story of Bahrām Gur in Shahnama where Bahrām had to claim the crown from between two lions to be recognized as the king. In 1120 King David IV of Georgia, entered the neighbouring Shirvan and took the town of Qabala and In 1124, David finally conquered Shirvan. In 1167, George III of Georgia marched to defend his vassal Shah Akhsitan of Shirvan against the Khazar and Kipchak assaults and strengthened the Georgian dominance in the area. Early in the 1190s, the Georgian government began to interfere in the affairs of the Ildenizids and of the Shirvanshahs, aiding rivaling local princes and reducing Shirvan to a tributary state. The Ildenizid atabeg Abu Bakr attempted to stem the Georgian advance, although Abu Bakr was able to resume his reign a year later, the Ildenizids were only barely able to contain further Georgian forays. Shirvanshahs built many defensive castles across all of Shirvan to resist many foreign invasions, however, Shirvan was greatly devastated by Mongol invasion in 1235, from which it was not able to fully recover for the next century
21.
Battle of Partskhisi
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The Battle of Partskhisi was fought between the armies of Kingdom of Georgia and Seljuk Empire. After hours of fighting, Georgians won a decisive victory over the Turks. Leaving 48 thousand cavalrymen to Sarang, he ordered another campaign to bring Georgia fully under the dominion of Seljuq Empire, the ruler of Arran, aided by the Muslim rulers of Dmanisi, Dvin and Ganja marched his army into Georgia. The dating of the invasion is disputed among modern Georgian scholars, while the battle is mostly dated in 1074, Prof. Ivane Javakhishvili puts the time somewhere around 1073 and 1074. 19th-century Georgian historian Tedo Jordania dates the battle in 1077, the battle raged on for an entire day, finally ending with a decisive victory for Giorgi II of Georgia. The momentum gained after the victory of an important battle fought in Partskhisi allowed the Georgians to recapture all the territories lost to the Seljuk Empire as well as the Byzantine Empire
22.
Kutaisi
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Kutaisi is the legislative capital of Georgia, and its 3rd most populous city. Situated 221 kilometres west of Tbilisi, it is the capital of the region of Imereti. Kutaisi is located along banks of the Rioni River. The city lies at an elevation of 125–300 metres above sea level, to the east and northeast, Kutaisi is bounded by the Northern Imereti Foothills, to the north by the Samgurali Range, and to the west and the south by the Colchis Plain. Kutaisi is surrounded by deciduous forests to the northeast and the northwest, the low-lying outskirts of the city have a largely agricultural landscape. The city centre has many gardens its streets are lined with high, in the springtime, when the snow starts to melt in the nearby mountains, the storming Rioni River in the middle of the city is heard far beyond its banks. Kutaisi has a subtropical climate with a well-defined on-shore/monsoonal flow during the Autumn. The summers are hot and relatively dry while the winters are wet. Average annual temperature in the city is 14.5 degrees Celsius, january is the coldest month with an average temperature of 5.3 degrees Celsius while July is the hottest month with an average temperature of 23.2 degrees Celsius. The absolute minimum recorded temperature is −17 degrees Celsius and the maximum is 44 degrees Celsius. Average annual precipitation is around 1,530 mm, rain may fall in every season of the year. The city often experiences heavy, wet snowfall in the winter, Kutaisi experiences powerful easterly winds in the summer which descend from the nearby mountains. Kutaisi was the capital of the ancient Kingdom of Colchis, archaeological evidence indicates that the city functioned as the capital of the kingdom of Colchis in the sixth to fifth centuries BC. From 978 to 1122 CE, Kutaisi was the capital of the united Kingdom of Georgia, in 1508, the city was captured by Selim I, who was the son of Bayezid II, the sultan of the Ottoman Empire. During the seventeenth century, Imeretian kings made many appeals to Russia to help them in their struggle for independence from the Ottomans, all these appeals were ignored as Russia did not want to spoil relations with Turkey. Totleben helped King Solomon I of Imereti to recover his capital, Kutaisi, finally, the Russian-Turkish wars ended in 1810 with the annexation of the Imeretian Kingdom by the Russian Empire. The city was the capital of the Gubernia of Kutaisi, which included much of west Georgia, in March 1879, the city was the site of a blood- libel trial that attracted attention all over Russia, the ten accused Jews were acquitted. Kutaisi was an industrial center before Georgias independence in 1991
23.
Tributary state
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The term tributary state refers to one of the two main ways in which a pre-modern state might be subordinate to a more powerful state. The heart of the relationship was that the tributary would send a token of submission to the superior power. This token often took the form of a transfer of wealth, such as the delivery of gold, produce, or slaves. John used to send annually to the Viceroy of Sicily in order to rule Malta and it might also involve attendance by the subordinate ruler at the court of the hegemon in order to make a public show of submission. Tributary relations involve no element of control or interference by the hegemon. At most, the hegemonic power might intervene in succession issues, for this reason, the extrapolation from pre-modern inter-state relations to the modern international system is problematic. For instance, Tributaries of Imperial China implies Chinese sovereign claim over territories not now regarded as Chinese, historically, the Emperor of China saw himself as the emperor of the entire civilized world. It was not possible for such an emperor to have diplomatic relations with any other power. Diplomatic missions and trading parties from non-Chinese regions were interpreted in Chinese records as being tributary, in Al Andalus, the last remaining Moorish Nasrid Dynasty in the Emirate of Granada paid tribute to the Christian Kingdom of Castile. Tributary states, usually on the periphery of the Ottoman Empire, were under vassalage in different forms, some were allowed to select their own leaders, while others paid tribute for their lands. In the Western colonial system, non-Western states were incorporated into a European empire as protectorates. In the Philippines, the Datus of the Barangays became vassals of the Spanish Empire and their right to rule was recognized by King Philip II of Spain, on 11 June 1594, under the condition of paying tributes due to the Spanish Crown. For modern forms of subordination, see puppet state, satellite state. Tribute Bunga mas Mandala Suzerainty Vassal state Puppet state Satellite state Client state
24.
Western Europe
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Western Europe, or West Europe, is the region comprising the western part of Europe. Below, some different geographic and geopolitical definitions of the term are outlined, prior to the Roman conquest, a large part of Western Europe had adopted the newly developed La Tène culture. This cultural and linguistic division was reinforced by the later political east-west division of the Roman Empire. The division between these two was enhanced during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages by a number of events, the Western Roman Empire collapsed, starting the Early Middle Ages. By contrast, the Eastern Roman Empire, mostly known as the Greek or Byzantine Empire, survived, in East Asia, Western Europe was historically known as taixi in China and taisei in Japan, which literally translates as the Far West. The term Far West became synonymous with Western Europe in China during the Ming dynasty, the Italian Jesuit priest Matteo Ricci was one of the first writers in China to use the Far West as an Asian counterpart to the European concept of the Far East. In his writings, Ricci referred to himself as Matteo of the Far West, the term was still in use in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Post-war Europe would be divided into two spheres, the West, influenced by the United States, and the Eastern Bloc. With the onset of the Cold War, Europe was divided by the Iron Curtain, behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Although some countries were neutral, they were classified according to the nature of their political. This division largely defined the popular perception and understanding of Western Europe, the world changed dramatically with the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989. The Federal Republic of Germany peacefully absorbed the German Democratic Republic, COMECON and the Warsaw Pact were dissolved, and in 1991, the Soviet Union ceased to exist. Several countries which had part of the Soviet Union regained full independence. Although the term Western Europe was more prominent during the Cold War, it remains much in use, in 1948 the Treaty of Brussels was signed between Belgium, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. It was further revisited in 1954 at the Paris Conference, when the Western European Union was established and it was declared defunct in 2011, after the Treaty of Lisbon, and the Treaty of Brussels was terminated. When the Western European Union was dissolved, it had 10 member countries, six member countries, five observer countries. The CIA divides Western Europe into two smaller subregions, regional voting blocs were formed in 1961 to encourage voting to various UN bodies from different regional groups. The European Union is an economic and political union of 28 member states that are located primarily in Europe, some Western and Northern European countries of Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and Liechtenstein are members of EFTA, though cooperating to varying degree with the European Union
25.
First Crusade
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The First Crusade was the first of a number of crusades that attempted to capture the Holy Land, called by Pope Urban II in 1095. An additional goal became the principal objective—the Christian reconquest of the sacred city of Jerusalem and the Holy Land. During the crusades, nobility, knights, peasants and serfs from many regions of Western Europe travelled over land and by sea, first to Constantinople and then on towards Jerusalem. The Crusaders arrived at Jerusalem, launched an assault on the city and they also established the crusader states of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the County of Tripoli, the Principality of Antioch, and the County of Edessa. The First Crusade was followed by the Second to the Ninth Crusades and it was also the first major step towards reopening international trade in the West since the fall of the Western Roman Empire. The majority view is that it had elements of both in its nature, the origin of the Crusades in general, and particularly that of the First Crusade, is widely debated among historians. The confusion is due to the numerous armies in the first crusade. The similar ideologies held the armies to similar goals, but the connections were rarely strong, the Umayyad Caliphate had conquered Syria, Egypt, and North Africa from the predominantly Christian Byzantine Empire, and Hispania from the Visigothic Kingdom. In North Africa, the Umayyad empire eventually collapsed and a number of smaller Muslim kingdoms emerged, such as the Aghlabids, who attacked Italy in the 9th century. Pisa, Genoa, and the Principality of Catalonia began to battle various Muslim kingdoms for control of the Mediterranean Basin, exemplified by the Mahdia campaign and battles at Majorca and Sardinia. Essentially, between the years 1096 and 1101 the Byzantine Greeks experienced the crusade as it arrived at Constantinople in three separate waves, in the early summer of 1096, the first large unruly group arrived on the outskirts of Constantinople. This wave was reported to be undisciplined and ill-equipped as an army and this first group is often called the Peasants’ or People’s Crusade. It was led by Peter the Hermit and Walter Sans Avoir and had no knowledge of or respect for the wishes of Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos. The second wave was not under the command of the Emperor and was made up of a number of armies with their own commanders. Together, this group and the first wave numbered an estimated 60,000, the second wave was led by Hugh I, Count of Vermandois, the brother of King Philip I of France. Also among the wave were Raymond IV, Count of Toulouse. It was this wave of crusaders which later passed through Asia Minor, captured Antioch in 1098 and finally took Jerusalem 15 July 1099. ”The third wave, composed of contingents from Lombardy, France. At the western edge of Europe and of Islamic expansion, the Reconquista in the Iberian Peninsula was well underway by the 11th century and it was intermittently ideological, as evidenced by the Codex Vigilanus compiled in 881
26.
Holy Land
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The Holy Land is an area roughly located between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea that also includes the Eastern Bank of the Jordan River. Traditionally, it is synonymous with both the biblical Land of Israel and historical Palestine, the term usually refers to a territory roughly corresponding to the modern State of Israel, the Palestinian territories, western Jordan, and parts of southern Lebanon and southwestern Syria. It is considered holy by Jews, Christians, and Muslims, many sites in the Holy Land have long been pilgrimage destinations for adherents of the Abrahamic religions, including Jews, Christians, Muslims, and Baháís. Pilgrims visit the Holy Land to touch and see physical manifestations of their faith, confirm their beliefs in the context with collective excitation. Jews do not commonly refer to the Land of Israel as Holy Land, the Tanakh explicitly refers to it as holy land in only one passage, in Zechariah 2,16. The holiness of the Land of Israel is generally implied in the Tanakh by the Land being given to the Israelites by God, that is, it is the promised land, an integral part of Gods covenant. In the Torah many mitzvot commanded to the Israelites can only be performed in the Land of Israel, for example, in the Land of Israel, no land shall be sold permanently. Shmita is only observed with respect to the land of Israel, according to Eliezer Schweid, The uniqueness of the Land of Israel is. geo-theological and not merely climatic. This is the land which faces the entrance of the spiritual world, Jerusalem, as the site of the Temple, is considered especially significant. Sacred burials are still undertaken for diaspora Jews who wish to lie buried in the soil of Israel. According to Jewish tradition, Jerusalem is Mount Moriah, the location of the binding of Isaac, the Hebrew Bible mentions the name Jerusalem 669 times, often because many mitzvot can only be performed within its environs. The name Zion, which refers to Jerusalem, but sometimes the Land of Israel. The Talmud mentions the religious duty of colonising Israel, so significant in Judaism is the act of purchasing land in Israel, the Talmud allows for the lifting of certain religious restrictions of Sabbath observance to further its acquisition and settlement. Rabbi Johanan said that one who walks a distance of 4 cubits in Israel may be confident of a share in the future world, a story says that when R. Eleazar b. Due to the Jewish population being concentrated in Israel, emigration was generally prevented, many Jews wanted Israel to be the place where they died. R. Anan said, To be buried in Israel is like being buried under the altar, the saying His land will absolve His people implies that burial in Israel will cause one to be absolved of all ones sins. Christian books, including editions of the Bible, often had maps of the Holy Land, for instance, the Itinerarium Sacrae Scripturae of Heinrich Bünting, a German Protestant pastor, featured such a map. As a geographic term, the description Holy Land loosely encompasses modern-day Israel, in the Quran, the term الأرض المقدسة is mentioned at least seven times, once when Moses proclaims to the Children of Israel, O my people
27.
Kipchaks in Georgia
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The Cumans-Kipchaks in Georgia are of an ancient nomadic Turkic people who occupied large territories from Central Asia to Eastern Europe. They played an important role in the history of nations in the region. The first contacts between the Georgians and Cumans-Kipchaks date back to the 11th century when the Cumans and Kipchaks founded a confederation in the southern Russian steppes. Their relations with Georgia seem to have been generally peaceful, moreover, the Georgian politicians of that time saw the Cuman-Kipchaks as potential allies against the Seljuk conquests. According to Georgian chronicles, Georgians knew about the Cumans-Kipchaks good fighting skills, their bravery, the architect of the Georgian–Cuman/Kipchak alliance was the Georgian king David IV “the Builder”, who employed tens of thousands of Cuman-Kipchak soldiers and settled them in his kingdom in 1118. To secure the alliance with these nomads, David married a Cuman-Kipchak princess, Gurandukht, daughter of Khan Otrok, as a result of this diplomacy,40,000 Cuman-Kipchak families under Otrak moved to settle in Georgia. According to the agreement, each Cuman-Kipchak family was to contribute a fully armed soldier to the Georgian army and they were given land, rearmed and became a regular force under the direct control of the king. Five thousand men were enrolled in the guards, the remainder were posted chiefly to frontier regions confronting the Seljuk Turks. They led a semi-nomadic way of life, wintering in the Kartlian lowlands in central Georgia, legend has it that when Otrak heard his voice and smelled steppe grass, he became nostalgic for the steppe life and finally left Georgia. Yet a number of the Kipchak mercenaries settled permanently within Georgia, converted to Orthodox Christianity, the Christianized Kipchak officers, known to the Georgians as naqivchaqari, played a crucial role in suppressing the nobles revolts of that time. This caused a discontent in the aristocratic opposition, which forced George’s successor Queen Thamar to retire virtually all high-ranking assimilated Cumans-Kipchaks. The latter is referred to as the Georgian Simon de Montfort in reference to his demands to limit the royal power. Thamar and her successor, George IV Lasha, continued to employ Cuman-Kipchak mercenaries and they were referred by the Georgians as qivchaqni akhalni, i. e. new Kipchaks. One part of them, however, was refused to be enrolled in the royal army, the Georgians subsequently defeated these marauding bands and scattered them. The Cumans-Kipchaks remained on both sides of the divide during the Mongol campaigns in Georgia in the late 1230s, according to modern Turkish scholars, the traces of the Cuman-Kipchak presence in Georgia can be found in the Turkish–Georgian borderlands, particularly in the Rize Province. They relate some of the local family names to the Kipchak clans who had once served to Georgia. The Kumbasars, the descendants of the above-mentioned king of Kubasars, are an example. Kipchaks History of Georgia Battle of Didgori Battle of Kalka River Cuman people Cumania Cuman language
28.
Alania
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Its capital was Maghas, and it controlled a vital trade route through the Darial Pass. The Alans originated as an Iranian-speaking subdivision of the Sarmatians and they were split by the invasion of the Huns into two parts, the European and the Caucasian. The Caucasian Alans occupied part of the North Caucasian plain and the foothills of the mountain chain from the headwaters of the Kuban River in the west to the Darial Gorge in the east. Alania was an important buffer state during the Byzantine-Arab Wars and Khazar-Arab Wars of the 8th century, theophanes the Confessor left a detailed account of Leo the Isaurians mission to Alania in the early 8th century. Leo was instructed by Emperor Justinian II to bribe the Alan leader Itaxes into severing his ancient friendship with the Kingdom of Abkhazia which had allied itself with Caliph Al-Walid I. He crossed the passes and concluded an alliance with the Alans. Although the Abkhazians spared no expense to have him imprisoned, the Alans refused to convey the Byzantine envoy to his enemies, after several months of adventures in the Northern Caucasus, Leo extricated himself from the precarious situation and returned to Constantinople. After Leo assumed the title, the land of his mountaineer allies was invaded by Umar IIs forces. A Khazar chieftain, Barjik, hastened to their succor and, in 722, the Khazars erected Skhimar and several other strongholds in Alania at this period. In 728 Maslamah ibn Abd al-Malik, having penetrated the Gate of the Alans, eight years later, Marwan ibn Muhammad passed by the Gate in order to ravage the forts in Alania. In 758, as Ibn al-Faqih reports, the Gate was held by another Arab general, as a result of their united stand against the successive waves of invaders from the south, the Alans of the Caucasus fell under the overlordship of the Khazar Khaganate. They remained staunch allies of the Khazars in the 9th century, according to the anonymous author of the Schechter Letter, many Alans were during this period adherents of Judaism. However, in the early 10th century, the Alans fell under the influence of the Byzantine Empire, the conversion is documented in the letters of Patriarch Nicholas Mysticus to the local archbishop, whose name was Peter. When Ibn Rustah visited Alania at some point between 903 and 913, its king was by then Christian and their king is Christian at heart, but all his people are idolaters. Then you travel for ten days among rivers and woods before arriving at a called the Gate of the Alans. It stands on the top of a mountain at the foot of which there is a road, high mountains surround it and a thousand men from among its inhabitants guard its walls day and night. The Byzantines, who had adopted a foreign policy, involved the Alans in a war against the Khaganate during the reign of the Khazar ruler Aaron II. In this war the Alans were defeated and their king captured, according to Muslim sources such as al-Masudi, the Alans abandoned Christianity and expelled the Byzantine missionaries and clergy roughly contemporaneously with these events
29.
Caucasus
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The Caucasus /ˈkɔːkəsəs/ or Caucasia /kɔːˈkeɪʒə/ is a region at the border of Europe and Asia, situated between the Black and the Caspian seas. It is home to the Caucasus Mountains, which contain Europes highest mountain, politically, the Caucasus region is separated between northern and southern parts. The southern parts consist of independent sovereign states, and the parts are under the jurisdiction of the Russian Federation. The region is known for its diversity, aside from Indo-European and Turkic languages, the Kartvelian, Northwest Caucasian. Pliny the Elders Natural History derives the name of the Caucasus from Scythian kroy-khasis, German linguist Paul Kretschmer notes that the Latvian word Kruvesis also means ice. According to German philologists Otto Schrader and Alfons A. Nehring, the South Caucasus region and southern Dagestan were the furthest points of Persian expansions, with areas to the north of Caucasus Mountains practically impregnable. The mythological mountain of Qaf, the worlds highest mountain that ancient lore shrouded in mystery, was said to be situated in this region, therefore, the Caucasus might be associated with the legendary mountain. The Ciscaucasus contains the majority of the Greater Caucasus Mountain range. It includes Southwestern Russia and northern parts of Georgia and Azerbaijan, the Transcaucasus is bordered on the north by Russia, on the west by the Black Sea and Turkey, on the east by the Caspian Sea, and on the south by Iran. It includes the Caucasus Mountains and surrounding lowlands, all of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia are in South Caucasus. The main Greater Caucasus range is generally perceived to be the line between Asia and Europe. The highest peak in the Caucasus is Mount Elbrus in the western Ciscaucasus in Russia, the Caucasus is one of the most linguistically and culturally diverse regions on Earth. The nation states that comprise the Caucasus today are the post-Soviet states Georgia, Armenia, three territories in the region claim independence but are recognized as such by only a handful or by no independent states, Nagorno-Karabakh, Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Abkhazia and South Ossetia are recognised by the majority of independent states as part of Georgia, the Russian divisions include Krasnodar Krai, Stavropol Krai, and the autonomous republics of Adygea, Karachay–Cherkessia, Kabardino-Balkaria, North Ossetia, Ingushetia, Chechnya, and Dagestan. The region has many different languages and language families, there are more than 50 ethnic groups living in the region. Russian is used as a common language, today the peoples of the Northern and Southern Caucasus tend to be either Eastern Orthodox Christians, Oriental Orthodox Christians, or Sunni Muslims. Shia Islam has had many adherents historically in Azerbaijan, located in the part of the region. Located on the peripheries of Turkey, Iran, and Russia, the region has been an arena for political, military, religious, throughout its history, the Caucasus was usually incorporated into the Iranian world
30.
Aras (river)
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The Aras or Araxes is a river in and along the countries of Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Iran. It drains the south side of the Lesser Caucasus Mountains and then joins the Kura River which drains the north side of those mountains and its total length is 1,072 kilometres. Given its length and a basin that covers an area of 102,000 square kilometres, in the classical antiquity the river was known to the Greeks as Araxes. Its modern Armenian name is Araks or Arax, historically, it was known as Yeraskh. Its Old Georgian name is Rakhsi, in other languages, it is known as Turkish, Aras, Persian, ارس, Aras, Kurdish, Erez, Azerbaijani, Araz. The Aras rises near Erzurum, Turkey and it meets with the Akhurian River southeast of Digor, flows along the closed Turkish-Armenian border, and then near a corridor that connects Turkey to Azerbaijans Nakhchivan exclave. It then flows along the Iranian-Armenian and the Iranian-Azerbaijan border, the Zangmar, Sariso, Ghotour River, Hajilar River, Kalibar River, Ilghena River, Darreh River and Balha River are the major tributaries of the Aras from the south. In Turkey the Ghareso river flows in on the left side, the Akhurian, Metsamor, Hrazdan, Azat, Vedi, Arpa, Vorotan, Voghdji and Meghri rivers flow in from the Armenian north side. The Khachin River, Okhchi River, Kuri River and Kandlan River flow in from the Azerbaijan north side, in Armenian tradition, the river is named after Arast, a great-grandson of the legendary Armenian patriarch Haik. The name was later Hellenized to Araxes and was applied to the Kura-Araxes culture, but many times it is the Volga River which is called Araxes especially in Herodotus History 1.202. The river is mentioned in the last chapter of the Aeneid VIII by Virgil, as angry at the bridge, since the Romans built a bridge over it. By some, the river Aras has been associated with the otherwise unidentified Gihon and Pishon rivers mentioned in the chapter of the Bible. In modern history, the Aras gained significance as a political boundary. Iran and the Soviet Union later built the Aras Dam on the Aras in the Poldasht area creating the Aras Reservoir, the Meghri Dam is under construction near the Armenian town of Meghri. During the Cold War, some Iranian communists escaped to USSR using this river, also Samad Behrangi, an Iranian author of childrens books, drowned in the River Aras. It is one of Turkeys two yearly active bird ringing stations, between 2006 and 2015, more than 65,000 birds of 198 species were ringed and 258 bird species were observed at this station. Fifty-five percent of the 471 bird species found in Turkey are recorded at this wetland, the number of ringed and observed 258 bird species comprises 85 percent of the 303 bird species at Iğdır Province. Seven new bird species were observed during the bird ringing activities in 2012 alone, including the raptor Shikra or Little Banded Goshawk, kuzeyDoga started the www. savearas. org campaign which has gathered over 61,500 signatures
31.
Caspian Sea
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The Caspian Sea is the largest enclosed inland body of water on Earth by area, variously classed as the worlds largest lake or a full-fledged sea. It is in a basin located between Europe and Asia. It is bounded by Kazakhstan to the northeast, Russia to the northwest, Azerbaijan to the west, Iran to the south, the Caspian Sea lies to the east of the Caucasus Mountains and to the west of the vast steppe of Central Asia. In its northern part, the Caspian Depression lies 28 to 130 m below sea level, the sea bed in the southern part reaches as low as 1023 m below sea level, which is the second lowest natural depression on earth after Lake Baikal. The ancient inhabitants of its coast perceived the Caspian Sea as an ocean, probably because of its saltiness, the sea has a surface area of 371,000 km2 and a volume of 78,200 km3. It has a salinity of approximately 1. 2%, about a third of the salinity of most seawater, the word Caspian is derived from the name of the Caspi, an ancient people who lived to the southwest of the sea in Transcaucasia. Strabo wrote that to the country of the Albanians belongs also the territory called Caspiane, which was named after the Caspian tribe, as was also the sea, but the tribe has now disappeared. Moreover, the Caspian Gates, which is the name of a region in Irans Tehran province, the Iranian city of Qazvin shares the root of its name with that of the sea. In fact, the traditional Arabic name for the sea itself is Bahr al-Qazwin, in classical antiquity among Greeks and Persians it was called the Hyrcanian Ocean. In Persian antiquity, as well as in modern Iran, it is known as the دریای خزر, Daryā-e Khazar, ancient Arabic sources refer to it as Baḥr Gīlān meaning the Gilan Sea. Turkic languages refer to the lake as Khazar Sea, in Turkmen, the name is Hazar deňizi, in Azeri, it is Xəzər dənizi, and in modern Turkish, it is Hazar denizi. An exception is Kazakh, where it is called Каспий теңізі, old Russian sources call it the Khvalyn or Khvalis Sea after the name of Khwarezmia. In modern Russian, it is called Каспи́йское мо́ре, Kaspiyskoye more, the Caspian Sea, like the Black Sea, Namak Lake, and Lake Urmia, is a remnant of the ancient Paratethys Sea. It became landlocked about 5.5 million years ago due to tectonic uplift and a fall in sea level. Due to the current inflow of water, the Caspian Sea is a freshwater lake in its northern portions, and is most saline on the Iranian shore. Currently, the salinity of the Caspian is one third that of Earths oceans. The Caspian Sea is the largest inland body of water in the world, the coastlines of the Caspian are shared by Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Turkmenistan. The Caspian is divided into three distinct regions, the Northern, Middle, and Southern Caspian
32.
Transcaucasia
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Transcaucasia, or the South Caucasus, is a geopolitical region in the vicinity of the southern Caucasus Mountains on the border of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. Transcaucasia roughly corresponds to modern Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan, Transcaucasia and Ciscaucasia together comprise the larger Caucasus geographical region that divides Eurasia. All of present-day Armenia is in Transcaucasia, the majority of present-day Georgia and Azerbaijan, including the exclave of Nakhchivan, parts of Iran and Turkey are also included within the region of Transcaucasia. Goods produced in the region include oil, manganese ore, tea, citrus fruits and it remains one of the most politically tense regions in the post-Soviet area, and contains three heavily disputed areas, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Nagorno-Karabakh. Between 1878 and 1917 the Russian controlled province of Kars Oblast was also incorporated into the Transcaucasus, Transcaucasia is a Latin rendering of the Russian-language word zakavkazie, meaning the area beyond the Caucasus Mountains. This implies a Russian vantage point, and is analogous to similar terms such as Transnistria and Transleithania, other forms of this word include Trans-Caucasus and Transcaucasus. The region is referred to as Southern Caucasia and the South Caucasus. Located on the peripheries of Turkey, Iran and Russia, the region has been an arena for political, military, religious, throughout history, Transcaucasia was usually under the direct rule of the various in-Iran based empires and part of the Iranian world. In the course of the 19th century, Qajar Iran had to cede the region as a result of the two Russo-Persian Wars of that century to Imperial Russia. Ancient kingdoms of the region included Armenia, Albania and Iberia, later, the Orthodox Christian Kingdom of Georgia dominated most of Transcaucasia. The region was conquered by the Seljuk, Mongol, Turkic, Safavid, Ottoman, Afsharid. The 1826-1828 conquerings were confirmed in the 1828 Treaty of Turkmenchay, in 1801, what is now Georgia was formally incorporated into the Russian Empire. After 1828-1829 war, Ottomans ceded Western Georgia except Adjaria, which was known as Sanjak of Batum, finally after Russo-Turkish War, Russians completed conquest of Transcaucasus. In 1844, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan were combined into a single czarist government-general, Transcaucasia, in particular where modern-day Turkey, Georgia, Armenia and Iran are located, is one of the native areas of the wine-producing vine Vitis vinifera. Some experts speculate that Transcaucasia may be the birthplace of wine production, archaeological excavations and carbon dating of grape seeds from the area have dated back to 7000–5000 BC. Wine found in Iran has been dated to c. 7400 BC and c. 5000 BC, the earliest winery, dated to c. 4000 BC, was found in Armenia
33.
Elite
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Elite, is a term that originates from Latin eligere. In political and sociological theory for a group of powerful people that controls a disproportionate amount of wealth. Insofar as national events are decided, the elite are those who decide them. Mills states that the elite members recognize other members mutual exalted position in society. As a rule, hey accept one another, understand one another, marry one another, tend to work and to think and it is a well-regulated existence where education plays a critical role. These memberships in turn pave the way to the prominent social clubs located in all major cities, the Military Circle, In Mills time a heightened concern about warfare existed, making top military leaders and such issues as defense funding and personnel recruitment very important. Most prominent corporate leaders and politicians were strong proponents of military spending and these two groups tended to be mutually supportive. Unlike the ruling class, a formation based on heritage and social ties. According to Mills, the power elite rose from the reorganization of the propertied classes into the more or less unified stratum of the corporate rich. Domhoff further clarified the differences in the two terms, The upper class as a whole does not do the ruling, Power elite is a term used by American sociologist C. Wright Mills to describe a relatively small, loosely connected group of individuals who dominate American policymaking. The basis for membership of a power élite is institutional power, one study of power élites in the United States under President George W. Bush identified 7,314 institutional positions of power encompassing 5,778 individuals. A later study of U. S. Ethnicity White Anglo-Saxons dominate in the power élite, with Protestants representing about 80 percent of the top business leaders, education Nearly all the leaders have a college education, with almost half graduating with advanced degrees. About 54 percent of the leaders and 42% of the government élite graduated from just 12 prestigious universities with large endowments. Social clubs Most holders of top positions in the power élite possess exclusive membership in one or more social clubs. About a third belong to a number of especially prestigious clubs in major cities like London, New York City, Chicago, Boston. In the 1970s an organized set of policies promoted reduced taxes, especially for the wealthy, starting with legislation in the 1980s, the wealthy banking community successfully lobbied for reduced regulation. Doing so would hopefully alleviate various destructive conditions affecting large numbers of affluent citizens. Mills determined that there is a core of the power elite involving individuals that are able to move from one seat of institutional power to another
34.
Jihad
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Jihad is an Arabic word which literally means striving or struggling, especially with a praiseworthy aim. It can have many shades of meaning in an Islamic context, such as struggle against ones evil inclinations, in classical Islamic law, the term refers to armed struggle against unbelievers, while modernist Islamic scholars generally equate military jihad with defensive warfare. In Sufi and pious circles, spiritual and moral jihad has been traditionally emphasized under the name of greater jihad, the term has gained additional attention in recent decades through its use by terrorist groups. The word jihad appears frequently in the Quran with and without military connotations, Islamic jurists and other ulema of the classical era understood the obligation of jihad predominantly in a military sense. They developed a set of rules pertaining to jihad, including prohibitions on harming those who are not engaged in combat. In the modern era, the notion of jihad has lost its jurisprudential relevance, while modernist Islamic scholars have emphasized defensive and non-military aspects of jihad, some Islamists have advanced aggressive interpretations that go beyond the classical theory. Jihad is classified into inner jihad, which involves a struggle against ones own impulses, and external jihad. Most Western writers consider external jihad to have primacy over inner jihad in the Islamic tradition, gallup analysis of a large survey reveals considerable nuance in the conceptions of jihad held by Muslims around the world. Jihad is sometimes referred to as the pillar of Islam. In Twelver Shia Islam jihad is one of the ten Practices of the Religion, a person engaged in jihad is called a mujahid. The term jihad is often rendered in English as Holy War, in Modern Standard Arabic, the term jihad is used for a struggle for causes, both religious and secular. The Hans Wehr Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic defines the term as fight, battle, jihad, nonetheless, it is usually used in the religious sense and its beginnings are traced back to the Quran and words and actions of Muhammad. In the Quran and in later Muslim usage, jihad is commonly followed by the expression fi sabil illah, in the path of God. Muhammad Abdel-Haleem states that it indicates the way of truth and justice, including all the teachings it gives on the justifications and it is sometimes used without religious connotation, with a meaning similar to the English word crusade. The context of the Quran is elucidated by Hadith, of the 199 references to jihad in perhaps the most standard collection of hadith—Bukhari—all assume that jihad means warfare. He said, The best jihad is the one in which your horse is slain, Ibn Nuhaas also cited a hadith from Musnad Ahmad ibn Hanbal, where Muhammad states that the highest kind of jihad is The person who is killed whilst spilling the last of his blood. According to another hadith, supporting one’s parents is also an example of jihad and it has also been reported that Muhammad considered well-performing hajj to be the best jihad for Muslim women. The practice of raids by Bedouin against enemy tribes and settlements to collect spoils predates the revelations of the Quran
35.
Ganja, Azerbaijan
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Ganja is Azerbaijans second largest city with a population close of about 325,200. It was named Elisabethpol in the Russian Empire period, the city regained its original name, Ganja, in 1920 during the first part of its incorporation into the Soviet Union. However, its name was changed again in 1935 to Kirovabad, in 1989, during Perestroika, the city regained its original name. The area in which Ganja is located was known as Arran from the 9th to 12th century, its urban population spoke mainly in the Persian language. According to the legend, the Arab governor had a dream where a voice told him there was a treasure hidden under one of the three hills around the area where he camped. The voice told him to unearth it and use the money to found a city and he did so and informed the caliph about the money and the city. Caliph made Muhammad the hereditary governor of the city on a condition that he would give the money he found to the caliph, Ganja is also the birthplace of the famous poet Nizami Ganjavi. The city was revived after the Safavids came to power in 1501, for a short period, Ganja was renamed Abbasabad by Shah Abbas after war against the Ottomans. In 1747, Ganja became the center of the Ganja Khanate for a few decades following the death of Nader Shah, until the advent of the Iranian Zand and Qajar dynasties. The khans/dukes who de facto self-ruled the khanate, were subordinate to the rule in mainland Iran and were from a branch of the Iranian Qajar family. From the late 18th century, Russia actively started to increase its enroachments into Iranian, Russian expansion into the South Caucasus met particularly strong opposition in Ganja. Some western sources assert that the capture of the city was followed by a massacre of up to 3,000 inhabitants of Ganja by the Russians. They also claim that 500 of them were slaughtered in a mosque where they had taken refuge, thosaunds of Azeris left Ganja and fled to Iran following the capture. A brief Iranian recapture of its territories happened between 1826-1827 during the Russo-Persian War, but the resulting Treaty of Turkmenchay made its inclusion into the Russian Empire definite. It was renamed Elisabethpol after the wife of Alexander I of Russia, Elisabeth, elizavetpol was an uyezd of Tiflis Governorate before 1868. The Russian name was not accepted by Azerbaijanis who continued to call the city Ganja, in April 1920, the Red Army occupied Azerbaijan. In May 1920, Ganja was the scene of an abortive anti-Soviet rebellion, in 1935, Joseph Stalin renamed the city Kirovabad after Sergei Kirov. In 1991, Azerbaijan re-established its independence, and the ancient name of the city was given back, for many years the 104th Guards Airborne Division of the Soviet Airborne Troops was based in the town
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