1.
Uzbekistan
–
Uzbekistan, officially the Republic of Uzbekistan, is one of only two doubly landlocked countries in the world. Located in Central Asia, it is a unitary, constitutional, presidential republic, comprising twelve provinces, one autonomous republic and a capital city. Uzbekistan is bordered by five landlocked countries, Kazakhstan to the north, Tajikistan to the southeast, Kyrgyzstan to the northeast, Afghanistan to the south, and Turkmenistan to the southwest. Once part of the Turkic Khaganate and later Timurid Empires, the region that includes the Republic of Uzbekistan was conquered in the early 16th century by Eastern Turkic-speaking nomads. Following the breakup of the Soviet Union, it declared independence as the Republic of Uzbekistan on 31 August 1991, Uzbekistan is officially a democratic, secular, unitary, constitutional republic with a diverse cultural heritage. The countrys official language is Uzbek, a Turkic language written in the Latin alphabet and spoken natively by approximately 85% of the population, however, Uzbeks constitute 81% of the population, followed by Russians, Tajiks, Kazakhs, and others. A majority of Uzbeks are non-denominational Muslims, Uzbekistan is a member of the Commonwealth of Independent States, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, UN, and the SCO. While officially a republic, non-governmental human rights organizations define Uzbekistan as an authoritarian state with limited civil rights. Uzbekistans economy relies mainly on commodity production, including cotton, gold, uranium, despite the declared objective of transition to a market economy, its government continues to maintain economic controls which imports in favour of domestic import substitution. Uzbekistan has an area of 447,400 square kilometres and it is the 56th largest country in the world by area and the 42nd by population. Among the CIS countries, it is the 4th largest by area, Uzbekistan lies between latitudes 37° and 46° N, and longitudes 56° and 74° E. It stretches 1,425 kilometres from west to east and 930 kilometres from north to south, Uzbekistan also shares a short border with Afghanistan to the south. Uzbekistan is a dry, landlocked country and it is one of two doubly landlocked countries in the world, the other being Liechtenstein. In addition, due to its location within a series of endorheic basins, less than 10% of its territory is intensively cultivated irrigated land in river valleys and oases. The rest is vast desert and mountains, the climate in the Republic of Uzbekistan is continental, with little precipitation expected annually. The average summer high temperature tends to be 40 °C, while the winter low temperature is around −23 °C. Uzbekistan has a rich and diverse natural environment, the Aral Sea used to be the fourth-largest inland sea on Earth, acting as an influencing factor in the air moisture and arid land use. Since the 1960s, the decade when the misuse of the Aral Sea water began, it has shrunk to less than 50% of its former area, reliable, or even approximate data, have not been collected, stored or provided by any organization or official agency
Uzbekistan
–
Comparison of the
Aral Sea between 1989 and 2014.
Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan
–
Female statuette wearing the
kaunakes. Chlorite and limestone,
Bactria, beginning of the 2nd millennium BC.
Uzbekistan
–
Alexander the Great at the
Battle of Issus.
2.
Bukhara Region
–
Bukhara Region is a region of Uzbekistan located in the southwest of the country. The Kyzyl Kum desert takes up a portion of its territory. It borders Turkmenistan, Navoiy Region, Qashqadaryo Region, a part of the Xorazm Region. It covers an area of 39,400 km2, the population is estimated at 1,543,900, with 71% living in rural areas. Buxoro Region is divided into 11 administrative districts, other major towns include Alat, Karakul, Galaasiya, Gazli, Gijduvan, Kagan, Romitan, Shafirkan, and Vabkent. The climate is an arid continental climate. The old city of Bukhara is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, famous as a living museum, there are numerous historical and architectural monuments in and around the city and adjacent districts. Buxoro Region has significant natural resources, especially natural gas, petroleum, graphite, bentonite, marble, sulfur, limestone, the most developed industrial activities are oil refining, cotton ginning, textiles, and other light industry. Traditional Uzbek crafts such as embroidery, ceramics, and engraving have been revived. Bukhara Region is the center of sheep breeding and production of karakul pelts in Uzbekistan. Official website Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Bokhara
Bukhara Region
–
Bukhara in Uzbekistan
3.
Urban area
–
An urban area is a human settlement with high population density and infrastructure of built environment. Urban areas are created through urbanization and are categorized by urban morphology as cities, in urbanism, the term contrasts to rural areas such as villages and hamlets and in urban sociology or urban anthropology it contrasts with natural environment. The worlds urban population in 1950 of just 746 million has increased to 3.9 billion in the decades since, in 2009, the number of people living in urban areas surpassed the number living in rural areas and since then the world has become more urban than rural. This was the first time that the majority of the population lived in a city. In 2014 there were 7.25 billion people living on the planet, Urban areas are created and further developed by the process of urbanization. Urban areas are measured for various purposes, including analyzing population density, historian John Gurda writes, I have tried to uncover Milwaukees civic bedrock - the shifting foundation on which individuals have built their lives and the community has constructed its identity. There is no doubt that the deepest layer of bedrock is economic. In every age, people have chosen to live in areas not because of their climates or landmarks or cultural attractions. It was economic opportunity that brought people to Milwaukee, and it is economic opportunity that keeps them there, I define cities as concentrations of people animated by concentrations of capital. More simply put, money is the root of all cities, official definitions vary somewhat between nations. The ten largest metropolitan areas account for half of the population, about 3 million people live in Buenos Aires City and the Greater Buenos Aires metropolitan area totals around 13 million, making it one of the largest urban areas in the world. The metropolitan areas of Córdoba, Rosario, Mendoza and Tucumán have around 1.3 million inhabitants each and La Plata, seven other provinces have over one million people each, Mendoza, Tucumán, Entre Ríos, Salta, Chaco, Corrientes and Misiones. According to IBGE urban areas already concentrate 84. 35% of the population, while the Southeast region remains the most populated one, with over 80 million inhabitants. The largest metropolitan areas in Brazil are São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Belo Horizonte — all in the Southeastern Region — with 20,12, and 5 million inhabitants respectively. The majority of state capitals are the largest cities in their states, except for Vitória, the capital of Espírito Santo, and Florianópolis, there are also non-capital metropolitan areas in the states of São Paulo, Minas Gerais, Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina. According to Statistics Canada, an area in Canada is an area with a population of at least 1,000 people where the density is no fewer than 400 persons per square kilometre. If two or more areas are within 2 km of each other by road, they are merged into a single urban area. Accordingly, the new definition set out three types of population centres, small, medium and large
Urban area
–
Greater Tokyo Area, the world's most populous urban area, with about 35 million people.
Urban area
–
Buenos Aires Córdoba
Urban area
Urban area
–
Rosario Mendoza
4.
Metropolitan area
–
As social, economic and political institutions have changed, metropolitan areas have become key economic and political regions. The Greater São Paulo is a term for one of the multiple definitions the large metropolitan area located in the São Paulo state in Brazil. A metropolitan area combines an urban agglomeration with zones not necessarily urban in character and these outlying zones are sometimes known as a commuter belt, and may extend well beyond the urban zone, to other political entities. For example, El Monte, California is considered part of the Los Angeles metro area in the United States, in practice, the parameters of metropolitan areas, in both official and unofficial usage, are not consistent. Population figures given for one area can vary by millions. A polycentric metropolitan area is one not connected by continuous development or conurbation, in defining a metropolitan area, it is sufficient that a city or cities form a nucleus that other areas have a high degree of integration with. The Australian Bureau of Statistics defines statistical divisions as areas under the influence of one or more major towns or a major city. However, this definition has become obsolete with the conurbation of several statistical divisions into a larger metropolitan areas. In Brazil, metropolitan areas are called metropolitan regions, each State defines its own legislation for the creation, definition and organization of a metropolitan region. The creation of a region is not intended for any statistical purpose, although the Brazilian Institute of Geography. Their main purpose is to allow for a management of public policies of common interest to all cities involved. They dont have political, electoral or jurisdictional power whatsoever, so living in a metropolitan region do not elect representatives for them. Statistics Canada defines a metropolitan area as an area consisting of one or more adjacent municipalities situated around a major urban core. To form a CMA, the area must have a population of at least 100,000. To be included in the CMA, adjacent municipalities must have a degree of integration with the core. As of the Canada 2011 Census, there were 33 CMAs in Canada, including six with a population over one million—Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Ottawa, Calgary and Edmonton. In Denmark the only area is Greater Copenhagen, consisting of the Capital Region of Denmark along with the neighboring regions Region Zealand. Greater Copenhagen has an population of 1.25 million people
Metropolitan area
–
Greater Buenos Aires,
Argentina
Metropolitan area
–
Paris (
France), one of Europe's major centres
Metropolitan area
–
Tel Aviv Metropolitan Area,
Israel
Metropolitan area
–
Perth, Western Australia, an isolated metropolitan area
5.
Vehicle registration plate
–
A vehicle registration plate, also known as a number plate or a license plate, is metal or plastic plate attached to a motor vehicle or trailer for official identification purposes. The registration identifier is a numeric or alphanumeric ID that uniquely identifies the owner within the issuing regions database. The first two letters indicate the state to which the vehicle is registered, the next two digit numbers are the sequential number of a district. Due to heavy volume of vehicle registration, the numbers were given to the RTO offices of registration as well, the third part indicates the year of registration of the vehicle and is a 4 digit number unique to each plate. In some countries, the identifier is unique within the entire country, whether the identifier is associated with a vehicle or a person also varies by issuing agency. In the vast majority of jurisdictions, the government holds a monopoly on the manufacturing of vehicle registration plates for that jurisdiction. Thus, it is illegal for private citizens to make and affix their own plates. Alternately, the government will merely assign plate numbers, and it is the owners responsibility to find an approved private supplier to make a plate with that number. In some jurisdictions, plates will be assigned to that particular vehicle for its lifetime. If the vehicle is destroyed or exported to a different country. Other jurisdictions follow a policy, meaning that when a vehicle is sold the seller removes the current plate from the vehicle. Buyers must either obtain new plates or attach plates they already hold, as well as register their vehicles under the buyers name, a person who sells a car and then purchases a new one can apply to have the old plates put onto the new car. One who sells a car and does not buy a new one may, depending on the laws involved, have to turn the old plates in or destroy them. Some jurisdictions permit the registration of the vehicle with personal plates, in some jurisdictions, plates require periodic replacement, often associated with a design change of the plate itself. Vehicle owners may or may not have the option to keep their original plate number, alternately, or additionally, vehicle owners have to replace a small decal on the plate or use a decal on the windshield to indicate the expiration date of the vehicle registration. Plates are usually fixed directly to a vehicle or to a frame that is fixed to the vehicle. Sometimes, the plate frames contain advertisements inserted by the service centre or the dealership from which the vehicle was purchased. Vehicle owners can also purchase customized frames to replace the original frames, in some jurisdictions licence plate frames are illegal
Vehicle registration plate
–
Some
jurisdictions license non-traditional vehicles, such as
golf carts, particularly on on-road vehicles, such as this one in
Put-in-Bay, Ohio.
Vehicle registration plate
–
Burkina passenger plate
Vehicle registration plate
–
Burkina Faso Gendarmerie plate
Vehicle registration plate
–
Botswana plate
6.
Uzbek language
–
Uzbek is a Turkic language and the official language of Uzbekistan. It has 27 million native speakers and is spoken by the Uzbeks in Uzbekistan, Uzbek belongs to the Eastern Turkic, or Karluk, branch of the Turkic language family. External influences include Persian, Arabic and Russian, one of the most noticeable distinctions of Uzbek from other Turkic languages is the rounding of the vowel /a/ to /ɒ/ or /ɔ/, a feature that was influenced by Persian. In the language itself, Uzbek is oʻzbek tili or oʻzbekcha, in Cyrillic, the same names are written ўзбек тили and ўзбекча, in Arabic script, ازبېک تیلی and ازبېجه. The first Turkic dynasty in the region was that of the Kara-Khanid Khanate in the 9th–12th centuries, the language was championed by Ali-Shir Navai in the 15th and 16th centuries. Navai was the greatest representative of Chagatai language literature and he significantly contributed to the development of the Chagatay language and its direct descendant Uzbek and is widely considered to be the founder of Uzbek literature. Ultimately based on the Karluk variant of the Turkic languages, Chagatay contained large numbers of Persian, by the 19th century it was rarely used for literary composition, but disappeared only in the early 20th century. The term Uzbek as applied to language has meant different things at different times, all three dialects continue to exist within modern spoken Uzbek. Edward A. Allworth argued that this badly distorted the history of the region and was used to give authors such as the 15th century author Ali-Shir Navai an Uzbek identity. Estimates of the number of speakers of Uzbek vary widely, the Swedish encyclopedia Nationalencyklopedin estimates the number of native speakers to be 26 million, and the CIA World Factbook estimates 25 million. The influence of Islam, and by extension, Arabic, is evident in Uzbek loanwords, there is also a residual influence of Russian, from the time when Uzbeks were under the rule of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. Uzbek vocabulary has also heavily influenced by Persian through its historic roots. The Uzbek language has many dialects, varying widely from region to region, however, there is a commonly understood dialect which is used in mass media and in most printed materials. Among the most-widespread dialects are the Tashkent dialect, Afghan dialect, the Ferghana dialect, the Khorezm dialect, the Chimkent-Turkestan dialect, 1928–1940, the Latin-based Yañalif used officially. 1940–1992, the Cyrillic script used officially, since 1992, Yañalif is official in Uzbekistan, although the Cyrillic script is still widely used. Despite the official status of the Latin script in Uzbekistan, the use of Cyrillic is still widespread, especially in advertisements, in newspapers, scripts may be mixed, with headlines in Latin and articles in Cyrillic. The Arabic script is no longer used in Uzbekistan except symbolically in limited texts or for the studies of Chagatai. In the western Chinese region of Xinjiang, where there is an Uzbek minority, however, the Uyghur Arabic alphabet is sometimes used
Uzbek language
–
A 1911 Uzbek text in the Arabic script
Uzbek language
–
Dark blue = majority; light blue = minority
7.
Tajik language
–
Tajik or Tajiki is the variety of Persian spoken in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. It is closely related to Dari Persian, since the beginning of the twentieth century, Tajik has been considered by a number of writers and researchers to be a variety of Persian. The issue of whether Tajik and Persian are to be considered two dialects of a language or two discrete languages has political sides to it. Today Tajik is recognized as a West-Iranian language, Tajik is the official language of Tajikistan. In Afghanistan, this language is influenced by Turkic languages, is called Dari. The standard language is based on the dialects of Tajik. The most important cities of Central Asia—Samarkand and Bukhara—are in present-day Uzbekistan, today, virtually all Tajik speakers in Bukhara are bilingual in Tajik and Uzbek. This Tajik–Uzbek bilingualism has had a influence on the phonology, morphology. Tajiks are also found in numbers in the Surxondaryo Region in the south. Tajik is still spoken in Samarqand and Buxoro today, as Tajiks account for perhaps 70% of the total population of Samarqand and have been estimated to make up as much as 90% of Buxoro. Official statistics in Uzbekistan state that the Tajik community comprises 5% of the total population. However, these numbers do not include ethnic Tajiks who, for a variety of reasons, the Uzbekization movement ended in 1924. Native Tajiks living in the nation of Uzbekistan have reportedly estimated that Tajiks make up 25–30% of the nations population, Tajiks constitute 80% of Tajikistans population, and Persian dominates in most parts of the country. Some Tajiks in Badakhshan in southeastern Tajikistan, where the Pamir languages are the languages of most residents, are bilingual. Tajiks constitute between 25% and 30% of the population of the country. 50% of Afghan citizens are native speakers of Dari, a large Tajik-speaking diaspora exists due to the instability that has plagued Central Asia in recent years, with significant numbers of Tajiks found in Russia, Kazakhstan, and beyond. This Tajik diaspora is also the result of the state of the economy of Tajikistan. Tajik dialects can be split into the following groups, Northern dialects
Tajik language
–
Toçikī in the
Tajik alphabet
Tajik language
–
Tajik Republic's 1929 coat of arms with Tajik language in Perso-Arabic script جمهوريه اجتماعی شوروى مختار تاجيكستان
8.
Russian language
–
Russian is an East Slavic language and an official language in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and many minor or unrecognised territories. Russian belongs to the family of Indo-European languages and is one of the four living members of the East Slavic languages, written examples of Old East Slavonic are attested from the 10th century and beyond. It is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia and the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages and it is also the largest native language in Europe, with 144 million native speakers in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Russian is the eighth most spoken language in the world by number of native speakers, the language is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Russian is also the second most widespread language on the Internet after English, Russian distinguishes between consonant phonemes with palatal secondary articulation and those without, the so-called soft and hard sounds. This distinction is found between pairs of almost all consonants and is one of the most distinguishing features of the language, another important aspect is the reduction of unstressed vowels. Russian is a Slavic language of the Indo-European family and it is a lineal descendant of the language used in Kievan Rus. From the point of view of the language, its closest relatives are Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Rusyn. An East Slavic Old Novgorod dialect, although vanished during the 15th or 16th century, is considered to have played a significant role in the formation of modern Russian. In the 19th century, the language was often called Great Russian to distinguish it from Belarusian, then called White Russian and Ukrainian, however, the East Slavic forms have tended to be used exclusively in the various dialects that are experiencing a rapid decline. In some cases, both the East Slavic and the Church Slavonic forms are in use, with different meanings. For details, see Russian phonology and History of the Russian language and it is also regarded by the United States Intelligence Community as a hard target language, due to both its difficulty to master for English speakers and its critical role in American world policy. The standard form of Russian is generally regarded as the modern Russian literary language, mikhail Lomonosov first compiled a normalizing grammar book in 1755, in 1783 the Russian Academys first explanatory Russian dictionary appeared. By the mid-20th century, such dialects were forced out with the introduction of the education system that was established by the Soviet government. Despite the formalization of Standard Russian, some nonstandard dialectal features are observed in colloquial speech. Thus, the Russian language is the 6th largest in the world by number of speakers, after English, Mandarin, Hindi/Urdu, Spanish, Russian is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Education in Russian is still a choice for both Russian as a second language and native speakers in Russia as well as many of the former Soviet republics. Russian is still seen as an important language for children to learn in most of the former Soviet republics, samuel P. Huntington wrote in the Clash of Civilizations, During the heyday of the Soviet Union, Russian was the lingua franca from Prague to Hanoi
Russian language
–
Russian language street sign in
Russia.
Russian language
–
Russian minimarket in
Limassol, Cyprus; translation: "Teremok market. Russian goods. Phone number: 96 74 19 63"
Russian language
–
This page from an "ABC" book printed in Moscow in 1694 shows the letter
П.
Russian language
–
The
Ostromir Gospels of 1056 is the second oldest
East Slavic book known, one of many medieval
illuminated manuscripts preserved in the
Russian National Library.
9.
Silk Road
–
While the term is of modern coinage, the Silk Road derives its name from the lucrative trade in silk carried out along its length, beginning during the Han dynasty. The Han dynasty expanded Central Asian sections of the routes around 114 BCE, largely through missions and explorations of the Chinese imperial envoy. The Chinese took great interest in the safety of their trade products, though silk was certainly the major trade item exported from China, many other goods were traded, as well as religions, syncretic philosophies, and various technologies. Diseases, most notably plague, also spread along the Silk Routes, in addition to economic trade, the Silk Road was a route for cultural trade among the civilizations along its network. The main traders during antiquity included the Chinese, Arabs, Turkmens, Indians, Persians, Somalis, Greeks, Syrians, Romans, Georgians, Armenians, Bactrians, in June 2014, UNESCO designated the Changan-Tianshan corridor of the Silk Road as a World Heritage Site. The Silk Road derives its name from the lucrative Eurasian silk and horse trade, the German terms Seidenstraße and Seidenstraßen were coined by Ferdinand von Richthofen, who made seven expeditions to China from 1868 to 1872. The term Silk Route is also used, although the term was coined in the 19th century, it did not gain widespread acceptance in academia or popularity among the public until the 20th century. The first book entitled The Silk Road was by Swedish geographer Sven Hedin in 1938, the fall of the Soviet Union and Iron Curtain in 1989 led to a surge of public and academic interest in Silk Road sites and studies in the former Soviet republics of Central Asia. Use of the term Silk Road is not without its detractors and he notes that traditional authors discussing East-West trade such as Marco Polo and Edward Gibbon never labelled any route as a silk one in particular. From the 2nd millennium BCE, nephrite jade was being traded from mines in the region of Yarkand, some remnants of what was probably Chinese silk dating from 1070 BCE have been found in Ancient Egypt. The Great Oasis cities of Central Asia played a role in the effective functioning of the Silk Road trade. This style is reflected in the rectangular belt plaques made of gold and bronze, with other versions in jade. The tomb of a Scythian prince near Stuttgart, Germany, dated to the 6th century BCE, was excavated and found to have not only Greek bronzes but also Chinese silks. Scythians accompanied the Assyrian Esarhaddon on his invasion of Egypt, soghdian Scythian merchants played a vital role in later periods in the development of the Silk Road. By the time of Herodotus, the Royal Road of the Persian Empire ran some 2,857 km from the city of Susa on the Karun to the port of Smyrna on the Aegean Sea. It was maintained and protected by the Achaemenid Empire and had postal stations, by having fresh horses and riders ready at each relay, royal couriers could carry messages the entire distance in nine days, while normal travellers took about three months. The next major step in the development of the Silk Road was the expansion of the Greek empire of Alexander the Great into Central Asia and this later became a major staging point on the northern Silk Route. They continued to expand eastward, especially during the reign of Euthydemus, there are indications that he may have led expeditions as far as Kashgar in Chinese Turkestan, leading to the first known contacts between [China and the West around 200 BCE
Silk Road
–
Main routes of the Silk Road
Silk Road
–
Woven
silk textile from Tomb No. 1 at
Mawangdui,
Changsha,
Hunan province, China,
dated to the Western Han Era, 2nd century BCE.
Silk Road
–
A
Scythian horseman from the
Ili river,
Pazyryk, c. 300 BCE.
Silk Road
–
Chinese
jade and
steatite plaques, in the
Scythian -style animal art of the steppes. 4th–3rd century BCE.
British Museum.
10.
UNESCO
–
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations based in Paris. It is the heir of the League of Nations International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation, UNESCO has 195 member states and nine associate members. Most of its offices are cluster offices covering three or more countries, national and regional offices also exist. UNESCO pursues its objectives through five major programs, education, natural sciences, social/human sciences, culture and it is also a member of the United Nations Development Group. UNESCO and its mandate for international cooperation can be traced back to a League of Nations resolution on 21 September 1921, on 18 December 1925, the International Bureau of Education began work as a non-governmental organization in the service of international educational development. However, the work of predecessor organizations was largely interrupted by the onset of World War II. On 30 October 1943, the necessity for an organization was expressed in the Moscow Declaration, agreed upon by China, the United Kingdom, the United States. This was followed by the Dumbarton Oaks Conference proposals of 9 October 1944, a prominent figure in the initiative for UNESCO was Rab Butler, the Minister of Education for the United Kingdom. At the ECO/CONF, the Constitution of UNESCO was introduced and signed by 37 countries, the Preparatory Commission operated between 16 November 1945, and 4 November 1946—the date when UNESCOs Constitution came into force with the deposit of the twentieth ratification by a member state. The first General Conference took place between 19 November to 10 December 1946, and elected Dr. Julian Huxley to Director-General and this change in governance distinguished UNESCO from its predecessor, the CICI, in how member states would work together in the organizations fields of competence. In 1956, the Republic of South Africa withdrew from UNESCO claiming that some of the organizations publications amounted to interference in the racial problems. South Africa rejoined the organization in 1994 under the leadership of Nelson Mandela, UNESCOs early work in the field of education included the pilot project on fundamental education in the Marbial Valley, Haiti, started in 1947. This project was followed by missions to other countries, including, for example. In 1948, UNESCO recommended that Member States should make free primary education compulsory, in 1990, the World Conference on Education for All, in Jomtien, Thailand, launched a global movement to provide basic education for all children, youths and adults. Ten years later, the 2000 World Education Forum held in Dakar, Senegal, UNESCOs early activities in culture included, for example, the Nubia Campaign, launched in 1960. The purpose of the campaign was to move the Great Temple of Abu Simbel to keep it from being swamped by the Nile after construction of the Aswan Dam, during the 20-year campaign,22 monuments and architectural complexes were relocated. This was the first and largest in a series of campaigns including Mohenjo-daro, Fes, Kathmandu, Borobudur, the organizations work on heritage led to the adoption, in 1972, of the Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage. The World Heritage Committee was established in 1976 and the first sites inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1978, since then important legal instruments on cultural heritage and diversity have been adopted by UNESCO member states in 2003 and 2005
UNESCO
–
UNESCO offices in
Brasília
UNESCO
–
UNESCO
UNESCO
–
UNESCO Institute for Water Education in
Delft
UNESCO
–
The Garden of Peace, UNESCO headquarters, Paris. Donated by the Government of Japan, this garden was designed by American-Japanese sculptor artist Isamu Noguchi in 1958 and installed by Japanese gardener Toemon Sano.
11.
Mosque
–
A mosque is a place of worship for followers of Islam. There are strict and detailed requirements in Sunni jurisprudence for a place of worship to be considered a mosque, many mosques have elaborate domes, minarets, and prayer halls, in varying styles of architecture. Mosques originated on the Arabian Peninsula, but are now found in all inhabited continents, the mosque serves as a place where Muslims can come together for salat as well as a center for information, education, social welfare, and dispute settlement. The imam leads the congregation in prayer, the first mosque in the world is often considered to be the area around the Kaaba in Mecca now known as the Masjid al-Haram. Others regard the first mosque in history to be the Quba Mosque in present-day Medina since it was the first structure built by Muhammad upon his emigration from Mecca in 622. The Islamic Prophet Muhammad went on to another mosque in Medina. Built on the site of his home, Muhammad participated in the construction of the mosque himself and helped pioneer the concept of the mosque as the focal point of the Islamic city. The Masjid al-Nabawi introduced some of the still common in todays mosques, including the niche at the front of the prayer space known as the mihrab. The Masjid al-Nabawi was also constructed with a courtyard, a motif common among mosques built since then. Mosques had been built in Iraq and North Africa by the end of the 7th century, the Imam Husayn Shrine in Karbala is reportedly one of the oldest mosques in Iraq, although its present form – typical of Persian architecture – only goes back to the 11th century. The shrine, while operating as a mosque, remains one of the holiest sites for Shia Muslims, as it honors the death of the third Shia imam. The Mosque of Amr ibn al-As was reportedly the first mosque in Egypt, serving as a religious, like the Imam Husayn Shrine, though, nothing of its original structure remains. With the later Shia Fatimid Caliphate, mosques throughout Egypt evolved to include schools, hospitals and it was the first to incorporate a square minaret and includes naves akin to a basilica. Those features can also be found in Andalusian mosques, including the Grand Mosque of Cordoba, still, some elements of Visigothic architecture, like horseshoe arches, were infused into the mosque architecture of Spain and the Maghreb. The first mosque in East Asia was reportedly established in the 8th century in Xian, however, the Great Mosque of Xian, whose current building dates from the 18th century, does not replicate the features often associated with mosques elsewhere. Indeed, minarets were initially prohibited by the state, mosques in western China were more likely to incorporate elements, like domes and minarets, traditionally seen in mosques elsewhere. In turn, the Javanese style influenced the styles of mosques in Indonesias Austronesian neighbors—Malaysia, Brunei, Muslim empires were instrumental in the evolution and spread of mosques. Although mosques were first established in India during the 7th century, reflecting their Timurid origins, Mughal-style mosques included onion domes, pointed arches, and elaborate circular minarets, features common in the Persian and Central Asian styles
Mosque
–
The
Masjid al-Haram surrounds the
Kaaba, and it is the holiest site in Islam.
Mosque
–
The
Imam Reza shrine in Mashhad, Iran is a complex which contains the mausoleum of Imam Reza, the eighth Imam of Twelver Shi'ites
Mosque
–
Quba Mosque in
Medina is one of the oldest mosque in the world.
Mosque
–
The
Great Mosque of Kairouan, in Tunisia, is the oldest mosque in the Muslim West.
12.
Madrassa
–
Madrasa is the Arabic word for any type of educational institution, whether secular or religious. The word is variously transliterated madrasah, medresa, madrassa, madraza, medrese, in the West, the word usually refers to a specific type of religious school or college for the study of the Islamic religion, though this may not be the only subject studied. In countries like India, not all students in madrasas are Muslims, the word madrasah derives from the triconsonantal Semitic root د-ر-س D-R-S to learn, study, through the wazn مفعل, mafʻal, meaning a place where something is done. Therefore, madrasah literally means a place where learning and studying take place, for example, in the Ottoman Empire during the Early Modern Period, madaris had lower schools and specialised schools where the students became known as danişmends. The usual Arabic word for a university, however, is جامعة, the Hebrew cognate midrasha also connotes the meaning of a place of learning, the related term midrash literally refers to study or learning, but has acquired mystical and religious connotations. However, in English, the term usually refers to the specifically Islamic institutions. A regular curriculum includes courses in Arabic, tafsir, sharīʻah, hadiths, mantiq, in the Ottoman Empire, during the Early Modern Period, the study of hadiths was introduced by Süleyman I. Depending on the demands, some madaris also offer additional advanced courses in Arabic literature, English and other foreign languages, as well as science. Ottoman madaris along with religious teachings also taught styles of writing, grammary, syntax, poetry, composition, natural sciences, political sciences, people of all ages attend, and many often move on to becoming imams. The certificate of an ʻālim, for example, requires approximately twelve years of study, a good number of the ḥuffāẓ are the product of the madaris. The madaris also resemble colleges, where people take evening classes, an important function of the madaris is to admit orphans and poor children in order to provide them with education and training. Madaris may enroll female students, however, they study separately from the men, the term Islamic education means education in the light of Islam itself, which is rooted in the teachings of the Quran - holy book of Muslims. Islamic education and Muslim education are not the same, because Islamic education has epistemological integration which is founded on Tawhid - Oneness or monotheism. The first institute of education was at the estate of Hazrat Zaid bin Arkam near a hill called Safa, where Hazrat Muhammad was the teacher. After Hijrah the madrasa of Suffa was established in Madina on the east side of the Al-Masjid an-Nabawi mosque, ubada ibn as-Samit was appointed there by Hazrat Muhammad as teacher and among the students. In the curriculum of the madrasa, there were teachings of The Quran, The Hadith, faraiz, tajweed, genealogy, treatises of first aid, there were also trainings of horse-riding, art of war, handwriting and calligraphy, athletics and martial arts. The first part of madrasa based education is estimated from the first day of nabuwwat to the first portion of the Umaiya caliphate and it was founded by Fāṭimah al-Fihrī, the daughter of a wealthy merchant named Muḥammad al-Fihrī. This was later followed by the establishment of al-Azhar in 959 in Cairo, niẓām al-Mulk, who would later be murdered by the Assassins, created a system of state madaris in various ʻAbbāsid cities at the end of the 11th century
Madrassa
–
Portal of
Kasımiye Medrese,
Mardin,
Turkey
Madrassa
–
Alauddin Khilji 's Madrasa,
Qutb complex, built in the early-14th century in
Delhi,
India.
Madrassa
–
Registan, Sher-Dor Madrasa in
Samarkand
Madrassa
–
A
Muslim kindergarten in
Yangzhou, China
13.
World Heritage Site
–
A World Heritage Site is a landmark which has been officially recognized by the United Nations, specifically by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Sites are selected on the basis of having cultural, historical, scientific or some form of significance. UNESCO regards these sites as being important to the interests of humanity. The programme catalogues, names, and conserves sites of outstanding cultural or natural importance to the common culture, under certain conditions, listed sites can obtain funds from the World Heritage Fund. The program was founded with the Convention Concerning the Protection of the Worlds Cultural and Natural Heritage, since then,192 state parties have ratified the convention, making it one of the most adhered to international instruments. As of July 2016,1052 sites are listed,814 cultural,203 natural, in 1959, the governments of Egypt and Sudan requested UNESCO to assist their countries to protect and rescue the endangered monuments and sites. In 1960, the Director-General of UNESCO launched an appeal to the Member States for an International Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia, the campaign, which ended in 1980, was considered a success. The project cost $80 million, about $40 million of which was collected from 50 countries, the projects success led to other safeguarding campaigns, saving Venice and its lagoon in Italy, the ruins of Mohenjo-daro in Pakistan, and the Borobodur Temple Compounds in Indonesia. UNESCO then initiated, with the International Council on Monuments and Sites, the United States initiated the idea of cultural conservation with nature conservation. The International Union for Conservation of Nature developed similar proposals in 1968, the Convention came into force on 17 December 1975. As of June 2016, it has been ratified by 192 states, including 188 UN member states plus the Cook Islands, the Holy See, Niue, a country must first list its significant cultural and natural sites, the result is called the Tentative List. A country may not nominate sites that have not been first included on the Tentative List, next, it can place sites selected from that list into a Nomination File. The Nomination File is evaluated by the International Council on Monuments and Sites and these bodies then make their recommendations to the World Heritage Committee. There are ten selection criteria – a site must meet at least one of them to be included on the list, up to 2004, there were six criteria for cultural heritage and four criteria for natural heritage. In 2005, this was modified so there is now only one set of ten criteria. Nominated sites must be of outstanding value and meet at least one of the ten criteria. Thus, the Geneva Convention treaty promulgates, Article 53, PROTECTION OF CULTURAL OBJECTS AND OF PLACES OF WORSHIP. There are 1,052 World Heritage Sites located in 165 States Party, of these,814 are cultural,203 are natural and 35 are mixed properties
World Heritage Site
–
Site #252:
Taj Mahal, an example of cultural heritage site
World Heritage Site
–
Logo of the
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)
World Heritage Committee
World Heritage Site
–
Site #156:
Serengeti National Park, an example of natural heritage site
World Heritage Site
–
Site #274:
Historic Sanctuary of Machu Picchu, an example of mixed heritage site
14.
Greater Khorasan
–
Khorasan is a historical region lying in the northeast of Persia. Khorasan in its proper sense comprised principally the cities of Balkh and Herat, Mashhad and Nishapur, Merv and Nisa, and Bukhara and Samarkand. Some believe that at certain times Khorasan covered an area, which included parts of Transoxiana, Soghdiana, Sistan. Sources from the 14th to the 16th century report that areas in the south of the Hindu Kush mountain range formed a frontier between Khorasan and Hindustan, in the Islamic period, Persian Iraq and Khorasan were the two important territories. The boundary between these two was the surrounding the cities of Gurgan and Qumis. In particular, the Ghaznavids, Seljuqs, and Timurids divided their empires into Iraqi, the adjective Greater is added these days to distinguish the historical region from the Khorasan Province of Iran, which roughly encompassed the western half of the historical Greater Khorasan. The name Khorāsān is derived from Middle Persian Khwarāsān, a compound of khwar, thus the name Khorasan means land where the sun rises or east. The Persian word Khāvar-zamīn, meaning the land, has also been used as an equivalent term. First established as an entity by the Sassanids, the borders of the region have varied considerably during its 1. Initially the Khorasan province of Sassanid empire included the cities of Nishapur, Herat, Merv, Faryab, Taloqan, Balkh, Bukhara, Badghis, Abiward, Gharjistan, Tus or Susia, Sarakhs and Gurgan. It acquired its greatest extent under the Caliphs, for whom Khorasan was the name of one of the three political zones under their dominion. Under the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates, Khorasan was divided into four sections or quarters, each section based on a single major city, Nishapur, Merv, Herat. In the Middle Ages, the term was applied in Persia to all its territories that lay east and north east of Dasht-e Kavir. Ghobar uses the terms Proper Khorasan and Improper Khorasan in his book to distinguish between the usage of Khorasan in its sense and its usage in a loose sense. Improper Khorasans boundaries extended to as far as Hazarajat and Kabul in the east, Sistan and Baluchistan in the south, Transoxiana and Khwarezm in the north, and Damghan and Gorgan in the west. It is mentioned in the Memoirs of Babur that, The people of Hindustān call every country beyond their own Khorasān, in the manner as the Arabs term all except Arabia. On the road between Hindustān and Khorasān, there are two great marts, the one Kābul, the other Kandahār. Caravans, from Ferghāna, Tūrkestān, Samarkand, Balkh, Bokhāra, Hissār and this country lies between Hindustān and Khorasān
Greater Khorasan
–
Names of territories during the
Caliphate in 750 CE.
Greater Khorasan
–
An accurate map of Persia by
Emanuel Bowen showing the names of territories during the Persian
Safavid dynasty and
Mughal Empire of India (
ca. 1500–1747)
Greater Khorasan
–
An early
turquoise mine in the Madan village of Khorasan during the early 20th century
Greater Khorasan
–
The village of Meyamei in 1909
15.
Arabic language
–
Arabic is a Central Semitic language that was first spoken in Iron Age northwestern Arabia and is now the lingua franca of the Arab world. Arabic is also the language of 1.7 billion Muslims. It is one of six languages of the United Nations. The modern written language is derived from the language of the Quran and it is widely taught in schools and universities, and is used to varying degrees in workplaces, government, and the media. The two formal varieties are grouped together as Literary Arabic, which is the language of 26 states. Modern Standard Arabic largely follows the standards of Quranic Arabic. Much of the new vocabulary is used to denote concepts that have arisen in the post-Quranic era, Arabic has influenced many languages around the globe throughout its history. During the Middle Ages, Literary Arabic was a vehicle of culture in Europe, especially in science, mathematics. As a result, many European languages have borrowed many words from it. Many words of Arabic origin are found in ancient languages like Latin. Balkan languages, including Greek, have acquired a significant number of Arabic words through contact with Ottoman Turkish. Arabic has also borrowed words from languages including Greek and Persian in medieval times. Arabic is a Central Semitic language, closely related to the Northwest Semitic languages, the Ancient South Arabian languages, the Semitic languages changed a great deal between Proto-Semitic and the establishment of the Central Semitic languages, particularly in grammar. Innovations of the Central Semitic languages—all maintained in Arabic—include, The conversion of the suffix-conjugated stative formation into a past tense, the conversion of the prefix-conjugated preterite-tense formation into a present tense. The elimination of other prefix-conjugated mood/aspect forms in favor of new moods formed by endings attached to the prefix-conjugation forms, the development of an internal passive. These features are evidence of descent from a hypothetical ancestor. In the southwest, various Central Semitic languages both belonging to and outside of the Ancient South Arabian family were spoken and it is also believed that the ancestors of the Modern South Arabian languages were also spoken in southern Arabia at this time. To the north, in the oases of northern Hijaz, Dadanitic and Taymanitic held some prestige as inscriptional languages, in Najd and parts of western Arabia, a language known to scholars as Thamudic C is attested
Arabic language
–
The Galland Manuscript of
One Thousand and One Nights, 14th century
Arabic language
–
al-ʿArabiyyah in written Arabic (
Naskh script)
Arabic language
–
Bilingual traffic sign in
Qatar.
Arabic language
–
Examples of how the Arabic root and form system works.
16.
Persian language
–
Persian, also known by its endonym Farsi, is one of the Western Iranian languages within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan and it is mostly written in the Persian alphabet, a modified variant of the Arabic script. Its grammar is similar to that of many contemporary European languages, Persian gets its name from its origin at the capital of the Achaemenid Empire, Persis, hence the name Persian. A Persian-speaking person may be referred to as Persophone, there are approximately 110 million Persian speakers worldwide, with the language holding official status in Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan. For centuries, Persian has also been a cultural language in other regions of Western Asia, Central Asia. It also exerted influence on Arabic, particularly Bahrani Arabic. Persian is one of the Western Iranian languages within the Indo-European family, other Western Iranian languages are the Kurdish languages, Gilaki, Mazanderani, Talysh, and Balochi. Persian is classified as a member of the Southwestern subgroup within Western Iranian along with Lari, Kumzari, in Persian, the language is known by several names, Western Persian, Parsi or Farsi has been the name used by all native speakers until the 20th century. Since the latter decades of the 20th century, for reasons, in English. Tajiki is the variety of Persian spoken in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan by the Tajiks, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term Persian as a language name is first attested in English in the mid-16th century. Native Iranian Persian speakers call it Fārsi, Farsi is the Arabicized form of Pārsi, subsequent to Muslim conquest of Persia, due to a lack of the phoneme /p/ in Standard Arabic. The origin of the name Farsi and the place of origin of the language which is Fars Province is the Arabicized form of Pārs, in English, this language has historically been known as Persian, though Farsi has also gained some currency. Farsi is encountered in some literature as a name for the language. In modern English the word Farsi refers to the language while Parsi describes Zoroastrians, some Persian language scholars such as Ehsan Yarshater, editor of Encyclopædia Iranica, and University of Arizona professor Kamran Talattof, have also rejected the usage of Farsi in their articles. The international language-encoding standard ISO 639-1 uses the code fa, as its system is mostly based on the local names. The more detailed standard ISO 639-3 uses the name Persian for the dialect continuum spoken across Iran and Afghanistan and this consists of the individual languages Dari and Iranian Persian. Currently, Voice of America, BBC World Service, Deutsche Welle, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty also includes a Tajik service and an Afghan service. This is also the case for the American Association of Teachers of Persian, The Centre for Promotion of Persian Language and Literature, Persian is an Iranian language belonging to the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European family of languages
Persian language
–
Old Persian
Persian language
–
Ferdowsi 's
Shahnameh
Persian language
–
Kalilah va Dimna, an influential work in Persian literature.
17.
History of Bukhara
–
The history of Bukhara stretches back for millennia. The origin of its inhabitants back to the period of Aryan immigration into the region. The city itself, currently the capital of the Bukhara Province of Uzbekistan, is two and a half thousand years old. Located on the Silk Road, the city has long been a centre of trade, scholarship, culture, during the golden age of the Samanids in the 9th and 10th centuries CE, Bukhara became the intellectual centre of the Islamic world. UNESCO has listed the historic centre of Bukhara, which contains numerous mosques, Bukhara functioned as one of the main centres of Persian civilization from its early days in the 6th century BCE - Turkic speakers gradually moved in from the 6th century CE. The citys architectural and archaeological sites form one of the pillars of Central Asian history, the region of Bukhara long formed part of the Persian Empire. According to the Iranian epic poem Shahnameh, the city was founded by King Siavash, son of Shah Kai Kavoos and he said that he wanted to create this town because of its many rivers, its hot lands, and its location on the silk road. As the legend goes, Siāvash was accused by his stepmother Sudabeh of seducing her, to test his innocence he underwent trial by fire. After emerging unscathed from amidst the flames, he crossed the Oxus River into Turan, the king of Samarkand, Afrasiab, wed his daughter, Ferganiza, to Siavash, and further granted him a vassal kingdom in the Bukhara oasis. There he built the Ark or Arg and the surrounding city, some years later, Siavash was accused of plotting to overthrow his father-in-law and become the king of united Iran and Turan. Afrasiab believed this and ordered Siavashs execution in front of Farangis, in retaliation, King Kai Kavoos sent Rostam, the legendary super-hero, to attack Turan. Rostam killed Afrasiab, and took Farangis and Siavashs son, Kay Khusrau, officially the city was founded in 500 BCE in the area now called the Ark. However, the Bukhara oasis had been inhabited long before, the Russian archaeologist E. E. Kuzmina links the Zaman-Baba culture found in the Bukhara Oasis in the third millennium BCE to the spread of Indo-Aryans across Central Asia. Since 3000 BCE an advanced Bronze Age culture called the Sapalli Culture thrived at such sites as Varakhsha, Vardan, Paykend, in 1500 BCE a combination of factors—climatic drying, iron technology, and the arrival of Aryan nomads—triggered a population shift to the oasis from outlying areas. Together both the Sapalli and Aryan people lived in villages along the shores of a dense lake, by 1000 BC both groups had merged into a distinctive culture. Around 700 BCE this new culture, called Sogdian, flourished in city-states along the Zeravshan Valley, by this time, the lake had silted up and three small fortified settlements had been built. By 500 BCE these settlements had grown together and were enclosed by a wall, Bukhara entered history in 500 BCE as a vassal state or satrapy in the Persian Empire. Later it passed into the hands of the Alexander the Great, the Hellenistic Seleucid Empire, the Greco-Bactrians, during this time, Bukhara functioned as a cult centre for the worship of Anahita, and her associated temple economy
History of Bukhara
–
Gold 20-
stater of the
Greco-Bactrian king
Eucratides (170-145
BC), the largest gold coin ever minted in antiquity.
History of Bukhara
–
Alim Khan (1880–1944), last emir of Bukhara, deposed in 1920
History of Bukhara
–
Red Army troops entering old Bukhara after besieging the city.
18.
Capital (political)
–
A capital city is the municipality exercising primary status in a country, state, province, or other region, usually as its seat of government. A capital is typically a city that encompasses the offices and meeting places of its respective government. In some jurisdictions, including countries, the different branches of government are located in different settlements. In some cases, a distinction is made between the capital and the seat of government, which is in another place. The word capital derives from the Latin caput, meaning head, in several English-speaking states, the terms county town, county seat, and borough seat are also used in lower subdivisions. In unitary states, subnational capitals are known as administrative centres. The capital is often, but not necessarily, the largest city of its constituent, historically, the major economic centre of a state or region often becomes the focal point of political power, and becomes a capital through conquest or federation. Examples are Ancient Babylon, Abbasid Baghdad, Ancient Athens, Rome, Constantinople, Changan, Ancient Cusco, Madrid, Paris, London, Moscow, Beijing, Tokyo, Vienna, and Berlin. Some of these cities are or were also religious centres, e. g. Constantinople, Rome, Jerusalem, Ancient Babylon, Moscow, Belgrade, Paris, and Peking. A capital city that is also the economic, cultural. The convergence of political and economic or cultural power is by no means universal, traditional capitals may be economically eclipsed by provincial rivals, e. g. Nanking by Shanghai, Quebec City by Montreal, and numerous US state capitals. The decline of a dynasty or culture could also mean the extinction of its city, as occurred at Babylon. Although many capitals are defined by constitution or legislation, many long-time capitals have no legal designation as such, for example Bern, Edinburgh, Lisbon, London, Paris, are located in or near them. In Canada, there is a capital, while the ten provinces. The states of such countries as Mexico, Brazil, and Australia all have capital cities, for example, the six state capitals of Australia are Adelaide, Brisbane, Hobart, Melbourne, Perth, and Sydney. In Australia, the capital cities is regularly used, to refer to the aforementioned state capitals plus the federal capital Canberra and Darwin. Abu Dhabi is the city of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi. In unitary states which consist of multiple constituent countries, such as the United Kingdom or the Kingdom of Denmark, the national capitals of Germany and Russia, the Stadtstaat of Berlin and the Federal City of Moscow, are also constituent states of both countries in their own right
Capital (political)
–
Parliament Hill, the national legislative buildings, in
Ottawa, the capital of
Canada.
Capital (political)
–
The
Roman Forum was surrounded by many government buildings as the capital of
Ancient Rome.
Capital (political)
–
The
Western Wall is one of the greatest findings of the Jewish history in
Jerusalem.
Capital (political)
–
Cornwall Council headquarters in the
county town of
Truro.
19.
Samanids
–
The Samanid Empire, also known as the Samanid dynasty, Samanid Emirate, or simply Samanids, was a Sunni Iranian empire, ruling from 819 to 999. The Samanid state was founded by four brothers, Nuh, Ahmad, Yahya, in 892, Ismail ibn Ahmad united the Samanid state under one ruler, thus effectively putting an end to the feudal system used by the Samanids. It was also under him that the Samanids became independent of Abbasid authority, the Samanid Empire is part of the Iranian Intermezzo, which saw the creation of a Persianate culture and identity that brought Iranian speech and traditions into the fold of the Islamic world. This would lead to the formation of the Turko-Persian culture, the Samanids promoted the arts, giving rise to the advancement of science and literature, and thus attracted scholars such as Rudaki, Ferdowsi, and Avicenna. While under Samanid control, Bukhara was a rival to Baghdad in its glory, scholars note that the Samanids revived Persian more than the Buyids and the Saffarids, while continuing to patronize Arabic to a smaller degree. In a famous edict, Samanid authorities declared that here, in region, the language is Persian. The eponymous ancestor of the Samanid dynasty was Saman Khuda, a Persian noble who belonged to a dehqan family, the latter is more probable since the earliest appearance of the Samanid family appears to be in Khorasan rather than Transoxiana. Originally a Zoroastrian, Saman Khuda converted to Islam during the governorship of Asad ibn Abdallah al-Qasri in Khorasan and this marked the beginning of the Samanid dynasty. He was defeated at a battle near Pushang in 857, and fled to Nishapur, the Tahirids thereafter assumed direct control over Herat. In 839/40, Nuh seized Isfijab from the nomadic pagan Turks living in the steppe and he thereafter had a wall constructed around the city to protect it from their attacks. He died in 841/2—his two brothers Yahya and Ahmad, were appointed as the joint rulers of the city by the Tahirid governor of Khorasan. After Yahyas death in 855, Ahmad took control over Shash and he died in 864/5, his son Nasr I received Farghana and Samarkand, while his other son Yaqub received Shash. Nasr I used this opportunity to strengthen his authority by sending his brother Ismail to Bukhara, when Ismail reached the city, he was warmly received by its inhabitants, who saw him as one who could restore order. Although the Bukhar Khudahs continued to rule in Bukhara for a few more years. After not so long, disagreement over where tax money should be distributed, started a conflict between the brothers, Ismail was eventually victorious in the dynastic struggle, and took control of the Samanid state. However, Nasr had been the one who had invested with Transoxiana. Because of this, Ismail continued to recognize his brother as well, but Nasr was completely powerless and he thereafter forced the Abbasid caliph to recognize him as the ruler of those territories, which they did. In the spring of 900, he clashed with Ismail near Balkh, Ismail thereafter sent him Baghdad, where he was executed
Samanids
–
The Samanid Empire at its greatest extent under
Isma'il ibn Ahmad
Samanids
–
History of Afghanistan
Samanids
–
Monument of
Amir Ismail Samani in
Tajikistan
20.
Islamic world
–
The terms Muslim world and Islamic world commonly refer to the Islamic community, comprising all those who adhere to the religion of Islam, or to societies where Islam is practiced. In a modern sense, these terms refer to countries where Islam is widespread. In the modern era, most of the Muslim world came under influence or colonial domination of European powers. The nation states emerged in the post-colonial era have adopted a variety of political and economic models. As of 2015, over 1.7 billion or about 23% of the population are Muslims including the 4% who live as minorities. Muslim history involves the history of the Islamic faith as a religion, the history of Islam began in Arabia with the Islamic prophet Muhammads first recitations of the Quran in the 7th century in the month of Ramadan. However, Islam under the Rashidun Caliphate grew rapidly, a century after the death of last Islamic prophet Muhammad, the Islamic empire extended from Spain in the west to Indus in the east. The Islamic Golden Age coincided with the Middle Ages in the Muslim world, starting with the rise of Islam and establishment of the first Islamic state in 622. The end of the age is given as 1258 with the Mongolian Sack of Baghdad, or 1492 with the completion of the Christian Reconquista of the Emirate of Granada in Al-Andalus. The Abbasids were influenced by the Quranic injunctions and hadiths, such as the ink of a scholar is more holy than the blood of a martyr, that stressed the value of knowledge. The major Islamic capital cities of Baghdad, Cairo, and Córdoba became the intellectual centers for science, philosophy, medicine. Between the 8th and 18th centuries, the use of glaze was prevalent in Islamic art. Tin-opacified glazing was one of the earliest new technologies developed by the Islamic potters, the first Islamic opaque glazes can be found as blue-painted ware in Basra, dating to around the 8th century. Another contribution was the development of fritware, originating from 9th century Iraq, other centers for innovative ceramic pottery in the Old world included Fustat, Damascus and Tabriz. The original concept is derived from a pre-Islamic Persian prototype Hezār Afsān that relied on particular Indian elements and it reached its final form by the 14th century, the number and type of tales have varied from one manuscript to another. All Arabian fantasy tales tend to be called Arabian Nights stories when translated into English, regardless of whether they appear in The Book of One Thousand and this work has been very influential in the West since it was translated in the 18th century, first by Antoine Galland. Imitations were written, especially in France, various characters from this epic have themselves become cultural icons in Western culture, such as Aladdin, Sinbad the Sailor and Ali Baba. A famous example of Arabic poetry and Persian poetry on romance is Layla and Majnun and it is a tragic story of undying love much like the later Romeo and Juliet, which was itself said to have been inspired by a Latin version of Layla and Majnun to an extent
Islamic world
–
The
Tabula Rogeriana, drawn by
Al-Idrisi in 1154, one of the most advanced
ancient world maps. Al-Idrisi also wrote about the diverse Muslim communities found in various lands.
Islamic world
–
The Muslim population of the world map by percentage of each country, according to the
Pew Forum (assessed in 29 June 2014).
Islamic world
–
Mir Sayyid Ali, a scholar writing a commentary on the
Quran, during the reign of the
Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan.
Islamic world
–
Portrait of a painter during the reign of
Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II.
21.
Baghdad
–
Baghdad is the capital of the Republic of Iraq. The population of Baghdad, as of 2016, is approximately 8,765,000 making it the largest city in Iraq, the second largest city in the Arab world, and the second largest city in Western Asia. Located along the Tigris River, the city was founded in the 8th century, within a short time of its inception, Baghdad evolved into a significant cultural, commercial, and intellectual center for the Islamic world. This, in addition to housing several key institutions, garnered the city a worldwide reputation as the Centre of Learning. Throughout the High Middle Ages, Baghdad was considered to be the largest city in the world with a population of 1,200,000 -3,000,000 people. The city was destroyed at the hands of the Mongol Empire in 1258, resulting in a decline that would linger through many centuries due to frequent plagues. With the recognition of Iraq as an independent state in 1938, in contemporary times, the city has often faced severe infrastructural damage, most recently due to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and the subsequent Iraq War that lasted until December 2011. In recent years, the city has been subjected to insurgency attacks. As of 2012, Baghdad was listed as one of the least hospitable places in the world to live, the site where the city of Baghdad developed has been populated for millennia. By the 8th century AD, several villages had developed there, including a Persian hamlet called Baghdad, the name is of Indo-European origin and a Middle Persian compound of Bagh god and dād given by, translating to Bestowed by God or Gods gift. In Old Persian the first element can be traced to boghu and is related to Slavic bog god, a similar term in Middle Persian is the name Mithradāt, known in English by its Hellenistic form Mithridates, meaning gift of Mithra. There are a number of locations in the wider region whose names are compounds of the word bagh, including Baghlan. The name of the town Baghdati in Georgia shares the same etymological origins, when the Abbasid caliph, al-Mansur, founded a completely new city for his capital, he chose the name Madinat al-Salaam or City of Peace. This was the name on coins, weights, and other official usage. By the 11th century, Baghdad became almost the exclusive name for the world-renowned metropolis, after the fall of the Umayyads, the first Muslim dynasty, the victorious Abbasid rulers wanted their own capital whence they could rule. They chose a site north of the Sassanid capital of Ctesiphon, on 30 July 762, the caliph Al-Mansur commissioned the construction of the city, mansur believed that Baghdad was the perfect city to be the capital of the Islamic empire under the Abbasids. Mansur loved the site so much he is quoted saying, This is indeed the city that I am to found, where I am to live, and where my descendants will reign afterward. The citys growth was helped by its excellent location, based on at least two factors, it had control over strategic and trading routes along the Tigris, the abundance of water in a dry climate
Baghdad
–
Zumurrud Khaton tomb in Baghdad (built in 1202 AD), photo of 1932.
Baghdad
–
Panoramic view over the ancient city of
Babylon, located 85 km (53 mi) south of Baghdad.
Baghdad
–
Suq al-Ghazel (The Yarn Bazaar) Minaret in Baghdad,
Mesopotamia (
Iraq). This is the oldest
minaret in Baghdad. It belonged to the Caliph Mosque, built by Caliph Muktafi 901–907 AD.
22.
World Heritage Sites
–
A World Heritage Site is a landmark which has been officially recognized by the United Nations, specifically by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Sites are selected on the basis of having cultural, historical, scientific or some form of significance. UNESCO regards these sites as being important to the interests of humanity. The programme catalogues, names, and conserves sites of outstanding cultural or natural importance to the common culture, under certain conditions, listed sites can obtain funds from the World Heritage Fund. The program was founded with the Convention Concerning the Protection of the Worlds Cultural and Natural Heritage, since then,192 state parties have ratified the convention, making it one of the most adhered to international instruments. As of July 2016,1052 sites are listed,814 cultural,203 natural, in 1959, the governments of Egypt and Sudan requested UNESCO to assist their countries to protect and rescue the endangered monuments and sites. In 1960, the Director-General of UNESCO launched an appeal to the Member States for an International Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia, the campaign, which ended in 1980, was considered a success. The project cost $80 million, about $40 million of which was collected from 50 countries, the projects success led to other safeguarding campaigns, saving Venice and its lagoon in Italy, the ruins of Mohenjo-daro in Pakistan, and the Borobodur Temple Compounds in Indonesia. UNESCO then initiated, with the International Council on Monuments and Sites, the United States initiated the idea of cultural conservation with nature conservation. The International Union for Conservation of Nature developed similar proposals in 1968, the Convention came into force on 17 December 1975. As of June 2016, it has been ratified by 192 states, including 188 UN member states plus the Cook Islands, the Holy See, Niue, a country must first list its significant cultural and natural sites, the result is called the Tentative List. A country may not nominate sites that have not been first included on the Tentative List, next, it can place sites selected from that list into a Nomination File. The Nomination File is evaluated by the International Council on Monuments and Sites and these bodies then make their recommendations to the World Heritage Committee. There are ten selection criteria – a site must meet at least one of them to be included on the list, up to 2004, there were six criteria for cultural heritage and four criteria for natural heritage. In 2005, this was modified so there is now only one set of ten criteria. Nominated sites must be of outstanding value and meet at least one of the ten criteria. Thus, the Geneva Convention treaty promulgates, Article 53, PROTECTION OF CULTURAL OBJECTS AND OF PLACES OF WORSHIP. There are 1,052 World Heritage Sites located in 165 States Party, of these,814 are cultural,203 are natural and 35 are mixed properties
World Heritage Sites
–
Site #252:
Taj Mahal, an example of cultural heritage site
World Heritage Sites
–
Logo of the
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)
World Heritage Committee
World Heritage Sites
–
Site #156:
Serengeti National Park, an example of natural heritage site
World Heritage Sites
–
Site #274:
Historic Sanctuary of Machu Picchu, an example of mixed heritage site
23.
Persian Empire
–
Persian Empire refers to any of a series of imperial dynasties centered in Persia. The first of these was the Achaemenid Empire established by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC with the conquest of Median, Lydian and Babylonian empires and it covered much of the Ancient world when it was conquered by Alexander the Great. Several later dynasties claimed to be heirs of the Achaemenids, Persia was then ruled by the Parthian Empire which supplanted the Hellenistic Seleucid Empire, and then by the Sassanian Empire which ruled up until mid 7th century. It is important to note that many of these empires referred to themselves as Persian, they were often ethnically ruled by Medes, Babylonians. Iranian dynastic history was interrupted by the Arab Muslim conquest of Persia in 651 AD, establishing the even larger Islamic Caliphate, the main religion of ancient Persia was the native Zoroastrianism, but after the seventh century, it was replaced by Islam. Since 1979 and the downfall of the Pahlavi dynasty during Iranian Revolution, Persia has had a Shiah theocratic government
Persian Empire
–
Extent of the first Persian Empire, the
Achaemenid Empire.
24.
Aryan
–
Aryan is a term meaning noble which was used as a self-designation by Indo-Iranian people. The closely related Iranian people also used the term as a label for themselves in the Avesta scriptures. It was believed in the 19th century that it was also a used by all Proto-Indo-Europeans. Scholars point out that, even in ancient times, the idea of being an Aryan was religious, cultural and linguistic, through Houston Stewart Chamberlain, Gobineaus ideas later influenced the Nazi racial ideology, which also saw Aryan peoples as innately superior to other putative racial groups. The English word Aryan is borrowed from the Sanskrit word ārya, आर्य and it was reintroduced into English with the new spelling by William Jones in the 18th century. Philologist J. P. Mallory argues that As an ethnic designation, the word is most properly limited to the Indo-Iranians, in early Vedic literature, the term Āryāvarta was the name given to northern India, where the Indo-Aryan culture was based. The Manusmṛti gives the name Āryāvarta to the tract between the Himalaya and the Vindhya ranges, from the Eastern to the Western Sea, initially the term was used as a national name to designate those who worshipped the Vedic deities and followed Vedic culture. The Sanskrit term comes from proto-Indo-Iranian *arya- or *aryo-, the used by the Indo-Iranians to designate themselves. The Zend airya venerable and Old Persian ariya are also derivates of *aryo-, in Iranian languages, the original self-identifier lives on in ethnic names like Alans and Iron. Similarly, the name of Iran is the Persian word for land/place of the Aryans, the Proto-Indo-Iranian term is hypothesized to have proto-Indo-European origins, while according to Szemerényi it is probably a Near-Eastern loanword from the Ugaritic ary, kinsmen. It has been postulated the Proto-Indo-European root word is *haerós with the members of ones own group, peer. The word *haerós itself is believed to have come from the root *haer meaning put together, the original meaning in Proto-Indo-European had a clear emphasis on the in-group status as distinguished from that of outsiders, particularly those captured and incoporated into the group as slaves. While in Anatolia, the word has come to emphasize personal relationship. A review of other ideas, and the various problems with each is given by Oswald Szemerényi. Proto-Indo-Europeans, during the 19th century, it was proposed that Aryan was also the self-designation of the Proto-Indo-Europeans, Aryan language family, the Indo-Aryan languages, Iranian languages and Nuristani languages, Indo-Aryan languages specifically, also called Indic. The term Aryan is used by Indian nationalists and Iranian nationalists to refer themselves as Aryan in contrast to the Indo-Aryan migration theory, during the 19th century it was proposed that Aryan was also the self-designation of the Proto-Indo-Europeans. Based on speculations that the Proto-Indo-European homeland was located in northern Europe, a 19th-century hypothesis which is now abandoned and it has been used in Nazi racial theory to describe persons corresponding to the Nordic physical ideal of Nazi Germany. In Sanskrit and related Indic languages, ārya means one who does noble deeds, Āryāvarta abode of the āryas is a common name for North India in Sanskrit literature
Aryan
–
The earliest epigraphically-attested reference to the word arya occurs in the 6th-century B.C.
Behistun inscription, which describes itself to have been composed "in arya [language or script]" (§ 70). As is also the case for all other Old Iranian language usage, the arya of the inscription does not signify anything but "
Iranian ".
Aryan
–
The earliest epigraphically-attested reference to the word ariya occurs in the 6th century BCE
Behistun inscription, which describes itself to have been composed "in ariya [language or script]" (¶ 70). As is also the case for all other Old Iranian language usage, the ariya of the inscription does not signify anything but "
Iranian ".
Aryan
–
Madison Grant 's vision of the distribution of "Nordics" (red), "Alpines" (green) and "Mediterraneans" (yellow).
Aryan
–
An
intertitle from the
silent film blockbuster
The Birth of a Nation (1915). "Aryan birthright" is here "white birthright", the "defense" of which unites "
whites " in the Northern and Southern U.S. against "
coloreds ". In another film of the same year,
The Aryan,
William S. Hart 's "Aryan" identity is defined in distinction from
Mexicans.
25.
Samanid Empire
–
The Samanid Empire, also known as the Samanid dynasty, Samanid Emirate, or simply Samanids, was a Sunni Iranian empire, ruling from 819 to 999. The Samanid state was founded by four brothers, Nuh, Ahmad, Yahya, in 892, Ismail ibn Ahmad united the Samanid state under one ruler, thus effectively putting an end to the feudal system used by the Samanids. It was also under him that the Samanids became independent of Abbasid authority, the Samanid Empire is part of the Iranian Intermezzo, which saw the creation of a Persianate culture and identity that brought Iranian speech and traditions into the fold of the Islamic world. This would lead to the formation of the Turko-Persian culture, the Samanids promoted the arts, giving rise to the advancement of science and literature, and thus attracted scholars such as Rudaki, Ferdowsi, and Avicenna. While under Samanid control, Bukhara was a rival to Baghdad in its glory, scholars note that the Samanids revived Persian more than the Buyids and the Saffarids, while continuing to patronize Arabic to a smaller degree. In a famous edict, Samanid authorities declared that here, in region, the language is Persian. The eponymous ancestor of the Samanid dynasty was Saman Khuda, a Persian noble who belonged to a dehqan family, the latter is more probable since the earliest appearance of the Samanid family appears to be in Khorasan rather than Transoxiana. Originally a Zoroastrian, Saman Khuda converted to Islam during the governorship of Asad ibn Abdallah al-Qasri in Khorasan and this marked the beginning of the Samanid dynasty. He was defeated at a battle near Pushang in 857, and fled to Nishapur, the Tahirids thereafter assumed direct control over Herat. In 839/40, Nuh seized Isfijab from the nomadic pagan Turks living in the steppe and he thereafter had a wall constructed around the city to protect it from their attacks. He died in 841/2—his two brothers Yahya and Ahmad, were appointed as the joint rulers of the city by the Tahirid governor of Khorasan. After Yahyas death in 855, Ahmad took control over Shash and he died in 864/5, his son Nasr I received Farghana and Samarkand, while his other son Yaqub received Shash. Nasr I used this opportunity to strengthen his authority by sending his brother Ismail to Bukhara, when Ismail reached the city, he was warmly received by its inhabitants, who saw him as one who could restore order. Although the Bukhar Khudahs continued to rule in Bukhara for a few more years. After not so long, disagreement over where tax money should be distributed, started a conflict between the brothers, Ismail was eventually victorious in the dynastic struggle, and took control of the Samanid state. However, Nasr had been the one who had invested with Transoxiana. Because of this, Ismail continued to recognize his brother as well, but Nasr was completely powerless and he thereafter forced the Abbasid caliph to recognize him as the ruler of those territories, which they did. In the spring of 900, he clashed with Ismail near Balkh, Ismail thereafter sent him Baghdad, where he was executed
Samanid Empire
–
The Samanid Empire at its greatest extent under
Isma'il ibn Ahmad
Samanid Empire
–
History of Afghanistan
Samanid Empire
–
Monument of
Amir Ismail Samani in
Tajikistan
26.
Genghis Khan
–
Genghis Khan, born Temüjin, was the founder and Great Khan of the Mongol Empire, which became the largest contiguous empire in history after his death. He came to power by uniting many of the tribes of Northeast Asia. After founding the Empire and being proclaimed Genghis Khan, he started the Mongol invasions that conquered most of Eurasia, campaigns initiated in his lifetime include those against the Qara Khitai, Caucasus, and Khwarazmian, Western Xia and Jin dynasties. These campaigns were accompanied by large-scale massacres of the civilian populations – especially in the Khwarazmian. By the end of his life, the Mongol Empire occupied a portion of Central Asia. Before Genghis Khan died, he assigned Ögedei Khan as his successor and he died in 1227 after defeating the Western Xia. He was buried in an unmarked grave somewhere in Mongolia, many of these invasions repeated the earlier large-scale slaughters of local populations. As a result, Genghis Khan and his empire have a reputation in local histories. Beyond his military accomplishments, Genghis Khan also advanced the Mongol Empire in other ways and he decreed the adoption of the Uyghur script as the Mongol Empires writing system. He also practiced meritocracy and encouraged religious tolerance in the Mongol Empire, present-day Mongolians regard him as the founding father of Mongolia. This brought communication and trade from Northeast Asia into Muslim Southwest Asia and Christian Europe, Temüjin was related on his fathers side to Khabul Khan, Ambaghai, and Hotula Khan, who had headed the Khamag Mongol confederation and were descendants of Bodonchar Munkhag. When the Jurchen Jin dynasty switched support from the Mongols to the Tatars in 1161, Temüjins father, Yesügei, emerged as the head of the ruling Mongol clan. This position was contested by the rival Tayichiud clan, who descended directly from Ambaghai, when the Tatars grew too powerful after 1161, the Jin switched their support from the Tatars to the Keraites. Little is known about Temüjins early life, due to the lack of written records. The few sources that give insight into this period often contradict, Temüjins name was derived from the Mongol word temür meaning of iron, while jin denotes agency thus temüjin means blacksmith. Temüjin was probably born in 1162 in Delüün Boldog, near the mountain Burkhan Khaldun, the Secret History of the Mongols reports that Temüjin was born grasping a blood clot in his fist, a traditional sign that he was destined to become a great leader. He was the son of his father Yesügei who was a Kiyad chief prominent in the Khamag Mongol confederation. Temüjin was the first son of his mother Hoelun, according to the Secret History, Temüjin was named after the Tatar chief Temüjin-üge whom his father had just captured
Genghis Khan
–
Genghis Khan as portrayed in a 14th-century
Yuan era album.
Genghis Khan
–
The
Onon River, Mongolia, in autumn, the region where Temüjin was born and grew up.
Genghis Khan
–
The locations of the Mongolian tribes during the
Khitan Empire (907-1125)
Genghis Khan
–
Jurchen inscription (1196) in Mongolia relating to Genghis Khan's alliance with the Jin against the Tatars.
27.
Emirate of Bukhara
–
The Emirate of Bukhara was a Central Asian state that existed from 1785 to 1920. It occupied the land between the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers, known formerly as Transoxiana and its core territory was the land along the lower Zarafshan River, and its urban centres were the ancient cities of Samarkand and the emirates capital, Bukhara. It was contemporaneous with the Khanate of Khiva to the west, in Khwarezm, and it is now within the boundaries of Uzbekistan. The Emirate of Bukhara was officially created in 1785, upon the assumption of rulership by the Manghit emir, Shah Murad. Moreover, both of its neighbors, the Khanate of Khiva and the Kokand Khanate, as well as its predecessor, in 1747, after Nadir Shahs death, the ataliq Muhammad Rahim Bi murdered Abulfayz Khan and his son, ending the Janid dynasty. From then on the emirs allowed puppet khans to rule until, following the death of Abu l-Ghazi Khan, in 1868, the emirate lost a war with Imperial Russia, which had colonial aspirations in the region. Russia annexed much of the territory, including the important city of Samarkand. In 1873 the remainder became a Russian protectorate, and was surrounded by the Governorate-General of Turkestan. The Red Army launched an assault in March 1920. The Emirate of Bukhara was conquered by the Bolsheviks and replaced with the Bukharan Peoples Soviet Republic, today the territory of the defunct emirate lies mostly in Uzbekistan, with parts in Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan. It had also included present northern Afghanistan between 1793 and 1850, the emirs daughter Shukria Raad Alimi worked as a broadcaster in Radio Afghanistan. Shukria Raad left Afghanistan with her three months after Soviet troops invaded the country in December 1979. With her husband, also a journalist, and two children she fled to Pakistan, and then through Germany to the United States, in 1982, she joined the VOA, and has worked as a broadcaster for VOAs Dari Service, editor, host and producer. Located along important trading routes, Bukhara enjoyed a cultural mixture, including Persian, Uzbek. The city of Bukhara has a history of Persian architecture and literature. Prominent artists of the include the poet Kiromi Bukhoroi, the calligrapher Mirza Abd al-Aziz Bukhari. Throughout this period, the madrasahs of the region were renowned, pink Rows Signifies progenitor chiefs serving as Tutors & Viziers to the Khans of Bukhara. Green Rows Signifies chiefs who took over reign of government from the Janids, the Russian conquest of the Bukharan Emirate, military and diplomatic aspects in Central Asian Survey, Volume 33, issue 2,2014, p. 180-198
Emirate of Bukhara
–
A bureaucrat in Bukhara, ca.1910
Emirate of Bukhara
–
Flag
Emirate of Bukhara
–
Fires in Bukhara during the Red Army's
attack, 1 September 1920
Emirate of Bukhara
–
The Emirate of Bukhara (top), with
Kabool (centre) and
Balochistan (bottom and right).
28.
Russian Civil War
–
The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war in the former Russian Empire immediately after the Russian Revolutions of 1917, as many factions vied to determine Russias political future. In addition, rival militant socialists and nonideological Green armies fought against both the Bolsheviks and the Whites, eight foreign nations intervened against the Red Army, notably the Allied Forces and the pro-German armies. The Red Army defeated the White Armed Forces of South Russia in Ukraine, the remains of the White forces commanded by Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel were beaten in Crimea and evacuated in late 1920. Lesser battles of the war continued on the periphery for two years, and minor skirmishes with the remnants of the White forces in the Far East continued well into 1923. Armed national resistance in Central Asia was not completely crushed until 1934, there were an estimated 7,000, 000–12,000,000 casualties during the war, mostly civilians. The Russian Civil War has been described by some as the greatest national catastrophe that Europe had yet seen, many pro-independence movements emerged after the break-up of the Russian Empire and fought in the war. Several parts of the former Russian Empire—Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, the rest of the former Russian Empire was consolidated into the Soviet Union shortly afterwards. After the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, the Russian Provisional Government was established during the February Revolution of 1917, Political commissars were appointed to each unit of the army to maintain morale and ensure loyalty. In June 1918, when it became apparent that an army composed solely of workers would be far too small. Former Tsarist officers were utilized as military specialists, sometimes their families were taken hostage in order to ensure their loyalty, at the start of the war three-quarters of the Red Army officer corps was composed of former Tsarist officers. By its end, 83% of all Red Army divisional and corps commanders were ex-Tsarist soldiers, a Ukrainian nationalist movement was active in Ukraine during the war. More significant was the emergence of an anarchist political and military movement known as the Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine or the Anarchist Black Army led by Nestor Makhno, some of the military forces were set up on the basis of clandestine officers organizations in the cities. The Czechoslovak Legions had been part of the Russian army and numbered around 30,000 troops by October 1917 and they had an agreement with the new Bolshevik government to be evacuated from the Eastern Front via the port of Vladivostok to France. The transport from the Eastern Front to Vladivostok slowed down in the chaos, under pressure from the Central Powers, Trotsky ordered the disarming and arrest of the legionaries, which created tensions with the Bolsheviks. The Western Allies armed and supported opponents of the Bolsheviks, hence, many of these countries expressed their support for the Whites, including the provision of troops and supplies. Winston Churchill declared that Bolshevism must be strangled in its cradle, the British and French had supported Russia during World War I on a massive scale with war materials. After the treaty, it looked like much of material would fall into the hands of the Germans. Under this pretext began allied intervention in the Russian Civil War with the United Kingdom, there were violent clashes with troops loyal to the Bolsheviks
Russian Civil War
–
Clockwise from top: Soldiers of the
Don Army in 1919; a White
infantry division in March 1920; soldiers of the
1st Cavalry Army;
Leon Trotsky in 1918; hanging of workers in
Yekaterinoslav by the
Austro-Hungarian Army, April 1918.
Russian Civil War
–
Anti-Bolshevik
Volunteer Army in South Russia, January 1918
Russian Civil War
–
Russian soldiers of the anti-Bolshevik
Siberian Army in 1919
Russian Civil War
–
American troops in Vladivostok during the
Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War (August 1918)
29.
Bukhara operation (1920)
–
The Bukhara operation, was a military conflict fought between the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and the Young Bukharians against the Emirate of Bukhara. The war lasted between 28 August and 2 September 1920, ending in the defeat of the Bukhara Emirate, the Emirate of Bukhara was officially created in 1785, upon the assumption of throne by the Manghit emir, Shah Murad. Over the course of the 18th century, the emirs had slowly gained control of the Khanate of Bukhara. In 1868 the emirate was conquered by Imperial Russia, which had aspirations in the region. Russia annexed much of the territory, including the important city of Samarkand. The Russian Civil War erupted on 7 November 1917, pitting the Bolshevik led Red Army against the monarchist White Army. During the first two years of the conflict communist troops failed to make progress in the Central Asian theaters. In spring 1918, a group of British and American intelligence agents visited Tashkent in an effort to train, the defeat of the White Army troops led by Alexander Kolchak during the second half of 1919 radically changed the situation on the Turkestani theater of the war. The emir of Bukhara became aware of the communist maneuvers, enacting mobilization, a surge in the activities of the leftist Young Bukharians movement in August 1920 prompted Red Army commander Mikhail Frunze to act in their support. Οn the night 28 August 1920, Young Bukharians launched a revolt in Türkmenabat subjugating the city, at the same time the Red Army launched an offensive on Qorako‘l, approaching it from the south-west. On 30 August, communist troops began bombarding the Karshin gates in Bukhara, Soviet forces then attacked the bridges located on the Burdalik, Nardalik and Amu Darya rivers securing them on 31 August. On 2 September, communist forces penetrated the gates and overtook Bukhara, Alim Khans enabled the revolutionaries to establish the RSFSR controlled Bukharan PSR. Birth and Downfall of the Basmachi Movement, nationaler Kampf Turkestans in den Jahren 1917 bis 1934. Basmachi Movement From Within, Account of Zeki Velidi Togan // Nationalities Papers, Заки Валиди Тоган о басмаческом движении
Bukhara operation (1920)
–
Map of the Bukhara Operation (in Russian).
Bukhara operation (1920)
–
Fires in Bukhara under siege by Red Army troops, 1 September, 1920
30.
Red Army
–
The Workers and Peasants Red Army was the army and the air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, and after 1922 the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The army was established immediately after the 1917 October Revolution, the Bolsheviks raised an army to oppose the military confederations of their adversaries during the Russian Civil War. The Red Army is credited as being the land force in the Allied victory in the European theatre of World War II. During operations on the Eastern Front, it fought 75%–80% of the German land forces deployed in the war, inflicting the vast majority of all German losses and ultimately capturing the German capital. In September 1917, Vladimir Lenin wrote, There is only one way to prevent the restoration of the police, at the time, the Imperial Russian Army had started to collapse. The Tsarist general Nikolay Dukhonin estimated that there had been 2 million deserters,1.8 million dead,5 million wounded and 2 million prisoners and he estimated the remaining troops as numbering 10 million. Therefore, the Council of Peoples Commissars decided to form the Red Army on 28 January 1918 and they envisioned a body formed from the class-conscious and best elements of the working classes. All citizens of the Russian republic aged 18 or older were eligible, in the event of an entire unit wanting to join the Red Army, a collective guarantee and the affirmative vote of all its members would be necessary. Because the Red Army was composed mainly of peasants, the families of those who served were guaranteed rations, some peasants who remained at home yearned to join the Army, men, along with some women, flooded the recruitment centres. If they were turned away they would collect scrap metal and prepare care-packages, in some cases the money they earned would go towards tanks for the Army. Nikolai Krylenko was the supreme commander-in-chief, with Aleksandr Myasnikyan as deputy, Nikolai Podvoisky became the commissar for war, Pavel Dybenko, commissar for the fleet. Proshyan, Samoisky, Steinberg were also specified as peoples commissars as well as Vladimir Bonch-Bruyevich from the Bureau of Commissars, at a joint meeting of Bolsheviks and Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, held on 22 February 1918, Krylenko remarked, We have no army. The Red Guard units are brushed aside like flies and we have no power to stay the enemy, only an immediate signing of the peace treaty will save us from destruction. This provoked the insurrection of General Alexey Maximovich Kaledins Volunteer Army in the River Don region, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk aggravated Russian internal politics. The situation encouraged direct Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War, a series of engagements resulted, involving, amongst others, the Czechoslovak Legion, the Polish 5th Rifle Division, and the pro-Bolshevik Red Latvian Riflemen. The Whites defeated the Red Army on each front, Leon Trotsky reformed and counterattacked, the Red Army repelled Admiral Kolchaks army in June, and the armies of General Denikin and General Yudenich in October. By mid-November the White armies were all almost completely exhausted, in January 1920, Budennys First Cavalry Army entered Rostov-on-Don. 1919 to 1923 At the wars start, the Red Army consisted of 299 infantry regiments, Civil war intensified after Lenin dissolved the Russian Constituent Assembly and the Soviet government signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, removing Russia from the Great War
Red Army
–
Red Guards unit of the Vulkan factory
Red Army
–
Soviet Armed Forces
Red Army
–
Vladimir Lenin,
Klim Voroshilov,
Leon Trotsky and soldiers,
Petrograd, 1921
Red Army
–
Soviet tanks in the
Battle of Khalkhin Gol, August 1939
31.
Mikhail Frunze
–
Mikhail Vasilyevich Frunze was a Bolshevik leader during and just prior to the Russian Revolution of 1917. He was a major Red Army commander in the Russian Civil War and is best known for defeating Baron Wrangel in Crimea. Frunze was born in Pishpek, then a small Imperial Russian garrison town in the Kyrgyz part of Russian Turkestan, to a Moldovan medical practitioner and he began his studies at Verniy, and in 1904 he attended the Saint Petersburg Polytechnical University. Two years after the Second Congress Frunze became an important leader in the 1905 Revolution, at the head of striking workers in Shuya. Following the disastrous end of the movement, Frunze was arrested in 1907 and sentenced to death, but he was later reprieved and his sentence was commuted to life at hard labour. After 10 years in Siberian prisons, Frunze escaped to Chita, during the February Revolution Frunze headed the Minsk civilian militia before his election as president of the Byelorussian Soviet. He later went to Moscow and led a force of workers to aid in the struggle for control of the city. After the October Revolution of 1917, Frunze became Military Commissar for the Ivanovo-Voznesensk Province in 1918, in the course of the Russian Civil War of 1917-1922, he was appointed as head of the Southern Army Group of the Red Army Eastern Front. After Frunze defeated Admiral Alexander Kolchak and the White Army in Omsk, Frunze went on to rid his native Turkestan of Basmachi insurgents and of White troops. He captured Khiva in February and Bukhara in September 1920, in November 1920 Frunze retook the Crimea and managed to push White general Pyotr Wrangel and his troops out of Russia. He also led, as commander of the front, the destruction of Nestor Makhnos anarchist movement in Ukraine. In December 1921, Frunze visited Ankara during Turkish War of Independence as an ambassador of the Ukrainian SSR and formed Turkish - Soviet relations. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk valued him as an ally and a friend, to the extent that he placed a statue of Frunze as a part of the Republic Monument at the Taksim Square, in Istanbul. Frunze had been noted among communist leaders as possessing a very creative and almost unorthodox view on matters of implementation, Frunze was suffering from a chronic ulceration, and although it had been suggested to him many times that he undergo surgery, he tended to favour more conservative treatments. After an especially severe episode in 1925, Frunze was hospitalised, stalin and Anastas Mikoyan both came to visit him, and impressed on him the need for an operation. Not long before his death, Frunze wrote to his wife, At present I am feeling absolutely healthy, and it seems ridiculous to think of. Nevertheless, both party representatives are requiring it, there has been speculation that a potential rival within the party ordered his death, but there is no evidence to support this. However, Frunze was administered a dose that many times exceeded the dose normally applied to induce narcosis
Mikhail Frunze
–
Mikhail Frunze Михаил Фрунзе
Mikhail Frunze
–
Liberation Monument in Istanbul, Turkey
Mikhail Frunze
–
Mikhail Frunze funeral
Mikhail Frunze
–
Frunze statue in Bishkek
32.
Mohammed Alim Khan
–
Emir Said Mir Mohammed Alim Khan was the last emir representative of the Uzbek dynasty of Turkic of the Manghud, the last ruling dynasty of the Emirate of Bukhara in Central Asia. Although Bukhara was a protectorate of the Russian Empire from 1873, at the age of thirteen, Alim Khan was sent by his father Emir Abdulahad Khan to Saint Petersburg for three years to study government and modern military techniques. In 1896, having received confirmation as Crown Prince of Bukhara by the Russian government. After two years in Bukhara assisting in his fathers administration, he was appointed governor of Nasef region for the twelve years. He was then transferred to the province of Karmana, which he ruled for another two years, until receiving word in 1910 of his fathers death. Alim Khans rule began with promise, initially, he declared that he would no longer expect or accept any gifts, and prohibited his officials from demanding bribes from the public, or imposing taxes on their own authority. However, as time went by the Emirs attitude towards bribes, taxes, the conflict between the traditionalists and the reformists ended with the traditionalists in control, and the reformers in exile in Moscow or Kazan. It is thought that Alim Khan, who initially favored modernization, like his predecessors, Alim Khan was a traditional ruler. He toyed with the idea of reform as a tool to keep the clergy in line, one of the most important Tajik writers, Sadriddin Ayniy, wrote vivid accounts of life under the Emir. He was whipped for speaking Tajik and later wrote about the life under the Emirs in the Bukhara Executioners. Alim Khan was the only Manghud ruler to add the title of Caliph to his name, in March 1918 activists of the Young Bukharan Movement informed the Bolsheviks that the Bukharians were ready for the revolution and that the people were awaiting liberation. The Red Army marched to the gates of Bukhara and demanded that the surrender the city to the Young Bukharans. As Russian sources report, the emir responded by killing the Bolshevik delegation, along several hundred Russian supporters of the Bolsheviks in Bukhara. The majority of Bukharans did not support an invasion and the ill-equipped and ill-disciplined Bolshevik army fled back to the Soviet stronghold at Tashkent, however, the emir had won only a temporary respite. As the civil war in Russia wound down, Moscow sent reinforcements to Central Asia, on 2 September 1920, an army of well-disciplined and well equipped Red Army troops under the command of Bolshevik general Mikhail Frunze attacked the city. He is buried at the Shuadoi Solehin cemetery, Alim Khans daughter, Shukria Raad Alimi, worked as a broadcaster for Radio Afghanistan. Shukria Raad left Afghanistan with her three months after Soviet troops invaded the country in December 1979. With her husband, also a journalist, and two children she fled to Pakistan, and then through Germany to the United States
Mohammed Alim Khan
–
Alim Khan, photographed by
Prokudin-Gorskii in 1911
Mohammed Alim Khan
–
Emir's house in
Saint Petersburg
33.
Dushanbe
–
Dushanbe — is the capital and largest city of Tajikistan. Dushanbe means Monday in the Tajik language and it was so named because it grew from a village that originally had a popular market on Mondays. Until 1929, the city was known in Russian as Dyushambe, as of 2014, Dushanbe had a population of 778,500. Situated at the confluence of two rivers, Varzob and Kofarnihon, Dushanbe is the capital of Tajikistan. Although archaeological remnants dating to the 5th century BC have been discovered in the area, the first written mention of the village of Dushanbe occurred in 1676. It was at the crossroads, where a large bazaar occurred on Mondays, hence the name Dushanbe-Bazar from Dushanbe, in the village, there were more than 500 households and a population of about 8,000 people. By 1826, the town was called Dushanbe Qurghan Russified as Dyushambe, the first map showing Dyushambe was drafted in 1875. At that time, the town was a fortress on a bank on the left bank of the Varzob River with 10,000 residents. In 1920, the last Emir of Bukhara briefly took refuge in Dyushambe after being overthrown by the Bolshevik revolution and he fled to Afghanistan after the Red Army conquered the area the next year. A Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic separate from the Uzbek SSR was created in 1929, in the years that followed, the city developed at a rapid pace. The Soviets transformed the area into a centre for cotton and silk production, the population also increased with thousands of Tajiks migrating to Tajikistan following the transfer of Bukhara and Samarkand to the Uzbek SSR as part of national delimitation in Central Asia. On 10 November 1961, Stalinabad was renamed Dushanbe, the name it retains to this day, severe rioting occurred in February 1990, after it was rumored that the Soviet government planned to relocate tens of thousands of Armenian refugees to Tajikistan. In January 2017, Rustam Emomali, current President Emomali Rahmons son, was appointed Mayor of Dushanbe, a key position, Dushanbe features a Mediterranean climate, with strong continental climate influences. The summers are hot and dry and the winters are chilly, the climate is damper than other Central Asian capitals, with an average annual rainfall over 500 millimetres as moist air is funnelled by the surrounding valley during the winter and spring. Winters are not as cold as further north owing to the shielding of the city by mountains from extremely cold air from Siberia, January 2008 was particularly cold, and the temperature dropped to −22 °C. Tajik Air has its office on the grounds of Dushanbe Airport in Dushanbe. Somon Air has its office in Dushanbe. Tajikistans principal railways are in the region and connect Dushanbe with the industrial areas of the Gissar and Vakhsh valleys and with Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan
Dushanbe
–
View of the
Palace of Nation (Presidential Palace).
Dushanbe
–
Monument of Amir
Ismail Samani.
Dushanbe
–
Puppet theatre
Dushanbe
–
Tajik State National University.
34.
Kabul
–
Kabul is the capital of Afghanistan as well as its largest city, located in the eastern section of the country. According to a 2015 estimate, the population of the city was around 3,678,033 which includes all the ethnic groups. Rapid urbanization had made Kabul the worlds 64th largest city and the fifth fastest-growing city in the world, Kabul is said to be over 3,500 years old, mentioned since at least the time of the Achaemenid Empire. The city is at a location along the trade routes of South and Central Asia. It has been part of the Achaemenids, Seleucids, Mauryans, Kushans, Kabul Shahis, Saffarids, Ghaznavids, Later, it was controlled by the Mughal Empire until finally becoming part of the Durrani Empire in 1747. The city is located high up in a valley between the Hindu Kush mountains. Kabul became the capital of Afghanistan during the reign of Timur Shah Durrani, in the early 19th century, the British occupied the city but were compelled to abandon it. Relations between Afghanistan and Great Britain were later established, the city was occupied by the Soviets in 1979 but they too abandoned it after the 1988 Geneva Accords were signed. A civil war in the 1990s between various rebel groups destroyed much of the city, resulting in many casualties, since the removal of the Taliban from power in late 2001, the city gradually began rebuilding itself with assistance by the international community. Despite the many terrorist attacks by elements, the city is growing and developing. The city is divided into about 18 districts, the Kabul International Airport is located in the Wazir Akbar Khan district a few miles from the foreign embassies. The Parliament of Afghanistan, built by India, is located in the Kārte Seh district, Kabul, also spelled Cabool, Caubul, Kabol, or Cabul. The word Kubhā is mentioned in the Rigveda, one of the four sacred texts of Hinduism, and the Avesta. The Rigveda praises it as a city, a vision of paradise set in the mountains. The area in which the Kabul valley sits was ruled by the Medes before falling to the Achaemenids, there is a reference to a settlement called Kabura by the rulers of the Achaemenid Empire, It became a center of Zoroastrianism followed by Buddhism and Hinduism. The region became part of the Seleucid Empire but was given to the Indian Maurya Empire. The Greco-Bactrians captured Kabul from the Mauryans in the early 2nd century BC, indo-Scythians expelled the Indo-Greeks by the mid 1st century BC, but lost the city to the Kushan Empire about 100 years later. Some historians ascribe Kabul the Sanskrit name of Kamboja and it is mentioned as Kophes or Kophene in some classical writings
Kabul
Kabul
Kabul
Kabul
35.
Afghanistan
–
Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located within South Asia and Central Asia. It has a population of approximately 32 million, making it the 42nd most populous country in the world. It is bordered by Pakistan in the south and east, Iran in the west, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan in the north and its territory covers 652,000 km2, making it the 41st largest country in the world. The land also served as the source from which the Kushans, Hephthalites, Samanids, Saffarids, Ghaznavids, Ghorids, Khiljis, Mughals, Hotaks, Durranis, the political history of the modern state of Afghanistan began with the Hotak and Durrani dynasties in the 18th century. In the late 19th century, Afghanistan became a state in the Great Game between British India and the Russian Empire. Following the Third Anglo-Afghan War in 1919, King Amanullah unsuccessfully attempted to modernize the country and it remained peaceful during Zahir Shahs forty years of monarchy. A series of coups in the 1970s was followed by a series of wars that devastated much of Afghanistan. The name Afghānistān is believed to be as old as the ethnonym Afghan, the root name Afghan was used historically in reference to a member of the ethnic Pashtuns, and the suffix -stan means place of in Persian. Therefore, Afghanistan translates to land of the Afghans or, more specifically in a historical sense, however, the modern Constitution of Afghanistan states that he word Afghan shall apply to every citizen of Afghanistan. An important site of historical activities, many believe that Afghanistan compares to Egypt in terms of the historical value of its archaeological sites. The country sits at a unique nexus point where numerous civilizations have interacted and it has been home to various peoples through the ages, among them the ancient Iranian peoples who established the dominant role of Indo-Iranian languages in the region. At multiple points, the land has been incorporated within large regional empires, among them the Achaemenid Empire, the Macedonian Empire, the Indian Maurya Empire, and the Islamic Empire. Archaeological exploration done in the 20th century suggests that the area of Afghanistan has been closely connected by culture and trade with its neighbors to the east, west. Artifacts typical of the Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic, Bronze, urban civilization is believed to have begun as early as 3000 BCE, and the early city of Mundigak may have been a colony of the nearby Indus Valley Civilization. More recent findings established that the Indus Valley Civilisation stretched up towards modern-day Afghanistan, making the ancient civilisation today part of Pakistan, Afghanistan, in more detail, it extended from what today is northwest Pakistan to northwest India and northeast Afghanistan. An Indus Valley site has found on the Oxus River at Shortugai in northern Afghanistan. There are several smaller IVC colonies to be found in Afghanistan as well, after 2000 BCE, successive waves of semi-nomadic people from Central Asia began moving south into Afghanistan, among them were many Indo-European-speaking Indo-Iranians. These tribes later migrated further into South Asia, Western Asia, the region at the time was referred to as Ariana
Afghanistan
–
History of Afghanistan
Afghanistan
–
Flag
Afghanistan
–
Bilingual (
Greek and
Aramaic)
edict by Emperor
Ashoka from the 3rd century BCE discovered in the southern city of
Kandahar
Afghanistan
–
One of the
Buddhas of Bamiyan.
Buddhism was widespread in the region before the
Islamic conquest of Afghanistan.
36.
Po-i-Kalyan
–
Po-i-Kalyan or Poi Kalyan, is an Islamic religious complex located around the Kalyan minaret in Bukhara, Uzbekistan. The complex is located in the part of the city. Since 713, several ensembles of main mosques were built in this area, one of these complexes, burned down by Genghis Khan during the siege of Bukhara, was built in 1121 by the Karakhanid ruler Arslan-khan. The Kalyan minaret is the one of the structures of Arslan-han complex that was kept safe during that siege. The Kalyan minaret is known more properly as Minâra-i Kalân and it is also known as the Tower of Death because for centuries criminals were executed by being thrown from the top. The minaret is the most famed part of the complex, which dominates the center of the city in the form of a huge vertical pillar. For this purpose it was enough to ascend to a roof of the mosque and this practice was common in initial years of Islam. The word minaret is derived from the Arabic word manara, probably the idea for the minarets of Islam was adopted from fire-towers or lighthouses of previous epochs. The architect, whose name was simply Bako, made a minaret in the form of a brick tower, narrowing upwards. There is a spiral staircase that twists up inside around the pillar, leading to the landing in sixteen-arched rotunda - skylight. Kalyan Mosque was completed circa 1514, in the Khanate of Bukhara and it is equal in size to the Bibi-Khanym Mosque in Samarkand. Although they are both mosques, they are different in architectural styles. The roof of the galleries encircling the inner courtyard has 288 domes resting on 208 pillars. Facing the courtyard is a tall tiled Iwan portal, for entry to the prayer hall. The mosque is surmounted by a blue tiled dome. The place where the complex Po-i-Kalyan is located is the site of a few ruined buildings from the past. In pre-Islamic era there was a cathedral for fire-worshippers. Since 713 here, at the south of the Ark, several edifices of main cathedral mosque were built then razed, restored after fires and wars
Po-i-Kalyan
–
Courtyard at Po-i-Kalyan, with the madrasa and minaret.
Po-i-Kalyan
–
Brick
Kalyan minaret.
Po-i-Kalyan
–
Inner courtyard of the Kalyan Mosque, part of the Po-i-Kalyan Complex in Bukhara, Uzbekistan
Po-i-Kalyan
–
Ak Mosque
37.
Government of the Soviet Union
–
The Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was the main body of the executive branch of government in the Soviet Union. Its head of government was the generally known in the West as the Premier of the Soviet Union. The members of the Soviet Government—peoples commissars, ministers, and heads of state committees—were recommended by the Premier, the Government of the Soviet Union exercised its executive powers in conformity with the Soviet Constitution and legislation enacted by the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. However eventually no new government was formed due to the dissolution of the Soviet Union. These were accompanied by a number of government ministers and state committee chairmen, recommended by the premier. The executive branch was responsible for both short- and long-term economic, social and cultural development, the Governments official residence was at the Kremlin Senate in Moscow. The Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics exercised its powers in conformity with the Soviet Constitution and legislation enacted by the Supreme Soviet. Its structure, operational procedures and decision-making processes were defined by the 1977 Soviet constitution, the decisions and ordinances of the Council of Ministers of the USSR shall be binding throughout the USSR—these decisions and ordinances were binding throughout the country. The Government also controlled trade and had directed the general development of the Soviet armed forces. The Government managed the internal sphere of the Union of Soviet of Socialist Republics social policy and it was responsible for implementing measures which would either promote or ensure the well-being of Soviet citizens through economic, social and economic development. For instance, the Government controlled the State Bank and was responsible for the organisation of state insurance, both the five-year plan and the budget needed approval from the Supreme Soviet to be implemented. It was responsible for socialist property, public order and the protection of its citizens, the Government was responsible to the Soviet Parliament, and the parliament could in theory force the resignation of the Government as a whole or any Government appointees by a simple majority vote. The Premier and the members of the Government were jointly responsible for decisions passed by the Government and were responsible for their respective portfolios. The Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, literally head of state, appointed government ministers, the Premier could recommend civil servants to government to the Presidium, which could then either pass or reject the nominee
Government of the Soviet Union
–
Kremlin Senate, the building which used to house the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
Government of the Soviet Union
–
Soviet Union
38.
Faizullah Khojaev
–
Fayzulla Ubaydullayevich Khodzhayev was a Bukharan politician. Khodzhayev was born into an Uzbek family of traders in the City of Bukhara. He was sent to Moscow by his father in 1907, there he realized the tremendous gap between contemporary European society and technology, and the ancient, tradition-bound ways of his homeland. He joined the Pan-Turkist Jadid movement of like-minded reformers in 1916, seeing the Russian Revolution of 1917 as an opportunity, the Young Bukharan Party invited the Bolsheviks of the Tashkent Soviet to seize Emirate of Bukhara by force in 1917. After joining the Russian Communist Party about July–August,1920, Fayzullo Khodzhayev was appointed head of the Bukharan Peoples Soviet Republic in September 1920, during his term, he barely escaped assassination by Basmachi Revolt leader Enver Pasha. Then on 21 May 1925, he one of the chairmen of the USSR Central Executive Committee once the Uzbek SSR was officially accepted into the USSR. However, Khodzhayev opposed Joseph Stalins heavy-handed control, particularly in the matter of cotton monoculture, when the wave of political purges reached into the Uzbek SSR, the 7th Congress of the Uzbek Communist Party of Bolsheviks proclaimed Khodzhayev to be an enemy of the people. Officially rehabilitated in 1966, he remains a figure in modern Uzbekistan. World Statesmen - Uzbekistan Archontology - Fayzulla Khodzhayev
Faizullah Khojaev
–
Fayzulla Khodzhayev
39.
Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic
–
Uzbekistan, officially the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic and the Republic of Uzbekistan, also referred to as Soviet Uzbekistan was one of the republics of the Soviet Union existed from 1924 to 1991. It was governed by the Uzbek branch of the Soviet Communist Party, from 1990 to 1991, it was the sovereign part of the Soviet Union with its own legislation. Beginning 20 June 1990, Uzbek SSR adopted the Declaration of State Sovereignty within its borders, Islam Karimov became the republics inaugural president. On 31 August 1991, the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic was renamed the Republic of Uzbekistan, a doubly landlocked Soviet republic in Central Asia. Uzbekistan was bordered by Kazakhstan to the north, Tajikistan to the southeast, Kirghizia to the northeast, Afghanistan to the south, the name, Uzbekistan, literally means Home of the Free, taken from an amalgamation of uz, bek, and -stan. Officially, the name Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic was the name as defined by its 1937 and 1978 Constitutions. In 1924, the borders of political units in Central Asia were changed along ethnic lines determined by Vladimir Lenin’s Commissar for Nationalities, the next year Uzbekistan became one of the republics of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. In 1928, the collectivization of land into state farms was initiated, Uzbekistan included the Tajik ASSR until 1929, when the Tajik ASSR was upgraded to an equal status. In 1930, the Uzbek SSR capital was relocated from Samarkand to Tashkent, in 1936, Uzbekistan was enlarged with the addition of the Karakalpak ASSR taken from the Kazakh SSR in the last stages of the national delimitation in the Soviet Union. That same year in December, it was renamed to the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic, further bits and pieces of territory were transferred several times between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan after World War II. In 1937–38, during the Great Purge, a number of alleged nationalists were executed, including Faizullah Khojaev, during World War II, many industries were relocated to Uzbekistan from vulnerable locations in western regions of the USSR to keep them safe. Large numbers of Russians, Ukrainians and other nationalities accompanied the factories and this included large numbers of ethnic Koreans, Crimean Tatars, and Chechens. During the Soviet period, Islam became a point for the anti-religious drives of Communist authorities. The government closed most mosques, and religious schools became anti-religious museums, on the positive side was the virtual elimination of illiteracy, even in rural areas. Only a small percentage of the population was literate before 1917, another major development, one with future catastrophic impact, was the drive initiated in the early 1960s to substantially increase cotton production in the republic. This drive led to overzealous irrigation withdrawals of irrigation water from the Amu Darya, towards the end of the Soviet–Afghan War, several troops crossed the Uzbek border from Afghanistan as part of the its withdrawal on 15 February 1989. The Communist Party was the legal party in the Uzbek SSR until 1990. The first secretary, or head, of the Communist Party of Uzbekistan was consistently an Uzbek, long-time leader of the Uzbek SSR was Sharof Rashidov, head of the Communist Party of Uzbekistan from 1959 to 1983
Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic
–
World War II poster commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Uzbek SSR.
Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic
–
Flag
Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic
–
1927 Uzbek SSR including
Tajik ASSR and
Khodzhent.
Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic
–
1928 atlas.
40.
Sir Fitzroy Maclean, 1st Baronet
–
Sir Fitzroy Hew Royle Maclean, 1st Baronet, KT, CBE was a Scottish soldier, writer and politician. It has been speculated that Ian Fleming used Maclean as one of his inspirations for James Bond. The couple wed on 12 July 1905 at St Georges Parish, Hanover Square, Middlesex and he was descended from the MacLeans of Ardgour a Sept of the Clan Maclean, whose chiefs have as their historic seat Duart Castle on the Isle of Mull in the Inner Hebrides. He was brought up in Italy and educated at Eton and Kings College, Cambridge and he then studied in Germany before joining the Diplomatic Service in 1933. In 1934 Fitzroy Maclean was posted to the British embassy in Paris, bored with the pleasant but undemanding routine, he requested a posting to Moscow in 1937. The two and a half years he spent in the Soviet Union formed the first third of his best known book, Maclean was in Moscow until late 1939, and so was present during the great Stalinist purges, observing the fates of Bukharin and other Russian revolutionaries. When war broke out in 1939 Maclean was prevented from joining the military because of his position as a diplomat and he was 2nd Secretary in the Foreign Office. Therefore, he resigned from the Diplomatic Service to go into politics, after tendering his resignation he immediately took a taxi to the nearest recruiting office and enlisted as a Private in the Queens Own Cameron Highlanders. He was soon promoted to Lance Corporal and was commissioned in 1941, in that year he became the Conservative MP for Lancaster. Maclean was a brilliant practitioner in the T. E. Lawrence brand of fighting, a letter of introduction from David Stirling said of him at the end of this period, He has done well on our raids. Dont be taken in by his rather pompous manner or his slow way of speaking - he is OK, later that year he transferred to the Middle East as part of the Persia and Iraq Command. He was allotted a platoon of Seaforth Highlanders and instructed to kidnap General Fazlollah Zahedi, Maclean captured him and smuggled him out by plane to internment in Palestine. This incident soon led Hitlers government to support from its network in Persia. Churchill chose him to lead a mission to central Yugoslavia in 1943. Josip Broz Tito and his Partisans were emerging as an obstacle to German control of the Balkans. Little was known at the time about Tito, some suspected this was an acronym for a committee or that he might in fact be a young woman, Maclean got to know Tito well, and later produced two biographies of him. Macleans relationship with Titos Partisans was not always easy, partly because they were Communist, while he came from an upper class Scottish background and his biography of Tito reveals the admiration he held for the Yugoslav leader and the Yugoslav Communist-led anti-fascist struggle. He developed an affection for Yugoslavia and its people and was later given permission to buy a house on the Dalmatian island of Korčula
Sir Fitzroy Maclean, 1st Baronet
–
Major General Sir Fitzroy Maclean, Bt
KT CBE
Sir Fitzroy Maclean, 1st Baronet
–
Yugoslav Leader Marsal Tito Talking with Fitzroy Maclean
41.
Eastern Approaches
–
Eastern Approaches is an autobiographical account of the early career of Fitzroy Maclean. Maclean was considered to be one of the inspirations for James Bond, and this contains many of the elements, remote travel. The American edition was titled Escape To Adventure, and was published a year later, all place names in this article use the spelling in the book. Fresh out of Cambridge, Maclean joined the Foreign Office and spent a couple of years at the Paris embassy and he loved the pleasures of life in the French capital, but eventually longed for adventure. Against the advice of his friends, he requested a posting to Moscow, travelling within the Soviet Union was frowned upon by the authorities, but Maclean managed to take several trips anyway. In the spring of 1937, he took a trial trip, the Intourist official tried to dissuade him, but he found a ship to take him to Lenkoran, where he witnessed the deportation of several hundred Turko-Tartar peasants to Central Asia. Stuck there for a few days, he bargained for horses with which to explore the countryside and he explained that he held diplomatic immunity, but his captors could not read his Soviet diplomatic pass. Eventually, as the only person literate in Russian, Maclean read out, with expression, and such improvements as occurred to me the contents of his pass. He took an 1856 paddle steamer back to Baku, and then a train on to Tiflis and he caught a truck through the Caucasus mountains, via Mtzkhet, the former capital of Georgia but by then merely a village, to Vladikavkaz, and then a train to Moscow. His second trip, in the autumn of the same year, although he disembarked without warning at Novosibirsk, he acquired an NKVD escort. He travelled on the Turksib Railway south to Biisk, at the foot of the Altai Mountains, on the trains he heard the complaints of the Siberian kolkhozniks and witnessed another mass movement, this time of Koreans to Central Asia. His first main destination was Alma Ata, the capital of the Kazakh republic and he characterised it as one of the pleasantest provincial towns in the Soviet Union and particularly appreciated the apples for which it is famous. From there he took a truck to a village called Talgar and went walking with one of his NKVD escorts, Maclean availed himself of peasant hospitality. He managed to hire a car and made it to Issyk-kul, the lake never freezes. From Tashkent, which then had a reputation for wickedness, he made the final leg to the city of Samarkand. He returned to Moscow with plans for a further trip, Maclean spent the winter working in Moscow and amusing himself at the dacha of American friends, including Chip Bohlen. In March 1938 a show trial was announced, the first such event in over a year. The book goes into detail, spending 40 pages on description and analysis of the trial, its prominent figures and its twists
Eastern Approaches
–
Front Book Cover
42.
Italian Renaissance
–
The term Renaissance is in essence a modern one that came into currency in the 19th century, in the work of historians such as Jules Michelet and Jacob Burckhardt. The French word renaissance means Rebirth, and the era is best known for the renewed interest in the culture of classical antiquity after the period that Renaissance humanists labeled the Dark Ages. Though today perhaps best known for Italian Renaissance art and architecture, the period saw major achievements in literature, music, philosophy, Italy became the recognized European leader in all these areas by the late 15th century, and to varying degrees retained this lead until about 1600. This was despite a turbulent and generally disastrous period in Italian politics, the European Renaissance began in Tuscany, and centred in the city of Florence. It later spread to Venice, where the remains of ancient Greek culture were brought together, the Renaissance later had a significant effect on Rome, which was ornamented with some structures in the new allantico mode, then was largely rebuilt by humanist sixteenth-century popes. The Italian Renaissance peaked in the century as foreign invasions plunged the region into the turmoil of the Italian Wars. However, the ideas and ideals of the Renaissance endured and spread into the rest of Europe, setting off the Northern Renaissance, the Italian Renaissance is best known for its cultural achievements. Accounts of Renaissance literature usually begin with Petrarch and his friend, famous vernacular poets of the 15th century include the renaissance epic authors Luigi Pulci, Matteo Maria Boiardo, and Ludovico Ariosto. 15th century writers such as the poet Poliziano and the Platonist philosopher Marsilio Ficino made extensive translations from both Latin and Greek, the same is true for architecture, as practiced by Brunelleschi, Leon Battista Alberti, Andrea Palladio, and Bramante. Their works include Florence Cathedral, St. Peters Basilica in Rome, yet cultural contributions notwithstanding, some present-day historians also see the era as one of the beginning of economic regression for Italy. By the Late Middle Ages, Latium, the heartland of the Roman Empire. Rome was a city of ancient ruins, and the Papal States were loosely administered, and vulnerable to external interference such as that of France, and later Spain. The Papacy was affronted when the Avignon Papacy was created in southern France as a consequence of pressure from King Philip the Fair of France, in the south, Sicily had for some time been under foreign domination, by the Arabs and then the Normans. Sicily had prospered for 150 years during the Emirate of Sicily, in contrast Northern and Central Italy had become far more prosperous, and it has been calculated that the region was among the richest of Europe. The Crusades had built lasting trade links to the Levant, the main trade routes from the east passed through the Byzantine Empire or the Arab lands and onwards to the ports of Genoa, Pisa, and Venice. Luxury goods bought in the Levant, such as spices, dyes, moreover, the inland city-states profited from the rich agricultural land of the Po valley. From France, Germany, and the Low Countries, through the medium of the Champagne fairs, land and river trade routes brought goods such as wool, wheat, and precious metals into the region. The extensive trade that stretched from Egypt to the Baltic generated substantial surpluses that allowed significant investment in mining, thus, while northern Italy was not richer in resources than many other parts of Europe, the level of development, stimulated by trade, allowed it to prosper
Italian Renaissance
–
Renaissance
Italian Renaissance
–
Pandolfo Malatesta (1417–1468), lord of
Rimini, by
Piero della Francesca. Malatesta was a capable
condottiere, following the tradition of his family. He was hired by the
Venetians to fight against the
Turks (unsuccessfully) in 1465, and was patron of
Leone Battista Alberti, whose
Tempio Malatestiano at Rimini is one of the first entirely classical buildings of the Renaissance.
Italian Renaissance
–
Leonardo da Vinci, Italian
Renaissance Man
Italian Renaissance
–
Giulio Clovio,
Adoration of the Magi and
Solomon Adored by the
Queen of Sheba from the Farnese Hours, 1546.
43.
Civil war in Tajikistan
–
Politically, the rebel groups were led by liberal democratic reformers and Islamists, who fought together and later organized under the banner of the United Tajik Opposition. By June 1997, an estimated 50,000 to 100,000 people had been killed, tensions began in the spring of 1992 after opposition members took to the streets in demonstrations against the results of the 1991 presidential election. Fighting broke out in May 1992 between old-guard supporters of the government and an organized opposition composed of ethnic and regional groups from the Garm. Ideologically, the opposition included democratic liberal reformists and Islamists, the government, on the other hand, was dominated by people from the Leninabadi region, which had also made up most of the ruling elite during the entire Soviet period. It was also supported by people from the Kulyab region, who had held posts in the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Soviet times. After many clashes, the Leninabadis were forced to accept a compromise, on 7 September 1992, Nabiyev was captured by opposition protesters and forced at gunpoint to resign his presidency. Chaos and fighting between the opposing factions reigned outside of the capital Dushanbe, with the aid of the Russian military and Uzbekistan, the Leninabadi-Kulyabi Popular Front forces routed the opposition in early and late 1992. The coalition government in the capital was forced to resign, the violence was particularly concentrated in Qurghonteppa, the power base of the IRP and home to many Garmis. Tens of thousands were killed or fled to Afghanistan, in Afghanistan, the opposition reorganized and rearmed with the aid of the Jamiat-i-Islami. The groups leader Ahmad Shah Masoud became a benefactor of the Tajik opposition, later in the war the opposition organized under an umbrella group called the United Tajik Opposition, or UTO. Elements of the UTO, especially in the Tavildara region, became the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, Iran did not involve itself militarily, but provided ideological support for Muslims who had long been denied the right to freely exercise their faith in the USSR. Other combatants and armed bands that flourished in this civil chaos simply reflected the breakdown of authority rather than loyalty to a political faction. In response to the violence the United Nations Mission of Observers in Tajikistan was deployed, most fighting in the early part of the war occurred in the southern part of the country, but by 1996 the rebels were battling Russian troops in the capital city of Dushanbe. Islamic radicals from northern Afghanistan also began to fight Russian troops in the region, a UN-sponsored armistice finally ended the war in 1997. This was in part fostered by the Inter-Tajik Dialogue, a Track II diplomacy initiative in which the players were brought together by international actors, namely the United States. The peace agreement completely eliminated the Leninabad region from power, presidential elections were held on November 6,1999. Akbar Turajonzoda, second-in-command of the UTO, repeated this warning on 26 June, President Rahmonov, UTO leader Sayid Abdulloh Nuri and Russian President Boris Yeltsin met in the Kremlin in Moscow on 26 June to finish negotiating the peace agreement. Russian Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov met with the Foreign Ministers of Iran, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to discuss the peace accord
Civil war in Tajikistan
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Rally at Shakhidon Square in Dushanbe during the 1992 Tajikistan civil war
44.
Tajikistan
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Tajikistan, officially the Republic of Tajikistan, is a mountainous, landlocked country in Central Asia with an estimated 8 million people in 2013, and an area of 143,100 km2. It is bordered by Islamic Republic of Afghanistan to the south, the Republic of Uzbekistan to the west, the Kyrgyz Republic to the north, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan lies to the south, separated by the narrow Wakhan Corridor. Traditional homelands of Tajik people included present-day Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Uzbekistan, a civil war was fought almost immediately after independence, lasting from 1992 to 1997. Since the end of the war, newly established political stability, Tajikistan is a presidential republic consisting of four provinces. Most of Tajikistans 8 million people belong to the Tajik ethnic group, many Tajiks also speak Russian as their second language. Mountains cover more than 90% of the country and it has a transition economy that is highly dependent on remittances, aluminium and cotton production. Tajikistan means the Land of the Tajiks, the suffix -stan is Persian for place of or country and Tajik is, most likely, the name of a pre-Islamic tribe. Tajikistan appeared as Tadjikistan or Tadzhikistan in English prior to 1991 and this is due to a transliteration from the Russian, Таджикистан. In Russian, there is no single letter j to represent the phoneme /ʤ/ and дж, Tadzhikistan is the most common alternate spelling and is widely used in English literature derived from Russian sources. Tadjikistan is the spelling in French and can occasionally be found in English language texts, the way of writing Tajikistan in the Perso-Arabic script is. The earliest recorded history of the dates back to about 500 BCE when much, if not all. After the regions conquest by Alexander the Great it became part of the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom, northern Tajikistan was part of Sogdia, a collection of city-states which was overrun by Scythians and Yuezhi nomadic tribes around 150 BCE. The Silk Road passed through the region and following the expedition of Chinese explorer Zhang Qian during the reign of Wudi commercial relations between Han China and Sogdiana flourished. Sogdians played a role in facilitating trade and also worked in other capacities, as farmers, carpetweavers, glassmakers. Later the Hephthalite Empire, a collection of tribes, moved into the region. Central Asia continued in its role as a crossroads, linking China, the steppes to the north. It was temporarily under the control of the Tibetan empire and Chinese from 650–680, the Samanid Empire,819 to 999, restored Persian control of the region and enlarged the cities of Samarkand and Bukhara which became the cultural centres of Iran and the region was known as Khorasan. The Kara-Khanid Khanate conquered Transoxania and ruled between 999–1211, during Genghis Khans invasion of Khwarezmia in the early 13th century the Mongol Empire took control over nearly all of Central Asia
Tajikistan
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The
Samanid ruler
Mansur I (961 – 976).
Tajikistan
Tajikistan
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Tajik men and boys, 1905-1915
Tajikistan
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Soviet negotiations with
basmachi, 1921
45.
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
Geographic coordinate system
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Longitude lines are perpendicular and latitude lines are parallel to the equator.
46.
Minaret
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A minaret, from Arabic, منارة manāra, lit. lighthouse, also known as Goldaste, is a distinctive architectural structure akin to a tower and typically found adjacent to mosques. Generally a tall spire with a conical or onion-shaped crown, usually either free-standing or taller than associated support structure, the basic form of a minaret includes a base, shaft, and gallery. Styles vary regionally and by period, minarets provide a visual focal point and are traditionally used for the Muslim call to prayer. The purpose of minarets in traditional Eastern region architecture is to serve as a system for a building in very hot climates. That buildings of middle eastern origins have such outstanding features is architecturally intentional, however in modern times, with the invention of the modern air conditioners, the purpose of minarets has changed to traditional symbol. The minaret would be equipped with a speaker that would call people to prayers in Muslim countries. In addition to providing a visual cue to a Muslim community, the call to prayer is issued five times each day, dawn, noon, mid-afternoon, sunset, and night. In most modern mosques, the adhān is called from the musallah via microphone to a system on the minaret. Around 80 years after Muhammads death, the first known minarets appeared, minarets have been described as the gate from heaven and earth, and as the Arabic language letter aleph. The massive minaret of the Great Mosque of Kairouan in Tunisia is the oldest standing minaret and its construction began during the first third of the 8th century and was completed in 836 CE. The imposing square-plan tower consists of three sections of decreasing size reaching 31.5 meters, considered as the prototype for minarets of the western Islamic world, it served as a model for many later minarets. The tallest minaret, at 210 metres is located at the Hassan II Mosque in Casablanca, the tallest brick minaret is Qutub Minar located in Delhi, India. In some of the oldest mosques, such as the Great Mosque of Damascus, the basic form of minarets consists of three parts, a base, shaft, and a gallery. For the base, the ground is excavated until a foundation is reached. Gravel and other supporting materials may be used as a foundation, minarets may be conical, square, cylindrical, or polygonal. Stairs circle the shaft in a fashion, providing necessary structural support to the highly elongated shaft. The gallery is a balcony that encircles the upper sections from which the muezzin may give the call to prayer, styles and architecture can vary widely according to region and time period. Here are a few styles and the localities from which they derive, Tunisia Quadrangular, turkish 1,2,4 or 6 minarets related to the size of the mosque
Minaret
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The oldest standing minaret is in
Tunisia 's
Great Mosque of Kairouan.
Minaret
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Minaret (malwiya) of the
Great Mosque of Samarra
Minaret
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Square three-tiered minaret (the oldest in existence) of the
Mosque of Uqba (Great Mosque of
Kairouan),
Tunisia
47.
Kalyan minaret
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The Kalyan minaret is a minaret of the Po-i-Kalyan mosque complex in Bukhara, Uzbekistan and one of the most prominent landmarks in the city. The minaret, designed by Bako, was built by the Qarakhanid ruler Mohammad Arslan Khan in 1127 to summon Muslims to prayer five times a day, an earlier tower collapsed before completion. It is made in the form of a circular-pillar baked brick tower and it is 45.6 metres high, of 9 metres diameter at the bottom and 6 metres overhead. The body of the minaret is topped by a rotunda with 16 arched fenestrations, there is a brick spiral staircase that twists up inside around the pillar to the rotunda. Once the minaret was believed to have had another round section above the rotunda, the tower base has narrow ornamental strings belted across it made of bricks which are placed in both straight or diagonal fashion. The frieze is covered with a glaze with inscriptions. In times of war, warriors used the minaret as a watchtower to lookout for enemies, about a hundred years after its construction, the tower so impressed Genghis Khan that he ordered it to be spared when all around was destroyed by his men. It is also known as the Tower of Death, because until as recently as the twentieth century criminals were executed by being thrown from the top
Kalyan minaret
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The Kalyan minaret
Kalyan minaret
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The minaret in 1909
48.
Bibi-Khanym Mosque
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The mosque Bibi-Khanym Mosque is one of the most important monuments of Samarkand. In the 15th century it was one of the largest and most magnificent mosques in the Islamic world, by the mid-20th century only a grandiose ruin of it still survived, but now major parts of the mosque have been restored. After his Indian campaign in 1399 Timur decided to undertake the construction of a mosque in his new capital. The mosque was built using wealth looted during his conquest of India, when Timur returned from his military campaign in 1404 the mosque was almost completed. However, Timur was not happy with the progress of construction, therefore he had made various changes. From the beginning of the construction, problems of statistical regularity of the structure revealed themselves, various reconstructions and reinforcements were undertaken in order to save the mosque. However, after few years the first bricks had begun to fall out of the dome over the mihrab. It forced Timur to retaliate often beyond the structural rules and his builders were certainly aware of that, however he didnt want to accept their opinion and reality. In the late 16th century the Abdullah Khan II, the last Shaybanid Dynasty Khan of Bukhara, after that, the mosque came down and became a ruins gnawed at by the wind, weather, and earthquakes. The inner arch of the portal construction collapsed in 1897, during the centuries the ruins were plundered by the inhabitants of Samarkand in search of building material especially the brick of masonry galleries along with the marble columns. A first basic investigation and securing the ruins was made in Soviet times, late in the 20th century, the Uzbek government began restoration of three dome buildings and the main portal. In 1974 the government of the then-Uzbek SSR began the reconstruction of the mosque. The decoration of domes and facades was extensively restored and supplemented, work on the mosque restoration continues now. The mosque follows the plan of the courtyard mosque. Its outer walls enclose an area which measures 167 metres in length and 109 metres wide. However the size of the vacant of covered galleries was only 78 by 64 meters. Entering the Mosque from the northeast through the vast parade portal leads to the courtyard, a monumental dome above a square base, around 40m high, rises on the opposite site of the courtyard. The dome is the largest cupola of the mosque, nevertheless, the dome cannot be seen from the courtyard, for whole building is covered up from inside by the grandiose pischtak, which framed a monumental, deeply embedded Iwan
Bibi-Khanym Mosque
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Façade
Bibi-Khanym Mosque
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A photograph taken sometime between 1905 and 1915 by color photography pioneer
Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii shows the mosque's appearance after its collapse in the earthquake of 1897.
Bibi-Khanym Mosque
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The cupola of the main chamber rises up to 40 m.
Bibi-Khanym Mosque
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Stone stand Koran
Uzbekistan
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Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Bokhara". Encyclopædia Britannica. 4 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 157–158.
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "
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