1.
Chehel Sotoun
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Chehel Sotoun is a pavilion in the middle of a park at the far end of a long pool, in Isfahan, Iran, built by Shah Abbas II to be used for his entertainment and receptions. In this palace, Shah Abbas II and his successors would receive dignitaries and ambassadors, as with Ali Qapu, the palace contains many frescoes and paintings on ceramic. Many of the panels have been dispersed and are now in the possession of major museums in the west. A more recent painting depicts Nader Shahs victory against the Indian Army at Karnal in 1739, there are also less historical, but even more aesthetic compositions in the traditional miniature style which celebrate the joy of life and love. The Chehel Sotoun Palace is among the 9 Iranian Gardens which are registered as one of the Iran’s 21 registered World Heritage Sites under the name of the Persian Garden. Stud. vii, pp. 511–42 S. Babaie, ‘Shah ‛Abbas II, the Conquest of Qandahar, the Chihil Sutun, and its Wall Paintings’, Muqarnas, xi, pp. 125–42 Chehel Sotoun
2.
Garden design
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Garden design is the art and process of designing and creating plans for layout and planting of gardens and landscapes. Garden design may be done by the owner themselves, or by professionals of varying levels of experience. All of these considerations are subject to the limitations of the prescribed budget, a gardens location can have a substantial influence on its design. The soils of the site will affect what types of plant may be grown, as will the gardens climate zone, the locational context of the garden can also influence its design, for example an urban setting may require a different design style to a rural one. Similarly, a coastal location may necessitate a different treatment compared to a sheltered inland site. The quality of a soil can have a significant influence on a gardens design. However soils may be replaced or improved in order to them more suitable. Traditionally, garden soil is improved by amendment, the process of adding beneficial materials to the native subsoil and particularly the topsoil. The added materials, which may consist of compost, peat, sand, mineral dust, or manure, among others, are mixed with the soil to the preferred depth. The amount and type of amendment may depend on many factors, including the amount of existing soil humus, the structure, the soil acidity/alkalinity. One source states that, conditioning the soil thoroughly before planting enables the plants to establish themselves quickly, however, not all gardens are, or should be, amended in this manner, since many plants prefer an impoverished soil. In this case, poor soil is better than a soil that has been artificially enriched. The design of a garden can be affected by the nature of its boundaries, planting can be used to modify an existing boundary line by softening or widening it. Introducing internal boundaries can help divide or break up a garden into smaller areas, the main types of boundary within a garden are hedges, walls and fences. A hedge may be evergreen or deciduous, formal or informal, short or tall, depending on the style of the garden and purpose of the boundary. A wall has a strong foundation beneath it at all points, a fence differs from a wall in that it is anchored only at intervals, and is usually constructed using wood or metal. In temperate western gardens, an expanse of lawn is often considered essential to a garden. However garden designers may use other surfaces, for example those made up of gravel, small pebbles, or wood chips in order to create a different appearance
3.
Persian language
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Persian, also known by its endonym Farsi, is one of the Western Iranian languages within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan and it is mostly written in the Persian alphabet, a modified variant of the Arabic script. Its grammar is similar to that of many contemporary European languages, Persian gets its name from its origin at the capital of the Achaemenid Empire, Persis, hence the name Persian. A Persian-speaking person may be referred to as Persophone, there are approximately 110 million Persian speakers worldwide, with the language holding official status in Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan. For centuries, Persian has also been a cultural language in other regions of Western Asia, Central Asia. It also exerted influence on Arabic, particularly Bahrani Arabic. Persian is one of the Western Iranian languages within the Indo-European family, other Western Iranian languages are the Kurdish languages, Gilaki, Mazanderani, Talysh, and Balochi. Persian is classified as a member of the Southwestern subgroup within Western Iranian along with Lari, Kumzari, in Persian, the language is known by several names, Western Persian, Parsi or Farsi has been the name used by all native speakers until the 20th century. Since the latter decades of the 20th century, for reasons, in English. Tajiki is the variety of Persian spoken in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan by the Tajiks, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term Persian as a language name is first attested in English in the mid-16th century. Native Iranian Persian speakers call it Fārsi, Farsi is the Arabicized form of Pārsi, subsequent to Muslim conquest of Persia, due to a lack of the phoneme /p/ in Standard Arabic. The origin of the name Farsi and the place of origin of the language which is Fars Province is the Arabicized form of Pārs, in English, this language has historically been known as Persian, though Farsi has also gained some currency. Farsi is encountered in some literature as a name for the language. In modern English the word Farsi refers to the language while Parsi describes Zoroastrians, some Persian language scholars such as Ehsan Yarshater, editor of Encyclopædia Iranica, and University of Arizona professor Kamran Talattof, have also rejected the usage of Farsi in their articles. The international language-encoding standard ISO 639-1 uses the code fa, as its system is mostly based on the local names. The more detailed standard ISO 639-3 uses the name Persian for the dialect continuum spoken across Iran and Afghanistan and this consists of the individual languages Dari and Iranian Persian. Currently, Voice of America, BBC World Service, Deutsche Welle, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty also includes a Tajik service and an Afghan service. This is also the case for the American Association of Teachers of Persian, The Centre for Promotion of Persian Language and Literature, Persian is an Iranian language belonging to the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European family of languages
4.
Andalusia
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Andalusia is an autonomous community in southern Spain. It is the most populated and the second largest in area of the communities in the country. The Andalusian autonomous community is recognised as historical nationality. The territory is divided into eight provinces, Almería, Cádiz, Córdoba, Granada, Huelva, Jaén, Málaga and its capital is the city of Seville. Andalusia is the only European region with both Mediterranean and Atlantic coastlines, the small British overseas territory of Gibraltar shares a three-quarter-mile land border with the Andalusian province of Cádiz at the eastern end of the Strait of Gibraltar. The main mountain ranges of Andalusia are the Sierra Morena and the Baetic System, consisting of the Subbaetic and Penibaetic Mountains, in the north, the Sierra Morena separates Andalusia from the plains of Extremadura and Castile–La Mancha on Spains Meseta Central. To the south the geographic subregion of Upper Andalusia lies mostly within the Baetic System, the name Andalusia is derived from the Arabic word Al-Andalus. Including an intense relationship with Naples, Italy, Andalusia has been a traditionally agricultural region, compared to the rest of Spain and the rest of Europe. However, the growth of the community especially in the sectors of industry and services was above average in Spain, the region has, however, a rich culture and a strong cultural identity. Many cultural phenomena that are seen internationally as distinctively Spanish are largely or entirely Andalusian in origin and these include flamenco and, to a lesser extent, bullfighting and Hispano-Moorish architectural styles. Andalusias hinterland is the hottest area of Europe, with cities like Córdoba, Late evening temperatures can sometimes stay around 35 °C until close to midnight, with daytime highs of over 40 °C common. Seville also has the highest average temperature in mainland Spain and mainland Europe. Its present form is derived from the Arabic name for Muslim Iberia. However, the etymology of the name Al-Andalus is disputed, the Spanish place name Andalucía was introduced into the Spanish languages in the 13th century under the form el Andalucía. This was a Castilianization of Al-Andalusiya, the form of the Arabic language al-Andalus. The etymology of al-Andalus is itself somewhat debated, but in fact it entered the Arabic language before this came under Muslim rule. Like the Arabic term al-Andalus, in historical contexts the Spanish term Andalucía or the English term Andalusia do not necessarily refer to the territory designated by these terms today. To designate the territories the Christians had regained by that time in the Guadalquivir valley and in the Kingdoms of Granada, in a document from 1253, Alfonso X styled himself Rey de Castilla, León y de toda Andalucía
5.
India
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India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and it is bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast. It shares land borders with Pakistan to the west, China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the northeast, in the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives. Indias Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a border with Thailand. The Indian subcontinent was home to the urban Indus Valley Civilisation of the 3rd millennium BCE, in the following millennium, the oldest scriptures associated with Hinduism began to be composed. Social stratification, based on caste, emerged in the first millennium BCE, early political consolidations took place under the Maurya and Gupta empires, the later peninsular Middle Kingdoms influenced cultures as far as southeast Asia. In the medieval era, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Islam arrived, much of the north fell to the Delhi sultanate, the south was united under the Vijayanagara Empire. The economy expanded in the 17th century in the Mughal empire, in the mid-18th century, the subcontinent came under British East India Company rule, and in the mid-19th under British crown rule. A nationalist movement emerged in the late 19th century, which later, under Mahatma Gandhi, was noted for nonviolent resistance, in 2015, the Indian economy was the worlds seventh largest by nominal GDP and third largest by purchasing power parity. Following market-based economic reforms in 1991, India became one of the major economies and is considered a newly industrialised country. However, it continues to face the challenges of poverty, corruption, malnutrition, a nuclear weapons state and regional power, it has the third largest standing army in the world and ranks sixth in military expenditure among nations. India is a constitutional republic governed under a parliamentary system. It is a pluralistic, multilingual and multi-ethnic society and is home to a diversity of wildlife in a variety of protected habitats. The name India is derived from Indus, which originates from the Old Persian word Hindu, the latter term stems from the Sanskrit word Sindhu, which was the historical local appellation for the Indus River. The ancient Greeks referred to the Indians as Indoi, which translates as The people of the Indus, the geographical term Bharat, which is recognised by the Constitution of India as an official name for the country, is used by many Indian languages in its variations. Scholars believe it to be named after the Vedic tribe of Bharatas in the second millennium B. C. E and it is also traditionally associated with the rule of the legendary emperor Bharata. Gaṇarājya is the Sanskrit/Hindi term for republic dating back to the ancient times, hindustan is a Persian name for India dating back to the 3rd century B. C. E. It was introduced into India by the Mughals and widely used since then and its meaning varied, referring to a region that encompassed northern India and Pakistan or India in its entirety
6.
Alhambra
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The Alhambra, the complete Arabic form of which was Qalat Al-Hamra, is a palace and fortress complex located in Granada, Andalusia, Spain. It was converted into a palace in 1333 by Yusuf I. After the conclusion of the Christian Reconquista in 1492, the became the Royal Court of Ferdinand and Isabella. Alhambras late flowering of Islamic palaces were built for the last Muslim emirs in Spain during the decline of the Nasrid dynasty who were subject to the Christian Kings of Castile. The Alhambra is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the inspiration for many songs, Moorish poets described it as a pearl set in emeralds, an allusion to the colour of its buildings and the woods around them. The palace complex was designed with the site in mind. The park has a multitude of nightingales and is filled with the sound of running water from several fountains. These are supplied through a conduit 8 km long, which is connected with the Darro at the monastery of Jesus del Valle above Granada, Alhambra was extended by the different Muslim rulers who lived in the complex. However, each new section that was added followed the consistent theme of paradise on earth, column arcades, fountains with running water, and reflecting pools were used to add to the aesthetic and functional complexity. In every case, the exterior was plain and austere. Sun and wind were freely admitted, blue, red, and a golden yellow, all somewhat faded through lapse of time and exposure, are the colors chiefly employed. Much of this ornament is carved stucco rather than stone, tile mosaics, with complicated mathematical patterns, are largely used as panelling for the lower part. Similar designs are displayed on wooden ceilings, muqarnas are the main elements for vaulting with stucco, and some of the most accomplished dome examples of this kind are in the Court of the Lions halls. It is a place where artists and intellectuals had taken refuge as the Reconquista by Spanish Christians won victories over Al Andalus, the literal translation of Alhambra, the red, reflects the color of the red clay of the surroundings of which the fort is made. The buildings of the Alhambra were originally whitewashed, however, the buildings as seen today are reddish. Another possible origin of the name is the designation of the Nasrid Dynasty, known as the Banu al-Ahmar Arabic, Sons of the Red. One of the early Nasrid ancestors was nicknamed Yusuf Al Ahmar, the first reference to the Qal‘at al-Ḥamra was during the battles between the Arabs and the Muladies during the rule of the ‘Abdullah ibn Muhammad. According to surviving documents from the era, the red castle was quite small, Ibn Nasr, the founder of the Nasrid Dynasty, was forced to flee to Jaén to avoid persecution by King Ferdinand III of Castile and the Reconquista supporters working to end Spains Moorish rule
7.
Moors
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Moors are not a distinct or self-defined people, and mainstream scholars observed in 1911 that The term Moors has no real ethnological value. Medieval and early modern Europeans variously applied the name to Arabs, Berber North Africans and Muslim Europeans. The term has also used in Europe in a broader, somewhat derogatory sense to refer to Muslims in general, especially those of Arab or Berber descent. During the colonial era, the Portuguese introduced the names Ceylon Moors and Indian Moors in Sri Lanka, in 711, troops mostly formed by Moors from North Africa led the Umayyad conquest of Hispania. The Iberian peninsula then came to be known in classical Arabic as Al-Andalus, in 827, the Moors occupied Mazara on Sicily, developing it as a port. They eventually consolidated the rest of the island and some of southern Italy, in 1224 the Muslims were expelled from Sicily to the settlement of Lucera, which was destroyed by European Christians in 1300. The fall of Granada in 1492 marked the end of Muslim rule in Iberia, the Berber tribes of the region were noted in Classical literature as Mauri, which was subsequently rendered as Moors in English and in related variations in other European languages. Mauri is recorded as the name by Strabo in the early 1st century. This appellation was also adopted into Latin, whereas the Greek name for the tribe was Maurusii, in medieval Romance languages, variations of the Latin word for the Moors developed different applications and connotations. During the context of the Crusades and the Reconquista, the term Moors included the suggestion of infidels. Apart from these associations and context, Moor and Moorish designate a specific ethnic group speaking Hassaniya Arabic. They inhabit Mauritania and parts of Algeria, Western Sahara, Tunisia, Morocco, Niger, in Niger and Mali, these peoples are also known as the Azawagh Arabs, after the Azawagh region of the Sahara. Some authors have pointed out that in modern colloquial Spanish use of the term moro is derogatory for Moroccans in particular, however, this designation has gained more acceptance in the south. In the Philippines, a former Spanish colony, many modern Filipinos call the large, local Muslim minority concentrated in Mindanao, the word is a catch-all term, as Moro may come from several distinct ethno-linguistic groups such as the Maranao people. The term was introduced by Spanish colonisers, and has since been appropriated by Filipino Muslims as an endonym, moreno can mean dark-skinned in Spain, Portugal, Brazil, and the Philippines. Also in Spanish, morapio is a name for wine, especially that which has not been baptized or mixed with water. Among Spanish speakers, moro came to have a broader meaning, Moro refers to all things dark, as in Moor, moreno, etc. It was also used as a nickname, for instance, the Milanese Duke Ludovico Sforza was called Il Moro because of his dark complexion, in Portugal, mouro may refer to supernatural beings known as enchanted moura, where moor implies alien and non-Christian
8.
Al-Andalus
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Al-Andalus, also known as Muslim Spain or Islamic Iberia, was a medieval Muslim territory and cultural domain occupying at its peak most of what are today Spain and Portugal. At its greatest geographical extent in the century, southern France—Septimania—was briefly under its control. Rule under these kingdoms led to a rise in cultural exchange, a number of achievements that advanced Islamic and Western science came from al-Andalus including major advances in trigonometry, astronomy, surgery, pharmacology, and other fields. Al-Andalus became an educational center for Europe and the lands around the Mediterranean Sea as well as a conduit for culture. For much of its history, al-Andalus existed in conflict with Christian kingdoms to the north, after the fall of the Umayyad caliphate, al-Andalus was fragmented into a number of minor states and principalities. Attacks from the Christians intensified, led by the Castilians under Alfonso VI, the Almoravid empire intervened and repelled the Christian attacks on the region, deposing the weak Andalusi Muslim princes and included al-Andalus under direct Berber rule. In the next century and a half, al-Andalus became a province of the Berber Muslim empires of the Almoravids and Almohads, ultimately, the Christian kingdoms in the north of the Iberian Peninsula overpowered the Muslim states to the south. In 1085, Alfonso VI captured Toledo, starting a gradual decline of Muslim power, with the fall of Córdoba in 1236, most of the south quickly fell under Christian rule and the Emirate of Granada became a tributary state of the Kingdom of Castile two years later. In 1249, the Portuguese Reconquista culminated with the conquest of the Algarve by Afonso III, finally, on January 2,1492, Emir Muhammad XII surrendered the Emirate of Granada to Queen Isabella I of Castile, completing the Christian Reconquista of the peninsula. The toponym al-Andalus is first attested to by inscriptions on coins minted by the new Muslim government in Iberia, the etymology of the name has traditionally been derived from the name of the Vandals. A number of proposals since the 1980s have contested this, Vallvé proposed a corruption of the name Atlantis, halm derives the name from a Gothic term *landahlauts. Bossong suggests derivation from a pre-Roman substrate and they crossed the Pyrenees and occupied Visigothic Septimania in southern France. Most of the Iberian peninsula became part of the expanding Umayyad Empire and it was organized as a province subordinate to Ifriqiya, so, for the first few decades, the governors of al-Andalus were appointed by the emir of Kairouan, rather than the Caliph in Damascus. Visigothic lords who agreed to recognize Muslim suzerainty were allowed to retain their fiefs, resistant Visigoths took refuge in the Cantabrian highlands, where they carved out a rump state, the Kingdom of Asturias. In the 720s, the al-Andalus governors launched several raids into Aquitaine. At the Battle of Poitiers in 732, the al-Andalus raiding army was defeated by Charles Martel, in 734, the Andalusi launched raids to the east, capturing Avignon and Arles and overran much of Provence. In 737, they climbed up the Rhône valley, reached as far as Burgundy, Charles Martel of the Franks, with the assistance of Liutprand of the Lombards, invaded Burgundy and Provence and expelled the raiders by 739. Relations between Arabs and Berbers in al-Andalus had been tense in the years after the conquest
9.
Spain
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By population, Spain is the sixth largest in Europe and the fifth in the European Union. Spains capital and largest city is Madrid, other urban areas include Barcelona, Valencia, Seville, Bilbao. Modern humans first arrived in the Iberian Peninsula around 35,000 years ago, in the Middle Ages, the area was conquered by Germanic tribes and later by the Moors. Spain is a democracy organised in the form of a government under a constitutional monarchy. It is a power and a major developed country with the worlds fourteenth largest economy by nominal GDP. Jesús Luis Cunchillos argues that the root of the span is the Phoenician word spy. Therefore, i-spn-ya would mean the land where metals are forged, two 15th-century Spanish Jewish scholars, Don Isaac Abravanel and Solomon ibn Verga, gave an explanation now considered folkloric. Both men wrote in two different published works that the first Jews to reach Spain were brought by ship by Phiros who was confederate with the king of Babylon when he laid siege to Jerusalem. This man was a Grecian by birth, but who had given a kingdom in Spain. He became related by marriage to Espan, the nephew of king Heracles, Heracles later renounced his throne in preference for his native Greece, leaving his kingdom to his nephew, Espan, from whom the country of España took its name. Based upon their testimonies, this eponym would have already been in use in Spain by c.350 BCE, Iberia enters written records as a land populated largely by the Iberians, Basques and Celts. Early on its coastal areas were settled by Phoenicians who founded Western Europe´s most ancient cities Cadiz, Phoenician influence expanded as much of the Peninsula was eventually incorporated into the Carthaginian Empire, becoming a major theater of the Punic Wars against the expanding Roman Empire. After an arduous conquest, the peninsula came fully under Roman Rule, during the early Middle Ages it came under Germanic rule but later, much of it was conquered by Moorish invaders from North Africa. In a process took centuries, the small Christian kingdoms in the north gradually regained control of the peninsula. The last Moorish kingdom fell in the same year Columbus reached the Americas, a global empire began which saw Spain become the strongest kingdom in Europe, the leading world power for a century and a half, and the largest overseas empire for three centuries. Continued wars and other problems led to a diminished status. The Napoleonic invasions of Spain led to chaos, triggering independence movements that tore apart most of the empire, eventually democracy was peacefully restored in the form of a parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Spain joined the European Union, experiencing a renaissance and steady economic growth
10.
Humayun's Tomb
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Humayuns tomb is the tomb of the Mughal Emperor Humayun in Delhi, India. The tomb was commissioned by Humayuns first wife and chief consort, Empress Bega Begum, in 1569-70, and designed by Mirak Mirza Ghiyas, a Persian architect chosen by her. It was the first garden-tomb on the Indian subcontinent, and is located in Nizamuddin East, Delhi, India, close to the Dina-panah Citadel, also known as Purana Qila and it was also the first structure to use red sandstone at such a scale. The tomb was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1993, and since then has undergone restoration work. It is seen as a departure from the fairly modest mausoleum of his father. Though the latter was the first Emperor to start the tradition of being buried in a paradise garden, at the time of the Slave Dynasty this land was under the KiloKheri Fort which was capital of Sultan Kequbad, son of Nasiruddin. After his death on 20 January 1556, Humayuns body was first buried in his palace in Purana Quila at Delhi, thereaft Purana Quila, would damage the tomb. In 1558, it was seen by his son, the then Mughal Emperor, Akbar subsequently visited the tomb when it was about to be completed in 1571. The tomb of Humayun was built by the orders of Humayuns first wife and chief consort, the construction began in 1565, nine years after his death, and completed in 1572 AD at a cost of 1.5 million rupes at the time. The cost for building the mausoleum was paid entirely by Empress Bega Begum, Ghiyas, to whom the mausoleums exquisite design is attributed was chosen to be the architect by Empress Bega Begum. Unfortunately, before the completion, he died and so his son Sayyed Muhammad ibn Mirak Ghiyathuddin completed his fathers design in 1571. An English merchant, William Finch, who visited the tomb in 1611, the fortunes of the once famous Charbagh gardens, which spread over 13 hectares surrounding the monument, changed repeatedly over the years after its construction. The capital had shifted to Agra in 1556, and the decline of the Mughals accelerated the decay of the monument and its features. By the early 18th century, the lush gardens were replaced by vegetable garden of people who had settled within the walled area. These camps stayed open for five years, and caused considerable damage not only to the extensive gardens, but also to the water channels. Eventually, to vandalism, the cenotaphs within the mausoleum were encased in brick. In the coming years, the Archaeological Survey of India, took on responsibility for the preservation of monuments in India. Until 1985, four attempts were made to reinstate the original water features
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