1.
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
2.
Ilan Shohat
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Ilan Shohat is an Israeli politician, and the mayor of Safed in the Israeli Galilee since 2008. In 2010, he was the youngest mayor in Israel, in 2015, he was elected to the Knesset, but chose not to take his seat days before he was to be sworn in. Shohat was first elected Mayor of Safed, a city in the Israeli Galilee and he was a representative of an independent list identified with Kadima and was supported by Yisrael Beiteinu and the Labor Party. In 2009, he visited Bowling Green, Kentucky, asking for help providing transportable bomb shelters to Israel, in 2010 Shohat was Israels youngest mayor. In 2012, he was investigated on suspicion of taking a bribe during the 2008 elections and he was re-elected Mayor easily in 2013. That year, Shohat stirred controversy when he decided that a school should be built in the city that would attract many non-Jewish students. He ran for office in Safed as a member of the Likud. He joined Yisrael Beiteinu in 2012, Shohat won a seat in the Israeli Knesset in 2015 when he was in the fourth slot on the Yisrael Beiteinu list for the 2015 Knesset elections. His party received six seats in the election, one week after he was elected to the Knesset and days before he was scheduled to be sworn in, Shohat chose not to take his seat. His decision permitted MK Robert Ilatov to remain in the Knesset
3.
Hebrew language
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Hebrew is a language native to Israel, spoken by over 9 million people worldwide, of whom over 5 million are in Israel. Historically, it is regarded as the language of the Israelites and their ancestors, the earliest examples of written Paleo-Hebrew date from the 10th century BCE. Hebrew belongs to the West Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic language family, Hebrew is the only living Canaanite language left, and the only truly successful example of a revived dead language. Hebrew had ceased to be a spoken language somewhere between 200 and 400 CE, declining since the aftermath of the Bar Kokhba revolt. Aramaic and to a lesser extent Greek were already in use as international languages, especially among elites and it survived into the medieval period as the language of Jewish liturgy, rabbinic literature, intra-Jewish commerce, and poetry. Then, in the 19th century, it was revived as a spoken and literary language, and, according to Ethnologue, had become, as of 1998, the language of 5 million people worldwide. After Israel, the United States has the second largest Hebrew-speaking population, with 220,000 fluent speakers, Modern Hebrew is one of the two official languages of the State of Israel, while premodern Hebrew is used for prayer or study in Jewish communities around the world today. Ancient Hebrew is also the tongue of the Samaritans, while modern Hebrew or Arabic is their vernacular. For this reason, Hebrew has been referred to by Jews as Leshon Hakodesh, the modern word Hebrew is derived from the word Ivri, one of several names for the Israelite people. It is traditionally understood to be a based on the name of Abrahams ancestor, Eber. This name is based upon the root ʕ-b-r meaning to cross over. Interpretations of the term ʕibrim link it to this verb, cross over, in the Bible, the Hebrew language is called Yәhudit because Judah was the surviving kingdom at the time of the quotation. In Isaiah 19,18 it is called the Language of Canaan, Hebrew belongs to the Canaanite group of languages. In turn, the Canaanite languages are a branch of the Northwest Semitic family of languages, according to Avraham ben-Yosef, Hebrew flourished as a spoken language in the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah during about 1200 to 586 BCE. Scholars debate the degree to which Hebrew was a vernacular in ancient times following the Babylonian exile. In July 2008 Israeli archaeologist Yossi Garfinkel discovered a ceramic shard at Khirbet Qeiyafa which he claimed may be the earliest Hebrew writing yet discovered, dating around 3000 years ago. The Gezer calendar also dates back to the 10th century BCE at the beginning of the Monarchic Period, classified as Archaic Biblical Hebrew, the calendar presents a list of seasons and related agricultural activities. The Gezer calendar is written in an old Semitic script, akin to the Phoenician one that through the Greeks, the Gezer calendar is written without any vowels, and it does not use consonants to imply vowels even in the places where later Hebrew spelling requires it
4.
Biblical Hebrew
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The term Hebrew was not used for the language in the Bible, which was referred to as Canaanite or Judahite, but the name was used in Greek and Mishnaic Hebrew texts. Biblical Hebrew is attested from about the 10th century BCE, and persisted through and beyond the Second Temple period, Biblical Hebrew eventually developed into Mishnaic Hebrew, which was spoken until the second century CE. There is also evidence of regional dialectal variation, including differences between Biblical Hebrew as spoken in the northern Kingdom of Israel and in the southern Kingdom of Judah. Biblical Hebrew has been written with a number of different writing systems, the Hebrews adopted the Phoenician alphabet around the 12th century BCE, which developed into the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet. This was retained by the Samaritans, who use the descendent Samaritan alphabet to this day, however, the Aramaic alphabet gradually displaced the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet for the Jews, and it became the source for the modern Hebrew alphabet. All of these scripts were lacking letters to represent all of the sounds of Biblical Hebrew, though these sounds are reflected in Greek and these scripts originally only indicated consonants, but certain letters, known by the Latin term matres lectionis, became increasingly used to mark vowels. In the Middle Ages, various systems of diacritics were developed to mark the vowels in Hebrew manuscripts, of these, Biblical Hebrew possessed a series of emphatic consonants whose precise articulation is disputed, likely ejective or pharyngealized. Earlier Biblical Hebrew possessed three consonants which did not have their own letters in the system, but over time they merged with other consonants. The stop consonants developed fricative allophones under the influence of Aramaic, the pharyngeal and glottal consonants underwent weakening in some regional dialects, as reflected in the modern Samaritan Hebrew reading tradition. Biblical Hebrew had a typical Semitic morphology with nonconcatenative morphology, arranging Semitic roots into patterns to form words, Biblical Hebrew distinguished two genders, three numbers. Verbs were marked for voice and mood, and had two conjugations which may have indicated aspect and/or tense, the tense or aspect of verbs was also influenced by the conjugation ו, in the so-called waw-consecutive construction. Default word order was verb–subject–object, and verbs inflected for the number, gender, pronominal suffixes could be appended to verbs or nouns, and nouns had special construct states for use in possessive constructions. The earliest written sources refer to Biblical Hebrew by the name of the land in which it was spoken, the Hebrew Bible also shows that the language was called יהודית Judaean, Judahite. In the Hellenistic period Greek writings use the names Hebraios, Hebraïsti, Jews also began referring to Hebrew as לשון הקדש the Holy Tongue in Mishnaic Hebrew. The term Classical Hebrew may include all pre-medieval dialects of Hebrew, including Mishnaic Hebrew, the term Biblical Hebrew refers to pre-Mishnaic dialects. The archeological record for the prehistory of Biblical Hebrew is far more complete than the record of Biblical Hebrew itself, Early Northwest Semitic materials are attested from 2350 BCE to 1200 BCE, the end of the Bronze Age. Hebrew developed during the half of the second millennium BCE between the Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea, an area known as Canaan. The earliest Hebrew writing yet discovered was found at Khirbet Qeiyafa, the kingdom of Israel was destroyed by the Assyrians in 722 BCE
5.
Arabic
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Arabic is a Central Semitic language that was first spoken in Iron Age northwestern Arabia and is now the lingua franca of the Arab world. Arabic is also the language of 1.7 billion Muslims. It is one of six languages of the United Nations. The modern written language is derived from the language of the Quran and it is widely taught in schools and universities, and is used to varying degrees in workplaces, government, and the media. The two formal varieties are grouped together as Literary Arabic, which is the language of 26 states. Modern Standard Arabic largely follows the standards of Quranic Arabic. Much of the new vocabulary is used to denote concepts that have arisen in the post-Quranic era, Arabic has influenced many languages around the globe throughout its history. During the Middle Ages, Literary Arabic was a vehicle of culture in Europe, especially in science, mathematics. As a result, many European languages have borrowed many words from it. Many words of Arabic origin are found in ancient languages like Latin. Balkan languages, including Greek, have acquired a significant number of Arabic words through contact with Ottoman Turkish. Arabic has also borrowed words from languages including Greek and Persian in medieval times. Arabic is a Central Semitic language, closely related to the Northwest Semitic languages, the Ancient South Arabian languages, the Semitic languages changed a great deal between Proto-Semitic and the establishment of the Central Semitic languages, particularly in grammar. Innovations of the Central Semitic languages—all maintained in Arabic—include, The conversion of the suffix-conjugated stative formation into a past tense, the conversion of the prefix-conjugated preterite-tense formation into a present tense. The elimination of other prefix-conjugated mood/aspect forms in favor of new moods formed by endings attached to the prefix-conjugation forms, the development of an internal passive. These features are evidence of descent from a hypothetical ancestor. In the southwest, various Central Semitic languages both belonging to and outside of the Ancient South Arabian family were spoken and it is also believed that the ancestors of the Modern South Arabian languages were also spoken in southern Arabia at this time. To the north, in the oases of northern Hijaz, Dadanitic and Taymanitic held some prestige as inscriptional languages, in Najd and parts of western Arabia, a language known to scholars as Thamudic C is attested
6.
Galilee
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Al-Jalīl) is a region in northern Israel. The term Galilee traditionally refers to the part and divided into Upper Galilee. By this definition it overlaps with much of the administrative Northern District of the country, the regions Israelite name is from the Hebrew root galil, an ultimately unique word for district, and usually circle. The Hebrew form used in Isaiah 8,23 is in the state, glil hagoyim, meaning Galilee of the Nations. The region in turn gave rise to the English name for the Sea of Galilee referred to as such in many languages including ancient Arabic and these are the three names used in originally internal Jewish-authored literature rather than the Sea of Galilee. However, Jews did use the Galilee to refer to the whole region, most of Galilee consists of rocky terrain, at heights of between 500 and 700 m. Several high mountains are in the region, including Mount Tabor and Mount Meron, as a result of this climate, flora and wildlife thrive in the region, while many birds annually migrate from colder climates to Africa and back through the Hula–Jordan corridor. According to the Bible, Galilee was named by the Israelites and was the region of Naphthali and Dan. However, Dan was dispersed among the people rather than isolated to the lands of Dan, as the Tribe of Dan was the hereditary local law enforcement. Normally, Galilee is just referred to as Naphthali, hiram, to reciprocate previous gifts given to David, accepted the upland plain among the mountains of Naphtali and renamed it the land of Cabul for a time. After Judea became a Roman province in 6, C. E. Galilee briefly became a part of it, the Galilee region was presumably the home of Jesus during at least 30 years of his life. Much of the first three Gospels of the New Testament give an account of Jesus public ministry in this province, particularly in the towns of Nazareth, Galilee is also cited as the place where Jesus performed many public miracles, including curing a blind man. After the death of Jesus, some accounts suggest his disciples returned to Galilee, many are cited for their large number of students and followers throughout the Jewish people among the common people. According to the Talmud, one of the most important founders of the modern Jewish faith, simeon bar Yochai, one of the most famed of all the Tannaim, hid from the Romans in the Galilee, and dug tunnels there to hide. Many miracles are ascribed to him during his Galilean period after escaping Judea proper, in medieval Hebrew legend, he may have written the Zohar while there. Eastern Galilee retained a Jewish majority until the seventh century, after the Arab caliphate took control of the region in 638, it became part of Jund al-Urdunn. Its major towns were Tiberias, Baysan, Acre, Saffuriya, the Shia Fatimids conquered the region in the 10th century, a breakaway sect, venerating the Fatimid caliph al-Hakim, formed the Druze religion, centered in Mount Lebanon and partially Galilee. During the Crusades, Galilee was organized into the Principality of Galilee, the Jewish population of Galilee increased significantly following their expulsion from Spain and welcome from the Ottoman Empire
7.
Josephus
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Josephus claimed the Jewish Messianic prophecies that initiated the First Roman-Jewish War made reference to Vespasian becoming Emperor of Rome. In response Vespasian decided to keep Josephus as a slave and interpreter, after Vespasian became Emperor in 69 CE, he granted Josephus his freedom, at which time Josephus assumed the emperors family name of Flavius. Flavius Josephus fully defected to the Roman side and was granted Roman citizenship and he became an advisor and friend of Vespasians son Titus, serving as his translator when Titus led the Siege of Jerusalem. Since the siege proved ineffective at stopping the Jewish revolt, the citys destruction, Josephus recorded Jewish history, with special emphasis on the first century CE and the First Jewish–Roman War, including the Siege of Masada. His most important works were The Jewish War and Antiquities of the Jews, the Jewish War recounts the Jewish revolt against Roman occupation. Antiquities of the Jews recounts the history of the world from a Jewish perspective for an ostensibly Roman audience and these works provide valuable insight into first century Judaism and the background of Early Christianity. Josephus introduces himself in Greek as Iōsēpos, son of Matthias and he was the second-born son of Matthias. His older full-blooded brother was also called Matthias and their mother was an aristocratic woman who descended from the royal and formerly ruling Hasmonean dynasty. Josephuss paternal grandparents were Josephus and his wife—an unnamed Hebrew noblewoman, distant relatives of each other and he descended through his father from the priestly order of the Jehoiarib, which was the first of the 24 orders of priests in the Temple in Jerusalem. Josephus was a descendant of the high priest Jonathon, born and raised in Jerusalem, Josephus was educated alongside his brother. In his early twenties, he traveled to negotiate with Emperor Nero for the release of 12 Jewish priests, Josephus successfully fought the Roman army in Galilee, until he was captured by the Romans during the height of the war. After the Jewish garrison of Yodfat fell under siege, the Romans invaded, killing thousands, according to Josephus, he was trapped in a cave with 40 of his companions in July 67 CE. The Romans asked the group to surrender, but they refused, Josephus suggested a method of collective suicide, they drew lots and killed each other, one by one, counting to every third person. Two men were left, who surrendered to the Roman forces, in 69 CE, Josephus was released. According to his account, he acted as a negotiator with the defenders during the Siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE, in which his parents and first wife died. While being confined at Yodfat, Josephus claimed to have experienced a divine revelation, after the prediction came true, he was released by Vespasian, who considered his gift of prophecy to be divine. In 71 CE, he went to Rome in the entourage of Titus, becoming a Roman citizen, in addition to Roman citizenship, he was granted accommodation in conquered Judaea and a decent, if not extravagant, pension. While in Rome and under Flavian patronage, Josephus wrote all of his known works, although he uses Josephus, he appears to have taken the Roman praenomen Titus and nomen Flavius from his patrons
8.
Jerusalem Talmud
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The Jerusalem Talmud, also known as the Palestinian Talmud or Talmuda de-Eretz Yisrael, is a collection of Rabbinic notes on the second-century Jewish oral tradition known as the Mishnah. Naming this version of the Talmud after Palestine or Land of Israel rather than Jerusalem is considered accurate by some because, while the work was certainly composed in the West. The Jerusalem Talmud predates its counterpart, the Babylonian Talmud, by about 200 years, the word Talmud itself is often defined as instruction. Both versions of the Talmud comprise two parts, the Mishnah, which was finalized by Judah the Prince around the year 200 CE, the Gemara is what differentiates the Jerusalem Talmud from its Babylonian counterpart. The Jerusalem Gemara contains the discussions of generations of rabbis in the Land of Israel. 350-400 CE into a series of books, the Babylonian Gemara, which is the second recension of the Mishnah, was compiled by the scholars of Babylonia, and was completed c. The Babylonian Talmud is often seen as authoritative and is studied much more than the Jerusalem Talmud. In general, the terms Gemara or Talmud, without further qualification, the remaining scholars who lived in the Galilee area decided to continue their teaching activity in the learning centers that had existed since Mishnaic times. The Jerusalem Talmud probably originated in Tiberias in the School of Johanan bar Nappaha and it is a compilation of teachings of the schools of Tiberias, Sepphoris and Caesarea. It is written largely in Jewish Palestinian Aramaic, a Western Aramaic variety that differs from its Babylonian counterpart and this Talmud is a synopsis of the analysis of the Mishnah that was developed over the course of nearly 200 years by the Talmudic Academies in Syria Palaestina. Because of their location, the sages of these Academies devoted considerable attention to analysis of the laws of the Land of Israel. Traditionally, the redaction of this Talmud was thought to have brought to an abrupt end around 425. In recent years scholars have come to doubt the causal link between the abolition of the Nasi and the seeming incompletion of the final redaction. According to the Jewish Encyclopedia, Yerushalmi has not been preserved in its entirety, large portions of it were entirely lost at an early date, while other parts exist only in fragments. Of the four used for this first edition, only one is now in existence. Of the six orders of the Mishnah, the fifth, Ḳodashim, is missing entirely from the Palestinian Talmud, while the sixth, Ṭohorot, the Leiden Jerusalem Talmud is today the only extant complete manuscript of the Jerusalem Talmud. It was copied in 1289 by Rabbi Yechiel ben Yekutiel the Physician of Rome, dūkeh, instead of rūbeh/rabah, saying with a play on words, “The members of Isses household would say in the name of Isse, Why is it called dūkeh. It is because she pounds with him. ”The Hebrew word for pound is dakh, yemenite Jews still call it dūkeh
9.
Second Temple
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The Second Temple was the Jewish Holy Temple which stood on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem during the Second Temple period, between 516 BCE and 70 CE. Jewish eschatology includes a belief that the Second Temple will be replaced by a future Third Temple, the accession of Cyrus the Great of the Persian Empire in 559 BCE made the re-establishment of the city of Jerusalem and the rebuilding of the Temple possible. According to the Bible, when the Jewish exiles returned to Jerusalem following a decree from Cyrus the Great, the events take place in the second half of the 5th century BCE. Listed together with the Book of Ezra as Ezra-Nehemiah, it represents the chapter in the historical narrative of the Hebrew Bible. The original core of the book, the memoir, may have been combined with the core of the Book of Ezra around 400 BCE. Further editing probably continued into the Hellenistic era, the book tells how Nehemiah, at the court of the king in Susa, is informed that Jerusalem is without walls and resolves to restore them. The king appoints him as governor of the province Yehud Medinata, there he rebuilds the walls, despite the opposition of Israels enemies, and reforms the community in conformity with the law of Moses. After 12 years in Jerusalem, he returns to Susa but subsequently revisits Jerusalem and he finds that the Israelites have been backsliding and taking non-Jewish wives, and he stays in Jerusalem to enforce the Law. A wide interest was felt in this movement, although it was regarded with mixed feelings by the spectators. The Samaritans made proposals for co-operation in the work, Zerubbabel and the elders, however, declined all such cooperation, feeling that the Jews must build the Temple without help. Immediately evil reports were spread regarding the Jews, according to Ezra 4,5, the Samaritans sought to frustrate their purpose and sent messengers to Ecbatana and Susa, with the result that the work was suspended. Seven years later, Cyrus the Great, who allowed the Jews to return to their homeland and rebuild the Temple, on his death, the false Smerdis, an impostor, occupied the throne for some seven or eight months, and then Darius became king. It was ready for consecration in the spring of 516 BCE, the Book of Haggai includes a prediction that the glory of the second temple would be greater than that of the first. Some of the artifacts from the Temple of Solomon are not mentioned in the sources after its destruction in 597 BCE. In the Second Temple, the Kodesh Hakodashim was separated by curtains rather than a wall as in the First Temple. Still, as in the Tabernacle, the Second Temple included, The Menorah for the Hekhal The Table of Showbread The golden altar of incense, with golden censers. According to the Mishnah, the Foundation Stone stood where the Ark used to be, the Second Temple also included many of the original vessels of gold that had been taken by the Babylonians but restored by Cyrus the Great. According to the Babylonian Talmud, however, the Temple lacked the Shekinah, the dwelling or settling divine presence of God, and the Ruach HaKodesh, judea became at that moment part of the Seleucid empire of Syria
10.
Kingdom of Jerusalem
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The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem was a crusader state established in the Southern Levant by Godfrey of Bouillon in 1099 after the First Crusade. The kingdom lasted nearly two hundred years, from 1099 until 1291 when the last remaining possession, Acre, was destroyed by the Mamluks, the sometimes so-called First Kingdom of Jerusalem lasted from 1099 to 1187, when it was almost entirely overrun by Saladin. This second kingdom is called the Second Kingdom of Jerusalem or the Kingdom of Acre. Three other crusader states founded during and after the First Crusade were located north, the County of Edessa, the Principality of Antioch. While all three were independent, they were tied to Jerusalem. Beyond these to the north and west lay the states of Armenian Cilicia, further east, various Muslim emirates were located which were ultimately allied with the Abbasid caliph in Baghdad. Jerusalem itself fell to Saladin in 1187, and in the 13th century the kingdom was reduced to a few cities along the Mediterranean coast. In this period, the kingdom was ruled by the Lusignan dynasty of the Kingdom of Cyprus, dynastic ties also strengthened with Tripoli, Antioch, and Armenia. The kingdom was soon dominated by the Italian city-states of Venice and Genoa. Emperor Frederick II claimed the kingdom by marriage, but his presence sparked a war among the kingdoms nobility. The kingdom became more than a pawn in the politics and warfare of the Ayyubid and Mamluk dynasties in Egypt, as well as the Khwarezmian. The Mamluk sultans Baibars and al-Ashraf Khalil eventually reconquered all the remaining crusader strongholds, the kingdom was ethnically, religiously, and linguistically diverse, although the crusaders themselves and their descendants were an elite Catholic minority. They imported many customs and institutions from their homelands in Western Europe, the kingdom also inherited oriental qualities, influenced by the pre-existing customs and populations. The majority of the inhabitants were native Christians, especially Greek and Syrian Orthodox, as well as Sunni. The native Christians and Muslims, who were a lower class, tended to speak Greek and Arabic, while the crusaders spoke French. There were also a number of Jews and Samaritans. According to the Jewish writer Benjamin of Tudela, who travelled through the kingdom around 1170, since sets a lower bound for the Samaritan population at 1,500, since the contemporary Tolidah, a Samaritan chronicle, also mentions communities in Gaza and Acre. The First Crusade was preached at the Council of Clermont in 1095 by Pope Urban II, however, the main objective quickly became the control of the Holy Land
11.
Mamluk Sultanate (Cairo)
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The Mamluk Sultanate was a medieval realm spanning Egypt, the Levant, and Hejaz. It lasted from the overthrow of the Ayyubid Dynasty until the Ottoman conquest of Egypt in 1517, historians have traditionally broken the era of Mamlūk rule into two periods—one covering 1250–1382, the other, 1382–1517. Western historians call the former the Baḥrī period and the latter the Burjī due to the dominance of the regimes known by these names during the respective eras. Contemporary Muslim historians refer to the divisions as the Turkish. The Mamlūk state reached its height under Turkic rule with Arabic culture, the sultanates ruling caste was composed of Mamluks, soldiers of predominantly Cuman-Kipchaks, Circassian, Abkhazian, Oghuz Turks and Georgian slave origin. While Mamluks were purchased, their status was above ordinary slaves, Mamluks were considered to be true lords, with social status above citizens of Egypt. Though it declined towards the end of its existence, at its height the sultanate represented the zenith of medieval Egyptian and Levantine political, economic, the term Mamluk Sultanate is a modern historiographical term. The Arabic sources for the period of the Bahri Mamluks refer to the dynasty as the State/Realm of the Turks, other official names used were State of the Circassians. A variant thereof emphasized the fact that the Circassians were Turkish-speaking, the term Mongol State was used during Sultan al-Adil Kitbughas rule, who was of Mongol extraction. Dawlatāl Qalāwūn or Dawlat Banī Qalāwūn which means Qalāwūnī State/Dynasty which have ruled for hundred years between 1279 and 1382, al-dawla al-Ẓāhiriyya which meant Ẓāhirī state/dynasty which is the dynasty of Baibars and his two sons al-Said Barakah and Solamish. This dynasty have ruled consecutively for 19 years, Mamluk was a term defined as owned slave, distinguishing the mamluk from the garya and ghulam, which referred to household slaves. After thorough training in fields such as martial arts, court etiquette and Islamic sciences. However, they were expected to remain loyal to their master. Mamluks had formed a part of the state or military apparatus in Syria and Egypt since at least the 9th century, each Ayyubid sultan and high-ranking emir had a private mamluk corps. Most of the mamluks in the Ayyubids service were ethnic Kipchak Turks from Central Asia and they were highly committed to their masters, who they often referred to as father, and were in turn treated more as kinsmen than as slaves by their masters. These mamluks became known as the Salihiyyah, to provision his mamluks, as-Salih forcibly seized the iqtaʿat of his predecessors emirs. Despite his close relationship with his mamluks, tensions existed between as-Salih and the Salihiyyah, and a number of Salihi mamluks were imprisoned or exiled throughout as-Salihs reign. Tensions between as-Salih and his mamluks came to a later in 1249 when Louis IX of Frances forces captured Damietta in their bid to conquer Egypt during the Seventh Crusade
12.
Baibars
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Baibars or Baybars, of Turkic Kipchak origin — nicknamed Abu al-Futuh and Abu l-Futuhat — was the fourth Sultan of Egypt in the Mamluk Bahri dynasty. He was one of the commanders of the Egyptian forces that inflicted a defeat on the Seventh Crusade of King Louis IX of France. He also led the vanguard of the Egyptian army at the Battle of Ain Jalut in 1260, the reign of Baibars marked the start of an age of Mamluk dominance in the Eastern Mediterranean and solidified the durability of their military system. As Sultan, Baibars also engaged in a combination of diplomacy and military action and his name was derived from Kipchak Turkic bay + bars. Baibars was born in the Dasht-i Kipchak/Cumania, between the Edil and Yaiyk rivers, to the Cumans-Kipchaks and it was said that he was captured by the Bulgars in the Kipchak steppe/Cumania and sold as a slave, ending up in Syria. Baibars was quickly sold to a Mamluk officer called Aydekin al bondouqdar and sent to Egypt, Baibars was a commander of the Mamluks under the Ayyubids. In around 1250 he defeated the Seventh Crusade of Louis IX of France and they were besieged from all directions by the Egyptian forces and the town population, and suffered heavy losses. Robert of Artois, who took refuge in a house, only five Templar Knights escaped alive. Baibars was still a commander under Sultan Qutuz at the Battle of Ain Jalut in 1260, after the battle, Sultan Qutuz was assassinated while on a hunting expedition. Baibars succeeded Qutuz as Sultan of Egypt, also, the threat from the Mongols was still serious enough to be considered as a threat to Baibars authority. However, Baibars first chose to deal with Sinjar, and marched on Damascus, at the same time the princes of Hama and Homs proved able to defeat the Mongols in the First Battle of Homs, which lifted the Mongol threat for a while. After suppressing the revolt of Sinjar, Baibars then managed to deal with the Ayyubids, unfortunately, al-Mustansir II was killed by the Mongols during an ill-advised expedition to recapture Baghdad from the Mongols later in the same year. Like his unfortunate predecessor, al-Hakim I also received the oath of alliegance of Baibars. As sultan, Baibars engaged in a struggle against the Crusader kingdoms in Syria. He started with the Principality of Antioch, which had become a state of the Mongols and had participated in attacks against Islamic targets in Damascus. In 1263, Baibars laid siege to Acre, the capital of the remnant of the Kingdom of Jerusalem and he used siege engines to defeat the Crusaders in battles such as the Fall of Arsuf from March 21 to April 30. After breaking into the town he offered free passage to the defending Knights Hospitallers if they surrendered their formidable citadel, the Knights accepted Baibars offer but were enslaved anyway. Baibars razed the castle to the ground and he next attacked Athlith and Haifa, where he captured both towns after destroying the crusaders resistance, and razed the citadels
13.
Syria
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Syrias capital and largest city is Damascus. Religious groups include Sunnis, Christians, Alawites, Druze, Mandeans, Shiites, Salafis, Sunni Arabs make up the largest religious group in Syria. Its capital Damascus and largest city Aleppo are among the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, in the Islamic era, Damascus was the seat of the Umayyad Caliphate and a provincial capital of the Mamluk Sultanate in Egypt. The post-independence period was tumultuous, and a number of military coups. In 1958, Syria entered a union with Egypt called the United Arab Republic. Syria was under Emergency Law from 1963 to 2011, effectively suspending most constitutional protections for citizens, Bashar al-Assad has been president since 2000 and was preceded by his father Hafez al-Assad, who was in office from 1970 to 2000. Mainstream modern academic opinion strongly favours the argument that the Greek word is related to the cognate Ἀσσυρία, Assyria, in the past, others believed that it was derived from Siryon, the name that the Sidonians gave to Mount Hermon. However, the discovery of the inscription in 2000 seems to support the theory that the term Syria derives from Assyria. The area designated by the word has changed over time, since approximately 10,000 BC, Syria was one of centers of Neolithic culture where agriculture and cattle breeding appeared for the first time in the world. The following Neolithic period is represented by houses of Mureybet culture. At the time of the pre-pottery Neolithic, people used vessels made of stone, gyps, finds of obsidian tools from Anatolia are evidences of early trade relations. Cities of Hamoukar and Emar played an important role during the late Neolithic, archaeologists have demonstrated that civilization in Syria was one of the most ancient on earth, perhaps preceded by only those of Mesopotamia. The earliest recorded indigenous civilisation in the region was the Kingdom of Ebla near present-day Idlib, gifts from Pharaohs, found during excavations, confirm Eblas contact with Egypt. One of the earliest written texts from Syria is an agreement between Vizier Ibrium of Ebla and an ambiguous kingdom called Abarsal c.2300 BC. The Northwest Semitic language of the Amorites is the earliest attested of the Canaanite languages, Mari reemerged during this period, and saw renewed prosperity until conquered by Hammurabi of Babylon. Ugarit also arose during this time, circa 1800 BC, close to modern Latakia, Ugaritic was a Semitic language loosely related to the Canaanite languages, and developed the Ugaritic alphabet. The Ugarites kingdom survived until its destruction at the hands of the marauding Indo-European Sea Peoples in the 12th century BC, Yamhad was described in the tablets of Mari as the mightiest state in the near east and as having more vassals than Hammurabi of Babylon. Yamhad imposed its authority over Alalakh, Qatna, the Hurrians states, the army of Yamhad campaigned as far away as Dēr on the border of Elam
14.
Jenin
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Jenin is a Palestinian city in the northern West Bank. It serves as the center of the Jenin Governorate and is a major center for the surrounding towns. In 2007 the city had a population of 39,004, Jenin is under the administration of the Palestinian Authority. Jenin was known in ancient times as the village of Ein-Jenin or Tel Jenin, tell Jenin, is located at the center of what is today Jenins business district. The word ayn means water spring in Arabic and Hebrew, and the word Jenin might be related to the Hebrew word גַּן, the Arabicized name Jenin ultimately derives from this ancient name. The association of Jenin with the city of Ein-Ganim was recognized by Ishtori Haparchi. Jenin has been identified as the place Gina mentioned in the Amarna letters from the 14th century BCE, four terracotta lamps of Phoenician origin dated to the 8th century BCE were discovered in Ain Jenin by archaeologist G. I. Harding, and are interpreted as attesting to some form of contact, during the Roman era, Jenin was called Ginae, and was settled exclusively by Samaritans. The people of Galilee were disposed to pass through their city during the pilgrimages to Jerusalem. Dimashki, writing around year 1300, said that after the rise of Turk power, Jenin was listed as one of the places belonging to the Kingdom centred at Safad. Yaqut described Jenin as a small and beautiful town, lying between Nabulus and Baisan, in the Jordan Province, there is much water, and many springs are found here, and often have I visited it. During Ottoman rule in Palestine, Jenin, Lajjun and the Carmel area, were for part of the 17th century ruled by the Bedouin Turabay family, in the mid-18th century, Jenin was designated the administrative capital of the combined districts of Lajjun and Ajlun. There are indications that the area comprising Jenin and Nablus remained functionally autonomous under Ottoman rule, in the late 19th century, some members of the Jarrar family, who formed part of the mallakin in Jenin, cooperated with merchants in Haifa to set up an export enterprise there. During the Ottoman era, Jenin was plagued by warfare between members of the same clan. The French explorer Guérin visited in 1870, in 1882, the Palestine Exploration Funds Survey of Western Palestine described Jenin as The capital of the district, the seat of a Caimacam, a town of about 3,000 inhabitants, with a small bazaar. The houses are built of stone. There are two families of Roman Catholics, the remainder are Moslems, a spring rises east of the town and is conducted to a large masonry reservoir, near the west side, of good squared stonework, with a long stone trough. This reservoir was built by And el Hady, Mudir of Acre, in the first half of the century, north of the town is the mosque of Ezz ed Din, with a good- sized dome
15.
Ottoman Empire
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After 1354, the Ottomans crossed into Europe, and with the conquest of the Balkans the Ottoman Beylik was transformed into a transcontinental empire. The Ottomans ended the Byzantine Empire with the 1453 conquest of Constantinople by Mehmed the Conqueror, at the beginning of the 17th century the empire contained 32 provinces and numerous vassal states. Some of these were later absorbed into the Ottoman Empire, while others were granted various types of autonomy during the course of centuries. With Constantinople as its capital and control of lands around the Mediterranean basin, while the empire was once thought to have entered a period of decline following the death of Suleiman the Magnificent, this view is no longer supported by the majority of academic historians. The empire continued to maintain a flexible and strong economy, society, however, during a long period of peace from 1740 to 1768, the Ottoman military system fell behind that of their European rivals, the Habsburg and Russian Empires. While the Empire was able to hold its own during the conflict, it was struggling with internal dissent. Starting before World War I, but growing increasingly common and violent during it, major atrocities were committed by the Ottoman government against the Armenians, Assyrians and Pontic Greeks. The word Ottoman is an anglicisation of the name of Osman I. Osmans name in turn was the Turkish form of the Arabic name ʿUthmān, in Ottoman Turkish, the empire was referred to as Devlet-i ʿAlīye-yi ʿOsmānīye, or alternatively ʿOsmānlı Devleti. In Modern Turkish, it is known as Osmanlı İmparatorluğu or Osmanlı Devleti, the Turkish word for Ottoman originally referred to the tribal followers of Osman in the fourteenth century, and subsequently came to be used to refer to the empires military-administrative elite. In contrast, the term Turk was used to refer to the Anatolian peasant and tribal population, the term Rūmī was also used to refer to Turkish-speakers by the other Muslim peoples of the empire and beyond. In Western Europe, the two names Ottoman Empire and Turkey were often used interchangeably, with Turkey being increasingly favored both in formal and informal situations and this dichotomy was officially ended in 1920–23, when the newly established Ankara-based Turkish government chose Turkey as the sole official name. Most scholarly historians avoid the terms Turkey, Turks, and Turkish when referring to the Ottomans, as the power of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum declined in the 13th century, Anatolia was divided into a patchwork of independent Turkish principalities known as the Anatolian Beyliks. One of these beyliks, in the region of Bithynia on the frontier of the Byzantine Empire, was led by the Turkish tribal leader Osman, osmans early followers consisted both of Turkish tribal groups and Byzantine renegades, many but not all converts to Islam. Osman extended the control of his principality by conquering Byzantine towns along the Sakarya River and it is not well understood how the early Ottomans came to dominate their neighbours, due to the scarcity of the sources which survive from this period. One school of thought which was popular during the twentieth century argued that the Ottomans achieved success by rallying religious warriors to fight for them in the name of Islam, in the century after the death of Osman I, Ottoman rule began to extend over Anatolia and the Balkans. Osmans son, Orhan, captured the northwestern Anatolian city of Bursa in 1326 and this conquest meant the loss of Byzantine control over northwestern Anatolia. The important city of Thessaloniki was captured from the Venetians in 1387, the Ottoman victory at Kosovo in 1389 effectively marked the end of Serbian power in the region, paving the way for Ottoman expansion into Europe
16.
Judaism
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Judaism encompasses the religion, philosophy, culture and way of life of the Jewish people. Judaism is an ancient monotheistic Abrahamic religion, with the Torah as its text, and supplemental oral tradition represented by later texts such as the Midrash. Judaism is considered by religious Jews to be the expression of the relationship that God established with the Children of Israel. With between 14.5 and 17.4 million adherents worldwide, Judaism is the tenth-largest religion in the world, Judaism includes a wide corpus of texts, practices, theological positions, and forms of organization. Modern branches of Judaism such as Humanistic Judaism may be nontheistic, today, the largest Jewish religious movements are Orthodox Judaism, Conservative Judaism and Reform Judaism. Major sources of difference between groups are their approaches to Jewish law, the authority of the Rabbinic tradition. Orthodox Judaism maintains that the Torah and Jewish law are divine in origin, eternal and unalterable, Conservative and Reform Judaism are more liberal, with Conservative Judaism generally promoting a more traditional interpretation of Judaisms requirements than Reform Judaism. A typical Reform position is that Jewish law should be viewed as a set of guidelines rather than as a set of restrictions and obligations whose observance is required of all Jews. Historically, special courts enforced Jewish law, today, these still exist. Authority on theological and legal matters is not vested in any one person or organization, the history of Judaism spans more than 3,000 years. Judaism has its roots as a religion in the Middle East during the Bronze Age. Judaism is considered one of the oldest monotheistic religions, the Hebrews and Israelites were already referred to as Jews in later books of the Tanakh such as the Book of Esther, with the term Jews replacing the title Children of Israel. Judaisms texts, traditions and values strongly influenced later Abrahamic religions, including Christianity, Islam, many aspects of Judaism have also directly or indirectly influenced secular Western ethics and civil law. Jews are a group and include those born Jewish and converts to Judaism. In 2015, the world Jewish population was estimated at about 14.3 million, Judaism thus begins with ethical monotheism, the belief that God is one and is concerned with the actions of humankind. According to the Tanakh, God promised Abraham to make of his offspring a great nation, many generations later, he commanded the nation of Israel to love and worship only one God, that is, the Jewish nation is to reciprocate Gods concern for the world. He also commanded the Jewish people to one another, that is. These commandments are but two of a corpus of commandments and laws that constitute this covenant, which is the substance of Judaism
17.
Four Holy Cities
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The holy cities concept dates to the 1640s, with Tiberias joining in 1740, resulting from the creation of an association between the cities for the collection of halukka. Hebron is the place of the Jewish patriarchs, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca and Jacob. As such Hebron is the second holiest city to Jews, and is one of the three cities where Israelite biblical figures purchased land, historically, Hebron is the first capital of King David. Safed came to be regarded as a city after the influx of Jews following the expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492. According to Jewish tradition, the redemption will begin in Tiberias, the Messiah will arise from the lake of Tiberias, enter into the city, and be enthroned at Safed on the summit of a lofty hill
18.
Jerusalem
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Jerusalem is a city located on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is considered a city in the three major Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. During its long history, Jerusalem has been destroyed at least twice, besieged 23 times, attacked 52 times, the part of Jerusalem called the City of David was settled in the 4th millennium BCE. In 1538, walls were built around Jerusalem under Suleiman the Magnificent, today those walls define the Old City, which has been traditionally divided into four quarters—known since the early 19th century as the Armenian, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim Quarters. The Old City became a World Heritage Site in 1981, and is on the List of World Heritage in Danger, Modern Jerusalem has grown far beyond the Old Citys boundaries. These foundational events, straddling the dawn of the 1st millennium BCE, the sobriquet of holy city was probably attached to Jerusalem in post-exilic times. The holiness of Jerusalem in Christianity, conserved in the Septuagint which Christians adopted as their own authority, was reinforced by the New Testament account of Jesuss crucifixion there, in Sunni Islam, Jerusalem is the third-holiest city, after Mecca and Medina. As a result, despite having an area of only 0, outside the Old City stands the Garden Tomb. Today, the status of Jerusalem remains one of the issues in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. During the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, West Jerusalem was among the captured and later annexed by Israel while East Jerusalem, including the Old City, was captured. Israel captured East Jerusalem from Jordan during the 1967 Six-Day War and subsequently annexed it into Jerusalem, one of Israels Basic Laws, the 1980 Jerusalem Law, refers to Jerusalem as the countrys undivided capital. All branches of the Israeli government are located in Jerusalem, including the Knesset, the residences of the Prime Minister and President, the international community does not recognize Jerusalem as Israels capital, and the city hosts no foreign embassies. Jerusalem is also home to some non-governmental Israeli institutions of importance, such as the Hebrew University. In 2011, Jerusalem had a population of 801,000, of which Jews comprised 497,000, Muslims 281,000, a city called Rušalim in the Execration texts of the Middle Kingdom of Egypt is widely, but not universally, identified as Jerusalem. Jerusalem is called Urušalim in the Amarna letters of Abdi-Heba, the name Jerusalem is variously etymologized to mean foundation of the god Shalem, the god Shalem was thus the original tutelary deity of the Bronze Age city. The form Yerushalem or Yerushalayim first appears in the Bible, in the Book of Joshua, according to a Midrash, the name is a combination of Yhwh Yireh and the town Shalem. The earliest extra-biblical Hebrew writing of the word Jerusalem is dated to the sixth or seventh century BCE and was discovered in Khirbet Beit Lei near Beit Guvrin in 1961. The inscription states, I am Yahweh thy God, I will accept the cities of Judah and I will redeem Jerusalem, or as other scholars suggest, the mountains of Judah belong to him, to the God of Jerusalem
19.
Hebron
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Hebron is a Palestinian city located in the southern West Bank,30 km south of Jerusalem. Nestled in the Judaean Mountains, it lies 930 meters above sea level, the city is divided into two sectors, H1, controlled by the Palestinian Authority and H2, roughly 20% of the city, administered by Israel. All security arrangements and travel permits for local residents are coordinated between the Palestinian Authority and Israel via military administration of the West Bank, the settlers are governed by their own municipal body, the Committee of the Jewish Community of Hebron. In Judaism it is considered the second-holiest city after Jerusalem, while Islam regards it as one of the four holy cities. Hebron is a hub of West Bank trade, responsible for roughly a third of the areas gross domestic product. It is locally known for its grapes, figs, limestone, pottery workshops and glassblowing factories. The old city of Hebron is characterized by narrow, winding streets, flat-roofed stone houses, the city is home to Hebron University and the Palestine Polytechnic University. Hebron is attached to cities of ad-Dhahiriya, Dura, Yatta, Hebron Governorate is the largest Palestinian governorate with its population of 600,364. The name Hebron traces back to two Semitic roots, which coalesce in the form ḥbr, having reflexes in Hebrew and Amorite and denoting a range of meanings from colleague, in the proper name Hebron, the original sense may have been alliance. The Arabic term derives from the Quranic epithet for Abraham, Khalil al-Rahman Beloved of the Merciful or Friend of God, Arabic Al-Khalil thus precisely translates the ancient Hebrew toponym Ḥebron, understood as ḥaber. Archaeological excavations reveal traces of strong fortifications dated to the Early Bronze Age, the city flourished in the 17th–18th centuries BCE before being destroyed by fire, and was resettled in the late Middle Bronze Age. This older Hebron was originally a Canaanite royal city, abrahamic legend associates the city with the Hittites. In Biblical lore they are represented as descendants of the Nephilim, in settling here, Abraham is described as making his first covenant, an alliance with two local Amorite clans who became his ba’alei brit or masters of the covenant. The Hebron of the Bible was centered on what is now known as Tel Rumeida, Later, the biblical narrative has King David reign from Hebron for some seven years. It is there that the elders of Israel come to him to make a covenant before Elohim and it was in Hebron again that Absalom has himself declared king and then raises a revolt against his father David. It became one of the centers of the Tribe of Judah and was classified as one of the six traditional Cities of Refuge. It remained administratively and politically dependent on Jerusalem for this period, Jews also appear to have lived there after the return from the Babylonian exile. During the Maccabean revolt, Hebron was burnt and plundered by Judah Maccabee who fought against the Edomites in 167 BCE, the city appears to have long resisted Hasmonean dominance, however, and indeed as late as the First Jewish–Roman War was still considered Idumean
20.
Tiberias
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Tiberias is an Israeli city on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. Established around 20 CE, it was named in honour of the 2nd Emperor of the Roman Empire Tiberius, in 2015 it had a population of 42,610. In the 2nd–10th centuries, Tiberias was the largest Jewish city in the Galilee and the political and religious hub of the Jews of Israel. Its immediate neighbour to the south, Hammat Tiberias, which is now part of modern Tiberias, has known for its hot springs, believed to cure skin and other ailments. Herod Antipas made it the capital of his realm in the Galilee, the city was built in immediate proximity to a spa which had developed around 17 natural mineral hot springs, Hammat Tiberias. Tiberias was at first a pagan city, but later became populated mainly by Jews, with its growing spiritual. The Jewish oral tradition holds that Tiberias was built on the site of the ancient Israelite village of Rakkath or Rakkat, in Talmudic times, the Jews still referred to it by this name. Conversely, in The Antiquities of the Jews, the Roman-Jewish historian Josephus calls the village with hot springs Emmaus, todays Hammat Tiberias and this name also appears in The Wars of the Jews. Antipas settled many non-Jews there from rural Galilee and other parts of his domains in order to populate his new capital, and built a palace on the acropolis. The prestige of Tiberias was so great that the Sea of Galilee soon came to be named the Sea of Tiberias, however, the Jewish population continued to call it Yam Ha-Kineret, its traditional name. The city was governed by a city council of 600 with a committee of 10 until 44 CE when a Roman procurator was set over the city after the death of Herod Agrippa I. Tiberias is mentioned in John 6,23 as the location from which boats had sailed to the side of the Sea of Galilee. The crowd seeking Jesus after the feeding of the 5000 used these boats to travel back to Capernaum on the north-western part of the sea. Under the Roman Empire, the city was known by its Greek name Τιβεριάς, in 61 CE Herod Agrippa II annexed the city to his kingdom whose capital was Caesarea Philippi. It became a city after the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE, with Judea subdued. It was to be its final meeting place before its disbanding in the early Byzantine period, when Johanan bar Nappaha settled in Tiberias, the city became the focus of Jewish religious scholarship in the land. The Jerusalem Talmud would follow being compiled by Rabbi Jochanan between 230–270 CE, Tiberias 13 synagogues served the spiritual needs of a growing Jewish population. In the 6th century Tiberias was still the seat of Jewish religious learning, in 628, the Byzantine army returned to Tiberias upon the surrender of Jewish rebels and the end of the Persian occupation after they were defeated in the battle of Nineveh
21.
Kabbalah
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Kabbalah is an esoteric method, discipline, and school of thought that originated in Judaism. A traditional Kabbalist in Judaism is called a Mekubbal, Kabbalah is a set of esoteric teachings meant to explain the relationship between an unchanging, eternal, and mysterious Ein Sof and the mortal and finite universe. While it is used by some denominations, it is not a religious denomination in itself. It forms the foundations of religious interpretation. Kabbalah seeks to define the nature of the universe and the human being, the nature and purpose of existence and it also presents methods to aid understanding of the concepts and thereby attain spiritual realisation. Kabbalah originally developed within the realm of Jewish tradition, and kabbalists often use classical Jewish sources to explain, traditional practitioners believe its earliest origins pre-date world religions, forming the primordial blueprint for Creations philosophies, religions, sciences, arts, and political systems. Safed Rabbi Isaac Luria is considered the father of contemporary Kabbalah and it was popularised in the form of Hasidic Judaism from the 18th century onwards. According to the Zohar, a text for kabbalistic thought. These four levels are called pardes from their initial letters, peshat, the direct interpretations of meaning. Derash, midrashic meanings, often with imaginative comparisons with similar words or verses, sod, the inner, esoteric meanings, expressed in kabbalah. Kabbalah is considered by its followers as a part of the study of Torah – the study of Torah being an inherent duty of observant Jews. A third tradition, related but more shunned, involves the magical aims of Practical Kabbalah and they can be readily distinguished by their basic intent with respect to God, The Theosophical tradition of Theoretical Kabbalah seeks to understand and describe the divine realm. Consequently, it formed a minor tradition shunned from Kabbalah. According to traditional belief, early kabbalistic knowledge was transmitted orally by the Patriarchs, prophets, According to this view, early kabbalah was, in around the 10th century BC, an open knowledge practiced by over a million people in ancient Israel. Foreign conquests drove the Jewish spiritual leadership of the time to hide the knowledge and make it secret and it is hard to clarify with any degree of certainty the exact concepts within kabbalah. There are several different schools of thought with different outlooks, however. From the Renaissance onwards Jewish Kabbalah texts entered non-Jewish culture, where they were studied and translated by Christian Hebraists, syncretic traditions of Christian Kabbalah and Hermetic Qabalah developed independently of Jewish Kabbalah, reading the Jewish texts as universal ancient wisdom. Both adapted the Jewish concepts freely from their Judaic understanding, to merge with other theologies, religious traditions, with the decline of Christian Cabala in the Age of Reason, Hermetic Qabalah continued as a central underground tradition in Western esotericism
22.
Jewish mysticism
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Academic study of Jewish mysticism, especially since Gershom Scholems Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, distinguishes between different forms of mysticism across different eras of Jewish history. Of these, Kabbalah, which emerged in 12th-century Europe, is the most well known, among previous forms were Merkabah mysticism, and Chassidei Ashkenaz around the time of Kabbalistic emergence. This issue is crystallised until today by alternative views on the origin of the Zohar, traditional Kabbalists regard it as originating in Tannaic times, redacting the Oral Torah, so do not make a sharp distinction between Kabbalah and early Rabbinic Jewish mysticism. Academic scholars regard it as a synthesis from Medieval times, but assimilating and incorporating into itself earlier forms of Jewish mystical tradition, after Luria, two new mystical forms popularised Kabbalah in Judaism, antinomian-heretical Sabbatean movements, and Hasidic Judaism. As separate traditions of development outside Judaism, drawing from, syncretically adapting, the Kabbalistic form of Jewish mysticism itself divides into three general streams, the Theosophical/Speculative Kabbalah, the Meditative/Ecstatic Kabbalah, and the Practical/Magical Kabbalah. As in Kabbalah, the text can contain aspects of all three approaches, though the three streams often distill into three separate literatures under the influence of particular exponents or eras. Within Kabbalah, the tradition is distinguished from many forms of mysticism in other religions by its doctrinal form as a mystical philosophy of Gnosis esoteric knowledge. Instead, the tradition of Meditative Kabbalah has similarity of aim, if not form, with traditions of general mysticism. The tradition of theurgic Practical Kabbalah in Judaism, censored and restricted by mainstream Jewish Kabbalists, has similarities with non-Jewish Hermetic Qabalah magical Western Esotericism
23.
Isaac Luria
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Isaac Luria Ashkenazi, commonly known as HaARI, HaARI Hakadosh or ARIZaL, was a foremost rabbi and Jewish mystic in the community of Safed in the Galilee region of Ottoman Syria. He is considered the father of contemporary Kabbalah, his teachings being referred to as Lurianic Kabbalah, while his direct literary contribution to the Kabbalistic school of Safed was extremely minute, his spiritual fame led to their veneration and the acceptance of his authority. The works of his disciples compiled his oral teachings into writing, every custom of the Ari was scrutinized, and many were accepted, even against previous practice. Luria died at Safed on July 25,1572, and is buried at the Old Jewish Cemetery, the Ari Ashkenazi Synagogue, located in Safed, Israel, was built in memory of Luria during the late 16th century. Luria was born in 1534 in Jerusalem in what is now the Old Yishuv Court Museum to an Ashkenazi father, Solomon, and he shall begin to deliver Israel from the Klipot. Through him, numerous souls will receive their tikkun and he is also destined to reveal many hidden mysteries in the Torah and to expound on the Zohar. His fame will spread throughout the world, take care therefore that you not circumcise him before I come to be the Sandak. While still a child, Luria lost his father, and was brought up by his maternal uncle Mordechai Frances. His uncle placed him under the best Jewish teachers, including the leading rabbinic scholar David ibn Zimra, Luria showed himself a diligent student of rabbinical literature and under the guidance of another uncle, Rabbi Bezalel Ashkenazi, he became proficient in that branch of Jewish learning. At the age of fifteen, he married a cousin and, being provided for financially. Though he initially may have pursued a career in business, he turned to asceticism and mysticism. Around the age of twenty-two he became engrossed in the study of the Zohar, retreating to the banks of the Nile for seven years, he secluded himself in an isolated cottage, giving himself up entirely to meditation. He visited his family only on Shabbat, but even at home, he would not utter a word, even to his wife. When it was necessary for him to say something, he would say it in the fewest number of words possible. In 1569, Luria moved back to Eretz Israel, and after a sojourn in Jerusalem. Safed over the previous decades had become a center for cabalistic studies, there is evidence that Luria also regarded Cordovero as his teacher. Joseph Sambari, an important Egyptian chronicler, testified that Cordovero was the Aris teacher for a short time. Luria probably arrived in early 1570, and Cordovero died on June 27 that year, bereft of their most prominent authority and teacher, the community looked for new guidance, and Luria helped fill Cordoveros former role
24.
Noah
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In the Abrahamic religions, Noah was the tenth and last of the pre-flood Patriarchs. The story of Noahs Ark is told in the Bibles Genesis flood narrative, the biblical account is followed by the story of the Curse of Canaan. Noah was the subject of much elaboration in the literature of later Abrahamic religions, the primary account of Noah in the Bible is in the Book of Genesis. Noah was the tenth of the pre-flood Patriarchs and his father was Lamech and his mother is unknown. When Noah was five hundred years old, he begat Shem, Ham, the Genesis flood narrative makes up chapters 6–9 in the Book of Genesis, in the Bible. Thus, the flood was no ordinary overflow but a reversal of creation, and God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth. They were also told that all fowls, land animals, furthermore, as well as green plants, every moving thing would be their food with the exception that the blood was not to be eaten. Mans life blood would be required from the beasts and from man, whoso sheddeth mans blood, by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God made he man. Noah died 350 years after the flood, at the age of 950, the maximum human lifespan, as depicted by the Bible, diminishes rapidly thereafter, from almost 1,000 years to the 120 years of Moses. After the flood, Noah became a husbandman and he planted a vineyard, and he drank of the wine, and was drunken, and was uncovered within his tent. Noahs son Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and told his brethren, in Jewish tradition and rabbinic literature, rabbis blame Satan for the intoxicating properties of the wine. In the field of biblical criticism, J. H. Ellens and W. G. Rollins address the narrative of Genesis 9. Because of its brevity and textual inconsistencies, it has suggested that this narrative is a splinter from a more substantial tale. A fuller account would explain what exactly Ham had done to his father, or why Noah directed a curse at Canaan for Hams misdeed, or how Noah came to know what occurred. The narrator relates two facts, Noah became drunken and he was uncovered within his tent, and Ham saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without. Thus, these passages revolve around sexuality and the exposure of genitalia as compared with other Hebrew Bible texts, such as Habakkuk 2,15 and Lamentations 4,21. Genesis 10 sets forth the descendants of Shem, Ham, and Japheth, among Japheth’s descendants were the maritime nations. Ham’s son Cush had a son named Nimrod, who became the first man of might on earth, a mighty hunter, king in Babylon, from there Asshur went and built Nineveh
25.
Genesis flood narrative
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The Genesis flood narrative makes up chapters 6–9 in the Book of Genesis, in the Torah. Thus, the flood was a reversal of creation, although many religious groups consider the story to be largely allegorical, there are still many groups and individuals who believe the story to be literally true. Genesis 6, 1–4 presents the reason for the flood, the Sons of God marry the daughters of men and sire a race of giants, mighty men which of old, men of renown. Genesis continues, And GOD saw that the wickedness of man great in the earth, God decides to destroy the world in a reversal of creation. The flood occurs because God judges humanity, in Genesis 6, 5-8, the LORD judged man for being wicked and evil. In verses Genesis 6, 11-22, God judged all flesh for being corrupt, the judgment in verses 6, 5–8 is thought to have been written earlier and later combined with the second. This element of judgment makes the flood story different from the flood in the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh. In the Gilgamesh story, the flood is mentioned only in passing as part of the Epic tale itself, beginning with Genesis 6,14, God instructed Noah to build an ark to save his immediate family, along with samples of animal life. The ark was to be made of wood covered with pitch inside and outside. The ark was 300 cubits long,50 cubits wide, and 30 cubits high, and it had an opening for daylight near the top, an entrance on its side, and three decks. God told Noah that he, his sons, his wife, his sons wives, and two of each kind of beast – male and female – would survive in the ark. The Priestly source, Genesis 7,11,8, 1-2, describes the nature of the waters as a cosmic cataclysm, by the opening of the springs of the deep. This is the reverse of the separation of the waters recounted in the Genesis creation narrative of chapter 1. After Noah and the remnant of animals were secured, the fountains of the great deep, the waters elevated, with the summits of the highest mountains under 15 cubits of water, flooding the world for 150 days, and then receding in 220 days. The Jahwist version of how the waters came to be is indicated in Genesis 7,12. During this time, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat, then he sends out a dove to see if the waters had decreased from the ground, but the dove could not find a resting place, and returned to the ark. He waited another seven days, and again sent out the dove, and he waited another seven days and sent out the dove, and it did not return. When Noah removed the covering of the ark, he saw that the ground was drying, God makes a pledge of commitment to Noah in Genesis 9, 1–17
26.
Book of Judges
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The Book of Judges is the seventh book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Bible. Judges can be divided into three sections, a double prologue, a main body, and a double epilogue. The book opens with the Israelites in the land which God has promised to them but worshiping foreign gods instead of Yahweh, the God of Israel, and with the Canaanites still present everywhere. Chapters 1, 1–2,5 are thus a confession of failure while chapters 2, 6–3,6 are a major summary and reflection from the Deuteronomists. Once peace was regained, for a time Israel does right and receives Yahwehs blessings, only to relapse later into doing evil, Judges follows on from the Book of Joshua and opens with reference to Joshuas death. The Israelites meet, most likely at the sanctuary at Gilgal or at Shechem, the cyclic pattern set out in the prologue is readily apparent at the beginning, but as the stories progress it begins to disintegrate, mirroring the disintegration of the world of the Israelites. The stories are not presented in order, but the judges as they appear in the text are, Othniel vs. Chushan-Rishathaim, King of Aram. Some scholars have inferred that the judges were actual adjudicators, whereas the major judges were leaders. The only time a judge is said to have made legal judgments was Deborah. Despite their appearance at the end of the book, certain characters, early in the period of the judges. Judges contains a chronology of its events and it is overtly schematic and, according to biblical scholar Jeremy Hughes, shows signs of having been introduced at a later period. The basic source for Judges was a collection of connected stories about tribal heroes who saved the people in battle. A statement repeated throughout the book, In those days there was no king in Israel implies a date in the monarchy for the redaction editing) of Judges. Since the second half of the 20th century most scholars have agreed with Martin Noths thesis that the books of Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings form parts of a single work. Noth believed that history was the work of a single author, living in the mid-6th century BCE. After a period of peace, the cycle recurs, further themes are also present, the sovereign freedom of Yahweh, the satirisation of foreign kings, the concept of the flawed agent and the disunity of the Israelite community. Although Judges probably had a monarchist redaction, the book contains passages and themes that represent anti-monarchist views, one of the major themes of the book is Yahwehs sovereignty and the importance of being loyal to Him and His laws above all other gods and sovereigns. Indeed, the authority of the judges comes not through prominent dynasties nor through elections or appointments, anti-monarchist theology is most apparent toward the end of the Gideon cycle in which the Israelites beg Gideon to create a dynastic monarchy over them and Gideon refuses
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Tribe of Naphtali
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The Tribe of Naphtali was one of the twelve tribes of Israel. In the biblical account, following the completion of the conquest of Canaan by the Israelite Joshua allocated the land among the twelve tribes, kenneth Kitchen, a well-known conservative biblical scholar, dates this event to slightly after 1200 BCE. However, the view of modern scholars is that the conquest of Joshua as described in the Book of Joshua never occurred. The most significant city was Hazor, from after the conquest of the land by Joshua until the formation of the first Kingdom of Israel in c.1050 BC, the Tribe of Naphtali was a part of a loose confederation of Israelite tribes. No central government existed, and in times of crisis the people were led by ad hoc leaders known as Judges. However, on the accession of Rehoboam, Davids grandson, in c.930 BC the northern tribes split from the House of David to reform a Kingdom of Israel as the Northern Kingdom. In c.732 BCE, Pekah allied with Rezin, king of Aram, threatened Jerusalem, and Ahaz, king of Judah, appealed to Tiglath-Pileser III, the king of Assyria, for help. After Ahaz paid tribute to Tiglath-Pileser, Tiglath-Pileser sacked Damascus and Israel, annexing Aram, according to 2 Kings 16,9 and 15,29, the population of Aram and the annexed part of Israel was deported to Assyria. The kingdom of Israel continued to exist until c.723 BC, when it was invaded by Assyria. From that time, the Tribe of Naphtali has been counted as one of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, according to the Torah, the tribe consisted of descendants of Naphtali, a son of Jacob and Bilhah, from whom it took its name. However, Biblical scholars view this as a postdiction, an eponymous metaphor providing an aetiology of the connectedness of the tribe to others in the Israelite confederation, militarism is featured in Naphtalis history. In the Blessing of Jacob, which textual scholars date to 700-600 BC - and thus a postdiction, Naphtali is compared to a hind let loose, and commended for giving goodly words. Centuries later, the Assyrians invaded Israel, which, though it had been a tributary, had also defaulted, with the land taken, the tribe were exiled, the manner of their exile led to their further history being lost. The symbol of the tribe is a very quick animal. The people of Naftali were famous for being great runners, there has been speculation that the Bukharian Jews of Central Asia are the descendants of the Naphtali tribe. This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Easton
28.
Jesus
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In Christology, the Person of Christ refers to the study of the human and divine natures of Jesus Christ as they co-exist within one person. There is no discussion in the New Testament regarding the dual nature of the Person of Christ as both divine and human. Hence, since the days of Christianity theologians have debated various approaches to the understanding of these natures. In the period following the Apostolic Age, specific beliefs such as Arianism and Docetism were criticized. On the other end of the spectrum, Docetism argued that Jesus physical body was an illusion, docetic teachings were attacked by St. Ignatius of Antioch and were eventually abandoned by proto-orthodox Christians. However, after the First Council of Nicaea in 325 the Logos, historically in the Alexandrian school of christology, Jesus Christ is the eternal Logos paradoxically humanized in history, a divine Person who became enfleshed, uniting himself to the human nature. The views of these schools can be summarized as follows, Alexandria, Antioch, Logos assumes a specific human being The First Council of Ephesus in 431 debated a number of views regarding the Person of Christ. At the same gathering the council debated the doctrines of monophysitism or miaphysitism. The council rejected Nestorianism and adopted the term hypostatic union, referring to divine, the language used in the 431 declaration was further refined at the 451 Council of Chalcedon. However, the Chalcedon creed was not accepted by all Christians, because Saint Augustine died in 430 he did not participate in the Council of Ephesus in 431 or Chalcedon in 451, but his ideas had some impact on both councils. On the other hand, the major theological figure of the Middle Ages. The Third Council of Constantinople in 680 held that both divine and human wills exist in Jesus, with the divine will having precedence, leading and guiding the human will. John Calvin maintained that there was no element in the Person of Christ which could be separated from the person of The Word. Calvin also emphasized the importance of the Work of Christ in any attempt at understanding the Person of Christ, the study of the Person of Christ continued into the 20th century, with modern theologians such as Karl Rahner and Hans von Balthasar. Balthasar argued that the union of the human and divine natures of Christ was achieved not by the absorption of human attributes, thus in his view the divine nature of Christ was not affected by the human attributes and remained forever divine
29.
Crusades
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The First Crusade arose after a call to arms in a 1095 sermon by Pope Urban II. Urban urged military support for the Byzantine Empire and its Emperor, Alexios I, the response to Urbans preaching by people of many different classes across Western Europe established the precedent for later Crusades. Volunteers became Crusaders by taking a vow and receiving plenary indulgences from the church. Some were hoping for apotheosis at Jerusalem, or forgiveness from God for all their sins, others participated to satisfy feudal obligations, gain glory and honour, or find opportunities for economic and political gain. Many modern Historians have polarised opinions of the Crusaders behaviour under Papal sanction, to some it was incongruous with the stated aims and implied moral authority of the papacy and the Crusades, to the extent that on occasions that the Pope excommunicated Crusaders. Crusaders often pillaged as they travelled, while their leaders retained control of captured territory rather than returning it to the Byzantines. During the Peoples Crusade thousands of Jews were murdered in what is now called the Rhineland massacres, Constantinople was sacked during the Fourth Crusade rendering the reunification of Christendom impossible. These tales consequently galvanised medieval romance, philosophy and literature, but the Crusades also reinforced the connection between Western Christendom, feudalism, and militarism. Crusade is not a term, instead the terms iter for journey or peregrinatio for pilgrimage were used. Not until the word crucesignatus for one who was signed with the cross was adopted at the close of the century was specific terminology developed. The Middle English equivalents were derived from old French, croiserie in the 13th–15th centuries, croisade appeared in English c1575, and continued to be the leading form till c1760. By convention historians adopt the term for the Christian holy wars from 1095, the Crusades in the Holy Land are traditionally counted as nine distinct campaigns, numbered from the First Crusade of 1095–99 to the Ninth Crusade of 1271/2. Usage of the term Crusade may differ depending on the author, pluralists use the term Crusade of any campaign explicitly sanctioned by the reigning Pope. This reflects the view of the Roman Catholic Church that every military campaign given Papal sanction is equally valid as a Crusade, regardless of its cause, justification, generalists see Crusades as any and all holy wars connected with the Latin Church and fought in defence of their faith. Popularists limit the Crusades to only those that were characterised by popular groundswells of religious fervour – that is, only the First Crusade, Medieval Muslim historiographers such as Ali ibn al-Athir refer to the Crusades as the Frankish Wars. The term used in modern Arabic, ḥamalāt ṣalībiyya حملات صليبية, campaigns of the cross, is a loan translation of the term Crusade as used in Western historiography. The Islamic prophet Muhammad founded Islam in the Arabian Peninsula, the resulting unified polity in the seventh and eighth centuries led to a rapid expansion of Arab power. This influence stretched from the northwest Indian subcontinent, across Central Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, southern Italy, tolerance, trade, and political relationships between the Arabs and the Christian states of Europe waxed and waned
30.
Middle Ages
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In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or Medieval Period lasted from the 5th to the 15th century. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and merged into the Renaissance, the Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history, classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period. The medieval period is subdivided into the Early, High. Population decline, counterurbanisation, invasion, and movement of peoples, the large-scale movements of the Migration Period, including various Germanic peoples, formed new kingdoms in what remained of the Western Roman Empire. In the seventh century, North Africa and the Middle East—once part of the Byzantine Empire—came under the rule of the Umayyad Caliphate, although there were substantial changes in society and political structures, the break with classical antiquity was not complete. The still-sizeable Byzantine Empire survived in the east and remained a major power, the empires law code, the Corpus Juris Civilis or Code of Justinian, was rediscovered in Northern Italy in 1070 and became widely admired later in the Middle Ages. In the West, most kingdoms incorporated the few extant Roman institutions, monasteries were founded as campaigns to Christianise pagan Europe continued. The Franks, under the Carolingian dynasty, briefly established the Carolingian Empire during the later 8th, the Crusades, first preached in 1095, were military attempts by Western European Christians to regain control of the Holy Land from Muslims. Kings became the heads of centralised nation states, reducing crime and violence, intellectual life was marked by scholasticism, a philosophy that emphasised joining faith to reason, and by the founding of universities. Controversy, heresy, and the Western Schism within the Catholic Church paralleled the conflict, civil strife. Cultural and technological developments transformed European society, concluding the Late Middle Ages, the Middle Ages is one of the three major periods in the most enduring scheme for analysing European history, classical civilisation, or Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Modern Period. Medieval writers divided history into periods such as the Six Ages or the Four Empires, when referring to their own times, they spoke of them as being modern. In the 1330s, the humanist and poet Petrarch referred to pre-Christian times as antiqua, leonardo Bruni was the first historian to use tripartite periodisation in his History of the Florentine People. Bruni and later argued that Italy had recovered since Petrarchs time. The Middle Ages first appears in Latin in 1469 as media tempestas or middle season, in early usage, there were many variants, including medium aevum, or middle age, first recorded in 1604, and media saecula, or middle ages, first recorded in 1625. The alternative term medieval derives from medium aevum, tripartite periodisation became standard after the German 17th-century historian Christoph Cellarius divided history into three periods, Ancient, Medieval, and Modern. The most commonly given starting point for the Middle Ages is 476, for Europe as a whole,1500 is often considered to be the end of the Middle Ages, but there is no universally agreed upon end date. English historians often use the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 to mark the end of the period
31.
Fulk, King of Jerusalem
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Fulk, also known as Fulk the Younger, was the Count of Anjou from 1109 to 1129 and the King of Jerusalem from 1131 to his death. During his reign, the Kingdom of Jerusalem reached its largest territorial extent, Fulk was born at Angers, between 1089 and 1092, the son of Count Fulk IV of Anjou and Bertrade de Montfort. In 1092, Bertrade deserted her husband and bigamously married King Philip I of France and he became count of Anjou upon his fathers death in 1109. In the next year, he married Ermengarde of Maine, cementing Angevin control over the County of Maine, Fulk went on crusade in 1119 or 1120, and became attached to the Knights Templar. He returned, late in 1121, after which he began to subsidize the Templars, much later, Henry arranged for his daughter Matilda to marry Fulks son Geoffrey of Anjou, which she did in 1127 or 1128. By 1127 Fulk was preparing to return to Anjou when he received an embassy from King Baldwin II of Jerusalem, Baldwin II had no male heirs but had already designated his daughter Melisende to succeed him. Baldwin II wanted to safeguard his daughters inheritance by marrying her to a powerful lord, Fulk was a wealthy crusader and experienced military commander, and a widower. His experience in the field would prove invaluable in a state always in the grip of war. However, Fulk held out for better terms than mere consort of the Queen, Baldwin II, reflecting on Fulks fortune and military exploits, acquiesced. Fulk abdicated his county seat of Anjou to his son Geoffrey and left for Jerusalem, later Baldwin II bolstered Melisendes position in the kingdom by making her sole guardian of her son by Fulk, Baldwin III, born in 1130. Fulk and Melisende became joint rulers of Jerusalem in 1131 with Baldwin IIs death, from the start Fulk assumed sole control of the government, excluding Melisende altogether. He favored fellow countrymen from Anjou to the native nobility, Melisendes sister Alice of Antioch, exiled from the Principality by Baldwin II, took control of Antioch once more after the death of her father. She allied with Pons of Tripoli and Joscelin II of Edessa to prevent Fulk from marching north in 1132, Fulk and Pons fought a battle before peace was made. In Jerusalem as well, Fulk was resented by the generation of Jerusalem Christians who had grown up there since the First Crusade. These natives focused on Melisendes cousin, the popular Hugh II of Le Puiset, count of Jaffa, Fulk saw Hugh as a rival, and it did not help matters when Hughs own stepson accused him of disloyalty. In 1134, in order to expose Hugh, Fulk accused him of infidelity with Melisende, Hugh secured himself to Jaffa, and allied himself with the Muslims of Ascalon. He was able to defeat the army set against him by Fulk, the Patriarch interceded in the conflict, perhaps at the behest of Melisende. Fulk agreed to peace and Hugh was exiled from the kingdom for three years, a lenient sentence, however, an assassination attempt was made against Hugh
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Knights Templar
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The order was founded in 1119 and active from about 1129 to 1312. The order, which was among the wealthiest and most powerful, became a favoured charity throughout Christendom and grew rapidly in membership and they were prominent in Christian finance. Templar knights, in their distinctive white mantles with a red cross, were among the most skilled fighting units of the Crusades, the Templars were closely tied to the Crusades, when the Holy Land was lost, support for the order faded. Rumours about the Templars secret initiation ceremony created distrust, and King Philip IV of France – deeply in debt to the order – took advantage of the situation to control over them. In 1307, he had many of the members in France arrested, tortured into giving false confessions. Pope Clement V disbanded the order in 1312 under pressure from King Philip, the abrupt reduction in power of a significant group in European society gave rise to speculation, legend, and legacy through the ages. The re-use of their name for later organizations has kept the name Templar alive to the modern day, after Europeans in the First Crusade recovered Jerusalem in 1099, many Christians made pilgrimages to various sacred sites in the Holy Land. Although the city of Jerusalem was under relatively secure Christian control, in 1119, the French knight Hugues de Payens approached King Baldwin II of Jerusalem and Warmund, Patriarch of Jerusalem, and proposed creating a monastic order for the protection of these pilgrims. The Temple Mount had a mystique because it was above what was believed to be the ruins of the Temple of Solomon. The Crusaders therefore referred to the Al-Aqsa Mosque as Solomons Temple, and from this location the new order took the name of Poor Knights of Christ and the Temple of Solomon, or Templar knights. The order, with about nine knights including Godfrey de Saint-Omer and André de Montbard, had few financial resources and their emblem was of two knights riding on a single horse, emphasising the orders poverty. The impoverished status of the Templars did not last long, another major benefit came in 1139, when Pope Innocent IIs papal bull Omne Datum Optimum exempted the order from obedience to local laws. This ruling meant that the Templars could pass freely through all borders, were not required to pay any taxes, with its clear mission and ample resources, the order grew rapidly. One of their most famous victories was in 1177 during the Battle of Montgisard, although the primary mission of the order was military, relatively few members were combatants. The others acted in support positions to assist the knights and to manage the financial infrastructure, the Templar Order, though its members were sworn to individual poverty, was given control of wealth beyond direct donations. A nobleman who was interested in participating in the Crusades might place all his assets under Templar management while he was away, based on this mix of donations and business dealing, the Templars established financial networks across the whole of Christendom. The Order of the Knights Templar arguably qualifies as the worlds first multinational corporation, in the mid-12th century, the tide began to turn in the Crusades. The Muslim world had become united under effective leaders such as Saladin, and dissension arose amongst Christian factions in, and concerning
33.
Benjamin of Tudela
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Benjamin of Tudela was a medieval Jewish traveler who visited Europe, Asia, and Africa in the 12th century. His vivid descriptions of western Asia preceded those of Marco Polo by a hundred years, with his broad education and vast knowledge of languages, Benjamin of Tudela is a major figure in medieval geography and Jewish history. Little is known of his life, apart from the fact that he was from the Navarrese town of Tudela in what is now Spain. Today, a street in the aljama is named after him, the Travels of Benjamin is an important work not only as a description of the Jewish communities, but also as a reliable source about the geography and ethnography of the Middle Ages. Some modern historians credit Benjamin with giving accurate descriptions of life in the Middle Ages. Originally written in Hebrew, his itinerary was translated into Latin and it received much attention from Renaissance scholars in the 16th century. Benjamin set out on his journey from the northeast Iberian Peninsula around 1165 and it has been suggested he may have had a commercial motive as well as a religious one. Several times the subject shows an interest in the trade perhaps as a professional gem-merchant. He took the road, stopping frequently, meeting people, visiting places, describing occupations and giving a demographic count of Jews in each town. His journey began in the city of Zaragoza, further down the valley of the Ebro to Tarragona, Barcelona, and Girona, whence he proceeded north to France, and then set sail from the port of Marseilles. After visiting Genoa, Lucca, Pisa, and Rome in present-day Italy — he next went to Greece and Constantinople and he visited Syria, Lebanon, the Land of Israel, and northern Mesopotamia before reaching Baghdad. From there he went to Persia, then cut back across the Arabian Peninsula to Egypt and North Africa and his visit to the ruins outside the city of Mosul in Iraq is one of the earliest accurate descriptions of the site of ancient Nineveh. He visited in all, over 300 cities, including many of importance in Jewish history, such as Susa, Sura, in addition, he gathered information on many more areas which he heard about on his travels, including China and Tibet. He recorded details on such as that of Al-Hashishin, the hemp smokers, introducing Western Europeans to people. He described his years abroad in a book, The Travels of Benjamin and this book describes the countries he visited, with an emphasis on the Jewish communities, including their total populations and the names of notable community leaders. He also described the customs of the population, both Jewish and non-Jewish, with an emphasis on urban life. He gave detailed descriptions of sites and landmarks passed along the way, as well as important buildings, although Benjamin is noted for citing sources and is generally regarded by historians as trustworthy, some of his claims are faulted as relying on earlier writers. For instance, Benjamins identification of the Laish with Baniyas along with Philostorgius, Theodoret, eusebius of Caesarea, conversely, locates Dan/Laish more accurately in the vicinity of Paneas at the fourth mile on the route to Tyre
34.
Ayyubid dynasty
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The Ayyubid dynasty was a Muslim dynasty of Kurdish origin, founded by Saladin and centered in Egypt. The dynasty ruled much of the Middle East during the 12th and 13th centuries, Saladin had been the vizier of Fatimid Egypt before toppling the Fatimids in 1171. Three years later, he proclaimed himself sultan following the death of his former master, most of the Kingdom of Jerusalem fell to Saladin after his victory at the Battle of Hattin in 1187. However, the Crusaders regained control of Palestines coastline in the 1190s, by then, local Muslim dynasties had driven out the Ayyubids from Yemen, the Hejaz, and parts of Mesopotamia. After his death in 1249, as-Salih Ayyub was succeeded in Egypt by al-Muazzam Turanshah, however, the latter was soon overthrown by the Mamluk generals who had repelled a Crusader invasion of the Nile Delta. This effectively ended Ayyubid power in Egypt, attempts by the emirs of Syria, led by an-Nasir Yusuf of Aleppo, in 1260, the Mongols sacked Aleppo and conquered the Ayyubids remaining territories soon after. The Mamluks, who expelled the Mongols, maintained the Ayyubid principality of Hama until deposing its last ruler in 1341 and this period was also marked by an Ayyubid process of vigorously strengthening Sunni Muslim dominance in the region by constructing numerous madrasas in their major cities. The progenitor of the Ayyubid dynasty, Najm ad-Din Ayyub ibn Shadhi, belonged to the Kurdish Rawadiya tribe, Ayyubs ancestors settled in the town of Dvin, in northern Armenia. The Rawadiya were the dominant Kurdish group in the Dvin district, circumstances became unfavorable in Dvin when Turkish generals seized the town from its Kurdish prince. Shadhi left with his two sons Ayyub and Asad ad-Din Shirkuh and his friend Mujahid ad-Din Bihruz—the military governor of northern Mesopotamia under the Seljuks—welcomed him and appointed him governor of Tikrit. After Shadhis death, Ayyub succeeded him in governance of the city with the assistance of his brother Shirkuh, together they managed the affairs of the city well, gaining them popularity from the local inhabitants. In the meantime, Imad ad-Din Zangi, the ruler of Mosul, was defeated by the Abbasids under Caliph al-Mustarshid, in his bid to escape the battlefield to Mosul via Tikrit, Zangi took shelter with Ayyub and sought his assistance in this task. Ayyub complied and provided Zangi and his companions boats to cross the Tigris River, as a consequence for assisting Zangi, the Abbasid authorities sought punitive measures against Ayyub. Simultaneously, in an incident, Shirkuh killed a close confidant of Bihruz on charges that he had sexually assaulted a woman in Tikrit. The Abbasid court issued arrest warrants for both Ayyub and Shirkuh, but before the brothers could be arrested, they departed Tikrit for Mosul in 1138. When they arrived in Mosul, Zangi provided them all the facilities they needed. Ayyub was made commander of Baalbek and Shirkuh entered the service of Zangis son, according to historian Abdul Ali, it was under the care and patronage of Zangi that the Ayyubid family rose to prominence. In 1164, Nur al-Din dispatched Shirkuh to lead a force to prevent the Crusaders from establishing a strong presence in an increasingly anarchic Egypt
35.
Saladin
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An-Nasir Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub, known as Saladin, was the first sultan of Egypt and Syria and the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty. A Sunni Muslim of Kurdish origin, Saladin led the Muslim military campaign against the Crusader states in the Levant, at the height of his power, his sultanate included Egypt, Syria, Upper Mesopotamia, the Hejaz, Yemen and other parts of North Africa. When Saladins uncle Shirkuh died in 1169, al-Adid appointed Saladin vizier, in the following years, he led forays against the Crusaders in Palestine, commissioned the successful conquest of Yemen, and staved off pro-Fatimid rebellions in Upper Egypt. Not long after Nur ad-Dins death in 1174, Saladin launched his conquest of Syria, by mid-1175, Saladin had conquered Hama and Homs, inviting the animosity of his former Zengid lords, who had been the official rulers of Syria. Soon after, he defeated the Zengid army at the Battle of the Horns of Hama and was proclaimed the Sultan of Egypt. Saladin made further conquests in northern Syria and Jazira, escaping two attempts on his life by the Assassins, before returning to Egypt in 1177 to address issues there. By 1182, Saladin completed the conquest of Muslim Syria after capturing Aleppo, although the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem continued to exist until the late 13th century, its defeat at Hattin marked a turning point in its conflict with the Muslim powers of the region. Saladin died in Damascus in 1193, having given away much of his wealth to his subjects. He is buried in an adjacent to the Umayyad Mosque. Saladin has become a prominent figure in Muslim, Arab, Turkish and Kurdish culture, Saladin was born in Tikrit in modern-day Iraq. His personal name was Yusuf, Salah ad-Din is a laqab and his family was of Kurdish ancestry, and had originated from the city of Dvin in medieval Armenia. The Rawadid tribe he hailed from had been assimilated into the Arabic-speaking world by this time. Ayyub provided ferries for the army and gave refuge in Tikrit. According to Baha ad-Din ibn Shaddad, Saladin was born on the night his family left Tikrit. In 1139, Ayyub and his moved to Mosul, where Imad ad-Din Zengi acknowledged his debt. After the death of Zengi in 1146, his son, Nur ad-Din, became the regent of Aleppo, Saladin, who now lived in Damascus, was reported to have a particular fondness for the city, but information on his early childhood is scarce. About education, Saladin wrote children are brought up in the way in which their elders were brought up, several sources claim that during his studies he was more interested in religion than joining the military. Another factor which may have affected his interest in religion was that, during the First Crusade, in addition to Islam, Saladin had a knowledge of the genealogies, biographies, and histories of the Arabs, as well as the bloodlines of Arabian horses
36.
Battle of Hattin
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The Battle of Hattin took place on July 4,1187, between the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem and the forces of the Ayyubid sultan Salah ad-Din, known in the West as Saladin. It is also known as the Battle of the Horns of Hattin, the Muslim armies under Saladin captured or killed the vast majority of the Crusader forces, removing their capability to wage war. As a direct result of the battle, Muslims once again became the eminent military power in the Holy Land, re-conquering Jerusalem and these Christian defeats prompted the Third Crusade, which began two years after the Battle of Hattin. The battle took place near Tiberias in present-day Israel, the battlefield, near the town of Hittin, had as its chief geographic feature a double hill beside a pass through the northern mountains between Tiberias and the road from Acre to the east. The Darb al-Hawarnah road, built by the Romans, served as the main east-west passage between the Jordan fords, the Sea of Galilee and the Mediterranean coast, open warfare was only prevented when Humphrey of Toron swore allegiance to Guy, ending the succession dispute. The Muslim chronicler Ali ibn al-Athir claimed that Raymond was in a state of rebellion against Guy. In the background of these divisions Saladin had become vizier of Egypt in 1169, had taken Damascus in 1174 and he controlled the entire Southern and Eastern flanks of the Crusader states. Through the use of propaganda he united his subjects under Sunni Islam, however, Saladin often made strategic truces with the Franks when there was a need to deal with political problems in the Muslim World, and one such truce was made in 1185. It was rumoured amongst the Franks that Raymond III of Tripoli had made a deal with Saladin under which Saladin would make him King of Jerusalem in return for peace and this rumour was echoed by Ibn al Athir, but it is unclear whether it was true. Raymond III was certainly reluctant to engage in battle with Saladin, in 1187 Reynald of Châtillon raided a Muslim caravan when the truce with Saladin was still in place, and some accounts claim that Saladins sister was raped during the attack. Saladin swore that he would kill Reynald, and sent his son Al-Afdal ibn Salah ad-Din to raid Frankish lands surrounding Acre, Gerard de Ridefort and the Templars engaged al Afdal in The Battle of the Springs of Cresson in May, where they were heavily defeated. The Templars lost around 150 knights and 300 footsoldiers, who had made up a part of the military of Jerusalem. Phillips states that the damage to Frankish morale and the scale of the losses should not be underestimated in contributing towards the defeat at Hattin, in July Saladin laid siege to Tiberias, where Raymond IIIs wife Eschiva was trapped. In spite of this Raymond argued that Guy should not engage Saladin in battle, the Knights Hospitaller also advised Guy not to provoke Saladin. However, Gerard de Ridefort advised Guy to advance against Saladin and this was a gamble on Guys part, as he left only a few knights to defend the city of Jerusalem. In late May Saladin assembled the largest army he had ever commanded and he inspected his forces at Tell-Ashtara before crossing the River Jordan on June 30. The opposing Crusader army amassed at La Saphorie, it consisted of around 20,000 men, including 1,200 knights from Jerusalem, though the army was smaller than Saladins it was still larger than those usually mustered by the Crusaders. After reconciling, Raymond and Guy met at Acre with the bulk of the crusader army
37.
Tyre, Lebanon
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Tyre, sometimes romanized as Sour, is a city in the South Governorate of Lebanon. There were approximately 117,000 inhabitants in 2003, however, the government of Lebanon has released only rough estimates of population numbers since 1932, so an accurate statistical accounting is not possible. Tyre juts out from the coast of the Mediterranean and is located about 80 km south of Beirut, the name of the city means rock after the rocky formation on which the town was originally built. The adjective for Tyre is Tyrian, and the inhabitants are Tyrians, Tyre is an ancient Phoenician city and the legendary birthplace of Europa and Dido. Today it is the fourth largest city in Lebanon and houses one of the major ports. The city has a number of ancient sites, including its Roman Hippodrome which was added to UNESCOs list of World Heritage Sites in 1979. Tyre originally consisted of two urban centres, Tyre itself, which was on an island just off shore. Alexander the Great connected the island to the mainland by constructing a causeway during his siege of the city, the original island city had two harbours, one on the south side and the other on the north side of the island. The harbour on the side has silted over, but the harbour on the north side is still in use. Tyre was founded around 2750 BC according to Herodotus and was built as a walled city upon the mainland. Phoenicians from Tyre settled in houses around Memphis, south of the temple of Hephaestus in a called the Tyrian Camp. Tyres name appears on monuments as early as 1300 BC, philo of Byblos quotes the antiquarian authority Sanchuniathon as stating that it was first occupied by Hypsuranius. Sanchuniathons work is said to be dedicated to Abibalus king of Berytus—possibly the Abibaal who was king of Tyre, there are ten Amarna letters dated 1350 BC from the mayor, Abimilku, written to Akenaten. The subject is often water, wood and the Habiru overtaking the countryside of the mainland, the commerce of the ancient world was gathered into the warehouses of Tyre. The city of Tyre was particularly known for the production of a rare and extraordinarily expensive sort of dye, produced from the murex shellfish. The colour was, in ancient cultures, reserved for the use of royalty or at least the nobility, Tyre was often attacked by Egypt, besieged by Shalmaneser V, who was assisted by the Phoenicians of the mainland, for five years. From 586 until 573 BC, the city was besieged by Nebuchadnezzar II until it agreed to pay a tribute. The Achaemenid Empire conquered the city in 539 BC and kept it under its rule until Alexander the Great laid siege to the city, in 315 BC, Alexanders former general Antigonus began his own siege of Tyre, taking the city a year later
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Damascus
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Damascus is the capital and likely the largest city of Syria, following the decline in population of Aleppo due to the ongoing battle for the city. It is commonly known in Syria as ash-Sham and nicknamed as the City of Jasmine, in addition to being one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, Damascus is a major cultural and religious centre of the Levant. The city has an population of 1,711,000 as of 2009. Located in south-western Syria, Damascus is the centre of a metropolitan area of 2.6 million people. The Barada River flows through Damascus, first settled in the second millennium BC, it was chosen as the capital of the Umayyad Caliphate from 661 to 750. After the victory of the Abbasid dynasty, the seat of Islamic power was moved to Baghdad, Damascus saw a political decline throughout the Abbasid era, only to regain significant importance in the Ayyubid and Mamluk periods. Today, it is the seat of the government and all of the government ministries. The name of Damascus first appeared in the geographical list of Thutmose III as T-m-ś-q in the 15th century BC, the etymology of the ancient name T-m-ś-q is uncertain, but it is suspected to be pre-Semitic. It is attested as Dimašqa in Akkadian, T-ms-ḳw in Egyptian, Dammaśq in Old Aramaic, the Akkadian spelling is found in the Amarna letters, from the 14th century BC. Later Aramaic spellings of the name include a intrusive resh, perhaps influenced by the root dr. Thus, the English and Latin name of the city is Damascus which was imported from originated from the Qumranic Darmeśeq, and Darmsûq in Syriac, meaning a well-watered land. In Arabic, the city is called Dimašqu š-Šāmi, although this is shortened to either Dimašq or aš-Šām by the citizens of Damascus, of Syria and other Arab neighbours. Aš-Šām is an Arabic term for Levant and for Syria, the latter, the Anti-Lebanon mountains mark the border between Syria and Lebanon. The range has peaks of over 10,000 ft. and blocks precipitation from the Mediterranean sea, however, in ancient times this was mitigated by the Barada River, which originates from mountain streams fed by melting snow. Damascus is surrounded by the Ghouta, irrigated farmland where many vegetables, cereals, maps of Roman Syria indicate that the Barada river emptied into a lake of some size east of Damascus. Today it is called Bahira Atayba, the hesitant lake, because in years of severe drought it does not even exist, the modern city has an area of 105 km2, out of which 77 km2 is urban, while Jabal Qasioun occupies the rest. The old city of Damascus, enclosed by the city walls, to the south-east, north and north-east it is surrounded by suburban areas whose history stretches back to the Middle Ages, Midan in the south-west, Sarouja and Imara in the north and north-west. These neighbourhoods originally arose on roads leading out of the city and these new neighbourhoods were initially settled by Kurdish soldiery and Muslim refugees from the European regions of the Ottoman Empire which had fallen under Christian rule
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Bethlehem
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Bethlehem is a Palestinian city located in the central West Bank, Palestine, about 10 km south of Jerusalem. Its population is approximately 25,000 people and it is the capital of the Bethlehem Governorate. The earliest known mention of the city was in the Amarna correspondence of 1350–1330 BCE during its habitation by the Canaanites. The Hebrew Bible, which says that the city of Bethlehem was built up as a city by Rehoboam, identifies it as the city David was from. The New Testament identifies Bethlehem as the birthplace of Jesus, the church was badly damaged by the Samaritans, who sacked it during a revolt in 529, but was rebuilt a century later by Emperor Justinian I. Bethlehem became part of Jund Filastin following the Muslim conquest in 637, Muslim rule continued in Bethlehem until its conquest in 1099 by a crusading army, who replaced the towns Greek Orthodox clergy with a Latin one. In the mid-13th century, the Mamluks demolished the citys walls, control of Bethlehem passed from the Ottomans to the British at the end of World War I. Bethlehem came under Jordanian rule during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and was captured by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War. Since the 1995 Oslo Accords, Bethlehem has been administered by the Palestinian Authority, Bethlehem now has a Muslim majority, but is still home to a significant Palestinian Christian community. Bethlehems chief economic sector is tourism, which peaks during the Christmas season when Christians make pilgrimage to the Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem has over 30 hotels and 300 handicraft workshops. Rachels Tomb, an important Jewish holy site, is located at the entrance of Bethlehem. The earliest reference to Bethlehem appears in the Amarna correspondence, let the king hear the words of your servant Abdi-Heba, and send archers to restore the imperial lands of the king. It is thought that the similarity of name to its modern forms indicates that this was a settlement of Canaanites who shared a Semitic cultural. Lachmo was the Chaldean god of fertility, worshipped by the Canaanites as Lachama, some time in the 3rd millennium BCE, they erected a temple to worship the god on the hill now known as the Hill of the Nativity. The town was known as Beit Lachama, meaning House of Lachama, the Philistines later established a garrison there. The archaeologists were able to identify at least 30 tombs, the Bible also calls it Beth-Lehem Judah, and the New Testament describes it as the City of David. It is first mentioned in the Tanakh and the Bible as the place where the matriarch Rachel died and was buried by the wayside, Rachels Tomb, the traditional grave site, stands at the entrance to Bethlehem. According to the Book of Ruth, the valley to the east is where Ruth of Moab gleaned the fields and it was the home of Jesse, father of King David of Israel, and the site of Davids anointment by the prophet Samuel
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Nazareth
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Nazareth is the capital and the largest city in the Northern District of Israel. Nazareth is known as the Arab capital of Israel, in 2015 its population was 75,726. The inhabitants are predominantly Arab citizens of Israel, of whom 69% are Muslim and 30. 9% Christian, Nazareth Illit is built alongside old Nazareth, and had a Jewish population of 40,312 in 2014. The Jewish sector was declared a city in June 1974. In the New Testament, the town is described as the home of Jesus. One view suggests this toponym might be an example of a name used by resettling groups on their return from exile. The negative references to Nazareth in the Gospel of John suggest that ancient Jews did not connect the name to prophecy. Another theory holds that the Greek form Nazara, used in Matthew and Luke, may derive from an earlier Aramaic form of the name, or from another Semitic language form. If there were a tsade in the original Semitic form, as in the later Hebrew forms and this has led some scholars to question whether Nazareth and its cognates in the New Testament actually refer to the settlement known traditionally as Nazareth in Lower Galilee. In the Quran, Christians are referred to as naṣārā, meaning followers of an-Nāṣirī, in Lukes Gospel, Nazareth is first described as a town of Galilee and home of Mary. Following the birth and early epiphanial events of chapter 2 of Lukes Gospel, Mary, Joseph and Jesus returned to Galilee, to their own city, Nazareth. In English translations of the New Testament, the phrase Jesus of Nazareth appears seventeen times whereas the Greek has the form Jesus the Nazarēnos or Jesus the Nazōraios. One plausible view is that Nazōraean is a normal Greek adaptation of a reconstructed, Nazaréth is named twelve times in surviving Greek manuscript versions of the New Testament,10 times as Nazaréth or Nazarét, and twice as Nazará. The former two may retain the feminine endings common in Galilean toponyms, the minor variants, Nazarat and Nazarath are also attested. Nazara might be the earliest form of the name in Greek and it is found in Matthew 4,13 and Luke 4,16. However, the Textus Receptus clearly translates all passages as Nazara leaving little room for debate there, the form Nazara is also found in the earliest non-scriptural reference to the town, a citation by Sextus Julius Africanus dated about 221 CE. The Church Father Origen knows the forms Nazará and Nazarét, later, Eusebius in his Onomasticon also refers to the settlement as Nazara. The nașirutha of the scriptures of the Mandeans refers to craft, not to Nazareth
Toledo, Castile–La Mancha, Spain
Lille, France (frozen)[87]
Nikopol, Bulgaria [5]
Palm Beach County, Florida, United States
Erzsébetváros, Budapest, Hungary
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