1.
Nasser
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Gamal Abdel Nasser Hussein was the second President of Egypt, serving from 1956 until his death. Nasser led the 1952 overthrow of the monarchy and introduced far-reaching land reforms the following year, Nassers popularity in Egypt and the Arab world skyrocketed after his nationalization of the Suez Canal and his political victory in the subsequent Suez Crisis. Calls for pan-Arab unity under his leadership increased, culminating with the formation of the United Arab Republic with Syria, in 1962, Nasser began a series of major socialist measures and modernization reforms in Egypt. Despite setbacks to his pan-Arabist cause, by 1963 Nassers supporters gained power in several Arab countries and he began his second presidential term in March 1965 after his political opponents were banned from running. Following Egypts defeat by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War, Nasser resigned, after the conclusion of the 1970 Arab League summit, Nasser suffered a heart attack and died. His funeral in Cairo drew five million mourners and an outpouring of grief across the Arab world, Nasser remains an iconic figure in the Arab world, particularly for his strides towards social justice and Arab unity, modernization policies, and anti-imperialist efforts. His presidency also encouraged and coincided with an Egyptian cultural boom, Gamal Abdel Nasser was born on 15 January 1918 in Bakos, Alexandria, the first son of Fahima and Abdel Nasser Hussein. Nassers father was a postal worker born in Beni Mur in Upper Egypt and raised in Alexandria and his parents married in 1917, and later had two more boys, Izz al-Arab and al-Leithi. Nassers family traveled frequently due to his fathers work, in 1921, they moved to Asyut and, in 1923, to Khatatba, where Nassers father ran a post office. Nasser attended a school for the children of railway employees until 1924, when he was sent to live with his paternal uncle in Cairo. Nasser exchanged letters with his mother and visited her on holidays and he stopped receiving messages at the end of April 1926. Upon returning to Khatatba, he learned that his mother had died giving birth to his third brother, Shawki. Nasser later stated that losing her this way was a shock so deep that time failed to remedy and he adored his mother and the injury of her death deepened when his father remarried before the years end. In 1928, Nasser went to Alexandria to live with his maternal grandfather and it was in Alexandria that Nasser became involved in political activism. After witnessing clashes between protesters and police in Manshia Square, he joined the demonstration without being aware of its purpose. The protest, organized by the ultranationalist Young Egypt Society, called for the end of colonialism in Egypt in the wake of the 1923 Egyptian constitutions annulment by Prime Minister Ismail Sidqi, Nasser was arrested and detained for a night before his father bailed him out. When his father was transferred to Cairo in 1933, Nasser joined him and he took up acting in school plays for a brief period and wrote articles for the schools paper, including a piece on French philosopher Voltaire titled Voltaire, the Man of Freedom. Two protesters were killed and Nasser received a graze to the head from a policemans bullet, the incident garnered his first mention in the press, the nationalist newspaper Al Gihad reported that Nasser led the protest and was among the wounded
2.
Asyut Governorate
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Asyut Governorate is one of the governorates of Egypt. The capital of the governorate is the city of Asyut, the name of Asyut is derived from early Egyptian Zawty, late Egyptian Səyáwt into Coptic Syowt. According to population estimates from 2015 the majority of residents in the live in rural areas. Out of an estimated 4,245,215 people residing in the governorate,3,119,112 people live in areas as opposed to only 1,126,103 in urban areas. Asyut governorate has a population of over 4 million people, with a significant Coptic presence, in 1914, it had the second largest proportion of Copts in Egypt, where they made up 20. 7% of the population. However it is likely that figure is underestimated, since the Church claims up to 48. 5% while the population are Sunni Muslims. Evangelical religions had significant growth in some districts of Asyut, as evidenced in 1907 census data, Muslims and Christians have lived together in Asyut and at times there have been clashes. In July 2013, a number of Christians took to the streets to protest Muslim extremism in Asyut. A very conservative society, which is Asyut, stopped the pageant
3.
Khedivate of Egypt
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Upon the conquest of the Sultanate of Egypt by the Ottoman Empire in 1517, the country was governed as an Ottoman eyalet. The Porte was content to local rule to remain in the hands of the Mamluks, the Egyptian military caste of Circassian. Between 1799 and 1801, the Ottoman Porte, working at times with Frances main enemy, by August,1801, the remaining French forces of General Jacques-François Menou withdrew from Egypt. Following the defeat of the French, the Porte assigned Husrev Pasha as the new Wāli of Egypt, many of these were freed by or fled with the British, while others held Minya between Upper and Lower Egypt. Amid these disturbances, Husrev Pasha attempted to disband his Albanian bashi-bazouks without pay and this led to rioting that drove Husrev Pasha from Cairo. During the ensuing turmoil, the Porte sent Muhammad Ali Pasha to Egypt, however, Muhammad Ali seized control of Egypt, declaring himself ruler of Egypt and quickly consolidating an independent local powerbase. After repeated failed attempts to remove and kill him, in 1805, demonstrating his grander ambitions, Muhammad Ali Pasha claimed for himself the higher title of Khedive, ruling the self-proclaimed Khedivate of Egypt. He murdered the remaining Mamluk beys in 1811, solidifying his own control of Egypt and he is regarded as the founder of modern Egypt because of the dramatic reforms he instituted in the military, agricultural, economic and cultural spheres. By this revolutionary method of land nationalization Muhammad Ali became proprietor of nearly all the soil of Egypt, the pasha also attempted to reorganize his troops on European lines, but this led to a formidable mutiny in Cairo. Muhammad Alis life was endangered, and he sought refuge by night in the citadel, the revolt was reduced by presents to the chiefs of the insurgents, and Muhammad Ali ordered that the sufferers by the disturbances should receive compensation from the treasury. The project of the Nizam Gedid was, in consequence of this mutiny, while Ibrahim was engaged in the second Arabian campaign the pasha turned his attention to strengthening the Egyptian economy. He created state monopolies over the products of the country. He set up a number of factories and began digging in 1819 a new canal to Alexandria, the old canal had long fallen into decay, and the necessity of a safe channel between Alexandria and the Nile was much felt. Another notable fact in the progress of the country was the development of the cultivation of cotton in the Delta in 1822. The cotton grown had been brought from the Sudan by Maho Bey, efforts were made to promote education and the study of medicine. To European merchants, on whom he was dependent for the sale of his exports, Muhammad Ali showed much favor and it was also under Muhammad Alis encouragement that the overland transit of goods from Europe to India via Egypt was resumed. In 1820 Muhammad Ali gave orders to commence the conquest of eastern Libya and he first sent an expedition westward which conquered and annexed the Siwa oasis. Alis intentions for Sudan was to extend his rule southward, to capture the caravan trade bound for the Red Sea
4.
Cairo
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Cairo is the capital and largest city of Egypt. Cairo has long been a center of the political and cultural life. Cairo has the oldest and largest film and music industries in the Arab world, as well as the worlds second-oldest institution of higher learning, Al-Azhar University. Many international media, businesses, and organizations have regional headquarters in the city, with a population of 6.76 million spread over 453 square kilometers, Cairo is by far the largest city in Egypt. An additional 9.5 million inhabitants live in proximity to the city. Cairo, like many other mega-cities, suffers from high levels of pollution, Cairos metro, one of only two in Africa, ranks among the fifteen busiest in the world, with over 1 billion annual passenger rides. The economy of Cairo was ranked first in the Middle East in 2005, Egyptians often refer to Cairo as Maṣr, the Egyptian Arabic name for Egypt itself, emphasizing the citys importance for the country. In Coptic the city is known as Kahire, meaning Place of the Sun, possibly referring to the ancient city of Heliopolis, the location of the ancient city is the suburb of Ain Shams. The ancient Egyptian name for the area is thought to be Khere-Ohe, The Place of Combat, sometimes the city is informally referred to as Kayro. The area around present-day Cairo, especially Memphis, had long been a point of Ancient Egypt due to its strategic location just upstream from the Nile Delta. However, the origins of the city are generally traced back to a series of settlements in the first millennium. Around the turn of the 4th century, as Memphis was continuing to decline in importance and this fortress, known as Babylon, remained the nucleus of the Roman, and, later, the Byzantine, city and is the oldest structure in the city today. It is also situated at the nucleus of the Coptic Orthodox community, many of Cairos oldest Coptic churches, including the Hanging Church, are located along the fortress walls in a section of the city known as Coptic Cairo. Following the Muslim conquest in 640 AD the conqueror Amr ibn As settled to the north of the Babylon in an area became known as al-Fustat. Originally a tented camp Fustat became a permanent settlement and the first capital of Islamic Egypt, in 750, following the overthrow of the Ummayad caliphate by the Abbasids, the new rulers created their own settlement to the northeast of Fustat which became their capital. This was known as al-Askar as it was laid out like a military camp, a rebellion in 869 by Ahmad ibn Tulun led to the abandonment of Al Askar and the building of another settlement, which became the seat of government. This was al-Qattai, to the north of Fustat and closer to the river, Al Qattai was centred around a palace and ceremonial mosque, now known as the Mosque of ibn Tulun. In 905 the Abbasids re-asserted control of the country and their returned to Fustat
5.
Egypt
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Egypt, officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia by a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. Egypt is a Mediterranean country bordered by the Gaza Strip and Israel to the northeast, the Gulf of Aqaba to the east, the Red Sea to the east and south, Sudan to the south, and Libya to the west. Across the Gulf of Aqaba lies Jordan, and across from the Sinai Peninsula lies Saudi Arabia, although Jordan and it is the worlds only contiguous Afrasian nation. Egypt has among the longest histories of any country, emerging as one of the worlds first nation states in the tenth millennium BC. Considered a cradle of civilisation, Ancient Egypt experienced some of the earliest developments of writing, agriculture, urbanisation, organised religion and central government. One of the earliest centres of Christianity, Egypt was Islamised in the century and remains a predominantly Muslim country. With over 92 million inhabitants, Egypt is the most populous country in North Africa and the Arab world, the third-most populous in Africa, and the fifteenth-most populous in the world. The great majority of its people live near the banks of the Nile River, an area of about 40,000 square kilometres, the large regions of the Sahara desert, which constitute most of Egypts territory, are sparsely inhabited. About half of Egypts residents live in areas, with most spread across the densely populated centres of greater Cairo, Alexandria. Modern Egypt is considered to be a regional and middle power, with significant cultural, political, and military influence in North Africa, the Middle East and the Muslim world. Egypts economy is one of the largest and most diversified in the Middle East, Egypt is a member of the United Nations, Non-Aligned Movement, Arab League, African Union, and Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. Miṣr is the Classical Quranic Arabic and modern name of Egypt. The name is of Semitic origin, directly cognate with other Semitic words for Egypt such as the Hebrew מִצְרַיִם, the oldest attestation of this name for Egypt is the Akkadian
6.
Ethnicity
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An ethnic group or ethnicity is a category of people who identify with each other based on similarities, such as common ancestral, language, social, cultural or national experiences. Unlike other social groups, ethnicity is often an inherited status based on the society in which one lives, in some cases, it can be adopted if a person moves into another society. Ethnic groups, derived from the historical founder population, often continue to speak related languages. By way of language shift, acculturation, adoption and religious conversion, it is possible for individuals or groups to leave one ethnic group. Ethnicity is often used synonymously with terms such as nation or people. In English, it can also have the connotation of something exotic, generally related to cultures of more recent immigrants, the largest ethnic groups in modern times comprise hundreds of millions of individuals, while the smallest are limited to a few dozen individuals. Conversely, formerly separate ethnicities can merge to form a pan-ethnicity, whether through division or amalgamation, the formation of a separate ethnic identity is referred to as ethnogenesis. The term ethnic is derived from the Greek word ἔθνος ethnos, the inherited English language term for this concept is folk, used alongside the latinate people since the late Middle English period. In Early Modern English and until the mid-19th century, ethnic was used to mean heathen or pagan, as the Septuagint used ta ethne to translate the Hebrew goyim the nations, non-Hebrews, non-Jews. The Greek term in antiquity could refer to any large group, a host of men. In the 19th century, the term came to be used in the sense of peculiar to a race, people or nation, the abstract ethnicity had been used for paganism in the 18th century, but now came to express the meaning of an ethnic character. The term ethnic group was first recorded in 1935 and entered the Oxford English Dictionary in 1972, depending on the context that is used, the term nationality may either be used synonymously with ethnicity, or synonymously with citizenship. The process that results in the emergence of an ethnicity is called ethnogenesis, the Greeks at this time did not describe foreign nations but had also developed a concept of their own ethnicity, which they grouped under the name of Hellenes. Herodotus gave an account of what defined Greek ethnic identity in his day, enumerating shared descent. Whether ethnicity qualifies as a universal is to some extent dependent on the exact definition used. Many social scientists, such as anthropologists Fredrik Barth and Eric Wolf and they regard ethnicity as a product of specific kinds of inter-group interactions, rather than an essential quality inherent to human groups. According to Thomas Hylland Eriksen, the study of ethnicity was dominated by two distinct debates until recently, one is between primordialism and instrumentalism. In the primordialist view, the participant perceives ethnic ties collectively, as a given, even coercive
7.
Modern era
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Modern history, the modern period or the modern era, is the global historiographical approach to the timeframe after the Post-classical history. It took all of history up to 1804 for the worlds population to reach 1 billion. Contemporary history is the span of historic events from approximately 1945 that are relevant to the present time. Some events, while not without precedent, show a new way of perceiving the world, the concept of modernity interprets the general meaning of these events and seeks explanations for major developments. The fundamental difficulty of studying modern history is the fact that a plethora of it has been documented up to the present day and it is imperative to consider the reliability of the information obtained from these records. In the pre-modern era, many peoples sense of self and purpose was expressed via a faith in some form of deity. Pre-modern cultures have not been thought of creating a sense of distinct individuality, religious officials, who often held positions of power, were the spiritual intermediaries to the common person. It was only through intermediaries that the general masses had access to the divine. Tradition was sacred to ancient cultures and was unchanging and the order of ceremony. The term modern was coined in the 16th century to present or recent times. New information about the world was discovered via empirical observation, versus the use of reason. The term Early Modern was introduced in the English language in the 1930s, to distinguish the time between what we call Middle Ages and time of the late Enlightenment. It is important to note that these terms stem from European history, in the Contemporary era, there were various socio-technological trends. Regarding the 21st century and the modern world, the Information Age and computers were forefront in use, not completely ubiquitous. The development of Eastern powers was of note, with China, in the Eurasian theater, the European Union and Russian Federation were two forces recently developed. A concern for Western world, if not the world, was the late modern form of terrorism. The modern period has been a period of significant development in the fields of science, politics, warfare and it has also been an age of discovery and globalization. During this time, the European powers and later their colonies, began a political, economic, the modern era is closely associated with the development of individualism, capitalism, urbanization and a belief in the possibilities of technological and political progress
8.
Islam
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Islam is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion which professes that there is only one and incomparable God and that Muhammad is the last messenger of God. It is the worlds second-largest religion and the major religion in the world, with over 1.7 billion followers or 23% of the global population. Islam teaches that God is merciful, all-powerful, and unique, and He has guided mankind through revealed scriptures, natural signs, and a line of prophets sealed by Muhammad. The primary scriptures of Islam are the Quran, viewed by Muslims as the word of God. Muslims believe that Islam is the original, complete and universal version of a faith that was revealed many times before through prophets including Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses. As for the Quran, Muslims consider it to be the unaltered, certain religious rites and customs are observed by the Muslims in their family and social life, while social responsibilities to parents, relatives, and neighbors have also been defined. Besides, the Quran and the sunnah of Muhammad prescribe a comprehensive body of moral guidelines for Muslims to be followed in their personal, social, political, Islam began in the early 7th century. Originating in Mecca, it spread in the Arabian Peninsula. The expansion of the Muslim world involved various caliphates and empires, traders, most Muslims are of one of two denominations, Sunni or Shia. Islam is the dominant religion in the Middle East, North Africa, sizable Muslim communities are also found in Horn of Africa, Europe, China, Russia, Mainland Southeast Asia, Philippines, Northern Borneo, Caucasus and the Americas. Converts and immigrant communities are found in almost every part of the world, Islam is a verbal noun originating from the triliteral root s-l-m which forms a large class of words mostly relating to concepts of wholeness, submission, safeness and peace. In a religious context it means voluntary submission to God, Islām is the verbal noun of Form IV of the root, and means submission or surrender. Muslim, the word for an adherent of Islam, is the active participle of the verb form. The word sometimes has connotations in its various occurrences in the Quran. In some verses, there is stress on the quality of Islam as a state, Whomsoever God desires to guide. Other verses connect Islām and dīn, Today, I have perfected your religion for you, I have completed My blessing upon you, still others describe Islam as an action of returning to God—more than just a verbal affirmation of faith. In the Hadith of Gabriel, islām is presented as one part of a triad that also includes imān, Islam was historically called Muhammadanism in Anglophone societies. This term has fallen out of use and is said to be offensive because it suggests that a human being rather than God is central to Muslims religion
9.
Shafi'i
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The Shafii madhhab is one of the four schools of Islamic law in Sunni Islam. It was founded by the Arab scholar Al-Shafi‘i, a pupil of Malik, the other three schools of Sunni jurisprudence are Hanafi, Maliki and Hanbali. The Shafi school predominantly relies on the Quran and the Hadiths for Sharia, where passages of Quran and Hadiths are ambiguous, the school first seeks religious law guidance from Ijma – the consensus of Sahabah. If there was no consensus, the Shafii school relies on individual opinion of the companions of Muhammad, the Shafii school was, in the early history of Islam, the most followed ideology for Sharia. However, with the Ottoman Empires expansion and patronage, it was replaced with the Hanafi school in many parts of the Muslim world, the Shafii school of thought stipulates authority to five sources of jurisprudence. Although al-Shafiis legal methodology rejected custom or local practice as a source of law. The Shafii school also rejects two sources of Sharia that are accepted in other schools of Islam - Istihsan and Istislah. The Shafii school rejected these two principles stating that these methods rely on subjective human opinions, its potential for corruption and adjustment to political context, the foundational text for the Shafii school is Al-Risala by the founder of the school, Al-Shafii. It outlines the principles of Shafii fiqh as well as the derived jurisprudence, Al-Risala became an influential book to other Sunni Islam fiqhs as well, as the oldest surviving Arabic work on Islamic legal theory. The Shafii madhhab was spread by Al-Shafii students in Cairo, Mecca and it became widely accepted in early history of Islam. The chief representative of the Iraqi school was Abu Ishaq al-Shirazi, whilst in Khorasan and these two branches merged around Ibn al-Salah and his father, before being reviewed and refined by al-Rafii and al-Nawawi. The Shafii jurisprudence was adopted as the law during the Great Seljuq Empire, Zengid dynasty, Ayyubid dynasty and later the Mamluk Sultanate. It was also adopted by the Kathiri state in Hadhramawt and most of rule of the Sharif of Mecca. The Shafii school is presently predominant in the parts of the Muslim world, Africa, Djibouti, Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, eastern Egypt. Shafii school is the second largest school of Sunni madhhabs by number of adherents, however, a UNC publication considers the Maliki school as second largest, and the Hanafi madhhab the largest, with Shafii as third largest. The demographic data by each fiqh, for nation, are unavailable
10.
Sunni Islam
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Sunni Islam is the largest group of Islam. Its name comes from the word Sunnah, referring to the behavior of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. According to Sunni tradition, Muhammad did not clearly designate a successor and this contrasts with the Shia view, which holds that Muhammad intended his son-in-law and cousin Ali ibn Abi Talib to succeed him. Political tensions between Sunnis and Shias continued with varying intensity throughout Islamic history and they have been exacerbated in recent times by ethnic conflicts, as of 2009, Sunni Muslims constituted 87–90% of the worlds Muslim population. Sunni Islam is the worlds largest religious denomination, followed by Catholicism and its adherents are referred to in Arabic as ahl as-sunnah wa l-jamāʻah or ahl as-sunnah for short. In English, its doctrines and practices are sometimes called Sunnism, while adherents are known as Sunni Muslims, Sunnis, Sunnites, Sunni Islam is sometimes referred to as orthodox Islam. The Quran, together with hadith and binding juristic consensus form the basis of all traditional jurisprudence within Sunni Islam, sunnī, also commonly referred to as Sunnīism, is a term derived from sunnah meaning habit, usual practice, custom, tradition. The Muslim use of this term refers to the sayings and living habits of the prophet Muhammad, in Arabic, this branch of Islam is referred to as ahl as-sunnah wa l-jamāʻah, the people of the sunnah and the community, which is commonly shortened to ahl as-sunnah. One common mistake is to assume that Sunni Islam represents a normative Islam that emerged during the period after Muhammads death, and that Sufism and Shiism developed out of Sunni Islam. This perception is due to the reliance on highly ideological sources that have been accepted as reliable historical works. Both Sunnism and Shiaism are the end products of centuries of competition between ideologies. Both sects used each other to further cement their own identities and doctrines, the first four caliphs are known among Sunnis as the Rashidun or Rightly-Guided Ones. Sunni recognition includes the aforementioned Abu Bakr as the first, Umar who established the Islamic calendar as the second, Uthman as the third, Sunnis believe that the companions of Muhammad were the best of Muslims. Support for this view is found in the Quran, according to Sunnis. Sunnis also believe that the companions were true believers since it was the companions who were given the task of compiling the Quran, furthermore, narrations that were narrated by the companions are considered by Sunnis to be a second source of knowledge of the Muslim faith. A study conducted by the Pew Research Center in 2010 and released January 2011 found that there are 1.62 billion Muslims around the world, Islam does not have a formal hierarchy or clergy. Leaders are informal, and gain influence through study to become a scholar of Islamic law, according to the Islamic Center of Columbia, South Carolina, anyone with the intelligence and the will can become an Islamic scholar. During Midday Mosque services on Fridays, the congregation will choose a person to lead the service
11.
Politics
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Politics is the process of making decisions applying to all members of each group. More narrowly, it refers to achieving and exercising positions of governance — organized control over a human community, furthermore, politics is the study or practice of the distribution of power and resources within a given community as well as the interrelationship between communities. It is very often said that politics is about power, a political system is a framework which defines acceptable political methods within a given society. History of political thought can be traced back to antiquity, with seminal works such as Platos Republic, Aristotles Politics. Formal Politics refers to the operation of a system of government and publicly defined institutions. Political parties, public policy or discussions about war and foreign affairs would fall under the category of Formal Politics, many people view formal politics as something outside of themselves, but that can still affect their daily lives. Semi-formal Politics is Politics in government associations such as neighborhood associations, informal Politics is understood as forming alliances, exercising power and protecting and advancing particular ideas or goals. Generally, this includes anything affecting ones daily life, such as the way an office or household is managed, informal Politics is typically understood as everyday politics, hence the idea that politics is everywhere. The word comes from the same Greek word from which the title of Aristotles book Politics also derives, the book title was rendered in Early Modern English in the mid-15th century as Polettiques, it became politics in Modern English. The history of politics is reflected in the origin, development, the origin of the state is to be found in the development of the art of warfare. Historically speaking, all communities of the modern type owe their existence to successful warfare. Kings, emperors and other types of monarchs in many countries including China, of the institutions that ruled states, that of kingship stood at the forefront until the French Revolution put an end to the divine right of kings. Nevertheless, the monarchy is among the political institutions, dating as early as 2100 BC in Sumeria to the 21st century AD British Monarchy. Kingship becomes an institution through the institution of Hereditary monarchy, the king often, even in absolute monarchies, ruled his kingdom with the aid of an elite group of advisors, a council without which he could not maintain power. As these advisors and others outside the monarchy negotiated for power, constitutional monarchies emerged, long before the council became a bulwark of democracy, it rendered invaluable aid to the institution of kingship by, Preserving the institution of kingship through heredity. Preserving the traditions of the social order, being able to withstand criticism as an impersonal authority. Being able to manage a greater deal of knowledge and action than an individual such as the king. The greatest of the subordinates, the earls and dukes in England and Scotland
12.
Quranic exegesis
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Tafsir is the Arabic word for exegesis, usually of the Quran. An author of tafsir is a mufassir, a Quranic tafsir will often explain content and provide places and times, not contained in Quranic verses, as well as give the different views and opinions of scholars on the verse. The word tafsīr is derived from the Arabic root, F-S-R which means to explain, to expound, to disclose. In Islamic contexts, it is defined as understanding and uncovering the Will of Allah which has been conveyed by the Quranic text, by means of the Arabic language and one’s own knowledge. As the Quran was revealed to him, he recited the verses to his companions and this was one of Muhammads responsibilities. Elements of Muhammads explanations are, Clarifying verses whose intents are not understood Indication of names, places, times etc. These interpretations have not been collected independently in a book, rather, they have recorded in hadith books, under the topic of tafsir. After the death of Muhammad, his companions, the sahabah, undertook the task of interpretation, most of the sahabah, including Abu Bakr, refrained from commenting with their personal views, and only narrated comments by Muhammad. Others including ibn Abbas used their own knowledge from the Arabic language to interpret the Quran, by the time of the next generations ensuing the Sahabah, the tabiin scholars started using a wide range of sources for tafsir. The whole of the Quran is interpreted, and narrations are separated from tafsir into separate books, grammatical explanations and historical data are preserved within these books, personal opinions are recorded, whether accepted or rejected. The mufasireen listed 15 fields that must be mastered before one can interpret the Quran. Classical Arabic, Is how one learns the meaning of each word, mujahid ibn Jabr said, “It is not permissible for one who holds faith in Allah and the Day of Judgment to speak on the Quran without learning classical Arabic. Arabic Philology, Is important because any change in the diacritical marks affects the meaning, Arabic morphology, is important because changes in the configuration of verb and noun forms change the meaning. Ibn Faris said, “A person who misses out on Arabic morphology has missed out on a lot. ”Al-Ishtiqaaq and this is the science of etymology which explains the reciprocal relation and radical composition between the root and derived word. For example, masih derives from the root word masah which means “to feel something and to something with a wet hand, ”. Ilm al-Bayaan, is the science by which one learns the similes, metaphors, metonymies, zuhoor, ilm al-Badi’, The science by which one learns to interpret sentences which reveal the beauty and eloquence of the spoken and written word. The above-mentioned three sciences are categorized as Ilm-ul-Balagha and it is one of the most important sciences to a mufassir because he is able to reveal the miraculous nature of the Quran through these three sciences. Ilm al-Qiraat, Dialecticisms of the different readings of the Quran and this science is important because one qiraat of the Quran may differ in meaning from another, and one learns to favor one reading over another based on the difference in the meanings
13.
Ibn al-Qayyim
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Of humble origin, Ibn al-Qayyims father was the principal of the School of Jawziyya, which also served as a court of law for the Hanbali judge of Damascus during the time period. Ibn al-Qayyim went on to become a scholar, producing a rich corpus of doctrinal. Muhammad Ibn Abī Bakr Ibn Ayyub Ibn Sa‘d Ibn Harīz Ibn Makkī Zayd al-Dīn al-Zur‘ī, al-Dimashqi, with kunya of Abu Abdullah, called Shams al-Dīn. He is usually known as Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah, after his father Abu Bakr Ibn Sa‘d al-Zur‘ī who was the superintendent of the Jawziyyah Madrasah, Ibn al-Qayyims main teacher was the scholar Ibn Taymiyyah. Ibn Qayyim first met Ibn Taymiyyah at the age of 21, as a result of this union he shared his teachers views in most issues. Ibn al-Qayyim was imprisoned along with his teacher Ibn Taymiyyah, the campaign to have Ibn al-Qayyim imprisoned was led by Shafii and Maliki scholars, and was also joined by the Hanbali and Hanafi judges. Whilst in prison Ibn al-Qayyim busied himself with the Quran, according to Ibn Rajab, Ibn al-Qayyim made the most of his time of imprisonment, the immediate result of his delving into the Quran while in prison was a series of mystical experiences. Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyya wrote a lengthy commentary on a treatise written by the Hanbali Sufi Khwaja Abdullah Ansari entitled Madarij al-Salikin. He expressed his love and appreciation for Ansari in this commentary with his statement Certainly I love the Sheikh, like his teacher Ibn Taymiyya, Ibn Qayyim, supported broad powers for the state and prosecution. He argued, for example, that it was right to punish someone of lowly status who alleged improper behavior by someone more respectable. Ibn Qayyim formulated evidential theories that made less reliant than ever before on the oral testimony. One example was the establishment of a childs paternity by experts scrutinizing the faces of a child, if a woman sought a divorce on the grounds of her husbands impotence and her husband contested the claim, a judge might obtain a sample of the husbands ejaculate. According to Ibn Qayyim only genuine semen left a residue when boiled. In interrogating the accused, Ibn Qayyim believed that testimony could be out of suspects if they were disreputable. This was in contrast to the majority of Islamic jurists who had acknowledged that alleged sinners were entitled to remain silent if accused. Attorney and author Sadakat Kadri states that, as a matter of straightforward history, Ibn Qayyim however, believed that the Prophet Muhammad, the Rightly Guided Caliphs, and other Companions would have supported his position. In fact, those who believed that human personalities and events were influenced by heavenly bodies, were the most ignorant of people, the most in error, the most ignorant of people concerning his soul and its creator. Why is it that you have given an influence to al-Ras and al-Dhanab, in all such writings, it is evident Ibn al-Qayyim wrote to address those interested in Sufism in particular and
14.
Hassan al-Banna
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Al-Bannas writings marked a watershed in Islamic intellectual history by presenting a modern ideology based on Islam. Al-Banna considered Islam to be a system of life, with the Quran as the only acceptable constitution. He called for Islamization of the state, the economy, al-Bannas ideology involved criticism of Western materialism, British imperialism, and the traditionalism of Egyptian ulema. He appealed to Egyptian and pan-Arab patriotism but rejected Arab nationalism, the Muslim Brotherhood advocated gradualist moral reform and had no plans for violent takeover of power. Jihad of the spirit was a key notion in their program, under al-Bannas leadership, the organization embarked on a wide-ranging campaign of social engagement with a particular emphasis on public health improvements. He allowed formation of a military wing which took part in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Al-Banna argued that the state should enforce Islamic public morality through censorship and application of corporal punishments. Nonetheless, his thought was open to Western ideas and some of his writings quote European authors instead of Islamic sources, al-Banna was assassinated by Egyptian secret police in 1949. His son-in-law Said Ramadan emerged as a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1950s. Hassan al-Banna was born on 14 October 1906 in Mahmudiyya, a rural Nile Delta town located northwest of Cairo in Beheira Governorate. His father, Sheikh Ahmad Abd al-Rahman al-Banna al-Saati, was a Hanbali imam, muezzin, and mosque teacher, Sheikh Ahmad was also known for his work as a Hanbali scholar, particularly his classifications of the traditions of Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal al-Shaybani. These classifications became known as musnad al-fath al-rabbani, through this work, Sheikh Ahmad forged connections with Islamic scholars that proved useful when his son moved to Cairo in 1932. In addition to his exposure to Hanbali Puritanism, Hassan al-Banna was inspired by Rashid Ridas magazine. He was also influenced by Sufism as a youth in Mahmudiyya. He attended weekly Hadra and was a member of the al-Hassafiyya Sufi order, although al-Banna was only thirteen years old during the Egyptian Revolution of 1919, it was the event that first exposed him to Egyptian nationalist politics. In his personal accounts, al-Banna connected himself with the activism of the time. In spite of his age, al-Banna participated in demonstrations in Damanhur, self-published political pamphlets. However, during the 1920s economic crisis, the family had trouble sustaining the upkeep of their property, in Mahmudiyya, al-Banna studied in the village mosque with Sheikh Zahran
15.
Alexis Carrel
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Alexis Carrel was a French surgeon and biologist who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1912 for pioneering vascular suturing techniques. He invented the first perfusion pump with Charles A. Lindbergh opening the way to organ transplantation, like many intellectuals of his time, he promoted eugenics. He faced media attacks towards the end of his life over his involvement with the Nazis. A Nobel Prize laureate in 1912, Alexis Carrel was also elected twice, in 1924 and 1927, as an honorary member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. Born in Sainte-Foy-lès-Lyon, Rhône, Carrel was raised in a devout Catholic family and was educated by Jesuits and he was a pioneer in transplantology and thoracic surgery. Alexis Carrel was also a member of learned societies in the U. S, in 1902, he was claimed to have witnessed the miraculous cure of Marie Bailly at Lourdes, made famous in part because she named Carrel as a witness of her cure. After the notoriety surrounding the event, Carrel could not obtain an appointment because of the pervasive anticlericalism in the French university system at the time. In 1903 he emigrated to Montreal, Canada, but soon relocated to Chicago, in 1906 he joined the newly formed Rockefeller Institute of Medical Research in New York where he spent the rest of his career. There he did significant work on tissue cultures with pathologist Montrose Thomas Burrows, in the 1930s, Carrel and Charles Lindbergh became close friends not only because of the years they worked together but also because they shared personal, political, and social views. Lindbergh initially sought out Carrel to see if his sister-in-laws heart, damaged by rheumatic fever, when Lindbergh saw the crudeness of Carrels machinery, he offered to build new equipment for the scientist. Eventually they built the first perfusion pump, an instrumental to the development of organ transplantation. Lindbergh considered Carrel his closest friend, and said he would preserve, in his later life he returned to his Catholic roots. In 1939 he met with Trappist monk Alexis Presse on a recommendation, although Carrel was skeptical about meeting with a priest, Presse ended up having a profound influence on the rest of Carrels life. In 1942, he said I believe in the existence of God, in the immortality of the soul, in Revelation and he summoned Presse to administer the Catholic Sacraments on his death bed in November 1944. For much of his life, Carrel and his wife spent their summers on the Ile Saint-Gildas, after he and Lindbergh became close friends, Carrel persuaded him to also buy a neighboring island, the Ile Illiec, where the Lindberghs often resided in the late 1930s. Carrel was a surgeon in 1894 when the French president Sadi Carnot was assassinated with a knife. His large abdominal veins had been severed, and surgeons who treated the president felt that such veins were too large to be successfully reconnected and this left a deep impression on Carrel, and he set about developing new techniques for suturing blood vessels. The technique of triangulation, which was inspired by sewing lessons he took from an embroideress, is used today
16.
Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi
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Syed Abul Ala Maududi was an Islamist philosopher, jurist, journalist and imam. His numerous works were written in Urdu, but then translated into English, Arabic, Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Burmese and many other languages. He strove not only to revive Islam as a renewer of the religion, but to propagate true Islam and he was the founder of the Jamaat-e-Islami, the largest Islamic organisation in Asia. He and his party are thought to have been the pioneer in politicizing islam and he was the first recipient of the Saudi Arabian King Faisal International Award for his service to Islam in 1979. After his death his Gayby Salat al-Janazah in Mecca, making him the person in history whose prayer was observed in the Kaaba. Maududi was born in Aurangabad India, then part of the princely state enclave of Hyderabad and he was the youngest of three sons of Maulana Ahmad Hasan, a lawyer by profession. His fathers mother was related to Islamic modernist thinker Sayyid Ahmad Khan, at an early age, until he was nine, Maududi was given home education, he received religious nurture at the hands of his father and from a variety of teachers employed by him. As his father wanted him to become a maulvi, this consisted of learning Arabic, Persian, Islamic law. He reportedly translated Qasim Amins The New Woman from Arabic into Urdu at the age of 14, and about 3,500 pages from Asfar and he then moved to a more traditionalist Darul Uloom in Hyderabad. In 1919, by the time he was 16, and still a modernist in mindset, he moved to Delhi and read books by his distant relative, comparing their contribution to that of Muslims, he concluded that the latters did not reach even 1 percent. From 1924 to 1927 Maududi was the editor of al-Jamiah, the newspaper of the Jamiyat-i Ulama, always interested in independence from the British, Maududi lost faith in the Congress Party and its Muslim allies in the 1920s as the party developed an increasingly Hindu identity. He began to turn more towards Islam, and believed that Democracy could be an option for Muslims only if the majority of Indians were Muslim. Maududi spent some time in Delhi as a man but went back to Hyderabad in 1928. It was from 1933 to 1941 that Maududis most important and influential works were published, Nasr describes his role at the time as a ideologue rather than a journalist he was earlier, or the political activist he became after founding his party. The government of Hyderabad helped support the journal buying 300 subscriptions which it donated to libraries around India, Maududi was alarmed by the decline of Muslim ruled Hyderabad, the increasing secularism and lack of Purdah among Muslim women in Delhi. By 1937 he became in conflict with Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind and its support for a pluralistic Indian society where the Jamiat hoped Muslims could thrive, without sacrificing their identity or interests. In that year he also married Mahmudah Begum, a woman from an old Muslim family with financial resources. The family provide financial help and allowed him to himself to research and political action, but his wife had liberated, modern ways
17.
Arabic language
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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
18.
Sayyid
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Women sayyids are given the titles Sayyida, Alawiyah, or Sharifa. In some regions of the Islamic world, such as in India, children of a Sayyida mother but a non-Sayyid father are referred to as Mirza. In the Arab world, sayyid is the equivalent of the English word liege lord or master when referring to a descendant of Muhammad, the word sidi is often used in Arabic. Although not verified, many Arabic language experts state that it has its roots in the word Al Asad Arabic, الأسد meaning lion, probably because of the qualities of valour and leadership. In the early period, the Arabs used the term Sayyid, however, in the modern era, the term Sharif has been used to denote descendants from Hasan, and the term Sayyid has been used to denote descendants from Husayn. Although reliable statistics are unavailable, conservative estimates put the number of Sayyids in the tens of millions, Sayyids often include the following titles in their names to indicate the figure from whom they trace their descent. The descendants of Ali and his wives are called Alvi sayyid, they are titled Shah, Sain. Note, When transliterating Arabic words into English there are two approaches, the user may transliterate the word letter for letter, e. g. الزيدي becomes a-l-z-ai-d-i. The user may transcribe the pronunciation of the word, e. g. الزيدي becomes a-zz-ai-d-i and this is because in Arabic grammar, some consonants cancel the l from the word the al. When the user sees the prefixes an, ar, as, ash, at, az, an i, wi, or vi ending could perhaps be translated by the English suffixes -ite or -ian. The suffix transforms a personal name or place name into the name of a group of people connected by lineage or place of birth, hence Ahmad al-Hassani could be translated as Ahmad, the descendant of Hassan, and Ahmad al-Manami as Ahmad from the city of Manami. For further explanation, see Arabic names, 1Also, El-Husseini, Al-Husseini, Husseini, and Hussaini. 2Those who use the term Sayyid for all descendants of Ali ibn Abi Talib regard Allawis or Alavis as Sayyids. However, Allawis are not descendants of Muhammad, as they are descended from the children of Ali and those who limit the term Sayyid to descendants of Muhammad through Fatima, do not consider Allawis/Alavis to be Sayyids. Some Sayyids also claim to be Najeeb Al Tarfayn, meaning Noble on both sides, which indicates both of their parents are Sayyid. But in actuality this term is applied only to those Sayyids who have both Imam Hassan and Imam Hussain in their ancestry, many feel proud to attach Al Hashmi bil Quraishi at the end as well. The importance of this concept of Najeeb AlTarfayn has its source in the Hadeeth of Muhammad wherein he stated that the Mahdi, or The Hidden One, hence, Shia and Sunni Sayyids have different interpretations of this concept. However, the descendants of many Sufi Saints such as Abdul-Qadir Gilani, Bande Nawaz, the existence of any descendant of Imam Hasan al Askari is disputed by many people
19.
Egyptians
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Egyptians are an ethnic group and the citizens native to Egypt sharing a common culture and a variety of Egyptian Arabic. Egyptian identity is tied to geography. This unique geography has been the basis of the development of Egyptian society since antiquity, the daily language of the Egyptians is the local variety of Arabic, known as Egyptian Arabic or Masri. Additionally, a minority of Egyptians living in Upper Egypt speak Saidi Arabic. Egyptians are predominantly adherents of Sunni Islam with a Shia minority, Egyptians receive or have received several names, Egyptians, from Greek Αἰγύπτιοι, Aiguptioi, from Αἴγυπτος, Aiguptos Egypt. The Greek name is derived from Late Egyptian Hikuptah Memphis, a corruption of the earlier Egyptian name Hat-ka-Ptah, meaning home of the ka of Ptah, the name of a temple to the god Ptah at Memphis. Strabo provided a folk etymology according to which Αἴγυπτος had evolved as a compound from Aἰγαίου ὑπτίως Aegaeou huptiōs, in English, the noun Egyptians appears in the 14th century, in Wycliffs Bible, as Egipcions. Copts, also a derivative of the Greek word Αἰγύπτιος, Aiguptios, maṣreyyīn, the modern Egyptian name, which comes from the ancient Semitic name for Egypt and originally connoted civilization or metropolis. Classical Arabic Miṣr is directly cognate with the Biblical Hebrew Mitsráyīm, edward William Lane writing in the 1820s, said that Egyptians commonly called themselves El-Maṣreyyīn the Egyptians, Ewlad Maṣr the Children of Egypt and Ahl Maṣr the People of Egypt. He added that the Turks stigmatized the Egyptians with the name Ahl-Farūn or the People of the Pharaoh,
20.
Muslim Brotherhood
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The Society of the Muslim Brothers, shortened to the Muslim Brotherhood, is a transnational Sunni Islamist organization founded in Egypt by Islamic scholar and schoolteacher Hassan al-Banna in 1928. The Brotherhoods stated goal is to instill the Quran and the Sunnah as the reference point for. Ordering the life of the Muslim family, individual, community, as a Pan-Islamic, religious, and social movement, it preached Islam, taught the illiterate, and set up hospitals and business enterprises. The Arab Spring brought it legalization and substantial power at first. The Brotherhood itself claims it is a peaceful, democratic organization, according to a spokesman, the Muslim Brotherhood believe in reform, democracy, freedom of assembly, press, etc. We believe that the reform is the true and natural gateway for all other kinds of reform. We have announced our acceptance of democracy that acknowledges political pluralism, the rotation of power. Its founder, Hassan Al-Banna, was influenced by Islamic modernist reformers Muhammad Abduh and Rashid Rida, with the group structure and it downplayed doctrinal differences between schools emphasizing the political importance of worldwide unity of the Muslim Nation. Al-Banna believed the Quran and Sunnah constitute a perfect way of life, Islamic governments must be based on this system and eventually unified in a Caliphate. The Brotherhood preaches that Islam will bring justice, the eradication of poverty, corruption and sinful behavior. On the issue of women and gender the Muslim Brotherhood interprets Islam conservatively, there have been breakaway groups from the movement, including the Al-Gamaa al-Islamiyya and Al Takfir Wal Hijra. Prominent figures of the Brotherhood include Sayyid Qutb, an influential and anti-Semitic thinker of Islamic supremacism. Osama bin Laden criticized the Brotherhood, and accused it of betraying jihad, the Brotherhoods most frequently used slogan is Islam is the Solution. Another well known slogan is God is our objective, dying in the way of God is our highest hope. On the Brotherhoods green logo is emblazoned وَأَعِدُّواْ - taken from sūrat l-anfāl, according to academic Khalil Yusuf its motto was traditionally Believers are but Brothers. The Muslim Brotherhood position on political participation varied according to the situation of each branch. For many years its stance was collaborationist in Kuwait and Jordan, for pacific opposition in Egypt, armed opposition in Libya, (A book on the document was published under the name, La conquête de lOccident, Le projet secret des Islamistes by Sylvain Besson. These parties are staffed by Brotherhood members but they are independent from the Muslim Brotherhood to some degree
21.
Assassination
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Assassination is the murder of a prominent person, often a political leader or ruler, usually for political reasons or payment. The word assassin is believed to derive from the word Hashshashin. It referred to a group of Nizari Shia Persians who worked against various Arab, founded by the Persian Hassan-i Sabbah, the Assassins were active in the fortress of Alamut in Iran from the 8th to the 14th centuries, and also controlled the castle of Masyaf in Syria. The group killed members of the Persian, Abbasid, Seljuq, the word for murder in many Romance languages is derived from this same root word. Assassination is one of the oldest tools of power politics and it dates back at least as far as recorded history. The Old Testament story of Judith illustrates how a woman frees the Israelites by tricking and assassinating Holofernes, a warlord of the rival Assyrians, with whom the Israelites were at war. King Joash of Judah was recorded as being assassinated by his own servants, Joab assassinated Absalom, King Davids son, chanakya wrote about assassinations in detail in his political treatise Arthashastra. His student Chandragupta Maurya, the founder of the Maurya Empire, later made use of assassinations against some of his enemies, other famous victims are Philip II of Macedon, the father of Alexander the Great, and Roman consul Julius Caesar. Emperors of Rome often met their end in this way, as did many of the Muslim Shia Imams hundreds of years later, the practice was also well known in ancient China, as in Jing Kes failed assassination of Qin king Ying Zheng in 227 BC. Whilst many assassination were performed by an individual or a small group, the earliest were the sicarii in 6 A. D. who predated the Middle Eastern assassins and Japanese ninjas by centuries. In the Middle Ages, regicide was rare in Western Europe, blinding and strangling in the bathtub were the most commonly used procedures. With the Renaissance, tyrannicide—or assassination for personal or political reasons—became more common again in Western Europe and this account is, however, contentious among historians, it being most commonly asserted that he died of natural causes. The myth of the Curse of King Zvonimir is based on the legend of his assassination, in 1192, Conrad of Montferrat, the de facto King of Jerusalem, was killed by an assassin. The reigns of King Przemysł II of Poland, William the Silent of the Netherlands, in Russia alone, two emperors, Paul I and his grandson Alexander II, were assassinated within 80 years. In the United Kingdom, only one Prime Minister of the United Kingdom has ever been assassinated—Spencer Perceval on May 11,1812. In the United States, within 100 years, four presidents—Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley, there have been at least 20 known attempts on U. S. presidents lives. Huey Long, a Senator, was assassinated in September of 1935, the Polish Home Army conducted a regular campaign of assassinations against top Nazi German officials in occupied Poland. Adolf Hitler, meanwhile, was almost killed by his own officers, indias Father of the Nation, Mohandas K. Gandhi, was shot to death on January 30,1948, by Nathuram Godse
22.
Gamal Abdel Nasser
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Gamal Abdel Nasser Hussein was the second President of Egypt, serving from 1956 until his death. Nasser led the 1952 overthrow of the monarchy and introduced far-reaching land reforms the following year, Nassers popularity in Egypt and the Arab world skyrocketed after his nationalization of the Suez Canal and his political victory in the subsequent Suez Crisis. Calls for pan-Arab unity under his leadership increased, culminating with the formation of the United Arab Republic with Syria, in 1962, Nasser began a series of major socialist measures and modernization reforms in Egypt. Despite setbacks to his pan-Arabist cause, by 1963 Nassers supporters gained power in several Arab countries and he began his second presidential term in March 1965 after his political opponents were banned from running. Following Egypts defeat by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War, Nasser resigned, after the conclusion of the 1970 Arab League summit, Nasser suffered a heart attack and died. His funeral in Cairo drew five million mourners and an outpouring of grief across the Arab world, Nasser remains an iconic figure in the Arab world, particularly for his strides towards social justice and Arab unity, modernization policies, and anti-imperialist efforts. His presidency also encouraged and coincided with an Egyptian cultural boom, Gamal Abdel Nasser was born on 15 January 1918 in Bakos, Alexandria, the first son of Fahima and Abdel Nasser Hussein. Nassers father was a postal worker born in Beni Mur in Upper Egypt and raised in Alexandria and his parents married in 1917, and later had two more boys, Izz al-Arab and al-Leithi. Nassers family traveled frequently due to his fathers work, in 1921, they moved to Asyut and, in 1923, to Khatatba, where Nassers father ran a post office. Nasser attended a school for the children of railway employees until 1924, when he was sent to live with his paternal uncle in Cairo. Nasser exchanged letters with his mother and visited her on holidays and he stopped receiving messages at the end of April 1926. Upon returning to Khatatba, he learned that his mother had died giving birth to his third brother, Shawki. Nasser later stated that losing her this way was a shock so deep that time failed to remedy and he adored his mother and the injury of her death deepened when his father remarried before the years end. In 1928, Nasser went to Alexandria to live with his maternal grandfather and it was in Alexandria that Nasser became involved in political activism. After witnessing clashes between protesters and police in Manshia Square, he joined the demonstration without being aware of its purpose. The protest, organized by the ultranationalist Young Egypt Society, called for the end of colonialism in Egypt in the wake of the 1923 Egyptian constitutions annulment by Prime Minister Ismail Sidqi, Nasser was arrested and detained for a night before his father bailed him out. When his father was transferred to Cairo in 1933, Nasser joined him and he took up acting in school plays for a brief period and wrote articles for the schools paper, including a piece on French philosopher Voltaire titled Voltaire, the Man of Freedom. Two protesters were killed and Nasser received a graze to the head from a policemans bullet, the incident garnered his first mention in the press, the nationalist newspaper Al Gihad reported that Nasser led the protest and was among the wounded
23.
Hanging
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Hanging is the suspension of a person by a noose or ligature around the neck. Hanging has been a method of capital punishment since medieval times. The first account of execution by hanging was in Homers Odyssey, in this specialised meaning of the common word hang, the past and past participle is hanged instead of hung. Hanging is also a method of suicide in which a person applies a ligature to the neck and brings about unconsciousness. There are four ways of performing a judicial hanging, suspension hanging, the drop, the standard drop. A mechanised form of hanging, the upright jerker, was experimented with in the 18th century. Suspension, like the drop, causes death by using the weight of the body to tighten the noose around the trachea. Prisoners are reported to have little or no struggle before they go limp because their jugular vein and carotid arteries are blocked and blood flow to the brain is reduced. The short drop is performed by placing the condemned prisoner on the back of a cart, horse, or other vehicle, the object is then moved away, leaving the person dangling from the rope. A ladder was also used with the condemned being forced to ascend, after which the noose was tied. Another method involves using a stool, which the condemned is required to stand on, the executioner stands on a stepped platform approximately 4 feet high beside the condemned, and guides the head downward with his hand simultaneous to the efforts of his assistants. Nazi war criminal Karl Hermann Frank was executed in this manner in 1946 in Prague and its use rapidly spread to English-speaking countries and those where judicial systems had an English origin. It was considered an improvement on the short drop because it was intended to be enough to break the persons neck, causing immediate paralysis. This method was used to execute condemned Nazis under United States jurisdiction after the Nuremberg Trials including Joachim von Ribbentrop and Ernst Kaltenbrunner. In the execution of Ribbentrop, historian Giles MacDonogh records that, The hangman botched the execution, a Life magazine report on the execution merely says, The trap fell open and with a sound midway between a rumble and a crash, Ribbentrop disappeared. The rope quivered for a time, then stood tautly straight and this process, also known as the measured drop, was introduced to Britain in 1872 by William Marwood as a scientific advance on the standard drop. The careful placement of the eye or knot of the noose contributed to breaking the neck, between 1892 and 1913, the length of the drop was shortened to avoid decapitation. After 1913, other factors were taken into account
24.
Ma'alim fi al-Tariq
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Maalim fi al-Tariq has been called one of the most influential works in Arabic of the last half century. It is probably Qutbs most famous and influential work and one of the most influential Islamist tracts written and it has also become a manifesto for the ideology of Qutbism. English translations of the book are usually entitled simply Milestones, the book is sometimes referred to as Signposts. The title Maalim fi al-Tariq translates into English as Milestones Along the Way, Signposts on the Road, Maalim fi al-Tariq marked the culmination of Qutbs evolution from modernist author and critic, to Islamist activist and writer, and finally to Islamist revolutionary and theoretician. It was written in prison, where Qutb spent 10 years under charges of conspiracy against Egypts Nasser regime. Four of its thirteen chapters were written for Qutbs voluminous Quranic commentary. Less than a year after its publication, Qutb was again arrested, excerpts from the book were used to incriminate Qutb and he was found guilty and executed by hanging in 1966. His death elevated his status to Shaheed or martyr in the eyes of many Muslims, Milestones became a bestseller and widely distributed across the Arab speaking world. To date, close to 2,000 editions of the work are said to have been published, in his book, Qutb seeks to set out milestones or guiding markers along a road that will lead to the revival of Islam from its current extinction. Following the sharia is not just important but an attribute of Muslims, more necessary than belief itself, because according to the Shariah. Qutb sees sharia as much more than a code of religious or public laws and it is a complete way of life based on submission to God alone, crowding out anything non-Islamic. Its rules range from belief to administration and justice to principles of art and science. Being Gods law, sharia is as accurate and true as any of the known as the laws of nature, such as gravity or electricity. The modern Muslim world has errored by approaching the Quran for the sake of discussion, learning, in fact it should be approached as a source of instruction for obedience and action to remove man from the servitude of other men and to the servitude of God. When of Gods law is established on earth, it will lead to blessings falling on all mankind, sharia is the only guarantee against any kind of discord in life. And will automatically bring peace and cooperation among individuals, knowledge of the secrets of nature, its hidden forces and the treasures concealed in the expanses of the universe, will be revealed in an easy manner. The harmony between life and the universe of sharia law will approach the perfection of heaven itself. Just as sharia is—in Qutbs view—all encompassing and all wonderful, whatever is non-Muslim is evil and corrupt, and its existence anywhere intolerable to true Muslims
25.
Masterpiece
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Historically, a masterpiece was a work of a very high standard produced in order to obtain membership of a guild or academy in various areas of the visual arts and crafts. The word masterpiece probably derives from the Dutch meesterstuk or German meisterstück via loan translation, masterprize was another early variant in English. In English, the term became used in a variety of contexts for an exceptionally good piece of creative work. Originally, the term referred to a piece of work produced by an apprentice or journeyman aspiring to become a master craftsman in the old European guild system. His fitness to qualify for membership was judged partly by the masterpiece, and if he was successful. Great care was taken to produce a fine piece in whatever the craft was, whether confectionery, painting, goldsmithing, knifemaking. In the 17th century, the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths, for instance, the workhouse had been set up as part of a tightening of standards after the company became concerned that the level of skill of goldsmithing was being diluted. The same goldsmithing organization still requires the production of a masterpiece, if they failed to be admitted, then they could continue to work for other goldsmiths but not as a master themselves. In some guilds, apprentices were not allowed to marry until they had obtained full membership, the practice of producing a masterpiece has continued in some modern academies of art, where the general term for such works is now reception piece. The Royal Academy in London uses the term work and it has acquired a fine collection of diploma works received as a condition of membership. Painting the Century,101 Portrait Masterpieces 1900–2000 Virtual Collection of Masterpieces Masterpieces at the Louvre
26.
Fi Zilal al-Quran
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In the Shade of the Quran or Fi Zilal al-Quran is a highly influential commentary of the Quran, written during 1951-1965 by Sayyid Qutb, a leader within the Muslim Brotherhood. Most of the original 30 volumes were written while in following an attempted assassination of Egyptian dictator Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1954. The book outlines Qutbs vision of a Muslim state and society and it is considered by some to be a comprehensive and far-reaching commentary that takes a clear and lucid interpretation of the Quran. It has much influence throughout the Muslim world, especially amongst the ordinary lay practitioners of Islam in the Arab world. The work extends to 30 volumes and has translated into several languages, including English, French, German, Urdu, Turkish, Indonesian, Persian, Malayalam. The full set of volumes covers the entire Quran, the right way is henceforth distinct from error. Here lies the essence of human emancipation which 20th-century authoritarian and oppressive ideologies and regimes have denied mankind. Modern man has been deprived of the right to choose and live other than according to what is dictated by the state, using the force of its colossal machinery, laws. People are today given the only to adhere to the secular state system. Freedom of belief is the most basic right that identifies man as a human being, to deny anyone this right is to deny him or her humanity. Freedom of belief also implies the freedom to express and propagate one’s belief without fear of threat or persecution, otherwise, that freedom is hollow and meaningless. On the issue of human relationships, Allah wishes human life to be elevated, happy, based on pure motives and characterised by mutual compassion, brotherhood and purity of hearts and behaviour. The Children of Israel suffered persecution on a similar scale by Pharaoh and his clique, as stated in Sūrah 28, The Story, in which we read, Pharaoh made himself a tyrant in the land. He divided his people into casts, one group of which he persecuted, putting their sons to death and this is characteristic of tyranny everywhere, in all periods of history. It still resorts today to the methods it employed centuries ago. On Equality, It is only under this system that God’s law applies equally and in the way to all people, rulers and ruled, white and black, rich. The importance of implementing true Islamic law and danger of people who oppose the implementation of Gods law and these are people who claim to be Muslims but perpetrate corruption, Jews as a perpetual opponent of Islam. The threat Jews pose to Islam is emphasized in Qutbs commentary on Surah 2, The war the Jews began to wage against Islam, the form and appearance may have changed, but the nature and means remains the same
27.
Quran
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The Quran is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims believe to be a revelation from God. It is widely regarded as the finest work in classical Arabic literature, the Quran is divided into chapters, which are then divided into verses. The word Quran occurs some 70 times in the text of the Quran, although different names, according to the traditional narrative, several companions of Muhammad served as scribes and were responsible for writing down the revelations. Shortly after Muhammads death, the Quran was compiled by his companions who wrote down and these codices had differences that motivated the Caliph Uthman to establish a standard version now known as Uthmans codex, which is generally considered the archetype of the Quran known today. There are, however, variant readings, with minor differences in meaning. The Quran assumes familiarity with major narratives recounted in the Biblical scriptures and it summarizes some, dwells at length on others and, in some cases, presents alternative accounts and interpretations of events. The Quran describes itself as a book of guidance and it sometimes offers detailed accounts of specific historical events, and it often emphasizes the moral significance of an event over its narrative sequence. The Quran is used along with the hadith to interpret sharia law, during prayers, the Quran is recited only in Arabic. Someone who has memorized the entire Quran is called a hafiz, some Muslims read Quranic ayah with elocution, which is often called tajwid. During the month of Ramadan, Muslims typically complete the recitation of the whole Quran during tarawih prayers, in order to extrapolate the meaning of a particular Quranic verse, most Muslims rely on the tafsir. The word qurʼān appears about 70 times in the Quran itself and it is a verbal noun of the Arabic verb qaraʼa, meaning he read or he recited. The Syriac equivalent is qeryānā, which refers to reading or lesson. While some Western scholars consider the word to be derived from the Syriac, regardless, it had become an Arabic term by Muhammads lifetime. An important meaning of the word is the act of reciting, as reflected in an early Quranic passage, It is for Us to collect it, in other verses, the word refers to an individual passage recited. Its liturgical context is seen in a number of passages, for example, So when al-qurʼān is recited, listen to it, the word may also assume the meaning of a codified scripture when mentioned with other scriptures such as the Torah and Gospel. The term also has closely related synonyms that are employed throughout the Quran, each synonym possesses its own distinct meaning, but its use may converge with that of qurʼān in certain contexts. Such terms include kitāb, āyah, and sūrah, the latter two terms also denote units of revelation. In the large majority of contexts, usually with an article, the word is referred to as the revelation
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Muslim world
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The terms Muslim world and Islamic world commonly refer to the Islamic community, comprising all those who adhere to the religion of Islam, or to societies where Islam is practiced. In a modern sense, these terms refer to countries where Islam is widespread. In the modern era, most of the Muslim world came under influence or colonial domination of European powers. The nation states emerged in the post-colonial era have adopted a variety of political and economic models. As of 2015, over 1.7 billion or about 23. 4% of the population are Muslims including the 4. 4% who live as minorities. Muslim history involves the history of the Islamic faith as a religion, the history of Islam began in Arabia with the Islamic prophet Muhammads first recitations of the Quran in the 7th century in the month of Ramadan. However, Islam under the Rashidun Caliphate grew rapidly, a century after the death of last Islamic prophet Muhammad, the Islamic empire extended from Spain in the west to Indus in the east. The Islamic Golden Age coincided with the Middle Ages in the Muslim world, starting with the rise of Islam and establishment of the first Islamic state in 622. The end of the age is given as 1258 with the Mongolian Sack of Baghdad, or 1492 with the completion of the Christian Reconquista of the Emirate of Granada in Al-Andalus. The Abbasids were influenced by the Quranic injunctions and hadiths, such as the ink of a scholar is more holy than the blood of a martyr, that stressed the value of knowledge. The major Islamic capital cities of Baghdad, Cairo, and Córdoba became the intellectual centers for science, philosophy, medicine. Between the 8th and 18th centuries, the use of glaze was prevalent in Islamic art. Tin-opacified glazing was one of the earliest new technologies developed by the Islamic potters, the first Islamic opaque glazes can be found as blue-painted ware in Basra, dating to around the 8th century. Another contribution was the development of fritware, originating from 9th century Iraq, other centers for innovative ceramic pottery in the Old world included Fustat, Damascus and Tabriz. The original concept is derived from a pre-Islamic Persian prototype Hezār Afsān that relied on particular Indian elements and it reached its final form by the 14th century, the number and type of tales have varied from one manuscript to another. All Arabian fantasy tales tend to be called Arabian Nights stories when translated into English, regardless of whether they appear in The Book of One Thousand and this work has been very influential in the West since it was translated in the 18th century, first by Antoine Galland. Imitations were written, especially in France, various characters from this epic have themselves become cultural icons in Western culture, such as Aladdin, Sinbad the Sailor and Ali Baba. A famous example of Arabic poetry and Persian poetry on romance is Layla and Majnun and it is a tragic story of undying love much like the later Romeo and Juliet, which was itself said to have been inspired by a Latin version of Layla and Majnun to an extent
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Culture of the United States
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The culture of the United States of America is primarily a mix of various European, Native American, African, Asian, and Polynesian cultures. It also has its own social and cultural characteristics, such as dialect, music, arts, social habits, cuisine, the United States of America is an ethnically and racially diverse country as a result of large-scale migration from many countries throughout its history. Its chief early European influences came from English settlers of colonial America during British rule, due to colonial ties with Britain that spread the English language, British culture, legal system and other cultural inheritances, had a formative influence. Other important influences came from parts of Europe, especially Germany. Original elements also play a role, such as Jeffersonian democracy. American culture includes both conservative and liberal elements, scientific and religious competitiveness, political structures, risk taking and free expression, materialist, despite certain consistent ideological principles, American culture has a variety of expressions due to its geographical scale and demographic diversity. The flexibility of U. S. culture and its symbolic nature lead some researchers to categorize American culture as a mythic identity. Many American cultural elements, especially from popular culture, have spread across the globe through modern mass media, the United States has traditionally been thought of as a melting pot. However, beginning in the 1960s and continuing on in the present day, the trends towards cultural diversity, pluralism. Due to the extent of American culture, there are many integrated, the percentage of non-religious people is the highest in the northeastern state of Vermont at 34%, compared to the Bible Belt state of Alabama, where it is 6%. Strong cultural differences have a history in the U. S. with the southern slave society in the antebellum period serving as a prime example. David Hackett Fischer theorizes that the United States is made up today of four regional cultures. According to Fischer, the foundation of American culture was formed from four mass migrations from four different regions of the British Isles by four distinct socio-religious groups. New Englands earliest settlement period occurred between 1629 and 1640 when Puritans, mostly from East Anglia in England, settled there, the next mass migration was of southern English cavaliers and their working class English domestic servants to the Chesapeake Bay region between 1640 and 1675. This facilitated the development of the Southern American culture, then, thousands of English and Welsh Quakers, led by William Penn, settled in the Delaware Valley followed by large numbers of German Lutherans. S. From the mid-Atlantic states to the Pacific Coast, finally, Scotch-Irish, English and Scottish settlers from the borderlands of Britain and Ireland migrated to Appalachia between 1717 and 1775. They formed the culture of the Upland South, which has since spread west to such areas as West Texas. Fischer suggests that the U. S. today is not a country with one General American culture and he asserts that the country is composed of just regional cultures, and that understanding that helps one to understand many things about modern American life
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Materialism
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Materialism is closely related to physicalism, the view that all that exists is ultimately physical. Thus the term physicalism is preferred over materialism by some, while others use the terms as if they are synonymous, philosophies contradictory to materialism or physicalism include idealism, pluralism, dualism, and other forms of monism. Materialism belongs to the class of monist ontology, as such, it is different from ontological theories based on dualism or pluralism. For singular explanations of the reality, materialism would be in contrast to idealism, neutral monism. To idealists, spirit or mind or the objects of mind are primary, to materialists, matter is primary, and mind or spirit or ideas are secondary, the product of matter acting upon matter. The materialist view is perhaps best understood in its opposition to the doctrines of immaterial substance applied to the mind historically, famously by René Descartes, however, by itself materialism says nothing about how material substance should be characterized. In practice, it is assimilated to one variety of physicalism or another. Jerry Fodor influentially argues this view, according to which empirical laws, a lot of vigorous literature has grown up around the relation between these views. Modern philosophical materialists extend the definition of other scientifically observable entities such as energy, forces, however philosophers such as Mary Midgley suggest that the concept of matter is elusive and poorly defined. Materialism typically contrasts with dualism, phenomenalism, idealism, vitalism and its materiality can, in some ways, be linked to the concept of determinism, as espoused by Enlightenment thinkers. Later Marxists, such as Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky developed the notion of dialectical materialism which characterized later Marxist philosophy, Materialism developed, possibly independently, in several geographically separated regions of Eurasia during what Karl Jaspers termed the Axial Age. In Ancient Indian philosophy, materialism developed around 600 BC with the works of Ajita Kesakambali, Payasi, Kanada, Kanada became one of the early proponents of atomism. The Nyaya–Vaisesika school developed one of the earliest forms of atomism, though their proofs of God, buddhist atomism and the Jaina school continued the atomic tradition. Xunzi developed a Confucian doctrine centered on realism and materialism in Ancient China, Ancient Greek philosophers like Thales, Anaxagoras, Epicurus and Democritus prefigure later materialists. The Latin poem De Rerum Natura by Lucretius reflects the philosophy of Democritus and Epicurus. According to this view, all that exists is matter and void, De Rerum Natura provides mechanistic explanations for phenomena such as erosion, evaporation, wind, and sound. Famous principles like nothing can touch body but body first appeared in the works of Lucretius, chinese thinkers of the early common era said to be materialists include Yang Xiong and Wang Chong. Later Indian materialist Jayaraashi Bhatta in his work Tattvopaplavasimha refuted the Nyaya Sutra epistemology, the materialistic Cārvāka philosophy appears to have died out some time after 1400
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Islamism
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Islamism is a concept whose meaning has been debated in both public and academic contexts. It is commonly used interchangeably with the terms political Islam or Islamic fundamentalism and these movements have arguably altered the Middle East more than any trend since the modern states gained independence, redefining politics and even borders according to Robin Wright. Some authors hold the term Islamic activism to be synonymous and preferable to Islamism, Central and prominent figures of modern Islamism include Hasan al-Banna, Sayyid Qutb, Abul Ala Maududi, and Ruhollah Khomeini. Some Islamist thinkers emphasize peaceful political processes, whereas Sayyid Qutb in particular called for violence, however, Qutb, unlike modern extremists, denounced the killing of innocents. Following the Arab Spring, some Islamist currents became heavily involved in politics, while others spawned the most aggressive and ambitious Islamist militia to date. A theocratic ideology that seeks to impose any version of Islam over society by law, subsequently, clarified to be, the desire to impose any given interpretation of Islam on society. A movement so broad and flexible it reaches out to everything to everyone in Islam, making it unsustainable. and at the extremes, a violent vehicle for rejectionists and radicals. All who seek to Islamize their environment, whether in relation to their lives in society, their circumstances, or the workplace. Moderate and reformist Islamists who accept and work within the process include parties like the Tunisian Ennahda Movement. Jamaat-e-Islami of Pakistan is basically a socio-political and democratic Vanguard party but has gained political influence through military coup détats in the past. The Islamist groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Palestine participate in the democratic, following the Arab Spring, Roy has described Islamism as increasingly interdependent with democracy in much of the Arab Muslim world, such that neither can now survive without the other. While Islamist political culture itself may not be democratic, Islamists need democratic elections to maintain their legitimacy, at the same time, their popularity is such that no government can call itself democratic that excludes mainstream Islamist groups. The term, which denoted the religion of Islam, first appeared in English as Islamismus in 1696. The term appears in the U. S. Supreme Court decision in In Re Ross, the term Islamism acquired its contemporary connotations in French academia in the late 1970s and early 1980s. From French, it began to migrate to the English language in the mid-1980s, a 2003 article in Middle East Quarterly states, In summation, the term Islamism enjoyed its first run, lasting from Voltaire to the First World War, as a synonym for Islam. Enlightened scholars and writers generally preferred it to Mohammedanism, eventually both terms yielded to Islam, the Arabic name of the faith, and a word free of either pejorative or comparative associations. To all intents and purposes, Islamic fundamentalism and Islamism have become synonyms in contemporary American usage, the AP Stylebook entry for Islamist now reads as follows, An advocate or supporter of a political movement that favors reordering government and society in accordance with laws prescribed by Islam. Do not use as a synonym for Islamic fighters, militants, extremists or radicals, where possible, be specific and use the name of militant affiliations, al-Qaida-linked, Hezbollah, Taliban, etc
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Al-Qaeda
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It operates as a network made up of Islamic extremist, Salafist jihadists. Al-Qaeda has mounted attacks on civilian and military targets in various countries, including the 1998 U. S. embassy bombings, the September 11 attacks, the U. S. government responded to the September 11 attacks by launching the War on Terror. Characteristic techniques employed by al-Qaeda include suicide attacks and the bombing of different targets. Al-Qaeda ideologues envision a complete break from all foreign influences in Muslim countries, among the beliefs ascribed to al-Qaeda members is the conviction that a Christian–Jewish alliance is conspiring to destroy Islam. Al-Qaeda also opposes what it regards as man-made laws, and wants to replace them with a form of sharia law. Al-Qaeda has carried out attacks on targets it considers kafir. Al-Qaeda is also responsible for instigating violence among Muslims. Al-Qaeda leaders regard liberal Muslims, Shias, Sufis and other sects as heretics and have attacked their mosques, examples of sectarian attacks include the Yazidi community bombings, the Sadr City bombings, the Ashoura massacre and the April 2007 Baghdad bombings. Since the death of bin Laden in 2011, the group has been led by the Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaedas management philosophy has been described as centralization of decision and decentralization of execution. Many terrorism experts do not believe that the global jihadist movement is driven at every level by al-Qaedas leadership, marc Sageman, a psychiatrist and former Central Intelligence Agency officer, said that al-Qaeda is now just a loose label for a movement that seems to target the west. We like to create an entity called in our minds. This view mirrors the account given by Osama bin Laden in his October 2001 interview with Tayseer Allouni and this matter isnt about any specific person and. is not about the al-Qaidah Organization. We are the children of an Islamic Nation, with Prophet Muhammad as its leader, and all the true believers are brothers. So the situation isnt like the West portrays it, that there is an organization with a specific name and that particular name is very old. It was born without any intention from us, created a military base to train the young men to fight against the vicious, arrogant, brutal, terrorizing Soviet empire. So this place was called The Base, as in a base, so this name grew. We arent separated from this nation, and so we discuss the conscience of this nation. Bruce Hoffman, however, sees al-Qaeda as a network that is strongly led from the Pakistani tribal areas
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Qutbism
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Qutbism is an Islamist ideology developed by Sayyid Qutb, the figurehead of the Muslim Brotherhood. Muslim extremists “cite Sayyid Qutb repeatedly and consider themselves his intellectual descendants. ”The main tenet of Qutbist ideology is that the Muslim community has been extinct for a few centuries having reverted to Godless ignorance, Qutb outlined his ideas in his book Maalim fi-l-Tariq. Ayman Al-Zawahiri, who went on to become a member of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, was one of Muhammad Qutbs students and later a mentor of Osama bin Laden, zawahiri paid homage to Qutb in his work Knights under the Prophets Banner. Osama bin Laden is reported to have regularly attended public lectures by Muhammad Qutb, at King Abdulaziz University. Late Yemeni Al Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaki has also spoken of Qutbs great influence, the book, written by MB Supreme Guide Hassan al-Hudaybi, attacked the idea of Takfir of other Muslims. Like the term Wahhabi, Qutbee is used not by the alleged Qutbees to describes themselves, the most controversial aspect of Qutbism is takfir, Qutbs idea that Islam is extinct. According to takfir, with the exception of Qutb’s Islamic vanguard, Takfir was intended to shock Muslims into religious re-armament. When taken literally, takfir also had the effect of causing non-Qutbists who claimed to be Muslim in violation of Sharia law, violating this law could potentially be considered apostasy from Islam, a crime punishable by death according to Qutbis. Because of these consequences, Muslims have traditionally been reluctant to practice takfir. Other factors played a part in instigating the violence, but Qutbs takfir against jahiliyyah society, while Maalim fi-l-Tariq was Qutbs manifesto, other elements of Qutbism are found in his works Al-adala al-Ijtimaiyya fi-l-Islam, and his Quranic commentary Fi Zilal al-Quran. Ideas in those works also have come under attack from traditionalist/conservative/Wahhabi Muslims and they include, Qutbs assertion that slavery is now illegal under Islam, as its lawfulness was only temporary, existing only until the world devised a new code of practice, other than enslavement. Traditionalist critics maintain Islaam has affirmed slavery, and it will continue so long as Jihaad in the path of Allaah exists. Proposals to redistribute income and property to the needy, opponents claim they are socialist and innovations of Islam. Describing Moses as having an excitable nature – this allegedly being mockery, dismissing fiqh or the schools of Islamic law known as madhhab as separate from Islamic principles and Islamic understanding. Desiring to unite the four schools of Islamic law into one school – allegedly an innovation, favoring the overthrow of tyrants, when Islam teaches that when you cannot correct a wrong thing be patient. Qutb may now be facing criticism representing his ideas success or Qutbisms logical conclusion as much as his ideas failure to persuade some critics, but according to Olivier Roy, contemporary neofundamentalist refuse to express their views in modern terms borrowed from the West. On the importance of science and learning, the key to the power of his bête noire, western civilization, and encouraged Muslims to seek knowledge. On the other hand, Qutb believed some learning was forbidden to Muslims and should not be studied, including, principles of economics and political affairs, origin of the universe, the origin of the life of man
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Indian people
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Indian people are citizens of India, the second most populous nation containing 17. 50% of the worlds population. Indian refers to nationality, but not ethnicity or language, the Indian nationality consists of many regional ethno-linguistic groups, reflecting the rich and complex history of India. India hosts all major ethnic groups found in the Indian Subcontinent, population estimates vary from a conservative 12 million to 20 million diaspora. The name Bhārata has been used as a name by people of the Indian subcontinent. The designation Bhārata appears in the official Sanskrit name of the country, the name is derived from the ancient Vedic and Puranas, which refer to the land that comprises India as Bhārata varṣam and uses this term to distinguish it from other varṣas or continents. The Bhāratas were a tribe mentioned in the Rigveda, notably participating in the Battle of the Ten Kings. India is named after legendary Emperor Bharata who was a descendant of the Bhāratas tribe, in early Vedic literature, the term Āryāvarta was in popular use before Bhārata. The Manusmṛti gives the name Āryāvarta to the tract between the Himalaya and the Vindhya ranges, from the Eastern to the Western Sea, while the word Indian and India is derived from Greek Ἰνδία, via Latin India. The name is derived ultimately from Sindhu, the Sanskrit name of the river Indus, the next great ancient Empire of the Indian people was the Gupta Empire. This period, witnessing a Hindu religious and intellectual resurgence, is known as the classical or Golden Age of India, the ancient Indian mathematicians Aryabhata, Bhāskara I and Brahmagupta invented the concept of zero and the Hindu decimal system during this period. During this period Indian cultural influence spread over parts of Southeast Asia which led to the establishment of Indianized kingdoms in Southeast Asia. During the early period the great Rashtrakuta dynasty dominated the major part of the Indian subcontinent. From the 8th to 10th century and the Indian Emperor Amoghavarsha of the Rashtrakuta Dynasty was described by the Arab traveller Sulaiman as one of the four kings of the world. The greatest maritime Empire of the medieval Indians was the Chola dynasty, under the great Indian Emperors Rajaraja Chola I and his successor Rajendra Chola I the Chola dynasty became a military, economic and cultural power in South Asia and South-East Asia. The Mughal Empire unified much of Indian sub-continent under one realm, under the Mughals India developed a strong and stable economy, leading to commercial expansion and greater patronage of culture. This marked a huge influence in the Indian society, the Mughal Empire balanced and pacified local societies through new administrative practices and had diverse and inclusive ruling elites, leading to more systematic, centralised, and uniform rule. The Marathas and Sikhs emerged in the 17th century and established the Maratha Empire, the Maratha Empire is credited to a large extent for ending the Mughal rule in India. The empire at its peak stretched from Tamil Nadu in the south, to Peshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in the north and Bengal, India is one of the worlds oldest civilisations
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Shadhili
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The Shadhili Tariqa is a Sufi order of Sunni Islam founded by Abul Hasan Ali ash-Shadhili of Morocco. Followers of the Shadhiliya are known as Shadhilis and it has historically been of importance and influence in North Africa and Egypt with many contributions to Islamic literature. In poetry expressing love of Muhammad, there have been the contributions of Muhammad al-Jazuli, author of the Dalail al-Khayrat, and Busiri, author of the famous poem. Many of the lecturers of al-Azhar University in Cairo have also been followers of this tariqa. Of the various branches of the Shadhili tariqa are the Fassiyatush, found largely in India, Sri Lanka, aguéli initiated René Guénon into the Shadhili tariqa. Guénon went on to write a number of books on tradition. The anniversary urs of Hazrat Qutubul Akber Imam Nooruddin Abul Hasan Alee Ash Shadhili is held on 12th Shawwal at Humaithara in Egypt, Shadhiliyya has nearly 72 branches across the globe. A few prominent branches are listed below, Fassiyatush Shadhiliyya is widely practised in India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Mauritius and Indonesia. The descendants of Imam Fassi who are Sheikhs of Fassiyatush Shadhiliyya who live in Makkah, the Darqawiyya, a Moroccan branch of the Shadhili order, was founded in the late 18th century CE by Muhammad al-Arabi al-Darqawi. Selections from the Letters of al-Darqawi have been translated by the Shadhili initiate Titus Burckhardt, one of the first tariqas to be established in the West was the Alawiya branch of the Darqawiyya, which was named after Ahmad ibn Mustafa al-Alawi al-Mustaghanimi, popularly known as Shaykh al-Alawi. A significant book about him, written by Martin Lings, is A Sufi Saint of the Twentieth Century, the Attasiyah Order is a branch of the Alawi Order, founded by Umar bin Abdur Rahman bin Aqil al-Attas. It is centered in Yemen but also has centers in Pakistan, India, the Alawiya order in Yemen has recently been studied by the anthropologist David Buchman. The article was published in the journal Yemen Update, vol. Another figure is Sheikh Abdal Qadir al-Murabit, a Scottish convert to Islam, currently his order is known as the Murabitun. At other times his order has been known as the Darqawiyya and Habibiya, one of the first books that Abdal Qadir wrote was The Book of Strangers, which he authored under the name Ian Dallas. For a brief anecdote of Abdal Qadir in the early 1970s, another contemporary order deriving, in part, from Abdal Qadir al-Murabit is the al-Haydariyah al-Shadhiliyah, headed by Shaykh Fadhlalla Haeri. Of Shiite descent, Fadhlalla teaches within neither a Shii nor a Sunni framework, after the death of Ibn Yallis, Hashimi was authorized by Sheikh Ahmad al-Alawi, during a visit to Damascus in the early 1920s, and was made his deputy in Damascus. A biography of his life was published in English as Shaykh Muhammad al-Hashimi, His Life and he was authorized by Sheikh Abd al Rahman Al Shaghouri, who was himself a student of Sheikh Muhammad al-Hashimi al-Tilmisani and the lead singer of his gatherings in Damascus
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Activism
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Activism consists of efforts to promote, impede, or direct social, political, economic, and/or environmental reform or stasis with the desire to make improvements in society. One can also express activism through different forms of art, daily acts of protest such as not buying clothes from a certain clothing company because they exploit workers is another form of activism. One view holds that acknowledging privileges and oppressions on a daily basis ranks as a form of activism, research has begun to explore how activist groups use social media to facilitate civic engagement and collective action. The Online Etymology Dictionary records the English words activism and activist from 1920, Activists can function in roles as public officials, as in judicial activism. Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. introduced the term judicial activism in a January 1946 Fortune magazine article titled The Supreme Court,1947, some activists try to persuade people to change their behavior directly, rather than to persuade governments to change or not to change laws. Other activists try to persuade people to remain the same, in an effort to counter change, the cooperative movement seeks to build new institutions which conform to cooperative principles, and generally does not lobby or protest politically. Activism is not always an action by Activists, every year more than 100 environmental activists are killed, in 2014116 environmental activists were assassinated, in 2015185 activists were killed around this planet. Since the 1990s, the Internet has been a tool used by activists for mobilization and communication of causes, specific platforms like MoveOn. org, founded in 1998, allow individuals to establish petitions and movements for social change. Protesters in Seattle in 1999 used email to organize protests against the WTO Ministerial Conference, throughout the 2000s, protesters continued to use social media platforms to generate interest. The power of Internet Activism came into a lens with the Arab Spring protests. They use different means to political persecution, such as Tor Browser. The activism industry consists of organizations and individuals engaged in activism, Activism is often done full-time, as part of an organizations core business. Many organizations in the industry are either non profit organizations or non-governmental organizations. Most activist organizations do not manufacture goods, the term activism industry has often been used to refer to outsourced fundraising operations. However, activist organizations engage in activities as well. Lobbying, or the influencing of decisions made by government, is another activist tactic, many groups, including law firms, have designated staff assigned specifically for lobbying purposes. In the United States, lobbying is regulated by the federal government, many government systems encourage public support of non-profit organizations by granting various forms of tax relief for donations to charitable organizations. Governments may attempt to deny these benefits to activists by restricting the political activity of tax-exempt organizations, randy Shaw, The Activists Handbook, A Primer for the 1990s and Beyond
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Hafiz (Quran)
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Hafiz, literally meaning guardian or memorizer, depending on the context, is a term used by Muslims for someone who has completely memorized the Quran. The Islamic prophet Muhammad lived in the 6th Century CE, in Arabia in a time when few people were literate, the Arabs preserved their histories, genealogies, and poetry by memory alone. The Arabic writing of the time was a script, that did not include vowel markings or other diacritics needed to distinguish between words. Hence if there was any question as to the pronunciation of a verse, the huffaz were also highly appreciated as reciters, whose intoned words were accessible even to the illiterate. Memorization required no expensive materials, at the time there was no paper in the Muslim world, even after Caliph Uthman ibn Affan collected and organized the Quran circa 650-656 CE, recitation of the Quran was still honored and encouraged. There are numerous traditions of recitation, most huffaz know only one version, but some experts can recite in several traditions. However this does not change the meaning of the content, the Quran is divided into 114 Surahs, containing 6,236 verses. This process generally takes between 3 and 6 years part-time together with schooling, most huffaz have studied as children in special Islamic schools or madrasahs, being instructed in tajwid and vocalisation as well as committing the Quran to memory. Huffaz are highly respected within the Islamic community and they are privileged to use the title Hafiz before their names. They are tested on their knowledge, for example, in one test they are asked to continue the recitation of a passage taken randomly from the Quran. As they do not know which passage will be chosen, they must know the text in order to be sure of passing. In another test, a would-be hafiz might be asked to recite verses containing a word or phrase. In the classical Arabic lexicon, the word hafiz was not traditionally used to refer to one who had memorized the Quran, instead, the word used was hamil Hafiz was used for the scholars of hadith, specifically one who had committed 100,000 hadiths to memory. Having memorised the Quran, the hafiz or hafiza must then ensure they do not forget it, to ensure perfect recall of all the learned verses requires constant practice. The memorisation of the Quran was important to Muslims in the past and is also in the present, yearly, thousands of students master the Quran and complete the book with interpretation and also memorisation. The Quran is perhaps the book, religious or secular. For Muslims who are attempting to memorize certain suras but are unfamiliar with the Arabic script, the most important sura to memorize is Al-Fatiha. All praise and thanks be to Allah, there is none worthy of worship except Allah
38.
Sherlock Holmes
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Sherlock Holmes is a fictional private detective created by British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. All but one are set in the Victorian or Edwardian periods, though not the first fictional detective, Sherlock Holmes is arguably the most well-known, with Guinness World Records listing him as the most portrayed movie character in history. Auguste Dupin is generally acknowledged as the first detective in fiction and served as the prototype for many that were created later, Conan Doyle once wrote, Each is a root from which a whole literature has developed. Where was the story until Poe breathed the breath of life into it. Conan Doyle repeatedly said that Holmes was inspired by the figure of Joseph Bell, a surgeon at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh. Like Holmes, Bell was noted for drawing conclusions from minute observations. However, he wrote to Doyle, You are yourself Sherlock Holmes. Sir Henry Littlejohn, Chair of Medical Jurisprudence at the University of Edinburgh Medical School, is cited as an inspiration for Holmes. Littlejohn, who was also Police Surgeon and Medical Officer of Health in Edinburgh, One is thought to be Francis Tanky Smith, a policeman and master of disguise who went on to become Leicesters first private detective. Another might be Maximilien Heller, by French author Henry Cauvain and it is not known if Conan Doyle read Maximilien Heller, but in this 1871 novel, Henry Cauvain imagined a depressed, anti-social, polymath, cat-loving, and opium-smoking Paris-based detective. Details about Sherlock Holmess life, except for the adventures in the books, are scarce in Conan Doyles original stories, nevertheless, mentions of his early life and extended family paint a loose biographical picture of the detective. An estimate of Holmess age in His Last Bow places his year of birth at 1854 and his parents are not mentioned in the stories, although Holmes mentions that his ancestors were country squires. In The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter, he claims that his grandmother was sister to the French artist Vernet, without clarifying whether this was Claude Joseph, Carle. Mycroft has a civil service position as a kind of human database for all aspects of government policy. He lacks Sherlocks interest in investigation, however, preferring to spend his time at the Diogenes Club. Holmes says that he first developed his methods of deduction as an undergraduate, his earliest cases, the two take lodgings at 221B Baker Street, London, an apartment at the upper end of the street, up seventeen steps. Holmes worked as a detective for twenty-three years, with physician John Watson assisting him for seventeen and they were roommates before Watsons 1887 marriage and again after his wifes death. Their residence is maintained by their landlady, Mrs. Hudson, most of the stories are frame narratives, written from Watsons point of view as summaries of the detectives most interesting cases
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One Thousand and One Nights
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One Thousand and One Nights is a collection of Middle Eastern and South Asian stories and folk tales compiled in Arabic during the Islamic Golden Age. It is often known in English as the Arabian Nights, from the first English-language edition, the work was collected over many centuries by various authors, translators, and scholars across West, Central, and South Asia and North Africa. The tales themselves trace their roots back to ancient and medieval Arabic, Persian, Mesopotamian, Indian, Jewish, the stories proceed from this original tale, some are framed within other tales, while others begin and end of their own accord. Some editions contain only a few hundred nights, while others include 1,001 or more, the bulk of the text is in prose, although verse is occasionally used for songs and riddles and to express heightened emotion. Most of the poems are single couplets or quatrains, although some are longer, the main frame story concerns Shahryār, whom the narrator calls a Sasanian king ruling in India and China. Shahryār begins to marry a succession of only to execute each one the next morning. Eventually the vizier, whose duty it is to provide them, Scheherazade, the viziers daughter, offers herself as the next bride and her father reluctantly agrees. On the night of their marriage, Scheherazade begins to tell the king a tale, the king, curious about how the story ends, is thus forced to postpone her execution in order to hear the conclusion. The next night, as soon as she finishes the tale, she begins a new one, so it goes on for 1,001 nights. The tales vary widely, they include historical tales, love stories, tragedies, comedies, poems, burlesques, numerous stories depict jinns, ghouls, apes, sorcerers, magicians, and legendary places, which are often intermingled with real people and geography, not always rationally. The different versions have different individually detailed endings but they all end with the giving his wife a pardon. The narrators standards for what constitutes a cliffhanger seem broader than in modern literature, the history of the Nights is extremely complex and modern scholars have made many attempts to untangle the story of how the collection as it currently exists came about. Most scholars agreed that the Nights was a work and that the earliest tales in it came from India and Persia. At some time, probably in the early 8th century, these tales were translated into Arabic under the title Alf Layla and this collection then formed the basis of The Thousand and One Nights. The original core of stories was quite small, then, in Iraq in the 9th or 10th century, this original core had Arab stories added to it – among them some tales about the Caliph Harun al-Rashid. Devices found in Sanskrit literature such as stories and animal fables are seen by some scholars as lying at the root of the conception of the Nights. Indian folklore is represented in the Nights by certain animal stories, the influence of the Panchatantra and Baital Pachisi is particularly notable. The Jataka Tales are a collection of 547 Buddhist stories, which are for the most part moral stories with an ethical purpose
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Astrology
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Astrology is the study of the movements and relative positions of celestial objects as a means for divining information about human affairs and terrestrial events. Throughout most of its history astrology was considered a tradition and was common in academic circles, often in close relation with astronomy, alchemy, meteorology. It was present in political circles, and is mentioned in works of literature, from Dante Alighieri and Geoffrey Chaucer to William Shakespeare, Lope de Vega. Astrology thus lost its academic and theoretical standing, and common belief in it has largely declined, Astrology is now recognized to be pseudoscience. The word astrology comes from the early Latin word astrologia, which derives from the Greek ἀστρολογία—from ἄστρον astron, astrologia later passed into meaning star-divination with astronomia used for the scientific term. Many cultures have attached importance to astronomical events, and the Indians, Chinese, the majority of professional astrologers rely on such systems. Astrology has been dated to at least the 2nd millennium BCE, with roots in systems used to predict seasonal shifts. A form of astrology was practised in the first dynasty of Mesopotamia, Chinese astrology was elaborated in the Zhou dynasty. Hellenistic astrology after 332 BCE mixed Babylonian astrology with Egyptian Decanic astrology in Alexandria, Alexander the Greats conquest of Asia allowed astrology to spread to Ancient Greece and Rome. In Rome, astrology was associated with Chaldean wisdom, after the conquest of Alexandria in the 7th century, astrology was taken up by Islamic scholars, and Hellenistic texts were translated into Arabic and Persian. In the 12th century, Arabic texts were imported to Europe, major astronomers including Tycho Brahe, Johannes Kepler and Galileo practised as court astrologers. Astrological references appear in literature in the works of such as Dante Alighieri and Geoffrey Chaucer. Throughout most of its history, astrology was considered a scholarly tradition and it was accepted in political and academic contexts, and was connected with other studies, such as astronomy, alchemy, meteorology, and medicine. At the end of the 17th century, new concepts in astronomy. Astrology thus lost its academic and theoretical standing, and common belief in astrology has largely declined, Astrology, in its broadest sense, is the search for meaning in the sky. This was a first step towards recording the Moons influence upon tides and rivers, by the 3rd millennium BCE, civilisations had sophisticated awareness of celestial cycles, and may have oriented temples in alignment with heliacal risings of the stars. Scattered evidence suggests that the oldest known references are copies of texts made in the ancient world. The Venus tablet of Ammisaduqa thought to be compiled in Babylon around 1700 BCE, a scroll documenting an early use of electional astrology is doubtfully ascribed to the reign of the Sumerian ruler Gudea of Lagash
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Magic (supernatural)
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Magic or sorcery is the use of rituals, symbols, actions, gestures, and language with the aim of exploiting supernatural forces. The term magic has a variety of meanings, and there is no agreed upon definition of what it is or how it can be used. Religious scholars have defined magic in many different ways, one approach, associated with the anthropologists Edward Tylor and James G. Frazer, has magic and science be opposites. Many scholars of religion have rejected the utility of the term magic, the term magic comes from the Old Persian magu, a word that applied to a form of religious functionary about which little is known. This meaning of the term was adopted by Latin in the first century BCE. The concept was incorporated into Christian theology during the first century CE. This concept was pervasive throughout the Middle Ages, although in the modern period Italian humanists reinterpreted the term in a positive sense to establish the idea of natural magic. Both negative and positive understandings of the term were retained in Western culture over the following centuries, throughout Western history, there have been examples of individuals claiming to be practitioners of magic and referring to themselves as magicians. This trend has proliferated in the period, with a growing number of magicians appearing within the esoteric milieu. Scholars of religion have failed to agree on a definition of magic is. The subject has one of intense dispute, with some scholars criticizing the validity of the term in the first place. Even among those throughout history who have described themselves as magicians, there has been some debate among scholars as to whether to use the term magic at all. The scholar of religion Jonathan Z. Smith for example argued that it had no utility as a term that scholars should use. Religious historian Wouter Hanegraaff agreed, stating that the magic is an important object of historical research. Since the 1990s its usage among scholars has declined, within Western culture, magic has been linked to the idea of the Other. Using the term magic when discussing non-Western cultures or pre-modern forms of Western society raises problems, alternately, this term implies that all categories of magic are ethnocentric and that such Western preconceptions are an unavoidable component of scholarly research. Magic is one of the most heavily theorized concepts in the study of religion, the intellectualist approach to defining magic is associated with two prominent British anthropologists, Edward Tylor and James G. Frazer. This was an approach that viewed magic as being the theoretical opposite of science, in his 1871 book Primitive Culture, Tylor characterized magic as beliefs based on the error of mistaking ideal analogy for real analogy
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Exorcism in Islam
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Exorcism in Islam is called ruqya, and is thought to repair damage believed caused by sihr, witchcraft or evil eye. Exorcisms today are part of a body of contemporary Islamic alternative medicine called al-Tibb al-Nabawi. Islam has the concept of a malevolent Devil, belief in Jinns, or supernatural beings, is also widespread in the Islamic world. A possession by a Jinn can be caused for various reasons, in this case the jinn will try to take revenge on the person. Another cause for jinn possession is when a jinn fells in love with the human, some women tell to experienced a jinn possession, there the jinn tried to have sexual interaction from inside of her body. Such a jinn is indeed absolutely evil and thereupon the acts of the person are going to be evil as well, the person will surrender to the commands of the jinn anytime. In a constant possession the person will not even act without a command by the jinn, according to reports of people who claim to be possessed, they assert, during the jinn possession their spiritual abilities, like the sixth sense were increased. In a typical Islamic exorcism the person lies down while a white-gloved therapist places a hand on their head while reciting verses from the Quran. Specific verses from the Quran are recited, which glorify God (e. g, the Throne Verse and invoke his help. In some cases the adhan/ah-zan is also read, believed to have the effect of repelling non-angelic unseen beings or the jinn, the Islamic prophet Muhammad taught his followers to read the last three suras from the Quran, Surat al-Ikhlas, Surat al-Falaq and Surat an-Nas. The Throne Verse, - This is not the only Procedure, there are used in Muslim communities around the world. Examples are beating the afflicted, rolling in carpets and exposure to red pepper smoke, most of them are absorbed from local pagan rituals, and they are not derived from Islamic teaching. Members of terrorist groups have involved in Islamic remedies as healers and sellers. Devil Jinn Demonic possession Ruqyah treatment www. ruqyahonline. info Ruqya treatment for evil eye
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Imams
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Imam is the name of an Islamic leadership position. It is most commonly used as the title of a leader of a mosque. In this context, imams may lead Islamic worship services, serve as community leaders, the Sunni branch of Islam does not have imams in the same sense as the Shia, an important distinction often overlooked by those outside of the Islamic faith. Friday sermon is most often given by an appointed imam, all mosques have an imam to lead the prayers, even though it may sometimes just be a member from the gathered congregation rather than an officially appointed salaried person. Women imams may only lead amongst female-only congregations, the person that should be chosen, according to Hadith, is one who has most knowledge of the Quran and Sunnah and is of good character, the age being irrelevant. The term is used for a recognized religious scholar or authority in Islam, often for the founding scholars of the four Sunni madhhabs. It may also refer to the Muslim scholars who created the analytical sciences related to Hadith or it may refer to the heads of the Prophet Muhammads family in their generational times, Imams have a meaning more central to belief, referring to leaders of the community. Twelver and Ismaili Shia believe that these imams are chosen by God to be perfect examples for the faithful and they also believe that all the imams chosen are free from committing any sin, impeccability which is called ismah. These leaders must be followed since they are appointed by God, here follows a list of the Twelvers imams, Fatimah, also Fatimah al-Zahraa, daughter of Muhammed, is also considered infallible but not an Imam. Shia believe that the last Imam will one day return, see Imamah and List of Ismaili imams for Ismaili imams. At times, imams have held both secular and religious authority and this was the case in Oman among the Kharijite or Ibadi sects. At times, the imams were elected, at other times the position was inherited, as with the Yaruba dynasty from 1624 and 1742. The Imamate of Futa Jallon was a Fulani state in West Africa where secular power alternated between two lines of hereditary Imams, or almami, in the Zaidi Shiite sect, imams were secular as well as spiritual leaders who held power in Yemen for more than a thousand years. In 897, a Zaidi ruler, al-Hadi ilal-Haqq Yahya, founded a line of such imams, ruhollah Khomeini and his successor Ali Khamenei are officially referred to as Imams in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Several Iranian places and institutions are named Imam Khomeini, including a city, an airport, a hospital. Women as imams Mufti Encyclopædia Britannica Online, center for Iranian Studies, Columbia University. Encyclopaedia of Islam and the Muslim world, vol.1, encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East and North Africa. Translated by Sherrard, Liadain, Sherrard, Philip, london, Kegan Paul International in association with Islamic Publications for The Institute of Ismaili Studies
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Naguib Mahfouz
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Naguib Mahfouz was an Egyptian writer who won the 1988 Nobel Prize for Literature. He is regarded as one of the first contemporary writers of Arabic literature, along with Tawfiq el-Hakim and he published 34 novels, over 350 short stories, dozens of movie scripts, and five plays over a 70-year career. Many of his works have made into Egyptian and foreign films. Mahfouz was born into a lower middle-class Muslim family in the medieval Fatimid quarter of Cairo in 1911 and he was the seventh and the youngest child, with four brothers and two sisters, all of them much older than him. His father, Abdel-Aziz Ibrahim, whom Mahfouz described as having been old-fashioned, was a civil servant, the Mahfouz family were devout Muslims and Mahfouz had a strict Islamic upbringing. In an interview, he elaborated on the religious climate at home during his childhood. He stated that You would never have thought that an artist would emerge from that family, the Egyptian Revolution of 1919 had a strong effect on Mahfouz, although he was at the time only seven years old. From the window he often saw British soldiers firing at the demonstrators and that the one thing which most shook the security of my childhood was the 1919 revolution, he later said. In his early years, Mahfouz read extensively and was influenced by Hafiz Najib, Taha Hussein and Salama Moussa, after completing his secondary education, Mahfouz was admitted in 1930 to the Egyptian University, where he studied philosophy, graduating in 1934. By 1936, having spent a year working on an M. A. in philosophy, he decided to discontinue his studies, Mahfouz then worked as a journalist for al-Risala, and contributed short stories to el-Hilal and Al-Ahram. He served first as a clerk at Cairo University, then, in 1938, in 1945, he requested a transfer to the al-Ghuri Mausoleum library, where he interviewed residents of his childhood neighborhood as part of the Good Loans Project. In the 1950s, he worked as Director of Censorship in the Bureau of Arts, as Director of the Foundation for the Support of the Cinema, Mahfouz published 34 novels, over 350 short stories, dozens of movie scripts and five plays over a 70-year career. Possibly his most famous work, The Cairo Trilogy, depicts the lives of three generations of different families in Cairo from World War I until after the 1952 military coup that overthrew King Farouk and he was a board member of the publisher Dar el-Maaref. Many of his novels were serialized in Al-Ahram, and his writings appeared in his weekly column. Before the Nobel Prize only a few of his novels had appeared in the West, most of Mahfouzs early works were set in Cairo. Abath Al-Aqdar, Rhadopis, and Kifah Tibah, were historical novels, inspired by Sir Walter Scott, Mahfouz planned to cover the entire history of Egypt in a series of books. However, following the third volume, he shifted his interest to the present, Mahfouzs prose is characterised by the blunt expression of his ideas. His written works covered a range of topics, including socialism, homosexuality
