1.
Cumin
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Cumin is a flowering plant in the family Apiaceae, native from the east Mediterranean to South Asia. Its seeds are used in the cuisines of different cultures. It also has uses as a traditional medicinal plant. The English cumin is derived from the Old English via Latin cuminum from the Greek κύμινον, Cumin is the dried seed of the herb Cuminum cyminum, a member of the parsley family. The cumin plant grows to 30–50 cm tall and is harvested by hand and it is an annual herbaceous plant, with a slender, glabrous, branched stem that is 20–30 cm tall and has a diameter of 3–5 cm. Each branch has two to three sub-branches, all the branches attain the same height, therefore the plant has a uniform canopy. The stem is coloured grey or dark green, the leaves are 5–10 cm long, pinnate or bipinnate, with thread-like leaflets. The flowers are small, white or pink, and borne in umbels, each umbel has five to seven umbellts. The fruit is a lateral fusiform or ovoid achene 4–5 mm long, containing two mericarps with a single seed, Cumin seeds have eight ridges with oil canals. They resemble caraway seeds, being oblong in shape, longitudinally ridged, and yellow-brown in colour, like members of the Umbelliferae family such as caraway, parsley. Cumin has been in use since ancient times, seeds excavated at the Syrian site Tell ed-Der have been dated to the second millennium BC. They have also reported from several New Kingdom levels of ancient Egyptian archaeological sites. In the ancient Egyptian civilization, cumin was used as spice, originally cultivated in Iran and the Mediterranean region, cumin is mentioned in the Bible in both the Old Testament and the New Testament. The ancient Greeks kept cumin at the table in its own container. Cumin was also used heavily in ancient Roman cuisine, in India, it has been used for millennia as a traditional ingredient in innumerable recipes, and forms the basis of many other spice blends. Cumin was introduced to the Americas by Spanish and Portuguese colonists, several different types of cumin are known, but the most famous ones are black and green cumin, both of which are used in Persian cuisine. Today, the plant is grown in Pakistan, India, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Iran, Turkey, Morocco, Egypt, Syria, Mexico, Chile. Since cumin is used as part of birdseed and exported to many countries
2.
Paprika
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In many languages, but not English, the word paprika also refers to the plant and the fruit from which the spice is made. Although paprika is often associated with Hungarian cuisine, the peppers from which it is made are native to the New World and were introduced to the Old World. Originating in central Mexico, paprika was brought to Spain in the 16th century, the seasoning is also used to add color to many types of dishes. In Spanish, paprika has been known as pimentón since the 16th century, despite its presence in Central Europe since the beginning of Ottoman conquests, it did not become popular in Hungary until the late 19th century. Paprika can range from mild to hot – the flavor also varies from country to country –, sweet paprika is mostly composed of the pericarp, with more than half of the seeds removed, whereas hot paprika contains some seeds, stalks, placentas, and calyces. The red, orange or yellow color of paprika is due to its content of carotenoids, the plant used to make the Hungarian version of the spice was grown in 1529 by the Turks at Buda. Central European paprika was hot until the 1920s, when a Szeged breeder found a plant that produced sweet fruit, the first recorded use of the word paprika in English is from 1896, although an earlier reference to Turkish paprika was published in 1831. The word derives from the Hungarian word paprika, a diminutive of the Serbo-Croatian word papar meaning pepper, paprika and similar words, peperke, piperke, and paparka, are used in various Slavic languages in the Balkans for bell peppers. The exact word paprika entered a number of languages, probably via German. European languages use a similar if not identical word, Czech, Slovak, Italian, Polish, Swedish, Bulgarian, Hebrew, paprika is produced in various places including Hungary, Serbia, Spain, the Netherlands, China, and some regions of the United States. Hungary is a source of commonly-used paprika. Some Spanish paprika, like de la Vera, has a distinct smoky flavor and aroma as it is dried by smoking. As of September 15,2016, McCormicks paprika used peppers grown in the United States, paprika is used as an ingredient in numerous dishes throughout the world. It is principally used to season and color rices, stews, and soups, such as goulash, in the United States, paprika is frequently sprinkled raw on foods as a garnish, but the flavor is more effectively pronounced by heating it in oil. Hungarian paprika is often specified in recipes because it is unique and it is bright red and said to be sweeter than the same paprika grown in other soils and climates. In paprikash, Hungarian paprika is commonly used, in Moroccan cuisine, paprika is usually augmented by the addition of a small amount of olive oil blended into it. The red, orange or yellow color of paprika powder derives from its mix of carotenoids, yellow-orange paprika colors derive primarily from α-carotene and β-carotene, zeaxanthin, lutein and β-cryptoxanthin, whereas red colors derive from capsanthin and capsorubin. In a typical serving size of one teaspoon, paprika supplies 6 calories and is rich in vitamin A, the dictionary definition of paprika at Wiktionary
3.
Cayenne pepper
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The Capsicum genus is in the nightshade family. It is a hot chili pepper used to flavor dishes and named for the city of Cayenne, the fruits are generally dried and ground, or pulped and baked into cakes, which are then ground and sifted to make the powdered spice of the same name. Cayenne is used in cooking spicy dishes, as a powder or in its form, or in a thin. It is generally rated at 30,000 to 50,000 Scoville units and it is also used as an herbal supplement, and was mentioned by Nicholas Culpeper in his Complete Herbal,1653, as guinea pepper, a misnomer for guiana pepper. Most cultivated varieties of cayenne, Capsicum annuum, can be grown in a variety of locations including tropical and temperate zones, peppers prefer warm, moist, nutrient-rich soil in a warm climate. The plants grow to about 0. 5–1 m in height, in gardens, the plants may be planted as close as 30 cm apart in a raised bed, or simply grown in large pots. This may reduce the yield of a plant, but will increase yields per unit area. Chilis are mostly perennial in subtropical and tropical regions, however and they can be overwintered if protected from frost, and require some pruning. Cayenne pepper, by weight, is high in vitamin A and it also contains vitamin B6, vitamin E, vitamin C, riboflavin, potassium, and manganese. However, given the small amount of cayenne pepper typically consumed in a serving. Cayenne pepper consumption dilates the blood vessels and speeds the metabolism due to the amounts of capsaicin. With the consumption of cayenne peppers, the amount of heat the body puts off is influenced. In animal studies, capsaicin has the ability to boost metabolism and this increases circulation and blood flow to all major organs, facilitating oxygen and nutrient delivery. Capsaicin may support an energy balance while suppressing appetite. Capsaicin has been shown to increase energy expenditure, so acts as a booster and is beneficial in long-term weight loss. A correlation has been shown between substrate oxidation and capsaicin, capsaicin treatment sustained fat oxidation during weight maintenance, but did not affect weight regain after modest weight loss. Cayenne pepper is also claimed to be an aphrodisiac because it contains capsaicin, Cayenne is a popular spice in a variety of cuisines. It is employed variously in its form, dried and powdered
4.
Tunisia
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Tunisia, officially the Republic of Tunisia is the northernmost country in Africa, covering 165,000 square kilometres. Its northernmost point, Cape Angela, is the northernmost point on the African continent and it is bordered by Algeria to the west and southwest, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Tunisias population was estimated to be just under 11 million in 2014, Tunisias name is derived from its capital city, Tunis, which is located on Tunisias northeast coast. Geographically, Tunisia contains the end of the Atlas Mountains. Much of the rest of the land is fertile soil. Tunisia is a unitary semi-presidential representative democratic republic and it is considered to be the only full democracy in the Arab World. It has a human development index. In addition, Tunisia is also a state of the United Nations. Close relations with Europe – in particular with France and with Italy – have been forged through economic cooperation, privatisation, in ancient times, Tunisia was primarily inhabited by Berbers. Phoenician immigration began in the 12th century BC, these immigrants founded Carthage, a major mercantile power and a military rival of the Roman Republic, Carthage was defeated by the Romans in 146 BC. The Romans, who would occupy Tunisia for most of the eight hundred years, introduced Christianity. After several attempts starting in 647, the Arabs conquered the whole of Tunisia by 697, the Ottomans held sway for over three hundred years. The French colonization of Tunisia occurred in 1881, Tunisia gained independence with Habib Bourguiba and declared the Tunisian Republic in 1957. In 2011, the Tunisian Revolution resulted in the overthrow of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, the country voted for parliament again on 26 October 2014, and for President on 23 November 2014. The word Tunisia is derived from Tunis, an urban hub. The present form of the name, with its Latinate suffix -ia, the French derivative Tunisie was adopted in some European languages with slight modifications, introducing a distinctive name to designate the country. Other languages remained untouched, such as the Russian Туни́с and Spanish Túnez, in this case, the same name is used for both country and city, as with the Arabic تونس, and only by context can one tell the difference. The name Tunis can be attributed to different origins and it is generally associated with the Berber root ⵜⵏⵙ, transcribed tns, which means to lay down or encampment
5.
Ottoman Empire
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After 1354, the Ottomans crossed into Europe, and with the conquest of the Balkans the Ottoman Beylik was transformed into a transcontinental empire. The Ottomans ended the Byzantine Empire with the 1453 conquest of Constantinople by Mehmed the Conqueror, at the beginning of the 17th century the empire contained 32 provinces and numerous vassal states. Some of these were later absorbed into the Ottoman Empire, while others were granted various types of autonomy during the course of centuries. With Constantinople as its capital and control of lands around the Mediterranean basin, while the empire was once thought to have entered a period of decline following the death of Suleiman the Magnificent, this view is no longer supported by the majority of academic historians. The empire continued to maintain a flexible and strong economy, society, however, during a long period of peace from 1740 to 1768, the Ottoman military system fell behind that of their European rivals, the Habsburg and Russian Empires. While the Empire was able to hold its own during the conflict, it was struggling with internal dissent. Starting before World War I, but growing increasingly common and violent during it, major atrocities were committed by the Ottoman government against the Armenians, Assyrians and Pontic Greeks. The word Ottoman is an anglicisation of the name of Osman I. Osmans name in turn was the Turkish form of the Arabic name ʿUthmān, in Ottoman Turkish, the empire was referred to as Devlet-i ʿAlīye-yi ʿOsmānīye, or alternatively ʿOsmānlı Devleti. In Modern Turkish, it is known as Osmanlı İmparatorluğu or Osmanlı Devleti, the Turkish word for Ottoman originally referred to the tribal followers of Osman in the fourteenth century, and subsequently came to be used to refer to the empires military-administrative elite. In contrast, the term Turk was used to refer to the Anatolian peasant and tribal population, the term Rūmī was also used to refer to Turkish-speakers by the other Muslim peoples of the empire and beyond. In Western Europe, the two names Ottoman Empire and Turkey were often used interchangeably, with Turkey being increasingly favored both in formal and informal situations and this dichotomy was officially ended in 1920–23, when the newly established Ankara-based Turkish government chose Turkey as the sole official name. Most scholarly historians avoid the terms Turkey, Turks, and Turkish when referring to the Ottomans, as the power of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum declined in the 13th century, Anatolia was divided into a patchwork of independent Turkish principalities known as the Anatolian Beyliks. One of these beyliks, in the region of Bithynia on the frontier of the Byzantine Empire, was led by the Turkish tribal leader Osman, osmans early followers consisted both of Turkish tribal groups and Byzantine renegades, many but not all converts to Islam. Osman extended the control of his principality by conquering Byzantine towns along the Sakarya River and it is not well understood how the early Ottomans came to dominate their neighbours, due to the scarcity of the sources which survive from this period. One school of thought which was popular during the twentieth century argued that the Ottomans achieved success by rallying religious warriors to fight for them in the name of Islam, in the century after the death of Osman I, Ottoman rule began to extend over Anatolia and the Balkans. Osmans son, Orhan, captured the northwestern Anatolian city of Bursa in 1326 and this conquest meant the loss of Byzantine control over northwestern Anatolia. The important city of Thessaloniki was captured from the Venetians in 1387, the Ottoman victory at Kosovo in 1389 effectively marked the end of Serbian power in the region, paving the way for Ottoman expansion into Europe
6.
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
7.
Syria
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Syrias capital and largest city is Damascus. Religious groups include Sunnis, Christians, Alawites, Druze, Mandeans, Shiites, Salafis, Sunni Arabs make up the largest religious group in Syria. Its capital Damascus and largest city Aleppo are among the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, in the Islamic era, Damascus was the seat of the Umayyad Caliphate and a provincial capital of the Mamluk Sultanate in Egypt. The post-independence period was tumultuous, and a number of military coups. In 1958, Syria entered a union with Egypt called the United Arab Republic. Syria was under Emergency Law from 1963 to 2011, effectively suspending most constitutional protections for citizens, Bashar al-Assad has been president since 2000 and was preceded by his father Hafez al-Assad, who was in office from 1970 to 2000. Mainstream modern academic opinion strongly favours the argument that the Greek word is related to the cognate Ἀσσυρία, Assyria, in the past, others believed that it was derived from Siryon, the name that the Sidonians gave to Mount Hermon. However, the discovery of the inscription in 2000 seems to support the theory that the term Syria derives from Assyria. The area designated by the word has changed over time, since approximately 10,000 BC, Syria was one of centers of Neolithic culture where agriculture and cattle breeding appeared for the first time in the world. The following Neolithic period is represented by houses of Mureybet culture. At the time of the pre-pottery Neolithic, people used vessels made of stone, gyps, finds of obsidian tools from Anatolia are evidences of early trade relations. Cities of Hamoukar and Emar played an important role during the late Neolithic, archaeologists have demonstrated that civilization in Syria was one of the most ancient on earth, perhaps preceded by only those of Mesopotamia. The earliest recorded indigenous civilisation in the region was the Kingdom of Ebla near present-day Idlib, gifts from Pharaohs, found during excavations, confirm Eblas contact with Egypt. One of the earliest written texts from Syria is an agreement between Vizier Ibrium of Ebla and an ambiguous kingdom called Abarsal c.2300 BC. The Northwest Semitic language of the Amorites is the earliest attested of the Canaanite languages, Mari reemerged during this period, and saw renewed prosperity until conquered by Hammurabi of Babylon. Ugarit also arose during this time, circa 1800 BC, close to modern Latakia, Ugaritic was a Semitic language loosely related to the Canaanite languages, and developed the Ugaritic alphabet. The Ugarites kingdom survived until its destruction at the hands of the marauding Indo-European Sea Peoples in the 12th century BC, Yamhad was described in the tablets of Mari as the mightiest state in the near east and as having more vassals than Hammurabi of Babylon. Yamhad imposed its authority over Alalakh, Qatna, the Hurrians states, the army of Yamhad campaigned as far away as Dēr on the border of Elam
8.
Balkans
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The Balkan Peninsula, or the Balkans, is a peninsula and a cultural area in Eastern and Southeastern Europe with various and disputed borders. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch from the Serbia-Bulgaria border to the Black Sea, the highest point of the Balkans is Mount Musala 2,925 metres in the Rila mountain range. In Turkish, Balkan means a chain of wooded mountains, the name is still preserved in Central Asia with the Balkan Daglary and the Balkan Province of Turkmenistan. A less popular hypothesis regarding its etymology is that it derived from the Persian Balā-Khāna, from Antiquity through the Middle Ages, the Balkan Mountains had been called by the local Thracian name Haemus. According to Greek mythology, the Thracian king Haemus was turned into a mountain by Zeus as a punishment, a reverse name scheme has also been suggested. D. Dechev considers that Haemus is derived from a Thracian word *saimon, a third possibility is that Haemus derives from the Greek word haema meaning blood. The myth relates to a fight between Zeus and the monster/titan Typhon, Zeus injured Typhon with a thunder bolt and Typhons blood fell on the mountains, from which they got their name. The earliest mention of the name appears in an early 14th-century Arab map, the Ottomans first mention it in a document dated from 1565. There has been no other documented usage of the word to refer to the region before that, there is also a claim about an earlier Bulgar Turkic origin of the word popular in Bulgaria, however it is only an unscholarly assertion. The word was used by the Ottomans in Rumelia in its meaning of mountain, as in Kod̲j̲a-Balkan, Čatal-Balkan, and Ungurus-Balkani̊. The concept of the Balkans was created by the German geographer August Zeune in 1808, during the 1820s, Balkan became the preferred although not yet exclusive term alongside Haemus among British travelers. Among Russian travelers not so burdened by classical toponymy, Balkan was the preferred term, zeunes goal was to have a geographical parallel term to the Italic and Iberian Peninsula, and seemingly nothing more. The gradually acquired political connotations are newer and, to a large extent, after the dissolution of Yugoslavia beginning in June 1991, the term Balkans again received a negative meaning, especially in Croatia and Slovenia, even in casual usage. A European Union initiative of 1999 is called the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe, and its northern boundary is often given as the Danube, Sava and Kupa Rivers. The Balkan Peninsula has an area of about 470,000 km2. It is more or less identical to the known as Southeastern Europe. As of 1920 until World War II, Italy included Istria, the current territory of Italy includes only the small area around Trieste inside the Balkan Peninsula. However, the regions of Trieste and Istria are not usually considered part of the Balkans by Italian geographers, the Western Balkans is a neologism coined to describe the countries of ex-Yugoslavia and Albania
9.
Maghreb
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The Maghreb, or the Greater Maghreb, is usually defined as much or most of the region of western North Africa or Northwest Africa, west of Egypt. Historical terms for the region or various portions of the Maghreb include Mauretania, Numidia, Libya, the term maghrib is Arabic for west, from the verb gharaba. In the strict sense, the definite form al-maghrib denotes the country of Morocco in particular and it identified the westernmost territories that fell to the Islamic conquests of the 7th century. Today, it is a noun for the present region of the Maghreb. The Berber languages alternative term for the region, Tamazgha, has been popularized by Berber activists since the second half of the 20th century. As recently as the late 19th century it was used to refer to the Western Mediterranean region of coastal North Africa in general, and to Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia in particular. The region was unified as an independent political entity during the rule of the Berber kingdom of Numidia. The most enduring rule was that of the local Berber empires of the Almoravids, Almohads, Hammadids, Zirids, Marinids, Saadi, the Ottoman Turks ruled the region as well. Mauritania, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, and Libya established the Maghreb Union in 1989 to promote cooperation and it was envisioned initially by Muammar Gaddafi as a superstate. The union included Western Sahara implicitly under Moroccos membership, putting Moroccos long cold war with Algeria to a rest, however, this progress was short-lived, and the union is now frozen. Tensions between Algeria and Morocco over Western Sahara re-emerged strongly, reinforced by the unsolved borderline issue between the two countries and these two main conflicts have hindered progress on the unions joint goals and practically made it inactive as a whole. Around 3,500 BC a tilt in the Earths orbit created a rapid desertification of the Sahara, the Maghreb or western North Africa is believed to have been inhabited by Berbers since from at least 10,000 BC. Maghreb coast ports were predominantly occupied or constructed by the Phoenicians, the main Phoenician settlements centered in the Gulf of Tunis along the North African littoral between the Pillars of Hercules and the Libyan coast east of ancient Cyrenaica. They dominated the trade and intercourse of the Western Mediterranean for centuries, Rome was greatly helped by the defection of King Massinissa and Carthaginians eastern Numidian Massylii client-allies. A century later, the Byzantine emperor Justinian I sent a force under General Belisarius that succeeded in destroying the Vandal kingdom, the Berbers contested outside-the-area control although after the 640s-700 AD period the Arabs controlled the entire region. The Arabs reached the Maghreb in early Umayyad times, Arab expansion and the spread of Islam pushed the development of trans-Saharan trade. While restricted due to the cost and dangers, the trade was highly profitable, commodities traded included such goods as salt, gold, ivory, and slaves. Arab control over the Maghreb was quite weak, various Islamic variations, such as the Ibadis and the Shia, were adopted by some Berbers, often leading to scorning of Caliphal control in favour of their own interpretation of Islam
10.
Ottoman Tunisia
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Eventually including all of the Maghrib except Morocco, the Ottoman Empire began with the takeover of Algiers in 1516 by the Ottoman Turkish corsair and beylerbey Oruç Reis. Initially under Turkish rule from Algiers, soon the Ottoman Porte appointed directly for Tunis a governor called the Pasha supported by janissary forces, before long, however, Tunisia became in effect an autonomous province, under the local Bey. This evolution of status was from time to time challenged without success by Algiers, during this era the governing councils controlling Tunisia remained largely composed of a foreign elite who continued to conduct state business in the Ottoman Turkish language. Under the Ottoman Empire, the boundaries of Tunisia contracted, it lost territory to the west, in the 19th century, the rulers of Tunisia became aware of the ongoing efforts at political and social reform in the Ottoman capital. The Bey of Tunis then, by his own lights but informed by the Turkish example, attempted to effect a reform of institutions. This was the reason or pretext for French forces to establish a Protectorate in 1881, a remnant of the centuries of Turkish rule is the presence of a population of Turkish origin, historically the male descendants were referred to as the Kouloughlis. In the 16th century, control of the western Mediterranean was contested between Spaniard and Turk, both were confident due to recent triumphs and consequent expansion. In 1492, Spain had completed her centuries-long reconquista of the Iberian peninsula, Spain then formulated an African policy, a series of presidios in port cities along the African coast. For their part, the Ottoman Turks had fulfilled their ambition of capturing Constantinople in 1453, then successfully invaded further into the Balkans. Then Turkish corsairs became active from bases in the Maghrib, Spain captured and occupied several ports in North Africa, including Mers-el-Kebir, Oran, Tripoli, and Bougie, Spain also established treaty relations with a half dozen others. Near Tunis, the port of Goletta was later occupied by Spanish forces who built there a large and strong presidio, the Hafsid dynasty had since 1227 ruled Tunisia, enjoying prestige when it was the leading state of the Maghrib, or barely surviving in ill-favored times. Extensive trade with European merchants continued over some centuries, an activity led to state treaties. Yet the Hafsids also harbored corsairs who raided merchant shipping, during the 15th century the Hafsids employed as bodyguards a Christian force of hundreds, nearly all Catalans. In the 16th century the Hafsid rule grew weak, limited often to Tunis, yet the cross-cultural Hafsid alliance with Spain was not as unusual as it might seem, given the many Muslim-Christian treaties—despite recurrent hostilities. Indeed, during the early 16th century, France allied with the Ottomans against the Spanish King Carlos, as an indirect result of Spains Africa policy, a few Muslim rulers encouraged Turkish forces to enter the region to counter the Spanish presence. Yet the Hafsid rulers of Tunis came to see the Turks and their allies as a greater threat and entered a Spanish alliance. Nonetheless many Maghriban Muslims strongly preferred Islamic rule, and the Hafsids decades-long Spanish alliance was not generally popular, on the other hand, the Saadi dynasty sultans of Morocco successfully played off Iberian against Turk, thus managing to remain both Muslim ruled and independent of the Ottoman grasp. In this naval struggle, the Ottoman Empire supported many corsairs, the corsairs later would make Algiers their principal base
