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Al-Yatīma
''Al-Yatīma'' ( ar, اليتيمة, meaning 'the orphan', apparently named for its unique size) was a pearl 'considered to be the most celebrated Islamic jewel of the Middle Ages'. How it came into Muslim hands is not clear: it might have come from Visigothic Spain or the Sasanian Empire during the Islamic Conquests. During the Umayyad period al-Yatīma was displayed in the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem; it (or another jewel believed to be it) came into Abbasid hands and became part of their royal insignia, mounted on the crown of al-Mu'tasim (r. 833-42 CE). From the tenth century onwards, its history is uncertain. The 11th-century '' Book of Gifts and Rarities'' records that the ''Yatīma'' was discovered by divers in the reign of Harun al-Rashid and that the Umayyads' pearl was called ''al-ʿAẓīma'' ('enormous one'). It was supposedly given by al-Mahdi to a slave girl named Hasana, who had it cut up to make dice. It has been suggested that the German idea of '' der Weise'' ('t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Visigothic Spain
The Visigothic Kingdom, officially the Kingdom of the Goths ( la, Regnum Gothorum), was a kingdom that occupied what is now southwestern France and the Iberian Peninsula from the 5th to the 8th centuries. One of the Germanic successor states to the Western Roman Empire, it was originally created by the settlement of the Visigoths under King Wallia in the province of Gallia Aquitania in southwest Gaul by the Roman government and then extended by conquest over all of Hispania. The Kingdom maintained independence from the Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire, whose attempts to re-establish Roman authority in Hispania were only partially successful and short-lived. The Visigoths were romanized central Europeans who had moved west from the Danube Valley. They became foederati of Rome, and wanted to restore the Roman order against the hordes of Vandals, Alans and Suebi. The Western Roman Empire fell in 476 AD; therefore, the Visigoths believed they had the right to take the territo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sasanian Empire
The Sasanian () or Sassanid Empire, officially known as the Empire of Iranians (, ) and also referred to by historians as the Neo-Persian Empire, was the History of Iran, last Iranian empire before the early Muslim conquests of the 7th-8th centuries AD. Named after the Sasanian dynasty, House of Sasan, it endured for over four centuries, from 224 to 651 AD, making it the longest-lived List of monarchs of Persia, Persian imperial dynasty. The Sasanian Empire succeeded the Parthian Empire, and re-established the Persians as a major power in late antiquity alongside its neighbouring arch-rival, the Roman Empire (after 395 the Byzantine Empire).Norman A. Stillman ''The Jews of Arab Lands'' pp 22 Jewish Publication Society, 1979 International Congress of Byzantine Studies ''Proceedings of the 21st International Congress of Byzantine Studies, London, 21–26 August 2006, Volumes 1–3'' pp 29. Ashgate Pub Co, 2006 The empire was founded by Ardashir I, an Iranian ruler who rose to po ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Islamic Conquests
The early Muslim conquests or early Islamic conquests ( ar, الْفُتُوحَاتُ الإسْلَامِيَّة, ), also referred to as the Arab conquests, were initiated in the 7th century by Muhammad, the main Islamic prophet. He established a new unified polity in Arabia that expanded rapidly under the Rashidun Caliphate and the Umayyad Caliphate, culminating in Islamic rule being established across three continents. According to Scottish historian James Buchan: "In speed and extent, the first Arab conquests were matched only by those of Alexander the Great, and they were more lasting." At their height, the territory that was conquered stretched from Iberia (at the Pyrenees) in the west to India (at Sind) in the east; Muslim rule spanned Sicily, most of North Africa and the Middle East, and the Caucasus and Central Asia. English historian Edward Gibbon writes in ''The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'': Among other drastic changes, the early Musli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Umayyad Period
The Umayyad Caliphate (661–750 CE; , ; ar, ٱلْخِلَافَة ٱلْأُمَوِيَّة, al-Khilāfah al-ʾUmawīyah) was the second of the four major caliphates established after the death of Muhammad. The caliphate was ruled by the Umayyad dynasty ( ar, ٱلْأُمَوِيُّون, ''al-ʾUmawīyūn'', or , ''Banū ʾUmayyah'', "Sons of Umayyah"). Uthman ibn Affan (r. 644–656), the third of the Rashidun caliphs, was also a member of the clan. The family established dynastic, hereditary rule with Muawiya ibn Abi Sufyan, long-time governor of Greater Syria, who became the sixth caliph after the end of the First Fitna in 661. After Mu'awiyah's death in 680, conflicts over the succession resulted in the Second Fitna, and power eventually fell into the hands of Marwan I from another branch of the clan. Greater Syria remained the Umayyads' main power base thereafter, with Damascus serving as their capital. The Umayyads continued the Muslim conquests, incorporating th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dome Of The Rock
The Dome of the Rock ( ar, قبة الصخرة, Qubbat aṣ-Ṣakhra) is an Islamic shrine located on the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem, a site also known to Muslims as the ''al-Haram al-Sharif'' or the Al-Aqsa Compound. Its initial construction was undertaken by the Umayyad Caliphate on the orders of Abd al-Malik during the Second Fitna in 691–692 CE, and it has since been situated on top of the site of the Second Jewish Temple (built in to replace the destroyed Solomon's Temple), which was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE. The original dome collapsed in 1015 and was rebuilt in 1022–23. The Dome of the Rock is the world's oldest surviving work of Islamic architecture. Its architecture and mosaics were patterned after nearby Byzantine churches and palaces, although its outside appearance was significantly changed during the Ottoman period and again in the modern period, notably with the addition of the gold-plated roof, in 1959–61 and again in 1993. The oc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Abbasid
The Abbasid Caliphate ( or ; ar, الْخِلَافَةُ الْعَبَّاسِيَّة, ') was the third caliphate to succeed the Islamic prophet Muhammad. It was founded by a dynasty descended from Muhammad's uncle, Abbas ibn Abdul-Muttalib (566–653 CE), from whom the dynasty takes its name. They ruled as caliphs for most of the caliphate from their capital in Baghdad in modern-day Iraq, after having overthrown the Umayyad Caliphate in the Abbasid Revolution of 750 CE (132 anno Hegirae, AH). The Abbasid Caliphate first centered its government in Kufa, modern-day Iraq, but in 762 the caliph Al-Mansur founded the city of Baghdad, near the ancient Babylonian Empire, Babylonian capital city of Babylon. Baghdad became the center of Science in the medieval Islamic world, science, Islamic culture, culture and List of inventions in the medieval Islamic world, invention in what became known as the Islamic Golden Age, Golden Age of Islam. This, in addition to housing several ke ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Al-Mu'tasim
Abū Isḥāq Muḥammad ibn Hārūn al-Rashīd ( ar, أبو إسحاق محمد بن هارون الرشيد; October 796 – 5 January 842), better known by his regnal name al-Muʿtaṣim biʾllāh (, ), was the eighth Abbasid caliph, ruling from 833 until his death in 842. A younger son of Caliph Harun al-Rashid (r. 786–809), he rose to prominence through his formation of a private army composed predominantly of Turkic slave-soldiers (, sing. ). This proved useful to his half-brother, Caliph al-Ma'mun, who employed al-Mu'tasim and his Turkish guard to counterbalance other powerful interest groups in the state, as well as employing them in campaigns against rebels and the Byzantine Empire. When al-Ma'mun died unexpectedly on campaign in August 833, al-Mu'tasim was thus well placed to succeed him, overriding the claims of al-Ma'mun's son al-Abbas. Al-Mu'tasim continued many of his brother's policies, such as the partnership with the Tahirids, who governed Khurasan and Baghda ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Book Of Gifts And Rarities
The ''Book of Gifts and Rarities'' is an Arabic history of wealth and ostentation from the 6th to 11th centuries. It was written in Egypt by an official of the Fatimid Caliphate sometime after 1071. The surviving form of the work is not complete and contains no attribution. It has been ascribed to a certain Al-Qāḍī al-Rashīd Aḥmad ibn al-Zubayr, but this is not universally accepted. Authorship The ''Book of Gifts and Rarities'' is strictly anonymous as it stands and its authorship contested. Ibn al-Zubayr The text's first editor, Muḥammad Ḥamīdallāh, identified the author as al-Qāḍī al-Rashīd Abū l-Ḥusayn Aḥmad ibn al-Qāḍī al-Rashīd ibn al-Zubayr. This name is known only from some citations by al-Ghūzūli, although Ḥamīdallāh argued that he was identical to the Muhadhdhab ibn al-Zubayr whose poetry is cited in al-Maqrīzī's ''Khiṭaṭ''. No al-Qāḍī al-Rashīd ibn al-Zubayr is mentioned in any of the biographical dictionaries that cover the 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harun Al-Rashid
Abu Ja'far Harun ibn Muhammad al-Mahdi ( ar , أبو جعفر هارون ابن محمد المهدي) or Harun ibn al-Mahdi (; or 766 – 24 March 809), famously known as Harun al-Rashid ( ar, هَارُون الرَشِيد, translit=Hārūn al-Rashīd) was the fifth Abbasid caliph of the Abbasid Caliphate, reigning from September 786 until his death. His reign is traditionally regarded to be the beginning of the Islamic Golden Age. His epithet "al-Rashid" translates to "the Orthodox", "the Just", "the Upright", or "the Rightly-Guided". Harun established the legendary library Bayt al-Hikma ("House of Wisdom") in Baghdad in present-day Iraq, and during his rule Baghdad began to flourish as a world center of knowledge, culture and trade. During his rule, the family of Barmakids, which played a deciding role in establishing the Abbasid Caliphate, declined gradually. In 796, he moved his court and government to Raqqa in present-day Syria. A Frankish mission came to offer H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Al-Mahdi
Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Manṣūr ( ar, أبو عبد الله محمد بن عبد الله المنصور; 744 or 745 – 785), better known by his regnal name Al-Mahdī (, "He who is guided by God"), was the third Abbasid Caliph who reigned from 775 to his death in 785. He succeeded his father, al-Mansur. Early life Al-Mahdi was born in 744 or 745 AD in the village of Humeima (modern-day Jordan). His mother was called Arwa, and his father was al-Mansur. When al-Mahdi was ten years old, his father became the second Abbasid Caliph. When al-Mahdi was young, his father needed to establish al-Mahdi as a powerful figure in his own right. So, on the east bank of the Tigris, al-Mansur oversaw the construction of East Baghdad, with a mosque and royal palace at its heart. Construction in the area was also heavily financed by the Barmakids, and the area became known as Rusafa. According to reports, he was tall, charming, and stylish; he had tan skin, a long fore ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Der Weise
''Der Weise'' (Middle High German; german: die Waise; la, orphanus; literally 'the orphan', but often rendered as 'the Orphan Stone' or 'Orphan Jewel'; sometimes also la, pupilla) was an exceptionally large precious stone, perhaps an opal, set into the crown of the Holy Roman Emperor until being lost sometime in the fourteenth century. The term ''der Weise'' was accordingly used in Middle High German, including in the political verse of Walther von der Vogelweide, as a metonym for the office of Holy Roman Emperor.Thomas Kerth, review of Richard J. Berleth, ''The Orphan Stone: The Minnesinger Dream of Reich'', Contributions to the Study of World History, 15 (New York: Greenwood, 1990), in ''Speculum'', 67 (1992), 936-37 (p. 936); . ''Der Weise'' is first mentioned in the late thirteenth-century German poem ''Herzog Ernst'', which associates the jewel with a crown that some scholarship links to the 962 coronation of Otto I, linked in turn in some scholarship with the Reichskrone (Vie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Holy Roman Emperor
The Holy Roman Emperor, originally and officially the Emperor of the Romans ( la, Imperator Romanorum, german: Kaiser der Römer) during the Middle Ages, and also known as the Roman-German Emperor since the early modern period ( la, Imperator Germanorum, german: Römisch-deutscher Kaiser, lit, Roman-German emperor), was the ruler and head of state of the Holy Roman Empire. The title was held in conjunction with the title of king of Italy (''Rex Italiae'') from the 8th to the 16th century, and, almost without interruption, with the title of king of Germany (''Rex Teutonicorum'', lit. "King of the Teutons") throughout the 12th to 18th centuries. The Holy Roman Emperor title provided the highest prestige among medieval Roman Catholic monarchs, because the empire was considered by the Roman Catholic Church to be the only successor of the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages and the early modern period. Thus, in theory and diplomacy, the emperors were considered '' primus inter ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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