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Dar Al-Magana
Dar al-Magana () is a 14th-century building in Fes, Morocco, built by the Marinid Sultan Abu Inan Faris which houses a weight-powered water clock. It is located opposite the Bou Inania Madrasa on Tala'a Kebira street and was created to serve that madrasa and its mosque, which was also built by Abu Inan around the same time. The building is also sometimes referred to as the "House of Maimonides" due to a popular legend which claims that the house was once the residence of the famous Jewish philosopher Maimonides. History The clock was part of the large charitable complex centered around the Bou Inania Madrasa built by the Marinid sultan Abu Inan. According to its foundation inscription, construction on the madrasa itself started on December 28, 1350 CE (28 Ramadan 751 AH) and finished in 1355 (756 AH). According to the historical chronicler al-Jazna'i, the water clock was completed on 6 May 1357 (14 Djumada al-awwal, 758 AH). The designer of the clock was a ''muwaqqit'' nam ...
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Dar Al-Magana
Dar al-Magana () is a 14th-century building in Fes, Morocco, built by the Marinid Sultan Abu Inan Faris which houses a weight-powered water clock. It is located opposite the Bou Inania Madrasa on Tala'a Kebira street and was created to serve that madrasa and its mosque, which was also built by Abu Inan around the same time. The building is also sometimes referred to as the "House of Maimonides" due to a popular legend which claims that the house was once the residence of the famous Jewish philosopher Maimonides. History The clock was part of the large charitable complex centered around the Bou Inania Madrasa built by the Marinid sultan Abu Inan. According to its foundation inscription, construction on the madrasa itself started on December 28, 1350 CE (28 Ramadan 751 AH) and finished in 1355 (756 AH). According to the historical chronicler al-Jazna'i, the water clock was completed on 6 May 1357 (14 Djumada al-awwal, 758 AH). The designer of the clock was a ''muwaqqit'' nam ...
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University Of Al-Qarawiyyin
The University of al-Qarawiyyin ( ar, جامعة القرويين; ber, ⵜⴰⵙⴷⴰⵡⵉⵜ ⵏ ⵍⵇⴰⵕⴰⵡⵉⵢⵉⵏ; french: Université Al Quaraouiyine), also written Al-Karaouine or Al Quaraouiyine, is a university located in Fez, Morocco. It was founded as a mosque by Fatima al-Fihri in 857–859 and subsequently became one of the leading spiritual and educational centers of the Islamic Golden Age. It was incorporated into Morocco's modern state university system in 1963 and officially renamed "University of Al Quaraouiyine" two years later. The mosque building itself is also a significant complex of historical Moroccan and Islamic architecture that features elements from many different periods of Moroccan history. Scholars consider al-Qarawiyyin to have been effectively run as a madrasa until after World War II.Lulat, Y. G.-M.: ''A History Of African Higher Education From Antiquity To The Present: A Critical Synthesis Studies in Higher Education'', Greenwo ...
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Ibn Khalaf Al-Muradi
Ibn Khalaf al-Murādī, (; 11th century) was an Andalusian engineer. Al-Murādī was the author of the technological manuscript entitled ''Kitāb al-asrār fī natā'ij al-afkār'' ('', The Book of Secrets in the Results of Thoughts'' or ''The Book of Secrets in the Results of Ideas'').Ahmed Djebbar, "Technology in the service of progress: The examples of hydraulic technologies," in Civilization in the Mirror of Universal', UNESCO, 2010, p. 292-304. It was copied and used at the court of Alfonso VI of León and Castile Alphons (Latinized ''Alphonsus'', ''Adelphonsus'', or ''Adefonsus'') is a male given name recorded from the 8th century (Alfonso I of Asturias, r. 739–757) in the Christian successor states of the Visigothic kingdom in the Iberian peninsula. ... in Christian Spain in the 11th century. The manuscript provides information about a "Castle and Gazelle Clock" and many other forms of complicated clocks and ingenious devices. In 2008, the Book of Secrets of al ...
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Toledo, Spain
Toledo ( , ) is a city and municipality of Spain, capital of the province of Toledo and the ''de jure'' seat of the government and parliament of the autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Castilla–La Mancha. Toledo was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1986 for its extensive monumental and cultural heritage. Located on the banks of the Tagus in central Iberian Peninsula, Iberia, Toledo is known as the "City of the Three Cultures" for the cultural influences of Christians, Muslims, and Jews throughout its history. It was the capital, from 542 to 725 CE, of the Visigothic kingdom, which followed the fall of the Roman Empire. Toledo was also the location of historic events such as the Councils of Toledo and was labelled the "Imperial City" due to the fact that it was the main venue of the court of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor in Spain. The city, seat of a powerful archdiocese for much of its history, has a Gothic Cathedral, the ''Cathedral of Toledo, Ca ...
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Al-Andalus
Al-Andalus DIN 31635, translit. ; an, al-Andalus; ast, al-Ándalus; eu, al-Andalus; ber, ⴰⵏⴷⴰⵍⵓⵙ, label=Berber languages, Berber, translit=Andalus; ca, al-Àndalus; gl, al-Andalus; oc, Al Andalús; pt, al-Ândalus; es, al-Ándalus () was the Muslim-ruled area of the Iberian Peninsula. The term is used by modern historians for the former Islamic states in modern Spain and Portugal. At its greatest geographical extent, it occupied most of the peninsula and a part of present-day southern France, Septimania (8th century). For nearly a hundred years, from the 9th century to the 10th, al-Andalus extended its presence from Fraxinetum into the Alps with a series of organized raids and chronic banditry. The name describes the different Arab and Muslim states that controlled these territories at various times between 711 and 1492. These boundaries changed constantly as the Christian Reconquista progressed,"Para los autores árabes medievales, el término Al-And ...
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Damascus
)), is an adjective which means "spacious". , motto = , image_flag = Flag of Damascus.svg , image_seal = Emblem of Damascus.svg , seal_type = Seal , map_caption = , pushpin_map = Syria#Mediterranean east#Arab world#Asia , pushpin_label_position = right , pushpin_mapsize = , pushpin_map_caption = Location of Damascus within Syria , pushpin_relief = 1 , coordinates = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = , subdivision_type1 = Governorate , subdivision_name1 = Damascus Governorate, Capital City , government_footnotes = , government_type = , leader_title = Governor , leader_name = Mohammad Tariq Kreishati , parts_type = Municipalities , parts = 16 , established_title = , established_date ...
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Umayyad Mosque
The Umayyad Mosque ( ar, الجامع الأموي, al-Jāmiʿ al-Umawī), also known as the Great Mosque of Damascus ( ar, الجامع الدمشق, al-Jāmiʿ al-Damishq), located in the old city of Damascus, the capital of Syria, is one of the largest and oldest mosques in the world. Its religious importance stems from the eschatological reports concerning the mosque, and historic events associated with it. Christian and Muslim tradition alike consider it the burial place of John the Baptist's head, a tradition originating in the 6th century. Muslim tradition holds that the mosque will be the place Jesus will return before the End of Days. Two shrines inside the premises commemorate the Islamic prophet Muhammad's grandson Husayn ibn Ali, whose martyrdom is frequently compared to that of John the Baptist and Jesus. The site has been used as a house of worship since the Iron Age, when the Arameans built on it a temple dedicated to their god of rain, Hadad. Under Roman rule, beg ...
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Ismail Al-Jazari
Badīʿ az-Zaman Abu l-ʿIzz ibn Ismāʿīl ibn ar-Razāz al-Jazarī (1136–1206, ar, بديع الزمان أَبُ اَلْعِزِ إبْنُ إسْماعِيلِ إبْنُ الرِّزاز الجزري, ) was a polymath: a scholar, inventor, mechanical engineer, artisan, artist and mathematician from the Artuqid Dynasty of Jazira in Mesopotamia. He is best known for writing '' The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices'' ( ar, كتاب في معرفة الحيل الهندسية, lit=Book in knowledge of engineering tricks, translit=Kitab fi ma'rifat al-hiyal al-handasiya) in 1206, where he described 50 mechanical devices, along with instructions on how to construct them. He is credited with the invention of the elephant clock. He has been described as the "father of robotics" and modern day engineering. Biography Al-Jazari was born in the area of Upper Mesopotamia in 1136. Sources state his exact location is unknown, but they speculate he could have b ...
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Elephant Clock
The elephant clock was a model of water clock invented by the medieval Islamic engineer Ismail al-Jazari (1136–1206). Its design was detailed in his book, ''The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices.'' Representation of multiculturality Upon finishing the development and construction of his elephant clock, Al-Jazari wrote: "The elephant represents the Indian and African cultures, the two dragons represent Chinese culture, the phoenix represents Persian culture, the water work represents Greek culture, and the turban represents Islamic culture," expressing his multicultural mentality. Mechanism The timing mechanism is based on a water-filled basin hidden inside the elephant. In the bucket is a deep bowl floating in the water, but with a small hole in the centre. The bowl takes half an hour to fill through this hole. In the process of sinking, the bowl pulls a string attached to a see-saw mechanism in the tower on top of the elephant. This releases a ball that dr ...
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Clock Of Ridwan Al-Saati
The Jayrun Water Clock, a water clock built by the Muslim engineer Muhammad al-Sa'ati, was positioned at the gate of Damascus, Syria, at the exit of the Umayyad Mosque in the 12th century during the reign of Nur ad-Din Zangi.Hill, Donald Routledge. "A History of Engineering in Classical and Medieval Times", p. 234 There is a full description of the clock in the treatise ''Ktab 'Amal al-sa'at wa-l-amal biha'' (''On the Construction of Clocks and their Use'') written by Ridwan b. al Saati in 1203. This treatise describes the reconstruction by Ridwan of the water clock which was built by his father, Muhammad al-Saati, in the reign of Nur al-Din Mahmud b. Zanki in Damascus (reigned 1154–74). "The clock-face consisted of wall of timber about 4.23 metres wide and 2.78 metres high. In this screen was a row of doors, at either end of which was the figure of a falcon. During the day a small crescent moved at constant speed in front of the doors and at every hour a door rotated to reveal ...
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Arabic Script
The Arabic script is the writing system used for Arabic and several other languages of Asia and Africa. It is the second-most widely used writing system in the world by number of countries using it or a script directly derived from it, and the third-most by number of users (after the Latin and Chinese scripts). The script was first used to write texts in Arabic, most notably the Quran, the holy book of Islam. With the religion's spread, it came to be used as the primary script for many language families, leading to the addition of new letters and other symbols. Such languages still using it are: Persian (Farsi/Dari), Malay ( Jawi), Uyghur, Kurdish, Punjabi (Shahmukhi), Sindhi, Balti, Balochi, Pashto, Lurish, Urdu, Kashmiri, Rohingya, Somali and Mandinka, Mooré among others. Until the 16th century, it was also used for some Spanish texts, and—prior to the language reform in 1928—it was the writing system of Turkish. The script is written from right to left in a cu ...
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Arabesque
The arabesque is a form of artistic decoration consisting of "surface decorations based on rhythmic linear patterns of scrolling and interlacing foliage, tendrils" or plain lines, often combined with other elements. Another definition is "Foliate ornament, used in the Islamic world, typically using leaves, derived from stylised half-palmettes, which were combined with spiralling stems". It usually consists of a single design which can be ' tiled' or seamlessly repeated as many times as desired. Within the very wide range of Eurasian decorative art that includes motifs matching this basic definition, the term "arabesque" is used consistently as a technical term by art historians to describe only elements of the decoration found in two phases: Islamic art from about the 9th century onwards, and European decorative art from the Renaissance onwards. Interlace and scroll decoration are terms used for most other types of similar patterns. Arabesques are a fundamental element of ...
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