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Jawdhar
Jawdhar ( ar, جوذر, before 909March 973), surnamed al-Ustadh ( ar, الأستاذ, , the Master), was a eunuch slave who served the Fatimid caliphs al-Qa'im, al-Mansur, and al-Mu'izz as chamberlain and ''de facto'' chief minister until his death. He was an extremely powerful figure in the Fatimid court, and was ranked immediately after the caliph and his designated heir. The accession of al-Mansur was probably due to Jawdhar's machinations, and he was placed in charge of keeping the new caliph's relatives under house arrest. He enjoyed close relations with the Kalbid emirs of Sicily, which enabled him to engage in profitable commerce with the island. Jawdhar accompanied al-Mu'izz during the migration of the court from Ifriqiya to Egypt, but died on the way at Barqa. His collected documents and letters were published after his death by his secretary as the , and form one of the main historical sources for the governance of the Fatimid state in the period. Origin and early car ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Al-Mansur Bi-Nasr Allah
Abu Tahir Isma'il ( ar, أبو طاهر إسماعيل, Abū Ṭāhir ʾIsmāʿīl; January 914 – 18 March 953), better known by his regnal name al-Mansur bi-Nasr Allah (), was the third caliph of the Fatimid Caliphate in Ifriqiya, ruling from 946 until his death. He presided over a period of crisis, having to confront the large-scale Kharijite rebellion of Abu Yazid. He succeeded in suppressing the revolt and restoring the stability of the Fatimid regime. Early life and accession The future al-Mansur Billah was born Isma'il, in early January 914, in the palace city of Raqqada near Kairouan. He was the son of the then heir-apparent and future second Fatimid imam–caliph, Muhammad al-Qa'im bi-Amr Allah (), and a local slave concubine, Karima, who had once belonged to the last Aghlabid emir of Ifriqiya, Ziyadat Allah III. Isma'il was not the oldest son of al-Qa'im, but the firstborn, al-Qasim, reportedly predeceased his father. According to the official version of events, on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eunuch
A eunuch ( ) is a male who has been castrated. Throughout history, castration often served a specific social function. The earliest records for intentional castration to produce eunuchs are from the Sumerian city of Lagash in the 2nd millennium BCE. Over the millennia since, they have performed a wide variety of functions in many different cultures: courtiers or equivalent domestics, for espionage or clandestine operations, castrato singers, concubines, or sexual partners, religious specialists, soldiers, royal guards, government officials, and guardians of women or harem servants. Eunuchs would usually be servants or slaves who had been castrated to make them less threatening servants of a royal court where physical access to the ruler could wield great influence. Seemingly lowly domestic functions—such as making the ruler's bed, bathing him, cutting his hair, carrying him in his litter, or even relaying messages—could, in theory, give a eunuch "the ruler's ear" and impa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fatimid Invasion Of Egypt (914–915)
The first Fatimid invasion of Egypt occurred in 914–915, soon after the establishment of the Fatimid Caliphate in Ifriqiya in 909. The Fatimids launched an expedition east, against the Abbasid Caliphate, under the Berber General Habasa ibn Yusuf. Habasa succeeded in subduing the cities on the Libyan coast between Ifriqiya and Egypt, and captured Alexandria. The Fatimid heir-apparent, al-Qa'im bi-Amr Allah, then arrived to take over the campaign. Attempts to conquer the Egyptian capital, Fustat, were beaten back by the Abbasid troops in the province. A risky affair even at the outset, the arrival of Abbasid reinforcements from Syria and Iraq under Mu'nis al-Muzaffar doomed the invasion to failure, and al-Qa'im and the remnants of his army abandoned Alexandria and returned to Ifriqiya in May 915. The failure did not prevent the Fatimids from launching another unsuccessful attempt to capture Egypt four years later. It was not until 969 that the Fatimids conquered Egypt and made i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mawla
Mawlā ( ar, مَوْلَى, plural ''mawālī'' ()), is a polysemous Arabic word, whose meaning varied in different periods and contexts.A.J. Wensinck, Encyclopedia of Islam 2nd ed, Brill. "Mawlā", vol. 6, p. 874. Before the Islamic prophet Muhammad, the term originally applied to any form of tribal association. In the Quran and hadiths it is used in a number of senses, including 'Lord', 'guardian', 'trustee', and 'helper'. After Muhammad's death, this institution was adapted by the Umayyad dynasty to incorporate new converts to Islam into Arab-Muslim society and the word ''mawali'' gained currency as an appellation for converted non-Arab Muslims in the early Islamic caliphates. Etymology The word ''mawla'' is derived from the root ''w-l-y'' , meaning "to be close to", "to be friends with", or "to have power over". ''Mawla'' can have reciprocal meanings, depending on whether it is used in the active or passive voice: "master" or "slave/freedman", "patron" or "client ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robes Of Honour
A robe of honour ( ar, خلعة, khilʿa, plural , or ar, تشريف, tashrīf, pl. or ) was a term designating rich garments given by medieval and early modern Islamic rulers to subjects as tokens of honour, often as part of a ceremony of appointment to a public post, or as a token of confirmation or acceptance of vassalage of a subordinate ruler. They were usually produced in government factories and decorated with the inscribed bands known as '' ṭirāz''. History The endowment of garments as a mark of favor is an ancient Middle Eastern tradition, recorded in sources such as the Old Testament and Herodotus. In the Islamic world, Muhammad himself set a precedent when he removed his cloak () and gave it to Ka'b bin Zuhayr in recognition of a poem praising him. Indeed, the term "denotes the action of removing one's garment in order to give it to someone". The practice of awarding robes of honour appears in the Abbasid Caliphate, where it became such a regular feature of gove ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Great Mosque Of Mahdiya
The Great Mosque of Mahdiya ( ar, الجامع الكبير في المهدية) is a mosque that was built in the tenth century in Mahdia, Tunisia. Located on the southern side of the peninsula on which the old city was located, construction of the mosque was initated in 916, when the city was founded by the Fatimid caliph Abdallah al-Mahdi, to serve as the new city's main mosque. Most of the Fatimid-era city and its structures have since disappeared. The current mosque was largely reconstructed by archeologists in the 1960s, with the exception of its preserved entrance façade. History In 912 the first Fatimid imam and caliph, Abdallah al-Mahdi, began looking for the site of a new capital for his newly-established state in Ifriqiya. A site was chosen along the coast and construction of the new fortified palace city, al-Mahdiyya (Mahdia), began in 916. Construction of the Great Mosque, which served as the new city's congregational mosque, began that same year. The new city was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harem
Harem (Persian: حرمسرا ''haramsarā'', ar, حَرِيمٌ ''ḥarīm'', "a sacred inviolable place; harem; female members of the family") refers to domestic spaces that are reserved for the women of the house in a Muslim family. A harem may house a man's wife or wives, their pre-pubescent male children, unmarried daughters, female domestic servants, and other unmarried female relatives. In harems of the past, slave concubines were also housed in the harem. In former times some harems were guarded by eunuchs who were allowed inside. The structure of the harem and the extent of monogamy or polygamy has varied depending on the family's personalities, socio-economic status, and local customs. Similar institutions have been common in other Mediterranean and Middle Eastern civilizations, especially among royal and upper-class families, and the term is sometimes used in other contexts. In traditional Persian residential architecture the women's quarters were known as ''andar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michael Brett (historian)
Miles Barton Tripp (1923–2000) was an English writer of thirty-seven works of fiction including crime novels and thrillers, some of which he wrote under noms de plume Michael Brett and John Michael Brett. He served in RAF Bomber Command during World War II, flying thirty-seven sorties as a bomber-aimer, and completed 40 missions over enemy territory. He recorded his wartime experiences in his one non-fiction work, the memoir '' The Eighth Passenger''. After the war, Tripp studied law and worked as a solicitor, and started to write fiction during his spare time.Miles Tripp fantasticfiction.co.uk He lived in , England. Some of his nove ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heinz Halm
Heinz Halm (born 21 February 1942 in Andernach, Rhine Province) is a German scholar of Islamic Studies, with a particular expertise on early Shia history, the Ismailites and other Shia sects. Life Born and raised in Andernach, Halm studied Islamic and Semitic studies, and medieval and modern history at the University of Bonn, where he was a scholar of Annemarie Schimmel. Following his Ph.D. and a traineeship in journalism at Hessischer Rundfunk, he joined the scholarly project of the (''Tuebingen Atlas of the Near & Middle East''), a bilingual (German/English) collection of geographical and historical maps. In 1980, he was appointed Professor for Islamic Studies at the University of Tübingen. Work Halm's book ''The Shiites'' was reviewed in the ''International Journal of Middle East Studies The ''International Journal of Middle East Studies'' is a scholarly journal published by the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA), a learned society. See also * Middl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Abu Yazid
Abu Yazid Makhlad ibn Kaydad (; – 19 August 947), known as the Man on the Donkey (), was an Ibadi Berber of the Banu Ifran tribe who led a rebellion against the Fatimid Caliphate in Ifriqiya (modern Tunisia and eastern Algeria) starting in 944. Abu Yazid conquered Kairouan for a time, but was eventually driven back and defeated by the Fatimid caliph al-Mansur bi-Nasr Allah. Early life Abu Yazid's father Kayrad was a Zenata Berber trans-Saharan trader from Taqyus or Tozeur in the district of Chott el Djerid, then still known by its ancient name, Qastiliya. His mother Sabika was a Black African slave, bought by Kayrad at Tadmakat. Abu Yazid was born , south of the Sahara Desert, either in Gao or in Tadmakka (modern-day Essouk). Coupled with his mother's descent, this brought him the sobriquet "the Black Ethiop" (''al-Ḥabashī al-Aswad''). Abu Yazid studied the Ibadi doctrine (''madhhab'') and worked in Tahert as a schoolmaster, before moving to Takyus around 909, during ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Berbers
, image = File:Berber_flag.svg , caption = The Berber ethnic flag , population = 36 million , region1 = Morocco , pop1 = 14 million to 18 million , region2 = Algeria , pop2 = 9 million to ~13 million , region3 = Mauritania , pop3 = 2.9 million , region4 = Niger , pop4 = 2.6 million, Niger: 11% of 23.6 million , region5 = France , pop5 = 2 million , region6 = Mali , pop6 = 850,000 , region7 = Libya , pop7 = 600,000 , region8 = Belgium , pop8 = 500,000 (including descendants) , region9 = Netherlands , pop9 = 467,455 (including descendants) , region10 = Burkina Faso , pop10 = 406,271, Burkina Faso: 1.9% of 21.4 million , region11 = Egypt , pop11 = 23,000 or 1,826,580 , region12 = Tunisia , pop12 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ibadi
The Ibadi movement or Ibadism ( ar, الإباضية, al-Ibāḍiyyah) is a school of Islam. The followers of Ibadism are known as the Ibadis. Ibadism emerged around 60 years after the Islamic prophet Muhammad's death in 632 AD as a moderate school of the Khawarij movement, although contemporary Ibāḍīs strongly object to being classified as Kharijites. Ibadism is currently the largest Muslim denomination in Oman, but is also practised to a lesser extent in Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya. Throughout Islamic history, particularly under the Umayyads and the Almoravids, and continuing to the modern era, Ibadis have faced religious persecution in the Muslim world. History Background The Ibadis emerged as a moderate school of the Kharijites, an Islamic sect that originated from the Muhakkima (Arabic: محكمة) and al-Haruriyya (Arabic: الحرورية). The Muhakkima and al-Haruriyya were supporters of Ali in the first Muslim civil war who then abandoned the Alid cause af ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
