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Kafir-kala (Uzbekistan)
Kafir-kala ("Fortress of the infidels") is an ancient fortress 12 kilometers south of the city center of Samarkand in Uzbekistan, protecting the southern border of the Samarkand oasis. It consists in a central citadel built in mud-bricks and measuring 75 × 75 meters at its base has six towers and is surrounded by a moat, still visible today. Living quarters were located outside the citadel. Ruins The citadel was first occupied by the Kidarites in the 4th-5th century CE, whose coinage and bullae have been found. A large amount of seals were discovered in Kafir Kala, including seals associated to the Kidarites, such as the one mentioning “the king of the Oghlar Huns, the great Kushanshah, the ǝfšyan of Samarkand.” Many examples of coinage were excavated in Kafir-kala, which also show the transition from Sogdian to Islamic rule in the area of Samarkand with good precision. File:Kafir Kala near Samarkand.jpg, Ruins of Kafir Kala File:Kafir Kala near Samarkand (2).jpg, Ru ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kafir
Kafir ( ar, كافر '; plural ', ' or '; feminine '; feminine plural ' or ') is an Arabic and Islamic term which, in the Islamic tradition, refers to a person who disbelieves in God as per Islam, or denies his authority, or rejects the tenets of Islam. The term is often translated as "infidel", "pagan", "rejector", " denier", "disbeliever", "unbeliever", "nonbeliever", and "non-Muslim". The term is used in different ways in the Quran, with the most fundamental sense being "ungrateful" (toward God). ''Kufr'' means "unbelief" or "non-belief", "to be thankless", "to be faithless", or "ingratitude". The opposite term of ''kufr'' is '' īmān'' (faith), and the opposite of ''kāfir'' is '' muʾmin'' (believer). A person who denies the existence of a creator might be called a '' dahri''. ''Kafir'' is sometimes used interchangeably with ''mushrik'' (, those who practice polytheism), another type of religious wrongdoer mentioned frequently in the Quran and other Islamic wo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hephthalites
The Hephthalites ( xbc, ηβοδαλο, translit= Ebodalo), sometimes called the White Huns (also known as the White Hunas, in Iranian as the ''Spet Xyon'' and in Sanskrit as the ''Sveta-huna''), were a people who lived in Central Asia during the 5th to 8th centuries CE. They formed an empire, the Imperial Hephthalites, and were militarily important from 450 CE, when they defeated the Kidarites, to 560 CE, when combined forces from the First Turkic Khaganate and the Sasanian Empire defeated them. After 560 CE, they established "principalities" in the area of Tokharistan, under the suzerainty of the Western Turks (in the areas north of the Oxus) and of the Sasanian Empire (in the areas south of the Oxus), before the Tokhara Yabghus took over in 625. The Imperial Hephthalites, based in Bactria, expanded eastwards to the Tarim Basin, westwards to Sogdia and southwards through Afghanistan, but they never went beyond the Hindu-Kush, which was occupied by the Alchon Huns, previously m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cities In Central Asia
A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be defined as a permanent and Urban density, densely settled place with administratively defined boundaries whose members work primarily on non-agricultural tasks. Cities generally have extensive systems for housing, transportation, sanitation, Public utilities, utilities, land use, Manufacturing, production of goods, and communication. Their density facilitates interaction between people, government organisations and businesses, sometimes benefiting different parties in the process, such as improving efficiency of goods and service distribution. Historically, city-dwellers have been a small proportion of humanity overall, but following two centuries of unprecedented and rapid urbanization, more than half of the world population now lives in cit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Populated Places Along The Silk Road
Population typically refers to the number of people in a single area, whether it be a city or town, region, country, continent, or the world. Governments typically quantify the size of the resident population within their jurisdiction using a census, a process of collecting, analysing, compiling, and publishing data regarding a population. Perspectives of various disciplines Social sciences In sociology and population geography, population refers to a group of human beings with some predefined criterion in common, such as location, race, ethnicity, nationality, or religion. Demography is a social science which entails the statistical study of populations. Ecology In ecology, a population is a group of organisms of the same species who inhabit the same particular geographical area and are capable of interbreeding. The area of a sexual population is the area where inter-breeding is possible between any pair within the area and more probable than cross-breeding with ind ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Populated Places In Samarqand Region
Population typically refers to the number of people in a single area, whether it be a city or town, region, country, continent, or the world. Governments typically quantify the size of the resident population within their jurisdiction using a census, a process of collecting, analysing, compiling, and publishing data regarding a population. Perspectives of various disciplines Social sciences In sociology and population geography, population refers to a group of human beings with some predefined criterion in common, such as location, race, ethnicity, nationality, or religion. Demography is a social science which entails the statistical study of populations. Ecology In ecology, a population is a group of organisms of the same species who inhabit the same particular geographical area and are capable of interbreeding. The area of a sexual population is the area where inter-breeding is possible between any pair within the area and more probable than cross-breeding with ind ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Panjikent Donors, Temple II, Circa 500 CE
, image_skyline = Pajakent Bazaar1.jpg , imagesize = , image_caption = Panjakent Bazaar , image_flag = , image_seal = , image_map = , map_caption = , pushpin_map = Tajikistan#West Asia , pushpin_relief = yes , pushpin_label_position = , pushpin_mapsize = , pushpin_map_caption = Location of Panjakent , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = , subdivision_type1 = Region , subdivision_name1 = Sughd Region , subdivision_type2 = , subdivision_name2 = , established_title = , established_date = , government_type = , leader_title = , leader_name = , area_magnitude = , area_total_sq_mi = , area_total_km2 = , area_land_sq_mi = , area_land_km2 = , area_urban_sq_mi = , area_urban_km2 = , area_metro_km2 = , area_metro_sq_mi = , population_as_of=2020 , population_footnotes = , population_total = 303,000 , population_urban = 52,500 , population_metro = , population_density_sq_mi = , population_density_km2 = , timezone = UTC+5 , utc_offset = , timezone_DST = , utc_of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zoroastrian
Zoroastrianism is an Iranian religion and one of the world's oldest organized faiths, based on the teachings of the Iranian-speaking prophet Zoroaster. It has a dualistic cosmology of good and evil within the framework of a monotheistic ontology and an eschatology which predicts the ultimate conquest of evil by good. Zoroastrianism exalts an uncreated and benevolent deity of wisdom known as '' Ahura Mazda'' () as its supreme being. Historically, the unique features of Zoroastrianism, such as its monotheism, messianism, belief in free will and judgement after death, conception of heaven, hell, angels, and demons, among other concepts, may have influenced other religious and philosophical systems, including the Abrahamic religions and Gnosticism, Northern Buddhism, and Greek philosophy. With possible roots dating back to the 2nd millennium BCE, Zoroastrianism enters recorded history around the middle of the 6th century BCE. It served as the state religion of the ancient I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ossuary With Cross Symbol
An ossuary is a chest, box, building, well, or site made to serve as the final resting place of human skeletal remains. They are frequently used where burial space is scarce. A body is first buried in a temporary grave, then after some years the skeletal remains are removed and placed in an ossuary ("os" is "bone" in Latin). The greatly reduced space taken up by an ossuary means that it is possible to store the remains of many more people in a single tomb than in coffins. Persian ossuaries In Persia, the Zoroastrians used a deep well for this function from the earliest times (c. 3,000 years ago) and called it '' astudan'' (literally, "the place for the bones"). There are many rituals and regulations in the Zoroastrian faith concerning the ''astudans''. Jewish ossuaries During the Second Temple period, Jewish burial customs were varied, differing based on class and belief. For the wealthy, one option available included primary burials in burial caves, followed by secondary bu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Muslim Conquest Of Transoxiana
The Muslim conquest of Transoxiana or Arab conquest of Transoxiana were the 7th and 8th century conquests, by Umayyad and Abbasid Arabs, of Transoxiana, the land between the Oxus (Amu Darya) and Jaxartes (Syr Darya) rivers, a part of Central Asia that today includes all or parts of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan. Background The Arabs had reached Central Asia in the decade after their decisive victory in the Battle of Nihavend in 642, when they completed their conquest of the former Sasanian Empire by seizing Sistan and Khurasan. Marv, the capital of Khurasan, fell in 651 to Abdallah ibn Amir, and with it the borders of the nascent Caliphate reached the river Oxus (modern Amu Darya). The lands beyond the Oxus—Transoxiana or Transoxania, known simply as "the land beyond the river" (''mā wara al-nahr'') to the Arabs—were different to what the Arabs had encountered before: not only did they encompass a varied topography, ranging from the remote mounta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Penjikent Murals
The murals of Penjikent are among the most famous murals of the pre-Islamic period in Panjakent, ancient Sogdiana, in Tajikistan. Numerous murals were recovered from the site, and many of them are now on display in the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, and in the National Museum of Antiquities of Tajikistan in Dushanbe. The murals reveal the cosmopolitan nature of the Penjikent society that was mainly composed of Sogdian and Turkic elites and likely other foreign merchant groups of heterogeneous origin. Significant similarities with Old Turkic clothing, weapon items, hairstyles and ritual cups are noted by comparative research.Ermolenko L.N., Soloviev A.I., Kurmankulov Z.K. An Old Turkic Statue at Borili, Ulytau Hills, Central Kazakhstan: Cultural Realia. Archaeology, Ethnology & Anthropology of Eurasia. 2016;44(4):102-113. https://doi.org/10.17746/1563-0110.2016.44.4.102-113 The murals of Penjikent are the earliest known Sogdian murals, starting from the late 5th to early ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Samarkand
fa, سمرقند , native_name_lang = , settlement_type = City , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from the top:Registan square, Shah-i-Zinda necropolis, Bibi-Khanym Mosque, view inside Shah-i-Zinda, Sher-Dor Madrasah in Registan, Timur's Mausoleum Gur-e-Amir. , image_alt = , image_flag = , flag_alt = , image_seal = Emblem of Samarkand.svg , seal_alt = , image_shield = , shield_alt = , etymology = , nickname = , motto = , image_map = , map_alt = , map_caption = , pushpin_map = Uzbekistan#West Asia#Asia , pushpin_map_alt = , pushpin_mapsize = 300 , pushpin_map_caption = Location in Uzbekistan , pushpin_label_position = , pushpin_relief = 1 , coordinates = , coor_pinpoint = , co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nana (Bactrian Goddess)
Nana (Kushan Greek: Νανα, Ναναια, Ναναϸαο, Sogdian ''nny'') was a Bactrian female divinity, a conflation of Sumero- Babylonian Inanna with a local divinity, in her Kushan form with the indigenous (Zoroastrian) Harahvati Aredvi Sura Anahita. Such syncretism was common among the Kushan deities. Nana is first attested by name on a coin of Sapadbizes, a 1st-century BCE king of Bactria who preceded the Kushans. In this singular case, Nana is depicted as a lion. Nana then reappears two centuries later on the coins and seals of the Kushan kings, in particular of the mid-2nd century CE Kanishka I. The Rabatak inscription of Kanishka I invokes her as well. Her characteristics are martial in these depictions, and she was typically depicted as a seated martial goddess, escorted by a lion, which is almost similar to the Hindu goddess of war Durga, who rides on a lion and protects her devotees from evils. She was also associated with fertility, wisdom and the waters (in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
_p012_BAKU%2C_FIRE_TEMPLE_(cropped).jpg "Click for more on -> Zoroastrian")
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