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Lion's Blood
''Lion's Blood'' is a 2002 alternate history novel by American writer Steven Barnes. The book won the 2003 Endeavour Award. It is followed by the sequel ''Zulu Heart''. The novel presents an alternate world where an Islamic Africa is the center of technological progress and learning while Europe remains largely tribal and backward. Throughout the novel, both the Gregorian calendar and the Islamic Hijri calendar are used. The title draws its name from Abu Ali's sacred knife, which is called Lion's Blood (or "Nasab Asad" in Arabic), which was carried into battle by members of Abu Ali's family for ten generations. It is made of "razor-sharp steel and bone…Its hilt was crafted of black rhino horn, bolted to the tang with six heavy steel rivets. Legend held that the steel blade was smelted from a fallen meteorite by Benin smiths, its white-hot length quenched in the living blood of a lion". Plot The story begins with Aidan O'Dere, a White European child growing up in a primit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Steven Barnes
Steven Barnes (born March 1, 1952) is an American science fiction, fantasy, and mystery writer. He has written novels, short fiction, screen plays for television, scripts for comic books, animation, newspaper copy, and magazine articles. Career Barnes wrote several episodes of ''The Outer Limits'' and ''Baywatch''. His " A Stitch In Time" episode of The Outer Limits won an Emmy Award. He also wrote the episode "Brief Candle" for ''Stargate SG-1'' and the '' Andromeda'' episode "The Sum of Its Parts". Barnes's first published piece of fiction, the 1979 novelette "The Locusts", was written with Larry Niven, and was a Hugo Award nominee.Award nominees [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Slaves
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perform some form of work while also having their location or residence dictated by the enslaver. Many historical cases of enslavement occurred as a result of breaking the law, becoming indebted, or suffering a military defeat; other forms of slavery were instituted along demographic lines such as race. Slaves may be kept in bondage for life or for a fixed period of time, after which they would be granted freedom. Although slavery is usually involuntary and involves coercion, there are also cases where people voluntarily enter into slavery to pay a debt or earn money due to poverty. In the course of human history, slavery was a typical feature of civilization, and was legal in most societies, but it is now outlawed in most countries of the wo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zulu People
Zulu people (; zu, amaZulu) are a Nguni ethnic group native to Southern Africa. The Zulu people are the largest ethnic group and nation in South Africa, with an estimated 10–12 million people, living mainly in the province of KwaZulu-Natal. They originated from Nguni communities who took part in the Bantu migrations over millennia. As the clans integrated together, the rulership of Shaka brought success to the Zulu nation due to his improved military tactics and organization. Zulus take pride in their ceremonies such as the Umhlanga, or Reed Dance, and their various forms of beadwork. The art and skill of beadwork takes part in the identification of Zulu people and acts as a form of communication and dedication to the tribe and specific traditions. The men and women both serve different purposes in society in order to function as a whole. Today the Zulu people predominantly believe in Christianity, but have created a syncretic religion that is combined with the Zulu's pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sufism
Sufism ( ar, ''aṣ-ṣūfiyya''), also known as Tasawwuf ( ''at-taṣawwuf''), is a mystic body of religious practice, found mainly within Sunni Islam but also within Shia Islam, which is characterized by a focus on Islamic spirituality, ritualism, asceticism and esotericism. It has been variously defined as "Islamic mysticism",Martin Lings, ''What is Sufism?'' (Lahore: Suhail Academy, 2005; first imp. 1983, second imp. 1999), p.15 "the mystical expression of Islamic faith", "the inward dimension of Islam", "the phenomenon of mysticism within Islam", the "main manifestation and the most important and central crystallization" of mystical practice in Islam, and "the interiorization and intensification of Islamic faith and practice". Practitioners of Sufism are referred to as "Sufis" (from , ), and historically typically belonged to "orders" known as (pl. ) – congregations formed around a grand who would be the last in a chain of successive teachers linking back to Muham ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Greek People
The Greeks or Hellenes (; el, Έλληνες, ''Éllines'' ) are an ethnic group and nation indigenous to the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea regions, namely Greece, Cyprus, Albania, Italy, Turkey, Egypt, and, to a lesser extent, other countries surrounding the Mediterranean Sea. They also form a significant diaspora (), with Greek communities established around the world.. Greek colonies and communities have been historically established on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea and Black Sea, but the Greek people themselves have always been centered on the Aegean and Ionian seas, where the Greek language has been spoken since the Bronze Age.. Until the early 20th century, Greeks were distributed between the Greek peninsula, the western coast of Asia Minor, the Black Sea coast, Cappadocia in central Anatolia, Egypt, the Balkans, Cyprus, and Constantinople. Many of these regions coincided to a large extent with the borders of the Byzantine Empire of the late 11th century ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Andalusian People
The Andalusians ( es, andaluces) are a European ethnic group, native to Andalusia, an autonomous community in southern Spain. Andalusia's statute of autonomy defines Andalusians as the Spanish citizens who reside in any of the municipalities of Andalusia, as well as those Spaniards who reside abroad and had their last Spanish residence in Andalusia, and their descendants. Since reform in 2007, the Andalusian statute of autonomy identifies the territory as a ''historic nationality'' in the preamble. The Spanish Language Academy recognizes Andalusian Spanish as a set of diverse dialects. History and culture In Antiquity, Andalusian people used to trade with Phoenicians and Sephardi Jews some thousand years before the Common Era, and they were called as Tarshish or Tartessos in the Old Testament and Greek texts. The genesis of modern Andalusian culture can be traced to the incorporation of the Moors territory to the Crown of Castile during the Middle Ages at the end of the R ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
White Slavery
White slavery (also white slave trade or white slave trafficking) refers to the slavery of Europeans, whether by non-Europeans (such as West Asians and North Africa, North Africans), or by other Europeans (for example naval galley slaves or the Vikings' thralls). Slaves of European origin were present in ancient Rome and the Ottoman Empire. Many different types of white people were enslaved. On the European continent under feudalism, there were various forms of status applying to people (such as serfdom, serf, bordar, villein, Vagrancy (people)#United Kingdom, vagabond and Serfdom#Slaves, slave) who were indentured servitude, indentured or forced to labor without pay. Under History of slavery under Muslim rule, Muslim rule, the Arab slave trades that included Caucasian race, Caucasian captives were often fueled by raids into European territories or were taken as children in the form of a Devshirme, blood tax from the families of citizens of Ottoman territories in Europe, conqu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plantation
A plantation is an agricultural estate, generally centered on a plantation house, meant for farming that specializes in cash crops, usually mainly planted with a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. The crops that are grown include cotton, coffee, tea, cocoa, sugar cane, opium, sisal, oil seeds, oil palms, fruits, rubber trees and forest trees. Protectionist policies and natural comparative advantage have sometimes contributed to determining where plantations are located. In modern use the term is usually taken to refer only to large-scale estates, but in earlier periods, before about 1800, it was the usual term for a farm of any size in the southern parts of British North America, with, as Noah Webster noted, "farm" becoming the usual term from about Maryland northwards. It was used in most British colonies, but very rarely in the United Kingdom itself in this sense. There, as also in America, it was used mainly for tree plantations, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wakil
In Islamic law, a wakīl (), in older literature vakeel, is a deputy, delegate or agent who acts on behalf of a principal. It can refer to an attorney, a diplomat or the custodian of a mosque or religious order. ''Wakīl'' is also one of the names of God in Islam, meaning "dependable", and is used as a personal name, a short form of Abdul Wakil, meaning "servant of the dependable". See also * Vekil Vakel was the Arabic term used in the meaning of "representative" or "proxy". This term used for the deputies and ''de facto'' prime ministers of the Mughal Emperor in Mughal administration. He was considered the most powerful person after Emperor ... - Ottoman term References Arabic words and phrases in Sharia Islamic honorifics Sharia legal terminology Islamic legal occupations Agency law Names of God in Islam {{Islam-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maidservant
A handmaiden, handmaid or maidservant is a personal maid or female servant. Depending on culture or historical period, a handmaiden may be of slave status or may be simply an employee. However, the term ''handmaiden'' generally implies lowly status. Depictions in Abrahamic texts In the King James translation of the Hebrew Bible, the term handmaid is applied to a female servant who serves her mistress, as in the case of Hagar being described as Sarai's handmaid, Zilpah being Leah's handmaid and Bilhah as Rachel's handmaid. In each of these cases, the mistress "gave" their handmaid to their husbands "to wife", to bear his "seed" (children). The use in the Torah of the prefix "to", as in "gave ''to'' wife", may indicate that the wife is a concubine or inferior wife. The text repeats that these people remain handmaids of their mistress though they are also the concubine of the mistress's husband. They are referred to interchangeably by the Hebrew terms () and (). Other modern ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Slave Auction
A slave market is a place where slaves are bought and sold. These markets became a key phenomenon in the history of slavery. Slave markets in the Ottoman Empire In the Ottoman Empire during the mid-14th century, slaves were traded in special marketplaces called "Esir" or "Yesir" that were located in most towns and cities. It is said that Sultan Mehmed II "the Conqueror" established the first Ottoman slave market in Constantinople in the 1460s, probably where the former Byzantine slave market had stood. According to Nicolas de Nicolay, there were slaves of all ages and both sexes, they were displayed naked to be thoroughly checked by possible buyers. In the early 18th century, the Crimean Khanate maintained a massive slave trade with the Ottoman Empire and the Middle East, exporting about 2 million slaves from Russia and Poland-Lithuania over the period 1500–1700. Caffa (modern Feodosia) became one of the best-known and significant trading ports and slave markets. Slave mark ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Middle Passage
The Middle Passage was the stage of the Atlantic slave trade in which millions of enslaved Africans were transported to the Americas as part of the triangular slave trade. Ships departed Europe for African markets with manufactured goods (first side of the triangle), which were then traded for slaves with rulers of African states and other African slave traders. Slave ships (also known as Guineamen) transported the slaves across the Atlantic (second side of the triangle). The proceeds from selling slaves was then used to buy products such as hides, tobacco, sugar, rum, and raw materials, which would be transported back to northern Europe (third side of the triangle) to complete the triangle. The First Passage was the forced march of African slaves from their inland homes, where they had often been captured by other tribes or by other members of their own tribe, to African ports where they were imprisoned until they were sold and loaded onto a ship. The Final Passage was the journ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
