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Multan Sun Temple
The Sun Temple of Multan was a temple dedicated to Surya, the Hindu Sun God, in the city of Multan in modern Pakistan. The location of the temple remains unknown; it is distinct from the Prahladpuri Temple. The temple commanded significant fame in the subcontinent — as a place of pilgrimage and wealth — under Hindu as well as Islamic rule before being destroyed in the late tenth century. It appears to have been reconstructed, before being purportedly obliterated by the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb at some point after 1666. Hindu Belief The earliest extant Hindu text to mention of a solar cult is Samba Purana (c. 7th–8th century CE) — the legend on the origins of the cult made its way into the Bhavishya Purana and even a twelfth century inscription in Eastern India. After being cursed into a leper, Samba urged Krishna to restore his youth who expressed his inability and deferred to the Sun-God. So, acting upon the advice of Narada, Samba left for the forests of Mitrava ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Punjab, Pakistan
Punjab (, ) is a Administrative units of Pakistan, province of Pakistan. With a population of over 127 million, it is the Demographics of Pakistan, most populous province in Pakistan and the List of first-level administrative divisions by population, second most populous subnational polity in the world. Located in the Geography of Pakistan, central-eastern region of the country, it has the #Economy, largest economy, contributing the most to Economy of Pakistan, national GDP in Pakistan. Lahore is the capital and largest city of the province. Other major cities include Faisalabad, Rawalpindi, Gujranwala and Multan. It is bordered by the Pakistani provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to the north-west, Balochistan, Pakistan, Balochistan to the south-west and Sindh to the south, as well as Islamabad Capital Territory to the north-west and Azad Kashmir to the north. It shares an India-Pakistan border, international border with the Indian states of Rajasthan and Punjab, India, Punjab to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Xuanzang
Xuanzang (; ; 6 April 6025 February 664), born Chen Hui or Chen Yi (), also known by his Sanskrit Dharma name Mokṣadeva, was a 7th-century Chinese Bhikkhu, Buddhist monk, scholar, traveller, and translator. He is known for the epoch-making contributions to Chinese Buddhism, the travelogue of his journey to the Indian subcontinent in 629–645, his efforts to bring at least 657 Indian texts to China, and his translations of some of these texts. He was only able to translate 75 distinct sections of a total of 1335 chapters, but his translations included some of the most important Mahayana scriptures. Xuanzang was born on 6 April 602 in Chenliu, near present-day Luoyang, in Henan province of China. As a boy, he took to reading religious books, and studying the ideas therein with his father. Like his elder brother, he became a student of Buddhist studies at Jingtu monastery. Xuanzang was ordained as a ''śrāmaṇera'' (novice monk) at the age of thirteen. Due to the political a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Al-Masudi
al-Masʿūdī (full name , ), –956, was a historian, geographer and traveler. He is sometimes referred to as the "Herodotus of the Arabs". A polymath and prolific author of over twenty works on theology, history (Islamic and universal), geography, natural science and philosophy, his celebrated magnum opus '' The Meadows of Gold'' () combines universal history with scientific geography, social commentary and biography. Birth, travels and literary output Apart from what al-Mas'udi writes of himself little is known. Born in Baghdad, he was descended from Abdullah Ibn Mas'ud, a companion of Islamic prophet Muhammad. It is believed that he was a member of Banu Hudhayl tribe of Arabs. Al-Masudi mentions a number of scholar associates he encountered during his journeys: Al-Masʿudi may have reached Sri Lanka and China although he is known to have met Abu Zayd al-Sirafi on the coast of the Persian Gulf and received information on China from him.[Mas‘udi. ''The Meadows of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Al-Maqdisi
Shams al-Din Abu Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Abi Bakr, commonly known by the ''Nisba (onomastics), nisba'' al-Maqdisi or al-Muqaddasī, was a medieval Arab geographer, author of ''The Best Divisions in the Knowledge of the Regions'' and ''Description of Syria (Including Palestine)''. Al-Maqdisi is one of the earliest known historical figures to self-identify as a Palestinians, Palestinian, having done so during one of his travels in Iran, Persia. Biography Sources Outside of his own work, there is little biographical information available about al-Maqdisi.Miquel 1993, p. 492. He is neither found in the voluminous biographies of Ibn Khallikan (d. 1282) nor were the aspects of his life mentioned in the works of his contemporaries.Al-Mukaddasi, ed. Le Strange 1886, piii/ref> Early life and education He was born in Jerusalem in and belonged to a middle-class family whose roots in the city's environs dated from the period approximate to the Muslim conquest of the Levant, 7t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Istakhri
Abu Ishaq Ibrahim ibn Muhammad al-Farisi al-Istakhri () (also ''Estakhri'', , i.e. from the Iranian city of Istakhr, b. – d. 346 AH/AD 957) was a 10th-century travel author and Islamic geographer who wrote valuable accounts in Arabic of the many Muslim territories he visited during the Abbasid era of the Islamic Golden Age. There is no consensus regarding his origin. Some sources describe him as Persian, while others state he was Arab. IV:222b-223b. The ''Encyclopedia Iranica'' states: "Biographical data are very meager. From his ''nesbas'' (attributive names) he appears to have been a native of Eṣṭaḵr in Fārs, but it is not known whether he was Persian". VIII(6):646-647 (I have used the updated online version). Istakhri's account of windmills is the earliest known. Istakhri met the celebrated traveller-geographer Ibn Hawqal, while travelling, and Ibn Hawqal incorporated the work of Istakhri in his book ''Kitab al-Surat al-Ard''. Works Istakhri's two surviving ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Abd Al-Malik Ibn Marwan
Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan ibn al-Hakam (; July/August 644 or June/July 647 – 9 October 705) was the fifth Umayyad caliph, ruling from April 685 until his death in October 705. A member of the first generation of born Muslims, his early life in Medina was occupied with pious pursuits. He held administrative and military posts under Caliph Mu'awiya I (), founder of the Umayyad Caliphate, and his own father, Caliph Marwan I (). By the time of Abd al-Malik's accession, Umayyad authority had collapsed across the Caliphate as a result of the Second Fitna and had been reconstituted in Bilad al-Sham, Syria and Egypt in the Middle Ages, Egypt during his father's reign. Following a Battle of Khazir, failed invasion of Iraq in 686, Abd al-Malik focused on securing Syria before making further attempts to conquer the greater part of the Caliphate from his principal rival, the Mecca-based caliph Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr. To that end, he concluded an unfavorable truce with the reinvigorated Byz ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ibn Al-Jawzi
Abu al-Faraj Jamal al-Din Abd al-Rahman ibn Abi Hasan Ali Al-Jawzi also known as Ibn al-Jawzi (16 June 1201) was a Muslim jurisconsult, preacher, orator, heresiographer, traditionist, historian, judge, hagiographer, and philologist who played an instrumental role in propagating the Hanbali school of orthodox Sunni jurisprudence in his native Baghdad during the twelfth-century. During "a life of great intellectual, religious and political activity," Ibn al-Jawzi came to be widely admired by his fellow Hanbalis for the tireless role he played in ensuring that that particular school – historically, the smallest of the four principal Sunni schools of law – enjoy the same level of "prestige" often bestowed by rulers on the Maliki, Shafi'i, and Hanafi rites. Ibn al-Jawzi received a "very thorough education" during his adolescent years, and was fortunate to train under some of that era's most renowned Baghdadi scholars, including Ibn al-Zāg̲h̲ūnī (d. 1133), Abū Bakr al-D ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Al-Biruni
Abu Rayhan Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Biruni (; ; 973after 1050), known as al-Biruni, was a Khwarazmian Iranian scholar and polymath during the Islamic Golden Age. He has been called variously "Father of Comparative Religion", "Father of modern geodesy", Founder of Indology and the first anthropologist. Al-Biruni was well versed in physics, mathematics, astronomy, and natural sciences, and also distinguished himself as a historian, chronologist, and linguist. He studied almost all the sciences of his day and was rewarded abundantly for his tireless research in many fields of knowledge. Royalty and other powerful elements in society funded al-Biruni's research and sought him out with specific projects in mind. Influential in his own right, al-Biruni was himself influenced by the scholars of other nations, such as the Greeks, from whom he took inspiration when he turned to the study of philosophy. A gifted linguist, he was conversant in Khwarezmian, Persian, Arabic, and Sanskri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maund (unit)
The maund (), mun or mann ( Bengali: ; Urdu: ) is a traditional unit of mass used in British India, and also in Afghanistan, Persia, and Arabia:. the same unit in the Mughal Empire was sometimes written as ''mann'' or ''mun'' in English, while the equivalent unit in the Ottoman Empire and Central Asia was called the ''batman''. At different times, and in different South Asian localities, the mass of the maund has varied, from as low as 25 pounds (11 kg) to as high as 160 pounds (72 kg): even greater variation is seen in Persia and Arabia... One maund in Pakistan is measured as 40kg. History In British India, the maund was first standardized in the Bengal Presidency in 1833, where it was set equal to 100 Troy pounds (82.28 lbs. av.). This standard spread throughout the British Raj.. After the independence of India and Pakistan, the definition formed the basis for metrication, one maund becoming exactly 37.3242 kilograms.. A similar metric de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Futuh Al-Buldan
''Futūh al-Buldān'' (), or ''Kitāb Futūḥ al-Buldān'' ("Book of the Conquest of the Countries/Lands"), is the best known work by the 9th century Muslim historian Ahmad Ibn Yahya al-Baladhuri of Abbasid-era Baghdad. Written in Arabic, the ''Kitāb Futūḥ al-Buldān'' is a digest of a larger lost work of geographical history of the Caliphate empire, the political histories and events leading to the inclusion of the locations within it, including accounts of the early conquests of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and the early caliphs'. Al-Baladhuri travelled widely in regions of northern Syria and Mesopotamia, collecting traditions for material to include in his book. He also translated some Persian texts into Arabic. Editions ''Futūḥ al-Buldān'' was edited by M. J. de Goeje as ''Liber expugnationis regionum'' (Leiden, 1870; Cairo, 1901). An English edition with the title "The Origins of the Islamic State" was published in two parts by Columbia University Press; vol. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Al-Baladhuri
ʾAḥmad ibn Yaḥyā ibn Jābir al-Balādhurī () was a 9th-century West Asian historian. One of the eminent Middle Eastern historians of his age, he spent most of his life in Baghdad and enjoyed great influence at the court of the caliph al-Mutawakkil. He travelled in Syria and Iraq, compiling information for his major works. His full name was Ahmad Bin Yahya Bin Jabir Al-Baladhuri (), Balazry Ahmad Bin Yahya Bin Jabir Abul Hasan or Abi al-Hassan Baladhuri. Biography Al Baladhuri's ethnicity has been described as Persian by his contemporaries including Ibn Nadim, but some scholars have surmised that he was of Arab descent solely since he spent most of his life in Baghdad. Baladhuri was a Persian speaker who translated Persian works to Arabic. Nonetheless, his sympathies seem to have been strongly with the Arabs, for Masudi refers to one of his works in which he rejects Baladhuri's condemnation of non-Arab nationalism Shu'ubiyya. He is certainly not the first Persian ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brahmin Dynasty Of Sindh
The Brahmin dynasty (), also known as the Chacha dynasty or Silaij dynasty, was a Sindhi Hindu dynasty that ruled the Sindh region, after usurping and overthrowing the Buddhist Rai dynasty of Sindh. Most of the information about its existence comes from the ''Chach Nama'', a historical account of the Chach-Brahmin dynasty. The members of the dynasty continued to administer parts of Sindh under the Umayyad Caliphate's Caliphal province of Sind after it Umayyad conquest of Sindh, fell in 712. These rulers include Hullishāh and Shishah. History The dynasty was founded by a Brahmin named Chach of Aror after he married the widow of Rai Sahasi II and usurped the Buddhist Rai dynasty. His claim was further secured by the killing of Rai Sahasi II's brother. The casus belli for the Ummayad invasion was Sindhi pirates seizing tribute sent from the king of Serendib to the Ummayad Caliph. For the campaign Caliph Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan granted a large army to the governor Al-Hajjaj ibn Yu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
