Jacob
Jacob. See Isra'il.
Jacob. See Isra'il.
Jadid, Salah
Jadid, Salah (Salah Jadid) (1926 — August 19, 1993). Syrian politician and soldier. He was the most influential politician in Syria from early 1966 to late 1970, when allies of Hafez al-Assad had him arrested.
Jadid was born in Duwayr Ba’abda in 1926. In 1958, he was transferred to Egypt, following the establishment of the United Arab Republic. In 1959, together with Hafez al-Assad and two other officers from the Ba’th Party, Jadid formed the secret Military Committee.
In 1961, Jadid participated in actions taken by the Military Committee which forced Syria to leave the United Arab Republic.
In March of 1963, Jadid was central in the Ba’th takeover of Syrian politics. In October of the same year, Jadid was promoted to chief of staff of the Syrian military forces.
In 1964, Jadid lost his position due to a power struggle in the Ba’th Party. In February of 1966, Jadid used his military allies to take back power, and became the most powerful person in Syrian politics. He had Nuriddin Attasi appointed prime minister.
In June of 1967, the Syrian defeat at the hands of Israel in the Six Day War dealt a heavy blow to the public opinion of Jadid’s regime. Thus, in February of 1969, Hafez al-Assad became the real ruler of Syria, although Jadid continued to hold a strong and central position in Syrian politics.
In September of 1970, with the start of combat between the PLO and the Jordanian army, Jadid dispatched Palestinian troops, based in Syria, into Jordan in order to help the PLO. This action was not supported by the Syrian air forces, which were under Assad’s control. The end result was failure.
In November 1970, Jadid attempted to fire Assad and his supporter Mustafa Tlass, which in turn caused Assad to launch an intra-party coup against Jadid, dubbed the Corrective Movement. On November 12, 1970, Jadid was arrested by Assad’s men, and removed from power. Jadid was subsequently imprisoned.
In 1983, Jadid was released from prison, but was placed under civil surveillance.
The politics of Jadid were strong socialist attempts to reform Syrian society. During his period of political influence, Syria removed itself from the countries in the West, and closer to the communist bloc.
Salah Jadid see Jadid, Salah
Jadid, Salah (Salah Jadid) (1926 — August 19, 1993). Syrian politician and soldier. He was the most influential politician in Syria from early 1966 to late 1970, when allies of Hafez al-Assad had him arrested.
Jadid was born in Duwayr Ba’abda in 1926. In 1958, he was transferred to Egypt, following the establishment of the United Arab Republic. In 1959, together with Hafez al-Assad and two other officers from the Ba’th Party, Jadid formed the secret Military Committee.
In 1961, Jadid participated in actions taken by the Military Committee which forced Syria to leave the United Arab Republic.
In March of 1963, Jadid was central in the Ba’th takeover of Syrian politics. In October of the same year, Jadid was promoted to chief of staff of the Syrian military forces.
In 1964, Jadid lost his position due to a power struggle in the Ba’th Party. In February of 1966, Jadid used his military allies to take back power, and became the most powerful person in Syrian politics. He had Nuriddin Attasi appointed prime minister.
In June of 1967, the Syrian defeat at the hands of Israel in the Six Day War dealt a heavy blow to the public opinion of Jadid’s regime. Thus, in February of 1969, Hafez al-Assad became the real ruler of Syria, although Jadid continued to hold a strong and central position in Syrian politics.
In September of 1970, with the start of combat between the PLO and the Jordanian army, Jadid dispatched Palestinian troops, based in Syria, into Jordan in order to help the PLO. This action was not supported by the Syrian air forces, which were under Assad’s control. The end result was failure.
In November 1970, Jadid attempted to fire Assad and his supporter Mustafa Tlass, which in turn caused Assad to launch an intra-party coup against Jadid, dubbed the Corrective Movement. On November 12, 1970, Jadid was arrested by Assad’s men, and removed from power. Jadid was subsequently imprisoned.
In 1983, Jadid was released from prison, but was placed under civil surveillance.
The politics of Jadid were strong socialist attempts to reform Syrian society. During his period of political influence, Syria removed itself from the countries in the West, and closer to the communist bloc.
Salah Jadid see Jadid, Salah
Ja‘far al-Sadiq
Ja‘far al-Sadiq (Jaʿfar ibn Muhammad al-Sādiq) (702-765). Last Imam recognized by both “Sevener” and “Twelver” Shi‘as. Ja‘far al-Sadiq was the sixth imam in both Twelver and Isma‘ili traditions of Shi‘a Islam. He was one of the most widely respected imams, respected by both Shi‘i and Sunni alike for his learning and piety. Ja‘far al-Sadiq (the truthful) was an influential teacher, theologian and jurist. Among his students were Abu Hanifa and Malik ibn Anas who were instrumental in the development of Sunni Islam. While an active Shi‘a theologian, Ja‘far appears to have had a liberal view of learning and maintained an active discourse with many scholars of differing views. While he stayed out of politics, he was imprisoned and persecuted on several occasions by the Abbasid Caliphs.
His eldest son, Isma‘il, who had been selected to be his successor, died before Jafar, resulting in a confusion in the succession. The Isma‘ilis maintain that Isma‘il was the seventh imam even though he had no opportunity to exercise that role.
Musa al-Kazim succeeded Jafar al-Sadiq in the Twelver tradition.
Sadiq, Ja'far al- see Ja‘far al-Sadiq
The Truthful see Ja‘far al-Sadiq
Jaʿfar ibn Muhammad al-Sādiq see Ja‘far al-Sadiq
Ja‘far al-Sadiq (Jaʿfar ibn Muhammad al-Sādiq) (702-765). Last Imam recognized by both “Sevener” and “Twelver” Shi‘as. Ja‘far al-Sadiq was the sixth imam in both Twelver and Isma‘ili traditions of Shi‘a Islam. He was one of the most widely respected imams, respected by both Shi‘i and Sunni alike for his learning and piety. Ja‘far al-Sadiq (the truthful) was an influential teacher, theologian and jurist. Among his students were Abu Hanifa and Malik ibn Anas who were instrumental in the development of Sunni Islam. While an active Shi‘a theologian, Ja‘far appears to have had a liberal view of learning and maintained an active discourse with many scholars of differing views. While he stayed out of politics, he was imprisoned and persecuted on several occasions by the Abbasid Caliphs.
His eldest son, Isma‘il, who had been selected to be his successor, died before Jafar, resulting in a confusion in the succession. The Isma‘ilis maintain that Isma‘il was the seventh imam even though he had no opportunity to exercise that role.
Musa al-Kazim succeeded Jafar al-Sadiq in the Twelver tradition.
Sadiq, Ja'far al- see Ja‘far al-Sadiq
The Truthful see Ja‘far al-Sadiq
Jaʿfar ibn Muhammad al-Sādiq see Ja‘far al-Sadiq
Ja‘far Celebi
Ja‘far Celebi (1459-1515). Ottoman statesman and man of letters of Amasya. He was also a famous calligrapher and patron of poets.
Ja‘far Celebi (1459-1515). Ottoman statesman and man of letters of Amasya. He was also a famous calligrapher and patron of poets.
Ja‘fari
Ja‘fari. Arabic term which refers to an adept of twelver Shi‘ism. The Ja‘fari recognize the descendants of Musa, one of Ja‘far al-Sadiq’s sons and the sixth imam, as their imam. Ja’fari is the Ithna Ashari (Twelver) Shi‘ite school of Islamic law. It was named after Ja’far al-Sadiq (d. 765), the sixth of the Twelver imams, who is believed to be its founder. The period of Ja’far’s leadership coincided with a period of intellectual activity in Islam, especially the systematization of the shari’a through collection of the hadith literature. The eminent figures Abu Hanifa (d. 768) and Malik (d. 795) were occupied by the attempt to fulfill this need in Sunni Islam. Ja‘far al-Sadiq’s Fatimid ancestry greatly enhanced his prominence in Medina, and he in effect became the fountainhead not only of the Ja‘fari school of law, but of all Shi‘ite intellectual as well as traditional sciences. His prestigious and generally acknowledged leadership gave ultimate recognition to the line of the Husainid imams among the Shi‘ites, whereas his enlistment as an authentic transmitter of the prophetic traditions in the Sunni “chains of transmission” (isnads) gave recognition to the Ja‘fari school of law as a valid interpretation of Islamic revelation. The emphasis on aql (the intellect) as a major source of Islamic law has become a distinguishing mark of Ja‘fari legal theory. Today, the Ja‘fari school is regarded by the Sunni scholars of al-Azhar as the “fifth school” in addition to the four Sunni ones.
Ja‘fari. Arabic term which refers to an adept of twelver Shi‘ism. The Ja‘fari recognize the descendants of Musa, one of Ja‘far al-Sadiq’s sons and the sixth imam, as their imam. Ja’fari is the Ithna Ashari (Twelver) Shi‘ite school of Islamic law. It was named after Ja’far al-Sadiq (d. 765), the sixth of the Twelver imams, who is believed to be its founder. The period of Ja’far’s leadership coincided with a period of intellectual activity in Islam, especially the systematization of the shari’a through collection of the hadith literature. The eminent figures Abu Hanifa (d. 768) and Malik (d. 795) were occupied by the attempt to fulfill this need in Sunni Islam. Ja‘far al-Sadiq’s Fatimid ancestry greatly enhanced his prominence in Medina, and he in effect became the fountainhead not only of the Ja‘fari school of law, but of all Shi‘ite intellectual as well as traditional sciences. His prestigious and generally acknowledged leadership gave ultimate recognition to the line of the Husainid imams among the Shi‘ites, whereas his enlistment as an authentic transmitter of the prophetic traditions in the Sunni “chains of transmission” (isnads) gave recognition to the Ja‘fari school of law as a valid interpretation of Islamic revelation. The emphasis on aql (the intellect) as a major source of Islamic law has become a distinguishing mark of Ja‘fari legal theory. Today, the Ja‘fari school is regarded by the Sunni scholars of al-Azhar as the “fifth school” in addition to the four Sunni ones.
Ja‘far ibn Abi Talib
Ja‘far ibn Abi Talib (Jafar at-Tayyar) (d. 629). Cousin of the Prophet and the elder brother of ‘Ali. He took part in the so-called first Hijra to Abyssinia, and fell in the battle of Mu’ta.
Ja‘far ibn Abī Tālib was the son of Abu Talib ibn 'Abdul Muttalib (the uncle of the Islamic prophet Muhammad), and the elder brother of the fourth Sunni Khalīfah, Ali ibn Abi Talib. Jafar was raised by his uncle, Abbas ibn 'Abdul Muttalib, for his father was a poor man and had to support a large family.
According to the Qur'an, there was a great resemblance between Jafar and Muhammad, both in his appearance and ethics. Muhammad called him, "The father of the poor", because he used to help and support the poor with all the money he had..
Jafar left his uncle Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib’s house when he became a young man and got married to Asma bint Umays. They were among the very first persons to embrace Islam, and as a result suffered greatly at the hands of the Quraish. The Quraish restricted their movements and freedom until they could not bear it anymore. That is why Jafar went to Muhammed and obtained his permission to immigrate to Ethiopia along with a small group of Sahabas.
They settled down in this new land under the protection of Negus Ashama ibn Abjar, and for the first time since they had become Muslims they knew what freedom was, and could worship Allah without any hindrances. However, the Quraish would not let them enjoy freedom and peace for long. Soon they sent Abdullah ibn Abu Rabiah and another man from the Quraish in order to negotiate with Negus and get all the Muslims back to Mecca.
They took a lot of presents to the Negus, which pleased him a lot, and then told him that there is a group of wicked men moving about freely in his country and asked him to capture them before they caused any harm to his kingship as they did in Quraish. But the Negus refused to do that until he called them and questioned them regarding the Quraish’s allegations. So he asked the group of Muslims, among which was Jafar ibn Abu Talib, to come and meet him and the Muslims chose Jafar to be their spokesman.
The Negus asked them “what is this religion that has cut you off from your people, and made you in no need of our religion”..?
Jafar answered him saying “we were living in darkness and this religion came and commanded us to speak the truth, to honor our promises, to be kind to our relations, to cease all forbidden acts, to abstain from bloodshed. To avoid obstinacies and false witness, nor to appropriate an orphan's property or slander chaste women, Muhammed ordered us to worship Allah only and not to associate any god with Him, to uphold Salat, to give Zakat and fast in the month of Ramadan, so we believed in him and what he brought to us from Allah and we follow him in what he has asked us to do and we keep away from what he forbade us from doing.”
The Negus was eager to know more about what Jafar said, and so he asked Jafar to read him a part from what Muhammad brought concerning Allah. Jafar recited for him the first portion of Surah Maryam, which narrates the story of Jesus and his mother Mary. On hearing the words of the Quran, the Negus was moved and the bishops around him began to weep. The Negus said that he would never harm them.
However, the two Quraish emissaries did not stop at that. They went to the Negus again and told him that the Muslims say that Jesus is a slave, and asked him to call them and ask them what they think of Jesus.
The Negus called the Muslims and asked them, so Jafar answered him saying, "Our Prophet says that Jesus is Allah’s prophet." The Negus gave back the gifts to Amr so he and his companion left broken and frustrated.
Jafar and his wife Asma spent about ten years in Ethiopia, which became a second home for them. There Asma gave birth to three children whom they named Abdullah, Muhammad and Awn. In the seventh year of the Hijra, Jafar and his family left Abyssinia with a group of Muslims and headed for Medina.
On their arrival at Medina, Muhammad was returning from the Battle of Khaybar and on seeing Jafar he was very happy and said, "I don't know which event is more cheerful - Jafar's coming or the Conquest of Khaybar!"
Muslims in general and the poor among them specifically were as happy with the return of Jafar as Muhammad was. And quickly Jafar became well known as a person who was much concerned with the welfare of the poor.
Jafar did not stay in Medina for long. In the eighth year of the Hijra, Muhammad mobilized an army to confront Byzantine forces in Syria, because a Byzantine governor had treacherously killed one of his emissaries. He appointed Zayd ibn Harithah as commander of the army and gave the following instructions: "If Zayd is wounded or killed, Jafar ibn Abu Talib would take over the command. If Jafar ibn Abu Talib is killed or wounded, then your commander would be Abdullah ibn Rawahah. If Abdullah ibn Rawahah is killed, then let the Muslims choose for themselves a commander."
Despite all the hardship they faced, the Muslim army battled the Byzantines. Zayd ibn Harithah, the beloved companion of Muhammad, was among the first Muslims who was killed in the battle. Jafar ibn Abu Talib then assumed command. Mounted on his horse, he penetrated deep into the Byzantine ranks. As he spurred his horse on, he called out: "How wonderful is Paradise as it draws near! How pleasant and cool is its drink! Punishment for the Byzantines is not far away!" Jafar continued to fight vigorously but was eventually slain.
In the battle of Mu'tah, Ja'far at-Tayyar carried the Banner of Islam and was out-numbered by the enemies and killed. The two arms of one of Muhammad's bravest followers and his army's standard-bearer, Jafar-e-Tayyar (the brother of Ali ibn Abi Talib) were cut off in the battle and he was martyred. When the news reached Muhammad he cried and prayed for Jafar's soul and the angel Gabriel came down and consoled (Muhammad), saying "Jafar was a brave and loyal soldier. God has given him everlasting life, and in place of his arms which were cut off in the battle, the Lord has given him a pair of wings".
The news of the death of the three commanders reached Muhammad in Medina. The pain and grief he felt was intense. He went to Jafar's house and met his wife Asma. She was somehow prepared to receive her absent husband. Asma said: "When the Messenger of Allah approached us, I saw a veil of sadness shrouding his noble face and I became very apprehensive. But I did not dare ask him about Jafar for fear that I would hear some unpleasant news. He greeted and asked, 'Where are Jafar's children?' I called them for him and they came and crowded around him happily, each one wanting to claim him for himself. He leaned over and hugged them while tears flowed from his eyes.
O Messenger of Allah,' I asked, 'why do you cry? Have you heard anything about Jafar and his two companions?
Yes,' he replied. 'They have attained martyrdom. The smiles and the laughter vanished from the faces of the little children when they heard their mother crying and wailing.
The tomb of Jafar was enclosed in an ornate shrine made of gold and silver made by Syedna Mohammed Burhanuddin.
The sons, daughters-in-law, and grandchildren of Jafar include:
* Abdullah ibn Ja'far married Zaynab bint Ali. Their sons were martyred in the battle of Karbala.
* Muhammad ibn Ja'far.
* Awn ibn Ja'far and he married Umm Kulthum bint Ali.
* Yahya ibn Umar- a descendant who led a rebellion.
Jafar at-Tayyar see Ja‘far ibn Abi Talib
Tayyar, Jafar at- see Ja‘far ibn Abi Talib
Ja‘far ibn Abi Talib (Jafar at-Tayyar) (d. 629). Cousin of the Prophet and the elder brother of ‘Ali. He took part in the so-called first Hijra to Abyssinia, and fell in the battle of Mu’ta.
Ja‘far ibn Abī Tālib was the son of Abu Talib ibn 'Abdul Muttalib (the uncle of the Islamic prophet Muhammad), and the elder brother of the fourth Sunni Khalīfah, Ali ibn Abi Talib. Jafar was raised by his uncle, Abbas ibn 'Abdul Muttalib, for his father was a poor man and had to support a large family.
According to the Qur'an, there was a great resemblance between Jafar and Muhammad, both in his appearance and ethics. Muhammad called him, "The father of the poor", because he used to help and support the poor with all the money he had..
Jafar left his uncle Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib’s house when he became a young man and got married to Asma bint Umays. They were among the very first persons to embrace Islam, and as a result suffered greatly at the hands of the Quraish. The Quraish restricted their movements and freedom until they could not bear it anymore. That is why Jafar went to Muhammed and obtained his permission to immigrate to Ethiopia along with a small group of Sahabas.
They settled down in this new land under the protection of Negus Ashama ibn Abjar, and for the first time since they had become Muslims they knew what freedom was, and could worship Allah without any hindrances. However, the Quraish would not let them enjoy freedom and peace for long. Soon they sent Abdullah ibn Abu Rabiah and another man from the Quraish in order to negotiate with Negus and get all the Muslims back to Mecca.
They took a lot of presents to the Negus, which pleased him a lot, and then told him that there is a group of wicked men moving about freely in his country and asked him to capture them before they caused any harm to his kingship as they did in Quraish. But the Negus refused to do that until he called them and questioned them regarding the Quraish’s allegations. So he asked the group of Muslims, among which was Jafar ibn Abu Talib, to come and meet him and the Muslims chose Jafar to be their spokesman.
The Negus asked them “what is this religion that has cut you off from your people, and made you in no need of our religion”..?
Jafar answered him saying “we were living in darkness and this religion came and commanded us to speak the truth, to honor our promises, to be kind to our relations, to cease all forbidden acts, to abstain from bloodshed. To avoid obstinacies and false witness, nor to appropriate an orphan's property or slander chaste women, Muhammed ordered us to worship Allah only and not to associate any god with Him, to uphold Salat, to give Zakat and fast in the month of Ramadan, so we believed in him and what he brought to us from Allah and we follow him in what he has asked us to do and we keep away from what he forbade us from doing.”
The Negus was eager to know more about what Jafar said, and so he asked Jafar to read him a part from what Muhammad brought concerning Allah. Jafar recited for him the first portion of Surah Maryam, which narrates the story of Jesus and his mother Mary. On hearing the words of the Quran, the Negus was moved and the bishops around him began to weep. The Negus said that he would never harm them.
However, the two Quraish emissaries did not stop at that. They went to the Negus again and told him that the Muslims say that Jesus is a slave, and asked him to call them and ask them what they think of Jesus.
The Negus called the Muslims and asked them, so Jafar answered him saying, "Our Prophet says that Jesus is Allah’s prophet." The Negus gave back the gifts to Amr so he and his companion left broken and frustrated.
Jafar and his wife Asma spent about ten years in Ethiopia, which became a second home for them. There Asma gave birth to three children whom they named Abdullah, Muhammad and Awn. In the seventh year of the Hijra, Jafar and his family left Abyssinia with a group of Muslims and headed for Medina.
On their arrival at Medina, Muhammad was returning from the Battle of Khaybar and on seeing Jafar he was very happy and said, "I don't know which event is more cheerful - Jafar's coming or the Conquest of Khaybar!"
Muslims in general and the poor among them specifically were as happy with the return of Jafar as Muhammad was. And quickly Jafar became well known as a person who was much concerned with the welfare of the poor.
Jafar did not stay in Medina for long. In the eighth year of the Hijra, Muhammad mobilized an army to confront Byzantine forces in Syria, because a Byzantine governor had treacherously killed one of his emissaries. He appointed Zayd ibn Harithah as commander of the army and gave the following instructions: "If Zayd is wounded or killed, Jafar ibn Abu Talib would take over the command. If Jafar ibn Abu Talib is killed or wounded, then your commander would be Abdullah ibn Rawahah. If Abdullah ibn Rawahah is killed, then let the Muslims choose for themselves a commander."
Despite all the hardship they faced, the Muslim army battled the Byzantines. Zayd ibn Harithah, the beloved companion of Muhammad, was among the first Muslims who was killed in the battle. Jafar ibn Abu Talib then assumed command. Mounted on his horse, he penetrated deep into the Byzantine ranks. As he spurred his horse on, he called out: "How wonderful is Paradise as it draws near! How pleasant and cool is its drink! Punishment for the Byzantines is not far away!" Jafar continued to fight vigorously but was eventually slain.
In the battle of Mu'tah, Ja'far at-Tayyar carried the Banner of Islam and was out-numbered by the enemies and killed. The two arms of one of Muhammad's bravest followers and his army's standard-bearer, Jafar-e-Tayyar (the brother of Ali ibn Abi Talib) were cut off in the battle and he was martyred. When the news reached Muhammad he cried and prayed for Jafar's soul and the angel Gabriel came down and consoled (Muhammad), saying "Jafar was a brave and loyal soldier. God has given him everlasting life, and in place of his arms which were cut off in the battle, the Lord has given him a pair of wings".
The news of the death of the three commanders reached Muhammad in Medina. The pain and grief he felt was intense. He went to Jafar's house and met his wife Asma. She was somehow prepared to receive her absent husband. Asma said: "When the Messenger of Allah approached us, I saw a veil of sadness shrouding his noble face and I became very apprehensive. But I did not dare ask him about Jafar for fear that I would hear some unpleasant news. He greeted and asked, 'Where are Jafar's children?' I called them for him and they came and crowded around him happily, each one wanting to claim him for himself. He leaned over and hugged them while tears flowed from his eyes.
O Messenger of Allah,' I asked, 'why do you cry? Have you heard anything about Jafar and his two companions?
Yes,' he replied. 'They have attained martyrdom. The smiles and the laughter vanished from the faces of the little children when they heard their mother crying and wailing.
The tomb of Jafar was enclosed in an ornate shrine made of gold and silver made by Syedna Mohammed Burhanuddin.
The sons, daughters-in-law, and grandchildren of Jafar include:
* Abdullah ibn Ja'far married Zaynab bint Ali. Their sons were martyred in the battle of Karbala.
* Muhammad ibn Ja'far.
* Awn ibn Ja'far and he married Umm Kulthum bint Ali.
* Yahya ibn Umar- a descendant who led a rebellion.
Jafar at-Tayyar see Ja‘far ibn Abi Talib
Tayyar, Jafar at- see Ja‘far ibn Abi Talib
Ja‘far ibn Abi Yahya
Ja‘far ibn Abi Yahya (d. 1177). Zaydi scholar and judge of Yemen. He played the most conspicuous role in the introduction in Yemen of the religious literature of the Caspian Zaydi community.
Ja‘far ibn Abi Yahya (d. 1177). Zaydi scholar and judge of Yemen. He played the most conspicuous role in the introduction in Yemen of the religious literature of the Caspian Zaydi community.
Jafar ibn Uthman al-Mushafi
Jafar ibn Uthman al-Mushafi (Ja‘far Sharif). (d. 982) Arab poet. Nineteenth century author of an authoritative account of Indian popular Islam.
Ja'far Sharif see Jafar ibn Uthman al-Mushafi
Jafar ibn Uthman al-Mushafi (Ja‘far Sharif). (d. 982) Arab poet. Nineteenth century author of an authoritative account of Indian popular Islam.
Ja'far Sharif see Jafar ibn Uthman al-Mushafi
Jaghmini, al-
Jaghmini, al-. The name of a thirteenth century Arab astronomer and a fourteenth century Persian physician.
The Arab astronomer al-Jaghmini (d. 1221) wrote a treatise of astronomy which was frequently commented upon by scholars. The treatise was titled al-Mulakhkhas fi al-hay'ah (Compendium of the Science of Astronomy).
The Persian Mahmud ibn Muhammad ibn Umar Jaghmini, or al-Jaghmini (d. 1344) was a 14th century Persian physician. He was born at Jaghmin, a village in Khwarezm (Khiva), current day Uzbekistan.
Little is known of his life. He is known only through his very short epitome of The Canon of Medicine by Avicenna that was written in Persian and titled Qanunshah. It proved so popular as to become the subject of commentaries, and several attempts were made to set the Qanunshah in verse.
There is considerable testimony to its being used in schools for teaching medicine in the eastern provinces of the Islamic world.
Mahmud ibn Muhammad ibn Umar Jaghmini see Jaghmini, al-.
Jaghmini, al-. The name of a thirteenth century Arab astronomer and a fourteenth century Persian physician.
The Arab astronomer al-Jaghmini (d. 1221) wrote a treatise of astronomy which was frequently commented upon by scholars. The treatise was titled al-Mulakhkhas fi al-hay'ah (Compendium of the Science of Astronomy).
The Persian Mahmud ibn Muhammad ibn Umar Jaghmini, or al-Jaghmini (d. 1344) was a 14th century Persian physician. He was born at Jaghmin, a village in Khwarezm (Khiva), current day Uzbekistan.
Little is known of his life. He is known only through his very short epitome of The Canon of Medicine by Avicenna that was written in Persian and titled Qanunshah. It proved so popular as to become the subject of commentaries, and several attempts were made to set the Qanunshah in verse.
There is considerable testimony to its being used in schools for teaching medicine in the eastern provinces of the Islamic world.
Mahmud ibn Muhammad ibn Umar Jaghmini see Jaghmini, al-.
Jahangir
Jahangir (1569-1627) (Nur-ud-din Salim Jahangir) (Al-Sultan al-'Azam wal Khaqan al-Mukarram, Khushru-i-Giti Panah, Abu'l-Fath Nur-ud-din Muhammad Jahangir Padshah Ghazi [Jannat-Makaani]) (September 20, 1569 – November 8, 1627) (OS August 31, 1569 – NS November 8, 1627). Ruler of the Mughal Empire from 1605 until his death in 1627. The name Jahangir is from Persian, meaning "Conqueror of the World". Nur-ud-din or Nur al-Din is an Arabic name which means " Light of the Faith."
The son of Akbar, in 1599, Jahangir revolted against his father, but was nevertheless confirmed as his successor.
Jahangir was born to a Rajput princess, daughter of the raja of Amber. Akbar named him Muhammad Sultan Salim after the famous saint Shaikh Salim Chishti, whose blessings he had sought for the birth of a son. Eminent tutors such as Abdur Rahim Khan-i Khanan looked after Salim’s education. During the last years of Akbar’s reign court intrigues forced Salim to rebel against his father but he soon became reconciled with him. On Akbar’s death in 1605, with the support of nobles like Nawab Murtaza Khan, Salim ascended the throne as Nuruddin Muhammad Jahangir. He soon remitted certain taxes and duties, allowed regular inheritance of the property of nobles, prohibited the cutting of limbs of criminals, and built many hospitals.
Jahangir married Nur Jahan, widow of Sher Afghan, in 1611. Gradually Nur Jahan became a power in politics, her relatives rose to important positions in the administration, and the Irani faction came to dominate the nobility. Politics at the court led to the revolt by Jahangir’s son Shah Jahan, an attempted coup by the noble Mahabat Khan, and other contumacious activities. Jahangir’s eldest son, Khusraw, who revolted in 1606, had been supported by the Sikh Guru Arjun, who was then put to death by the emperor. This punishment laid the foundations of the deep-rooted hostility which has continued to embitter the relations between the Indian Muslims and the Sikhs over the centuries.
Jahangir subjugated Mewar (in 1614), conquered Ahmadnagar (in 1616), captured Kangra (in 1620), but lost Qandahar (Kandahar) (in 1622). He maintained good relations with the Portuguese, the Jesuits, and the English, whose envoys visited his court. Some cases of conflict with the Europeans are also recorded. He did not interfere in religion and abandoned Akbar’s experiments in religious leadership. Jahangir was a kind-hearted person with a deep sense of justice. He was also devoted to the arts. Under him painting reached a high-point of development, Persian and Hindi literature flourished, and architecture was patronized. His memoirs throw interesting light on his policies and personality.
Nur-ud-din Salim Jahangir see Jahangir
"Conqueror of the World" see Jahangir
"Light of the Faith" see Jahangir
Jahangir (1569-1627) (Nur-ud-din Salim Jahangir) (Al-Sultan al-'Azam wal Khaqan al-Mukarram, Khushru-i-Giti Panah, Abu'l-Fath Nur-ud-din Muhammad Jahangir Padshah Ghazi [Jannat-Makaani]) (September 20, 1569 – November 8, 1627) (OS August 31, 1569 – NS November 8, 1627). Ruler of the Mughal Empire from 1605 until his death in 1627. The name Jahangir is from Persian, meaning "Conqueror of the World". Nur-ud-din or Nur al-Din is an Arabic name which means " Light of the Faith."
The son of Akbar, in 1599, Jahangir revolted against his father, but was nevertheless confirmed as his successor.
Jahangir was born to a Rajput princess, daughter of the raja of Amber. Akbar named him Muhammad Sultan Salim after the famous saint Shaikh Salim Chishti, whose blessings he had sought for the birth of a son. Eminent tutors such as Abdur Rahim Khan-i Khanan looked after Salim’s education. During the last years of Akbar’s reign court intrigues forced Salim to rebel against his father but he soon became reconciled with him. On Akbar’s death in 1605, with the support of nobles like Nawab Murtaza Khan, Salim ascended the throne as Nuruddin Muhammad Jahangir. He soon remitted certain taxes and duties, allowed regular inheritance of the property of nobles, prohibited the cutting of limbs of criminals, and built many hospitals.
Jahangir married Nur Jahan, widow of Sher Afghan, in 1611. Gradually Nur Jahan became a power in politics, her relatives rose to important positions in the administration, and the Irani faction came to dominate the nobility. Politics at the court led to the revolt by Jahangir’s son Shah Jahan, an attempted coup by the noble Mahabat Khan, and other contumacious activities. Jahangir’s eldest son, Khusraw, who revolted in 1606, had been supported by the Sikh Guru Arjun, who was then put to death by the emperor. This punishment laid the foundations of the deep-rooted hostility which has continued to embitter the relations between the Indian Muslims and the Sikhs over the centuries.
Jahangir subjugated Mewar (in 1614), conquered Ahmadnagar (in 1616), captured Kangra (in 1620), but lost Qandahar (Kandahar) (in 1622). He maintained good relations with the Portuguese, the Jesuits, and the English, whose envoys visited his court. Some cases of conflict with the Europeans are also recorded. He did not interfere in religion and abandoned Akbar’s experiments in religious leadership. Jahangir was a kind-hearted person with a deep sense of justice. He was also devoted to the arts. Under him painting reached a high-point of development, Persian and Hindi literature flourished, and architecture was patronized. His memoirs throw interesting light on his policies and personality.
Nur-ud-din Salim Jahangir see Jahangir
"Conqueror of the World" see Jahangir
"Light of the Faith" see Jahangir
Jahangir, Asma
Asma Jilani Jahangir (Urdu: عاصمہ جہانگیر, transliteration 'Asimah Jahangir, January 27, 1952 – February 11, 2018) was a Pakistani human rights lawyer and social activist who co-founded and chaired the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. She was widely known for playing a prominent role in the Lawyers' Movement and served as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom or Belief and as a trustee at the International Crisis Group.
Asma Jilani Jahangir (Urdu: عاصمہ جہانگیر, transliteration 'Asimah Jahangir, January 27, 1952 – February 11, 2018) was a Pakistani human rights lawyer and social activist who co-founded and chaired the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. She was widely known for playing a prominent role in the Lawyers' Movement and served as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom or Belief and as a trustee at the International Crisis Group.
Born and raised in Lahore, Jahangir studied at the Convent of Jesus and Mary before receiving her B.A. from Kinnaird and LLB from the Punjab University in 1978. In 1980, she was called to the Lahore High Court, and to the Supreme Court in 1982. In the 1980s, Jahangir became a democracy activist and was imprisoned in 1983 for participating in the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy against the military regime of Zia-ul-Haq. In 1986, she moved to Geneva, and became the vice-chair of the Defence for Children International and remained until 1988 when she moved back to Pakistan.
In 1987, Jahangir co-founded the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan and became its Secretary General until 1993 when she was elevated as the commission's chairperson. She was again put under house arrest in November 2007 after the imposition of emergency. After serving as one of the leaders of the Lawyers' Movement, she became Pakistan's first woman to serve as the President of Supreme Court Bar Association. She co-chaired South Asia Forum for Human Rights and was the vice president of International Federation for Human Rights. Jahangir served as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion from August 2004 to July 2010, including serving on the United Nations panel for inquiry into Sri Lankan human rights violations and on a fact-finding mission on Israeli settlements. In 2016, she was named as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Iran, remaining until her death in February 2018.
Jahangir's prominent writings include The Hudood Ordinance: A Divine Sanction? and Children of a Lesser God.
Jahanka
Jahanka. In the purest sense of the word, the Jahanka (Jahanke, Jahaanke, Diakhanke) are not an ethnic group. They do not speak a language widely considered as their own, nor do they inhabit a particular area thought clearly to be “Jahanka territory.” The Jahanka are a group of clans, originally Soninke, who over a period of several centuries have come to recognize their unique identity. This identity is based in part on a common heritage, in part on close lineage relationships and in part on the strongest Muslim clerical, educational and magical tradition in all of West Africa.
Understanding the nature of Jahanka ethnicity requires knowledge of their history and of their long tradition of Islamic scholarship, education and magical activity. The Jahanka claim their place of origin to have been Ja (Dia), in Masina on the Niger River in modern Mali, but they uniformly look to a period of residence in Jahaba (“Great Jaha”), on the Baling River east of the modern Mali-Senegal border as the formative period of their ethnicity. It was in Jahaba, living together, that four major Soninke lineages came under the religious influence of one of West Africa’s greatest clerics of all time, al-Hajj Salim Suwari. The most persuasive evidence suggests that this influential residence took place late in the fifteenth or early in the sixteenth century.
Carrying with them the prestige of Suwari’s teachings, the Jahanka (which means “the people of Jaha”) spread from Jahaba south towards Futa Jalon and west towards the mouth of the Gambia River. In these regions, they established their own villages and took on the status of being the region’s most specialized clerical elite. Jahanka clericalism was not like any other, however. It was based upon Suwari’s esoteric interpretation of Muslim scriptures and upon his staunchly held principles of avoidance of political affiliation and pacifism. In a region that witnessed widespread Muslim militancy, the Jahanka disdained jihad, and they never felt driven to proselytize. Their specialty became what might loosely be called “Suwarian magic,” which includes divination, offering prayers, making charms and practicing medicine for others -- all grounded in Suwari’s symbolic interpretation of scriptures and his special ways of construing charms and healing.
As with many West African groups, slavery among the Jahanka is an institution that was once widely recognized but is now not so openly discussed. Large Jahanka famiilies sometimes measured their wealth and status by the numbers of slaves they possessed. For these reasons, the Jahanka clung to the institution long after colonial governments made slavery illegal. In fact, according to scholars who lived and studied the Jahanka slavery was still commonly practiced among the Jahanka as late as the 1970s. For many purposes the institution of slavery (among the Jahanka) continues to exist today and slave families remain distinctly separate from the free-born.
Jahanke see Jahanka.
Jahaanke see Jahanka.
Diakhanke see Jahanka.
Jahanka. In the purest sense of the word, the Jahanka (Jahanke, Jahaanke, Diakhanke) are not an ethnic group. They do not speak a language widely considered as their own, nor do they inhabit a particular area thought clearly to be “Jahanka territory.” The Jahanka are a group of clans, originally Soninke, who over a period of several centuries have come to recognize their unique identity. This identity is based in part on a common heritage, in part on close lineage relationships and in part on the strongest Muslim clerical, educational and magical tradition in all of West Africa.
Understanding the nature of Jahanka ethnicity requires knowledge of their history and of their long tradition of Islamic scholarship, education and magical activity. The Jahanka claim their place of origin to have been Ja (Dia), in Masina on the Niger River in modern Mali, but they uniformly look to a period of residence in Jahaba (“Great Jaha”), on the Baling River east of the modern Mali-Senegal border as the formative period of their ethnicity. It was in Jahaba, living together, that four major Soninke lineages came under the religious influence of one of West Africa’s greatest clerics of all time, al-Hajj Salim Suwari. The most persuasive evidence suggests that this influential residence took place late in the fifteenth or early in the sixteenth century.
Carrying with them the prestige of Suwari’s teachings, the Jahanka (which means “the people of Jaha”) spread from Jahaba south towards Futa Jalon and west towards the mouth of the Gambia River. In these regions, they established their own villages and took on the status of being the region’s most specialized clerical elite. Jahanka clericalism was not like any other, however. It was based upon Suwari’s esoteric interpretation of Muslim scriptures and upon his staunchly held principles of avoidance of political affiliation and pacifism. In a region that witnessed widespread Muslim militancy, the Jahanka disdained jihad, and they never felt driven to proselytize. Their specialty became what might loosely be called “Suwarian magic,” which includes divination, offering prayers, making charms and practicing medicine for others -- all grounded in Suwari’s symbolic interpretation of scriptures and his special ways of construing charms and healing.
As with many West African groups, slavery among the Jahanka is an institution that was once widely recognized but is now not so openly discussed. Large Jahanka famiilies sometimes measured their wealth and status by the numbers of slaves they possessed. For these reasons, the Jahanka clung to the institution long after colonial governments made slavery illegal. In fact, according to scholars who lived and studied the Jahanka slavery was still commonly practiced among the Jahanka as late as the 1970s. For many purposes the institution of slavery (among the Jahanka) continues to exist today and slave families remain distinctly separate from the free-born.
Jahanke see Jahanka.
Jahaanke see Jahanka.
Diakhanke see Jahanka.
Jahan-suz, ‘Ala’ al-Din
Jahan-suz, ‘Ala’ al-Din (‘Ala’ al-Din Jahan-suz). Ghurid ruler (r. 1149-1161) and poet. He is notorious for his burning of Ghazna in 1151.
'Ala' al-Din Jahan-suz see Jahan-suz, ‘Ala’ al-Din
Jahan-suz, ‘Ala’ al-Din (‘Ala’ al-Din Jahan-suz). Ghurid ruler (r. 1149-1161) and poet. He is notorious for his burning of Ghazna in 1151.
'Ala' al-Din Jahan-suz see Jahan-suz, ‘Ala’ al-Din
Jahirids
Jahirids (Banu Jahir). Name of a dynasty of viziers during the protectorate of the Great Saljuqs between 1150 and 1240.
Banu Jahir see Jahirids
Jahir, Banu see Jahirids
Jahirids (Banu Jahir). Name of a dynasty of viziers during the protectorate of the Great Saljuqs between 1150 and 1240.
Banu Jahir see Jahirids
Jahir, Banu see Jahirids
Jahiz (Al-Jahiz) (Abu ‘Uthman ‘Amr ibn Bahr al-Basri al-Jahiz) (Abu ‘Uthman ‘Amr ibn Bahr al-Kinani al-Fuqaimi al-Basri al-Jahiz) (Abu Uthman Amr ibn Bahr al-Kinani al-Fuqaimi al-Basri) (776/781 – December 868/January 869). A famous Arab scholar. One of his grandparents was a Zanj slave. He was born in Basra. The name al-Jahiz (“The Goggle-Eyed”) was actually the nickname of ‘Amr ibn Bahr of Basra (Iraq). Al-Jahiz was the grandson of an African (Zanj) slave. He studied in Basra, a major intellectual center, under several well known Islamic scholars. Al-Jahiz belonged to an average working class family. During his late teens while continuing his study, he helped his father in the fish market. Recognizing his more productive talents, one day his mother presented him with a tray of paper notebooks suggesting that he earn his living by means of writing. This incident helped to launch what was to become an illustrious career that lasted more than sixty years.
Al-Jahiz’s earliest writing on the Institution of the Caliphate was well received at the court of Baghdad. Around 815, al-Jahiz moved to Baghdad, a city founded about fifteen years before his birth as the seat of the Abbasid Caliphate and the capital of the Islamic Empire (excluding Andalusia, i.e., Spain, Portugal and southern France). He continued to write on a variety of subjects and was well respected at the Caliph’s court. Although he was admired by court officials, he never worked for them nor held any official position.
Al-Jahiz wrote more than two hundred works but only thirty are extant. His works included zoology, Arabic grammar, poetry, rhetoric and lexicography. He is considered to be one of the few Muslim scientists who wrote on scientific and complex subjects for the non-specialists and common people. His writings contain many anecdotes regardless of the subject he is discussing to make his point and to bring out both sides of an argument. Some of his famous books are: The Book of Animals, The Art of Keeping One’s Mouth Shut, Against Civil Servants, Arab Food, In Praise of Merchants, and Levity and Seriousness. Al-Jahiz’s most famous book Kitab al-Hayawan (Book of Animals) is an encyclopedia of seven large volumes. He was rewarded with 5,000 gold dinars from the court official to whom he dedicated the Book of Animals.
Kitab al-Hayawan contains an amazing array of scientific information that was not to be fully developed until the first half of the twentieth century. Al-Jahiz discusses his observation in detail on the social organization of ants, animal communication and psychology, and the effects of diet and climate. He described how ants store and preserve grain in their nests during the rainy season. He suggested an ingenious way of expelling mosquitoes and flies from a room based on his observation that some insects are responsive to light. Al-Jahiz expounded on the degree of intelligence of animal species and insects. He also observed that certain parasites adapt to the color of their host, and expounded on the effects of diet and climate not only on men but also on animals and plants.
Eighty-seven folios of The Book of Animals (about one-tenth of the original text by al-Jahiz) are preserved in Ambrosiana Library in Milan. This collection (a copy of the original) dates from the 14th century and bears the name of the last owner ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Maghribi and the year 1615. These folios of The Book of Animals contain more than 30 illustrations in miniature.
As was common with writings of Muslim scientists of the golden age (eighth to tenth centuries), al-Jahiz recognized the signs of Allah (The One and Only God) in the creation. In The Book of Animals, al-Jahiz wrote that a pebble proves the existence of Allah just as much as a mountain, and the human body is evidence as strong as the universe -- for the small and slight carries as much weight as the great and vast.
Al-Jahiz was also a famous Arab prose writer. A master of the Arabic language, he wrote on literature, Mu’tazili theology and politico-religious polemics, showing a thirst for learning, a remarkably inquisitive mind and a great sense of humor. Among his main prose works are The Book of Elegance of Expression and Clarity of Exposition and The Book of Misers.
Al-Jahiz was a theologian -- some of his theological treatises survive -- but he is better known as an exponent of belles-lettres. Al-Jahiz was also one of the first writers of what came to be known as “Adab” – “Culture” or “Romance” -- literature. Adab originated for the purpose of providing handbooks of etiquette and useful information for court secretaries, but it quickly developed, and Adab works became encyclopedias of useful and entertaining knowledge for the educated man.
Arabic literature is very largely compilatory. A great number of books consist almost entirely of quotations from other authors. This reflects, in other fields, the importance attached by Muslims to a reliable authority for any religious tradition.
Al-Jahiz’s greatest works, The Book of Eloquence and Exposition and The Book of Animals, are large compilations containing a quantity of more or less related information concerning, in the first case, the Arabic language, in the second, animals. Information of scientific value is interspersed with anecdotes, scraps of verse and frequent scarcely relevant digressions. The object of these works seems to be as much to entertain as to instruct, but they did provide a mass of information otherwise difficult to find, since manuscripts of certain works might not be readily available, and there was, in any case, no way of referring to a page when the pagination of no two manuscripts corresponded.
Al-Jahiz’s books, like those of so many Arab authors, seem to be formless. Little importance seems to have been attached to form, in a book, or even in a sentence. It is considered only when a work of conscious artistry is being composed, such as the Maqamat of al-Hamadhani or al-Hariri. Even then the artistic unit is very small, and the author is concerned only with the arrangement of his words and figures of speech in a sentence, or at most in a paragraph. Digression is always likely in Arabic literature since Arab writers seem far more interested in imparting information than in composing an artistic whole.
Al-Jahiz is often considered one of the most entertaining of Arab authors. Among the many shorter treatises that are attributed to al-Jahiz are The Book of Misers, The Merits of the Turks, The Superiority of Speech to Silence and The Book of the Crown.
Al-Jahiz
returned to Basra after spending more than fifty years in Baghdad. He died in Basra in 868 as a result of an accident in which he was crushed to death by a collapsing pile of books in his private library.
As the first important Arabic prose writer, al-Jahiz employed his vast erudition and innovative stylistic technique to free the Arabic language from its theological and philological restraints, making it a tool for the long-term cultural cohesion of the diverse cutures of Islam.
Al-Jahiz may have been the child of East African slaves, who were numerous in southern Iraq in the eighth and ninth centuries. His ancestry is uncertain, however. The sobriquet al-Jahiz (goggle-eyed) refers to a remarkable physical condition which observers may have attributed to African origins. People of his time described al-Jahiz as an exceptionally ugly individual.
Al-Jahiz studied in his hometown of Basra, then went off to Baghdad for advanced education. He appears to have been employed early as a clerical official or copyist for the government. His unusual stylistic flair came to the attention of high officials, and the Abbasid caliph al-Ma’mun (813-833) commissioned him to write a series of essays justifying the Abbasid seizure of power from the previous Umayyad dynasty in Damascus around 750. According to some sources, the caliph once considered employing al-Jahiz as a personal tutor for his sons, but was so unnerved by his physical appearance that he decided against him. (In fairness to the caliph, it should be noted that al-Jahiz also had a reputation for having a bitter and irascible temperament.)
Al-Jahiz was an active and productive individual, involved, like many Muslim intellectuals of this time, in a variety of arenas. He followed the rationalist Mutazilite school of Islamic thought, which reveled in logical analysis and lively debate; the Mutazilite sect which he founded appears to have espoused some radical theological views. Al-Jahiz was fond of defending unpopular positions in public debate even when he did not personally agree with them. He also dabbled in the natural sciences. His zoological treatise, Kitab al-hayawan (Book of Animals), constituted one of the earliest attempts in Islam to formulate orders of living things. Of the more than 120 works attributed to al-Jahiz by thirteenth century geographer/biographer Yaqut, however, only a few are extant.
Al-Jahiz, who was fluent in Greek as well as Arabic, borrowed heavily from the Hellenistic tradition, frequently quoting or citing Aristotle and other Greek intellectual figures. Among Arabic scholars of his time, he was one of the most inclined to acknowledge his debt to Greek learning.
The literary career of al-Jahiz owes much to the development in Islam of the concept of adab, or high culture. Adab demanded of its practitioners not only an eclectic knowledge base but also certain mannerisms and styles of expression considered appropriate to a cultivated intellectual elite. The content of adab might vary according to the personality of the individual. Theology and Islamic canon law (shari‘a) were considered appropriate subject matter. The keystone of adab, however, was literary and rhetorical expression. Eloquence was considered one of the essential virtues. Indeed, in rigorously pious circles the spoken word was one of the few forms of emotional expression to which one might manifest visible reaction. Conventions of verbal elegance soon came to be applied in literary practice as well, so that good writing was elevated alongside rhetoric as a quality of the cultivated.
The evolution of adab raised difficulties concerning the heretofore restricted and unimaginative use of Arabic in written form. Written Arabic often adhered slavishly to Qur’anic expression and, in al-Jahiz’s age, prose style was rigid and inflexible. Writers were essentially clerks and secretaries who compiled rather than created. There was a heavy emphasis on such traditional topics as the life of Muhammad and early Islam, as well as a consuming regard for philology at the expense of experiment. Matters of everyday life and those not directly related to the Qur’an or canon law were addressed only in poetry.
Al-Jahiz sensed that Arabic literary expression was at a dead end -- that if the then current trends continued, Arabic would soon be relegated to use in religious observances only. To overcome this problem, he struck out in new directions with a prose style intended, as he described it, to be both educational and entertaining and to reach a broader segment of the literate public. Al-Jahiz combined a witty and satirical style with his breadth of learning to produce a large corpus of works on all aspects of contemporary life. He made extensive use of anecdotes to make his writing accessible by varying its structure and pace. Al-Jahiz’s frequent use of a rhymed, cadenced prose style call saj’ deeply influenced adab culture even in media such as personal correspondence. He was also one of the first Arabic writers to employ irony as a literary device.
Among the surviving works of al-Jahiz, one that well illustrates his style is Kitab al-bukhala’ (Book of Misers), in which he rebukes members of the Persian urban middle class, contrasting their behavior with the generosity of the Arabs. It is not the dubious ethnic stereotypes that make this work interesting, however, but rather the manner of presentation. Marked by witty, vibrant prose, the work is filled with anecdotes about well-known past and contemporary figures who serve as negative examples of the virtue of generosity. Some have suggested that the format and style of the work continues in Arabic a tradition going back to Theophrastus’ Characteres ethikoi (The Moral Characters, c. 319 B.C.T., also known as The Moral Characters of Theophrastus or Characters). These comments are made because al-Jahiz replicates the Greek philosopher’s brief and vigorous descriptions of moral character types.
Never one to dodge controversy, al-Jahiz wrote on a wide variety of issues of the time. In his Kitab al-Bayan wa-al-Tabyin (Book of Eloquence and Exposition), he attacked the populist Shu‘ubi movement, which proclaimed the superiority of non-Arabs over Arabs in religius and cultural achievement. Not surprisingly, many Shu‘ubis were Persians, who, in the view of al-Jahiz, were most responsible for the clerical and bureaucratic pedantry to which Arabic literature had been reduced. Besides an essay which extolled the virtues of the Turks, al-Jahiz wrote one on black Africans and several on corruption and venality in government.
If al-Jahiz was something of a muckraker, he was also a devout Muslim. Deeply convinced by what he saw as a growing cynicism and infidelity among the literate classes, he never lost an opportunity to weave theology into his commentaries on everyday life and his descriptions of exemplary behavior.
As a scholar and man of letters, al-Jahiz had a lasting effect on Islamic culture. His zoological treatise which, though wide-ranging and imaginative, treats zoology almost as a branch of philology and literature, found many emulators. Among them were the cosmographer al-Qazwini and the thirteenth century Egyptian scientist al-Damiri, generally regarded as the greatest Muslim figure in early zoology.
Al-Jahiz changed for all time the nature and function of Arabic prose. Without al-Jahiz, the development of Arabic secular writing would have been almost unthinkable. No longer would Arabic be restricted merely to government reports, theology, and the recounting of the life of Muhammad and the Arab conquests. No longer would Arabic literacy be limited to a privileged few. Al-Jahiz showed that Arabic is a subtle and supple literary language, able to express the entire spectrum of human activity and desire, a vehicle in which literary devices could be exploited to their fullest effect.
Al-Jahiz was to become something of a cultural hero in Muslim Spain, settling of one of the greatest cultural flowerings in the medieval world. Spanish Muslims who traveled to Syria and Iraq to study heard al-Jahiz lecture and eagerly sought copies of his manuscripts to take home, where they became models of literary style for several centuries to come.
Abu 'Uthman 'Amr ibn Bahr al-Kinani al-Fuqaimi al-Basri al-Jahiz see Jahiz
The Goggle-Eyed see Jahiz
'Amr ibn Bahr see Jahiz
Abu 'Uthman 'Amr ibn Bahr al-Basri al-Jahiz see Jahiz
Abu Uthman Amr ibn Bahr al-Kinani al-Fuqaimi al-Basri see Jahiz
As the first important Arabic prose writer, al-Jahiz employed his vast erudition and innovative stylistic technique to free the Arabic language from its theological and philological restraints, making it a tool for the long-term cultural cohesion of the diverse cutures of Islam.
Al-Jahiz may have been the child of East African slaves, who were numerous in southern Iraq in the eighth and ninth centuries. His ancestry is uncertain, however. The sobriquet al-Jahiz (goggle-eyed) refers to a remarkable physical condition which observers may have attributed to African origins. People of his time described al-Jahiz as an exceptionally ugly individual.
Al-Jahiz studied in his hometown of Basra, then went off to Baghdad for advanced education. He appears to have been employed early as a clerical official or copyist for the government. His unusual stylistic flair came to the attention of high officials, and the Abbasid caliph al-Ma’mun (813-833) commissioned him to write a series of essays justifying the Abbasid seizure of power from the previous Umayyad dynasty in Damascus around 750. According to some sources, the caliph once considered employing al-Jahiz as a personal tutor for his sons, but was so unnerved by his physical appearance that he decided against him. (In fairness to the caliph, it should be noted that al-Jahiz also had a reputation for having a bitter and irascible temperament.)
Al-Jahiz was an active and productive individual, involved, like many Muslim intellectuals of this time, in a variety of arenas. He followed the rationalist Mutazilite school of Islamic thought, which reveled in logical analysis and lively debate; the Mutazilite sect which he founded appears to have espoused some radical theological views. Al-Jahiz was fond of defending unpopular positions in public debate even when he did not personally agree with them. He also dabbled in the natural sciences. His zoological treatise, Kitab al-hayawan (Book of Animals), constituted one of the earliest attempts in Islam to formulate orders of living things. Of the more than 120 works attributed to al-Jahiz by thirteenth century geographer/biographer Yaqut, however, only a few are extant.
Al-Jahiz, who was fluent in Greek as well as Arabic, borrowed heavily from the Hellenistic tradition, frequently quoting or citing Aristotle and other Greek intellectual figures. Among Arabic scholars of his time, he was one of the most inclined to acknowledge his debt to Greek learning.
The literary career of al-Jahiz owes much to the development in Islam of the concept of adab, or high culture. Adab demanded of its practitioners not only an eclectic knowledge base but also certain mannerisms and styles of expression considered appropriate to a cultivated intellectual elite. The content of adab might vary according to the personality of the individual. Theology and Islamic canon law (shari‘a) were considered appropriate subject matter. The keystone of adab, however, was literary and rhetorical expression. Eloquence was considered one of the essential virtues. Indeed, in rigorously pious circles the spoken word was one of the few forms of emotional expression to which one might manifest visible reaction. Conventions of verbal elegance soon came to be applied in literary practice as well, so that good writing was elevated alongside rhetoric as a quality of the cultivated.
The evolution of adab raised difficulties concerning the heretofore restricted and unimaginative use of Arabic in written form. Written Arabic often adhered slavishly to Qur’anic expression and, in al-Jahiz’s age, prose style was rigid and inflexible. Writers were essentially clerks and secretaries who compiled rather than created. There was a heavy emphasis on such traditional topics as the life of Muhammad and early Islam, as well as a consuming regard for philology at the expense of experiment. Matters of everyday life and those not directly related to the Qur’an or canon law were addressed only in poetry.
Al-Jahiz sensed that Arabic literary expression was at a dead end -- that if the then current trends continued, Arabic would soon be relegated to use in religious observances only. To overcome this problem, he struck out in new directions with a prose style intended, as he described it, to be both educational and entertaining and to reach a broader segment of the literate public. Al-Jahiz combined a witty and satirical style with his breadth of learning to produce a large corpus of works on all aspects of contemporary life. He made extensive use of anecdotes to make his writing accessible by varying its structure and pace. Al-Jahiz’s frequent use of a rhymed, cadenced prose style call saj’ deeply influenced adab culture even in media such as personal correspondence. He was also one of the first Arabic writers to employ irony as a literary device.
Among the surviving works of al-Jahiz, one that well illustrates his style is Kitab al-bukhala’ (Book of Misers), in which he rebukes members of the Persian urban middle class, contrasting their behavior with the generosity of the Arabs. It is not the dubious ethnic stereotypes that make this work interesting, however, but rather the manner of presentation. Marked by witty, vibrant prose, the work is filled with anecdotes about well-known past and contemporary figures who serve as negative examples of the virtue of generosity. Some have suggested that the format and style of the work continues in Arabic a tradition going back to Theophrastus’ Characteres ethikoi (The Moral Characters, c. 319 B.C.T., also known as The Moral Characters of Theophrastus or Characters). These comments are made because al-Jahiz replicates the Greek philosopher’s brief and vigorous descriptions of moral character types.
Never one to dodge controversy, al-Jahiz wrote on a wide variety of issues of the time. In his Kitab al-Bayan wa-al-Tabyin (Book of Eloquence and Exposition), he attacked the populist Shu‘ubi movement, which proclaimed the superiority of non-Arabs over Arabs in religius and cultural achievement. Not surprisingly, many Shu‘ubis were Persians, who, in the view of al-Jahiz, were most responsible for the clerical and bureaucratic pedantry to which Arabic literature had been reduced. Besides an essay which extolled the virtues of the Turks, al-Jahiz wrote one on black Africans and several on corruption and venality in government.
If al-Jahiz was something of a muckraker, he was also a devout Muslim. Deeply convinced by what he saw as a growing cynicism and infidelity among the literate classes, he never lost an opportunity to weave theology into his commentaries on everyday life and his descriptions of exemplary behavior.
As a scholar and man of letters, al-Jahiz had a lasting effect on Islamic culture. His zoological treatise which, though wide-ranging and imaginative, treats zoology almost as a branch of philology and literature, found many emulators. Among them were the cosmographer al-Qazwini and the thirteenth century Egyptian scientist al-Damiri, generally regarded as the greatest Muslim figure in early zoology.
Al-Jahiz changed for all time the nature and function of Arabic prose. Without al-Jahiz, the development of Arabic secular writing would have been almost unthinkable. No longer would Arabic be restricted merely to government reports, theology, and the recounting of the life of Muhammad and the Arab conquests. No longer would Arabic literacy be limited to a privileged few. Al-Jahiz showed that Arabic is a subtle and supple literary language, able to express the entire spectrum of human activity and desire, a vehicle in which literary devices could be exploited to their fullest effect.
Al-Jahiz was to become something of a cultural hero in Muslim Spain, settling of one of the greatest cultural flowerings in the medieval world. Spanish Muslims who traveled to Syria and Iraq to study heard al-Jahiz lecture and eagerly sought copies of his manuscripts to take home, where they became models of literary style for several centuries to come.
Abu 'Uthman 'Amr ibn Bahr al-Kinani al-Fuqaimi al-Basri al-Jahiz see Jahiz
The Goggle-Eyed see Jahiz
'Amr ibn Bahr see Jahiz
Abu 'Uthman 'Amr ibn Bahr al-Basri al-Jahiz see Jahiz
Abu Uthman Amr ibn Bahr al-Kinani al-Fuqaimi al-Basri see Jahiz
Jahshiyari, Abu ‘Abd Allah al-
Jahshiyari, Abu ‘Abd Allah al- (Abu ‘Abd Allah al-Jahshiyari). Tenth century scholar of Kufa. He wrote a work on the history of the viziers until 908.
Abu 'Abd Allah al-Jahshiyari see Jahshiyari, Abu ‘Abd Allah al-
Jahshiyari, Abu ‘Abd Allah al- (Abu ‘Abd Allah al-Jahshiyari). Tenth century scholar of Kufa. He wrote a work on the history of the viziers until 908.
Abu 'Abd Allah al-Jahshiyari see Jahshiyari, Abu ‘Abd Allah al-
Jaish-e-Mohammed
Jaish-e-Mohammed (Army of Mohammed) (Jaish-e-Muhammed) (Jaish-e-Mohammad) (Jaish-e-Muhammad),. Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed (JEM) was greatly expanded after Maulana Masood Azhar, a former ultra-fundamentalist Harakat ul-Ansar (HUA) leader, formed the group in February 2000. The group’s aim was to unite Kashmir with Pakistan. It was politically aligned with the radical, pro-Taliban, political party, Jamiat-i Ulema-i Islam (JUI-F). The JEM maintained training camps in Afghanistan. Most of the JEM’s cadre and material resources were drawn from the militant groups Harakat ul-Jihad al-Islami (HUJI) and the Harakat ul-Mujahedin (HUM). The JEM had close ties to Afghan Arabs and the Taliban. Osama bin Laden was suspected of giving funding to the JEM. A group by this name claimed responsibility for the U.S.S. Cole attack.
Jaish-e-Mohammed was a major Islamic mujahedeen organization based in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. The group's primary motive was to separate Kashmir from India and it carried out several attacks primarily in Indian-administered Kashmir. It was banned in Pakistan after 2002, yet continued to operate several facilities in Pakistan.
Jaish-e-Mohammed was viewed by some as the principal terrorist organization in Jammu and Kashmir. The group was regarded as a terrorist organization by several countries, including India, the United States and the United Kingdom.
Jaish-e-Mohammed was formed in the mid 1990s in Pakistan after supporters of Maulana Masood Azhar split from Harkat-ul-Mujahideen. The group, in coordination with Lashkar-e-Tayiba, was implicated in the 2001 Indian Parliament attack in New Delhi.
It was also suspected in the murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl in Karachi.
An informant, posing as a member of Jaish-e-Mohammed, helped police to arrest four people allegedly plotting to bomb a New York City synagogue as well as to shoot Stinger missiles at military aircraft in the United States. The arrest of the four took place in May 2009. One of the four, by the name of James Cromitie, allegedly expressed the desire to join Jaish-e-Mohammed. This expression allegedly took place approximately a year prior to the arrests.
On December 9, 2009, five Muslim Americans, who knew each other from the ICNA Center in Arlington, Virginia, were detained in Pakistan during a police raid. The men had met with Jaish-e-Muhammed in Pakistan and offered their assistance in jihadi attacks. The house they were detained in was occupied by Khalid Farooq, the father of one of the men. He was suspected of ties to Jaish-e-Muhammed, to which the house itself was also linked.
Army of Mohammed see Jaish-e-Mohammed
JEM see Jaish-e-Mohammed
Jaish-e-Muhammed see Jaish-e-Mohammed
Jaish-e-Mohammad see Jaish-e-Mohammed
Jaish-e-Muhammad see Jaish-e-Mohammed
Jaish-e-Mohammed (Army of Mohammed) (Jaish-e-Muhammed) (Jaish-e-Mohammad) (Jaish-e-Muhammad),. Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed (JEM) was greatly expanded after Maulana Masood Azhar, a former ultra-fundamentalist Harakat ul-Ansar (HUA) leader, formed the group in February 2000. The group’s aim was to unite Kashmir with Pakistan. It was politically aligned with the radical, pro-Taliban, political party, Jamiat-i Ulema-i Islam (JUI-F). The JEM maintained training camps in Afghanistan. Most of the JEM’s cadre and material resources were drawn from the militant groups Harakat ul-Jihad al-Islami (HUJI) and the Harakat ul-Mujahedin (HUM). The JEM had close ties to Afghan Arabs and the Taliban. Osama bin Laden was suspected of giving funding to the JEM. A group by this name claimed responsibility for the U.S.S. Cole attack.
Jaish-e-Mohammed was a major Islamic mujahedeen organization based in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. The group's primary motive was to separate Kashmir from India and it carried out several attacks primarily in Indian-administered Kashmir. It was banned in Pakistan after 2002, yet continued to operate several facilities in Pakistan.
Jaish-e-Mohammed was viewed by some as the principal terrorist organization in Jammu and Kashmir. The group was regarded as a terrorist organization by several countries, including India, the United States and the United Kingdom.
Jaish-e-Mohammed was formed in the mid 1990s in Pakistan after supporters of Maulana Masood Azhar split from Harkat-ul-Mujahideen. The group, in coordination with Lashkar-e-Tayiba, was implicated in the 2001 Indian Parliament attack in New Delhi.
It was also suspected in the murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl in Karachi.
An informant, posing as a member of Jaish-e-Mohammed, helped police to arrest four people allegedly plotting to bomb a New York City synagogue as well as to shoot Stinger missiles at military aircraft in the United States. The arrest of the four took place in May 2009. One of the four, by the name of James Cromitie, allegedly expressed the desire to join Jaish-e-Mohammed. This expression allegedly took place approximately a year prior to the arrests.
On December 9, 2009, five Muslim Americans, who knew each other from the ICNA Center in Arlington, Virginia, were detained in Pakistan during a police raid. The men had met with Jaish-e-Muhammed in Pakistan and offered their assistance in jihadi attacks. The house they were detained in was occupied by Khalid Farooq, the father of one of the men. He was suspected of ties to Jaish-e-Muhammed, to which the house itself was also linked.
Army of Mohammed see Jaish-e-Mohammed
JEM see Jaish-e-Mohammed
Jaish-e-Muhammed see Jaish-e-Mohammed
Jaish-e-Mohammad see Jaish-e-Mohammed
Jaish-e-Muhammad see Jaish-e-Mohammed
Jajarmi, Muhammad ibn Badr
Jajarmi, Muhammad ibn Badr (Muhammad ibn Badr Jajarmi). Fourteenth century Persian poet. He is known for his extensive anthology of poetry, the autograph of which attracted the attention of art historians for its miniatures.
Muhammad ibn Badr Jajarmi see Jajarmi, Muhammad ibn Badr
Jajarmi, Muhammad ibn Badr (Muhammad ibn Badr Jajarmi). Fourteenth century Persian poet. He is known for his extensive anthology of poetry, the autograph of which attracted the attention of art historians for its miniatures.
Muhammad ibn Badr Jajarmi see Jajarmi, Muhammad ibn Badr
Jalal al-Dawla, Abu Tahir
Jalal al-Dawla, Abu Tahir (Abu Tahir Jalal al-Dawla) (Abu Tahir Jalal al-Daula) (993/994-March 1044). Member of the Buyid dynasty. He was governor of Basra and fought the Buyid ruler Abu Kalijar al-Marzuban and, in the end, left the Buyid kingdom in a state of the deepest degradation.
Abu Tahir Jalal al-Daula was the Buyid amir of Iraq (1027-1044). He was the son of Baha' al-Daula.
In 1012, Jalal al-Daula's father died. His brother, Sultan al-Daula came to the throne and appointed him as governor of Basra. He ruled there up until Musharrif al-Daula, who had taken control of Iraq, died in 1025. His death caused a succession crisis. The army took more than two years before choosing Jalal al-Daula as his successor in June of 1027. He subsequently became involved in a bitter fight with his nephew Abu Kalijar, who controlled Fars and Kerman. The two Buyids were not always enemies; for example, Jalal al-Daula provided support to Abu Kalijar when the Ghaznavids invaded Kerman in 1033.
Jalal al-Daula was, however, also forced to deal with problems in his own realm, which consisted of little more than Baghdad and Wasit following Abu Kalijar's seizure of Basra. His army was continually hostile, a situation which devolved to the point where the caliph often acted as a mediator between the amir and his troops. A mutiny led by a Turk named Barstoghan in 1036 or 1037 was, therefore, not surprising. The revolt provided Abu Kalijar with an opportunity to invade. He failed to take Baghdad, but gained Jalal al-Daula's allegiance. The latter, however, had the support of the Uqailid amir of Mosul and the Arab tribe of the Asadids, and he was soon restored to his full power as an independent ruler. Jalal al-Daula continued his rule in Iraq until his death in 1044, following which Abu Kalijar managed to gain control of Iraq.
Dawla, Abu Tahir Jalal al- see Jalal al-Dawla, Abu Tahir
Abu Tahir Jalal al-Dawla see Jalal al-Dawla, Abu Tahir
Abu Tahir Jalal al-Daula see Jalal al-Dawla, Abu Tahir
Jalal al-Dawla, Abu Tahir (Abu Tahir Jalal al-Dawla) (Abu Tahir Jalal al-Daula) (993/994-March 1044). Member of the Buyid dynasty. He was governor of Basra and fought the Buyid ruler Abu Kalijar al-Marzuban and, in the end, left the Buyid kingdom in a state of the deepest degradation.
Abu Tahir Jalal al-Daula was the Buyid amir of Iraq (1027-1044). He was the son of Baha' al-Daula.
In 1012, Jalal al-Daula's father died. His brother, Sultan al-Daula came to the throne and appointed him as governor of Basra. He ruled there up until Musharrif al-Daula, who had taken control of Iraq, died in 1025. His death caused a succession crisis. The army took more than two years before choosing Jalal al-Daula as his successor in June of 1027. He subsequently became involved in a bitter fight with his nephew Abu Kalijar, who controlled Fars and Kerman. The two Buyids were not always enemies; for example, Jalal al-Daula provided support to Abu Kalijar when the Ghaznavids invaded Kerman in 1033.
Jalal al-Daula was, however, also forced to deal with problems in his own realm, which consisted of little more than Baghdad and Wasit following Abu Kalijar's seizure of Basra. His army was continually hostile, a situation which devolved to the point where the caliph often acted as a mediator between the amir and his troops. A mutiny led by a Turk named Barstoghan in 1036 or 1037 was, therefore, not surprising. The revolt provided Abu Kalijar with an opportunity to invade. He failed to take Baghdad, but gained Jalal al-Daula's allegiance. The latter, however, had the support of the Uqailid amir of Mosul and the Arab tribe of the Asadids, and he was soon restored to his full power as an independent ruler. Jalal al-Daula continued his rule in Iraq until his death in 1044, following which Abu Kalijar managed to gain control of Iraq.
Dawla, Abu Tahir Jalal al- see Jalal al-Dawla, Abu Tahir
Abu Tahir Jalal al-Dawla see Jalal al-Dawla, Abu Tahir
Abu Tahir Jalal al-Daula see Jalal al-Dawla, Abu Tahir
Jalal al-Din ‘Arif
Jalal al-Din ‘Arif (Celaleddin Arif) (1875-1930). Turkish lawyer and statesman.
'Arif, Jalal al-Din see Jalal al-Din ‘Arif
Arif, Celaleddin see Jalal al-Din ‘Arif
Celaleddin Arif see Jalal al-Din ‘Arif
Jalal al-Din ‘Arif (Celaleddin Arif) (1875-1930). Turkish lawyer and statesman.
'Arif, Jalal al-Din see Jalal al-Din ‘Arif
Arif, Celaleddin see Jalal al-Din ‘Arif
Celaleddin Arif see Jalal al-Din ‘Arif
Jalal al-Din Khwarazm-Shah
Jalal al-Din Khwarazm-Shah (Mingburnu or Mangubirti). Last ruler of the dynasty of the Khwarazm-Shahs (r. 1220-1231). Pursued by the Mongol Jenghiz Khan, he escaped across the Indus, fought in Azerbaijan and Georgia and met his death near Mayyafariqin.
Jalal ad-Din Mingburnu. also known as Jelal ad-Din Manguberdi or Minkburny in the east (Persian: جلال الدین منگبرنی) was the last ruler of the Khwarezmid Empire. Following the defeat of his father, Ala ad-Din Muhammad II by Genghis Khan in 1220, Jelal ad-Din Manguberdi came to power but he rejected the title shah that his father had assumed and called himself simply sultan. Due to the Mongol invasion and sacking of Samarkand, he was forced to flee to India with an escort of only five thousand men. At the river Indus however, the Mongols caught up with him and killed his forces and thousands of refugees at the Battle of Indus. He escaped and sought asylum in the Sultanate of Delhi. Iltumish however denied this to him in deference to the relationship with the Abassid caliphs.
Jalal ad-Din Mingburnu spent three years in exile in India before returning to Persia. He gathered an army and re-established a kingdom. He never consolidated his power however, and he spent the rest of his days struggling against Mongols, pretenders to the throne and the Seljuk Turks of Rum. He lost his power over Persia in a battle against the Mongols in the Alborz Mountains and fled to the Caucasus, to capture Azerbaijan in 1225, setting up their capital at Tabriz. In 1226 he attacked Georgia and sacked Tbilisi, destroying all the churches.[1]
Jalal had a brief victory over the Seljuks and captured the town Akhlat from Ayyubids. However, he was later defeated by Sultan Kayqubad I at Erzincan on the Upper Euphrates at the Battle of Yassi Chemen in 1230, from where he escaped to Diyarbakir while the Mongols captured Azerbaijan in the ensuing confusion. He was murdered in 1231 in Diyarbakir by a Kurdish assassin hired by the Seljuks or possibly by Kurdish highwaymen.[citation needed]
[edit] Notes
Khwarazm-Shah, Jalal al-Din see Jalal al-Din Khwarazm-Shah
Mingburnu see Jalal al-Din Khwarazm-Shah
Mangubirti see Jalal al-Din Khwarazm-Shah
Jalal al-Din Khwarazm-Shah (Mingburnu or Mangubirti). Last ruler of the dynasty of the Khwarazm-Shahs (r. 1220-1231). Pursued by the Mongol Jenghiz Khan, he escaped across the Indus, fought in Azerbaijan and Georgia and met his death near Mayyafariqin.
Jalal ad-Din Mingburnu. also known as Jelal ad-Din Manguberdi or Minkburny in the east (Persian: جلال الدین منگبرنی) was the last ruler of the Khwarezmid Empire. Following the defeat of his father, Ala ad-Din Muhammad II by Genghis Khan in 1220, Jelal ad-Din Manguberdi came to power but he rejected the title shah that his father had assumed and called himself simply sultan. Due to the Mongol invasion and sacking of Samarkand, he was forced to flee to India with an escort of only five thousand men. At the river Indus however, the Mongols caught up with him and killed his forces and thousands of refugees at the Battle of Indus. He escaped and sought asylum in the Sultanate of Delhi. Iltumish however denied this to him in deference to the relationship with the Abassid caliphs.
Jalal ad-Din Mingburnu spent three years in exile in India before returning to Persia. He gathered an army and re-established a kingdom. He never consolidated his power however, and he spent the rest of his days struggling against Mongols, pretenders to the throne and the Seljuk Turks of Rum. He lost his power over Persia in a battle against the Mongols in the Alborz Mountains and fled to the Caucasus, to capture Azerbaijan in 1225, setting up their capital at Tabriz. In 1226 he attacked Georgia and sacked Tbilisi, destroying all the churches.[1]
Jalal had a brief victory over the Seljuks and captured the town Akhlat from Ayyubids. However, he was later defeated by Sultan Kayqubad I at Erzincan on the Upper Euphrates at the Battle of Yassi Chemen in 1230, from where he escaped to Diyarbakir while the Mongols captured Azerbaijan in the ensuing confusion. He was murdered in 1231 in Diyarbakir by a Kurdish assassin hired by the Seljuks or possibly by Kurdish highwaymen.[citation needed]
[edit] Notes
Khwarazm-Shah, Jalal al-Din see Jalal al-Din Khwarazm-Shah
Mingburnu see Jalal al-Din Khwarazm-Shah
Mangubirti see Jalal al-Din Khwarazm-Shah
Jalal al-Din Rumi
Jalal al-Din Rumi. See Rumi, Jalal ad-Din.
Jalal al-Din Rumi. See Rumi, Jalal ad-Din.
Jalal Al-i Ahmad
Jalal Al-i Ahmad (Sayyid Jalal Al-i Ahmad) (Jalal Al-e-Ahmad) (December 2, 1923 - September 9, 1969). Iranian prose writer and ideologist. He wrote literary fiction, essays and reports, and regional monographs.
Jalal Al-e-Ahmad was a prominent Iranian writer, thinker, and social and political critic. Jalal Al-e-Ahmad was born into a religious family in Tehran. His father was an Islamic cleric originally from the small village of Owrazan in Taleghan mountains. After elementary school Al-e-Ahmad was sent to earn a living in the Tehran bazaar, but also attended Marvi Madreseh for a religious education, and without his father's permission, night classes at the Tehran Polytechnic. He became acquainted with the speech and words of Ahmad Kasravi and was unable to commit to the clerical career his father and brother had hoped he would take, describing it as a snare in the shape of a cloak and an aba.
In 1946, Jalal Al-e-Ahmad earned a master's degree in Persian literature from Tehran Teachers College and became a teacher, at the same time making a sharp break with his religious family that left him completely on his own resources. He pursued academic studies further and enrolled in a doctoral program of Persian literature at Tehran University but quit before he had defended his dissertation in 1951. In 1950, he married Simin Daneshvar, a well-known Persian novelist. Jalal and Simin were infertile, a topic that was reflected in some of Jalal's works. He died in Asalem, a rural region in the north of Iran, inside a cottage which was built almost entirely by himself. He was buried in Firouzabadi mosque in Ray, Iran.
Al-e-Ahmad is perhaps most famous for coining the term Gharbzadegi - variously translated in English as westernstruck, westoxification, occidentosis - as in a book by the same name Occidentosis: A Plague from the West, clandestinely published in Iran in 1962. In the book, Al-e-Ahmad developed a stinging critique of western technology, and by implication of Western civilization itself. He argued that the decline of traditional Iranian industries such as carpet-weaving were the beginning of Western economic and existential victories over the East.
His message was embraced by the Ayatollah Khomeini and became part of the ideology of the 1979 Iranian Revolution which emphasized nationalization of industry, independence in all areas of live from both the Soviet and the Western world, and self-sufficiency in economics.
Al-e-Ahmad joined the Tudeh Party along with his mentor Khalil Maleki shortly after World War II. They were too independent for the party and resigned in protest over the lack of democracy and the pro-Soviet support for Soviet demands for oil concessions and occupation of Iranian Azerbaijan. They formed an alternative party, the Socialist Society of the Iranian Masses in January 1948 but disbanded it a few days later when Radio Moscow attacked it, unwilling to publicly oppose what they considered the world's most progressive nations. Nonetheless, the dissent of Al-e-Ahmad and Maleki marked the end of the near hegemony of the party over intellectual life.
Al-e-Ahmad later helped found the pro-Mossadegh Toilers Party, one of the component parties of the National Front, and then in 1952 a new party called the Third Force. Following the 1953 Iranian coup d'état, Al-e-Ahmad was imprisoned for several years and so completely lost faith in party politics that he signed a letter of repentance published in an Iranian newspaper declaring that he had resigned from the Third Force, and completely abandoned politics.
Al-e-Ahmad used a colloquial style in prose. In this sense, he is a follower of avant-garde Persian novelists like Mohammad-Ali Jamalzadeh. Since the subjects of his works (novels, essays, travelogues and ethnographic monographs) are usually cultural, social and political issues, symbolic representations and sarcastic expressions are regular characteristics of his books. A distinct characteristic of his writings is his honest examination of subjects, regardless of possible reactions from political, social or religious powers.
On invitation of Richard Nelson Frye, Al-e-Ahmad spent a summer at Harvard University, as part of a Distinguished Visiting Fellowship program established by Henry Kissinger for supporting promising Iranian intellectuals.
Al-e-Ahmad rigorously supported Nima Yushij (father of modern Persian poetry) and had an important role in the acceptance of Nima's revolutionary style.
The works of Al-e-Ahmad include the following:
Novels and novellas
* The School Principal
* By the Pen
* The Tale of Beehives
* The Cursing of the Land
* A Stone upon a Grave
Short stories
* "The setar"
* "Of our suffering"
* "Someone else's child"
* "Pink nail-polish"
* "The Chinese flower pot"
* "The postman"
* "The treasure"
* "The Pilgrimage"
* "Sin"
Critical essays
* "Seven essays"
* "Hurried investigations"
* "Plagued by the West" (Gharbzadegi)
Monographs
Jalal traveled to far-off, usually poor, regions of Iran and tried to document their life, culture and problems. Some of these monographs are:
* "Owrazan"
* "Tat people of Block-e-Zahra"
* "Kharg Island, the unique pearl of the Persian Gulf"
Travelogues
* A Straw in Mecca
* A Journey to Russia
* A Journey to Europe
* A Journey to the Land of Israel
* A Journey to America
Translations
* The Gambler by Fyodor Dostoyevsky,
* L'Etranger by Albert Camus,
* Les mains sales by Jean-Paul Sartre,
* Return from the U.S.S.R. by André Gide,
* Rhinoceros by Eugène Ionesco,
Ahmad, Jalal Al-i see Jalal Al-i Ahmad
Ahmad, Sayyid Jalal Al-i see Jalal Al-i Ahmad
Sayyid Jalal Al-i Ahmad see Jalal Al-i Ahmad
Jalal Al-i Ahmad (Sayyid Jalal Al-i Ahmad) (Jalal Al-e-Ahmad) (December 2, 1923 - September 9, 1969). Iranian prose writer and ideologist. He wrote literary fiction, essays and reports, and regional monographs.
Jalal Al-e-Ahmad was a prominent Iranian writer, thinker, and social and political critic. Jalal Al-e-Ahmad was born into a religious family in Tehran. His father was an Islamic cleric originally from the small village of Owrazan in Taleghan mountains. After elementary school Al-e-Ahmad was sent to earn a living in the Tehran bazaar, but also attended Marvi Madreseh for a religious education, and without his father's permission, night classes at the Tehran Polytechnic. He became acquainted with the speech and words of Ahmad Kasravi and was unable to commit to the clerical career his father and brother had hoped he would take, describing it as a snare in the shape of a cloak and an aba.
In 1946, Jalal Al-e-Ahmad earned a master's degree in Persian literature from Tehran Teachers College and became a teacher, at the same time making a sharp break with his religious family that left him completely on his own resources. He pursued academic studies further and enrolled in a doctoral program of Persian literature at Tehran University but quit before he had defended his dissertation in 1951. In 1950, he married Simin Daneshvar, a well-known Persian novelist. Jalal and Simin were infertile, a topic that was reflected in some of Jalal's works. He died in Asalem, a rural region in the north of Iran, inside a cottage which was built almost entirely by himself. He was buried in Firouzabadi mosque in Ray, Iran.
Al-e-Ahmad is perhaps most famous for coining the term Gharbzadegi - variously translated in English as westernstruck, westoxification, occidentosis - as in a book by the same name Occidentosis: A Plague from the West, clandestinely published in Iran in 1962. In the book, Al-e-Ahmad developed a stinging critique of western technology, and by implication of Western civilization itself. He argued that the decline of traditional Iranian industries such as carpet-weaving were the beginning of Western economic and existential victories over the East.
His message was embraced by the Ayatollah Khomeini and became part of the ideology of the 1979 Iranian Revolution which emphasized nationalization of industry, independence in all areas of live from both the Soviet and the Western world, and self-sufficiency in economics.
Al-e-Ahmad joined the Tudeh Party along with his mentor Khalil Maleki shortly after World War II. They were too independent for the party and resigned in protest over the lack of democracy and the pro-Soviet support for Soviet demands for oil concessions and occupation of Iranian Azerbaijan. They formed an alternative party, the Socialist Society of the Iranian Masses in January 1948 but disbanded it a few days later when Radio Moscow attacked it, unwilling to publicly oppose what they considered the world's most progressive nations. Nonetheless, the dissent of Al-e-Ahmad and Maleki marked the end of the near hegemony of the party over intellectual life.
Al-e-Ahmad later helped found the pro-Mossadegh Toilers Party, one of the component parties of the National Front, and then in 1952 a new party called the Third Force. Following the 1953 Iranian coup d'état, Al-e-Ahmad was imprisoned for several years and so completely lost faith in party politics that he signed a letter of repentance published in an Iranian newspaper declaring that he had resigned from the Third Force, and completely abandoned politics.
Al-e-Ahmad used a colloquial style in prose. In this sense, he is a follower of avant-garde Persian novelists like Mohammad-Ali Jamalzadeh. Since the subjects of his works (novels, essays, travelogues and ethnographic monographs) are usually cultural, social and political issues, symbolic representations and sarcastic expressions are regular characteristics of his books. A distinct characteristic of his writings is his honest examination of subjects, regardless of possible reactions from political, social or religious powers.
On invitation of Richard Nelson Frye, Al-e-Ahmad spent a summer at Harvard University, as part of a Distinguished Visiting Fellowship program established by Henry Kissinger for supporting promising Iranian intellectuals.
Al-e-Ahmad rigorously supported Nima Yushij (father of modern Persian poetry) and had an important role in the acceptance of Nima's revolutionary style.
The works of Al-e-Ahmad include the following:
Novels and novellas
* The School Principal
* By the Pen
* The Tale of Beehives
* The Cursing of the Land
* A Stone upon a Grave
Short stories
* "The setar"
* "Of our suffering"
* "Someone else's child"
* "Pink nail-polish"
* "The Chinese flower pot"
* "The postman"
* "The treasure"
* "The Pilgrimage"
* "Sin"
Critical essays
* "Seven essays"
* "Hurried investigations"
* "Plagued by the West" (Gharbzadegi)
Monographs
Jalal traveled to far-off, usually poor, regions of Iran and tried to document their life, culture and problems. Some of these monographs are:
* "Owrazan"
* "Tat people of Block-e-Zahra"
* "Kharg Island, the unique pearl of the Persian Gulf"
Travelogues
* A Straw in Mecca
* A Journey to Russia
* A Journey to Europe
* A Journey to the Land of Israel
* A Journey to America
Translations
* The Gambler by Fyodor Dostoyevsky,
* L'Etranger by Albert Camus,
* Les mains sales by Jean-Paul Sartre,
* Return from the U.S.S.R. by André Gide,
* Rhinoceros by Eugène Ionesco,
Ahmad, Jalal Al-i see Jalal Al-i Ahmad
Ahmad, Sayyid Jalal Al-i see Jalal Al-i Ahmad
Sayyid Jalal Al-i Ahmad see Jalal Al-i Ahmad
Jalayrids
Jalayrids (Jalayirids). Mongol dynasty in Iraq (Mesopotamia), western Iran, and Azerbaijan (r. 1336-1432). Their main capitals were Baghdad and, from 1358 to 1388, Tabriz. The important Mongol tribe of Jalayir (of the founding father Ilka) in Transoxiana did not belong to Jenghiz Khan’s federation. Having arrived in Iran in 1256, they rose to high office under the Ilkhanids and, following the Ilkhanids downfall (in 1335), constituted the major power in Iraq and parts of Persia. Sheikh Hasan Buzurg the Great (r. 1336-1356) seized power in Baghdad in 1336 and ruled from 1340 as an independent ruler. His son, Sheikh Uwais (r. 1356-1374), conquered northwest Iran in 1358 (Tabriz-Sultaniyya area) and Azerbaijan in 1360 from the Golden Horde and occupied Mosul and Diyar Bakr in 1365. Sheikh Uwais was a leading patron of the arts with a splendid household. His son, Husain (r. 1374-1382), fought violent battles against the Muzaffarids in Iran and the Qara Qoyunlu in Diyar Bakr. Husain’s brother, Ahmad (r. 1382-1410), fought against Timur, who expelled him from Baghdad in 1393. Ahmad’s return in 1395 led to the destruction of Baghdad by Timur in 1401. Back in Baghdad from 1406, the Jalayirids were finally driven out by the Qara Qoyunlu in 1411. The last Jalayirids stayed in Basra and Khuzistan until 1432, when they were once again ousted by the Qara Qoyunlu.
The Jalayirids were a Mongol Jalayir dynasty which ruled over Iraq and western Persia after the breakup of the Mongol Khanate of Persia (or Ilkhanate) in the 1330s. The Jalayirid sultanate lasted about fifty years, until disrupted by Tamerlane's conquests and the revolts of the "Black sheep" Turks or Kara Koyunlu . After Tamerlane's death in 1405, there was a brief attempt to re-establish the sultanate in southern Iraq and Khuzistan. The Jalayirids were finally eliminated by Kara Koyunlu in 1432.
The rulers of Jalayirid Sultanate were:
* Hasan Buzurg (1336 - 1356)
* Shaikh Uvais I (1356 - 1374)
* Hasan (1374)
* Husain I (1374 - 1382)
* Bayazid (1382 - 1383)
* Ahmad (1383 - 1410)
* Shah Walad (1410-1411)
* Mahmud (1411-1415)
* Uwais II (1415-1421)
* Mohammed (1421-1422)
* Mahmud II (1422-1424)
* Husain II (1424-1432)
Jalayirids see Jalayrids
Jalayrids (Jalayirids). Mongol dynasty in Iraq (Mesopotamia), western Iran, and Azerbaijan (r. 1336-1432). Their main capitals were Baghdad and, from 1358 to 1388, Tabriz. The important Mongol tribe of Jalayir (of the founding father Ilka) in Transoxiana did not belong to Jenghiz Khan’s federation. Having arrived in Iran in 1256, they rose to high office under the Ilkhanids and, following the Ilkhanids downfall (in 1335), constituted the major power in Iraq and parts of Persia. Sheikh Hasan Buzurg the Great (r. 1336-1356) seized power in Baghdad in 1336 and ruled from 1340 as an independent ruler. His son, Sheikh Uwais (r. 1356-1374), conquered northwest Iran in 1358 (Tabriz-Sultaniyya area) and Azerbaijan in 1360 from the Golden Horde and occupied Mosul and Diyar Bakr in 1365. Sheikh Uwais was a leading patron of the arts with a splendid household. His son, Husain (r. 1374-1382), fought violent battles against the Muzaffarids in Iran and the Qara Qoyunlu in Diyar Bakr. Husain’s brother, Ahmad (r. 1382-1410), fought against Timur, who expelled him from Baghdad in 1393. Ahmad’s return in 1395 led to the destruction of Baghdad by Timur in 1401. Back in Baghdad from 1406, the Jalayirids were finally driven out by the Qara Qoyunlu in 1411. The last Jalayirids stayed in Basra and Khuzistan until 1432, when they were once again ousted by the Qara Qoyunlu.
The Jalayirids were a Mongol Jalayir dynasty which ruled over Iraq and western Persia after the breakup of the Mongol Khanate of Persia (or Ilkhanate) in the 1330s. The Jalayirid sultanate lasted about fifty years, until disrupted by Tamerlane's conquests and the revolts of the "Black sheep" Turks or Kara Koyunlu . After Tamerlane's death in 1405, there was a brief attempt to re-establish the sultanate in southern Iraq and Khuzistan. The Jalayirids were finally eliminated by Kara Koyunlu in 1432.
The rulers of Jalayirid Sultanate were:
* Hasan Buzurg (1336 - 1356)
* Shaikh Uvais I (1356 - 1374)
* Hasan (1374)
* Husain I (1374 - 1382)
* Bayazid (1382 - 1383)
* Ahmad (1383 - 1410)
* Shah Walad (1410-1411)
* Mahmud (1411-1415)
* Uwais II (1415-1421)
* Mohammed (1421-1422)
* Mahmud II (1422-1424)
* Husain II (1424-1432)
Jalayirids see Jalayrids
Jama‘at al-Islamiyah, al- (Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya) (al-jamā aħ al-'islāmiyyaħ -- Arabic for "the Islamic Group") (Gamaat Islamiya) (al Jamaat al Islamiya) (El Gama'a El Islamiyya) (GI). A broad range of Islamic organizations in Egypt use the name al-Jama‘at al-Islamiyah (Islamic Groups). These groups operate primarily through independent mosques and student unions on university campuses and appeal primarily to Egyptian youths. There does not appear to be any single leadership uniting the various groups; rather, they represent the general trend in Egyptian society toward Islamic resurgence. However, since the mid-1980s an increasing number of clashes have occurred in Upper Egypt between government forces and more politically militant groups acting under the banner of al-Jama ‘at al-Islamiyah. The self-proclaimed leader of these groups is Shaykh Omar Abdel Rahman (Umar ‘Abd al-Rahman), a blind preacher from al-Fayyum who lived in exile in the United States in the early 1990s.
The use of the term al-Jama‘at al-Islamiyah originated in the early 1970s under the new government of President Anwar Sadat. Sadat released members of al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun (the Muslim Brotherhood) who had been imprisoned under President Gamal Abdel Nasser and officially permitted new Islamic organizations to form under the umbrella of al-Jama‘at al-Islamiyah. This move to reconstruct the conservative religious sectors of society was an early sign of Sadat’s intention to shift Egypt’s political course. Through the 1970s, as Sadat developed his plans to restructure the Egyptian political economy, these Islamic groups served as an important counter-balance to the old Nasserist constituency and other groups further to the left. While the regime reduced government programs and encouraged general privatization, the number of private (ahli) mosques in the country doubled in one decade from twenty thousand to forty thousand.
These private mosques and the many Islamic organizations associated with them began to play an important role in large urban areas, including Cairo, Alexandria, Port Said, and Suez in Lower Egypt. Continued rural migration to these cities, combined with the government’s restructuring policy, exacerbated social and economic tensions and led to a growing sense of urban alienation. While the government reduced its social welfare programs, the activities of al-Jama‘at al-Islamiyah provided a social safety net at private mosques, with centers for food and clothing distribution as well as for the study of the Qur’an. These mosques also had new independent sources of funding in the form of private remittances from members’ relatives who migrated to work in the Arab Gulf countries during the oil-boom years. An additional factor affecting the growth of the movement was the expansion of the country’s university system, especially in Upper Egypt where new campuses were founded in the 1970s in al-Minya, al-Fayyum, Sohag, Qina, and Aswan. Students at these schools and the older university in Asyut organized unions and fraternities under the name of al-Jama‘at al-Islamiyah.
By the late 1970s, as Sadat faced growing opposition at home for signing the Camp David peace treaty with Israel, there were a number of independent religious leaders associated with al-Jama‘at al-Islamiyah who became very popular for their outspoken criticism of the Sadat regime. Prominent among these were Shaykh Ahmad al-Mahallawi at Qa’id Ibrahim Mosque in Alexandria and Shaykh Hafiz Salamah of al-Shuhada’ Mosque in Suez and al-Nur Mosque in Cairo. Just before his assassination in 1981, Sadat made public attacks on both Shaykh Mahallawi and Shaykh Salamah. Shaykh Omar Abdel Rahman was also critical of the regime and was later charged with having links to the Jihad group that carried out Sadat’s assassination, but was not found guilty. In the government crackdown on public opposition both before and after Sadat’s assassination, each of these religious leaders experienced state censorship and imprisonment.
It is difficult to generalize about the ideology, practices, and aims of the various al-Jama‘at al-Islamiyah organizations. In general, they advocate stronger Islamic rule and oppose non-Islamic practices in Egyptian society. They call for the adoption of shari‘a, the Islamic legal code, as the official law of the state, and they oppose attempts by the government to control and supervise the work of mosques and religious groups through the shaykh of al-Azhar and the Ministry of Awqaf. More than other al-Jama‘at leaders, Shaykh Omar Abdel Rahman denounced the official religious institutions of the state and was even critical of entry by moderates in the Ikhwan into electoral party politics. After the Iranian revolution, Shaykh Omar Abdel Rahman identified closely with its Islamic government and urged his followers to confront the Egyptian government directly for its non-Islamic practices.
The Egyptian government and official media attempted to link Shaykh Omar with the clandestine and subversive Jihad group, but he always denied the connection. The main difference between his activities and those of Jihad is that he openly sought to mobilize popular resistance to the government through his public preaching and the organizing of large conferences in cities along the Nile River. By the summer of 1988, there were an increasing number of clashes in al-Fayyum, al-Minya, and other cities in Asyut province between the local police and his followers as they left mosques after the Friday sermons. Cities and universities throughout the area experienced increasing repression by the state as the government closed mosques, disrupted student union elections, and banned all activities under the name al-Jama‘at al-Islamiyah. As tensions rose there were reports of house-to-house police searches, mass arrests in the thousands, and an increasing number of killings in many cities of Upper Egypt. In 1988 and 1989, Shaykh Omar was arrested and detained on at least two occasions. During his imprisonment, his followers staged large protests that led to further confrontations with the police. There were also demonstrations of support reported in the Cairo suburbs of Imbabah and ‘Ayn Shams, indicating his broad following and the shared identity of al-Jama‘at organizations around Egypt. As the clashes between the government and al-Jama‘at continued, Shaykh Omar left the country, reportedly first to Afghanistan and Pakistan and then to the United States.
Following Shaykh Omar’s exile the level of conflict between al-Jama‘at followers and the government increased, with military troops, armored cars, and helicopters deployed to several cities. The nature of the confrontation also assumed three new forms. First, the political assassinations of People’s Assembly speaker Rif‘at al-Mahjub in October 1990 and of liberal author
Faraj Fawdah in June 1992, were blamed on al-Jama‘at and were said to have been ordered by Shaykh Omar. Attacks on prominent officials continued, such as the attempted assassination of Prime Minister ‘Atif Sidqi, in November 1993. Second, in 1991, violent sectarian clashes between Muslims and Christians erupted in several cities of Upper Egypt, notably Dayrut. The government claimed these were instigated by members of al-Jama‘at, but they mainly resulted from old social rivalries. Third, by late 1992, extremist elements in al-Jama‘at claimed responsibility for at least two attacks on foreign tourists visiting pharaonic monuments in Upper Egypt. The government claimed the al-Jama‘at were pursuing a new strategy to disrupt the tourist trade and thus damage the national economy. These attacks on foreign tourists continued into 1993.
In the summer of 1992, the government passed a strict new anti-terrorism law limiting al-Jama‘at’s activities, and in the fall it announced that all mosques and prayer leaders would be put under state control. In August 1992, the government claimed to have arrested twenty-five leaders of al-Jama‘at, including two foreign citizens – a Sudanese and a Jordanian – at an organizational meeting in Alexandria. The government always maintained that al-Jama‘at is foreign-inspired, primarily by Iranians and Sudanese, and it now claimed to have exposed this international connection. Despite these arrests, however, al-Jama‘at would remain a significant factor in Egyptian society. It had wide appeal among the youth and university students and appears to have established popular roots in several parts of the country.
The 1990s saw Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya engage in an extended campaign of violence, from the murders and attempted murders of prominent writers and intellectuals, to the repeated targeting of tourists and foreigners. This did serious damage to the largest sector of Egypt's economy and in turn to the government, but it also devastated the livelihoods of many of the people on whom the group depends for support.
Victims of campaign against the Egyptian state from 1992-1997 totaled more than 1200 and included the head of the counter-terrorism police (Major General Raouf Khayrat), a speaker of parliamentary (Rifaat al-Mahgoub), dozens of European tourists and Egyptian bystanders, and over 100 Egyptian police.
The 1991 killing of the group's leader, Ala Mohieddin, presumably by security forces, led Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya to murder Egypt's speaker of parliament in retaliation. In June 1995, working together with Egyptian Islamic Jihad, the group staged a carefully planned attempt on the life of president Mubarak, lead by Mustafa Hamza, a senior Egyptian member of the Al-Qaeda and commander of the military branch of the Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya. Mubarak escaped unharmed and retaliated with a massive and ruthless crackdown on the members of Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya and their families in Egypt.
Taalat Fouad Qassem was arrested in Croatia in 1995.
By 1997, the movement had become paralyzed. 20,000 Islamists were in custody in Egypt and thousands more had been cut down by the security forces. In July of that year, Islamist lawyer Montassir al-Zayyat brokered a deal between the Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya and the Egyptian government, called the Nonviolence Initiative, whereby the movement formally renounced violence. The next year the government released 2,000 members of the Islamic Group. After the initiative was declared Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman also gave his approval from his prison cell in the United States, though he later withdrew it.
The initiative divided the Islamic Group between members in Egypt who supported it and those in exile who wanted the attacks to continue. Leading the opposition was EIJ leader Ayman Zawahiri who termed it "surrender" in angry letters to the London newspaper Al-Sharq al-Awsat.
Zawahiri enlisted Mustafa Hamza, the new emir of Islamic Groups and its military leader, Rifai Ahmed Taha, both exiles in Afghanistan with him, to sabotage the initiative with a massive terrorism attack that would provoke the government into repression. So on November 17, 1997 Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya's killing campaign climaxed with an attack at the Temple of Hatshepsut (Deir el-Bahri) in Luxor, in which a band of six men dressed in police uniforms machine-gunned and hacked to death with knives 58 foreign tourists and four Egyptians. The killing went on for 45 minutes, until the floors streamed with blood. The dead included a five-year-old British child and four Japanese couples on their honeymoons. Altogether 71 people were killed. The attack stunned Egyptian society, devastated the tourist industry for a number of years, and consequently sapped a large segment of popular support for violent Islamism in Egypt.
The revulsion of Egyptians and rejection of jihadi terrorism was so complete, the attack's supporters backpedaled. The day after the attack, Rifai Taha claimed the attackers intended only to take the tourists hostage, despite the evidence of the systematic nature of the slaughter. Others denied Islamist involvement completely. Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman blamed Israelis for the killings, and Zawahiri maintained the Egyptian police had done it.
When Rifai Taha signed the al-Qaeda fatwa "International Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders" to kill Crusaders and Jews on behalf of the Islamic Group, he was forced to withdraw his name from the fatwa, lamely explaining to fellow members ... than he had only been asked over the telephone to "join in a statement of support for the Iraqi people."
The major attacks by Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya include:
* June 8, 1992 – assassination of Farag Foda.
* June 26, 1995 – attempt to assassinate Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
* October 20, 1995 – Car bomb attack on police station in Rijeka, Croatia
* April 28, 1996 – Europa Hotel shooting, Cairo. killing of 18 Greek tourists mistaken for Jews.
* November 17, 1997 – Luxor massacre at Deir el-Bahri, Luxor, Egypt. 58 foreign tourists and four Egyptians killed.
Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya was also responsible for a spate of tourist shootings (trains and cruise ships sprayed with bullets) in middle and upper Egypt during the early 1990s. As a result of those attacks, cruise ships ceased sailing between Cairo and Luxor for several years.
After spending more than two decades in prison and after intense debates and discussions with Al-Azhar scholars, most of the leaders of Al-Gama'a Al-Islamiyya have written several books renouncing their ideology of violence and some of them went as far as calling ex-Egyptian president Sadat, whom they assassinated, a martyr.
Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya renounced bloodshed in 2003, and in September 2003 Egypt freed more than 1,000 members, citing what Interior Minister Habib el-Adli called the group's stated "commitment to rejecting violence."
Harsh repressive measures by the Egyptian government and the unpopularity of the killing of foreign tourists reduced the group's profile but the movement retained popular support among Egyptian Islamists who disapproved of the secular nature of Egypt's society and the peace treaty with Israel.
In April 2006 the Egyptian government released approximately 1200 members, including a founder, Najeh Ibrahim, from prison.
Islamic Groups see Jama‘at al-Islamiyah, al-
Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya see Jama‘at al-Islamiyah, al-
al-jamā aħ al-'islāmiyyaħ see Jama‘at al-Islamiyah, al-
Gamaat Islamiya see Jama‘at al-Islamiyah, al-
al Jamaat al Islamiya see Jama‘at al-Islamiyah, al-
El Gama'a El Islamiyya see Jama‘at al-Islamiyah, al-
In the summer of 1992, the government passed a strict new anti-terrorism law limiting al-Jama‘at’s activities, and in the fall it announced that all mosques and prayer leaders would be put under state control. In August 1992, the government claimed to have arrested twenty-five leaders of al-Jama‘at, including two foreign citizens – a Sudanese and a Jordanian – at an organizational meeting in Alexandria. The government always maintained that al-Jama‘at is foreign-inspired, primarily by Iranians and Sudanese, and it now claimed to have exposed this international connection. Despite these arrests, however, al-Jama‘at would remain a significant factor in Egyptian society. It had wide appeal among the youth and university students and appears to have established popular roots in several parts of the country.
The 1990s saw Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya engage in an extended campaign of violence, from the murders and attempted murders of prominent writers and intellectuals, to the repeated targeting of tourists and foreigners. This did serious damage to the largest sector of Egypt's economy and in turn to the government, but it also devastated the livelihoods of many of the people on whom the group depends for support.
Victims of campaign against the Egyptian state from 1992-1997 totaled more than 1200 and included the head of the counter-terrorism police (Major General Raouf Khayrat), a speaker of parliamentary (Rifaat al-Mahgoub), dozens of European tourists and Egyptian bystanders, and over 100 Egyptian police.
The 1991 killing of the group's leader, Ala Mohieddin, presumably by security forces, led Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya to murder Egypt's speaker of parliament in retaliation. In June 1995, working together with Egyptian Islamic Jihad, the group staged a carefully planned attempt on the life of president Mubarak, lead by Mustafa Hamza, a senior Egyptian member of the Al-Qaeda and commander of the military branch of the Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya. Mubarak escaped unharmed and retaliated with a massive and ruthless crackdown on the members of Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya and their families in Egypt.
Taalat Fouad Qassem was arrested in Croatia in 1995.
By 1997, the movement had become paralyzed. 20,000 Islamists were in custody in Egypt and thousands more had been cut down by the security forces. In July of that year, Islamist lawyer Montassir al-Zayyat brokered a deal between the Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya and the Egyptian government, called the Nonviolence Initiative, whereby the movement formally renounced violence. The next year the government released 2,000 members of the Islamic Group. After the initiative was declared Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman also gave his approval from his prison cell in the United States, though he later withdrew it.
The initiative divided the Islamic Group between members in Egypt who supported it and those in exile who wanted the attacks to continue. Leading the opposition was EIJ leader Ayman Zawahiri who termed it "surrender" in angry letters to the London newspaper Al-Sharq al-Awsat.
Zawahiri enlisted Mustafa Hamza, the new emir of Islamic Groups and its military leader, Rifai Ahmed Taha, both exiles in Afghanistan with him, to sabotage the initiative with a massive terrorism attack that would provoke the government into repression. So on November 17, 1997 Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya's killing campaign climaxed with an attack at the Temple of Hatshepsut (Deir el-Bahri) in Luxor, in which a band of six men dressed in police uniforms machine-gunned and hacked to death with knives 58 foreign tourists and four Egyptians. The killing went on for 45 minutes, until the floors streamed with blood. The dead included a five-year-old British child and four Japanese couples on their honeymoons. Altogether 71 people were killed. The attack stunned Egyptian society, devastated the tourist industry for a number of years, and consequently sapped a large segment of popular support for violent Islamism in Egypt.
The revulsion of Egyptians and rejection of jihadi terrorism was so complete, the attack's supporters backpedaled. The day after the attack, Rifai Taha claimed the attackers intended only to take the tourists hostage, despite the evidence of the systematic nature of the slaughter. Others denied Islamist involvement completely. Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman blamed Israelis for the killings, and Zawahiri maintained the Egyptian police had done it.
When Rifai Taha signed the al-Qaeda fatwa "International Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders" to kill Crusaders and Jews on behalf of the Islamic Group, he was forced to withdraw his name from the fatwa, lamely explaining to fellow members ... than he had only been asked over the telephone to "join in a statement of support for the Iraqi people."
The major attacks by Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya include:
* June 8, 1992 – assassination of Farag Foda.
* June 26, 1995 – attempt to assassinate Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
* October 20, 1995 – Car bomb attack on police station in Rijeka, Croatia
* April 28, 1996 – Europa Hotel shooting, Cairo. killing of 18 Greek tourists mistaken for Jews.
* November 17, 1997 – Luxor massacre at Deir el-Bahri, Luxor, Egypt. 58 foreign tourists and four Egyptians killed.
Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya was also responsible for a spate of tourist shootings (trains and cruise ships sprayed with bullets) in middle and upper Egypt during the early 1990s. As a result of those attacks, cruise ships ceased sailing between Cairo and Luxor for several years.
After spending more than two decades in prison and after intense debates and discussions with Al-Azhar scholars, most of the leaders of Al-Gama'a Al-Islamiyya have written several books renouncing their ideology of violence and some of them went as far as calling ex-Egyptian president Sadat, whom they assassinated, a martyr.
Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya renounced bloodshed in 2003, and in September 2003 Egypt freed more than 1,000 members, citing what Interior Minister Habib el-Adli called the group's stated "commitment to rejecting violence."
Harsh repressive measures by the Egyptian government and the unpopularity of the killing of foreign tourists reduced the group's profile but the movement retained popular support among Egyptian Islamists who disapproved of the secular nature of Egypt's society and the peace treaty with Israel.
In April 2006 the Egyptian government released approximately 1200 members, including a founder, Najeh Ibrahim, from prison.
Islamic Groups see Jama‘at al-Islamiyah, al-
Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya see Jama‘at al-Islamiyah, al-
al-jamā aħ al-'islāmiyyaħ see Jama‘at al-Islamiyah, al-
Gamaat Islamiya see Jama‘at al-Islamiyah, al-
al Jamaat al Islamiya see Jama‘at al-Islamiyah, al-
El Gama'a El Islamiyya see Jama‘at al-Islamiyah, al-
Jamal, Ahmad
Ahmad Jamal, (b. Frederick Russell Jones), an American jazz pianist known for his rendition of But Not ForMe, was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on July 2, 1930.
Ahmad Jamal began playing piano at the age of three, when his uncle Lawrence challenged him to duplicate what he was doing on the piano. Jamal began formal piano training at the age of seven with Mary Cardwell Dawson, whom he describes as greatly influencing him. His Pittsburgh roots remained an important part of his identity ("Pittsburgh meant everything to me and it still does," he said in 2001) and it was there that he was immersed in the influence of jazz artists such as Earl Hines, Billy Strayhorn, Mary Lou Williams, and Erroll Garner. Jamal also studied with pianist James Miller and began playing piano professionally at the age of fourteen, at which point he was recognized as a "coming great" by the pianist Art Tatum.
Born to Baptist parents in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Jamal did not discover Islam until his early 20s. While touring in Detroit (where there was a sizable Muslim community in the 1940s and 1950s), Jamal became interested in Islam and Islamic culture. He converted to Islam and changed his name to Ahmad Jamal in 1950. In an interview with The New York Times a few years later, Jamal said his decision to change his name stemmed from a desire to "re-establish my original name." In 1986, Jamal sued critic Leonard Feather for using his former name in a publication.
After the recording of the best-selling album But Not For Me, Jamal's music grew in popularity throughout the 1950s. In 1959, he took a tour of North Africa to explore investment options in Africa. Jamal, who was twenty-nine at the time, said he had a curiosity about the homeland of his ancestors, highly influenced by his conversion to the Muslim faith. He also said his religion had brought him peace of mind about his race, which accounted for his "growth in the field of music that has proved very lucrative for me."
Upon his return to the United States after a tour of North Africa, the financial success of Live at the Pershing: But Not For Me allowed Jamal to open a restaurant and club called The Alhambra in Chicago. In 1962, The Three Strings disbanded and Jamal moved to New York City, where, at the age of 32, he took a three-year hiatus from his musical career.
In 1964, Jamal resumed touring and recording, this time with the bassist Jamil Nasser and recorded a new album, Extensions, in 1965. Jamal and Nasser continued to play and record together from 1964 to 1972. He also joined forces with Vernel Fournier (again, but only for about a year) and drummer Frank Gant (1966–76), among others. He continued to play throughout the 1970s and 1980s, mostly in trios with piano, bass and drums, but he occasionally expanded the group to include guitar. One of his most long-standing gigs was as the band for the New Year's Eve celebrations at Blues Alley in Washington, D. C., from 1979 through the 1990s. Until 1970, he played acoustic piano exclusively. The final album on which he played acoustic piano in the regular sequence was The Awakening. In the 1970s, Jamal played electric piano as well. It was rumored that the Rhodes piano was a gift from someone in Switzerland.
In 1985, Jamal agreed to do an interview and recording session with his fellow jazz pianist, Marian McPartland on her NPR show Piano Jazz. Jamal, who said he rarely plays "But Not For Me" due to its popularity since his 1958 recording, played an improvised version of the tune – though only after noting that he has moved on to making ninety percent of his repertoire his own compositions. He said that when he grew in popularity from the Live at the Pershing album, he was severely criticized afterwards for not playing any of his own compositions.
In 1994, Mr. Jamal received the American Jazz Masters fellowship award from the National Endowment for the Arts. The same year he was named a Duke Ellington Fellow at Yale University, where he performed commissioned works with the Assai String Quartet.
In 2007 the French Government inducted Mr. Jamal into the prestigious Order of the Arts and Letters by French Culture Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres, naming him Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
Mr. Jamal’s previous recording A Quiet Time (Dreyfus Records), released in January 2010, was the number #1 CD on jazz radio for the year 2010 and continues to soar. Also this year the French Jazz Academy has voted "The Complete Ahmad Jamal Trio Argo Sessions 1956-1962" released by Mosaïc "Best reissue of the year with outstanding research work". His music remains, youthful, fresh, imaginative and always influential.
In December of 2011 Mr. Jamal was awarded with DownBeat’s 76th Reader’s Poll Hall of Fame.
Jamal Qarshi
Jamal Qarshi (b. c. 1230). Scholar and administrator in Turkestan during the Mongol era. He composed a Persian commentary on the lexicon of Abu Nasr al-Jawhari, adding to it an important historical and biographical supplement.
Qarshi, Jamal see Jamal Qarshi
Jamal Qarshi (b. c. 1230). Scholar and administrator in Turkestan during the Mongol era. He composed a Persian commentary on the lexicon of Abu Nasr al-Jawhari, adding to it an important historical and biographical supplement.
Qarshi, Jamal see Jamal Qarshi
Jamat-i-Islami
Jamat-i-Islami. (Jamaat-e-Islami) (Jamaat-i-Islami) ("Islamic Party") (Islamic Society) (JI). Islamist religious and political party in Pakistan.. Reformist movement founded in 1941 by Maulana Abu’l A’la Maududi in response to the Muslim League’s “Pakistan Resolution” of the previous year. Maududi and his followers opposed the idea of Pakistan on the grounds that it would not be a genuine Islamic state but a secular nation controlled by europeanized pseudo-Muslims. The League’s Pakistan, they argued, would only serve to encourage Hindu nationalism and anti-Islamic bigotry. The Jamat-i-Islami called on Muslims to practice the faith as defined by Maududi and thus strictly and slowly convert non-Muslims by their example.
After the partition in 1947, Maududi left India reluctantly. Once in Pakistan, he and the Jamat became the government’s most persistent and best organized critics. Intolerant of the Ahmadiyya (followers of Mirza Ahmed who claimed to be a prophet in the line of Muhammad), the Jamat was banned and Maududi was imprisoned after being blamed for the 1953 riots against that sect. The Jamat managed a comeback, however. Although small, it was highly visible, and the sponsorship of an islamicization campaign by Zia al-Haq made certain elements of the Jamat program the official policy of the government.
The Indian branch of the Jamat-i-Islami reconstituted itself in 1948 with Maulana Abul Lais Islahi as its leader. Although little direct contact occurred between the branches, the program of the Indian Jamat-i-Islami continues to stress political quietism and religious purity. It devotes itself to such issues as religious education and relief for Muslim victims of riots, and actually supports the idea of a truly secular state.
Although a religious party, the Jamaʿat did not remain apart from political activity in Pakistan. Maudūdī had opposed an independent Pakistan but, yielding to political reality, he focused his, and the party’s, attention on Pakistan in 1947 until his retirement in 1972. In 1953, the Jamaʿat led a violent campaign against the Ahmadiyya sect that led to 2,000 deaths. For much of the next two decades, the party remained the voice of the ʿulamāʾ and was active in opposition politics although it did support the wars with India in 1965 and 1971. After the overthrow of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto in 1977, the Jamaʿat supported General Zia ul-Haq’s Islamization program but opposed his effort to ban student unions. More recently, members of the Jamaʿat supported Saddam Hussein during the Gulf War. They were active in electoral politics and sponsored legislation in the senate, both efforts having met with mixed success. The Jamaʿat remained active in its efforts to reform society according to Islamic law and took part in anti-government demonstrations before the fall of the Benazir Bhutto government in 1996.
Jamaat-e-Islami see Jamat-i-Islami.
Jamaat-i-Islami see Jamat-i-Islami.
"Islamic Party" see Jamat-i-Islami.
Islamic Society see Jamat-i-Islami.
JI see Jamat-i-Islami.
Jamat-i-Islami. (Jamaat-e-Islami) (Jamaat-i-Islami) ("Islamic Party") (Islamic Society) (JI). Islamist religious and political party in Pakistan.. Reformist movement founded in 1941 by Maulana Abu’l A’la Maududi in response to the Muslim League’s “Pakistan Resolution” of the previous year. Maududi and his followers opposed the idea of Pakistan on the grounds that it would not be a genuine Islamic state but a secular nation controlled by europeanized pseudo-Muslims. The League’s Pakistan, they argued, would only serve to encourage Hindu nationalism and anti-Islamic bigotry. The Jamat-i-Islami called on Muslims to practice the faith as defined by Maududi and thus strictly and slowly convert non-Muslims by their example.
After the partition in 1947, Maududi left India reluctantly. Once in Pakistan, he and the Jamat became the government’s most persistent and best organized critics. Intolerant of the Ahmadiyya (followers of Mirza Ahmed who claimed to be a prophet in the line of Muhammad), the Jamat was banned and Maududi was imprisoned after being blamed for the 1953 riots against that sect. The Jamat managed a comeback, however. Although small, it was highly visible, and the sponsorship of an islamicization campaign by Zia al-Haq made certain elements of the Jamat program the official policy of the government.
The Indian branch of the Jamat-i-Islami reconstituted itself in 1948 with Maulana Abul Lais Islahi as its leader. Although little direct contact occurred between the branches, the program of the Indian Jamat-i-Islami continues to stress political quietism and religious purity. It devotes itself to such issues as religious education and relief for Muslim victims of riots, and actually supports the idea of a truly secular state.
Although a religious party, the Jamaʿat did not remain apart from political activity in Pakistan. Maudūdī had opposed an independent Pakistan but, yielding to political reality, he focused his, and the party’s, attention on Pakistan in 1947 until his retirement in 1972. In 1953, the Jamaʿat led a violent campaign against the Ahmadiyya sect that led to 2,000 deaths. For much of the next two decades, the party remained the voice of the ʿulamāʾ and was active in opposition politics although it did support the wars with India in 1965 and 1971. After the overthrow of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto in 1977, the Jamaʿat supported General Zia ul-Haq’s Islamization program but opposed his effort to ban student unions. More recently, members of the Jamaʿat supported Saddam Hussein during the Gulf War. They were active in electoral politics and sponsored legislation in the senate, both efforts having met with mixed success. The Jamaʿat remained active in its efforts to reform society according to Islamic law and took part in anti-government demonstrations before the fall of the Benazir Bhutto government in 1996.
Jamaat-e-Islami see Jamat-i-Islami.
Jamaat-i-Islami see Jamat-i-Islami.
"Islamic Party" see Jamat-i-Islami.
Islamic Society see Jamat-i-Islami.
JI see Jamat-i-Islami.
Jami
Jami (Mawlana Nur al-Din Jami) (Nur al-Din Abu al-Barakat Abd al-Rahman Jami) (Nur al-Din ‘Abd al-Rahman Jami) (Nur ad-Din Abd ar-Rahman Jami) (August 18, 1414–November 19, 1492). Persian poet and mystic. The depth and variety of his knowledge, and his perfect mastery of language and style, also had great influence on Turkish literature.
Jami is considered by many to be the last great classical poet of Iran. He was born in Jam (hence his pen name Jami, a town in Khurasan, but spent most of his life in Herat (in present day Afghanistan), where his family had moved when he was still a boy. Jami received his formal education in the Nizamiyya school of Herat and later in Samarkand, then a prominent center of learning. Apart from a tour of the towns in Khurasan and a pilgrimage to Hejaz, during which he also visited Damascus, he hardly left Herat. He enjoyed the high esteem of princes and kings. The Ottoman sultan corresponded with him and tried to persuade him to go to Anatolia. He belonged to the Naqshbandi order of Sufis. Jami died in Herat at the age of eighty-one and was buried next to his spiritual mentor Sa’d al-Din Kashghari.
Among Jami's numerous works are his Diwan (in three parts), Haft awrang (Haft Awrang), Nafahat al-ons (Nafahat al-Uns) (an important biographical dictionary of Sufi shaikhs), and Baharistan, a collection of sayings and anecdotes in imitation of Sa’di’s Gulistan.
Nur al-Din ‘Abd al-Rahman Jami is known as the last great figure of the Golden Age of Persian literature. After studying for a theological career at Samarkand and Herat, Jami embraced the mystical life, but without lapsing into heterodoxy. Winning the patronage and friendship of Sultan Hussein Bayqara, the Timurid ruler of Herat, Jami was appointed professor of a college founded expressly for him and for Hussein’s adviser Nawa’i.
Jami enjoyed great fame and authority as an exponent of the mystical “way;” as a teacher; and as a prolific writer in verse and prose. Jami’s most famous work is the Haft Awrang -- the “Seven Thrones.” The Haft Awrang is a set of seven long poems modelled on the “Quintet” of Nizami.
Jami’s prose works are generally written in a direct and unaffected style. The best known of Jami’s prose works are Nafahat al-Uns (“Breaths of Friendship”); Baharistan (“Land of Spring”); and Lawa’ih (“Effulgences”). Nafahat al-Uns contains the biographies of six hundred saints; Baharistan is a sophisticated imitation of the Gulistan of Sadi; and Lawa’ih is a treatise on mysticism.
Mawlana Nur al-Din Jami see Jami
Nur al-Din Abu al-Barakat Abd al-Rahman Jami see Jami
Nur al-Din 'Abd al-Rahman Jami see Jami
Nur ad-Din Abd ar-Rahman Jami see Jami
Jami (Mawlana Nur al-Din Jami) (Nur al-Din Abu al-Barakat Abd al-Rahman Jami) (Nur al-Din ‘Abd al-Rahman Jami) (Nur ad-Din Abd ar-Rahman Jami) (August 18, 1414–November 19, 1492). Persian poet and mystic. The depth and variety of his knowledge, and his perfect mastery of language and style, also had great influence on Turkish literature.
Jami is considered by many to be the last great classical poet of Iran. He was born in Jam (hence his pen name Jami, a town in Khurasan, but spent most of his life in Herat (in present day Afghanistan), where his family had moved when he was still a boy. Jami received his formal education in the Nizamiyya school of Herat and later in Samarkand, then a prominent center of learning. Apart from a tour of the towns in Khurasan and a pilgrimage to Hejaz, during which he also visited Damascus, he hardly left Herat. He enjoyed the high esteem of princes and kings. The Ottoman sultan corresponded with him and tried to persuade him to go to Anatolia. He belonged to the Naqshbandi order of Sufis. Jami died in Herat at the age of eighty-one and was buried next to his spiritual mentor Sa’d al-Din Kashghari.
Among Jami's numerous works are his Diwan (in three parts), Haft awrang (Haft Awrang), Nafahat al-ons (Nafahat al-Uns) (an important biographical dictionary of Sufi shaikhs), and Baharistan, a collection of sayings and anecdotes in imitation of Sa’di’s Gulistan.
Nur al-Din ‘Abd al-Rahman Jami is known as the last great figure of the Golden Age of Persian literature. After studying for a theological career at Samarkand and Herat, Jami embraced the mystical life, but without lapsing into heterodoxy. Winning the patronage and friendship of Sultan Hussein Bayqara, the Timurid ruler of Herat, Jami was appointed professor of a college founded expressly for him and for Hussein’s adviser Nawa’i.
Jami enjoyed great fame and authority as an exponent of the mystical “way;” as a teacher; and as a prolific writer in verse and prose. Jami’s most famous work is the Haft Awrang -- the “Seven Thrones.” The Haft Awrang is a set of seven long poems modelled on the “Quintet” of Nizami.
Jami’s prose works are generally written in a direct and unaffected style. The best known of Jami’s prose works are Nafahat al-Uns (“Breaths of Friendship”); Baharistan (“Land of Spring”); and Lawa’ih (“Effulgences”). Nafahat al-Uns contains the biographies of six hundred saints; Baharistan is a sophisticated imitation of the Gulistan of Sadi; and Lawa’ih is a treatise on mysticism.
Mawlana Nur al-Din Jami see Jami
Nur al-Din Abu al-Barakat Abd al-Rahman Jami see Jami
Nur al-Din 'Abd al-Rahman Jami see Jami
Nur ad-Din Abd ar-Rahman Jami see Jami
Jamil ibn ‘Abd Allah al-‘Udhri
Jamil ibn ‘Abd Allah al-‘Udhri (660-701). Arab poet. He died for love of his tribeswoman Buthayna. In literary tradition, he is considered the most famous representative of the ‘Udhri school of poetry, with its chaste and idealized form of love.
'Udhri, Jamil ibn 'Abd Allah al- see Jamil ibn ‘Abd Allah al-‘Udhri
Jamil ibn ‘Abd Allah al-‘Udhri (660-701). Arab poet. He died for love of his tribeswoman Buthayna. In literary tradition, he is considered the most famous representative of the ‘Udhri school of poetry, with its chaste and idealized form of love.
'Udhri, Jamil ibn 'Abd Allah al- see Jamil ibn ‘Abd Allah al-‘Udhri
Jamil Nakhla al-Mudawwar
Jamil Nakhla al-Mudawwar (1862-1907). Arab journalist and writer. He acquired fame with a work on early ‘Abbasid times.
Mudawwar, Jamil Nakhla al- see Jamil Nakhla al-Mudawwar
Jamil Nakhla al-Mudawwar (1862-1907). Arab journalist and writer. He acquired fame with a work on early ‘Abbasid times.
Mudawwar, Jamil Nakhla al- see Jamil Nakhla al-Mudawwar
Jam‘iyat al-Shubban al-Muslimin
Jam‘iyat al-Shubban al-Muslimin (Young Men's Muslim Association) (Y.M.M.A.). Pan-Islamic Egyptian political association founded in 1927 in Cairo, the Jam‘iyat al-Shubban al-Muslimin was apparently modeled in part on the YMCA and is often referred to as the Young Men’s Muslim Association, the Y.M.M.A. It was created in the midst of the social and political turmoil of Egypt following the nationalist revolution of 1919 and was one of a large number of societies and associations, of a variety of political stripes, formed in Egypt in that period. No doubt the most important of these groups was the Muslim Brotherhood (al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun) under the leadership of Hasan al-Banna’. Al-Banna’ played an active role in the creation of the Y.M.M.A. and is said to have related the group’s founding to an increasing dissatisfaction among younger Egyptian activists seeking a central role for Islamic ideals in political and social life with a perceived unwillingness of the religious hierarchy of al-Azhar to address contemporary issues. Despite his support for the Y.M.M.A., al-Banna’ never devoted his full attention to the group. Al-Banna’s assassination in 1949 took place outside the headquarters of the Y.M.M.A.
Among those involved in the creation of the Y.M.M.A. and in the formulation of its initial policies and activities were ‘Abd al-Hamid Bey Sa‘id, at the time a leading nationalist and member of the Egyptian parliament; Muhibb al-Din al-Khatib, a bookseller and editor of Majallat al-fath, a weekly publication promoting Islamic views that is often associated with the Salafiyah movement; and Yahya Ahmad al-Dardiri, who served as editor and a frequent contributor to the official publication of the Y.M.M.A. Al-Dardiri also published a history of the organization entitled Al-tariq ("The Way"). Like the Muslim Brotherhood, the Y.M.M.A. set out rather quickly to establish branches in other areas of the Middle East, chiefly in Palestine, Syria, and Iraq. Branches were established in Jerusalem, Acre, Haifa, and Jaffa by the end of 1928 and in Baghdad and Basra by 1929.
The group was established initially as a social, cultural, and religious organization seeking to appeal directly to Egypt’s youth. Its headquarters was the center of literary and educational gatherings, and its members were encouraged to set a moral example for their peers. Perhaps inevitably the leaders of the Y.M.M.A. joined in the many political debates of their day. In writings and lectures, al-Dardiri and other spokesmen for the group addressed grievances related to the presence of a large non-Muslim population in Egypt and its influence on Islamic life; they attacked Jewish immigration into Palestine and the activities of Zionist organizations; and they criticized French colonization of Algeria and Morocco.
Young Men's Muslim Association see Jam‘iyat al-Shubban al-Muslimin
Y.M.M.A. see Jam‘iyat al-Shubban al-Muslimin
Jam‘iyat al-Shubban al-Muslimin (Young Men's Muslim Association) (Y.M.M.A.). Pan-Islamic Egyptian political association founded in 1927 in Cairo, the Jam‘iyat al-Shubban al-Muslimin was apparently modeled in part on the YMCA and is often referred to as the Young Men’s Muslim Association, the Y.M.M.A. It was created in the midst of the social and political turmoil of Egypt following the nationalist revolution of 1919 and was one of a large number of societies and associations, of a variety of political stripes, formed in Egypt in that period. No doubt the most important of these groups was the Muslim Brotherhood (al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun) under the leadership of Hasan al-Banna’. Al-Banna’ played an active role in the creation of the Y.M.M.A. and is said to have related the group’s founding to an increasing dissatisfaction among younger Egyptian activists seeking a central role for Islamic ideals in political and social life with a perceived unwillingness of the religious hierarchy of al-Azhar to address contemporary issues. Despite his support for the Y.M.M.A., al-Banna’ never devoted his full attention to the group. Al-Banna’s assassination in 1949 took place outside the headquarters of the Y.M.M.A.
Among those involved in the creation of the Y.M.M.A. and in the formulation of its initial policies and activities were ‘Abd al-Hamid Bey Sa‘id, at the time a leading nationalist and member of the Egyptian parliament; Muhibb al-Din al-Khatib, a bookseller and editor of Majallat al-fath, a weekly publication promoting Islamic views that is often associated with the Salafiyah movement; and Yahya Ahmad al-Dardiri, who served as editor and a frequent contributor to the official publication of the Y.M.M.A. Al-Dardiri also published a history of the organization entitled Al-tariq ("The Way"). Like the Muslim Brotherhood, the Y.M.M.A. set out rather quickly to establish branches in other areas of the Middle East, chiefly in Palestine, Syria, and Iraq. Branches were established in Jerusalem, Acre, Haifa, and Jaffa by the end of 1928 and in Baghdad and Basra by 1929.
The group was established initially as a social, cultural, and religious organization seeking to appeal directly to Egypt’s youth. Its headquarters was the center of literary and educational gatherings, and its members were encouraged to set a moral example for their peers. Perhaps inevitably the leaders of the Y.M.M.A. joined in the many political debates of their day. In writings and lectures, al-Dardiri and other spokesmen for the group addressed grievances related to the presence of a large non-Muslim population in Egypt and its influence on Islamic life; they attacked Jewish immigration into Palestine and the activities of Zionist organizations; and they criticized French colonization of Algeria and Morocco.
Young Men's Muslim Association see Jam‘iyat al-Shubban al-Muslimin
Y.M.M.A. see Jam‘iyat al-Shubban al-Muslimin
Jam‘iyatul ‘Ulama’-i Hind (Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind) (Organization of Indian Scholars) . Organization of Muslim religious scholars of India. The Jam‘iyatul ‘Ulama’-i Hind (Association of the ‘Ulama’ of India) was established in November 1919 when numerous ‘ulama’ from all parts of India came to participate in the Khilafat Movement conference in New Delhi. The organization came into being when Indians of all religious affiliations were united in the anti-British struggle. Mohandas Gandhi embraced the cause of the Ottoman caliphate, and most Muslim leaders participated in the non-cooperation movement with the Indian National Congress. The Jam‘iyatul ‘Ulama’-i Hind maintained its pro-Congress attitude throughout
the struggle for independence and stood at the head of those Indian Muslims who supported the idea of a united India and opposed the Pakistan movement. (Some of its members, however, seceded in 1946 and established the Jam‘iyatul ‘Ulama’-i Islam, which supported Pakistan.) Many of the members were associated with the Dar al-‘Ulum of Deoband. Since its establishment in 1919, the association has held annual conferences in which the ‘ulama’ have expressed their views on the central issues of the day.
The main contribution of the Jam‘iyatul ‘Ulama’-i Hind to Indo-Muslim thought is the theory of “composite nationalism” (muttahida qawmiyat). This theory, which was elaborated in speeches and writings of the Jam‘iya leadership and particularly in the works of its longtime president (Husain Ahmad Madani (1879-1957), served as an alternative to the “two nations theory” (do qawmi nazariyat) of the Muslim League, which formed the ideological basis of the Pakistan movement. According to the theory of “composite nationalism,” nations can be created by various factors, such as religion, race, homeland, language, or color. In this analysis, a “nation” (qawm) is not an exclusive category: a person can belong simultaneously to several “nations” created by different characteristics. In modern times, the most important nation-building factor has been the homeland; the Muslims of India therefore belong to the same nation as other Indians, and India constitutes a nation despite its religious diversity. Nevertheless, according to the religious criterion, Muslims continue to belong to the Muslim qawm.
The Jam‘iyatul ‘Ulama’-i Hind thus accepted the idea of territorial nationalism. This is a novel idea in Islamic thought, and the ‘ulama’ devoted considerable intellectual effort to provide it with Islamic legitimacy. The classical Islamic precedent repeatedly used for this purpose is the Covenant of Medina (‘ahd al-ummah), the document that the Prophet is said to have issued in order to regulate the relationship between the Emigrants (muhajirun), the Helpers (ansar), and the Jews in Medina after the Hijra. One of its sections states that “the Jews of ‘Awf are one community with the believers; the Jews have their religion and the Muslims theirs.” The ‘ulama’ concluded from this passage that the Prophet himself agreed to the inclusion of non-Muslims in the same nation with Muslims. The history of Mughal India is also seen as vindicating the composite nationalism theory. The Mughal period knew no communalism (firqah variyat, firqah parasti). All Indians were treated equally by the rulers. Although the Muslims who established the Mughal empire came from outside India, once they settled there they became an inextricable part of Indian nationhood (Hindustani qawmiyat). Communalism emerged in India only as a result of British policies.
The practical political conclusion from this interpretation of Muslim and Indo-Muslim history was the demand that Muslims cooperate with the Indian National Congress in order to expel the British from India and to achieve independence for the country. The ‘ulama’ envisaged that in an independent and united India, achieved with Muslim cooperation, the Muslims would have significant influence, their family law and religious institutions would be maintained, and governments with a Muslim majority would be established in several provinces. On the basis of these expectations, they appealed to Muslims not to join the Muslim League, even declaring membership in it a sin. The ‘ulama’ were convinced that the Western-educated element so prominent in the League’s leadership would never be able or willing to establish an Islamic state compatible with the traditional religious ideal of the ‘ulama’. They also maintained that the establishment of Pakistan would not solve the communal problem because many millions of Muslims would remain in the Indian part of the sub-continent and would live in an atmosphere of hate generated by the partition. On the other hand, the establishment of a strong and unified India, in which the Muslims would be an influential and significant minority, would benefit not only the Muslims of the subcontinent but also the Muslims of the rest of the world.
The views of the Jam‘iya did not prevail during the struggle for independence, and in 1947 the subcontinent was partitioned between India and Pakistan. In independent India, the Jam‘iya acquired increased importance in the new political structure. In contradistinction to the Muslim League and other organizations that supported the creation of Pakistan, the Jam‘iya possessed impeccable credentials of opposition to partition and was a natural candidate to represent Indian Muslims. Shortly after independence, the ‘ulama’ called upon Indian Muslims to declare their unswerving loyalty to India. Several of the ideas adopted by the ‘ulama’ after partition were rather bold from the vantage point of traditional Islam. They accepted the idea of a composite Indian culture. They severed all ties with Jam‘iya branches in the territories now incorporated in Pakistan, even though this was a country established in the name of Islam and inhabited mostly by Muslims. They supported Indian policies even on issues that were sensitive from the Muslim point of view, such as Kashmir and Hyderabad.
The Jam‘iyatul ‘Ulama’-i Hind is a rare, and possibly unique, case of an association of traditional Muslim religious scholars who have willingly bestowed legitimacy upon the policies of a non-Muslim and professedly secular government, born out of conflict with the generally acknowledged leadership of the Muslim community.
Association of the 'Ulama' of India see Jam‘iyatul ‘Ulama’-i Hind
Society of the 'Ulama' of India see Jam‘iyatul ‘Ulama’-i Hind
Society of Indian 'Ulama' see Jam‘iyatul ‘Ulama’-i Hind
Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind see Jam‘iyatul ‘Ulama’-i Hind
Organization of Indian Scholars see Jam‘iyatul ‘Ulama’-i Hind
The main contribution of the Jam‘iyatul ‘Ulama’-i Hind to Indo-Muslim thought is the theory of “composite nationalism” (muttahida qawmiyat). This theory, which was elaborated in speeches and writings of the Jam‘iya leadership and particularly in the works of its longtime president (Husain Ahmad Madani (1879-1957), served as an alternative to the “two nations theory” (do qawmi nazariyat) of the Muslim League, which formed the ideological basis of the Pakistan movement. According to the theory of “composite nationalism,” nations can be created by various factors, such as religion, race, homeland, language, or color. In this analysis, a “nation” (qawm) is not an exclusive category: a person can belong simultaneously to several “nations” created by different characteristics. In modern times, the most important nation-building factor has been the homeland; the Muslims of India therefore belong to the same nation as other Indians, and India constitutes a nation despite its religious diversity. Nevertheless, according to the religious criterion, Muslims continue to belong to the Muslim qawm.
The Jam‘iyatul ‘Ulama’-i Hind thus accepted the idea of territorial nationalism. This is a novel idea in Islamic thought, and the ‘ulama’ devoted considerable intellectual effort to provide it with Islamic legitimacy. The classical Islamic precedent repeatedly used for this purpose is the Covenant of Medina (‘ahd al-ummah), the document that the Prophet is said to have issued in order to regulate the relationship between the Emigrants (muhajirun), the Helpers (ansar), and the Jews in Medina after the Hijra. One of its sections states that “the Jews of ‘Awf are one community with the believers; the Jews have their religion and the Muslims theirs.” The ‘ulama’ concluded from this passage that the Prophet himself agreed to the inclusion of non-Muslims in the same nation with Muslims. The history of Mughal India is also seen as vindicating the composite nationalism theory. The Mughal period knew no communalism (firqah variyat, firqah parasti). All Indians were treated equally by the rulers. Although the Muslims who established the Mughal empire came from outside India, once they settled there they became an inextricable part of Indian nationhood (Hindustani qawmiyat). Communalism emerged in India only as a result of British policies.
The practical political conclusion from this interpretation of Muslim and Indo-Muslim history was the demand that Muslims cooperate with the Indian National Congress in order to expel the British from India and to achieve independence for the country. The ‘ulama’ envisaged that in an independent and united India, achieved with Muslim cooperation, the Muslims would have significant influence, their family law and religious institutions would be maintained, and governments with a Muslim majority would be established in several provinces. On the basis of these expectations, they appealed to Muslims not to join the Muslim League, even declaring membership in it a sin. The ‘ulama’ were convinced that the Western-educated element so prominent in the League’s leadership would never be able or willing to establish an Islamic state compatible with the traditional religious ideal of the ‘ulama’. They also maintained that the establishment of Pakistan would not solve the communal problem because many millions of Muslims would remain in the Indian part of the sub-continent and would live in an atmosphere of hate generated by the partition. On the other hand, the establishment of a strong and unified India, in which the Muslims would be an influential and significant minority, would benefit not only the Muslims of the subcontinent but also the Muslims of the rest of the world.
The views of the Jam‘iya did not prevail during the struggle for independence, and in 1947 the subcontinent was partitioned between India and Pakistan. In independent India, the Jam‘iya acquired increased importance in the new political structure. In contradistinction to the Muslim League and other organizations that supported the creation of Pakistan, the Jam‘iya possessed impeccable credentials of opposition to partition and was a natural candidate to represent Indian Muslims. Shortly after independence, the ‘ulama’ called upon Indian Muslims to declare their unswerving loyalty to India. Several of the ideas adopted by the ‘ulama’ after partition were rather bold from the vantage point of traditional Islam. They accepted the idea of a composite Indian culture. They severed all ties with Jam‘iya branches in the territories now incorporated in Pakistan, even though this was a country established in the name of Islam and inhabited mostly by Muslims. They supported Indian policies even on issues that were sensitive from the Muslim point of view, such as Kashmir and Hyderabad.
The Jam‘iyatul ‘Ulama’-i Hind is a rare, and possibly unique, case of an association of traditional Muslim religious scholars who have willingly bestowed legitimacy upon the policies of a non-Muslim and professedly secular government, born out of conflict with the generally acknowledged leadership of the Muslim community.
Association of the 'Ulama' of India see Jam‘iyatul ‘Ulama’-i Hind
Society of the 'Ulama' of India see Jam‘iyatul ‘Ulama’-i Hind
Society of Indian 'Ulama' see Jam‘iyatul ‘Ulama’-i Hind
Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind see Jam‘iyatul ‘Ulama’-i Hind
Organization of Indian Scholars see Jam‘iyatul ‘Ulama’-i Hind
Jam‘iyatul ‘Ulama’-i Islam
Jam‘iyatul ‘Ulama’-i Islam (JUI) (Society of Muslim ‘Ulama’) (Association of Muslim 'Ulama'). Organization can be traced to the Deoband movement in pre-partition India and to the ‘ulama’ who constituted the Jam‘iyatul ‘Ulama-i Hind (Society of Indian ‘Ulama’). Such ‘ulama’ have been typically characterized as “Indian nationalists,” because during the latter days of British India they were unalterably opposed to British imperialism, supported the aims and policies of the Indian National Congress, and opposed the Muslim League’s struggle for an independent Pakistan. Consequently, following the partition of the sub-continent in 1947 and the creation of Pakistan, the political significance of the JUI was limited, and its leadership was held suspect by successive Pakistani regimes that condemned the JUI’s role in the independence struggle as anti-Pakistan. Indeed, until the late 1960s, the JUI remained almost wholly a religious organization with little if any political significance.
This situation changed during the so-called “Disturbances” of 1968-1969 that led ultimately to the resignation of General Muhammad Ayub Khan and to the holding of general elections in 1970. During the ferment of 1969 the JUI split into two factions – a Karachi based faction under the leadership of Maulana Ihtishamul Haqq Thanvi (later named Jam‘iyatul ‘Ulama’-i Pakistan, Thanvi Group), and a larger and far more politically active faction led by Maulana Mufti Mahmud and Maulana Ghaus Hazarvi and based in North-West Frontier Province (NWFP). The latter faction (the Mufti-Hazarvi Group, hereafter (JUI) actively participated in the 1970 general elections as a populist-oriented party, appealing to activist Islamic sentiment. The JUI’s program called for the establishment of an Islamic constitution in accordance with the recommendations of the Board of ‘Ulama’ as presented to the Basic Principles Committee of 1954, which had called for the adoption of the shari‘a as the basis of Pakistan’s constitutional structure. The JUI also called for the end of “capitalist exploitation” and for the establishment of a program of Islamic social welfare including free education, health care, and the introduction of minimum-wage legislation.
The combination of such populist rhetoric, the prestige of the ‘ulama’, and the JUI’s effective control of relevant mosques led to success at the polls. In the 1970 general election, the JUI swept the electoral districts of southern NWFP and entered into a coalition with the National Awami Party (NAP) to form provincial governments in NWFP and Baluchistan. The subsequent naming of Maulana Mufti Mahmud as chief minister of the NWFP (1971-1973) marked the first and only time in Pakistan’s history that an Islam-based party has headed a provincial government.
During Mufti Mahmud’s short-lived tenure his government managed to introduce three laws designed to promote Islam in the province. The first established prohibition of alcohol; the second introduced an Islamic law of pre-emption (i.e., regarding inheritance of land); and the third mandated the enforced observance of the Ramadan fast. These laws have remained on the books in NWFP and have significantly influenced the course of the islamization process in Pakistan during the 1980s and 1990s. The JUI-NAP government of NWFP resigned in early 1973 in protest over Zulfiqar ‘Ali Bhutto’s perceived persecution of NAP leaders. In the 1977 general elections, the JUI allied itself with the anti-Bhutto coalition, the Pakistan National Alliance. Subsequently the party cooperated, at times reluctantly, with the regime of Zia ul-Haq (1977-1988), and it tacitly supported the IJM (Islamic Democratic Alliance) government of Nawaz Sharif (1990-1992). The JUI maintained a small but loyal and enthusiastic following in the southern region of NWFP and the Pathan-majority areas of Baluchistan. In the 1988 and 1990 general elections it gained seven and six seats respectively in the National Assembly.
During the 1990s, under the leadership of Maulana Fazlur Rahman, son of the late Mufti Mahmud, the JUI became increasingly associated with Islamic orthodoxy. In their religious views JUI members were often criticized by their opponents as “uncompromisingly rigid,” insisting on the strict enforcement of the shari‘a as interpreted by the four schools of Islamic jurisprudence. In addition, it is often charged that the JUI is anti-Shi‘a. The JUI did support Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war, but it joined the TNFJ (Tahrik-i Nifaz-i Fiqh-i Ja‘fariyah, the most prominent Pakistani Shi‘a group) in its condemnation of the United States’ role in the Gulf War. Also, JUI ‘ulama’ are often characterized as opposed to innovation in matters Islamic and as favoring a strict social and moral code, especially with respect to gender relations. Indeed, JUI ‘ulama’ often draw the ire of Pakistan’s feminist organizations.
Politically, the JUI has been at the forefront of the attempt to implement far-reaching Islamic reforms. This is evidenced by the formulation and introduction in 1985, by the JUI Senators Maulana Sami‘ul Haqq and Qazi ‘Abdullatif, of the so-called “Shariat Bill.” The JUI version of this bill proposed that the shari‘a wholly replace Pakistan’s secular constitution. ‘Ulama’ associated with the JUI were also very active in proposing petitions before the Federal Shariat Court calling for significant changes in Pakistan’s social and moral practices to bring them more into keeping with Islamic norms. Generally, JUI members were displeased with what they viewed as the slow pace of Islamic reform under President Zia, and they were even less pleased with successor regimes.
The 1993 general election proved disappointing to the JUI. The party contested the election under the banner of the newly created Islami Jumhuri Mahaz (Islamic Democratic Association, IJM) and entered into an “electoral arrangement” with the Pakistan People’s Party. However, even after intensive electoral campaigning, the IJM was only able to gain 2.3 percent of the popular vote and four seats. Despite such electoral disappointment, the JUI remains a potent social and political force in the NWFP and Baluchistan. Indeed, the party has deepened its populist image and style. But more important, it maintained its control over the largest number of mosques and madrasahs in Pakistan and, therefore, maintained the strongest base among the madrasah student body in the state.
JUI see Jam‘iyatul ‘Ulama’-i Islam
Society of Muslim 'Ulama' see Jam‘iyatul ‘Ulama’-i Islam
Association of Muslim 'Ulama' see Jam‘iyatul ‘Ulama’-i Islam
Jam‘iyatul ‘Ulama’-i Islam (JUI) (Society of Muslim ‘Ulama’) (Association of Muslim 'Ulama'). Organization can be traced to the Deoband movement in pre-partition India and to the ‘ulama’ who constituted the Jam‘iyatul ‘Ulama-i Hind (Society of Indian ‘Ulama’). Such ‘ulama’ have been typically characterized as “Indian nationalists,” because during the latter days of British India they were unalterably opposed to British imperialism, supported the aims and policies of the Indian National Congress, and opposed the Muslim League’s struggle for an independent Pakistan. Consequently, following the partition of the sub-continent in 1947 and the creation of Pakistan, the political significance of the JUI was limited, and its leadership was held suspect by successive Pakistani regimes that condemned the JUI’s role in the independence struggle as anti-Pakistan. Indeed, until the late 1960s, the JUI remained almost wholly a religious organization with little if any political significance.
This situation changed during the so-called “Disturbances” of 1968-1969 that led ultimately to the resignation of General Muhammad Ayub Khan and to the holding of general elections in 1970. During the ferment of 1969 the JUI split into two factions – a Karachi based faction under the leadership of Maulana Ihtishamul Haqq Thanvi (later named Jam‘iyatul ‘Ulama’-i Pakistan, Thanvi Group), and a larger and far more politically active faction led by Maulana Mufti Mahmud and Maulana Ghaus Hazarvi and based in North-West Frontier Province (NWFP). The latter faction (the Mufti-Hazarvi Group, hereafter (JUI) actively participated in the 1970 general elections as a populist-oriented party, appealing to activist Islamic sentiment. The JUI’s program called for the establishment of an Islamic constitution in accordance with the recommendations of the Board of ‘Ulama’ as presented to the Basic Principles Committee of 1954, which had called for the adoption of the shari‘a as the basis of Pakistan’s constitutional structure. The JUI also called for the end of “capitalist exploitation” and for the establishment of a program of Islamic social welfare including free education, health care, and the introduction of minimum-wage legislation.
The combination of such populist rhetoric, the prestige of the ‘ulama’, and the JUI’s effective control of relevant mosques led to success at the polls. In the 1970 general election, the JUI swept the electoral districts of southern NWFP and entered into a coalition with the National Awami Party (NAP) to form provincial governments in NWFP and Baluchistan. The subsequent naming of Maulana Mufti Mahmud as chief minister of the NWFP (1971-1973) marked the first and only time in Pakistan’s history that an Islam-based party has headed a provincial government.
During Mufti Mahmud’s short-lived tenure his government managed to introduce three laws designed to promote Islam in the province. The first established prohibition of alcohol; the second introduced an Islamic law of pre-emption (i.e., regarding inheritance of land); and the third mandated the enforced observance of the Ramadan fast. These laws have remained on the books in NWFP and have significantly influenced the course of the islamization process in Pakistan during the 1980s and 1990s. The JUI-NAP government of NWFP resigned in early 1973 in protest over Zulfiqar ‘Ali Bhutto’s perceived persecution of NAP leaders. In the 1977 general elections, the JUI allied itself with the anti-Bhutto coalition, the Pakistan National Alliance. Subsequently the party cooperated, at times reluctantly, with the regime of Zia ul-Haq (1977-1988), and it tacitly supported the IJM (Islamic Democratic Alliance) government of Nawaz Sharif (1990-1992). The JUI maintained a small but loyal and enthusiastic following in the southern region of NWFP and the Pathan-majority areas of Baluchistan. In the 1988 and 1990 general elections it gained seven and six seats respectively in the National Assembly.
During the 1990s, under the leadership of Maulana Fazlur Rahman, son of the late Mufti Mahmud, the JUI became increasingly associated with Islamic orthodoxy. In their religious views JUI members were often criticized by their opponents as “uncompromisingly rigid,” insisting on the strict enforcement of the shari‘a as interpreted by the four schools of Islamic jurisprudence. In addition, it is often charged that the JUI is anti-Shi‘a. The JUI did support Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war, but it joined the TNFJ (Tahrik-i Nifaz-i Fiqh-i Ja‘fariyah, the most prominent Pakistani Shi‘a group) in its condemnation of the United States’ role in the Gulf War. Also, JUI ‘ulama’ are often characterized as opposed to innovation in matters Islamic and as favoring a strict social and moral code, especially with respect to gender relations. Indeed, JUI ‘ulama’ often draw the ire of Pakistan’s feminist organizations.
Politically, the JUI has been at the forefront of the attempt to implement far-reaching Islamic reforms. This is evidenced by the formulation and introduction in 1985, by the JUI Senators Maulana Sami‘ul Haqq and Qazi ‘Abdullatif, of the so-called “Shariat Bill.” The JUI version of this bill proposed that the shari‘a wholly replace Pakistan’s secular constitution. ‘Ulama’ associated with the JUI were also very active in proposing petitions before the Federal Shariat Court calling for significant changes in Pakistan’s social and moral practices to bring them more into keeping with Islamic norms. Generally, JUI members were displeased with what they viewed as the slow pace of Islamic reform under President Zia, and they were even less pleased with successor regimes.
The 1993 general election proved disappointing to the JUI. The party contested the election under the banner of the newly created Islami Jumhuri Mahaz (Islamic Democratic Association, IJM) and entered into an “electoral arrangement” with the Pakistan People’s Party. However, even after intensive electoral campaigning, the IJM was only able to gain 2.3 percent of the popular vote and four seats. Despite such electoral disappointment, the JUI remains a potent social and political force in the NWFP and Baluchistan. Indeed, the party has deepened its populist image and style. But more important, it maintained its control over the largest number of mosques and madrasahs in Pakistan and, therefore, maintained the strongest base among the madrasah student body in the state.
JUI see Jam‘iyatul ‘Ulama’-i Islam
Society of Muslim 'Ulama' see Jam‘iyatul ‘Ulama’-i Islam
Association of Muslim 'Ulama' see Jam‘iyatul ‘Ulama’-i Islam
Jam‘iyatul ‘Ulama’-i Pakistan. The party of Pakistan’s Barelwi ‘ulama’, the Jam‘iyatul ‘Ulama’-i Pakistan was formed in Karachi in 1948 at the behest of Mawlanas ‘Abdulhamid Bada’uni, Sayyid Muhammad Ahmad Qadiri, and ‘Allamah Ahmad Sa‘id Kazimi. After the Jam‘iyatul ‘Ulama’-i Islam, the Jam'iyatul 'Ulama'-i Pakistan has been the largest ‘ulama’ party of Pakistan. The Jam‘iyat follows the Barelwi school of Islamic thought, also known as the ahl-I sunnat wa jama‘at (“people of the custom and community”), a term that reflects their claim to represent the true faith. The Barelwis trace their origin to the teachings of Ahmad Riza Khan Barelwi (1856-1921), a scion of a notable ‘ulama’ family of Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh, who had strong ties to the Qadiriyah Sufi order. The Barelwis, unlike other ‘ulama’ groups of the period or the Islamic movements that surfaced later, were not interested in promoting a puritanical interpretation of orthodoxy. Instead, they emerged to counter the impact of the Deobandi and Ahl-i Hadith traditions, both of which had sought to cleanse Islamic practices of cultural accretions and Sufism. The Barelwis adhered to the Hanafi school of law but aimed to preserve the place of Sufism and the popular customs associated with it in the life and thought of Indian Muslims. The Barelwis also accord the ‘ulama’ and Sufi pirs a central role as community leaders, vested with authority to intercede with God on behalf of the faithful.
By the turn of the century, the Barelwi school had developed a strong following in northern India, relating popular Sufi practices to an orthodox reading of Islam. In Punjab too, where the Qadiriyah order has traditionally wielded much power, the Barelwis found a base, especially after the founding of the Darul Hizb-i Ahnaf (Congregation of the Hanafi Parties) in Lahore in the 1920s. They had little influence in the other four provinces that after 1947 became Pakistan – East Bengal, Sind, and the predominantly Deobandi North-West Frontier and Baluchistan. Throughout the struggle for partition, the Barelwis supported the Muslim League and were especially effective in bolstering the League’s position in Punjab. In 1946, this support was formalized when Barelwi ‘ulama’ from across India congregated in Benares to endorse Pakistan openly and to provide it with religious legitimacy.
Given this background, many Barelwis migrated to Pakistan in 1947, establishing a base in Sind among the refugee (muhajir) community. With a following in rural Punjab and urban Sind, Barelwis emerged as an important national force on the religious scene, second only to the Deobandis. The rivalry between the two for power and prominence, and the Barelwis’ desire to defend their flock from challenges by the Deobandis, soon led to the creation of a Barelwi ‘ulama’ party.
The Pakistani Deobandis broke away from the pro-Congress Deobandi Party, Jam‘iyatul ‘Ulama’-i Hind, to support the Muslim League and the demand for partition. In 1945, they formed the Jam‘iyatul ‘Ulama’-i Islam with envy and concern, especially as Islam came to dominate national political discourse. Against this background in 1948, the Barelwi ‘ulama’ formed the Jam‘iyatul ‘Ulama’-i Pakistan. The Jam‘iyat was initially an ‘ulama’ forum designed to voice the interests of Barelwis. It had no plans for direct political activity. Between 1947 and 1958, the Jam‘iyat actively participated in the debates among various Islamic parties and the government over the nature of the state of Pakistan and the necessity of an Islamic constitution for the country. Beyond this, it did not envisage a role for itself in national politics.
By the late 1960s, however, the Jam‘iyat had become fully embroiled in politics under the force of three factors. The first was the increasing prominence of the Jam‘iyatul ‘Ulama’-i Islam and other Islamic parties such as the Jama‘at-i Islami in the religious and political arenas from 1958 onward. It must be remembered that the Barelwis had emerged in the first place to check the growth of puritanical interpretations of orthodoxy. Thus, it was not unexpected that the Jam‘iyat would mobilize its resources to offset the influence of Jam‘iyat ‘Ulama’-i Islam and the Jama‘at-i Islami. The Jam‘iyat challenged
the Jama‘at-i Islami in forty-two constituencies in the national elections of 1970, defeating their opponents in several contests and dividing the religious vote in others to the advantage of secular parties. The rivalry between the two also stemmed from the fact that both had courted the Muhajir (refugee) community of Sind since 1947.
Second, the Jam‘iyat was made aware of the power and potential of Islam in the political arena by revivalist groups in general, and the Jama ‘at-i Islami in particular. The Jam‘iyat was not immune to the attraction of political power. Moreover, it did not wish to leave the growing religious vote to be dominated by revivalist parties or the Jam‘iyatul ‘Ulama’-i Islam. The decision to participate in the national elections of 1970, the first for the Jam‘iyat, was taken after the Jama‘at-i Islami flaunted the electoral potential of Islamic symbolisms by introducing its campaign with the Yaum-i Shaukat-i Islam (Day of Islam’s Glory), which was held throughout Pakistan in May 1970.
Third, the Jam‘iyat became interested in politics in response to the challenge of the secularist regime (1958-1969) of Field Marshal Muhammad Ayub Khan to the place of Islam in Pakistani society. The Ayub regime sought to roll back the gains made by the religious parties during the preceding decade, proposed a modernist view of Islam with the aim of depoliticizing the Islamic parties, and finally sought to extend the power of the state into the domain of the ‘ulama’. The Jam‘iyat was opposed to Ayub’s modernist agenda but was especially perturbed by the government’s appropriation of religious endowments and takeover of the management of religious shrines. Both actions affected Barelwis and their allies in the Sufi establishment directly. The Jam‘iyat was also opposed to the government’s attempts to seize control of its mosques. In response to Ayub Khan’s policies, the Jam‘iyat became more directly involved in politics in the 1960s to protect the Barelwis’ interests. By the mid-1960s, under the leadership of Mawlana Shah Ahmad Nurani, the Jam‘iyat became a vociferous actor in the political arena. It now included lay members and leaders and addressed issues of national concern. In 1970, for instance, it launched a strong campaign to counter Bengali nationalism in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh).
Following the secession of Bangladesh and the rise of the populist Zulfiqar ‘Ali Bhutto to power, the Jam‘iyat, along with other Islamic parties, became even more actively involved in politics. The secularist and left-of-center politics of the Bhutto government allowed the Islamic parties to assume the leadership of the opposition. The Jam‘iyat coordinated its activities closely with those of other Islamic parties in the anti-government Nizam-i Mustafa (Order of the Prophet) movement, which undermined the Bhutto regime. In fact, Nurani was chosen by the movement to succeed Bhutto as prime minister. Later the Jam‘iyat also lent support to the military regime of General Muhammad Zia ul-Haq, who took over the reins of power in 1977.
True to its founding ideals, the Jam‘iyat was also the first Islamic party to distance itself from the Zia regime and its puritanical view of Islam. The party was not, however, able to escape the impact of the increasingly strict adherence to orthodoxy that swept across Pakistan in the 1980s. By the end of that decade, elements within the Jam‘iyat had moved close to the doctrinal positions of Jam‘iyatul ‘Ulama’-i Islam and the Jama‘at-i Islami. More significantly, the party suffered as a consequence of its direct involvement in politics. Clashes over policy decisions after 1969 divided the Jam‘iyat into factions. One faction led by Nurani decided to stay away from the Islami Jumhuri Ittihad (IJI or Islamic Democratic Alliance), which was formed by the pro-Zia parties to challenge Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party, and instead allied itself with an offshoot of Jam‘iyatul ‘Ulama’-i Islam to form the Islamic Democratic Front. The other faction under the leadership of Mawlana ‘Abdussattar Niyazi decided to remain with IJI.
After 1986, the Jam‘iyat, like other Islamic parties, lost much of its support because of the proliferation of self-styled Sunni parties throughout Pakistan, and because of the meteoric rise of the ethnic party Muhajir Qaumi Mahaz (MQM or Muhajir National Movement) in the urban centers of Sind. In the 1970 elections, the party received 8.2 percent of the popular vote and won seven seats in the National Assembly, but in the 1990 elections its share of the vote had fallen to 1.47 percent, winning only four seats. Despite this setback, the party continues to operate as an important force on the religious scene and wields significant power in the political arena from its stronghold in rural Punjab. Also, during the 1990s, the party’s student wing, Anjuman-i Tulaba-i Islam (Association of Islamic Students), established in the 1980s, came to control numerous campuses in Punjab.
Second, the Jam‘iyat was made aware of the power and potential of Islam in the political arena by revivalist groups in general, and the Jama ‘at-i Islami in particular. The Jam‘iyat was not immune to the attraction of political power. Moreover, it did not wish to leave the growing religious vote to be dominated by revivalist parties or the Jam‘iyatul ‘Ulama’-i Islam. The decision to participate in the national elections of 1970, the first for the Jam‘iyat, was taken after the Jama‘at-i Islami flaunted the electoral potential of Islamic symbolisms by introducing its campaign with the Yaum-i Shaukat-i Islam (Day of Islam’s Glory), which was held throughout Pakistan in May 1970.
Third, the Jam‘iyat became interested in politics in response to the challenge of the secularist regime (1958-1969) of Field Marshal Muhammad Ayub Khan to the place of Islam in Pakistani society. The Ayub regime sought to roll back the gains made by the religious parties during the preceding decade, proposed a modernist view of Islam with the aim of depoliticizing the Islamic parties, and finally sought to extend the power of the state into the domain of the ‘ulama’. The Jam‘iyat was opposed to Ayub’s modernist agenda but was especially perturbed by the government’s appropriation of religious endowments and takeover of the management of religious shrines. Both actions affected Barelwis and their allies in the Sufi establishment directly. The Jam‘iyat was also opposed to the government’s attempts to seize control of its mosques. In response to Ayub Khan’s policies, the Jam‘iyat became more directly involved in politics in the 1960s to protect the Barelwis’ interests. By the mid-1960s, under the leadership of Mawlana Shah Ahmad Nurani, the Jam‘iyat became a vociferous actor in the political arena. It now included lay members and leaders and addressed issues of national concern. In 1970, for instance, it launched a strong campaign to counter Bengali nationalism in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh).
Following the secession of Bangladesh and the rise of the populist Zulfiqar ‘Ali Bhutto to power, the Jam‘iyat, along with other Islamic parties, became even more actively involved in politics. The secularist and left-of-center politics of the Bhutto government allowed the Islamic parties to assume the leadership of the opposition. The Jam‘iyat coordinated its activities closely with those of other Islamic parties in the anti-government Nizam-i Mustafa (Order of the Prophet) movement, which undermined the Bhutto regime. In fact, Nurani was chosen by the movement to succeed Bhutto as prime minister. Later the Jam‘iyat also lent support to the military regime of General Muhammad Zia ul-Haq, who took over the reins of power in 1977.
True to its founding ideals, the Jam‘iyat was also the first Islamic party to distance itself from the Zia regime and its puritanical view of Islam. The party was not, however, able to escape the impact of the increasingly strict adherence to orthodoxy that swept across Pakistan in the 1980s. By the end of that decade, elements within the Jam‘iyat had moved close to the doctrinal positions of Jam‘iyatul ‘Ulama’-i Islam and the Jama‘at-i Islami. More significantly, the party suffered as a consequence of its direct involvement in politics. Clashes over policy decisions after 1969 divided the Jam‘iyat into factions. One faction led by Nurani decided to stay away from the Islami Jumhuri Ittihad (IJI or Islamic Democratic Alliance), which was formed by the pro-Zia parties to challenge Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party, and instead allied itself with an offshoot of Jam‘iyatul ‘Ulama’-i Islam to form the Islamic Democratic Front. The other faction under the leadership of Mawlana ‘Abdussattar Niyazi decided to remain with IJI.
After 1986, the Jam‘iyat, like other Islamic parties, lost much of its support because of the proliferation of self-styled Sunni parties throughout Pakistan, and because of the meteoric rise of the ethnic party Muhajir Qaumi Mahaz (MQM or Muhajir National Movement) in the urban centers of Sind. In the 1970 elections, the party received 8.2 percent of the popular vote and won seven seats in the National Assembly, but in the 1990 elections its share of the vote had fallen to 1.47 percent, winning only four seats. Despite this setback, the party continues to operate as an important force on the religious scene and wields significant power in the political arena from its stronghold in rural Punjab. Also, during the 1990s, the party’s student wing, Anjuman-i Tulaba-i Islam (Association of Islamic Students), established in the 1980s, came to control numerous campuses in Punjab.
Jamshid
Jamshid (Jam) (Jamshed). Iranian hero who has remained alive in popular and literary tradition, from Indo-Iranian times until the present day.
Jamshīd is a mythological figure of Greater Iranian culture and tradition. In tradition and folklore, Jamshid is described as having been the fourth and greatest king of the epigraphically unattested Pishdadian dynasty (before Kayanian dynasty). This role is already alluded to in Zoroastrian scripture, where the figure appears as Avestan language Yima(-Kshaeta) "(radiant) Yima," and from which the name 'Jamshid' then derives.
Jam see Jamshid
Jamshed see Jamshid
Yimar-Kshaeta see Jamshid
"radiant" Yima see Jamshid
Jamshid (Jam) (Jamshed). Iranian hero who has remained alive in popular and literary tradition, from Indo-Iranian times until the present day.
Jamshīd is a mythological figure of Greater Iranian culture and tradition. In tradition and folklore, Jamshid is described as having been the fourth and greatest king of the epigraphically unattested Pishdadian dynasty (before Kayanian dynasty). This role is already alluded to in Zoroastrian scripture, where the figure appears as Avestan language Yima(-Kshaeta) "(radiant) Yima," and from which the name 'Jamshid' then derives.
Jam see Jamshid
Jamshed see Jamshid
Yimar-Kshaeta see Jamshid
"radiant" Yima see Jamshid
Janab Shihab al-Din
Janab Shihab al-Din (Cenap Sehabettin) (Cenap Sahabettin) (1870-1934). Turkish poet and writer. He made a remarkable contribution to the modern school of Turkish poetry.
The works of Janab Shihab al-Din include:
Poetry
* Tâmât(1887) Tâmât (1887)
* Seçme Şiirleri (1934, ölümünden sonra) And Selected Poems (1934, posthumous)
* Bütün Şiirleri (1984, ölümünden sonra) All Poems (1984, posthumous)
* ˜Terâne-i Mehtap' ~ Chant-i Mehtap '
Theater
* Körebe (1917) Blind man's buff (1917)
* Küçük Beyler Family Guys
* Yalan Lie
Prose
* Hac Yolunda (1909) Pilgrimage in Road (1909)
* Evrak-ı Eyyam (1915) Document-ı Eyyam (1915)
* Afak-ı Irak (1917) Bark-ı Iraq (1917)
* Avrupa Mektupları (1919) Letters of Europe (1919)
* Nesr-i Harp, Nesr-i Sulh ve Tiryaki Sözleri (1918) Nesr-i Harp, Magistrates and Tiryaki lyrics Nesr-i (1918)
* Vilyam Şekispiyer(1932) Vilyam Şekispiyer (1932)
Din, Janab Shihab al- see Janab Shihab al-Din
Cenap Sehabettin see Janab Shihab al-Din
Sehabettin, Cenap see Janab Shihab al-Din
Cenap Sahabettin see Janab Shihab al-Din
Sahabettin, Cenap see Janab Shihab al-Din
Janab Shihab al-Din (Cenap Sehabettin) (Cenap Sahabettin) (1870-1934). Turkish poet and writer. He made a remarkable contribution to the modern school of Turkish poetry.
The works of Janab Shihab al-Din include:
Poetry
* Tâmât(1887) Tâmât (1887)
* Seçme Şiirleri (1934, ölümünden sonra) And Selected Poems (1934, posthumous)
* Bütün Şiirleri (1984, ölümünden sonra) All Poems (1984, posthumous)
* ˜Terâne-i Mehtap' ~ Chant-i Mehtap '
Theater
* Körebe (1917) Blind man's buff (1917)
* Küçük Beyler Family Guys
* Yalan Lie
Prose
* Hac Yolunda (1909) Pilgrimage in Road (1909)
* Evrak-ı Eyyam (1915) Document-ı Eyyam (1915)
* Afak-ı Irak (1917) Bark-ı Iraq (1917)
* Avrupa Mektupları (1919) Letters of Europe (1919)
* Nesr-i Harp, Nesr-i Sulh ve Tiryaki Sözleri (1918) Nesr-i Harp, Magistrates and Tiryaki lyrics Nesr-i (1918)
* Vilyam Şekispiyer(1932) Vilyam Şekispiyer (1932)
Din, Janab Shihab al- see Janab Shihab al-Din
Cenap Sehabettin see Janab Shihab al-Din
Sehabettin, Cenap see Janab Shihab al-Din
Cenap Sahabettin see Janab Shihab al-Din
Sahabettin, Cenap see Janab Shihab al-Din
Janadi, Abu ‘Abd Allah al-
Janadi, Abu ‘Abd Allah al- (Abu ‘Abd Allah al-Janadi) (d. 1332). Shafi‘i jurist and historian from Yemen. He is the author of a biographical dictionary of the learned men of Yemen, preceded by a political history from the time of the Prophet to 1323.
Abu 'Abd Allah al-Janadi see Janadi, Abu ‘Abd Allah al-
Janadi, Abu ‘Abd Allah al- (Abu ‘Abd Allah al-Janadi) (d. 1332). Shafi‘i jurist and historian from Yemen. He is the author of a biographical dictionary of the learned men of Yemen, preceded by a political history from the time of the Prophet to 1323.
Abu 'Abd Allah al-Janadi see Janadi, Abu ‘Abd Allah al-
Jandarli
Jandarli. Name of an Ottoman family of statesmen, prominent from around 1350 to 1500.
Jandarli. Name of an Ottoman family of statesmen, prominent from around 1350 to 1500.
Janids
Janids. Also known as the Astrakhanids, the Janids formed the Uzbek dynasty of the khans of Bukhara (r. 1599-1785). These descendants of the Golden Horde were driven out of the khanate of Astrakhan into Transoxiana by the Russians in 1554. Baqi Muhammad (r. 1599-1605) succeeded in deposing his cousin, the last Shaybanid in 1599, and seized power in part of the khanate (the area of Bukhara, Samarkand, Ferghana, and Balkh) consolidated under Imam Quli (1610-1642). In 1732, the Janids had to accept the secession of the khanate of Kokand and in 1752 the loss of further territories. Following the rule of Abd al-Faiz (1707-1747), there ensued a large scale loss of power. Having been ousted from their position (1753-1758), they were under a regent from 1758, and finally subject to the related Mangits, who deposed them in 1785. Under the Janids, Bukhara was one of the centers of Sunni orthodoxy, which played a leading role in defensive struggles against Shi‘a Persia.
Astrakhanids see Janids.
Janids. Also known as the Astrakhanids, the Janids formed the Uzbek dynasty of the khans of Bukhara (r. 1599-1785). These descendants of the Golden Horde were driven out of the khanate of Astrakhan into Transoxiana by the Russians in 1554. Baqi Muhammad (r. 1599-1605) succeeded in deposing his cousin, the last Shaybanid in 1599, and seized power in part of the khanate (the area of Bukhara, Samarkand, Ferghana, and Balkh) consolidated under Imam Quli (1610-1642). In 1732, the Janids had to accept the secession of the khanate of Kokand and in 1752 the loss of further territories. Following the rule of Abd al-Faiz (1707-1747), there ensued a large scale loss of power. Having been ousted from their position (1753-1758), they were under a regent from 1758, and finally subject to the related Mangits, who deposed them in 1785. Under the Janids, Bukhara was one of the centers of Sunni orthodoxy, which played a leading role in defensive struggles against Shi‘a Persia.
Astrakhanids see Janids.
Janikli Hajji ‘Ali Pasha
Janikli Hajji ‘Ali Pasha (1720-1785). Ottoman soldier and founder of a Derebey family. In 1776, he presented a memorandum to the government on the reforms that were needed in the Empire.
Janikli Hajji ‘Ali Pasha (1720-1785). Ottoman soldier and founder of a Derebey family. In 1776, he presented a memorandum to the government on the reforms that were needed in the Empire.
Janissaries
Janissaries (Yeni-ceri). Christian conscript foot soldiers in the Ottoman army who converted to Islam and who were trained to use firearms. The term janissary is taken from the Turkish phrase yeni-ceri -- a phrase which literally means “new troops” or “new army.” The janissaries comprised the elite regiments of the Ottoman regime. They played an important role in Ottoman politics from the time of the assassination of Sultan ‘Uthman II in 1622. The corps was abolished by Sultan Mahmud II in 1826.
Janissaries comprised the standing Ottoman army, first organized by Bey (also erroneously called Sultan) Murad I in the late 14th century of the Christian calendar. As a unit of the army, the janissaries lasted until 1826, -- a span of about 450 years.
The term janissaries is derived from the Turkish term, yeniceri. Yeniceri means new troops, indicating exactly what they were in the beginning -- an alternative to the old regular army.
The janissaries became famous for their military skills, but also because they were staffed by youths conscripted from Christian families in the Balkans. After the conscription they were defined as the property of the sultan, and virtually all of them converted to Islam.
The janissaries were subject to strict rules, limiting their freedom and demanding higher moral standards than usual in the society. In the first couple of centuries, they were forced to celibacy, but this would later change. The janissaries were not allowed to grow beards, which were the sign of a free man.
The need for the bey/sultan to form the janissary corps, came from the fragility of an army put together by freemen from many different tribes from areas often wide apart. Their allegiance was normally to their own tribal leaders, leaders that often were tempted to oppose the power of the sultan, and to find allies among the main enemies of the Ottoman empire.
At first, the Janissaries were comprised of war prisoners. However, from the 1420’s young men were taken from their homes at an early age, and contact with their old communities were cut. This system was called devshirme. They were even denied contact with the normal society in the areas where they were stationed. Through their training, they were taught to put their allegiance to the bey/sultan. At least, so was the intention. Additionally, despite strict rules, they enjoyed high living standards and a social status which intended to give logic and force to their loyalty.
Over time, the Janissaries were so successful that they grew into one of the most powerful institutions in the empire. They could exercise this strength to influence the policy and to defend their own interests. From the 17th century and onward, the Janissaries staged many palace coups to exercise this power. But this would eventually be the main reason for their downfall – their strength made them dangerous to the sultan, and when the final battle over power came, the Janissaries lost, and all troops were killed or banished.
Other reasons for the sultan to want to remove the Janissaries were that they had grown into a large number, up from 20,000 in 1574 to 135,000 in their last year of 1826. This was expensive and, in addition, the Janissaries had found their own (unacceptable) way of financing their military activities as well as their high living standard: they performed various trades and were more and more in contact with the society. They were truly a state within the state.
A brief history of the Janissaries is as follows:
In the 1380s, Bey Murad I formed the first devshirme system, from which the Janissary army could be formed.
In the fifteenth century, the Janissaries grew into becoming a powerful political force within the Ottoman state.
In the sixteenth century, it had become standard for Janissary troops to marry, and they even managed to get the privilege that their sons should be allowed to enter their army, even if these were born Muslims.
During the seventeenth century, more and more, the Janissary troops engaged in palace coups. This involvement would continue right until their end. Also during this time, the traditional devshirme system of conscription was abandoned, and the Janissaries had many free men applying, among them many from Muslim families too.
In 1648, Janissary troops discharged and killed sultan Ibrahim I.
In the 1820s, the Janissaries failed to crush the Greek fight for independence. By this, they proved that they were no longer the near infallible army as they had been before.
In June of 1826, the Janissary corps found out that the sultan was forming new European style armies, and revolts ensued. Sultan Murad II declared war on them, and it ended with cannons shooting at the Janissary barracks, killing most of the troops. Many of the survivors were executed, others were banished.
Yeni-ceri see Janissaries
New Troops see Janissaries
New Army see Janissaries
Janissaries (Yeni-ceri). Christian conscript foot soldiers in the Ottoman army who converted to Islam and who were trained to use firearms. The term janissary is taken from the Turkish phrase yeni-ceri -- a phrase which literally means “new troops” or “new army.” The janissaries comprised the elite regiments of the Ottoman regime. They played an important role in Ottoman politics from the time of the assassination of Sultan ‘Uthman II in 1622. The corps was abolished by Sultan Mahmud II in 1826.
Janissaries comprised the standing Ottoman army, first organized by Bey (also erroneously called Sultan) Murad I in the late 14th century of the Christian calendar. As a unit of the army, the janissaries lasted until 1826, -- a span of about 450 years.
The term janissaries is derived from the Turkish term, yeniceri. Yeniceri means new troops, indicating exactly what they were in the beginning -- an alternative to the old regular army.
The janissaries became famous for their military skills, but also because they were staffed by youths conscripted from Christian families in the Balkans. After the conscription they were defined as the property of the sultan, and virtually all of them converted to Islam.
The janissaries were subject to strict rules, limiting their freedom and demanding higher moral standards than usual in the society. In the first couple of centuries, they were forced to celibacy, but this would later change. The janissaries were not allowed to grow beards, which were the sign of a free man.
The need for the bey/sultan to form the janissary corps, came from the fragility of an army put together by freemen from many different tribes from areas often wide apart. Their allegiance was normally to their own tribal leaders, leaders that often were tempted to oppose the power of the sultan, and to find allies among the main enemies of the Ottoman empire.
At first, the Janissaries were comprised of war prisoners. However, from the 1420’s young men were taken from their homes at an early age, and contact with their old communities were cut. This system was called devshirme. They were even denied contact with the normal society in the areas where they were stationed. Through their training, they were taught to put their allegiance to the bey/sultan. At least, so was the intention. Additionally, despite strict rules, they enjoyed high living standards and a social status which intended to give logic and force to their loyalty.
Over time, the Janissaries were so successful that they grew into one of the most powerful institutions in the empire. They could exercise this strength to influence the policy and to defend their own interests. From the 17th century and onward, the Janissaries staged many palace coups to exercise this power. But this would eventually be the main reason for their downfall – their strength made them dangerous to the sultan, and when the final battle over power came, the Janissaries lost, and all troops were killed or banished.
Other reasons for the sultan to want to remove the Janissaries were that they had grown into a large number, up from 20,000 in 1574 to 135,000 in their last year of 1826. This was expensive and, in addition, the Janissaries had found their own (unacceptable) way of financing their military activities as well as their high living standard: they performed various trades and were more and more in contact with the society. They were truly a state within the state.
A brief history of the Janissaries is as follows:
In the 1380s, Bey Murad I formed the first devshirme system, from which the Janissary army could be formed.
In the fifteenth century, the Janissaries grew into becoming a powerful political force within the Ottoman state.
In the sixteenth century, it had become standard for Janissary troops to marry, and they even managed to get the privilege that their sons should be allowed to enter their army, even if these were born Muslims.
During the seventeenth century, more and more, the Janissary troops engaged in palace coups. This involvement would continue right until their end. Also during this time, the traditional devshirme system of conscription was abandoned, and the Janissaries had many free men applying, among them many from Muslim families too.
In 1648, Janissary troops discharged and killed sultan Ibrahim I.
In the 1820s, the Janissaries failed to crush the Greek fight for independence. By this, they proved that they were no longer the near infallible army as they had been before.
In June of 1826, the Janissary corps found out that the sultan was forming new European style armies, and revolts ensued. Sultan Murad II declared war on them, and it ended with cannons shooting at the Janissary barracks, killing most of the troops. Many of the survivors were executed, others were banished.
Yeni-ceri see Janissaries
New Troops see Janissaries
New Army see Janissaries
Jannabi, Abu Sa‘id al- (Abu Sa‘id al-Jannabi) (Abū-Tāhir Sulaymān Al-Jannābī) (906-944) . Founder of the Carmathian state of Bahrain. For several years, he was the terror of the pilgrims in Mecca and of the inhabitants of lower Iraq. In 930, he spent eight days pillaging and massacring in Mecca and took away the Black Stone.
Abū-Tāhir Sulaymān Al-Jannābī was the ruler of the Qarmatian (Carmathian) state in Bahrain and Eastern Arabia, who in 930 led the sacking of Mecca.
The son of ‘Abu Sa’id al-Jannabi, the founder of the Qarmatian state, Abu Tahir became leader of the state in 923. He immediately began an expansionist phase raiding Basra that year, followed by Kufa in 927, defeating an Abbasid army in the process, and then threatening Baghdad in 928 before pillaging much of Iraq when he could not gain entry to the city.
In 930, he led the Qarmatians’ most notorious attack when he pillaged Mecca and desecrated Islam’s most sacred sites. Unable to gain entry to the city initially, Abu Tahir called upon the right of all Muslims to enter the city and gave his oath that he came in peace. Once inside the city walls the Qarmatian army set about massacring the pilgrims, taunting them with verses of the Koran as they did so. The bodies of the pilgrims were left to rot in the streets or thrown down the Well of Zamzam. The Kaaba was looted, with Abu Tahir taking personal possession of the Black Stone and bringing it back to Al-Hasa.
The attack on Mecca symbolized the Qarmatians’ break with the Islamic world – it was believed to have been aimed to prompt the appearance of the Mahdi who would bring about the final cycle of the world and end the era of Islam.
Abu Tahir thought that he had identified the Mahdi as a young Persian prisoner by the name of Abu'1-Fadl al- Isfahani, from Isfahan who claimed to be the descendant of the Persian kings, brought back to Bahrain from the Qarmatians' raid into Iraq in 928. In 931, Abu Tahir turned over the state to the Mahdi-Caliph who instituted the worship of fire and the burning of religious books during an eighty day rule, which culminated in the Mahdi ordering the execution of members of Bahrain’s notable families including those of Abu Tahir’s family. Fearing for his own life, Abu Tahir announced that he had been wrong and denounced the Madhi as ‘false’. Begging forgiveness from the other notables, Abu Tahir had the Mahdi executed.
Abu Tahir resumed the reigns of the Qarmatian state and again began attacks on pilgrims crossing Arabia. Attempts by the Abbasids and Fatimids to persuade him to return the Black Stone were
rejected.
Abu Tahir rejected and ridiculed belief in Muhammad and Islam in saying: In this world, three individuals have corrupted mankind: a shepherd, a physician and a camel-driver. And this camel-driver was the worst pickpocket, the worst prestidigitator of the three. These ideas were subsequently transmitted to Emperor Frederick II by Ibn Rushd.
Abu Tahir died of smallpox in 944 and was succeeded by his three surviving brothers.
Abu Sa'id al-Jannabi see Jannabi, Abu Sa‘id al-
Abū-Tāhir Sulaymān Al-Jannābī see Jannabi, Abu Sa‘id al-
Abu Tahir rejected and ridiculed belief in Muhammad and Islam in saying: In this world, three individuals have corrupted mankind: a shepherd, a physician and a camel-driver. And this camel-driver was the worst pickpocket, the worst prestidigitator of the three. These ideas were subsequently transmitted to Emperor Frederick II by Ibn Rushd.
Abu Tahir died of smallpox in 944 and was succeeded by his three surviving brothers.
Abu Sa'id al-Jannabi see Jannabi, Abu Sa‘id al-
Abū-Tāhir Sulaymān Al-Jannābī see Jannabi, Abu Sa‘id al-
Japheth
Japheth (Yafith) (Yafet) (Iapheth) (Iafeth) (Iapetus) (Yafes). The Biblical figure is not mentioned in the Qur’an, but Qur’an exegesis and legend are familiar with the sons of Noah.
Japheth was one of the sons of Noah in the Hebrew Bible. In Arabic citations, his name is normally given as Yafeth bin Nuh (Japheth son of Noah).
Yafith see Japheth
Yafet see Japheth
Iapheth see Japheth
Iafeth see Japheth
Iapetus see Japheth
Yafes see Japheth
Japheth (Yafith) (Yafet) (Iapheth) (Iafeth) (Iapetus) (Yafes). The Biblical figure is not mentioned in the Qur’an, but Qur’an exegesis and legend are familiar with the sons of Noah.
Japheth was one of the sons of Noah in the Hebrew Bible. In Arabic citations, his name is normally given as Yafeth bin Nuh (Japheth son of Noah).
Yafith see Japheth
Yafet see Japheth
Iapheth see Japheth
Iafeth see Japheth
Iapetus see Japheth
Yafes see Japheth
Jaqmaq
Jaqmaq (Caqmaq). Mameluke sultan of Egypt (r.1439-1453). He made peace with the Knights of Saint John on Rhodes, and was on good terms with all Muslim rulers, including the Ottoman sultan. He was a frugal and pious man, liberal to the learned, although Christians and Jews were harassed with strictly enforced petty regulations.
Caqmaq see Jaqmaq
Jaqmaq (Caqmaq). Mameluke sultan of Egypt (r.1439-1453). He made peace with the Knights of Saint John on Rhodes, and was on good terms with all Muslim rulers, including the Ottoman sultan. He was a frugal and pious man, liberal to the learned, although Christians and Jews were harassed with strictly enforced petty regulations.
Caqmaq see Jaqmaq
Jarir ibn ‘Atiyya
Jarir ibn ‘Atiyya (Jarir ibn `Atiyah al-Khatfi) (ca. 650 – ca. 728) (d. 728). One of the most important satirical poets of the Umayyad period. Around 683, he began his famous forty-year-long dispute with al-Farazdak.
Jarir ibn `Atiyah al-Khatfi was an Arab poet and satirist. He was born during the reign of the caliph Othman, and was a member of the tribe Kulaib, a part of the Banu Tamim. He was a native of al-Yamamah, but also spent time in Damascus at the court of the Umayyad caliphs.
Little is known of his early life, but he succeeded in winning the favor of Al-Hajjaj bin Yousef, the governor of Iraq. Already famous for his verse, he became more widely known by his feud with rival poets Farazdaq and Akhtal. Later he went to Damascus and visited the court of the caliph Abd al-Malik and that of his successor, Al-Walid I. From neither of these did he receive a warm welcome. He was, however, more successful with Umar II, and was the only poet received by the pious caliph.
His verse, like that of his contemporaries, is largely satire and eulogy.
Jarir ibn `Atiyah al-Khatfi see Jarir ibn ‘Atiyya
Jarir ibn ‘Atiyya (Jarir ibn `Atiyah al-Khatfi) (ca. 650 – ca. 728) (d. 728). One of the most important satirical poets of the Umayyad period. Around 683, he began his famous forty-year-long dispute with al-Farazdak.
Jarir ibn `Atiyah al-Khatfi was an Arab poet and satirist. He was born during the reign of the caliph Othman, and was a member of the tribe Kulaib, a part of the Banu Tamim. He was a native of al-Yamamah, but also spent time in Damascus at the court of the Umayyad caliphs.
Little is known of his early life, but he succeeded in winning the favor of Al-Hajjaj bin Yousef, the governor of Iraq. Already famous for his verse, he became more widely known by his feud with rival poets Farazdaq and Akhtal. Later he went to Damascus and visited the court of the caliph Abd al-Malik and that of his successor, Al-Walid I. From neither of these did he receive a warm welcome. He was, however, more successful with Umar II, and was the only poet received by the pious caliph.
His verse, like that of his contemporaries, is largely satire and eulogy.
Jarir ibn `Atiyah al-Khatfi see Jarir ibn ‘Atiyya
Jariya ibn Qudama
Jariya ibn Qudama (d. after 661). Companion of the Prophet and a staunch supporter of the latter’s son-in-law, ‘Ali.
Jariya ibn Qudama (d. after 661). Companion of the Prophet and a staunch supporter of the latter’s son-in-law, ‘Ali.
Jarrahids
Jarrahids (Banu’l-Jarrah). Family of Yemeni origin which settled in Palestine and attained some importance in the tenth and eleventh centuries by following a policy of vacillation between the Fatimids and the Byzantines.
Banu'l-Jarrah see Jarrahids
Jarrahids (Banu’l-Jarrah). Family of Yemeni origin which settled in Palestine and attained some importance in the tenth and eleventh centuries by following a policy of vacillation between the Fatimids and the Byzantines.
Banu'l-Jarrah see Jarrahids
Jat
Jat (Jatt) (Zutt). More than thirty million Jat live in the Indian subcontinent. They are not a homogeneous ethno-linguistic group, rather, they are immersed in several ethnic groups in which they retain an identity, often based upon occupation and heritage. They speak the language and usually share the religion of the people among whom they live. About one out every three Jat is a Muslim.
Most historians agree that the Jat arrived in the Indian subcontinent as invaders and migrants from Central Asia during the great migrations two or three thousand years ago. However, unlike other invaders such as the Rajput, the Jat did not establish ruling dynasties. By language and appearance they were presumably Indo-Iranian who in the course of time mixed with other waves of invaders and older Indian inhabitants, especially in the Punjab and Sind. However, while the word “Jat” lives on today, it no longer means what it did in the past.
Early historical records indicate that while the ancient Indians and Persians called the people Jat, the Arabs called them Zutt. In Persia and the Arab world, “Jat” and “Zutt” became synonymous with “Indian,” regardless of the ethnic origin of the Indians involved.
The Persian poet Firdausi reports that the Sasanian king, Bahram Gur (420-438) invited 10,000 musicians from India to embellish one of the national festivities. The Arab historian, Hamza al-Isfahani, called them Zutt. Bahram was so pleased with their musical performances that he wanted them to stay on. He granted them land, oxen and grain. However, as they were minstrels and not peasants, they ate the oxen and grain and let the land lie barren. The enraged Bahram Gur expelled them from his country. The Jat turned west and south and remained what they had been, minstrels. These are said to be the first known ancestors of the European Gypsies.
At the same time Bahram Gur was being entertained by the Zutt minstrels, Jat divisions were fighting in the Persian army. They were much valued for their fighting qualities and were accepted without regard to their caste or ethnic origin.
As long as a strong Persian empire defended its northern and eastern boundaries, invaders from Central Asia were forced to press wave after wave into northwestern India. The inhabitants, including the Jat, gave way to them, some retiring westward into southern Persia and Mesopotamia, some southward. In regions along the Indus River that were not irrigated by its canal systems, only cattle breeders could exist, and among these were the Jat. Buffalo breeders were the most successful emigrants from Sind to the west. Their animals, although slow in walking, were excellent swimmers. They could keep swimming for days, forming themselves into a kind of raft by placing the head of one on the neck of the next animal. The exact route of migration is not known, but somehow they went along the Arabian seacoast. Arab historians, who called them “Zutt,” claim that these Jat came from Sind and not from the Punjab that this fact can be proved by the races of their domesticated buffalo. The domesticate buffalo are the same in Iraq and Sind, whereas Punjabi buffalo have different characteristics.
The Zutt of Iraq, who lived in the marshes for the benefit of their animals, made trouble for the pre- and post-Islamic Arabs. Reports exist of fights and deportations, of revolts and emigrations. It is likely that they reached Egypt, the lands around the Black Sea, and in the end, Europe. To all these countries they introduced the water buffalo directly or indirectly.
With the spreading of Islam, the westward movement of the Zutt or Jat came to an end. The soldierly Jat, who were still defending the Persian kingdom, were the first to encounter the Arabian armies. In a second line stood those Jat who were guarding the border of the Indian kingdoms. In Sind, kings Rai and Chach, with the help of the Jat, were reconverting the population to Brahmanism. They were opposed by the then ruling Buddhist chiefs, who were also helped by the Jat. But Brahmans and Buddhists alike had to give way to the Islamic Arabs. In 711, Arab armies invaded and conquered Sind. Arab and Persian historians report about the first encounters between the Arab conquerors and the Jat. The Jat who were followers of the Brahmans but who had come to an agreement with the Arabs, were treated benevolently. However, if they remained followers of Brahmanism, they were treated severely and degraded in every possible way. Nevertheless, the inhabitants of Sind and India were called indiscriminately Zutt or Jat by the Arabs much in the generic sense of calling the inhabitants of the Indian subcontinent, “Indian.”
The inter-Islamic controversies during the first centuries after Muhammad had as one consequence the settling down of a group of temporarily powerful heretics, the Qarmatians, in Sind from the Indus delta up to Multan. They came mainly by sea from Bahrain, where a colony of seafaring Sindhis or Jat had made a good living as traders. (Colonies of such Sindhi traders were plentiful along the coast of the Persian Gulf and of East Africa.) It seems that the whole population of Sind became confessors of the Qarmatian creed, following the example of the then ruling Sumra. Later on the Kalhoras (1736-1778) revived some of their heretic thoughts and practices. It is said that even today Sindhi pirs show lingerings of the Qarmatian doctrines.
It was to convert the Qarmatians that the Ghaznavids and Ghorids invaded India. Under the pretext of having orders from the caliph to reconvert the people to the true faith, they conquered part of the Punjab and Sind down to Multan. Again the inhabitants of the Punjab and Multan were called generically Jat, and very soon they were displaying their fighting spirit. Mahmud of Ghazni incorporated the Jat into his army and sent them west to fight against his enemies, who were partly of Turkish extraction, as was Mahmud himself.
From this time onward the main historical events did not happen in the west-east direction but in the north-south. The Jat outside the Indian subcontinent lost their importance. After the twelfth century their name is mentioned only occasionally.
The last invasion of special importance to the Jat were the Baluch, who descended from the mountains west of Sind. They were slowly driven from their old habitats near Kerman to the east and southeast. In the eleventh centuries they began their descent into the Kachhi plain in small unobtrusive groups. In the following centuries their number increased. They had first no intention of conquering Sind, although their social organization, the tuman, was a fighting confederation. They gained political importance when Sindhi rulers asked for their military help. In this respect they were first mentioned in the fifteenth century as auxiliary forces to the Langah ruler of Multan. When in the seventeenth century the dynasty of the Kalhora declined, the Talpur-Baluch came to political power, and Baluch, after 1786, were the dominate group of Lower and Upper Sind.
In the tuman confederations of the Baluch were strong elements of Jat who had emigrated from the Indus plain to the region of Kalat and the Sulaiman range to avoid the raiding groups of the Ghaznavids, Ghorids, and Mughals. Like the Baluch themselves they had a preference for raising camels. They became the “Jatt,” the camel drivers of the Baluch. This is the reason why the word “Jatt” in Lower Sind is synonymous with “camel driver.” A Baluch Jatt could be anything by birth, such as Jokhia, Sumra or Samma (ethnic groups). At the same time, the peasants of Sind were still to a great part Jat by birth. To a Baluch, who despised all sedentary people tilling the land, Jat became a generic name for all small farmers and tenants, which they used contemptuously. To distinguish themselves from these suppresssed and despised Jat, the camel-rearing and camel-driving Jat called themselves Jat-Bauch or Mir-Jat, the camel drivers of the Baluchi Mirs.
Zutt see Jat
Gypsies see Jat
Jatt see Jat
Camel Drivers see Jat
Jat (Jatt) (Zutt). More than thirty million Jat live in the Indian subcontinent. They are not a homogeneous ethno-linguistic group, rather, they are immersed in several ethnic groups in which they retain an identity, often based upon occupation and heritage. They speak the language and usually share the religion of the people among whom they live. About one out every three Jat is a Muslim.
Most historians agree that the Jat arrived in the Indian subcontinent as invaders and migrants from Central Asia during the great migrations two or three thousand years ago. However, unlike other invaders such as the Rajput, the Jat did not establish ruling dynasties. By language and appearance they were presumably Indo-Iranian who in the course of time mixed with other waves of invaders and older Indian inhabitants, especially in the Punjab and Sind. However, while the word “Jat” lives on today, it no longer means what it did in the past.
Early historical records indicate that while the ancient Indians and Persians called the people Jat, the Arabs called them Zutt. In Persia and the Arab world, “Jat” and “Zutt” became synonymous with “Indian,” regardless of the ethnic origin of the Indians involved.
The Persian poet Firdausi reports that the Sasanian king, Bahram Gur (420-438) invited 10,000 musicians from India to embellish one of the national festivities. The Arab historian, Hamza al-Isfahani, called them Zutt. Bahram was so pleased with their musical performances that he wanted them to stay on. He granted them land, oxen and grain. However, as they were minstrels and not peasants, they ate the oxen and grain and let the land lie barren. The enraged Bahram Gur expelled them from his country. The Jat turned west and south and remained what they had been, minstrels. These are said to be the first known ancestors of the European Gypsies.
At the same time Bahram Gur was being entertained by the Zutt minstrels, Jat divisions were fighting in the Persian army. They were much valued for their fighting qualities and were accepted without regard to their caste or ethnic origin.
As long as a strong Persian empire defended its northern and eastern boundaries, invaders from Central Asia were forced to press wave after wave into northwestern India. The inhabitants, including the Jat, gave way to them, some retiring westward into southern Persia and Mesopotamia, some southward. In regions along the Indus River that were not irrigated by its canal systems, only cattle breeders could exist, and among these were the Jat. Buffalo breeders were the most successful emigrants from Sind to the west. Their animals, although slow in walking, were excellent swimmers. They could keep swimming for days, forming themselves into a kind of raft by placing the head of one on the neck of the next animal. The exact route of migration is not known, but somehow they went along the Arabian seacoast. Arab historians, who called them “Zutt,” claim that these Jat came from Sind and not from the Punjab that this fact can be proved by the races of their domesticated buffalo. The domesticate buffalo are the same in Iraq and Sind, whereas Punjabi buffalo have different characteristics.
The Zutt of Iraq, who lived in the marshes for the benefit of their animals, made trouble for the pre- and post-Islamic Arabs. Reports exist of fights and deportations, of revolts and emigrations. It is likely that they reached Egypt, the lands around the Black Sea, and in the end, Europe. To all these countries they introduced the water buffalo directly or indirectly.
With the spreading of Islam, the westward movement of the Zutt or Jat came to an end. The soldierly Jat, who were still defending the Persian kingdom, were the first to encounter the Arabian armies. In a second line stood those Jat who were guarding the border of the Indian kingdoms. In Sind, kings Rai and Chach, with the help of the Jat, were reconverting the population to Brahmanism. They were opposed by the then ruling Buddhist chiefs, who were also helped by the Jat. But Brahmans and Buddhists alike had to give way to the Islamic Arabs. In 711, Arab armies invaded and conquered Sind. Arab and Persian historians report about the first encounters between the Arab conquerors and the Jat. The Jat who were followers of the Brahmans but who had come to an agreement with the Arabs, were treated benevolently. However, if they remained followers of Brahmanism, they were treated severely and degraded in every possible way. Nevertheless, the inhabitants of Sind and India were called indiscriminately Zutt or Jat by the Arabs much in the generic sense of calling the inhabitants of the Indian subcontinent, “Indian.”
The inter-Islamic controversies during the first centuries after Muhammad had as one consequence the settling down of a group of temporarily powerful heretics, the Qarmatians, in Sind from the Indus delta up to Multan. They came mainly by sea from Bahrain, where a colony of seafaring Sindhis or Jat had made a good living as traders. (Colonies of such Sindhi traders were plentiful along the coast of the Persian Gulf and of East Africa.) It seems that the whole population of Sind became confessors of the Qarmatian creed, following the example of the then ruling Sumra. Later on the Kalhoras (1736-1778) revived some of their heretic thoughts and practices. It is said that even today Sindhi pirs show lingerings of the Qarmatian doctrines.
It was to convert the Qarmatians that the Ghaznavids and Ghorids invaded India. Under the pretext of having orders from the caliph to reconvert the people to the true faith, they conquered part of the Punjab and Sind down to Multan. Again the inhabitants of the Punjab and Multan were called generically Jat, and very soon they were displaying their fighting spirit. Mahmud of Ghazni incorporated the Jat into his army and sent them west to fight against his enemies, who were partly of Turkish extraction, as was Mahmud himself.
From this time onward the main historical events did not happen in the west-east direction but in the north-south. The Jat outside the Indian subcontinent lost their importance. After the twelfth century their name is mentioned only occasionally.
The last invasion of special importance to the Jat were the Baluch, who descended from the mountains west of Sind. They were slowly driven from their old habitats near Kerman to the east and southeast. In the eleventh centuries they began their descent into the Kachhi plain in small unobtrusive groups. In the following centuries their number increased. They had first no intention of conquering Sind, although their social organization, the tuman, was a fighting confederation. They gained political importance when Sindhi rulers asked for their military help. In this respect they were first mentioned in the fifteenth century as auxiliary forces to the Langah ruler of Multan. When in the seventeenth century the dynasty of the Kalhora declined, the Talpur-Baluch came to political power, and Baluch, after 1786, were the dominate group of Lower and Upper Sind.
In the tuman confederations of the Baluch were strong elements of Jat who had emigrated from the Indus plain to the region of Kalat and the Sulaiman range to avoid the raiding groups of the Ghaznavids, Ghorids, and Mughals. Like the Baluch themselves they had a preference for raising camels. They became the “Jatt,” the camel drivers of the Baluch. This is the reason why the word “Jatt” in Lower Sind is synonymous with “camel driver.” A Baluch Jatt could be anything by birth, such as Jokhia, Sumra or Samma (ethnic groups). At the same time, the peasants of Sind were still to a great part Jat by birth. To a Baluch, who despised all sedentary people tilling the land, Jat became a generic name for all small farmers and tenants, which they used contemptuously. To distinguish themselves from these suppresssed and despised Jat, the camel-rearing and camel-driving Jat called themselves Jat-Bauch or Mir-Jat, the camel drivers of the Baluchi Mirs.
Zutt see Jat
Gypsies see Jat
Jatt see Jat
Camel Drivers see Jat
Javanese
Javanese. The Javanese, the world’s third largest Muslim ethnic group (after Arabs and Bengalis), occupy the central and eastern part of the island of Java, the fifth largest island of the island nation of Indonesia. They call themselves Weng Jawa or Tiyang Jawi in polite speech. The Indonesian term is Orang Jawa. They form the largest ethnic group of the extremely plural population of the Indonesian republic, itself the nation with the world’s largest Muslim population.
Nearly all Javanese, about 90 percent, are Muslim. The remaining 10 percent are Roman Catholic, Protestant Christians, Buddhists or recent converts in south central Java to Hinduism.
In the earliest stages of conversion to Islam in the thirteenth century, the commercial aristocracy in the port towns of northern Java had also adopted many elements of mysticism that seem to have characterized south Indian Islam. As mysticism had long played an important role in the Hindu-Buddhist Javanese religion during the pre-Islamic period, it stimulated the easy acceptance of Islam among the Javanese. More orthodox Sunni teachings of the Shafi school of law were acquired at a later period of Javanese pilgrims on their return from Mecca.
During the fifteenth century, Islam penetrated into the interior regions of east and central Java through the zealous activities of Muslim missionaries who became holy men (wali) in Javanese folklore. In the inland regions, where pre-Islamic Hindu and Buddhist Javanese cultural and religious traditions were strongest, the influence of Islam was less strong, and the religion was modified into a typically Javanese kind of Islam, combining Hindu-Buddhist Javanese religious concepts with Muslim beliefs. The Javanese themselves continued to call this Javanese version of Islam the Agami Jawi or Kejawen, or sometimes in a degrading manner, Islam Abangan (Red Muslims). The Javanese make a clear distinction between people who adhere to the Kejawen religion and those who practice the more puritan kind of Islam, who are called Santri Muslims.
In the early twentieth century, a Javanese, K. H. A. Dahlan (b. 1868), brought Islamic reformist ideas to Indonesia. Under the influence of the Islamic modernist, Muhammad Abduh of Al Azhar University in Cairo, Dahlan founded the Indonesian reform movement, the Muhammadiya, in 1912 in central Java. This later became a nationwide movement working actively in education, social welfare and religious reform. Attacking not only Kejawen syncretism but also Santri scholasticism and mysticism, the Muhammadiya became a threat to rural religious leaders who consequently reacted by forming a counter-organization, the Nahdatul Ulema (Union of Muslim Scholars) in 1926 in east Java. This organization also developed into an Indonesian nationwide organization, especially after independence in 1950, when it became a strong Indonesian political party which represented orthodox Islamic ideology.
Javanese. The Javanese, the world’s third largest Muslim ethnic group (after Arabs and Bengalis), occupy the central and eastern part of the island of Java, the fifth largest island of the island nation of Indonesia. They call themselves Weng Jawa or Tiyang Jawi in polite speech. The Indonesian term is Orang Jawa. They form the largest ethnic group of the extremely plural population of the Indonesian republic, itself the nation with the world’s largest Muslim population.
Nearly all Javanese, about 90 percent, are Muslim. The remaining 10 percent are Roman Catholic, Protestant Christians, Buddhists or recent converts in south central Java to Hinduism.
In the earliest stages of conversion to Islam in the thirteenth century, the commercial aristocracy in the port towns of northern Java had also adopted many elements of mysticism that seem to have characterized south Indian Islam. As mysticism had long played an important role in the Hindu-Buddhist Javanese religion during the pre-Islamic period, it stimulated the easy acceptance of Islam among the Javanese. More orthodox Sunni teachings of the Shafi school of law were acquired at a later period of Javanese pilgrims on their return from Mecca.
During the fifteenth century, Islam penetrated into the interior regions of east and central Java through the zealous activities of Muslim missionaries who became holy men (wali) in Javanese folklore. In the inland regions, where pre-Islamic Hindu and Buddhist Javanese cultural and religious traditions were strongest, the influence of Islam was less strong, and the religion was modified into a typically Javanese kind of Islam, combining Hindu-Buddhist Javanese religious concepts with Muslim beliefs. The Javanese themselves continued to call this Javanese version of Islam the Agami Jawi or Kejawen, or sometimes in a degrading manner, Islam Abangan (Red Muslims). The Javanese make a clear distinction between people who adhere to the Kejawen religion and those who practice the more puritan kind of Islam, who are called Santri Muslims.
In the early twentieth century, a Javanese, K. H. A. Dahlan (b. 1868), brought Islamic reformist ideas to Indonesia. Under the influence of the Islamic modernist, Muhammad Abduh of Al Azhar University in Cairo, Dahlan founded the Indonesian reform movement, the Muhammadiya, in 1912 in central Java. This later became a nationwide movement working actively in education, social welfare and religious reform. Attacking not only Kejawen syncretism but also Santri scholasticism and mysticism, the Muhammadiya became a threat to rural religious leaders who consequently reacted by forming a counter-organization, the Nahdatul Ulema (Union of Muslim Scholars) in 1926 in east Java. This organization also developed into an Indonesian nationwide organization, especially after independence in 1950, when it became a strong Indonesian political party which represented orthodox Islamic ideology.
Jawaliqi, al-
Jawaliqi, al- (Abu Mansur Mauhub al-Jawaliqi (1073–1144/1145). Arab philologist and calligrapher from Baghdad. His works played a part in raising the cultural level in the Arabic language from the depths to which it had fallen in the Saljuq period.
Abu Mansur Mauhub al-Jawaliqi, an Arab grammarian, was born at Baghdad, where he studied philology under Tibrizi and became famous for his handwriting. In his later years, he acted as imam to the caliph Moqtafi. His chief work is the Kitab al-Mu'Arab, or Explanation of Foreign Words used in Arabic.
Abu Mansur Mauhub al-Jawaliqi see Jawaliqi, al-
Jawaliqi, al- (Abu Mansur Mauhub al-Jawaliqi (1073–1144/1145). Arab philologist and calligrapher from Baghdad. His works played a part in raising the cultural level in the Arabic language from the depths to which it had fallen in the Saljuq period.
Abu Mansur Mauhub al-Jawaliqi, an Arab grammarian, was born at Baghdad, where he studied philology under Tibrizi and became famous for his handwriting. In his later years, he acted as imam to the caliph Moqtafi. His chief work is the Kitab al-Mu'Arab, or Explanation of Foreign Words used in Arabic.
Abu Mansur Mauhub al-Jawaliqi see Jawaliqi, al-
Jawan, Mirza Kazim ‘Ali
Jawan, Mirza Kazim ‘Ali (Mirza Kazim ‘Ali Jawan) (d. c. 1815). One of the pioneers of Urdu prose literature.
Mirza Kazim 'Ali Jawan see Jawan, Mirza Kazim ‘Ali
Jawan, Mirza Kazim ‘Ali (Mirza Kazim ‘Ali Jawan) (d. c. 1815). One of the pioneers of Urdu prose literature.
Mirza Kazim 'Ali Jawan see Jawan, Mirza Kazim ‘Ali
Jawara, Dauda Kairaba
Jawara, Dauda Kairaba (Dauda Kairaba Jawara) (b. 1924). Prime minister of the Gambia (1962-1970) and President from 1970 to 1994.
Raised by his Mandingo parents in Bathurst, Dauda Kairaba Jawara received a missionary education and then continued his studies in Ghana and in Glasgow (Scotland), where he qualified as a veterinarian in 1953. Jawara returned home the next year and, by 1958, had become the chief veterinary officer. In 1958, Jawara became a Christian and changed his first name to David.
In the late 1950s, Gambian nationalist political activity was limited to the Bathurst area. Jawara changed that in 1959 when he joined the Protectorate People’s Society and converted it into a political party. The next year, in the Gambia’s first universal suffrage elections, Jawara won a seat in the legislature and became minister of education. Although his party had done better than the Bathurst-oriented group in the elections, he faced opposition from some Protectorate chiefs, and as a result the colonial authorities chose his rival Pierre Sarr N’Jie as chief minister the next year. Jawara resigned his ministry in protest.
In the elections of 1962, however, Jawara’s party won a majority and he became chief minister (later prime minister). In 1965, Jawara led the Gambia to independence within the British Commonwealth. At that time, he reconverted to Islam and changed his name from David to Dauda.
In 1970, the Gambia became a republic, with Jawara as president. The Gambia under Jawara was a rather democratic nation compared to contemporary African nations.
During the 1970s, severe economic problems and charges of governmental corruption led to the formation of two Marxist opposition parties. When a military commander was assassinated in 1980 Jawara banned these parties and asked Senegal for military assistance.
The following year a group of civilians attempted a coup while Jawara was in London attending the wedding of Prince Charles to Lady Diana Spencer. The Senegalese again came to Jawara's aid. After easily winning re-election in 1982 Jawara brought the Gambia into a loose federation with Senegal, with a long-term goal of political unity.
On July 22, 1994, a second coup attempt led by Lieutenant Yahya Jammeh was successful and Jawara was forced into exile until 2002. In 2002, Jawara returned to the Gambia as an elder statesman.but was forbidden from taking part in politics for the rest of his life,
Dauda Kairaba Jawara see Jawara, Dauda Kairaba
Jawara, Dauda Kairaba (Dauda Kairaba Jawara) (b. 1924). Prime minister of the Gambia (1962-1970) and President from 1970 to 1994.
Raised by his Mandingo parents in Bathurst, Dauda Kairaba Jawara received a missionary education and then continued his studies in Ghana and in Glasgow (Scotland), where he qualified as a veterinarian in 1953. Jawara returned home the next year and, by 1958, had become the chief veterinary officer. In 1958, Jawara became a Christian and changed his first name to David.
In the late 1950s, Gambian nationalist political activity was limited to the Bathurst area. Jawara changed that in 1959 when he joined the Protectorate People’s Society and converted it into a political party. The next year, in the Gambia’s first universal suffrage elections, Jawara won a seat in the legislature and became minister of education. Although his party had done better than the Bathurst-oriented group in the elections, he faced opposition from some Protectorate chiefs, and as a result the colonial authorities chose his rival Pierre Sarr N’Jie as chief minister the next year. Jawara resigned his ministry in protest.
In the elections of 1962, however, Jawara’s party won a majority and he became chief minister (later prime minister). In 1965, Jawara led the Gambia to independence within the British Commonwealth. At that time, he reconverted to Islam and changed his name from David to Dauda.
In 1970, the Gambia became a republic, with Jawara as president. The Gambia under Jawara was a rather democratic nation compared to contemporary African nations.
During the 1970s, severe economic problems and charges of governmental corruption led to the formation of two Marxist opposition parties. When a military commander was assassinated in 1980 Jawara banned these parties and asked Senegal for military assistance.
The following year a group of civilians attempted a coup while Jawara was in London attending the wedding of Prince Charles to Lady Diana Spencer. The Senegalese again came to Jawara's aid. After easily winning re-election in 1982 Jawara brought the Gambia into a loose federation with Senegal, with a long-term goal of political unity.
On July 22, 1994, a second coup attempt led by Lieutenant Yahya Jammeh was successful and Jawara was forced into exile until 2002. In 2002, Jawara returned to the Gambia as an elder statesman.but was forbidden from taking part in politics for the rest of his life,
Dauda Kairaba Jawara see Jawara, Dauda Kairaba
Jawdhar
Jawdhar. Eunuch and slave who played an important part under the first Fatimid caliphs. His biography, compiled by his private secretary al-Mansur, is historically important for the collection of documents it contains.
Jawdhar. Eunuch and slave who played an important part under the first Fatimid caliphs. His biography, compiled by his private secretary al-Mansur, is historically important for the collection of documents it contains.
Jawhar, Abu Nasr al-
Jawhar, Abu Nasr al- (Abu Nasr al-Jawhar) (d. 1002). Arabic lexicographer of Turkish origin. He made linguistic investigations among the Arabs of the desert and seems to have been the last lexicographer of fame to maintain that tradition. His reputation is based on his dictionary, commonly known as al-Sihah.
Abu Nasr al-Jawhar see Jawhar, Abu Nasr al-
Jawhar, Abu Nasr al- (Abu Nasr al-Jawhar) (d. 1002). Arabic lexicographer of Turkish origin. He made linguistic investigations among the Arabs of the desert and seems to have been the last lexicographer of fame to maintain that tradition. His reputation is based on his dictionary, commonly known as al-Sihah.
Abu Nasr al-Jawhar see Jawhar, Abu Nasr al-
Jawhar Aftabaci
Jawhar Aftabaci. Author of valuable memoirs of the reign of the Mughal Emperor Humayun during the sixteenth century.
Aftabaci, Jawhar see Jawhar Aftabaci.
Jawhar Aftabaci. Author of valuable memoirs of the reign of the Mughal Emperor Humayun during the sixteenth century.
Aftabaci, Jawhar see Jawhar Aftabaci.
Jawhar al-Siqilli
(Gawhar al-Siqilli) (Gawhar the Sicilian) (Gawhar as-Siqilli al-Rumi) (al-Rumi) (The Roman) (born c. 928/930-992). Arab general who conquered Egypt for the Fatimids in 969. He was a general and administrator for the fourth Fatimid Caliph al-Mu‘izz li-Din Allah. He entered al-Fustat in 969, built a new town -- Cairo -- to house his troops and laid the first stone of the al-Azhar mosque in 970.
Gawhar al-Siqilli (Gawhar the Sicilian) was the most important military leader in Fatimid history. He led the conquest of North Africa and then of Egypt, founded the city of Cairo and the great al-Azhar mosque.
Gawhar was a Sicilian Mameluke of Greek ethnicity. His family originated from the Emirate of Sicily (hence the epithet, the Sicilian), and came as a slave to North Africa. He was sent to the Caliph Ismail al-Mansur on account of his intelligence and cunning. Under his son al-Muizz (953-975), he gained his freedom and became his personal secretary. Soon he was Vizir and the highest-ranking military commander of the Fatimids. In this role, he resumed the expansion of the Fatimids and, together with the Zirids, conquered Fez in Northern Morocco, and pushed towards the Atlantic. Only the strongholds of Ceuta and Tangier could be retained by the Umayyads of Córdoba.
After the Western borders had been secured, Gawhar as-Siqilli pushed towards Egypt and occupied the land around the Nile from the Ikhshidids after a siege at Giza. The conquest was prepared by a treaty with the Vizir of the Ikhshidids (by which Sunnis would be guaranteed freedom of religion), so the Fatimids encountered little resistance. Afterwards Gawhar ruled Egypt until 972 as viceroy.
In this capacity Gawhar founded the city of Cairo on 969 north of Fostat, to serve as the new residence of the Fatimid Caliphs, and the al-Azhar mosque on 970. Although Palestine was occupied after the conquest of Egypt, Syria could not be overcome, following a defeat at the hands of the Carmathians at Damascus. However, when the Carmathians overran Egypt, Gawhar was able to defeat them north of Cairo on December 22, 970, although the struggle continued until 974. To secure the southern border of Egypt, a legation was sent to the Christian land of Nubia.
After the establishment of the residence at Cairo, Gawhar fell into disfavor with al-Muizz. Under his successor al-Aziz (975-996) however, in whose accession to the throne Gawhar played an important role, he was rehabilitated. He was regent again until 979, but was finally stripped of power after a campaign against Syria was once again defeated near Damascus. Gawhar died on February 1, 992.
Siqilli, Jawhar al- see Jawhar al-Siqilli
Gawhar al-Siqilli see Jawhar al-Siqilli
Gawhar the Sicilian see Jawhar al-Siqilli
Gawhar as-Siqilli al-Rumi see Jawhar al-Siqilli
al-Rumi see Jawhar al-Siqilli
The Roman see Jawhar al-Siqilli
Gawhar al-Siqilli (Gawhar the Sicilian) was the most important military leader in Fatimid history. He led the conquest of North Africa and then of Egypt, founded the city of Cairo and the great al-Azhar mosque.
Gawhar was a Sicilian Mameluke of Greek ethnicity. His family originated from the Emirate of Sicily (hence the epithet, the Sicilian), and came as a slave to North Africa. He was sent to the Caliph Ismail al-Mansur on account of his intelligence and cunning. Under his son al-Muizz (953-975), he gained his freedom and became his personal secretary. Soon he was Vizir and the highest-ranking military commander of the Fatimids. In this role, he resumed the expansion of the Fatimids and, together with the Zirids, conquered Fez in Northern Morocco, and pushed towards the Atlantic. Only the strongholds of Ceuta and Tangier could be retained by the Umayyads of Córdoba.
After the Western borders had been secured, Gawhar as-Siqilli pushed towards Egypt and occupied the land around the Nile from the Ikhshidids after a siege at Giza. The conquest was prepared by a treaty with the Vizir of the Ikhshidids (by which Sunnis would be guaranteed freedom of religion), so the Fatimids encountered little resistance. Afterwards Gawhar ruled Egypt until 972 as viceroy.
In this capacity Gawhar founded the city of Cairo on 969 north of Fostat, to serve as the new residence of the Fatimid Caliphs, and the al-Azhar mosque on 970. Although Palestine was occupied after the conquest of Egypt, Syria could not be overcome, following a defeat at the hands of the Carmathians at Damascus. However, when the Carmathians overran Egypt, Gawhar was able to defeat them north of Cairo on December 22, 970, although the struggle continued until 974. To secure the southern border of Egypt, a legation was sent to the Christian land of Nubia.
After the establishment of the residence at Cairo, Gawhar fell into disfavor with al-Muizz. Under his successor al-Aziz (975-996) however, in whose accession to the throne Gawhar played an important role, he was rehabilitated. He was regent again until 979, but was finally stripped of power after a campaign against Syria was once again defeated near Damascus. Gawhar died on February 1, 992.
Siqilli, Jawhar al- see Jawhar al-Siqilli
Gawhar al-Siqilli see Jawhar al-Siqilli
Gawhar the Sicilian see Jawhar al-Siqilli
Gawhar as-Siqilli al-Rumi see Jawhar al-Siqilli
al-Rumi see Jawhar al-Siqilli
The Roman see Jawhar al-Siqilli
Jawhari, Tantawi
Jawhari, Tantawi (Tantawi Jawhari) (1862-1940). Modernist Egyptian theologian. He was the official Egyptian candidate for a Nobel Prize in 1939.
Tantawi Jawhari see Jawhari, Tantawi
Jawhari, Tantawi (Tantawi Jawhari) (1862-1940). Modernist Egyptian theologian. He was the official Egyptian candidate for a Nobel Prize in 1939.
Tantawi Jawhari see Jawhari, Tantawi
Jawi
Jawi (in plural form, Jawa). Name used in Mecca to denote the Muslims from southeast Asia.
Jawa see Jawi
Jawi (in plural form, Jawa). Name used in Mecca to denote the Muslims from southeast Asia.
Jawa see Jawi
Jawid, Mehmed
Jawid, Mehmed (Mehmed Jawid) (1875-1926). Young Turk economist and statesman. A member of the Ittihad we Teraqqi Jem”iyyeti and several times minister of finance, he was arrested following the 1926 assassination attempt of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and hanged.
Mehmed Jawid see Jawid, Mehmed
Jawid, Mehmed (Mehmed Jawid) (1875-1926). Young Turk economist and statesman. A member of the Ittihad we Teraqqi Jem”iyyeti and several times minister of finance, he was arrested following the 1926 assassination attempt of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and hanged.
Mehmed Jawid see Jawid, Mehmed
Jayn
Jayn (Jain). Community of followers of Mahavira, called the Jina, in Gujarat. The personal beliefs and habits of the Mughal Emperor Akbar I seem to have been much influenced by the Jayn leaders.
Jainism is an ancient religion of India, also now found in other countries around the world, that prescribes a path of peace and non-violence towards all living beings. Its philosophy and practice rely mainly on self-effort in progressing the soul on the spiritual ladder to divine consciousness. Any soul which has conquered its own inner enemies and achieved the state of supreme being is called jina (Conqueror or Victor). Jainism is often referred to as Jain Dharma or Shraman Dharma or the religion of Nirgantha by ancient texts.
Jain see Jayn
Jayn (Jain). Community of followers of Mahavira, called the Jina, in Gujarat. The personal beliefs and habits of the Mughal Emperor Akbar I seem to have been much influenced by the Jayn leaders.
Jainism is an ancient religion of India, also now found in other countries around the world, that prescribes a path of peace and non-violence towards all living beings. Its philosophy and practice rely mainly on self-effort in progressing the soul on the spiritual ladder to divine consciousness. Any soul which has conquered its own inner enemies and achieved the state of supreme being is called jina (Conqueror or Victor). Jainism is often referred to as Jain Dharma or Shraman Dharma or the religion of Nirgantha by ancient texts.
Jain see Jayn
Jazari, Badi’ al-Zaman al-
Jazari, Badi’ al-Zaman al- (Badi’ al-Zaman al-Jazari). Twelfth century engineer of al-Jazira. His reputation rests upon his Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices.
Badi' al-Zaman al-Jazari see Jazari, Badi’ al-Zaman al-
Jazari, Badi’ al-Zaman al- (Badi’ al-Zaman al-Jazari). Twelfth century engineer of al-Jazira. His reputation rests upon his Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices.
Badi' al-Zaman al-Jazari see Jazari, Badi’ al-Zaman al-
Jazari, Shams al-Din al-
Jazari, Shams al-Din al- (1260-1338). Arab historian from Damascus. He owes his fame to his historical work commonly known as The History of al-Jazari, of which only the last volume is preserved.
Shams al-Din al-Jazari see Jazari, Shams al-Din al-
Jazari, Shams al-Din al- (1260-1338). Arab historian from Damascus. He owes his fame to his historical work commonly known as The History of al-Jazari, of which only the last volume is preserved.
Shams al-Din al-Jazari see Jazari, Shams al-Din al-
Jazari, Shams al-Milla wa’l-Din al-
Jazari, Shams al-Milla wa’l-Din al- (Shams al-Milla wa’l-Din al-Jazari) (d. 1301). Composer of Sessions. He was a native of Jazirat ibn ‘Umar and imitated the Session of al-Hariri.
Shams al-Milla wa'l-Din al-Jazari see Jazari, Shams al-Milla wa’l-Din al-
Jazari, Shams al-Milla wa’l-Din al- (Shams al-Milla wa’l-Din al-Jazari) (d. 1301). Composer of Sessions. He was a native of Jazirat ibn ‘Umar and imitated the Session of al-Hariri.
Shams al-Milla wa'l-Din al-Jazari see Jazari, Shams al-Milla wa’l-Din al-
Jazuli, Abu ‘Abd Allah al-
Jazuli, Abu ‘Abd Allah al- (Abu ‘Abd Allah al-Jazuli) (d. 1465). Sufi from Morocco. He wrote a well known collection of prayers for the Prophet.
Abu 'Abd Allah al-Jazuli see Jazuli, Abu ‘Abd Allah al-
Jazuli, Abu ‘Abd Allah al- (Abu ‘Abd Allah al-Jazuli) (d. 1465). Sufi from Morocco. He wrote a well known collection of prayers for the Prophet.
Abu 'Abd Allah al-Jazuli see Jazuli, Abu ‘Abd Allah al-
Jazuli, Abu Musa al-
Jazuli, Abu Musa al- (Abu Musa al-Jazuli) (d. 1209). Grammarian from Morocco who was known for his introduction to the study of Arabic grammar.
Abu Musa al-Jazuli see Jazuli, Abu Musa al-
Jazuli, Abu Musa al- (Abu Musa al-Jazuli) (d. 1209). Grammarian from Morocco who was known for his introduction to the study of Arabic grammar.
Abu Musa al-Jazuli see Jazuli, Abu Musa al-
Jazzar Pasha, Ahmad al-
Jazzar Pasha, Ahmad al- (Ahmad al-Jazzar Pasha) (Ahmed al-Jazzar) (Jezzar Pasha) (b. 1720/1722, in Stolac in Bosnia - d. 1804 in Acre, Damascus Wiliyah). Dominant political figure of his time in southern Syria. He set up a regime of remarkable stability, based on fear.
Ahmed al-Jazzar (Jezzar Pasha) was the ruler of Acre and the Galilee from 1775 until his death.
Jezzar Pasha, a Mameluke of Ali Bey, obtained the pashalik of Sidon and set up his capital in Acre. He earned the nickname "the Butcher" for his cruelty and extortion of his subjects. He is reputed to have walked around with a mobile gallows in case anyone displeased him.
Jezzar Pasha is best known for defending Acre against Napoleon Bonaparte during the siege of Acre in 1799. After Napoleon's capture of Egypt, then an Ottoman territory, the French army attempted to invade Syria and Palestine. Although the French captured El Arish and Jaffa, and won every battle they fought against the Ottomans on an open field, they were unable to breach the fortifications of Acre. Their army was weakened by disease and cut off from re-supply. Though both Napoleon and Jezzar requested assistance from the Shihab leader, Bashir, ruler of much of Lebanon, Bashir remained neutral. After several months of attacks, Napoleon was forced to withdraw and his bid to conquer Egypt and the East failed.
With the help of his chief financial adviser, Haim Farhi, a Damascus Jew, Jezzar Pasha embarked on a major building program in Acre that included fortifying the city walls, refurbishing the aqueduct that brought spring water from nearby Kabri, and building a large Turkish bath. One of the most important landmarks built by Jezzar Pasha was the mosque that bears his name, a massive building in the Turkish style. Built over a Crusader church, the al-Jezzar Mosque incorporates columns brought from Roman and Byzantine ruins in Caesarea and Tyre, and included a school for Islamic religious studies, later used as a religious court. Al-Jezzar and his adopted son and successor Suleiman Pasha, were buried in the courtyard.
Ahmad al-Jazzar Pasha see Jazzar Pasha, Ahmad al-
Ahmed al-Jazzar see Jazzar Pasha, Ahmad al-
Jezzar Pasha see Jazzar Pasha, Ahmad al-
"The Butcher" see Jazzar Pasha, Ahmad al-
Jazzar Pasha, Ahmad al- (Ahmad al-Jazzar Pasha) (Ahmed al-Jazzar) (Jezzar Pasha) (b. 1720/1722, in Stolac in Bosnia - d. 1804 in Acre, Damascus Wiliyah). Dominant political figure of his time in southern Syria. He set up a regime of remarkable stability, based on fear.
Ahmed al-Jazzar (Jezzar Pasha) was the ruler of Acre and the Galilee from 1775 until his death.
Jezzar Pasha, a Mameluke of Ali Bey, obtained the pashalik of Sidon and set up his capital in Acre. He earned the nickname "the Butcher" for his cruelty and extortion of his subjects. He is reputed to have walked around with a mobile gallows in case anyone displeased him.
Jezzar Pasha is best known for defending Acre against Napoleon Bonaparte during the siege of Acre in 1799. After Napoleon's capture of Egypt, then an Ottoman territory, the French army attempted to invade Syria and Palestine. Although the French captured El Arish and Jaffa, and won every battle they fought against the Ottomans on an open field, they were unable to breach the fortifications of Acre. Their army was weakened by disease and cut off from re-supply. Though both Napoleon and Jezzar requested assistance from the Shihab leader, Bashir, ruler of much of Lebanon, Bashir remained neutral. After several months of attacks, Napoleon was forced to withdraw and his bid to conquer Egypt and the East failed.
With the help of his chief financial adviser, Haim Farhi, a Damascus Jew, Jezzar Pasha embarked on a major building program in Acre that included fortifying the city walls, refurbishing the aqueduct that brought spring water from nearby Kabri, and building a large Turkish bath. One of the most important landmarks built by Jezzar Pasha was the mosque that bears his name, a massive building in the Turkish style. Built over a Crusader church, the al-Jezzar Mosque incorporates columns brought from Roman and Byzantine ruins in Caesarea and Tyre, and included a school for Islamic religious studies, later used as a religious court. Al-Jezzar and his adopted son and successor Suleiman Pasha, were buried in the courtyard.
Ahmad al-Jazzar Pasha see Jazzar Pasha, Ahmad al-
Ahmed al-Jazzar see Jazzar Pasha, Ahmad al-
Jezzar Pasha see Jazzar Pasha, Ahmad al-
"The Butcher" see Jazzar Pasha, Ahmad al-
Jehovah
Jehovah. Anglicization of “Yahweh,” the Hebrew name for God (Allah) (the Creator).
Jehovah is an anglicized representation of the Hebrew name for God. It is a transliteration of the name that, according to the Bible, God revealed to his people. The earliest available Latin text to use a vocalization similar to Jehovah dates from the 13th century.
Yahweh, was the God of the Israelites, his name being revealed to Moses as four Hebrew consonants (YHWH) called the tetragrammaton. After the Exile (6th century B.C.T.), and especially from the 3rd century B.C.T. on, Jews ceased to use the name Yahweh for two reasons. As Judaism became a universal religion through its proselytizing in the Greco-Roman world, the more common noun Elohim, meaning “god,” tended to replace Yahweh to demonstrate the universal sovereignty of Israel’s God over all others. At the same time, the divine name was increasingly regarded as too sacred to be uttered. It was thus replaced vocally in the synagogue ritual by the Hebrew word Adonai (“My Lord”), which was translated as Kyrios (“Lord”) in the Septuagint, the Greek version of the Old Testament.
The Masoretes, who from about the 6th to the 10th century worked to reproduce the original text of the Hebrew Bible, replaced the vowels of the name YHWH with the vowel signs of the Hebrew words Adonai or Elohim. Thus, the artificial name Jehovah (YeHoWaH) came into being. Although Christian scholars after the Renaissance and Reformation periods used the term Jehovah for YHWH, in the 19th and 20th centuries biblical scholars again began to use the form Yahweh. Early Christian writers, such as Clement of Alexandria in the 2nd century, had used a form like Yahweh, and this pronunciation of the tetragrammaton was never really lost. Other Greek transcriptions also indicated that YHWH should be pronounced Yahweh.
The meaning of the personal name of the Israelite God has been variously interpreted. Many scholars believe that the most proper meaning may be “He Brings Into Existence Whatever Exists” (Yahweh-Asher-Yahweh). In I Samuel, God is known by the name Yahweh Teva-ʿot, or “He Brings the Hosts Into Existence,” the hosts possibly referring to the heavenly court or to Israel.
The personal name of God probably was known long before the time of Moses. The name of Moses’ mother was Jochebed (Yokheved), a word based on the name Yahweh. Thus, the tribe of Levi, to which Moses belonged, probably knew the name Yahweh, which originally may have been (in its short form Yo, Yah, or Yahu) a religious invocation of no precise meaning evoked by the mysterious and awesome splendor of the manifestation of the holy.
Yahweh see Jehovah.
God see Jehovah.
Allah see Jehovah.
The Creator see Jehovah.
Jehovah. Anglicization of “Yahweh,” the Hebrew name for God (Allah) (the Creator).
Jehovah is an anglicized representation of the Hebrew name for God. It is a transliteration of the name that, according to the Bible, God revealed to his people. The earliest available Latin text to use a vocalization similar to Jehovah dates from the 13th century.
Yahweh, was the God of the Israelites, his name being revealed to Moses as four Hebrew consonants (YHWH) called the tetragrammaton. After the Exile (6th century B.C.T.), and especially from the 3rd century B.C.T. on, Jews ceased to use the name Yahweh for two reasons. As Judaism became a universal religion through its proselytizing in the Greco-Roman world, the more common noun Elohim, meaning “god,” tended to replace Yahweh to demonstrate the universal sovereignty of Israel’s God over all others. At the same time, the divine name was increasingly regarded as too sacred to be uttered. It was thus replaced vocally in the synagogue ritual by the Hebrew word Adonai (“My Lord”), which was translated as Kyrios (“Lord”) in the Septuagint, the Greek version of the Old Testament.
The Masoretes, who from about the 6th to the 10th century worked to reproduce the original text of the Hebrew Bible, replaced the vowels of the name YHWH with the vowel signs of the Hebrew words Adonai or Elohim. Thus, the artificial name Jehovah (YeHoWaH) came into being. Although Christian scholars after the Renaissance and Reformation periods used the term Jehovah for YHWH, in the 19th and 20th centuries biblical scholars again began to use the form Yahweh. Early Christian writers, such as Clement of Alexandria in the 2nd century, had used a form like Yahweh, and this pronunciation of the tetragrammaton was never really lost. Other Greek transcriptions also indicated that YHWH should be pronounced Yahweh.
The meaning of the personal name of the Israelite God has been variously interpreted. Many scholars believe that the most proper meaning may be “He Brings Into Existence Whatever Exists” (Yahweh-Asher-Yahweh). In I Samuel, God is known by the name Yahweh Teva-ʿot, or “He Brings the Hosts Into Existence,” the hosts possibly referring to the heavenly court or to Israel.
The personal name of God probably was known long before the time of Moses. The name of Moses’ mother was Jochebed (Yokheved), a word based on the name Yahweh. Thus, the tribe of Levi, to which Moses belonged, probably knew the name Yahweh, which originally may have been (in its short form Yo, Yah, or Yahu) a religious invocation of no precise meaning evoked by the mysterious and awesome splendor of the manifestation of the holy.
Yahweh see Jehovah.
God see Jehovah.
Allah see Jehovah.
The Creator see Jehovah.
Jelal-zade Mustafa Celebi
Jelal-zade Mustafa Celebi (Qoja Nishanji) (1490-1567). Ottoman civil servant and historian. Of his projected description of the whole empire, a very full history of Sultan Suleyman II up to 1555 is known to exist.
Celebi, Jelal-zade Mustafa see Jelal-zade Mustafa Celebi
Qoja Nishanji see Jelal-zade Mustafa Celebi
Nishanji, Qoja see Jelal-zade Mustafa Celebi
Jelal-zade Mustafa Celebi (Qoja Nishanji) (1490-1567). Ottoman civil servant and historian. Of his projected description of the whole empire, a very full history of Sultan Suleyman II up to 1555 is known to exist.
Celebi, Jelal-zade Mustafa see Jelal-zade Mustafa Celebi
Qoja Nishanji see Jelal-zade Mustafa Celebi
Nishanji, Qoja see Jelal-zade Mustafa Celebi
Jem
Jem (Cem) (Gem) (Djem) (Jem Sultan) (Jem Zizim) (December 22, 1459 - February 25, 1495). Ottoman prince. He was the son of Sultan Muhammad II. He opposed his elder brother Bayazid II but was defeated and fled to the Mameluke Sultan Qa’it Bay in Cairo, and then to Pierre d’Aubusson, the Grand Master of the Knights of Saint John in Rhodes. A valuable hostage, he was interned in France, and then in Rome where he met Pope Innocent VIII. The French king, Charles VIII, took him to Naples where he died. Jem composed poems in Persian and Turkish.
Cem was a pretender to the Ottoman throne in the 15th century. He was a son of Mehmet II the Conqueror and younger brother of Sultan Bayezid II.
At the death of Mehmet the Conqueror, Bayezid was the governor of Sivas, Tokat and Amasya, and Cem ruled the provinces of Karaman and Konya. An account of the ascendancy of Bayezid and Cem's banishment to Europe, first under the protection of the Knights Hospitaller of St. John on the island of Rhodes and ultimately that of the Pope himself is a rather strange story.
Contrary to Islamic law, which prohibits any unnecessary delay in burial, Mehmet II's body was transported to Istanbul, where it lay neglected. Three days passed before perfumed candles were placed with the corpse so as to mitigate its stench. The grand Vizier Karamani Mehmet Pasha believing himself to be fulfilling the wishes of the recently deceased Sultan attempted to arrange a situation whereby the youngest son Cem, whose governing seat at Konya was closer than Bayezid's at Amasya, would arrive in Istanbul prior to his older sibling so as to claim the throne. Alas, in spite of vizier's attempts at secrecy, the Sultan's death and the grand vizier's plan was discovered by the Janissaries. As a result of Karamani Mehmet's scheming, in addition to giving their support of Bayezid over Cem, the Janissary corps entered the capital and murdered the vizier. Prompted by the arrival of their ruler's corpse in the capital and the murder of Vizier Karamani Mehmet Pasha's killing, there was ubiquitous rioting. Understanding the danger of the situation former grand vizier Ishak Pasha, took the initiative of beseeching Bayezid to arrive with all due haste. In the meantime, he took the sanguinary measure of proclaiming the latter's eleven-year-old son Prince Korkud-Korkut regent until the arrival of his father.
Bayezid arrived at Istanbul on May 21 and was declared Sultan. Only six days later, Cem captured the city of Inegöl with an army of 4000. Sultan Bayezid sent his army under the command of vizier Ayas Pasha to kill his brother. On May 28, Cem defeated Bayezid's army and he declared himself Sultan of Anatolia and made his capital Bursa. He proposed dividing the empire between them, leaving Bayezid only Europe. Bayezid furiously rejected the proposal and marched on Bursa. The decisive battle between the two took place near the town Yenişehir. Cem lost and fled with his family to Mameluke Cairo.
In Cairo, Cem received a letter from his brother, offering Cem one million akçes (the Ottoman currency) in order to dissuade him from competing for the throne. Cem rejected the offer and in the following year he launched a campaign in Anatolia. On May 27, 1482 he besieged Konya but was soon forced to withdraw to Ankara. He intended to give it all up and return to Cairo but all of the roads to Egypt were under Bayezid's control.
Cem and a few followers asked protection of the Spanish captain of Bodrum Castle. Pierre d'Aubusson, grand master of the Knights of St. John then invited Cem to Rhodes. On June 29, he went there as a guest and was received with honor. In return for the overthrow of the sultan, Cem offered perpetual peace between the Ottoman Empire and Christendom. However, the sultan paid the Knights a large amount to keep Cem captive. The Knights betrayed him and Cem became a well-treated prisoner. Afterwards, Cem was sent to the castle of Pierre d'Aubusson in France. Sultan Bayezid sent a messenger to France and requested Cem to be kept there and he agreed to make an annual payment in gold for his brother's expenses.
Cem was transferred in March 1489 to the custody of Pope Innocent VIII, who unsuccessfully attempted to use Cem to begin a new crusade. The Pope also tried to convert Cem to Christianity without success. Cem came to use anyway, because whenever Bayezid intended to launch a military campaign against Christian nations of the Balkans, the Pope would threaten to release the pretender. In exchange for maintaining the custody of Cem, Bayezid paid Innocent VIII 120,000 crowns (at the time, equal to all other annual sources of papal revenue combined), a relic of the Holy Lance (which allegedly had pierced the side of Christ), and an annual fee of 45,000 ducats.
Cem died in Capua on February 25, 1495. Sultan Bayezid declared national mourning for three days. He also requested to have Cem's body for a Muslim funeral, but not until four years after Cem's death was his body brought to the Ottoman lands. He was buried in Bursa.
Cem see Jem
Gem see Jem
Djem see Jem
Jem Sultan see Jem
Jem Zizim see Jem
Jem (Cem) (Gem) (Djem) (Jem Sultan) (Jem Zizim) (December 22, 1459 - February 25, 1495). Ottoman prince. He was the son of Sultan Muhammad II. He opposed his elder brother Bayazid II but was defeated and fled to the Mameluke Sultan Qa’it Bay in Cairo, and then to Pierre d’Aubusson, the Grand Master of the Knights of Saint John in Rhodes. A valuable hostage, he was interned in France, and then in Rome where he met Pope Innocent VIII. The French king, Charles VIII, took him to Naples where he died. Jem composed poems in Persian and Turkish.
Cem was a pretender to the Ottoman throne in the 15th century. He was a son of Mehmet II the Conqueror and younger brother of Sultan Bayezid II.
At the death of Mehmet the Conqueror, Bayezid was the governor of Sivas, Tokat and Amasya, and Cem ruled the provinces of Karaman and Konya. An account of the ascendancy of Bayezid and Cem's banishment to Europe, first under the protection of the Knights Hospitaller of St. John on the island of Rhodes and ultimately that of the Pope himself is a rather strange story.
Contrary to Islamic law, which prohibits any unnecessary delay in burial, Mehmet II's body was transported to Istanbul, where it lay neglected. Three days passed before perfumed candles were placed with the corpse so as to mitigate its stench. The grand Vizier Karamani Mehmet Pasha believing himself to be fulfilling the wishes of the recently deceased Sultan attempted to arrange a situation whereby the youngest son Cem, whose governing seat at Konya was closer than Bayezid's at Amasya, would arrive in Istanbul prior to his older sibling so as to claim the throne. Alas, in spite of vizier's attempts at secrecy, the Sultan's death and the grand vizier's plan was discovered by the Janissaries. As a result of Karamani Mehmet's scheming, in addition to giving their support of Bayezid over Cem, the Janissary corps entered the capital and murdered the vizier. Prompted by the arrival of their ruler's corpse in the capital and the murder of Vizier Karamani Mehmet Pasha's killing, there was ubiquitous rioting. Understanding the danger of the situation former grand vizier Ishak Pasha, took the initiative of beseeching Bayezid to arrive with all due haste. In the meantime, he took the sanguinary measure of proclaiming the latter's eleven-year-old son Prince Korkud-Korkut regent until the arrival of his father.
Bayezid arrived at Istanbul on May 21 and was declared Sultan. Only six days later, Cem captured the city of Inegöl with an army of 4000. Sultan Bayezid sent his army under the command of vizier Ayas Pasha to kill his brother. On May 28, Cem defeated Bayezid's army and he declared himself Sultan of Anatolia and made his capital Bursa. He proposed dividing the empire between them, leaving Bayezid only Europe. Bayezid furiously rejected the proposal and marched on Bursa. The decisive battle between the two took place near the town Yenişehir. Cem lost and fled with his family to Mameluke Cairo.
In Cairo, Cem received a letter from his brother, offering Cem one million akçes (the Ottoman currency) in order to dissuade him from competing for the throne. Cem rejected the offer and in the following year he launched a campaign in Anatolia. On May 27, 1482 he besieged Konya but was soon forced to withdraw to Ankara. He intended to give it all up and return to Cairo but all of the roads to Egypt were under Bayezid's control.
Cem and a few followers asked protection of the Spanish captain of Bodrum Castle. Pierre d'Aubusson, grand master of the Knights of St. John then invited Cem to Rhodes. On June 29, he went there as a guest and was received with honor. In return for the overthrow of the sultan, Cem offered perpetual peace between the Ottoman Empire and Christendom. However, the sultan paid the Knights a large amount to keep Cem captive. The Knights betrayed him and Cem became a well-treated prisoner. Afterwards, Cem was sent to the castle of Pierre d'Aubusson in France. Sultan Bayezid sent a messenger to France and requested Cem to be kept there and he agreed to make an annual payment in gold for his brother's expenses.
Cem was transferred in March 1489 to the custody of Pope Innocent VIII, who unsuccessfully attempted to use Cem to begin a new crusade. The Pope also tried to convert Cem to Christianity without success. Cem came to use anyway, because whenever Bayezid intended to launch a military campaign against Christian nations of the Balkans, the Pope would threaten to release the pretender. In exchange for maintaining the custody of Cem, Bayezid paid Innocent VIII 120,000 crowns (at the time, equal to all other annual sources of papal revenue combined), a relic of the Holy Lance (which allegedly had pierced the side of Christ), and an annual fee of 45,000 ducats.
Cem died in Capua on February 25, 1495. Sultan Bayezid declared national mourning for three days. He also requested to have Cem's body for a Muslim funeral, but not until four years after Cem's death was his body brought to the Ottoman lands. He was buried in Bursa.
Cem see Jem
Gem see Jem
Djem see Jem
Jem Sultan see Jem
Jem Zizim see Jem
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