Sinan, Mi‘mar
Sinan, Mi‘mar (Mi‘mar Sinan - “Architect Sinan”) (Mimar Koca Sinan - “Great Architect Sinan”) (Khoca Mimar Sinan Ağa) (b. 1489/1490, Ağırnaz, Turkey - d. July 17, 1588, Istanbul). Greatest architect of the Ottomans. Born at Kayseri in Anatolia of Christian origin, he became a Janissary and took part in several campaigns, during which he attracted attention by devising ferries and building bridges. From around 1540, he was exclusively engaged in building mosques, palaces, schools and public baths from Bosnia to Mecca. His three most famous works are the Sheh-zade Mosque and the Suleymaniyye in Istanbul, and the Mosque of Sultan Selim II in Edirne. The list of his buildings is given by his biographer, the poet Mustafa Sa‘id (d. 1595).
Sinan was the most celebrated of all Ottoman architects. His ideas, perfected in the construction of mosques and other buildings, served as the basic themes for virtually all later Turkish religious and civic architecture.
The son of Greek Orthodox Christian parents, Sinan entered his father’s trade as a stone mason and carpenter. In 1512, however, he was drafted into the Janissary corps. Sinan, whose Christian name was Joseph, converted to Islam, and he began a lifelong service to the Ottoman royal house and to the great sultan Süleyman I (r. 1520–66) in particular. Following a period of schooling and rigorous training, Sinan became a construction officer in the Ottoman army, eventually rising to chief of the artillery.
He first revealed his talents as an architect in the 1530s by designing and building military bridges and fortifications. In 1539, he completed his first nonmilitary building, and for the remaining 40 years of his life he was to work as the chief architect of the Ottoman Empire at a time when it was at the zenith of its political power and cultural brilliance. The number of projects Sinan undertook is massive—79 mosques, 34 palaces, 33 public baths, 19 tombs, 55 schools, 16 poorhouses, 7 madrasahs (religious schools), and 12 caravansaries, in addition to granaries, fountains, aqueducts, and hospitals. His three most famous works are the Şehzade Mosque and the Mosque of Süleyman I the Magnificent, both of which are in Istanbul, and the Selim Mosque at Edirne.
Sinan’s first truly important architectural commission was the Şehzade Mosque, which was completed in 1548 and which Sinan regarded as the best work of his apprenticeship. Like many of his mosque constructions, the Şehzade Mosque has a square base upon which rests a large central dome flanked by four half domes and numerous smaller, subsidiary domes.
The Mosque of Süleyman in Istanbul was constructed in the years 1550–57 and is considered by many scholars to be his finest work. It was based on the design of the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, a 6th-century masterpiece of Byzantine architecture that greatly influenced Sinan. The Mosque of Süleyman has a massive central dome that is pierced by 32 openings, thus giving the dome the effect of lightness while also copiously illuminating the mosque’s interior. It is one of the largest mosques ever built in the Ottoman Empire. Besides the place of worship, it contains a vast social complex comprising four madrasahs, a large hospital and medical school, a kitchen-refectory, and baths, shops, and stables.
Sinan himself considered the Mosque of Selim at Edirne, built in the years 1569–75, to be his masterwork. This mosque is the culmination of his centralized-domed plans, the great central dome rising on eight massive piers in between which are impressive recessed arcades. The dome is framed by the four loftiest minarets in Turkey.
Starting with the Byzantine church as a model, Sinan adapted the designs of his mosques to meet the needs of Muslim worship, which requires large open spaces for common prayer. As a result, the huge central dome became the focal point around which the design of the rest of the structure was developed. Sinan pioneered the use of smaller domes, half domes, and buttresses to lead the eye up the mosque’s exterior to the central dome at its apex, and he used tall, slender minarets at the corners to frame the entire structure. This plan could yield striking exterior effects, as in the dramatic facade of the Selim Mosque. Sinan was able to convey a sense of size and power in all of his larger buildings. Many scholars consider his tomb monuments to be the finest examples of his smaller works.
Sinan was the chief Ottoman architect and civil engineer for sultans Suleiman I, Selim II, and Murad III. He was responsible for the construction of more than three hundred major structures, and other more modest projects, such as his Qur'an schools (sibyan mektebs).
Trained as a military engineer, he rose through the ranks to become first an officer and finally a Janissary commander, with the honorific title of ağa. He learned his architectural and engineering skills while on campaign with the Janissaries, becoming expert at constructing fortifications of all kinds, as well as military infrastructure, such as roads, bridges and aqueducts. At about the age of fifty, he was appointed as chief royal architect, applying the technical skills he had acquired in the army to the "creation of fine religious buildings" and civic structures of all kinds. He remained in post for almost fifty years.
Sinan's masterpiece is the Selimiye Mosque in Edirne, although his most famous work is the Suleiman Mosque in Istanbul. He headed an extensive governmental department and trained many assistants who, in turn, distinguished themselves, including Sedefhar Mehmet Ağa, architect of the Sultan Ahmed Mosque. He is considered the greatest architect of the classical period of Ottoman architecture, and has been compared to Michelangelo, his contemporary in the West. Michelangelo and his plans for St. Peter's Basilica in Rome were well-known in Istanbul, since Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo had been invited, in 1502 and 1505 respectively, by the Sublime Porte to submit plans for a bridge spanning the Golden Horn.
At the start of his career as an architect, Sinan had to deal with an established, traditional domed architecture. His training as an army engineer led him to approach architecture from an empirical point of view, rather than from a theoretical one. He started to experiment with the design and engineering of single-domed and multiple-domed structures. He tried to obtain a new geometrical purity, a rationality and a spatial integrity in his structures and designs of mosques. Through all this, he demonstrated his creativity and his wish to create a clear, unified space. He started to develop a series of variations on the domes, surrounding them in different ways with semi-domes, piers, screen walls and different sets of galleries. His domes and arches are curved, but he avoided curvilinear elements in the rest of his design, transforming the circle of the dome into a rectangular, hexagonal or octagonal system. He tried to obtain a rational harmony between the exterior pyramidal composition of semi-domes, culminating in a single drumless dome, and the interior space where this central dome vertically integrates the space into a unified whole. His genius lies in the organization of this space and in the resolution of the tensions created by the design. He was an innovator in the use of decoration and motifs, merging them into the architectural forms as a whole. He accentuated the center underneath the central dome by flooding it with light from the many windows. He incorporated his mosques in an efficient way into a complex (külliye), serving the needs of the community as an intellectual center, a community center and serving the social needs and the health problems of the faithful.
When Sinan died, the classical Ottoman architecture had reached its climax. No successor was gifted enough to better the design of the Selimiye mosque and to develop it further. His students retreated to earlier models, such as theŞehzade mosque. Invention faded away, and a decline set in.
During his tenure of 50 years at the post of imperial architect, Sinan is said to have constructed or supervised 476 buildings (196 of which still survive), according to the official list of his works, the Tazkirat-al-Abniya. He couldn't possibly have designed them all, but he relied on the skills of his office. He took credit and the responsibility for their work. As a janissary, and thus a slave of the sultan, his primary responsibility was to the sultan. In his spare time, he also designed buildings for the chief officials. He delegated to his assistants the construction of less important buildings in the provinces. The number of buildings he was responsible for include:
* 94 large mosques (camii),
* 57 colleges,
* 52 smaller mosques (mescit),
* 48 bath-houses (hamam).
* 35 palaces (saray),
* 22 mausoleums (türbe),
* 20 caravanserai (kervansaray; han),
* 17 public kitchens (imaret),
* 8 bridges,
* 8 store houses or granaries
* 7 Qur'anic schools (medrese),
* 6 aqueducts,
* 3 hospitals (darüşşifa)
Some of his works include:
* Azapkapi Sokullu Mosque in Istanbul
* Caferağa Medresseh
* Selimiye Mosque in Edirne
* Süleymaniye Complex
* Kılıç Ali Pasha Complex
* Molla Çelebi Mosque
* Haseki Baths
* Piyale Pasha Mosque
* Şehzade Mosque
* Mihrimah Sultan Mosque in Edirnekapı
* Mehmed Paša Sokolović Bridge in Višegrad
* Nisanci Mehmed Pasha Mosque
* Rüstem Pasha Mosque
* Zal Mahmud Pasha Mosque
* Kadirga Sokullu Mosque
* Koursoum Mosque or Osman Shah Mosque in Trikala
* Al-Takiya Al-Suleimaniya in Damascus
* Yavuz Sultan Selim Madras
* Mimar Sinan Bridge in Büyükçekmece
* Church of the Assumption in Uzundzhovo
* Tekkiye Mosque
* Khusruwiyah Mosque
* Oratory at the Western Wall
Sinan died in 1588 and is buried in a tomb in Istanbul, a türbe of his own design, in the cemetery just outside the walls of the Süleymaniye Mosque to the north, across a street named Mimar Sinan Caddesi in his honor. He was buried near the tombs of his greatest patrons: Sultan Süleyman and the Sultana Haseki Hürrem, Suleiman's wife.
His name is also given to:
* a crater on the planet Mercury.
* A Turkish state university, the Mimar Sinan University of Fine Arts in Istanbul.
Sinan's portrait was depicted on the reverse of the Turkish 10,000 lira banknotes of 1982-1995.
Mi'mar Sinan see Sinan, Mi‘mar
Sinan see Sinan, Mi‘mar
Architect Sinan see Sinan, Mi‘mar
Great Architect Sinan see Sinan, Mi‘mar
Mimar Koca Sinan see Sinan, Mi‘mar
Khoca Mimar Sinan Ağa see Sinan, Mi‘mar
Sinan was the most celebrated of all Ottoman architects. His ideas, perfected in the construction of mosques and other buildings, served as the basic themes for virtually all later Turkish religious and civic architecture.
The son of Greek Orthodox Christian parents, Sinan entered his father’s trade as a stone mason and carpenter. In 1512, however, he was drafted into the Janissary corps. Sinan, whose Christian name was Joseph, converted to Islam, and he began a lifelong service to the Ottoman royal house and to the great sultan Süleyman I (r. 1520–66) in particular. Following a period of schooling and rigorous training, Sinan became a construction officer in the Ottoman army, eventually rising to chief of the artillery.
He first revealed his talents as an architect in the 1530s by designing and building military bridges and fortifications. In 1539, he completed his first nonmilitary building, and for the remaining 40 years of his life he was to work as the chief architect of the Ottoman Empire at a time when it was at the zenith of its political power and cultural brilliance. The number of projects Sinan undertook is massive—79 mosques, 34 palaces, 33 public baths, 19 tombs, 55 schools, 16 poorhouses, 7 madrasahs (religious schools), and 12 caravansaries, in addition to granaries, fountains, aqueducts, and hospitals. His three most famous works are the Şehzade Mosque and the Mosque of Süleyman I the Magnificent, both of which are in Istanbul, and the Selim Mosque at Edirne.
Sinan’s first truly important architectural commission was the Şehzade Mosque, which was completed in 1548 and which Sinan regarded as the best work of his apprenticeship. Like many of his mosque constructions, the Şehzade Mosque has a square base upon which rests a large central dome flanked by four half domes and numerous smaller, subsidiary domes.
The Mosque of Süleyman in Istanbul was constructed in the years 1550–57 and is considered by many scholars to be his finest work. It was based on the design of the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, a 6th-century masterpiece of Byzantine architecture that greatly influenced Sinan. The Mosque of Süleyman has a massive central dome that is pierced by 32 openings, thus giving the dome the effect of lightness while also copiously illuminating the mosque’s interior. It is one of the largest mosques ever built in the Ottoman Empire. Besides the place of worship, it contains a vast social complex comprising four madrasahs, a large hospital and medical school, a kitchen-refectory, and baths, shops, and stables.
Sinan himself considered the Mosque of Selim at Edirne, built in the years 1569–75, to be his masterwork. This mosque is the culmination of his centralized-domed plans, the great central dome rising on eight massive piers in between which are impressive recessed arcades. The dome is framed by the four loftiest minarets in Turkey.
Starting with the Byzantine church as a model, Sinan adapted the designs of his mosques to meet the needs of Muslim worship, which requires large open spaces for common prayer. As a result, the huge central dome became the focal point around which the design of the rest of the structure was developed. Sinan pioneered the use of smaller domes, half domes, and buttresses to lead the eye up the mosque’s exterior to the central dome at its apex, and he used tall, slender minarets at the corners to frame the entire structure. This plan could yield striking exterior effects, as in the dramatic facade of the Selim Mosque. Sinan was able to convey a sense of size and power in all of his larger buildings. Many scholars consider his tomb monuments to be the finest examples of his smaller works.
Sinan was the chief Ottoman architect and civil engineer for sultans Suleiman I, Selim II, and Murad III. He was responsible for the construction of more than three hundred major structures, and other more modest projects, such as his Qur'an schools (sibyan mektebs).
Trained as a military engineer, he rose through the ranks to become first an officer and finally a Janissary commander, with the honorific title of ağa. He learned his architectural and engineering skills while on campaign with the Janissaries, becoming expert at constructing fortifications of all kinds, as well as military infrastructure, such as roads, bridges and aqueducts. At about the age of fifty, he was appointed as chief royal architect, applying the technical skills he had acquired in the army to the "creation of fine religious buildings" and civic structures of all kinds. He remained in post for almost fifty years.
Sinan's masterpiece is the Selimiye Mosque in Edirne, although his most famous work is the Suleiman Mosque in Istanbul. He headed an extensive governmental department and trained many assistants who, in turn, distinguished themselves, including Sedefhar Mehmet Ağa, architect of the Sultan Ahmed Mosque. He is considered the greatest architect of the classical period of Ottoman architecture, and has been compared to Michelangelo, his contemporary in the West. Michelangelo and his plans for St. Peter's Basilica in Rome were well-known in Istanbul, since Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo had been invited, in 1502 and 1505 respectively, by the Sublime Porte to submit plans for a bridge spanning the Golden Horn.
At the start of his career as an architect, Sinan had to deal with an established, traditional domed architecture. His training as an army engineer led him to approach architecture from an empirical point of view, rather than from a theoretical one. He started to experiment with the design and engineering of single-domed and multiple-domed structures. He tried to obtain a new geometrical purity, a rationality and a spatial integrity in his structures and designs of mosques. Through all this, he demonstrated his creativity and his wish to create a clear, unified space. He started to develop a series of variations on the domes, surrounding them in different ways with semi-domes, piers, screen walls and different sets of galleries. His domes and arches are curved, but he avoided curvilinear elements in the rest of his design, transforming the circle of the dome into a rectangular, hexagonal or octagonal system. He tried to obtain a rational harmony between the exterior pyramidal composition of semi-domes, culminating in a single drumless dome, and the interior space where this central dome vertically integrates the space into a unified whole. His genius lies in the organization of this space and in the resolution of the tensions created by the design. He was an innovator in the use of decoration and motifs, merging them into the architectural forms as a whole. He accentuated the center underneath the central dome by flooding it with light from the many windows. He incorporated his mosques in an efficient way into a complex (külliye), serving the needs of the community as an intellectual center, a community center and serving the social needs and the health problems of the faithful.
When Sinan died, the classical Ottoman architecture had reached its climax. No successor was gifted enough to better the design of the Selimiye mosque and to develop it further. His students retreated to earlier models, such as theŞehzade mosque. Invention faded away, and a decline set in.
During his tenure of 50 years at the post of imperial architect, Sinan is said to have constructed or supervised 476 buildings (196 of which still survive), according to the official list of his works, the Tazkirat-al-Abniya. He couldn't possibly have designed them all, but he relied on the skills of his office. He took credit and the responsibility for their work. As a janissary, and thus a slave of the sultan, his primary responsibility was to the sultan. In his spare time, he also designed buildings for the chief officials. He delegated to his assistants the construction of less important buildings in the provinces. The number of buildings he was responsible for include:
* 94 large mosques (camii),
* 57 colleges,
* 52 smaller mosques (mescit),
* 48 bath-houses (hamam).
* 35 palaces (saray),
* 22 mausoleums (türbe),
* 20 caravanserai (kervansaray; han),
* 17 public kitchens (imaret),
* 8 bridges,
* 8 store houses or granaries
* 7 Qur'anic schools (medrese),
* 6 aqueducts,
* 3 hospitals (darüşşifa)
Some of his works include:
* Azapkapi Sokullu Mosque in Istanbul
* Caferağa Medresseh
* Selimiye Mosque in Edirne
* Süleymaniye Complex
* Kılıç Ali Pasha Complex
* Molla Çelebi Mosque
* Haseki Baths
* Piyale Pasha Mosque
* Şehzade Mosque
* Mihrimah Sultan Mosque in Edirnekapı
* Mehmed Paša Sokolović Bridge in Višegrad
* Nisanci Mehmed Pasha Mosque
* Rüstem Pasha Mosque
* Zal Mahmud Pasha Mosque
* Kadirga Sokullu Mosque
* Koursoum Mosque or Osman Shah Mosque in Trikala
* Al-Takiya Al-Suleimaniya in Damascus
* Yavuz Sultan Selim Madras
* Mimar Sinan Bridge in Büyükçekmece
* Church of the Assumption in Uzundzhovo
* Tekkiye Mosque
* Khusruwiyah Mosque
* Oratory at the Western Wall
Sinan died in 1588 and is buried in a tomb in Istanbul, a türbe of his own design, in the cemetery just outside the walls of the Süleymaniye Mosque to the north, across a street named Mimar Sinan Caddesi in his honor. He was buried near the tombs of his greatest patrons: Sultan Süleyman and the Sultana Haseki Hürrem, Suleiman's wife.
His name is also given to:
* a crater on the planet Mercury.
* A Turkish state university, the Mimar Sinan University of Fine Arts in Istanbul.
Sinan's portrait was depicted on the reverse of the Turkish 10,000 lira banknotes of 1982-1995.
Mi'mar Sinan see Sinan, Mi‘mar
Sinan see Sinan, Mi‘mar
Architect Sinan see Sinan, Mi‘mar
Great Architect Sinan see Sinan, Mi‘mar
Mimar Koca Sinan see Sinan, Mi‘mar
Khoca Mimar Sinan Ağa see Sinan, Mi‘mar
Sinan Pasha
Sinan Pasha. Name of several viziers of the Ottoman Empire, mostly of Christian origin. The most important are Khadim Sinan Pasha, Grand Vizier under Sultan Selim I. He was killed in personal combat with the Mameluke Sultan Tuman Bay II; Khoja Sinan Pasha (c. 1438-1486) was the vizier under Sultan Muhammad II; Khoja Sinan Pasha (d. 1596) who was five times Grand Vizier. As governor of Egypt in 1568, he conquered Yemen and in 1574 incorporated Tunis in the Ottoman Empire. During his third grand vizierate he concluded the Hungarian campaign and captured many castles and strongholds.
Sinan Pasha. Name of several viziers of the Ottoman Empire, mostly of Christian origin. The most important are Khadim Sinan Pasha, Grand Vizier under Sultan Selim I. He was killed in personal combat with the Mameluke Sultan Tuman Bay II; Khoja Sinan Pasha (c. 1438-1486) was the vizier under Sultan Muhammad II; Khoja Sinan Pasha (d. 1596) who was five times Grand Vizier. As governor of Egypt in 1568, he conquered Yemen and in 1574 incorporated Tunis in the Ottoman Empire. During his third grand vizierate he concluded the Hungarian campaign and captured many castles and strongholds.
Sinasi, Ibrahim
Sinasi, Ibrahim (Ibrahim Sinasi Efendi) (b. 1826, Constantinople [now Istanbul] - d. September 13, 1871, Constantinople). Turkish journalist who was one of the more enigmatic figures of Turkish intellectual history. Despite his role as the founding father of modern Turkish journalism and his basic contributions to the rise of a Turkish critique of society, information about his life is insufficient to paint a portrait of him as an intellectual.
Sinasi began his career in government during the first years of the Tanzimat, the era of reforms and modernization initiated by the Gulhane Rescript of 1839. Encouraged by a patron of modernization in the Ottoman Empire, he was sent as a government funded student to Europe in 1849. He remained in France until 1853 and is known to have been acquainted with such personalities as Alphonse de Lamartine. After his return, he was appointed to the Educational Committee, which was engaged in redrawing Ottoman educational institutions.
Although quite cautious in his intellectual stance, he seems to have antagonized higher officials and was dismissed. Reinstated and dismissed once more in 1863, he eventually went into self-exile in Paris, where he devoted himself to the study of literature and linguistics. He returned permanently to Istanbul in 1870, where he lived as a recluse in some financial need.
Sinasi’s major contribution to Ottoman/Turkish intellectual life was the journal Tasvir-i efkar (Interpreter of Ideas, founded in 1862). This was not the first newspaper in the Ottoman Empire. An Englishman named Churchill had published an earlier gazette, and in 1861 Sinasi and his friend Agah Efendi had jointly published the Terceuman-i ahval (Interpreter of Events). However, Tasvir-i efkar was the first newspaper that (though careful in its approach) expressed a critique of the state of Ottoman government and society in the modern media. Sinasi’s second dismissal from his employment in the central government was due to his timid libertarianism: “mentioning matters of state too often” was the cause of his downfall. An article by Sinasi explaining the principle of “no taxation without representation” appeared in the Tasvir-i efkar the day before the order for his dismissal was drafted and may have ben the proximate cause of it.
Sinasi is unanimously considered by historians of Turkish intellectual history to be the first advocate of “Europeanization” in the Ottoman Empire, a somewhat different project than that of “modernization” voiced before him. His impact, however, stems from his development of a medium that expressed private views about the state of the empire. Until Sinasi and his use of journalism as a medium for influencing -- and, in a way, creating -- public opinion, schemes of modernization had been the result of official concern with reform. Sinasi represents a new trend in which government officials concerned with the fate of the empire began to form an intelligentsia often contradicting positions adopted by their superiors. In that sense, he may be seen as having laid the groundwork for the Young Ottomans.
Another of Sinasi’s important contributions may be described as“encyclopedism,” or the attempt to inform his readers of the new methods and the new branches of knowledge that flourished in Europe in his time. Natural law, the historical method, the history of pre Ottoman Turkey, and Buffon’s Histoire naturelle were some of the ideas that he took up in the pages of Tasvir-i efkar. In one of his most celebrated poems Sinasi praised the author of the Gulhane Rescript, Mustafa Resid Pasa (Mustafa Reshid Pasha), for having brought “the European climate of opinion” to Turkey, and for having reminded the ruler of his responsibilities. In another, the achievements of a later grand vizier were compared to those of Plato and Newton.
Sinasi’s mention in the preface of Tercuman-i ahral that he was using a language directed to “the people in general” also represents an important watershed. By the nineteenth century Ottoman Turkish as the language of officials had become a complex and flowery idiom difficult for the majority of the population, who used a vernacular called “rough Turkish.” One of Sinasi’s aims was to transcend officialese. He thus began the trend described by Grand Vizier Said Pasa, himself a writer, as“journalistic Turkish.” This trend was further promoted by the Young Ottomans. The celebrated article by Ziya Pasa, “Siir ve Insa’” (Poetry and Prose), is a good example of the further developments that much later, in the 1930s, took a more radical turn toward the “purification” of Turkish by the removal of words with Arabic and Persian roots.
İbrahim Şinasi was one of the primary authors of the Tanzimat. Sinasi began his career as an officer in the Ottoman administration, where he learned Arabic, Persian and French. From 1849 to 1853 he studied under the direction of Mustafa Reşid Pasha in Paris, where he came into contact with French literature and French intellectuals. Among other things, he was a member of the Société Asiatique.
During his time in Paris, he translated several works from French into Turkish.
From 1860 he was co-editor of the newspaper Tercüman-i ahvâl ("Interpreter of Circumstances"). In 1862, he founded his own newspaper Tasvir-i Efkâr ("Enlightenment of the Thoughts"), the first truly influential newspaper in the Ottoman Empire. He temporarily joined the Young Ottomans in 1865 and had to go into exile in Paris. He transferred the management of the Tasvir-i Efkâr to his employee Namık Kemal. Şinasi returned to Istanbul only shortly before his death.
He is regarded as a literary pioneer, not only because he produced the first collection of Turkish proverbs, but because he also wrote the first Ottoman play. Before his death he was working on a Turkish dictionary, but he did not finish it.
Şinasi is considered the founder of the modern school of Ottoman literature and was probably the first Turkish writer to feel the need for directing literary expression to the masses. To accomplish this he advocated the reform of Turkish verse forms (based largely on imitation of French models, which he carefully studied and observed) and the adoption of a pure Turkish devoid of Arabic and Persian vocabulary and grammatical constructions.
The works of Ibrahim Sinasi include:
* Tercüme-i Manzume (1859, Translation of poems from the French of La Fontaine, Lamartine, Gilbert and Racine)
* Şairin evlenmesi (1860, Play)
* Durub-i Emsal-i Osmaniye (1863, Proverbs)
* Müntahabat-i eş'ar (1863)
Ibrahim Sinasi see Sinasi, Ibrahim
Ibrahim Sinasi Efendi see Sinasi, Ibrahim
Sinasi, Ibrahim (Ibrahim Sinasi Efendi) (b. 1826, Constantinople [now Istanbul] - d. September 13, 1871, Constantinople). Turkish journalist who was one of the more enigmatic figures of Turkish intellectual history. Despite his role as the founding father of modern Turkish journalism and his basic contributions to the rise of a Turkish critique of society, information about his life is insufficient to paint a portrait of him as an intellectual.
Sinasi began his career in government during the first years of the Tanzimat, the era of reforms and modernization initiated by the Gulhane Rescript of 1839. Encouraged by a patron of modernization in the Ottoman Empire, he was sent as a government funded student to Europe in 1849. He remained in France until 1853 and is known to have been acquainted with such personalities as Alphonse de Lamartine. After his return, he was appointed to the Educational Committee, which was engaged in redrawing Ottoman educational institutions.
Although quite cautious in his intellectual stance, he seems to have antagonized higher officials and was dismissed. Reinstated and dismissed once more in 1863, he eventually went into self-exile in Paris, where he devoted himself to the study of literature and linguistics. He returned permanently to Istanbul in 1870, where he lived as a recluse in some financial need.
Sinasi’s major contribution to Ottoman/Turkish intellectual life was the journal Tasvir-i efkar (Interpreter of Ideas, founded in 1862). This was not the first newspaper in the Ottoman Empire. An Englishman named Churchill had published an earlier gazette, and in 1861 Sinasi and his friend Agah Efendi had jointly published the Terceuman-i ahval (Interpreter of Events). However, Tasvir-i efkar was the first newspaper that (though careful in its approach) expressed a critique of the state of Ottoman government and society in the modern media. Sinasi’s second dismissal from his employment in the central government was due to his timid libertarianism: “mentioning matters of state too often” was the cause of his downfall. An article by Sinasi explaining the principle of “no taxation without representation” appeared in the Tasvir-i efkar the day before the order for his dismissal was drafted and may have ben the proximate cause of it.
Sinasi is unanimously considered by historians of Turkish intellectual history to be the first advocate of “Europeanization” in the Ottoman Empire, a somewhat different project than that of “modernization” voiced before him. His impact, however, stems from his development of a medium that expressed private views about the state of the empire. Until Sinasi and his use of journalism as a medium for influencing -- and, in a way, creating -- public opinion, schemes of modernization had been the result of official concern with reform. Sinasi represents a new trend in which government officials concerned with the fate of the empire began to form an intelligentsia often contradicting positions adopted by their superiors. In that sense, he may be seen as having laid the groundwork for the Young Ottomans.
Another of Sinasi’s important contributions may be described as“encyclopedism,” or the attempt to inform his readers of the new methods and the new branches of knowledge that flourished in Europe in his time. Natural law, the historical method, the history of pre Ottoman Turkey, and Buffon’s Histoire naturelle were some of the ideas that he took up in the pages of Tasvir-i efkar. In one of his most celebrated poems Sinasi praised the author of the Gulhane Rescript, Mustafa Resid Pasa (Mustafa Reshid Pasha), for having brought “the European climate of opinion” to Turkey, and for having reminded the ruler of his responsibilities. In another, the achievements of a later grand vizier were compared to those of Plato and Newton.
Sinasi’s mention in the preface of Tercuman-i ahral that he was using a language directed to “the people in general” also represents an important watershed. By the nineteenth century Ottoman Turkish as the language of officials had become a complex and flowery idiom difficult for the majority of the population, who used a vernacular called “rough Turkish.” One of Sinasi’s aims was to transcend officialese. He thus began the trend described by Grand Vizier Said Pasa, himself a writer, as“journalistic Turkish.” This trend was further promoted by the Young Ottomans. The celebrated article by Ziya Pasa, “Siir ve Insa’” (Poetry and Prose), is a good example of the further developments that much later, in the 1930s, took a more radical turn toward the “purification” of Turkish by the removal of words with Arabic and Persian roots.
İbrahim Şinasi was one of the primary authors of the Tanzimat. Sinasi began his career as an officer in the Ottoman administration, where he learned Arabic, Persian and French. From 1849 to 1853 he studied under the direction of Mustafa Reşid Pasha in Paris, where he came into contact with French literature and French intellectuals. Among other things, he was a member of the Société Asiatique.
During his time in Paris, he translated several works from French into Turkish.
From 1860 he was co-editor of the newspaper Tercüman-i ahvâl ("Interpreter of Circumstances"). In 1862, he founded his own newspaper Tasvir-i Efkâr ("Enlightenment of the Thoughts"), the first truly influential newspaper in the Ottoman Empire. He temporarily joined the Young Ottomans in 1865 and had to go into exile in Paris. He transferred the management of the Tasvir-i Efkâr to his employee Namık Kemal. Şinasi returned to Istanbul only shortly before his death.
He is regarded as a literary pioneer, not only because he produced the first collection of Turkish proverbs, but because he also wrote the first Ottoman play. Before his death he was working on a Turkish dictionary, but he did not finish it.
Şinasi is considered the founder of the modern school of Ottoman literature and was probably the first Turkish writer to feel the need for directing literary expression to the masses. To accomplish this he advocated the reform of Turkish verse forms (based largely on imitation of French models, which he carefully studied and observed) and the adoption of a pure Turkish devoid of Arabic and Persian vocabulary and grammatical constructions.
The works of Ibrahim Sinasi include:
* Tercüme-i Manzume (1859, Translation of poems from the French of La Fontaine, Lamartine, Gilbert and Racine)
* Şairin evlenmesi (1860, Play)
* Durub-i Emsal-i Osmaniye (1863, Proverbs)
* Müntahabat-i eş'ar (1863)
Ibrahim Sinasi see Sinasi, Ibrahim
Ibrahim Sinasi Efendi see Sinasi, Ibrahim
Sinbad the Magean
Sinbad the Magean (Sunpadh) (Sinbad the Magus) (d. 754). Leader of an eighth century Persian revolt.
Sinbad the Magus was a Persian cleric from a small village called Āhan near Nishapur who incited an uprising against the Abbasid Caliphate in the 8th century.
Sinbad was a friend and confidant of the Persian general Abu Muslim Khorasani, who had begun the Abbasid revolt in 747. Nizam al-Mulk states in his Siyāsatnāma that Abu Muslim had delegated his authority and coffers in Rayy to Sinbad prior to journeying to Baghdad, where he was eventually murdered by order of the second Abbasid Caliph al-Mansur.
Following the betrayal and subsequent death of the general in 754, the enraged Sinbad swore to march on Mecca and destroy the Kaaba. Sinbad further preached that "Abu Muslim has not died, and when Mansur meant to slay him, he chanted God's great name, turned into a white dove and flew away. Now he is standing with Mahdi and Mazdak in a castle of copper and they shall emerge by and by." His doctrine received wide support among Persian Shi'i Muslims, Zoroastrians and Mazdakites and revolts occurred in Rayy, Herat and Sistan. Within only 70 days, Sinbad's forces were, however, defeated by one of Caliph al-Mansur's generals, Juhar ibn Murad, and the cleric was captured and slain.
Sinbad also preached a syncretism melding Islam and Zoroastrianism. In combination with his unusual and heretical vow to advance towards Hijaz and raze the Kaaba, this led to the belief that he was in fact a Zoroastrian, rather than a Muslim.
Sinbad the Magean (Sunpadh) (Sinbad the Magus) (d. 754). Leader of an eighth century Persian revolt.
Sinbad the Magus was a Persian cleric from a small village called Āhan near Nishapur who incited an uprising against the Abbasid Caliphate in the 8th century.
Sinbad was a friend and confidant of the Persian general Abu Muslim Khorasani, who had begun the Abbasid revolt in 747. Nizam al-Mulk states in his Siyāsatnāma that Abu Muslim had delegated his authority and coffers in Rayy to Sinbad prior to journeying to Baghdad, where he was eventually murdered by order of the second Abbasid Caliph al-Mansur.
Following the betrayal and subsequent death of the general in 754, the enraged Sinbad swore to march on Mecca and destroy the Kaaba. Sinbad further preached that "Abu Muslim has not died, and when Mansur meant to slay him, he chanted God's great name, turned into a white dove and flew away. Now he is standing with Mahdi and Mazdak in a castle of copper and they shall emerge by and by." His doctrine received wide support among Persian Shi'i Muslims, Zoroastrians and Mazdakites and revolts occurred in Rayy, Herat and Sistan. Within only 70 days, Sinbad's forces were, however, defeated by one of Caliph al-Mansur's generals, Juhar ibn Murad, and the cleric was captured and slain.
Sinbad also preached a syncretism melding Islam and Zoroastrianism. In combination with his unusual and heretical vow to advance towards Hijaz and raze the Kaaba, this led to the belief that he was in fact a Zoroastrian, rather than a Muslim.
Sindhis
Sindhis. As the mighty Indus, one of the major rivers of the world, winds its way southward from the ranges of the high Himalayas to the Arabian Sea, it leaves Pakistan’s Punjab Province and at its northern end enters the province of Sind, homeland for more than eleven million Sindhis. The Indus, the ancient name of which --Sindhu -- is where the name “Sind” comes from, flows south, dividing the province into two almost equal expanses of fertile land, upon which most of the inhabitants depend for their livelihood. Approximately ninety percent of the Sindhis in Pakistan are Muslim.
There are two other ethnic strains in the Sindhi Muslim population. Some Sindhi Muslims trace their origins to Arab conquerors who came to India in 711, the first to bring Islam to the subcontinent, and to subsequent waves of invaders including Persians, Turks, Mughals, and Pushtun (Pathans). By and large these groups have long since mingled and intermarried with the local population and thus are distinguishable except for some, such as the Sayyid families, who claim direct descent from the Prophet Muhammad, and the Pushtun families of northwestern Sind.
The other strain is that of the Baluch, who, attracted by the fertile land of the Indus Valley, have been coming for 500 years from neighboring Baluchistan. Those who settled on the west bank of the Indus, such as the Chandios, the Jamalis and the Khosos, have managed to keep their Baluch identity, but those who settled on the east bank, such as the Jatois and the Talpurs, have largely been “Sindhi-ized” and now speak Sindhi as a mother tongue.
The majority of Sindhi Muslims are Sunni and subscribe to the Hanafi school of jurisprudence. This is despite the fact that for centuries Sind has been exposed to, and its inhabitants have become followers of, other Islamic sects and Sufi orders. At one time, the Shi‘a sect of Isma‘ilis held sway over Sind (900-1200), and following their political eclipse, various Sufi orders made inroads through missionary activities. The Suhrawardi, the Qadiri and the Naqshbandi reached their apex in Sind in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, but their influence survives today, particularly that of the Suhrawardi in the veneration of Lal Shabaz Qalander of Sehwan, one of the most revered saints of Sind today, and of the Qadiri, to whom the influential Lakiari and Matiari Sayyids pay great respect.
Sindhis. As the mighty Indus, one of the major rivers of the world, winds its way southward from the ranges of the high Himalayas to the Arabian Sea, it leaves Pakistan’s Punjab Province and at its northern end enters the province of Sind, homeland for more than eleven million Sindhis. The Indus, the ancient name of which --Sindhu -- is where the name “Sind” comes from, flows south, dividing the province into two almost equal expanses of fertile land, upon which most of the inhabitants depend for their livelihood. Approximately ninety percent of the Sindhis in Pakistan are Muslim.
There are two other ethnic strains in the Sindhi Muslim population. Some Sindhi Muslims trace their origins to Arab conquerors who came to India in 711, the first to bring Islam to the subcontinent, and to subsequent waves of invaders including Persians, Turks, Mughals, and Pushtun (Pathans). By and large these groups have long since mingled and intermarried with the local population and thus are distinguishable except for some, such as the Sayyid families, who claim direct descent from the Prophet Muhammad, and the Pushtun families of northwestern Sind.
The other strain is that of the Baluch, who, attracted by the fertile land of the Indus Valley, have been coming for 500 years from neighboring Baluchistan. Those who settled on the west bank of the Indus, such as the Chandios, the Jamalis and the Khosos, have managed to keep their Baluch identity, but those who settled on the east bank, such as the Jatois and the Talpurs, have largely been “Sindhi-ized” and now speak Sindhi as a mother tongue.
The majority of Sindhi Muslims are Sunni and subscribe to the Hanafi school of jurisprudence. This is despite the fact that for centuries Sind has been exposed to, and its inhabitants have become followers of, other Islamic sects and Sufi orders. At one time, the Shi‘a sect of Isma‘ilis held sway over Sind (900-1200), and following their political eclipse, various Sufi orders made inroads through missionary activities. The Suhrawardi, the Qadiri and the Naqshbandi reached their apex in Sind in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, but their influence survives today, particularly that of the Suhrawardi in the veneration of Lal Shabaz Qalander of Sehwan, one of the most revered saints of Sind today, and of the Qadiri, to whom the influential Lakiari and Matiari Sayyids pay great respect.
Yahya Sinwar (b. October 29, 1962, Khan Younis refugee camp, Gaza Strip — d. October 16, 2024, Rafah, Gaza Strip) was the de facto leader of Hamas from 2017 to 2024 and the de jure leader as head of its political bureau from August 2024 to October 2024. Sinwar was an early architect of Hamas’s armed wing, and he was considered one of the masterminds behind the October 7, 2023, attacks on Israel, the deadliest day for Israel since its independence. As Israel launched the Israel-Hamas War in response to the attack, a spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) referred to Sinwar as “a dead man walking.” Israeli forces killed him a year later on October 16, 2024, in a firefight in the southern Gaza Strip.
Sinwar was born in the Khan Younis refugee camp to parents who had been displaced from Ashkelon in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. The camp was densely packed with impoverished families, who lived in poor conditions and relied on the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for basic services. In the early 1980s, he enrolled at the Islamic University of Gaza, where his study of the Arabic language helped shape his charismatic self-presentation. He entered the university at a time when many young Palestinians in the Gaza Strip were looking toward Islamism to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict after decades of pan-Arabism had failed to do so, and student organizations that combined Islamic thought with Palestinian nationalism were quickly growing. In 1982, Sinwar was detained for his participation in such organizations, although there were no formal charges.
In 1985, prior to the formation of Hamas, Sinwar helped organize al-Majd (Arabic: “Glory”; an acronym for Munaẓẓamat al-Jihād wa al-Daʿwah, “Organization for Jihad and Daʿwah [promotion of Islamic ideals]”). Al-Majd was a network of Islamist youths who tasked themselves with exposing the growing number of Palestinian informants who had been recruited by Israel in recent years. When Hamas was formed in 1987, al-Majd was folded into its security cadre. In 1988, the network was found to possess weapons, and Sinwar was detained by Israel for several weeks. The following year, he was convicted for the murder of Palestinians accused of collaborating with Israel and was sentenced to four life sentences in prison.
During Sinwar’s long incarceration, he maintained powerful sway over his fellow prisoners, using tactics of abuse and manipulation and help from his connections outside prison. He made a point to punish fellow prisoners he suspected of being informants and once compelled some 1,600 prisoners to undertake a hunger strike. He also spent much of his spare time studying what he could about his Israeli enemies, reading Israeli newspapers and becoming fluent in Hebrew in the process.
Some of the most transformative events in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict took place during Sinwar’s decades in prison. In the early 1990s, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Israel concluded the Oslo Accords, which set out a peace process for the creation of a Palestinian state in exchange for the PLO’s recognition of Israel’s right to exist. The process was derailed by suicide bombings by Hamas and the 1995 assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin by a Jewish extremist. However, hope of getting the process back on track remained for several years. That glimmer of hope dimmed during the second Palestinian intifada (uprising; 2000–05), and in elections held in 2006 Palestinians registered their disappointment with the PLO by giving a plurality of the vote to Hamas. As a result of that outcome, the relationship between Israel and the interim Palestinian Authority (PA), which had been set up by the Oslo Accords, deteriorated even further. In 2007, when factional fighting within the PA left Hamas in sole charge of the Gaza Strip, Israel and Egypt blockaded the territory, setting the stage for several armed conflicts between Hamas and Israel in the years ahead. By the time Sinwar was released in 2011, the door for peace had both opened and closed, and he had witnessed none of the optimism of the Oslo era firsthand.
Sinwar's release came as part of the high-profile prisoner swap for Gilad Shalit. Shalit, a soldier of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), had been abducted by Hamas in 2006 while he was stationed at a border crossing. After several failed attempts to broker Shalit’s freedom, Egypt and Germany secured a deal for his release in October 2011. Sinwar’s brother, Mohammed, who had been assigned to guard Shalit, insisted that Sinwar be included in the exchange. On the same day that Shalit was released to Israel, Sinwar was among the first set of Palestinian prisoners who were returned to the Gaza Strip. When he arrived, he was already sporting the emblematic green headband of Hamas’s armed wing.
In April 2012, just months after his release, Sinwar was elected a member of Hamas’s political bureau in the Gaza Strip. He put his experience as a prison leader to use and gained a reputation within Hamas for bringing its factions together to compromise. He made calls on militants to capture Israelis, prompting the United States to add Sinwar to its list of specially designated global terrorists in 2015. In the meantime, Hamas was struggling to maintain its stature in the Gaza Strip: it had been weakened by conflict with Israel, and its ability to provide goods and services had been hindered by its isolation. It was becoming increasingly unpopular, while other militant groups such as the Palestine Islamic Jihad (PIJ) grew more appealing to hard-liners and began offering some services of their own. It was in this context that Sinwar was elected head of Hamas in the Gaza Strip in 2017.
Sinwar’s fiery rhetoric spoke to the hard-line militants, and his history of a heavy hand earned their trust that he would carry out his threats. In one of his first public appearances, Sinwar told a group of young Gazans: “Gone is the time in which Hamas discussed recognition of Israel. The discussion now is about when we will wipe out Israel.” Observers braced for the group to take on a more militant direction. But, in his first several years as leader, he laid low, and his pragmatic approach toward dealmaking began to reverse Hamas’s isolation. Months after Sinwar took the reins, Hamas forged a reconciliation deal with the Palestinian Authority, and, for the first time since 2007, it relinquished control of much of the Gaza Strip to the PA for a brief period. Relations with Egypt also improved, and the neighboring country eased its restrictions on its border crossing with the Gaza Strip. The group also reached out to Iran for rapprochement, and Iran restored Hamas to its network of allies and resumed offering it full support. In late 2018, negotiations with Israel for a long-term truce were underway and continued until the announcement in January 2020 of United States President Donald Trump's peace plan, which was embraced by Israel as a path forward but dismissed by the Palestinians as a nonstarter.
The contradictions of Sinwar’s leadership, as both firebrand and pragmatist, were reflected in a new document of general principles issued by the group after he took charge: it at once acknowledged that a Palestinian state within the borders of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip is “a formula of national consensus”—read by many at the time as consenting to a two-state solution -- while simultaneously refusing “recognition of the legitimacy of the Zionist entity” in any part of historic Palestine.
May 2021 marked a return to his more regular hostility. Weeks of escalating tensions in Jerusalem boiled over, and clashes between Palestinian protesters and Israeli police, particularly at the compound surrounding Al-Aqsa Mosque, left hundreds injured. Hamas responded by sending rockets into Jerusalem and southern and central Israel, prompting 11 days of intense fighting between Hamas and Israel. Sinwar’s popularity surged after the conflict, and his virulence returned in full force. At a rally in 2022 celebrating the anniversary of Hamas’s founding, he called upon each person to “be ready to rise up as a gale to defend Al-Aqsa” if Israel would not conclude a deal to release Palestinian prisoners. In rhyming Arabic he continued to muster the crowd: “We will come to you in a roaring flood, in rockets without end, and in a flood of soldiers limitless [in number]. We will come to you with millions of our people (ummah), one tide after another.”
On October 7, 2023, Hamas, in an assault that it dubbed "Operation Al-Aqsa Flood," led the most devastating attack on Israel since its independence. It began with a barrage of at least 2,200 rockets in just 20 minutes, providing cover for at least 1,500 militants who infiltrated Israel at dozens of points along the heavily fortified border by using explosives, bulldozers, and paragliders. They not only attacked military outposts but also killed families inside their homes and attendees of an outdoor music festival. Within hours, about 1,200 people were dead and some 240 others were taken hostage. Adding to the trauma of the event was the fact that it was the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust. The assault showed hallmarks of Sinwar’s tactics, and the taking of hostages echoed his preoccupation with prisoner exchanges.
Israel’s response to the attack was devastating for Gazans. Israel declared war for the first time in 50 years and implemented a full siege that cut off water, electricity, food, and fuel from entering the Gaza Strip. Within weeks, air strikes had led to more Palestinian deaths than any previous conflict for the Palestinians since the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, while more than 1.4 million had become internally displaced. When, in November, Israel released about 240 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for 110 of the hostages taken by Hamas, the number of released prisoners paled in comparison to the thousands detained since October 7. Sinwar, presumed to be hiding in the web of Gaza’s subterranean tunnels, was the top target for Israel in its invasion and was considered, according to an IDF spokesman, “a dead man walking.” In May 2024, the International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor announced that he would seek arrest warrants for Sinwar and fellow Hamas leaders Ismail Haniyeh and Mohammed Deif, as well as for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Israeli operations killed Haniyeh and Deif in July of 2024 and Sinwar, the last surviving leader of the triumvirate, on October 16, 2024.
Sinyar
Sinyar. The Sinyar of Chad and Sudan live along the lower reaches and confluence of three seasonal rivers: the Wadi Azum, Wadi Kajaand Wadi Salih. They are bounded to the north by the Masalit, to the west by the Daju-Sila, to the east by the Fur and to the south by a congeries of small ethnic groups with whom contact is minimal -- the Fongoro, Kujarge, Fur-Dalinga and Daju-Galfige.
Sinyar oral traditions claim Arab origin for the founding father of the group, and Egypt is mentioned as his place of origin. Kinship and co-residence with the Berti of northern Darfur Province is sometimes claimed. Apparently they broke with the Arabs and migrated to their present habitat and now claim they lost their knowledge of the Arabic language because they intermarried with the women of the pagan tribe they found and defeated in battle. Remnants of this original population of Dar Sinyar are alleged to live in the northeastern part of the Central African Republic. They are the Kara, Binga and the Gula-Mamoun, indeed linguistically akin to the Sinyar language, which is Central Sudanic, Sara-Bongo-Bagirmi branch.
The historical self-portrait is not dissimilar to that of other ethnic groups in the region, which also claim Arab, even Abbasid or Quraysh descent and also use the excuse of intermarriage with pagan slave women to explain their present linguistic and cultural identity. Of immediate relevance to the Sinyar is the fact that non-Sinyar flatly reject this historical self-image and instead designate the Sinyar as former non-Muslim slaves, fertit, of the sultanates of Dar Fur and Dar Sila. Linguistically, the Sinyar are undoubtedly fertit, along with the Kreish, Kara, Yulu and other Sara-Bongo-Bagirmi-speaking populations which in the past constituted the slave reservoirs for the old sultanates. In Sudan, the Sinyar are northernmost group speaking a fertit language. In Chad, it is the Barma, who themselves established a powerful sultanate in Bagirmi in the nineteenth century. However, there is no historical evidence that the Sinyar have collectively been considered a slave tribe sucdh as the Kreish or Kara. Of course, until as late as the second decade of the twentieth century, the Sinyar were individually enslavable once they moved into the territory of another polity or after losing in battle against a superior enemy, but this was the fate also reserved for the neighboring Fur, Daju and Masalit at the time.
From time immemorial, the Sinyar have been organized as a quasi-independent, tribute-paying sultantate headed by a dynasty of petty sultans. Until 1863, they paid tribute to the Keira Sultanate of Dar Fur, since then until this century to the Daju Sultanate of Dar Sila, which was initially also subject to Dar Fur. The last two decades of the nineteenth century were turbulent in the region. The area was invaded by the Turco-Egyptian army in 1879, by the infamous slaver Babikr Zibeir in 1881, by Sultan Abu Risha of Dar Sila in 1882, and a few years later by Mahdist units led by Osma Jano. In contrast to the Fongoro, the Sinyar managed to maintain their sultanate intact, although not without bloodshed, by paying tribute to various overlords at the same time.
The British and the French fixed the Chad-Sudan border on the eastern boundary of the sultanate of Wadai in Chad, which meant that Dar Sinyar, Dar Fongoro and Dar Sila, as ancient vassals of Dar Fur, would become part of the British sphere. Subsequent developments in the region, especially two disastrous military campaigns of the French against the sultanate of Dar Masalit in 1910, led to a boder settlement in 1924 in which Dar Sila became part of Chad and in which the Masalit, the Sinyar and the Fongoro were to find themselves divided by the new international frontier.
In 1928, a dynastic conflict of succession led to the exile of part of the Chadian Sinyar to Sudan. Their leader became chief of the southernmost part of Dar Masalit Native Administration, and in 1954 he was succeeded by his son. Over the years, many Chadian Sinyar have settled on Sudanese soil because of better economic opportunities and the progressive breakdown of services and security in Chad.
In the course of time during which the Sinyar constituted a semi-autonomous buffer state of the Keira sultanate of Dar Fur, they culturally became Fur with admixtures of Daju, Masalit and above all Arab cultures. Today the Sinyar have no kinship terms, songs, dances and stories, or musical instruments such as a special type of drum, other than those adopted from the Fur. Most Sinyar are fluent in Sinyar, Fur and Arabic. Quite a few know Daju or Masalit as well. Thus in contrast to the Fongoro, who have also become Fur culturally, the Sinyar have preserved their language.
Sinyar. The Sinyar of Chad and Sudan live along the lower reaches and confluence of three seasonal rivers: the Wadi Azum, Wadi Kajaand Wadi Salih. They are bounded to the north by the Masalit, to the west by the Daju-Sila, to the east by the Fur and to the south by a congeries of small ethnic groups with whom contact is minimal -- the Fongoro, Kujarge, Fur-Dalinga and Daju-Galfige.
Sinyar oral traditions claim Arab origin for the founding father of the group, and Egypt is mentioned as his place of origin. Kinship and co-residence with the Berti of northern Darfur Province is sometimes claimed. Apparently they broke with the Arabs and migrated to their present habitat and now claim they lost their knowledge of the Arabic language because they intermarried with the women of the pagan tribe they found and defeated in battle. Remnants of this original population of Dar Sinyar are alleged to live in the northeastern part of the Central African Republic. They are the Kara, Binga and the Gula-Mamoun, indeed linguistically akin to the Sinyar language, which is Central Sudanic, Sara-Bongo-Bagirmi branch.
The historical self-portrait is not dissimilar to that of other ethnic groups in the region, which also claim Arab, even Abbasid or Quraysh descent and also use the excuse of intermarriage with pagan slave women to explain their present linguistic and cultural identity. Of immediate relevance to the Sinyar is the fact that non-Sinyar flatly reject this historical self-image and instead designate the Sinyar as former non-Muslim slaves, fertit, of the sultanates of Dar Fur and Dar Sila. Linguistically, the Sinyar are undoubtedly fertit, along with the Kreish, Kara, Yulu and other Sara-Bongo-Bagirmi-speaking populations which in the past constituted the slave reservoirs for the old sultanates. In Sudan, the Sinyar are northernmost group speaking a fertit language. In Chad, it is the Barma, who themselves established a powerful sultanate in Bagirmi in the nineteenth century. However, there is no historical evidence that the Sinyar have collectively been considered a slave tribe sucdh as the Kreish or Kara. Of course, until as late as the second decade of the twentieth century, the Sinyar were individually enslavable once they moved into the territory of another polity or after losing in battle against a superior enemy, but this was the fate also reserved for the neighboring Fur, Daju and Masalit at the time.
From time immemorial, the Sinyar have been organized as a quasi-independent, tribute-paying sultantate headed by a dynasty of petty sultans. Until 1863, they paid tribute to the Keira Sultanate of Dar Fur, since then until this century to the Daju Sultanate of Dar Sila, which was initially also subject to Dar Fur. The last two decades of the nineteenth century were turbulent in the region. The area was invaded by the Turco-Egyptian army in 1879, by the infamous slaver Babikr Zibeir in 1881, by Sultan Abu Risha of Dar Sila in 1882, and a few years later by Mahdist units led by Osma Jano. In contrast to the Fongoro, the Sinyar managed to maintain their sultanate intact, although not without bloodshed, by paying tribute to various overlords at the same time.
The British and the French fixed the Chad-Sudan border on the eastern boundary of the sultanate of Wadai in Chad, which meant that Dar Sinyar, Dar Fongoro and Dar Sila, as ancient vassals of Dar Fur, would become part of the British sphere. Subsequent developments in the region, especially two disastrous military campaigns of the French against the sultanate of Dar Masalit in 1910, led to a boder settlement in 1924 in which Dar Sila became part of Chad and in which the Masalit, the Sinyar and the Fongoro were to find themselves divided by the new international frontier.
In 1928, a dynastic conflict of succession led to the exile of part of the Chadian Sinyar to Sudan. Their leader became chief of the southernmost part of Dar Masalit Native Administration, and in 1954 he was succeeded by his son. Over the years, many Chadian Sinyar have settled on Sudanese soil because of better economic opportunities and the progressive breakdown of services and security in Chad.
In the course of time during which the Sinyar constituted a semi-autonomous buffer state of the Keira sultanate of Dar Fur, they culturally became Fur with admixtures of Daju, Masalit and above all Arab cultures. Today the Sinyar have no kinship terms, songs, dances and stories, or musical instruments such as a special type of drum, other than those adopted from the Fur. Most Sinyar are fluent in Sinyar, Fur and Arabic. Quite a few know Daju or Masalit as well. Thus in contrast to the Fongoro, who have also become Fur culturally, the Sinyar have preserved their language.
Sipahi
Sipahi (Spahi) (Sepahi) (Spakh) (Spahia) (Spahiu). Name of several Ottoman cavalry corps. The Ottoman horse soldier was typically supported by timar. In India, the term sipahi became synonymous with the word sepoy.
Sipahi were feudal cavalrymen in the Ottoman Empire which represented the most important providers for the Ottoman army until the middle of the 16th century.
A sipahi was a person who had been granted a fief, called timar, ziamet or hass. Within the fief, the sipahi could collect all the income in return for military service. The peasants living in the timar were serfs and attached to the land.
Timar was the smallest land owned by a sipahi, and would give an annual revenue of no more than 10,000 akce, which would be two to four times what a teacher earned. Ziamet yielded up to 100,000 akce, and were owned by sipahiyin with officer’s rank. Hass gave revenues of more than 100,000 akce and were only for the highest ranking in the military.
A timar sipahi were obliged to provide the army with up to five soldiers, a ziamet with up to 20, and a hass with far more than 20. Many of the sipahiyin were actual slaves under the sultan, as collected through the devshirme system. Through this relationship, the sultan could hope for loyalty and cooperation.
From the middle of the sixteenth century, the Janissaries had started to be the most important part of the army. But still the sipahi represented an important factor in the empire’s economy and politics.
As late as in the 17th century, the sipahiyin were, together with their enemies and the Janissaries, the actual rulers in in the early years of Sultan Murad IV's reign.
The sipahis were feudal cavalryman of the Ottoman Empire whose status resembled that of the medieval European knight. The spahi (from Persian for “cavalryman”)was holder of a fief (timar; Turkish: tımar) granted directly by the Ottoman sultan and was entitled to all of the income from it in return for military service. The peasants on the land were subsequently attached to the land and became serfs. The spahis provided the bulk of the Ottoman army until about the mid-16th century. From then on they were gradually supplanted by the Janissaries, an elite corps composed of infantrymen paid regular salaries by the sultanate. In part, this change resulted from the increased use of firearms, which made cavalry less important, and from the need to maintain a regular standing army. The spahis were completely discredited during the War of Greek independence (1821–32), and the timar system was officially abolished in 1831 by Sultan Mahmud II as part of his program to create a modern Western-style army.
Sipahi (Spahi) (Sepahi) (Spakh) (Spahia) (Spahiu). Name of several Ottoman cavalry corps. The Ottoman horse soldier was typically supported by timar. In India, the term sipahi became synonymous with the word sepoy.
Sipahi were feudal cavalrymen in the Ottoman Empire which represented the most important providers for the Ottoman army until the middle of the 16th century.
A sipahi was a person who had been granted a fief, called timar, ziamet or hass. Within the fief, the sipahi could collect all the income in return for military service. The peasants living in the timar were serfs and attached to the land.
Timar was the smallest land owned by a sipahi, and would give an annual revenue of no more than 10,000 akce, which would be two to four times what a teacher earned. Ziamet yielded up to 100,000 akce, and were owned by sipahiyin with officer’s rank. Hass gave revenues of more than 100,000 akce and were only for the highest ranking in the military.
A timar sipahi were obliged to provide the army with up to five soldiers, a ziamet with up to 20, and a hass with far more than 20. Many of the sipahiyin were actual slaves under the sultan, as collected through the devshirme system. Through this relationship, the sultan could hope for loyalty and cooperation.
From the middle of the sixteenth century, the Janissaries had started to be the most important part of the army. But still the sipahi represented an important factor in the empire’s economy and politics.
As late as in the 17th century, the sipahiyin were, together with their enemies and the Janissaries, the actual rulers in in the early years of Sultan Murad IV's reign.
The sipahis were feudal cavalryman of the Ottoman Empire whose status resembled that of the medieval European knight. The spahi (from Persian for “cavalryman”)was holder of a fief (timar; Turkish: tımar) granted directly by the Ottoman sultan and was entitled to all of the income from it in return for military service. The peasants on the land were subsequently attached to the land and became serfs. The spahis provided the bulk of the Ottoman army until about the mid-16th century. From then on they were gradually supplanted by the Janissaries, an elite corps composed of infantrymen paid regular salaries by the sultanate. In part, this change resulted from the increased use of firearms, which made cavalry less important, and from the need to maintain a regular standing army. The spahis were completely discredited during the War of Greek independence (1821–32), and the timar system was officially abolished in 1831 by Sultan Mahmud II as part of his program to create a modern Western-style army.
Sipihr
Sipihr (d. 1878). Pen-name of the Persian historian and man of letters Mirza Muhammad Taqi. One volume of his Effacement of the Chronicles contains the official history of the Qajar dynasty up to 1851, and has been much used by later historians.
Sipihr (d. 1878). Pen-name of the Persian historian and man of letters Mirza Muhammad Taqi. One volume of his Effacement of the Chronicles contains the official history of the Qajar dynasty up to 1851, and has been much used by later historians.
Sirafi, Abu Sa‘id al-Hasan
Sirafi, Abu Sa‘id al-Hasan (Abu Sa‘id al-Hasan Sirafi) (903-978). Grammarian and Hanafi jurist from Siraf, a town on the Persian Gulf in Iran. Among other works, he wrote a commentary on The Book of Sibawayhi, a biography of grammarians of the school of Basra, and a geographical work.
Abu Sa'id al-Hasan Sirafi see Sirafi, Abu Sa‘id al-Hasan
Sirafi, Abu Sa‘id al-Hasan (Abu Sa‘id al-Hasan Sirafi) (903-978). Grammarian and Hanafi jurist from Siraf, a town on the Persian Gulf in Iran. Among other works, he wrote a commentary on The Book of Sibawayhi, a biography of grammarians of the school of Basra, and a geographical work.
Abu Sa'id al-Hasan Sirafi see Sirafi, Abu Sa‘id al-Hasan
Siraj ud-Daulah
Siraj ud-Daulah (Mîrzâ Muhammad Sirâj-ud-Daulah) (1733 - July 2, 1757). Successor to Alivardi Khan, his maternal grandfather, as nawab of Bengal on April 15, 1756. The East India Company desired his favor and protection, which Siraj promised. From the very beginning Siraj was beset with conspiracy from close relatives and high officials of the domain -- a circumstance that did not improve his weak character. Jean Law, chief of the French factory at Kasimbazar, observed that the English gave Siraj reasons for complaint against them by building “strong fortifications” and digging a “large ditch” in the nawab’s domain contrary to established laws of the country, abusing the privilege of free passage for the company’s trade, and giving shelter to the nawab’s recalcitrant subjects.
A determined nawab decided to punish the English for disgracefully expelling his messenger from Calcutta. He captured Calcutta on June 20, 1756. It was at this time that the incident of the Black Hole took place. The English retreated to a riverside shelter nearby. The nawab, however, made no attempt to consolidate his victory. Calcutta was easily recovered by Colonel Robert Clive and Admiral Watson on January 2, 1757. The nawab accepted British terms in the Treaty of Alinagar on February 9, 1757. In the next months, a series of events began that led to the Battle of Plassey, where Siraj ud-Daulah met his death.
Mîrzâ Muhammad Sirâj-ud-Daulah, more commonly known as Siraj ud-Daulah, was the last independent Nawab of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa. The end of his reign marks the start of British East India Company rule over Bengal and later almost all of South Asia. He was also called "Sir Roger Dowlett" by many of the British who were unable to pronounce his name correctly in Hindustani.
Siraj's father Zain Uddin was the ruler of Bihar and his mother Amina Begum was the youngest daughter of Nawab Ali Vardi Khan. Since Ali Vardi had no son, Siraj, as his grandson, became very close to him and from his childhood he was seen by many as the successor to the throne of Murshidabad. Accordingly, he was raised at the nawab's palace with all necessary education and training suitable for a future nawab. Young Siraj also accompanied Ali Vardi in his military ventures against the Marathas in 1746.
Ali Vardi Khan in 1752 officially declared his grandson Crown Prince and successor to the throne, creating no small amount of division in the family and the royal court.
Mirza Mohammad Siraj succeeded Ali Vardi Khan as the Nawab of Bengal in April 1756 at the age of 23, and took the name Siraj ud-Daulah. Siraj ud-Daulah's nomination to the nawabship aroused the jealousy and enmity of Ghaseti Begum (the eldest sister of Siraj's mother), Raja Rajballabh, Mir Jafar Ali Khan and Shawkat Jang (Siraj's cousin). Ghaseti Begam possessed huge wealth, which was the source of her influence and strength. Apprehending serious opposition from her, Siraj ud-Daulah seized her wealth from Motijheel Palace and placed her in confinement. The Nawab also gave high government positions to his favorites. Mir Mardan was appointed Bakshi (Paymaster of the army) in place of Mir Jafar. Mohanlal was elevated to the post of peshkar of his Dewan Khana and he exercised great influence in the administration. Eventually Siraj suppressed Shaukat Jang, governor of Purnia, who was killed in a clash.
Siraj ud-Daulah, as the direct political disciple of his grandfather, was aware of the global British interest in colonization and hence, resented the British politico-military presence in Bengal represented by the British East India Company. He was annoyed at the company's alleged involvement with and instigation of some members of his own court in a conspiracy to oust him. His charges against the company were mainly threefold. Firstly, that they strengthened the fortification around the Fort William without any intimation and approval; secondly, that they grossly abused the trade privileges granted to them by the Mughal rulers, which caused heavy loss of customs duties for the government; and thirdly, that they gave shelter to some of his officers, for example Krishnadas, son of Rajballav, who fled Dhaka after misappropriating government funds. Hence, when the East India Company started further enhancement of military preparedness at Fort William in Calcutta, Siraj asked them to stop. The Company did not heed his directives, so Siraj ud-Daulah retaliated and captured Kolkata from the British in June 1756. During this time, he is alleged to have put 146 British subjects in a 20 by 20 foot chamber, known as the infamous Black Hole of Calcutta. Only 23 were said to have survived the overnight ordeal. The real facts around the incident are disputed by later historians, but at that time the lurid account of this incident by one survivor – Holwell – obtained wide circulation in England and helped gain support for the East India Company's continued conquest of India.
The Battle of Plassey (or Palashi) is widely considered the turning point in the history of India, and opened the way to eventual British domination. After Siraj ud-Daulah's conquest of Calcutta, the British responded by sending fresh troops from Madras to recapture the fort and avenge the attack. A retreating Siraj ud-Daulah met the British at Plassey. Siraj ud-Daulah had to make camp 27 miles away from Murshidabad. On June 23, 1757 Siraj ud-Daulah called on Mir Jafar because he was saddened by the sudden fall of Mir Madan, who was a very dear companion in battle, to Siraj. The Nawab asked for help from Mir Jafar. Mir Jafar advised Siraj to retreat for that day. The Nawab made the blunder in giving the order to stop the war. Following his command, the soldiers of the Nawab were returning to their camps. At that time, Robert Clive attacked the soldiers with his army. At such a sudden attack, the army of Siraj became undisciplined and could think of no way to fight. All fled away in such a situation. Betrayed by a conspiracy hatched by Jagat Seth, Mir Jafar, Krishna Chandra, Umi Chand, and others, Siraj lost the battle and had to escape. He went first to Murshidabad and then to Patna by boat, but was eventually arrested by Mir Jafar's soldiers. Siraj ud-Daulah was executed on July 2, 1757 by Mohammad Ali Beg under orders from Mir Miran, son of Mir Jafar.
Siraj ud-Daulah is usually proclaimed as a freedom fighter in modern India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan for his opposition to the British annexation. As a teenager, he led a reckless life, which came to the notice of his grandfather. But keeping a promise he made to his dear grandfather on his death bed, he gave up gambling and drinking alcohol totally after becoming the nawab. He was a fierce fighter against the Marathas and the pirates of Southern Bengal as a prince during 1740s, but his forces were later totally routed by the greatly outnumbered British.
Mîrzâ Muhammad Sirâj-ud-Daulah see Siraj ud-Daulah
Sir Roger Dowlett see Siraj ud-Daulah
Dowlett, Sir Roger see Siraj ud-Daulah
Siraj ud-Daulah (Mîrzâ Muhammad Sirâj-ud-Daulah) (1733 - July 2, 1757). Successor to Alivardi Khan, his maternal grandfather, as nawab of Bengal on April 15, 1756. The East India Company desired his favor and protection, which Siraj promised. From the very beginning Siraj was beset with conspiracy from close relatives and high officials of the domain -- a circumstance that did not improve his weak character. Jean Law, chief of the French factory at Kasimbazar, observed that the English gave Siraj reasons for complaint against them by building “strong fortifications” and digging a “large ditch” in the nawab’s domain contrary to established laws of the country, abusing the privilege of free passage for the company’s trade, and giving shelter to the nawab’s recalcitrant subjects.
A determined nawab decided to punish the English for disgracefully expelling his messenger from Calcutta. He captured Calcutta on June 20, 1756. It was at this time that the incident of the Black Hole took place. The English retreated to a riverside shelter nearby. The nawab, however, made no attempt to consolidate his victory. Calcutta was easily recovered by Colonel Robert Clive and Admiral Watson on January 2, 1757. The nawab accepted British terms in the Treaty of Alinagar on February 9, 1757. In the next months, a series of events began that led to the Battle of Plassey, where Siraj ud-Daulah met his death.
Mîrzâ Muhammad Sirâj-ud-Daulah, more commonly known as Siraj ud-Daulah, was the last independent Nawab of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa. The end of his reign marks the start of British East India Company rule over Bengal and later almost all of South Asia. He was also called "Sir Roger Dowlett" by many of the British who were unable to pronounce his name correctly in Hindustani.
Siraj's father Zain Uddin was the ruler of Bihar and his mother Amina Begum was the youngest daughter of Nawab Ali Vardi Khan. Since Ali Vardi had no son, Siraj, as his grandson, became very close to him and from his childhood he was seen by many as the successor to the throne of Murshidabad. Accordingly, he was raised at the nawab's palace with all necessary education and training suitable for a future nawab. Young Siraj also accompanied Ali Vardi in his military ventures against the Marathas in 1746.
Ali Vardi Khan in 1752 officially declared his grandson Crown Prince and successor to the throne, creating no small amount of division in the family and the royal court.
Mirza Mohammad Siraj succeeded Ali Vardi Khan as the Nawab of Bengal in April 1756 at the age of 23, and took the name Siraj ud-Daulah. Siraj ud-Daulah's nomination to the nawabship aroused the jealousy and enmity of Ghaseti Begum (the eldest sister of Siraj's mother), Raja Rajballabh, Mir Jafar Ali Khan and Shawkat Jang (Siraj's cousin). Ghaseti Begam possessed huge wealth, which was the source of her influence and strength. Apprehending serious opposition from her, Siraj ud-Daulah seized her wealth from Motijheel Palace and placed her in confinement. The Nawab also gave high government positions to his favorites. Mir Mardan was appointed Bakshi (Paymaster of the army) in place of Mir Jafar. Mohanlal was elevated to the post of peshkar of his Dewan Khana and he exercised great influence in the administration. Eventually Siraj suppressed Shaukat Jang, governor of Purnia, who was killed in a clash.
Siraj ud-Daulah, as the direct political disciple of his grandfather, was aware of the global British interest in colonization and hence, resented the British politico-military presence in Bengal represented by the British East India Company. He was annoyed at the company's alleged involvement with and instigation of some members of his own court in a conspiracy to oust him. His charges against the company were mainly threefold. Firstly, that they strengthened the fortification around the Fort William without any intimation and approval; secondly, that they grossly abused the trade privileges granted to them by the Mughal rulers, which caused heavy loss of customs duties for the government; and thirdly, that they gave shelter to some of his officers, for example Krishnadas, son of Rajballav, who fled Dhaka after misappropriating government funds. Hence, when the East India Company started further enhancement of military preparedness at Fort William in Calcutta, Siraj asked them to stop. The Company did not heed his directives, so Siraj ud-Daulah retaliated and captured Kolkata from the British in June 1756. During this time, he is alleged to have put 146 British subjects in a 20 by 20 foot chamber, known as the infamous Black Hole of Calcutta. Only 23 were said to have survived the overnight ordeal. The real facts around the incident are disputed by later historians, but at that time the lurid account of this incident by one survivor – Holwell – obtained wide circulation in England and helped gain support for the East India Company's continued conquest of India.
The Battle of Plassey (or Palashi) is widely considered the turning point in the history of India, and opened the way to eventual British domination. After Siraj ud-Daulah's conquest of Calcutta, the British responded by sending fresh troops from Madras to recapture the fort and avenge the attack. A retreating Siraj ud-Daulah met the British at Plassey. Siraj ud-Daulah had to make camp 27 miles away from Murshidabad. On June 23, 1757 Siraj ud-Daulah called on Mir Jafar because he was saddened by the sudden fall of Mir Madan, who was a very dear companion in battle, to Siraj. The Nawab asked for help from Mir Jafar. Mir Jafar advised Siraj to retreat for that day. The Nawab made the blunder in giving the order to stop the war. Following his command, the soldiers of the Nawab were returning to their camps. At that time, Robert Clive attacked the soldiers with his army. At such a sudden attack, the army of Siraj became undisciplined and could think of no way to fight. All fled away in such a situation. Betrayed by a conspiracy hatched by Jagat Seth, Mir Jafar, Krishna Chandra, Umi Chand, and others, Siraj lost the battle and had to escape. He went first to Murshidabad and then to Patna by boat, but was eventually arrested by Mir Jafar's soldiers. Siraj ud-Daulah was executed on July 2, 1757 by Mohammad Ali Beg under orders from Mir Miran, son of Mir Jafar.
Siraj ud-Daulah is usually proclaimed as a freedom fighter in modern India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan for his opposition to the British annexation. As a teenager, he led a reckless life, which came to the notice of his grandfather. But keeping a promise he made to his dear grandfather on his death bed, he gave up gambling and drinking alcohol totally after becoming the nawab. He was a fierce fighter against the Marathas and the pirates of Southern Bengal as a prince during 1740s, but his forces were later totally routed by the greatly outnumbered British.
Mîrzâ Muhammad Sirâj-ud-Daulah see Siraj ud-Daulah
Sir Roger Dowlett see Siraj ud-Daulah
Dowlett, Sir Roger see Siraj ud-Daulah
Sirhindi, Ahmad
Sirhindi, Ahmad (Sirhindi) (Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi) (Imām Rabbānī Shaykh Ahmad al-Farūqī al-Sirhindī) (b. 1564, Sirhind, Patiāla, India - d. 1624, Sirhind, India). Islamic philosopher who became the eminent divine and mystic of Muslim India. He was born in Sirhind (India).
Sirhindi is a Sufi saint of the Naqshbandi order who, on account of his scholarship, reformist views, and piety, came to be regarded as the “renewer of the second millennium.” His family claimed descent from Caliph Umar I. Shaikh Ahmad received his early education at his birthplace, Sirhind (in the Punjab), from his father, Shaikh Abdul Ahab, and later moved to Sialkot for further studies. The emperor Akbar invited him to Agra, where he came into contact with Abu’l Fazl and Faizi. At the age of twenty-eight, he joined the Naqshbandi order at Delhi and became a disciple of Khwaja Baqi Billah. Shaikh Ahmad soon gained great popularity and his disciples were spread over large parts of India and Central and West Asia. The three volume collection of his letters is an important source of information about his teachings and activities. It has been translated from Persian into Arabic, Turkish, and Urdu. His views raised opposition in certain quarters, leading to his imprisonment for a year at Gwalior by Jahangir.
Shaikh Ahmad criticized the religious experiments of Akbar. He rejected Ibn Arabi’s doctrine of wah-dat-ul-wujud (“unity of being”) and put forward his own theory of wahdat-ul-shuhud (“unity of vision”). He preached adherence to the laws of Islam and the traditions of the Prophet. Shaikh Ahmad was opposed to mystic music and preferred a life of sobriety to a life of ecstasy. Some of his ideas seem to have influenced Aurangzeb, who was deeply attached to the saint’s descendants. Shaikh Ahmad’s tomb at Sirhind is visited by a large number of people even today.
Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi was primarily a mystical thinker and Sufi master. His activities in reformulating major Sufi ideas led to his being given the epithet “Renewer of the Second Millennium”(Mujaddid-e-Alf-e-Thani) since the dates of his life (971-1034 A.H.) spanned the opening years of the second millennium of the Islamic calendar. According to a tradition of the Prophet Muhammad, a great Muslim leader would arise at the beginning of each Islamic century to renew the religion. In his writings, Sirhindi elaborated on the role of this “Renewer” -- this Mujaddid. Ultimately, Sirhindi became recognized as the Mujaddid and the branch of the Naqshbandi order which he founded came to be known as the Mujaddidi.
The influence of the Mujaddidi eventually spread far beyond India to the Arab Middle East, Central Asia, Turkey, and other regions, and it remains one of the most vital spiritual and occasionally political forces in the contemporary Muslim world.
Islamic scholars generally speak of two phases to Sirhindi’s career. The early phase featured training in the Islamic intellectual tradition and initiation in two major Sufi orders, Chishti and Qadiri, after which he attained a respectable position as a scholar of Islam at the court of the Mughal emperor Akbar.
The second phase of Sirhindi’s career began in 1598 C.C. in Delhi, where he met Khwaja Baqi bi’llah, a Naqshbandi Sufi master from Afghanistan who had recently come to India. Under this master, Sirhindi attained higher states of spiritual realization, which convinced him of the necessity of combining orthodox practice of the Islamic tradition with mystical experience.
Sirhindi became a prominent spiritual teacher in the Naqshbandi order and wrote extensively on matters of Islamic mysticism, theology, and his own spiritual experience. At certain points in these writings he also commented on the religious policies that he felt should be adopted by the Mughal state.
Scholars differ concerning the prominence of political opinions in Sirhindi’s thought. The most recent European and European American academic studies conclude that Sirhindi was primarily a Sufi theorist. In South Asia, however, Sirhindi’s image has gradually developed so as to portray him as an incipient Muslim nationalist who challenged the syncretistic religious tendencies of the Mughal court. Proponents of this view cite as evidence the fact that he was publicly reprimanded and even imprisoned for about a year in 1619 C.C. before being released and ultimately honored by the Mughal Emperor Jahangir. Those who emphasize the Sufi element of Sirhindi’s concerns note that Jahangir complains in his memoirs about Sirhindi’s arrogance and theories, rather than objecting to any specifically political recommendations on his part.
Following his release from prison, Sirhindi returned to Sirhind and for the rest of his life continued his literary and spiritual teaching activities. His sons, in particular, Muhammad Ma‘sum (d. 1668 C.C.), and their successors continued the Mujaddidi Sufi line and left their own collections of letters and practical Sufi manuals in the tradition of their illustrious ancestor.
The most important literary legacy of Sirhindi is undoubtedly his three volumes of collected letters, known as the Maktubat, most of which are written in Persian, although some entire letters and many phrases are written in Arabic. The 534 letters were collected and edited during his lifetime by three of his disciples under his supervision. About a third of the letters are in the form of answers to questions he was asked. About half of the letters run less than twenty lines, although a few of them are as long as twenty pages.
The tradition of writing one’s major ideas in the form of a personal letter but with a wider audience in mind is quite typical of this period of Sufism, both within and beyond South Asian Islam. Numerous collections of such letters exist. The challenge to the scholar is that the letters must be carefully sifted through, as the doctrines presented in them are not organized thematically or presented systematically.
Among the major points discussed in the Maktubat are “the unity of appearance,”practical mysticism, and the respective ranks of the prophet and the saint. Within each of these topics one may point to a humanistic factor, in the sense of affirming the purpose and significance of human activities in reforming both the inner self and outer world, which works throughout Sirhindi’s thought.
The concept of the unity of experience essentially concerns the relationship between the Creator and the Creation. One of the more intensely debated issues in Sufism in the later periods was tension between monism and dualism in mystical thought and, more generally, in the Islamic worldview. Since these Sufi philosophical doctrines were often expressed in very abstract symbols and expressions, it is difficult to explicitly characterize figures such as the Sufi philosopher Ibn ‘Arabi (d. 1240) as having been exclusively monistic. Based primarily on the thought of Ibn‘Arabi’s successors and on the popularization of his ideas through vehicles such as mystical poetry, many Sufis came to consider that the doctrine of the“Unity of Existence” (wahdat al-wujud), which they attributed to Ibn ‘Arabi, was uncompromisingly monistic.
In response to this metaphysically monistic and ethically relativistic outlook Sirhindi propounded a complex cosmological system that detailed the relationship between God and the world in such as way as to provide a more positive existential status to the creation and human activities.
Sirhindi’s theory came to be known as the “Unity of Appearance” (wahdat al-shuhud). In formulating it, Sirhindi criticized some aspects of the “Greatest Shaikh’s” (Ibn ‘Arabi’s) teachings, but remained highly influenced by others and often cites him approvingly. Among the features of Sirhindi’s philosophical system is the idea that in the creative process the divine names are emanated from the mind of God into the world, where they must encounter their opposites in order to be fully discerned and experienced. The world, therefore, is not the same as the Divine Being, but rather has a shadowiy or adumbrated reality of its own. By positing this reality as apart from that of God, Sirhindi is able to assert a real existential status to evil, as opposed to the relativism entailed by absolute monism.
For Sirhindi, living according to the tenets and practice of orthodox Islam is a prerequisite for traveling the Sufi path of individual purification and realization. The main purpose of this path is certainty of faith rather than hidden knowledge. However, those who grasp the essence or the inner dimension of the Islamic Law (shari‘a), are at a higher level than those who simply enact the outer formal requirements.
Sirhindi continued to stress the element of sobriety of characteristic of Naqshbandi Sufis. In this context, he disapproved of mystical practices incorporating dancing, music, or trance states. He advocated the practice of silent dhikr, the calm and focused recitation of the names and attributes of God and other pious phrases. According to Sirhindi, the spiritual aspirant, under the close supervision and guidance of a Sufi master, pursues an itinerary of spiritual progress that reverses the process of the descent of the divine reality into physical manifestation.
Each person possesses a subtle body composed of ten spiritual centers knwon as the lata’if, including the “heart” and “spirit.” These spiritual centers are arranged at two levels, which correspond to the two cosmic levels: (1) The eternal, spiritual realm of God’s command (‘amr), which precedes empirical manifestation, and (2) the temporal world of physical creation (khalq).
Through specific practices of contemplation and recitations combined with the interventions of the Sufi master, the aspirant activates the energy focused in these centers in order to initiate and pursue spiritual awakening and ascent.
Another aspect of Sirhindi’s perspective on monism and dualism was his exposition of the respective states of the “Prophet” and the “Saint.”
All Muslims hold that the Prophet Muhammad was the best of creation. In mystical and Shi‘i thought, however, there tended to be an emphasis on the continuation of charismatic qualities in the world even after the death of the Prophet. The role of the saint (walaya) was increasingly elaborated on by Sufis as a kind of metaphysical template for human spiritual progress. Some Sufis had even seemed to suggest, according to Sirhindi, that the status of the saint was existentially higher than that of the Prophet since the saint was conceived of as having remained absorbed in the contemplation of the divine reality rather than descending into the turbidity of worldly matters.
Consistent with his upholding of the value and meaningfulness of human efforts, Sirhindi posited that the level of Prophecy (nubuwwa) both incorporated and transcended the saintly level of intoxication and union with the divine in order to return to the world with a sober approach and a focus on a reformist mission. Citing a hadith of the Prophet Muhammad – “My Satan has submitted” -- Sirhindi elaborated on the status of Prophet as one who fulfills a mission of transforming both himself and the world by being willing to descend deeply back into worldly existence even after having attained the highest level of mystical heights of annihilation (fana) in the divine, for, “the descent occurs proportionately to the ascent.”
What then, could be the highest state available to the Sufi, since Muhammad was the Last of the Prophets, according to Islamic belief? Today’s spiritual aspirants could pursue the state of being followers and heirs of the Prophet in order to ensure the continuity of this reformist mission in the world.
Sirhindi became a prominent spiritual teacher in the Naqshbandi order and wrote extensively on matters of Islamic mysticism, theology, and his own spiritual experience. At certain points in these writings he also commented on the religious policies that he felt should be adopted by the Mughal state.
Scholars differ concerning the prominence of political opinions in Sirhindi’s thought. The most recent Western academic studies, based on the content of Sirhindi’s writings and the response of his contemporaries and successors to them, conclude that he was primarily a Sufi theorist. In South Asia, however, his image has gradually developed so as to portray him as an incipient Muslim nationalist who challenged the syncretistic religious tendencies of the Mughal court. Proponents of this view cite as evidence the fact that he was publicly reprimanded and even imprisoned for about a year in 1619 before being released and ultimately honored by the emperor Jahangir. Those who emphasize the Sufi element of Sirhindi’s concerns note that Jahangir complains in his memoirs about Sirhindi’s arrogance and theories, rather than objecting to any specifically political recommendations on his part.
An interesting and controversial aspect of Sirhindi’s teaching was his idea of his own special mission. Although alluded to in a fairly esoteric fashion in his works, this stimulated controversy and even some condemnations for heresy among his contemporaries. In an esoteric reference in his work, Mabda’-o-Ma‘ad, Sirhindi claims that a new age has been initiated with the coming of the second Islamic millennium in which the cosmological state known as the “Reality of Muhammad” would unite with that of the “Reality of the Ka’ba.” A new composite higher state known as the “Reality of Ahmad” would be the result, ushering in a new period of fulfillment and spiritual progress for Muslims. This is apparently a thinly veiled reference to his own name, Ahmad. Further, using number mysticism, he spoke of the individual instantiation of the “Reality of Muhammad” in the form of the historical Prophet as having been twofold, spiritual and human. The balance between the human and the spiritual sides of the Prophet had, over time, become disturbed in favor of the spiritual dimension, with consequent detrimental effects on the Muslim community’s affairs in the world. He claimed that in the Second Millennium, following the lead of the “Renewer” (Mujaddid), the “Perfections of Prophecy”would be restored through the efforts of the heirs and followers of the Prophet.
Sirhindi's more extravagant, almost messianic claims were not entirely alien to the history of Islamic mystical thought, and thus Sirhindi’s statements, while clearly controversial, did not result in his being universally condemned for heresy during his lifetime. Over time the image of Sirhindi as a heroic reformer and advocate of uncompromising adherence to Islam became increasingly evocative for the Muslims of India and Pakistan. One can understand the appeal of Sirhindi’s more activist, world affirming outlook to Muslim reformers who partially blame mystically inspired quietism for the decline of Muslim power and influence in the world in later centuries.
Sirhindi see Sirhindi, Ahmad
Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi see Sirhindi, Ahmad
Imām Rabbānī Shaykh Ahmad al-Farūqīal-Sirhindī see Sirhindi, Ahmad
Sirhindi, Ahmad (Sirhindi) (Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi) (Imām Rabbānī Shaykh Ahmad al-Farūqī al-Sirhindī) (b. 1564, Sirhind, Patiāla, India - d. 1624, Sirhind, India). Islamic philosopher who became the eminent divine and mystic of Muslim India. He was born in Sirhind (India).
Sirhindi is a Sufi saint of the Naqshbandi order who, on account of his scholarship, reformist views, and piety, came to be regarded as the “renewer of the second millennium.” His family claimed descent from Caliph Umar I. Shaikh Ahmad received his early education at his birthplace, Sirhind (in the Punjab), from his father, Shaikh Abdul Ahab, and later moved to Sialkot for further studies. The emperor Akbar invited him to Agra, where he came into contact with Abu’l Fazl and Faizi. At the age of twenty-eight, he joined the Naqshbandi order at Delhi and became a disciple of Khwaja Baqi Billah. Shaikh Ahmad soon gained great popularity and his disciples were spread over large parts of India and Central and West Asia. The three volume collection of his letters is an important source of information about his teachings and activities. It has been translated from Persian into Arabic, Turkish, and Urdu. His views raised opposition in certain quarters, leading to his imprisonment for a year at Gwalior by Jahangir.
Shaikh Ahmad criticized the religious experiments of Akbar. He rejected Ibn Arabi’s doctrine of wah-dat-ul-wujud (“unity of being”) and put forward his own theory of wahdat-ul-shuhud (“unity of vision”). He preached adherence to the laws of Islam and the traditions of the Prophet. Shaikh Ahmad was opposed to mystic music and preferred a life of sobriety to a life of ecstasy. Some of his ideas seem to have influenced Aurangzeb, who was deeply attached to the saint’s descendants. Shaikh Ahmad’s tomb at Sirhind is visited by a large number of people even today.
Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi was primarily a mystical thinker and Sufi master. His activities in reformulating major Sufi ideas led to his being given the epithet “Renewer of the Second Millennium”(Mujaddid-e-Alf-e-Thani) since the dates of his life (971-1034 A.H.) spanned the opening years of the second millennium of the Islamic calendar. According to a tradition of the Prophet Muhammad, a great Muslim leader would arise at the beginning of each Islamic century to renew the religion. In his writings, Sirhindi elaborated on the role of this “Renewer” -- this Mujaddid. Ultimately, Sirhindi became recognized as the Mujaddid and the branch of the Naqshbandi order which he founded came to be known as the Mujaddidi.
The influence of the Mujaddidi eventually spread far beyond India to the Arab Middle East, Central Asia, Turkey, and other regions, and it remains one of the most vital spiritual and occasionally political forces in the contemporary Muslim world.
Islamic scholars generally speak of two phases to Sirhindi’s career. The early phase featured training in the Islamic intellectual tradition and initiation in two major Sufi orders, Chishti and Qadiri, after which he attained a respectable position as a scholar of Islam at the court of the Mughal emperor Akbar.
The second phase of Sirhindi’s career began in 1598 C.C. in Delhi, where he met Khwaja Baqi bi’llah, a Naqshbandi Sufi master from Afghanistan who had recently come to India. Under this master, Sirhindi attained higher states of spiritual realization, which convinced him of the necessity of combining orthodox practice of the Islamic tradition with mystical experience.
Sirhindi became a prominent spiritual teacher in the Naqshbandi order and wrote extensively on matters of Islamic mysticism, theology, and his own spiritual experience. At certain points in these writings he also commented on the religious policies that he felt should be adopted by the Mughal state.
Scholars differ concerning the prominence of political opinions in Sirhindi’s thought. The most recent European and European American academic studies conclude that Sirhindi was primarily a Sufi theorist. In South Asia, however, Sirhindi’s image has gradually developed so as to portray him as an incipient Muslim nationalist who challenged the syncretistic religious tendencies of the Mughal court. Proponents of this view cite as evidence the fact that he was publicly reprimanded and even imprisoned for about a year in 1619 C.C. before being released and ultimately honored by the Mughal Emperor Jahangir. Those who emphasize the Sufi element of Sirhindi’s concerns note that Jahangir complains in his memoirs about Sirhindi’s arrogance and theories, rather than objecting to any specifically political recommendations on his part.
Following his release from prison, Sirhindi returned to Sirhind and for the rest of his life continued his literary and spiritual teaching activities. His sons, in particular, Muhammad Ma‘sum (d. 1668 C.C.), and their successors continued the Mujaddidi Sufi line and left their own collections of letters and practical Sufi manuals in the tradition of their illustrious ancestor.
The most important literary legacy of Sirhindi is undoubtedly his three volumes of collected letters, known as the Maktubat, most of which are written in Persian, although some entire letters and many phrases are written in Arabic. The 534 letters were collected and edited during his lifetime by three of his disciples under his supervision. About a third of the letters are in the form of answers to questions he was asked. About half of the letters run less than twenty lines, although a few of them are as long as twenty pages.
The tradition of writing one’s major ideas in the form of a personal letter but with a wider audience in mind is quite typical of this period of Sufism, both within and beyond South Asian Islam. Numerous collections of such letters exist. The challenge to the scholar is that the letters must be carefully sifted through, as the doctrines presented in them are not organized thematically or presented systematically.
Among the major points discussed in the Maktubat are “the unity of appearance,”practical mysticism, and the respective ranks of the prophet and the saint. Within each of these topics one may point to a humanistic factor, in the sense of affirming the purpose and significance of human activities in reforming both the inner self and outer world, which works throughout Sirhindi’s thought.
The concept of the unity of experience essentially concerns the relationship between the Creator and the Creation. One of the more intensely debated issues in Sufism in the later periods was tension between monism and dualism in mystical thought and, more generally, in the Islamic worldview. Since these Sufi philosophical doctrines were often expressed in very abstract symbols and expressions, it is difficult to explicitly characterize figures such as the Sufi philosopher Ibn ‘Arabi (d. 1240) as having been exclusively monistic. Based primarily on the thought of Ibn‘Arabi’s successors and on the popularization of his ideas through vehicles such as mystical poetry, many Sufis came to consider that the doctrine of the“Unity of Existence” (wahdat al-wujud), which they attributed to Ibn ‘Arabi, was uncompromisingly monistic.
In response to this metaphysically monistic and ethically relativistic outlook Sirhindi propounded a complex cosmological system that detailed the relationship between God and the world in such as way as to provide a more positive existential status to the creation and human activities.
Sirhindi’s theory came to be known as the “Unity of Appearance” (wahdat al-shuhud). In formulating it, Sirhindi criticized some aspects of the “Greatest Shaikh’s” (Ibn ‘Arabi’s) teachings, but remained highly influenced by others and often cites him approvingly. Among the features of Sirhindi’s philosophical system is the idea that in the creative process the divine names are emanated from the mind of God into the world, where they must encounter their opposites in order to be fully discerned and experienced. The world, therefore, is not the same as the Divine Being, but rather has a shadowiy or adumbrated reality of its own. By positing this reality as apart from that of God, Sirhindi is able to assert a real existential status to evil, as opposed to the relativism entailed by absolute monism.
For Sirhindi, living according to the tenets and practice of orthodox Islam is a prerequisite for traveling the Sufi path of individual purification and realization. The main purpose of this path is certainty of faith rather than hidden knowledge. However, those who grasp the essence or the inner dimension of the Islamic Law (shari‘a), are at a higher level than those who simply enact the outer formal requirements.
Sirhindi continued to stress the element of sobriety of characteristic of Naqshbandi Sufis. In this context, he disapproved of mystical practices incorporating dancing, music, or trance states. He advocated the practice of silent dhikr, the calm and focused recitation of the names and attributes of God and other pious phrases. According to Sirhindi, the spiritual aspirant, under the close supervision and guidance of a Sufi master, pursues an itinerary of spiritual progress that reverses the process of the descent of the divine reality into physical manifestation.
Each person possesses a subtle body composed of ten spiritual centers knwon as the lata’if, including the “heart” and “spirit.” These spiritual centers are arranged at two levels, which correspond to the two cosmic levels: (1) The eternal, spiritual realm of God’s command (‘amr), which precedes empirical manifestation, and (2) the temporal world of physical creation (khalq).
Through specific practices of contemplation and recitations combined with the interventions of the Sufi master, the aspirant activates the energy focused in these centers in order to initiate and pursue spiritual awakening and ascent.
Another aspect of Sirhindi’s perspective on monism and dualism was his exposition of the respective states of the “Prophet” and the “Saint.”
All Muslims hold that the Prophet Muhammad was the best of creation. In mystical and Shi‘i thought, however, there tended to be an emphasis on the continuation of charismatic qualities in the world even after the death of the Prophet. The role of the saint (walaya) was increasingly elaborated on by Sufis as a kind of metaphysical template for human spiritual progress. Some Sufis had even seemed to suggest, according to Sirhindi, that the status of the saint was existentially higher than that of the Prophet since the saint was conceived of as having remained absorbed in the contemplation of the divine reality rather than descending into the turbidity of worldly matters.
Consistent with his upholding of the value and meaningfulness of human efforts, Sirhindi posited that the level of Prophecy (nubuwwa) both incorporated and transcended the saintly level of intoxication and union with the divine in order to return to the world with a sober approach and a focus on a reformist mission. Citing a hadith of the Prophet Muhammad – “My Satan has submitted” -- Sirhindi elaborated on the status of Prophet as one who fulfills a mission of transforming both himself and the world by being willing to descend deeply back into worldly existence even after having attained the highest level of mystical heights of annihilation (fana) in the divine, for, “the descent occurs proportionately to the ascent.”
What then, could be the highest state available to the Sufi, since Muhammad was the Last of the Prophets, according to Islamic belief? Today’s spiritual aspirants could pursue the state of being followers and heirs of the Prophet in order to ensure the continuity of this reformist mission in the world.
Sirhindi became a prominent spiritual teacher in the Naqshbandi order and wrote extensively on matters of Islamic mysticism, theology, and his own spiritual experience. At certain points in these writings he also commented on the religious policies that he felt should be adopted by the Mughal state.
Scholars differ concerning the prominence of political opinions in Sirhindi’s thought. The most recent Western academic studies, based on the content of Sirhindi’s writings and the response of his contemporaries and successors to them, conclude that he was primarily a Sufi theorist. In South Asia, however, his image has gradually developed so as to portray him as an incipient Muslim nationalist who challenged the syncretistic religious tendencies of the Mughal court. Proponents of this view cite as evidence the fact that he was publicly reprimanded and even imprisoned for about a year in 1619 before being released and ultimately honored by the emperor Jahangir. Those who emphasize the Sufi element of Sirhindi’s concerns note that Jahangir complains in his memoirs about Sirhindi’s arrogance and theories, rather than objecting to any specifically political recommendations on his part.
An interesting and controversial aspect of Sirhindi’s teaching was his idea of his own special mission. Although alluded to in a fairly esoteric fashion in his works, this stimulated controversy and even some condemnations for heresy among his contemporaries. In an esoteric reference in his work, Mabda’-o-Ma‘ad, Sirhindi claims that a new age has been initiated with the coming of the second Islamic millennium in which the cosmological state known as the “Reality of Muhammad” would unite with that of the “Reality of the Ka’ba.” A new composite higher state known as the “Reality of Ahmad” would be the result, ushering in a new period of fulfillment and spiritual progress for Muslims. This is apparently a thinly veiled reference to his own name, Ahmad. Further, using number mysticism, he spoke of the individual instantiation of the “Reality of Muhammad” in the form of the historical Prophet as having been twofold, spiritual and human. The balance between the human and the spiritual sides of the Prophet had, over time, become disturbed in favor of the spiritual dimension, with consequent detrimental effects on the Muslim community’s affairs in the world. He claimed that in the Second Millennium, following the lead of the “Renewer” (Mujaddid), the “Perfections of Prophecy”would be restored through the efforts of the heirs and followers of the Prophet.
Sirhindi's more extravagant, almost messianic claims were not entirely alien to the history of Islamic mystical thought, and thus Sirhindi’s statements, while clearly controversial, did not result in his being universally condemned for heresy during his lifetime. Over time the image of Sirhindi as a heroic reformer and advocate of uncompromising adherence to Islam became increasingly evocative for the Muslims of India and Pakistan. One can understand the appeal of Sirhindi’s more activist, world affirming outlook to Muslim reformers who partially blame mystically inspired quietism for the decline of Muslim power and influence in the world in later centuries.
Sirhindi see Sirhindi, Ahmad
Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi see Sirhindi, Ahmad
Imām Rabbānī Shaykh Ahmad al-Farūqīal-Sirhindī see Sirhindi, Ahmad
Sitt al-Mulk
Sitt al-Mulk (Sayyidat al-Mulk) (970-1023/1024). Sister of the Fatimid Caliph al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah. According to a popular but unreliable account, she killed her brother the caliph, became regent and brought back stability and order.
Sitt al-Mulk, ruler of the Fatimids (1021-1023), was the elder sister of Al-Hakim. After the death of her father Ali az-Aziz (975-996), she tried with the help of a cousin to force her brother from the throne, but was arrested by the eunuch Barjuwan. However, she became regent for his son and successor Ali az-Zahir. She continued to wield influence as an advisor after he came of age, as evidenced by the very generous apanages that came her way.
After her assumption of power and the elimination of her rivals, she abolished many of the strange rules that Al-Hakim had promulgated during his reign. She also severely persecuted the Druze religion, which believed in Al-Hakim's divinity, eliminating it entirely from Egypt, and restricting it to the mountains of Lebanon. She worked to reduce tensions with the Byzantine Empire over the possession of Aleppo, but before negotiations could be completed she died on February 5, 1023.
Sayyidat al-Mulk see Sitt al-Mulk
Sitt al-Mulk (Sayyidat al-Mulk) (970-1023/1024). Sister of the Fatimid Caliph al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah. According to a popular but unreliable account, she killed her brother the caliph, became regent and brought back stability and order.
Sitt al-Mulk, ruler of the Fatimids (1021-1023), was the elder sister of Al-Hakim. After the death of her father Ali az-Aziz (975-996), she tried with the help of a cousin to force her brother from the throne, but was arrested by the eunuch Barjuwan. However, she became regent for his son and successor Ali az-Zahir. She continued to wield influence as an advisor after he came of age, as evidenced by the very generous apanages that came her way.
After her assumption of power and the elimination of her rivals, she abolished many of the strange rules that Al-Hakim had promulgated during his reign. She also severely persecuted the Druze religion, which believed in Al-Hakim's divinity, eliminating it entirely from Egypt, and restricting it to the mountains of Lebanon. She worked to reduce tensions with the Byzantine Empire over the possession of Aleppo, but before negotiations could be completed she died on February 5, 1023.
Sayyidat al-Mulk see Sitt al-Mulk
Sjafruddin Prawiranegara
Sjafruddin Prawiranegara (Syafruddin Prawiranegara) (February 28, 1911 - February 15, 1989) was an Indonesian politician. He was born in Anjar Kidul, West Java. He was educated as a lawyer under the Dutch colonial administration. He was a principal economic figure in the independent Republican government, serving as minister of finance (1946-1947) and minister of welfare (1948). He became president and acting prime minister of the Emergency government formed on Sumatra after the Dutch captured Yogyakarta in December 1948. He was appointed minister of finance in 1950. Increasingly opposed to Sukarno’s policies, he joined the Pemerintah Revolusioner Republik Indonesia (PRRI) rebellion in 1958, becoming prime minister in the rebel government. He surrendered in 1961 and was kept in close confinement until 1966. Under Suharto’s New Order, he returned to the private sector and, though barred from an active political role became an outspoken critic of the government on behalf of Muslim interests.
Sjafruddin Prawiranegara, also written Syafruddin Prawiranegara, was an Indonesian politician, economist, and latterly an Islamic philosopher. He was born in Anyer Kidul, Banten. The descent of Bantenese and Minangkabau extraction. His father, R. Arsyad Prawiraatmadja was the grandson of Sutan Alam Intan.
Educated in the Dutch-established education system that was opened to the better-off indigenous population from 1903, he went on to study at Rechtshogeschool (the Dutch tertiary education institution designed originally to provide Indonesian-speaking staff for the law courts, and which eventually became the University of Indonesia), graduating in 1939.
In 1939-1940 he was editor of a newspaper, Soeara Timur, a moderately separatist journal from Dutch rule. Syafruddin was more strongly nationalist than this, however, refusing to join the Stadswacht (home guard), though he did in 1940 join the Dutch department of finance, retaining his job under Japanese occupation, working as a tax inspector.
After the end of the war, he joined the KNI, or Indonesian National Committee, becoming one of fifteen members of its Central Committee. He joined Masjumi, the Islamic political party, publishing 'Politiek dan Revolusi Kita' (Our politics and revolution), espousing a religious socialist philosophy, which led to his appointment as Minister of Finance for Sutan Sjahrir Prime Minister and Socialist Party of Indonesia member from March 12, 1946 to June 27, 1947, and then under Hatta's non-party cabinet from 1948 until full independence in December 1949.
The resistance to the Dutch was limited to Java and Sumatra, and increasing military success in Java made the position of the revolutionary leaders in Java increasingly weak. In anticipation of the Dutch overrunning of the revolutionary Indonesian capital at Yogyakarta, Hatta was given authority to setup a republican government in defensible Central Sumatra. However, Hatta was to return to Java for the United Nations-led peace talks, and so Sjafruddin was given the role of Prime Minister-in-waiting. When the Dutch captured Hatta, Sukarno, and others, he assumed the role of Prime Minister, in West Sumatra, liaising by radio with remaining nationalists in Java to organize resistance to the Dutch. From this position he was able to maintain the republican effort until the Dutch released Sukarno and Hatta.
After peace had been brokered in 1949, Sjafruddin was appointed as Finance Minister in Hatta's first cabinet of Indonesia, and also in the cabinet of Mohammad Natsir, until his appointment as the first Indonesian Governor of De Javasche Bank (which was quickly transformed into Bank Indonesia) in 1951.
Sjafruddin in 1957 came into conflict with the President over his opposition to nationalization of Dutch economic interests, and his opposition to Guided Democracy (1957–1965), culminating in the writing of a letter to Sukarno on January 15, 1958, from Palembang, South Sumatra, where Sjafruddin was in talks with the rebellious Colonel Barlian, telling Sukarno to return to the Indonesian Constitution.
As Sjafruddin became more involved with PRRI, he was sacked as Bank Indonesia governor. However, Sjafruddin was less reckless than some of his PRRI colleagues, opposing the five-day ultimatum (on strategic military grounds) on February 10, 1958 to Prime Minister Djuanda Kartawidjaja to establish a new Cabinet with Hatta and the Sultan of Yogyakarta at its head. Thus, on February 15, 1958, Sjafruddin became Prime Minister of PRRI. His signature, which had appeared on banknotes of the republican period (1945-1949), and as governor of Bank Indonesia (1951-1958), appeared on the notes of PRRI. Sjafruddin opposed the establishment of a separate country of Sumatra, instead seeing PRRI as a movement for Indonesian integrity, opposed to the centralization of power in Indonesia.
The PRRI rebellion was a failure, and on August 25, 1961, Sjafruddin surrendered to the army. He was imprisoned until July 26, 1966.
Upon release, Sjafruddin tended to express himself more through religion, preaching against corruption under Sukarno, and leading the Petition of Fifty, and opposing the concept of Pancasila as the sole guiding principle for all groups, especially religious ones, in Indonesia. Due to this activity, Suharto banned Sjafruddin from leaving the country. Sjafruddin, however, continued to espouse his beliefs up until his death in 1989. He died of heart failure on February 15, 1989.
Prawiranegara, Sjafruddin see Sjafruddin Prawiranegara
Syafruddin Prawiranegara see Sjafruddin Prawiranegara
Prawiranegara, Syafruddin see Sjafruddin Prawiranegara
Sjafruddin Prawiranegara (Syafruddin Prawiranegara) (February 28, 1911 - February 15, 1989) was an Indonesian politician. He was born in Anjar Kidul, West Java. He was educated as a lawyer under the Dutch colonial administration. He was a principal economic figure in the independent Republican government, serving as minister of finance (1946-1947) and minister of welfare (1948). He became president and acting prime minister of the Emergency government formed on Sumatra after the Dutch captured Yogyakarta in December 1948. He was appointed minister of finance in 1950. Increasingly opposed to Sukarno’s policies, he joined the Pemerintah Revolusioner Republik Indonesia (PRRI) rebellion in 1958, becoming prime minister in the rebel government. He surrendered in 1961 and was kept in close confinement until 1966. Under Suharto’s New Order, he returned to the private sector and, though barred from an active political role became an outspoken critic of the government on behalf of Muslim interests.
Sjafruddin Prawiranegara, also written Syafruddin Prawiranegara, was an Indonesian politician, economist, and latterly an Islamic philosopher. He was born in Anyer Kidul, Banten. The descent of Bantenese and Minangkabau extraction. His father, R. Arsyad Prawiraatmadja was the grandson of Sutan Alam Intan.
Educated in the Dutch-established education system that was opened to the better-off indigenous population from 1903, he went on to study at Rechtshogeschool (the Dutch tertiary education institution designed originally to provide Indonesian-speaking staff for the law courts, and which eventually became the University of Indonesia), graduating in 1939.
In 1939-1940 he was editor of a newspaper, Soeara Timur, a moderately separatist journal from Dutch rule. Syafruddin was more strongly nationalist than this, however, refusing to join the Stadswacht (home guard), though he did in 1940 join the Dutch department of finance, retaining his job under Japanese occupation, working as a tax inspector.
After the end of the war, he joined the KNI, or Indonesian National Committee, becoming one of fifteen members of its Central Committee. He joined Masjumi, the Islamic political party, publishing 'Politiek dan Revolusi Kita' (Our politics and revolution), espousing a religious socialist philosophy, which led to his appointment as Minister of Finance for Sutan Sjahrir Prime Minister and Socialist Party of Indonesia member from March 12, 1946 to June 27, 1947, and then under Hatta's non-party cabinet from 1948 until full independence in December 1949.
The resistance to the Dutch was limited to Java and Sumatra, and increasing military success in Java made the position of the revolutionary leaders in Java increasingly weak. In anticipation of the Dutch overrunning of the revolutionary Indonesian capital at Yogyakarta, Hatta was given authority to setup a republican government in defensible Central Sumatra. However, Hatta was to return to Java for the United Nations-led peace talks, and so Sjafruddin was given the role of Prime Minister-in-waiting. When the Dutch captured Hatta, Sukarno, and others, he assumed the role of Prime Minister, in West Sumatra, liaising by radio with remaining nationalists in Java to organize resistance to the Dutch. From this position he was able to maintain the republican effort until the Dutch released Sukarno and Hatta.
After peace had been brokered in 1949, Sjafruddin was appointed as Finance Minister in Hatta's first cabinet of Indonesia, and also in the cabinet of Mohammad Natsir, until his appointment as the first Indonesian Governor of De Javasche Bank (which was quickly transformed into Bank Indonesia) in 1951.
Sjafruddin in 1957 came into conflict with the President over his opposition to nationalization of Dutch economic interests, and his opposition to Guided Democracy (1957–1965), culminating in the writing of a letter to Sukarno on January 15, 1958, from Palembang, South Sumatra, where Sjafruddin was in talks with the rebellious Colonel Barlian, telling Sukarno to return to the Indonesian Constitution.
As Sjafruddin became more involved with PRRI, he was sacked as Bank Indonesia governor. However, Sjafruddin was less reckless than some of his PRRI colleagues, opposing the five-day ultimatum (on strategic military grounds) on February 10, 1958 to Prime Minister Djuanda Kartawidjaja to establish a new Cabinet with Hatta and the Sultan of Yogyakarta at its head. Thus, on February 15, 1958, Sjafruddin became Prime Minister of PRRI. His signature, which had appeared on banknotes of the republican period (1945-1949), and as governor of Bank Indonesia (1951-1958), appeared on the notes of PRRI. Sjafruddin opposed the establishment of a separate country of Sumatra, instead seeing PRRI as a movement for Indonesian integrity, opposed to the centralization of power in Indonesia.
The PRRI rebellion was a failure, and on August 25, 1961, Sjafruddin surrendered to the army. He was imprisoned until July 26, 1966.
Upon release, Sjafruddin tended to express himself more through religion, preaching against corruption under Sukarno, and leading the Petition of Fifty, and opposing the concept of Pancasila as the sole guiding principle for all groups, especially religious ones, in Indonesia. Due to this activity, Suharto banned Sjafruddin from leaving the country. Sjafruddin, however, continued to espouse his beliefs up until his death in 1989. He died of heart failure on February 15, 1989.
Prawiranegara, Sjafruddin see Sjafruddin Prawiranegara
Syafruddin Prawiranegara see Sjafruddin Prawiranegara
Prawiranegara, Syafruddin see Sjafruddin Prawiranegara
Sjahrir, Sutan
Sjahrir, Sutan (b. March 5, 1909, Padang Panjang, West Sumatra, Dutch East Indies - d. April 9, 1966, Zürich, Switzerland). Indonesian socialist leader and prime minister (1945-1947). A Dutch educated (in Medan, Bandung, and the Netherlands) Minangkabau, Sjahrir in 1931 helped found the Pendidikan Nasional Indonesia to educate a socialist leadership for Indonesia’s nationalist movement. He was arrested in 1934 and exiled. During the Japanese occupation of Indonesia, he remained underground. In 1945, as prime minister, he conducted negotiations with the Dutch. In 1948, he formed the Indonesian Socialist Party (PSI). Although lacking electoral strength and regarded as the intellectuals’ party, the PSI was influential in Parliament and civil service until banned in 1960. After 1950 Sjahrir withdrew from active politics. His last years were spent under house arrest.
Sutan Sjahrir was the first prime minister of Indonesia, after a career as a key Indonesian nationalist organizer in the 1930s and 1940s.
Sjahrir was born in 1909 in Padang Panjang, West Sumatra. His father was an advisor to the Sultan of Deli. He studied in Medan and Bandung, and then studied law at Leiden University, The Netherlands around 1929. In Holland, he gained an appreciation for socialist principles, and was a part of several labor unions as he worked to support himself. He was briefly the secretary of the Indonesian Association (Perhimpunan Indonesia), an organization of Indonesian students in the Netherlands. Sjahrir was also one of the co-founders of Jong Indonesie, an Indonesian youth association, only to change within a few years to Pemuda Indonesia. This, in particular, played an important role in the Youth Congress (Sumpah Pemuda), in which the association helped the congress itself to run.
Sutan Sjahrir returned to Indonesia in 1931 without finishing a law degree. He helped set up the Indonesian National Party (PNI), and became a close associate of future vice president Mohammad Hatta. He was imprisoned by the Dutch for nationalist activities in November 1934, first in Boven Digul, then on Banda, and then in 1941, just before the Indies fell to the Japanese, to Sukabumi. During the Japanese occupation of Indonesia he had little public role, apparently sick with tuberculosis.
He was appointed Prime Minister by President Sukarno in November 1945 and served until June 1947. Sjahrir founded the Indonesian Socialist Party in 1948, which, although small, was very influential in the early post-independence years, because of the expertise and high education levels of its leaders. But the party performed poorly in the 1955 elections and was banned by President Sukarno in 1960. Sjahrir was jailed in the early 1960s, and died in exile in Zürich, Switzerland in 1966.
Sjahrir, son of a public prosecutor, received a Dutch education in Sumatra and Java and attended the Law Faculty at the University of Leiden. In The Netherlands he was a member of a socialist student group and secretary of the student group Perhimpunan Indonesia (“Indonesian Union”), which numbered among its members many of Indonesia’s future political leaders. He returned to the Dutch East Indies in 1931 and helped establish the Pendidikan Nasional Indonesia, a rival group to Partindo, the nationalist organization formed from remnants of the suppressed Partai Nasional Indonesia (“Indonesian Nationalist Party”), founded by Sukarno, the foremost Indonesian nationalist leader. The groups differed on the goals and means appropriate to nationalists, with Pendidikan opposed to Partindo’s concept of a united front of left-wing parties, and were divided by personal antagonisms as well. Early in 1934 Sjahrir and Pendidikan’s co-leader Mohammad Hatta were exiled by the Dutch authorities and remained isolated from Indonesian politics until the arrival of Japanese occupation forces in 1942. Sjahrir was opposed to the Japanese but chose to withdraw from public life rather than actively resist. He pressed for the country to declare independence before the Japanese surrender.
Sjahrir’s pamphlet “Perdjuangan Kita” (1945; “Our Struggle”) won for him the support of militant nationalists in the capital, as well as the office of prime minister in the postwar government at a time when executive power had been stripped from the president, then Sukarno, and given to the prime minister. That was done at Sjahrir’s instigation as he feared Sukarno’s cooperation with the Japanese would hurt the republic’s image in international opinion, on which the success of negotiations with the Dutch largely depended. Sjahrir negotiated the Linggadjati Agreement, under which the Dutch acknowledged Indonesia’s authority in Java and Sumatra. His conciliatory policies were not in keeping with the temper of the times, however, and in February 1946 he had to resign briefly. In June 1947 he was forced to resign permanently. He then became a member of the Indonesian delegation to the United Nations. In 1948 he formed a Socialist party, Partai Sosialis Indonesia (PSI), which opposed the Communist Party, but it failed to win popular support and was banned by Sukarno in 1960. On January 17, 1962, Sjahrir was arrested on charges of conspiracy. He was held without trial until 1965, when he was allowed to travel to Switzerland for medical treatment following a stroke.
Sutan Sjahrir see Sjahrir, Sutan
Sjahrir, Sutan (b. March 5, 1909, Padang Panjang, West Sumatra, Dutch East Indies - d. April 9, 1966, Zürich, Switzerland). Indonesian socialist leader and prime minister (1945-1947). A Dutch educated (in Medan, Bandung, and the Netherlands) Minangkabau, Sjahrir in 1931 helped found the Pendidikan Nasional Indonesia to educate a socialist leadership for Indonesia’s nationalist movement. He was arrested in 1934 and exiled. During the Japanese occupation of Indonesia, he remained underground. In 1945, as prime minister, he conducted negotiations with the Dutch. In 1948, he formed the Indonesian Socialist Party (PSI). Although lacking electoral strength and regarded as the intellectuals’ party, the PSI was influential in Parliament and civil service until banned in 1960. After 1950 Sjahrir withdrew from active politics. His last years were spent under house arrest.
Sutan Sjahrir was the first prime minister of Indonesia, after a career as a key Indonesian nationalist organizer in the 1930s and 1940s.
Sjahrir was born in 1909 in Padang Panjang, West Sumatra. His father was an advisor to the Sultan of Deli. He studied in Medan and Bandung, and then studied law at Leiden University, The Netherlands around 1929. In Holland, he gained an appreciation for socialist principles, and was a part of several labor unions as he worked to support himself. He was briefly the secretary of the Indonesian Association (Perhimpunan Indonesia), an organization of Indonesian students in the Netherlands. Sjahrir was also one of the co-founders of Jong Indonesie, an Indonesian youth association, only to change within a few years to Pemuda Indonesia. This, in particular, played an important role in the Youth Congress (Sumpah Pemuda), in which the association helped the congress itself to run.
Sutan Sjahrir returned to Indonesia in 1931 without finishing a law degree. He helped set up the Indonesian National Party (PNI), and became a close associate of future vice president Mohammad Hatta. He was imprisoned by the Dutch for nationalist activities in November 1934, first in Boven Digul, then on Banda, and then in 1941, just before the Indies fell to the Japanese, to Sukabumi. During the Japanese occupation of Indonesia he had little public role, apparently sick with tuberculosis.
He was appointed Prime Minister by President Sukarno in November 1945 and served until June 1947. Sjahrir founded the Indonesian Socialist Party in 1948, which, although small, was very influential in the early post-independence years, because of the expertise and high education levels of its leaders. But the party performed poorly in the 1955 elections and was banned by President Sukarno in 1960. Sjahrir was jailed in the early 1960s, and died in exile in Zürich, Switzerland in 1966.
Sjahrir, son of a public prosecutor, received a Dutch education in Sumatra and Java and attended the Law Faculty at the University of Leiden. In The Netherlands he was a member of a socialist student group and secretary of the student group Perhimpunan Indonesia (“Indonesian Union”), which numbered among its members many of Indonesia’s future political leaders. He returned to the Dutch East Indies in 1931 and helped establish the Pendidikan Nasional Indonesia, a rival group to Partindo, the nationalist organization formed from remnants of the suppressed Partai Nasional Indonesia (“Indonesian Nationalist Party”), founded by Sukarno, the foremost Indonesian nationalist leader. The groups differed on the goals and means appropriate to nationalists, with Pendidikan opposed to Partindo’s concept of a united front of left-wing parties, and were divided by personal antagonisms as well. Early in 1934 Sjahrir and Pendidikan’s co-leader Mohammad Hatta were exiled by the Dutch authorities and remained isolated from Indonesian politics until the arrival of Japanese occupation forces in 1942. Sjahrir was opposed to the Japanese but chose to withdraw from public life rather than actively resist. He pressed for the country to declare independence before the Japanese surrender.
Sjahrir’s pamphlet “Perdjuangan Kita” (1945; “Our Struggle”) won for him the support of militant nationalists in the capital, as well as the office of prime minister in the postwar government at a time when executive power had been stripped from the president, then Sukarno, and given to the prime minister. That was done at Sjahrir’s instigation as he feared Sukarno’s cooperation with the Japanese would hurt the republic’s image in international opinion, on which the success of negotiations with the Dutch largely depended. Sjahrir negotiated the Linggadjati Agreement, under which the Dutch acknowledged Indonesia’s authority in Java and Sumatra. His conciliatory policies were not in keeping with the temper of the times, however, and in February 1946 he had to resign briefly. In June 1947 he was forced to resign permanently. He then became a member of the Indonesian delegation to the United Nations. In 1948 he formed a Socialist party, Partai Sosialis Indonesia (PSI), which opposed the Communist Party, but it failed to win popular support and was banned by Sukarno in 1960. On January 17, 1962, Sjahrir was arrested on charges of conspiracy. He was held without trial until 1965, when he was allowed to travel to Switzerland for medical treatment following a stroke.
Sutan Sjahrir see Sjahrir, Sutan
Skah, Khalid (Khalid Skah) (b. January 29, 1967). Moroccan runner who won the 10,000 meters at the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona, Spain.
Khalid Skah
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Medal record
Men’s Athletics
Competitor for Morocco
Olympic Games
Gold 1992 Barcelona 10,000 m
World Championships
Silver 1995 Gothenburg 10,000 m
Bronze 1991 Tokyo 10,000 m,
Mediterranean Games
Gold 1993 Narbonne 10,000 m
Born in Midelt, Morocco, Khalid Skah established himself first as a good cross country runner by winning the IAAF World Cross Country Championships in 1990 and 1991.
His first major tournament on track was the 1991 World Championships where he first won a bronze in the 10,000 meter run and then finished sixth at the 5000 meter run. This was a disappointing outcome for Skah as, earlier in the season, he had won the 10,000 meter race in Oslo against a very strong field and had emerged as one of the favorites for the finals in Tokyo. However, for the 10,000 meter final, Richard Chelimo and the eventual world champion, Moses Tanui, (both of Kenya) employed some very elaborate tactics and worked as a team. By the time of the 5000 meter final, Skah was probably tired. It would be Yobes Ondieki (Kenya) who would win the gold medal in the 5000 meter run.
At the Barcelona Olympics, Khalid Skah had a long duel with Richard Chelimo from Kenya in the 10,000 meter final. When they were lapping another Moroccan Hammou Boutayeb, the latter interfered with Chelimo and Skah went on to win a second ahead of the Kenyan. After the race Skah was accused of receiving undue assistance from Boutayeb and was disqualified, but was later reinstated on a technicality. During the presentation ceremony, held the next day, Skah was loudly booed by the crow,d as he received his medal. Chelimo received a standing ovation.
In 1993, Skah won the 5000 meter race at the prestigious meeting in Zurich. However, he finished fifth in the 5000 meters at the 1993 World Championships. He ran his only world record in 2 miles (8:12.17) in the same season. He won the 1994 World Semi-Marathon Championships and finished second in 10,000 meters at the 1995 World Championships.
Skah's last major international tournament was the 1996 Summer Olympics, where he finished seventh in the 10,000 meters. In 1995, Skah was given Norwegian citizenship, where he lived and trained with athletes club B.U.L. After that, the Moroccan Athletics Association banned him from international competitions. Skah was reinstated in 2001 after which he tried a come-back to re-establish himself as one of the world's best long distance runners, finishing tenth in the World Half Marathon Championships that year.
Khalid Skah married Norwegian interior designer Anne Cecilie Hopstock after his Barcelona triumph, and they had two children. The marriage ended in divorce after the family relocated to Morocco in 2006. Skah lost a custody battle with his former wife in Norwegian courts two years later, yet failed to return the children. He was indicted on kidnapping, threats and domestic disturbance charges in Norway.
The children fled Morocco in July 2009. The Norwegian embassy's alleged improper sheltering of the dual-citizenship children during their escape led to a diplomatic dispute between the two countries. Skah issued a reward and filed for custody in Morocco. The former track
champion maintained his innocence, claimed the children were abducted and asserted that armed Norwegian commandos intruded into his home. Hopstock later confirmed she had hired off-duty naval rangers to help her sail her children out of Moroccan waters.
Skanderbeg
Skanderbeg (George Kastriota) (George Kastrioti) (Gjerji Kastrioti) (George Castriota) (Gjergj Kastrioti Skanderbeg) (Gjergj Kastrioti Skënderbeu) (İskender Bey- "Lord Alexander" or "Leader Alexander") (Iskander Beg) (c.1404/May 16, 1405, northern Albania - 1467/January 17, 1468, Lezhe, Albania). National hero of Albania. Skanderberg was an Albanian military leader. He was also known as “George Kastrioti.” Of Serbian origin and brought up as a Muslim, he became a more or less faithful local governor after 1436, but was negotiating with the Venetians and the Hungarians. After the victory of the Hungarians over the Turks in 1443 at Nish, he returned to Christianity, captured Kruje and gathered the Albanian chiefs of clans around him. In 1449 and 1450, the Ottoman Sultan Murad II ordered expeditions against Albania, Skanderbeg, supported by the king of Naples, the Pope and the Hungarians, held out until 1460 when he was forced to conclude a treaty and to pay tribute to the Ottomans. Soon afterwards he resumed a guerrilla warfare until the Ottoman Sultan Muhammad II started to conquer Albania in 1466.
A son of John (Gjon) Kastrioti, prince of Emathia, George was early given as hostage to the Turkish sultan. Converted to Islām and educated at Edirne, Turkey, he was given the name Iskander—after Alexander the Great—and the rank of bey (hence Skanderbeg) by Sultan Murad II. During the defeat of the Turks at Niš (1443), in Serbia, Skanderbeg abandoned the Turkish service and joined his Albanian countrymen against the forces of Islām. He embraced Christianity, reclaimed his family possessions, and in 1444 organized a league of Albanian princes, over which he was appointed commander in chief.
In the period 1444–66 he effectively repulsed 13 Turkish invasions, his successful resistance to the armies of Murad II in 1450 making him a hero throughout the Western world. Through the years he elicited some support from Naples, Venice, and the papacy and was named by Pope Calixtus III captain general of the Holy See. In 1463 he secured an alliance with Venice that helped launch a new offensive against the Turks. Until the end of his life he continued to resist successfully all Turkish invasions. Within a few years of his death, however, his citadel at Krujë had fallen (1478), and Albania passed into several centuries of obscurity under Turkish rule.
Gjergj Kastrioti Skanderbeg, or Iskander Beg, was a prominent historical figure in the history of Albania and of the Albanian people. Known as the Dragon of Albania, he is the national hero of the Albanians and initially through the work of his main biographer, Marin Barleti, is remembered for his struggle against the Ottoman Empire, whose armies he successfully ousted from his native land for more than two decades.
George Kastriota see Skanderbeg
Kastriota, George see Skanderbeg
George Kastrioti see Skanderbeg
Kastrioti, George see Skanderbeg
Gjerji Kastrioti see Skanderbeg
George Castriota see Skanderbeg
Skanderbeg (George Kastriota) (George Kastrioti) (Gjerji Kastrioti) (George Castriota) (Gjergj Kastrioti Skanderbeg) (Gjergj Kastrioti Skënderbeu) (İskender Bey- "Lord Alexander" or "Leader Alexander") (Iskander Beg) (c.1404/May 16, 1405, northern Albania - 1467/January 17, 1468, Lezhe, Albania). National hero of Albania. Skanderberg was an Albanian military leader. He was also known as “George Kastrioti.” Of Serbian origin and brought up as a Muslim, he became a more or less faithful local governor after 1436, but was negotiating with the Venetians and the Hungarians. After the victory of the Hungarians over the Turks in 1443 at Nish, he returned to Christianity, captured Kruje and gathered the Albanian chiefs of clans around him. In 1449 and 1450, the Ottoman Sultan Murad II ordered expeditions against Albania, Skanderbeg, supported by the king of Naples, the Pope and the Hungarians, held out until 1460 when he was forced to conclude a treaty and to pay tribute to the Ottomans. Soon afterwards he resumed a guerrilla warfare until the Ottoman Sultan Muhammad II started to conquer Albania in 1466.
A son of John (Gjon) Kastrioti, prince of Emathia, George was early given as hostage to the Turkish sultan. Converted to Islām and educated at Edirne, Turkey, he was given the name Iskander—after Alexander the Great—and the rank of bey (hence Skanderbeg) by Sultan Murad II. During the defeat of the Turks at Niš (1443), in Serbia, Skanderbeg abandoned the Turkish service and joined his Albanian countrymen against the forces of Islām. He embraced Christianity, reclaimed his family possessions, and in 1444 organized a league of Albanian princes, over which he was appointed commander in chief.
In the period 1444–66 he effectively repulsed 13 Turkish invasions, his successful resistance to the armies of Murad II in 1450 making him a hero throughout the Western world. Through the years he elicited some support from Naples, Venice, and the papacy and was named by Pope Calixtus III captain general of the Holy See. In 1463 he secured an alliance with Venice that helped launch a new offensive against the Turks. Until the end of his life he continued to resist successfully all Turkish invasions. Within a few years of his death, however, his citadel at Krujë had fallen (1478), and Albania passed into several centuries of obscurity under Turkish rule.
Gjergj Kastrioti Skanderbeg, or Iskander Beg, was a prominent historical figure in the history of Albania and of the Albanian people. Known as the Dragon of Albania, he is the national hero of the Albanians and initially through the work of his main biographer, Marin Barleti, is remembered for his struggle against the Ottoman Empire, whose armies he successfully ousted from his native land for more than two decades.
George Kastriota see Skanderbeg
Kastriota, George see Skanderbeg
George Kastrioti see Skanderbeg
Kastrioti, George see Skanderbeg
Gjerji Kastrioti see Skanderbeg
George Castriota see Skanderbeg
slaves
slaves (in Arabic, ‘abd). Islam has never preached the abolition of slavery as a doctrine, but it has endeavored to moderate the institution and mitigate its legal and moral aspects. Spiritually, the slave has the same value as the free man, and the same eternity is in store for his soul. The Qur’an makes the emancipation of slaves a meritorious act. Muslim ethic, expressed in hadith, follows the same line of Qur’anic teaching.
Historically, the major juristic schools of Islam traditionally accepted the institution of slavery. The Islamic prophet Muhammad and many of his companions bought, sold, freed, and captured slaves.
In Islamic law the topic of slavery is covered at great length. The Qur'an (the holy book) and the hadith (the sayings of Muhammad) see slavery as an exceptional condition that can be entered into under certain limited circumstances. Only children of slaves or non-Muslim prisoners of war could become slaves, never a freeborn Muslim. They also consider manumission of a slave to be one of many meritorious deeds available for the expiation of sins. According to Sharia, slaves are considered human beings and possessed of some rights on the basis of their humanity. In addition, a Muslim slave is equal to a Muslim freeman in religious issues and superior to the free non-Muslim.
In practice, slaves played various social and economic roles from Emir to worker. Slaves were widely employed in irrigation, mining, pastoralism and the army. Even some rulers relied on military and administrative slaves to such a degree that they seized power. However, people do not always treat slaves in accordance with Islamic law. In some cases, the situation has been so harsh as to have led to uprisings such as the Zanj Rebellion. However, this was usually the exception rather than the norm, as the vast majority of labor in the medieval Islamic world consisted of free, paid labor. For a variety of reasons, internal growth of the slave population was not enough to fulfill the demand in Muslim society. This resulted in massive importation, which involved enormous suffering and loss of life from the capture and transportation of slaves from non-Muslim lands. In theory, slavery in Islamic law does not have a racial or color component, although this has not always been the case in practice.
The Arab slave trade was most active in West Asia, North Africa and East Africa. By the end of the 19th century, such activity had reached a low ebb. In the early 20th century (post World War I) slavery was gradually outlawed and suppressed in Muslim lands, largely due to pressure exerted by Western nations such as Britain and France. However, slavery claiming the sanction of Islam is documented presently in the African republics of Chad, Mauritania, Niger, Mali and Sudan.
‘abd see slaves
slaves (in Arabic, ‘abd). Islam has never preached the abolition of slavery as a doctrine, but it has endeavored to moderate the institution and mitigate its legal and moral aspects. Spiritually, the slave has the same value as the free man, and the same eternity is in store for his soul. The Qur’an makes the emancipation of slaves a meritorious act. Muslim ethic, expressed in hadith, follows the same line of Qur’anic teaching.
Historically, the major juristic schools of Islam traditionally accepted the institution of slavery. The Islamic prophet Muhammad and many of his companions bought, sold, freed, and captured slaves.
In Islamic law the topic of slavery is covered at great length. The Qur'an (the holy book) and the hadith (the sayings of Muhammad) see slavery as an exceptional condition that can be entered into under certain limited circumstances. Only children of slaves or non-Muslim prisoners of war could become slaves, never a freeborn Muslim. They also consider manumission of a slave to be one of many meritorious deeds available for the expiation of sins. According to Sharia, slaves are considered human beings and possessed of some rights on the basis of their humanity. In addition, a Muslim slave is equal to a Muslim freeman in religious issues and superior to the free non-Muslim.
In practice, slaves played various social and economic roles from Emir to worker. Slaves were widely employed in irrigation, mining, pastoralism and the army. Even some rulers relied on military and administrative slaves to such a degree that they seized power. However, people do not always treat slaves in accordance with Islamic law. In some cases, the situation has been so harsh as to have led to uprisings such as the Zanj Rebellion. However, this was usually the exception rather than the norm, as the vast majority of labor in the medieval Islamic world consisted of free, paid labor. For a variety of reasons, internal growth of the slave population was not enough to fulfill the demand in Muslim society. This resulted in massive importation, which involved enormous suffering and loss of life from the capture and transportation of slaves from non-Muslim lands. In theory, slavery in Islamic law does not have a racial or color component, although this has not always been the case in practice.
The Arab slave trade was most active in West Asia, North Africa and East Africa. By the end of the 19th century, such activity had reached a low ebb. In the early 20th century (post World War I) slavery was gradually outlawed and suppressed in Muslim lands, largely due to pressure exerted by Western nations such as Britain and France. However, slavery claiming the sanction of Islam is documented presently in the African republics of Chad, Mauritania, Niger, Mali and Sudan.
‘abd see slaves
Slavs
Slavs (in Arabic, Saqaliba; in singular form, Saqlab). The word is probably taken from the Greek Sklabenoi, Sklaboi. The Arabs met the Slavs during their first campaign against Constantinople (715-717) and are said to have taken many of them. As early as the seventh century, their red (or reddish) hair and complexion are mentioned, but they were classed with the Turks as descendants of Japhet. The fullest notices of the Slavs in Europe are found in the travels of the Spanish Jew Ibrahim ibn Ya‘qub in 945. From the twelfth century onwards the word gradually disappears from Muslim literature. The Slavs were sometimes introduced into Muslim lands as slaves, as white eunuchs in particular, and special regiments were formed from them by the Fatimids in Egypt and in Muslim Spain.
Slavs are members of the most numerous ethnic and linguistic body of peoples in Europe, residing chiefly in eastern and southeastern Europe but extending also across northern Asia to the Pacific Ocean. Slavic languages belong to the Indo-European family. Customarily, Slavs are subdivided into East Slavs (chiefly Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians), West Slavs (chiefly Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, and Wends, or Sorbs), and South Slavs (chiefly Serbs, Croats, Bosnians, Slovenes, Macedonians, and Montenegrins). Bulgarians, though of mixed origin like the Hungarians, speak a Slavic language and are often designated as South Slavs.
In religion, the Slavs traditionally divided into two main groups: those associated with the Eastern Orthodox Church (Russians, most Ukrainians, most Belarusians, Serbs, and Macedonians) and those associated with the Roman Catholic Church (Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Croats, Slovenes, some Ukrainians, and some Belarusians). The division is further marked by the use of the Cyrillic alphabet by the former (but including all Ukrainians and Belarusians) and the Latin alphabet by the latter. There are also many minority religious groups, such as Muslims, Protestants, and Jews, and in recent times communist governments’ official encouragement of atheism, together with a general trend toward secularism, has eroded membership in the traditional faiths.
Prehistorically, the original habitat of the Slavs was Asia, from which they migrated in the 3rd or 2nd millennium B.C.T. to populate parts of eastern Europe. Subsequently, these European lands of the Slavs were crossed or settled by many peoples forced by economic conditions to migrate. In the middle of the 1st millennium B.C.T., Celtic tribes settled along the upper Oder River, and Germanic tribes settled on the lower Vistula and lower Oder rivers, usually without displacing the Slavs there. Finally, the movement westward of the Germans in the 5th and 6th centuries of the Christian calendar started the great migration of the Slavs, who proceeded in the Germans’ wake westward into the country between the Oder and the Elbe-Saale line, southward into Bohemia, Moravia, Hungary, and the Balkans, and northward along the upper Dnieper River. When the migratory movements had ended, there appeared among the Slavs the first rudiments of state organizations, each headed by a prince with a treasury and defense force, and the beginning of class differentiation.
In the centuries that followed, there developed scarcely any unity among the various Slavic peoples. The cultural and political life of the West Slavs was integrated into the general European pattern. They were influenced largely by philosophical, political, and economic changes in the West, such as feudalism, humanism, the Renaissance, the Reformation, the French Revolution, and the Industrial Revolution. As their lands were invaded by Mongols and Turks, however, the Russians and Balkan Slavs remained for centuries without any close contact with the European community; they evolved a system of bureaucratic autocracy and militarism that tended to retard the development of urban middle classes and to prolong the conditions of serfdom. The state’s supremacy over the individual tended to become more firmly rooted.
A faint kind of Slavic unity sometimes appeared. In the 19th century, Pan-Slavism developed as a movement among intellectuals, scholars, and poets, but it rarely influenced practical politics. The various Slavic nationalities conducted their policies in accordance with what they regarded as their national interests, and these policies were as often bitterly hostile toward other Slavic peoples as they were friendly toward non-Slavs. Even political unions of the 20th century, such as that of Yugoslavia, were not always matched by feelings of ethnic or cultural accord, nor did the sharing of communism after World War II necessarily provide more than a high-level political and economic alliance.
Slavs (in Arabic, Saqaliba; in singular form, Saqlab). The word is probably taken from the Greek Sklabenoi, Sklaboi. The Arabs met the Slavs during their first campaign against Constantinople (715-717) and are said to have taken many of them. As early as the seventh century, their red (or reddish) hair and complexion are mentioned, but they were classed with the Turks as descendants of Japhet. The fullest notices of the Slavs in Europe are found in the travels of the Spanish Jew Ibrahim ibn Ya‘qub in 945. From the twelfth century onwards the word gradually disappears from Muslim literature. The Slavs were sometimes introduced into Muslim lands as slaves, as white eunuchs in particular, and special regiments were formed from them by the Fatimids in Egypt and in Muslim Spain.
Slavs are members of the most numerous ethnic and linguistic body of peoples in Europe, residing chiefly in eastern and southeastern Europe but extending also across northern Asia to the Pacific Ocean. Slavic languages belong to the Indo-European family. Customarily, Slavs are subdivided into East Slavs (chiefly Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians), West Slavs (chiefly Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, and Wends, or Sorbs), and South Slavs (chiefly Serbs, Croats, Bosnians, Slovenes, Macedonians, and Montenegrins). Bulgarians, though of mixed origin like the Hungarians, speak a Slavic language and are often designated as South Slavs.
In religion, the Slavs traditionally divided into two main groups: those associated with the Eastern Orthodox Church (Russians, most Ukrainians, most Belarusians, Serbs, and Macedonians) and those associated with the Roman Catholic Church (Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Croats, Slovenes, some Ukrainians, and some Belarusians). The division is further marked by the use of the Cyrillic alphabet by the former (but including all Ukrainians and Belarusians) and the Latin alphabet by the latter. There are also many minority religious groups, such as Muslims, Protestants, and Jews, and in recent times communist governments’ official encouragement of atheism, together with a general trend toward secularism, has eroded membership in the traditional faiths.
Prehistorically, the original habitat of the Slavs was Asia, from which they migrated in the 3rd or 2nd millennium B.C.T. to populate parts of eastern Europe. Subsequently, these European lands of the Slavs were crossed or settled by many peoples forced by economic conditions to migrate. In the middle of the 1st millennium B.C.T., Celtic tribes settled along the upper Oder River, and Germanic tribes settled on the lower Vistula and lower Oder rivers, usually without displacing the Slavs there. Finally, the movement westward of the Germans in the 5th and 6th centuries of the Christian calendar started the great migration of the Slavs, who proceeded in the Germans’ wake westward into the country between the Oder and the Elbe-Saale line, southward into Bohemia, Moravia, Hungary, and the Balkans, and northward along the upper Dnieper River. When the migratory movements had ended, there appeared among the Slavs the first rudiments of state organizations, each headed by a prince with a treasury and defense force, and the beginning of class differentiation.
In the centuries that followed, there developed scarcely any unity among the various Slavic peoples. The cultural and political life of the West Slavs was integrated into the general European pattern. They were influenced largely by philosophical, political, and economic changes in the West, such as feudalism, humanism, the Renaissance, the Reformation, the French Revolution, and the Industrial Revolution. As their lands were invaded by Mongols and Turks, however, the Russians and Balkan Slavs remained for centuries without any close contact with the European community; they evolved a system of bureaucratic autocracy and militarism that tended to retard the development of urban middle classes and to prolong the conditions of serfdom. The state’s supremacy over the individual tended to become more firmly rooted.
A faint kind of Slavic unity sometimes appeared. In the 19th century, Pan-Slavism developed as a movement among intellectuals, scholars, and poets, but it rarely influenced practical politics. The various Slavic nationalities conducted their policies in accordance with what they regarded as their national interests, and these policies were as often bitterly hostile toward other Slavic peoples as they were friendly toward non-Slavs. Even political unions of the 20th century, such as that of Yugoslavia, were not always matched by feelings of ethnic or cultural accord, nor did the sharing of communism after World War II necessarily provide more than a high-level political and economic alliance.
Slawi, Shihab al-Din Abu’l-‘Abbas al-
Slawi, Shihab al-Din Abu’l-‘Abbas al-(Shihab al-Din Abu’l-‘Abbas al-Slawi) (al-Salawi) (Ahmad ibn Khalid al-Nasiri) (Abu al-Abbas Ahmad ibn Khalid al-Nasiri al-Salawi) (1834/1835-1897). Moroccan historian from Sale. Among other works he wrote a survey of the heresies and schisms in Islam and a monograph on the Nasiriyya brotherhood to which he himself belonged. His reputation is founded on his general history of Morocco.
Abu al-Abbas Ahmad ibn Khalid al-Nasiri al-Salawi was born in Salé and is considered to be the greatest Moroccan historian of the 19th century. He was a prominent scholar and a member of the family that founded the Nasiriyya Sufi order in the 17th century. He wrote an important multi-volume history of Morocco: Kitab al-Istiqsa li-Akhbar duwwal al-Maghrib al-Aqsa. The work is a general history of Morocco and the Islamic west from the Islamic conquest to the end of the 19th century. He died in 1897 shortly after having put the finishing touches to his chronicle.
Shihab al-Din Abu'l-'Abbas al-Slawi seeSlawi, Shihab al-Din Abu’l-‘Abbas al-
Salawi, al- see Slawi, Shihab al-Din Abu’l-‘Abbas al-
Ahmad ibn Khalid al-Nasiri see Slawi, Shihab al-Din Abu’l-‘Abbas al-
Abu al-Abbas Ahmad ibn Khalid al-Nasiri al-Salawi, see Slawi, Shihab al-Din Abu’l-‘Abbas al-
Slawi, Shihab al-Din Abu’l-‘Abbas al-(Shihab al-Din Abu’l-‘Abbas al-Slawi) (al-Salawi) (Ahmad ibn Khalid al-Nasiri) (Abu al-Abbas Ahmad ibn Khalid al-Nasiri al-Salawi) (1834/1835-1897). Moroccan historian from Sale. Among other works he wrote a survey of the heresies and schisms in Islam and a monograph on the Nasiriyya brotherhood to which he himself belonged. His reputation is founded on his general history of Morocco.
Abu al-Abbas Ahmad ibn Khalid al-Nasiri al-Salawi was born in Salé and is considered to be the greatest Moroccan historian of the 19th century. He was a prominent scholar and a member of the family that founded the Nasiriyya Sufi order in the 17th century. He wrote an important multi-volume history of Morocco: Kitab al-Istiqsa li-Akhbar duwwal al-Maghrib al-Aqsa. The work is a general history of Morocco and the Islamic west from the Islamic conquest to the end of the 19th century. He died in 1897 shortly after having put the finishing touches to his chronicle.
Shihab al-Din Abu'l-'Abbas al-Slawi seeSlawi, Shihab al-Din Abu’l-‘Abbas al-
Salawi, al- see Slawi, Shihab al-Din Abu’l-‘Abbas al-
Ahmad ibn Khalid al-Nasiri see Slawi, Shihab al-Din Abu’l-‘Abbas al-
Abu al-Abbas Ahmad ibn Khalid al-Nasiri al-Salawi, see Slawi, Shihab al-Din Abu’l-‘Abbas al-
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