Fu’ad I
Fu’ad I (Fuad I) (March 26, 1868 – April 28, 1936). Sultan (1917-1922) and later King (1922-1936) of Egypt and Sudan, Sovereign of Nubia, Kordofan, and Darfur. The ninth ruler of Egypt and Sudan from the Muhammad Ali Dynasty, he became Sultan of Egypt and Sudan in 1917, succeeding his elder brother Sultan Husayn Kamil. He substituted the title of King for Sultan when the United Kingdom formally recognized Egyptian independence in 1922.
The son of Isma‘il Pasha, Fu’ad was born on March 26, 1868, in Cairo and was originally named Ahmed Fu’ad Pasha. He was educated in Italy during the 1880s. Fu’ad was a general in the Egyptian army from 1892 until 1895. In 1908, he played an important role in the founding of the Egyptian University (now named Cairo University) at Giza, serving for a time as its president. Fu’ad succeeded his brother, Hussein Kamil (1853-1917), to the sultanate.
In 1919, the British initiated the drafting of a treaty to ensure the independence of Egypt. Over the next few years, many disagreements surfaced through public debates concerning the subject matter of the talks with Great Britain. During this period, the Wafd party was the strongest group in Egyptian society.
Fu’ad became king of Egypt in 1922, upon the nominal termination of the British protectorate. Fu’ad introduced an Egyptian constitution the next year. Although opposed to British domination, Fu’ad was an adversary of the powerful Wafd, or Nationalist party, with which he waged a struggle for power throughout his reign, succeeding temporarily in imposing his personal rule on the country by dissolution of Parliament in 1928-29 and from 1930 to 1935.
Fu’ad died on April 28, 1936, in Cairo. He was succeeded by his son, Faruk I.
Fu’ad’s reign was not one of stability. His strongest opponent was the very popular Wafd party, with its leader Saad Zaghlul. However, while fighting against very popular political parties, Fu’ad succeeded in remaining fairly popular among the Egyptians. Indeed, during his reign, Fu’ad founded schools, encouraged the new university at Giza (Gizeh) and the reform of al-Azhar, and promoted numerous cultural institutions.
Ahmed Fu’ad Pasha see Fu’ad I
Fuad I see Fu’ad I
Fu’ad I (Fuad I) (March 26, 1868 – April 28, 1936). Sultan (1917-1922) and later King (1922-1936) of Egypt and Sudan, Sovereign of Nubia, Kordofan, and Darfur. The ninth ruler of Egypt and Sudan from the Muhammad Ali Dynasty, he became Sultan of Egypt and Sudan in 1917, succeeding his elder brother Sultan Husayn Kamil. He substituted the title of King for Sultan when the United Kingdom formally recognized Egyptian independence in 1922.
The son of Isma‘il Pasha, Fu’ad was born on March 26, 1868, in Cairo and was originally named Ahmed Fu’ad Pasha. He was educated in Italy during the 1880s. Fu’ad was a general in the Egyptian army from 1892 until 1895. In 1908, he played an important role in the founding of the Egyptian University (now named Cairo University) at Giza, serving for a time as its president. Fu’ad succeeded his brother, Hussein Kamil (1853-1917), to the sultanate.
In 1919, the British initiated the drafting of a treaty to ensure the independence of Egypt. Over the next few years, many disagreements surfaced through public debates concerning the subject matter of the talks with Great Britain. During this period, the Wafd party was the strongest group in Egyptian society.
Fu’ad became king of Egypt in 1922, upon the nominal termination of the British protectorate. Fu’ad introduced an Egyptian constitution the next year. Although opposed to British domination, Fu’ad was an adversary of the powerful Wafd, or Nationalist party, with which he waged a struggle for power throughout his reign, succeeding temporarily in imposing his personal rule on the country by dissolution of Parliament in 1928-29 and from 1930 to 1935.
Fu’ad died on April 28, 1936, in Cairo. He was succeeded by his son, Faruk I.
Fu’ad’s reign was not one of stability. His strongest opponent was the very popular Wafd party, with its leader Saad Zaghlul. However, while fighting against very popular political parties, Fu’ad succeeded in remaining fairly popular among the Egyptians. Indeed, during his reign, Fu’ad founded schools, encouraged the new university at Giza (Gizeh) and the reform of al-Azhar, and promoted numerous cultural institutions.
Ahmed Fu’ad Pasha see Fu’ad I
Fuad I see Fu’ad I
Fu’ad Pasha
Fu’ad Pasha (Keceji-zade Fu’ad Pasha) (Fuat Pasha) (Kececizade Mehmet Fuat Pasha) (1815-1869). Five times the Ottoman Foreign Minister and twice Grand Vizier. He was a convinced westernizer, and tried to preserve the Ottoman empire through diplomacy and reform.
Fu'ad Pasha was an Ottoman statesman known for his leadership during the Crimean War and in the Tanzimat reforms within the Ottoman Empire.
Fu'ad Pasha was a “Europeanized” man who was fluent in French and was able to negotiate on the same level as his European counterparts. He became the first secretary of the Turkish embassy in London in 1840. During 1848 he was employed on special missions in the principalities and at St. Petersburg. In 1851, he was sent to Egypt as a special commissioner. In that year, he became minister for foreign affairs, a post to which he was reappointed on four subsequent occasions and which he held at the time of his death. During the Crimean War, he commanded the troops on the Greek frontier and distinguished himself by his bravery. He was the Turkish delegate at the Treaty of Paris in 1856; was charged with a mission to Syria in 1860; served as grand vizier two times; and minister of war. He accompanied the sultan Abdülaziz on his journey to Egypt and Europe.
Fu'ad Pasha was an important reformer during the Tanzimat period. He (along with officials such as Ali Pasha, Mustafa Reshid Paşa and Ahmet Mithat Paşa) was an official that was dedicated to the implementation of all of the reforms that came along with the program. He had hoped that the Tanzimat reforms would find salvation for the empire by creating among its peoples the bond of equal citizenship based on Ottoman nationality, the obstacles they faced were too great and the time too late. He realized the importance of change and saw it as a necessary evolution that the Ottoman Empire needed to make. However, in his efforts to create an image of a modern Ottoman Empire, Fu'ad Pasha believed that by giving non-Muslim subjects of the Empire equal rights via the Millet system would dull their nationalist and separatist tendencies. He, along with the other three reformers, believed that in order to save the empire, a sense of “Ottomanism” needed to be created.
Due to his success at executing the changes of the Tanzimat program, Fu'ad Pasha was sent to Syria during 1860 to enforce Ottoman law after the outbreak of war. He arrived in Beirut on July 17, 1860, armed with extreme power granted to him by the Sultan. His goal was to protect the Ottoman power over the region as well as keep out the European influence. For example, in order to send a message to the anti-Ottoman forces, he had some Damascus notables hanged for their lack of regard for the Ottoman commitment to a multi-ethnic state. Fu'ad Pasha saw the events of 1860 in Syria as the converse to the idea of modernism as exhibited by Europe. He chaired the Beirut Commission in 1860 that included Britain, France, Russia, Austria and Prussia.
In an attempt to centralize and stabilize authority in Syria, while maintaining British interests, a British representative suggested Fu'ad Pasha as the leader for the region of Syria. Fu'ad Pasha, who was “Europeanized”, seemed to be aligned with Western ideals that the British wanted to preserve in the Middle East. In the area of Mount Lebanon and Syria, Fu'ad Pasha saw the necessity for authority and modernity under a central ruling body. He sought to rid the area of old tribal rule and put the area under Ottoman authority. Reforms created a more unified state that was under the control and authority of the Ottoman Sultan. Fu'ad Pasha’s work of centralizing Ottoman control in Syria was an example of Ottoman nationalism that encouraged patriotism in Ottoman territories but also strengthened the hierarchical relationship of the “father figure” of Sultan and his relationship with the citizens.
Fu'ad Pasha retired due to ill health to Nice, France, where he died in 1869.
Keceji-zade Fu’ad Pasha see Fu’ad Pasha
Fuat Pasha see Fu’ad Pasha
Kececizade Mehmet Fuat Pasha see Fu’ad Pasha
Fu’ad Pasha (Keceji-zade Fu’ad Pasha) (Fuat Pasha) (Kececizade Mehmet Fuat Pasha) (1815-1869). Five times the Ottoman Foreign Minister and twice Grand Vizier. He was a convinced westernizer, and tried to preserve the Ottoman empire through diplomacy and reform.
Fu'ad Pasha was an Ottoman statesman known for his leadership during the Crimean War and in the Tanzimat reforms within the Ottoman Empire.
Fu'ad Pasha was a “Europeanized” man who was fluent in French and was able to negotiate on the same level as his European counterparts. He became the first secretary of the Turkish embassy in London in 1840. During 1848 he was employed on special missions in the principalities and at St. Petersburg. In 1851, he was sent to Egypt as a special commissioner. In that year, he became minister for foreign affairs, a post to which he was reappointed on four subsequent occasions and which he held at the time of his death. During the Crimean War, he commanded the troops on the Greek frontier and distinguished himself by his bravery. He was the Turkish delegate at the Treaty of Paris in 1856; was charged with a mission to Syria in 1860; served as grand vizier two times; and minister of war. He accompanied the sultan Abdülaziz on his journey to Egypt and Europe.
Fu'ad Pasha was an important reformer during the Tanzimat period. He (along with officials such as Ali Pasha, Mustafa Reshid Paşa and Ahmet Mithat Paşa) was an official that was dedicated to the implementation of all of the reforms that came along with the program. He had hoped that the Tanzimat reforms would find salvation for the empire by creating among its peoples the bond of equal citizenship based on Ottoman nationality, the obstacles they faced were too great and the time too late. He realized the importance of change and saw it as a necessary evolution that the Ottoman Empire needed to make. However, in his efforts to create an image of a modern Ottoman Empire, Fu'ad Pasha believed that by giving non-Muslim subjects of the Empire equal rights via the Millet system would dull their nationalist and separatist tendencies. He, along with the other three reformers, believed that in order to save the empire, a sense of “Ottomanism” needed to be created.
Due to his success at executing the changes of the Tanzimat program, Fu'ad Pasha was sent to Syria during 1860 to enforce Ottoman law after the outbreak of war. He arrived in Beirut on July 17, 1860, armed with extreme power granted to him by the Sultan. His goal was to protect the Ottoman power over the region as well as keep out the European influence. For example, in order to send a message to the anti-Ottoman forces, he had some Damascus notables hanged for their lack of regard for the Ottoman commitment to a multi-ethnic state. Fu'ad Pasha saw the events of 1860 in Syria as the converse to the idea of modernism as exhibited by Europe. He chaired the Beirut Commission in 1860 that included Britain, France, Russia, Austria and Prussia.
In an attempt to centralize and stabilize authority in Syria, while maintaining British interests, a British representative suggested Fu'ad Pasha as the leader for the region of Syria. Fu'ad Pasha, who was “Europeanized”, seemed to be aligned with Western ideals that the British wanted to preserve in the Middle East. In the area of Mount Lebanon and Syria, Fu'ad Pasha saw the necessity for authority and modernity under a central ruling body. He sought to rid the area of old tribal rule and put the area under Ottoman authority. Reforms created a more unified state that was under the control and authority of the Ottoman Sultan. Fu'ad Pasha’s work of centralizing Ottoman control in Syria was an example of Ottoman nationalism that encouraged patriotism in Ottoman territories but also strengthened the hierarchical relationship of the “father figure” of Sultan and his relationship with the citizens.
Fu'ad Pasha retired due to ill health to Nice, France, where he died in 1869.
Keceji-zade Fu’ad Pasha see Fu’ad Pasha
Fuat Pasha see Fu’ad Pasha
Kececizade Mehmet Fuat Pasha see Fu’ad Pasha
Fuduli
Fuduli (Fuzuli) (Muhammad bin Suleyman) (c.1483-1556). One of the most illustrious authors of classical Turkish literature. He was a Shi‘a, and never left his native Iraq. He also wrote in Arabic and Persian. In his literary Azeri, he treats the themes of love, suffering, the impermanence of this world, the emptiness of worldly favors and riches, and the theme of death.
Fuduli was the pen name of the Azerbaijani poet, writer and thinker Muhammad bin Suleyman. Often considered one of the greatest contributors to the Dîvân tradition of Azerbaijani literature, Fudulî in fact wrote his collected poems (dîvân) in three different languages: Azerbaijani Turkic, Persian, and Arabic. Although his Turkish works are written in Azerbaijani, he was well-versed in both the Ottoman and the Chagatai Turkic literary traditions as well. He was also well versed in mathematics and astronomy.
Fudulî is generally believed to have been born around 1483 in what is now Iraq, when the area was under Ak Koyunlu Turkmen rule. He was probably born in either Karbalā’ or an-Najaf. He is believed to belong to the Bayat tribe, one of the Turkic Oghuz tribes which were related to the Ottoman Kayı clan and were scattered throughout the Middle East, Anatolia, and the Caucasus at the time. Though Fudulî's ancestors had been of nomadic origin, the family had long since settled in towns.
Fudulî appears to have received a good education, first under his father—who was a mufti in the city of Al Hillah—and then under a teacher named Rahmetullah. It was during this time that he learned the Persian and Arabic languages in addition to his native Azerbaijani. Fudulî showed poetic promise early in life, composing sometime around his twentieth year the important mesnevî entitled Beng ü Bâde (Hashish and Wine), in which he compared the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid II to hashish and the Safavid Shah Ismail I to wine, much to the advantage of the latter.
In 1534, the Ottoman sultan Süleymân I conquered the region of Baghdad, where Fudulî lived, from the Safavid Empire. Fudulî then had the chance to become a court poet under the Ottoman patronage system, and he composed a number of kasîdes, or panegyric poems, in praise of the sultan and members of his retinue, and as a result, he was granted a stipend. However, owing to the complexities of the Ottoman bureaucracy, this stipend never materialized. In one of his best-known works, the letter Şikâyetnâme (Complaint), Fuzûlî spoke out against such bureaucracy and its attendant corruption.
Though his poetry flourished during his time among the Ottomans, the loss of his stipend meant that, materially speaking, Fudulî never became secure. In fact, most of his life was spent attending upon the Shi`ite Tomb of `Alî in the city of an-Najaf, south of Baghdad. He died during a plague outbreak in 1556, in Karbalā’, either of the plague itself or of cholera.
Fuzuli see Fuduli
Muhammad bin Suleyman see Fuduli
Fuduli (Fuzuli) (Muhammad bin Suleyman) (c.1483-1556). One of the most illustrious authors of classical Turkish literature. He was a Shi‘a, and never left his native Iraq. He also wrote in Arabic and Persian. In his literary Azeri, he treats the themes of love, suffering, the impermanence of this world, the emptiness of worldly favors and riches, and the theme of death.
Fuduli was the pen name of the Azerbaijani poet, writer and thinker Muhammad bin Suleyman. Often considered one of the greatest contributors to the Dîvân tradition of Azerbaijani literature, Fudulî in fact wrote his collected poems (dîvân) in three different languages: Azerbaijani Turkic, Persian, and Arabic. Although his Turkish works are written in Azerbaijani, he was well-versed in both the Ottoman and the Chagatai Turkic literary traditions as well. He was also well versed in mathematics and astronomy.
Fudulî is generally believed to have been born around 1483 in what is now Iraq, when the area was under Ak Koyunlu Turkmen rule. He was probably born in either Karbalā’ or an-Najaf. He is believed to belong to the Bayat tribe, one of the Turkic Oghuz tribes which were related to the Ottoman Kayı clan and were scattered throughout the Middle East, Anatolia, and the Caucasus at the time. Though Fudulî's ancestors had been of nomadic origin, the family had long since settled in towns.
Fudulî appears to have received a good education, first under his father—who was a mufti in the city of Al Hillah—and then under a teacher named Rahmetullah. It was during this time that he learned the Persian and Arabic languages in addition to his native Azerbaijani. Fudulî showed poetic promise early in life, composing sometime around his twentieth year the important mesnevî entitled Beng ü Bâde (Hashish and Wine), in which he compared the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid II to hashish and the Safavid Shah Ismail I to wine, much to the advantage of the latter.
In 1534, the Ottoman sultan Süleymân I conquered the region of Baghdad, where Fudulî lived, from the Safavid Empire. Fudulî then had the chance to become a court poet under the Ottoman patronage system, and he composed a number of kasîdes, or panegyric poems, in praise of the sultan and members of his retinue, and as a result, he was granted a stipend. However, owing to the complexities of the Ottoman bureaucracy, this stipend never materialized. In one of his best-known works, the letter Şikâyetnâme (Complaint), Fuzûlî spoke out against such bureaucracy and its attendant corruption.
Though his poetry flourished during his time among the Ottomans, the loss of his stipend meant that, materially speaking, Fudulî never became secure. In fact, most of his life was spent attending upon the Shi`ite Tomb of `Alî in the city of an-Najaf, south of Baghdad. He died during a plague outbreak in 1556, in Karbalā’, either of the plague itself or of cholera.
Fuzuli see Fuduli
Muhammad bin Suleyman see Fuduli
Fula
Fula (Fulani) (Fulbe). Originally a non-Negroid ethnic group, exclusively pastoral, which settled in West Africa. In the fourteenth century, these pagan herders were associated with the native people of the lower Senegal River. They later established themselves upstream along the Niger River. They converted to Islam. Many Fulani were brought to northeast Brazil during the colonial period. These Sudanese slaves had straight hair, light-skinned faces, prominent noses, and physical traits nearer to those of the Europeans. They were well educated, versed in cattle raising and pasturing herds, and were skillful iron workers. Some were school teachers, priests, and political leaders. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, these slaves led various revolts against the planters and the government.
Fula or Fulani or Fulbe (the latter being an Anglicisation of the word in their language, Fulɓe) are an ethnic group of people spread over many countries, predominantly in West Africa, but found also in Central Africa and Sudanese North Africa. The countries in Africa where they are present include Mauritania, Senegal, Guinea, The Gambia, Mali, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Benin, Burkina Faso, Guinea Bissau, Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Niger, Chad, Togo, the Central African Republic, Ghana, Liberia, and as far as Sudan in the east. Fula people form a minority in every country they live, but in Guinea they represent a plurality of the population (40%).
The Fulani of West Africa form the largest nomadic society in the world. Their herds of cattle and sheep are the major single source of meat for hundreds of villages, towns and cities from Wadai, beyond the eastern shore of Lake Chad, to the Atlantic coast of Senegal. The fact that they live in many countries, occupy rugged countryside and are highly mobile means that their numbers are not precisely known. However, it is estimated that over ninety percent of the Fulani are Muslims. The Fulani call themselves Fulbe. English and Hausa speakers call them Fulani. Hausa may also refer to them as Filani and Hilani. They are called Peul by French speakers, Fula by the Manding, and Fulata by the Kanuri. Their language is Pular in Senegal and Fulfulde in Nigeria and most areas. It is of the West Atlantic subfamily of the Niger-Congo group, which also includes Wolof, Serer and Temne.
The Fulani are a Muslim pastoral people, living between Lake Chad and the Atlantic Ocean. Their origin has been the subject of dispute. They are first mentioned in the fifteenth century by al-Maqrizi and have played an important role in the establishment of various African kingdoms.
Today, the Fulani are a cattle-herding people of Africa numbering about 7 million and dispersed in varying, often sizable, concentrations throughout the grassland areas of West Africa from Senegal and Guinea to Nigeria, Cameroon, and Chad. The dark-skinned Fulani have Caucasoid racial features. Their language is closely related to the languages of Senegal, suggesting the possibility that their ancestors migrated from Southwest Asia through North Africa to Senegal. By the tenth century, they had adopted a new language in Senegal and begun to spread eastward, reaching present day Nigeria by about the fourteenth century.
Although most Fulani remained cattle herders through the centuries, many settled down and turned to politics, successfully establishing a series of kingdoms between Senegal and Cameroon by the nineteenth century, and conquering the Hausa by about 1810. The Fulani held much of northern Nigeria in subjugation until defeated by the British in 1906. The religious beliefs of a large percentage of the cattle-herding Fulani are animistic, although many of the politically oriented Fulani are Muslim and have often justified their conquests on religious grounds.
Fulani see Fula
Fulbe see Fula
Filani see Fula
Hilani see Fula
Peul see Fula
Fulata see Fula
Fula (Fulani) (Fulbe). Originally a non-Negroid ethnic group, exclusively pastoral, which settled in West Africa. In the fourteenth century, these pagan herders were associated with the native people of the lower Senegal River. They later established themselves upstream along the Niger River. They converted to Islam. Many Fulani were brought to northeast Brazil during the colonial period. These Sudanese slaves had straight hair, light-skinned faces, prominent noses, and physical traits nearer to those of the Europeans. They were well educated, versed in cattle raising and pasturing herds, and were skillful iron workers. Some were school teachers, priests, and political leaders. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, these slaves led various revolts against the planters and the government.
Fula or Fulani or Fulbe (the latter being an Anglicisation of the word in their language, Fulɓe) are an ethnic group of people spread over many countries, predominantly in West Africa, but found also in Central Africa and Sudanese North Africa. The countries in Africa where they are present include Mauritania, Senegal, Guinea, The Gambia, Mali, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Benin, Burkina Faso, Guinea Bissau, Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Niger, Chad, Togo, the Central African Republic, Ghana, Liberia, and as far as Sudan in the east. Fula people form a minority in every country they live, but in Guinea they represent a plurality of the population (40%).
The Fulani of West Africa form the largest nomadic society in the world. Their herds of cattle and sheep are the major single source of meat for hundreds of villages, towns and cities from Wadai, beyond the eastern shore of Lake Chad, to the Atlantic coast of Senegal. The fact that they live in many countries, occupy rugged countryside and are highly mobile means that their numbers are not precisely known. However, it is estimated that over ninety percent of the Fulani are Muslims. The Fulani call themselves Fulbe. English and Hausa speakers call them Fulani. Hausa may also refer to them as Filani and Hilani. They are called Peul by French speakers, Fula by the Manding, and Fulata by the Kanuri. Their language is Pular in Senegal and Fulfulde in Nigeria and most areas. It is of the West Atlantic subfamily of the Niger-Congo group, which also includes Wolof, Serer and Temne.
The Fulani are a Muslim pastoral people, living between Lake Chad and the Atlantic Ocean. Their origin has been the subject of dispute. They are first mentioned in the fifteenth century by al-Maqrizi and have played an important role in the establishment of various African kingdoms.
Today, the Fulani are a cattle-herding people of Africa numbering about 7 million and dispersed in varying, often sizable, concentrations throughout the grassland areas of West Africa from Senegal and Guinea to Nigeria, Cameroon, and Chad. The dark-skinned Fulani have Caucasoid racial features. Their language is closely related to the languages of Senegal, suggesting the possibility that their ancestors migrated from Southwest Asia through North Africa to Senegal. By the tenth century, they had adopted a new language in Senegal and begun to spread eastward, reaching present day Nigeria by about the fourteenth century.
Although most Fulani remained cattle herders through the centuries, many settled down and turned to politics, successfully establishing a series of kingdoms between Senegal and Cameroon by the nineteenth century, and conquering the Hausa by about 1810. The Fulani held much of northern Nigeria in subjugation until defeated by the British in 1906. The religious beliefs of a large percentage of the cattle-herding Fulani are animistic, although many of the politically oriented Fulani are Muslim and have often justified their conquests on religious grounds.
Fulani see Fula
Fulbe see Fula
Filani see Fula
Hilani see Fula
Peul see Fula
Fulata see Fula
Fulani
Fulani (Fulbe; in French, Peuls or Peuhl). See Fula.
Fulbe see Fulani
Peuls see Fulani
Peuhl see Fulani
Filani see Fulani
Hilani see Fulani
Fulata see Fulani
Fulani (Fulbe; in French, Peuls or Peuhl). See Fula.
Fulbe see Fulani
Peuls see Fulani
Peuhl see Fulani
Filani see Fulani
Hilani see Fulani
Fulata see Fulani
Fundamentalists
Fundamentalists. Those who profess an activist affirmation of a particular faith that defines that faith in an absolutist and literalist manner. Fundamentalists are generally engaged in an effort to purify or reform the beliefs and practices of adherents in accord with the self-defined fundamentals of the faith. Fundamentalist interpretation entails a self-conscious effort to avoid compromise, adaptation, or critical reinterpretation of the basic texts and sources of belief. Fundamentalists practice fundamentalism which is a distinctive way of defining and implementing a particular worldview, and fundamentalisms are most frequently presented as styles of religious experience within broader religious traditions.
In the Christian faith, fundamentalists are members of a conservative branch of Christianity which seeks to preserve the core of the religion and its impact on society. Fundamentalists have their origin in the United States, but have reached Europe in modern times. Fundamentalists have one major difference from traditional conservative Christians: fundamentalists define themselves out of a sense of estrangement from society – a society which fundamentalists believe has lost moral values. A traditional conservative Christian does not generally involve such a hard judgment of society. Fundamentalism has had little influence in Southwest Asia and North Africa, as the Christian societies were always minority groups and have not been in a position to mould the social structures outside their small communities. Muslim fundamentalists are misnamed. The correct term would be Islamists.
Originally, fundamentalism was the name applied to a specific Christian experience that emerged as a response to the development of Christian “modernism” in the nineteenth century. While modernism elicited reaction in many areas, it was most vehement in the United States. Between 1909 and 1915, a group of American theologians wrote and published a series of booklets called The Fundamentals: A Testimony to the Truth, in which they defined what they believed to be the absolutely fundamental doctrines of Christianity. The core of these doctrines was the literal inerrancy of the Bible in all its statements and affirmations. During the debates of the 1920s, the supporters of this position came to be called Fundamentalists.
For many years, the term “fundamentalism” was applied almost exclusively to this particular Christian tradition. By the 1970s, as scholars and the general public became increasingly aware of the resurgence of religion in many different societies, the term began to be applied to movements of religious revival in a wide variety of contexts. People spoke of Hindu and Jewish fundamentalism and, in the context of the ideological debates of the 1990s, it was even possible for a major scholar such as Ernest Gellner to speak of “Enlightenment Secular Fundamentalism” when describing the position that both rejected relativism and denied the possibility of revelation. When applied to non-Christians, the term most denoted individuals and movements in the Islamic resurgence of the final quarter of the twentieth century. By the 1990s the phrase “Muslim fundamentalism” (or “Islamic fundamentalism”) was widely used in both scholarly and journalistic literature.
The application of the term “fundamentalism” to Muslims is controversial. Much of the debate starts from the pejorative implications of the term, even when used to describe Christians. It is said by some that the term has connotations of ignorance and backwardness and thus is insulting to movements of legitimate Islamic revival. Others have argued that there is no exactly cognate term in Arabic or other major languages of Muslims, and that this indicates that there is no cognate phenomenon in Muslim societies to which the term might apply.
Despite this, there is general recognition that activist movements of Muslim revival are increasingly important and reference must be made to them. Among the many terms used for this purpose are Islamism, integrism, neo-normative Islam, neo-traditional Islam, Islamic revivalism, and Islamic nativism. However, “fundamentalism” remains the most commonly utilized identification of the various revivalist impulses among Muslims. More technically accurate terms and neologisms have not gained wide acceptance.
The description and analysis of Islamic fundamentalism in the modern era gives rise to many debates. Among the most important of these is whether Islamic fundamentalism is a distinctively modern phenomenon. Some scholars argue that throughout Islamic history it is possible to see activist movements advocating a return to the pristine fundamentals of the faith. From this perspective, the Hanbali tradition, especially as defined by Ibn Taymiyah in the fourteenth century, and reformers in South Asia such as Ahmad Sirhindi (d. 1625), and possibly even early Islamic radicals like the Khariji sect, represent pre-modern expressions of a fundamentalist style of Islamic affirmation. In this view, the fundamentalist movements of the eighteenth century in many parts of the Islamic world, most notably the Wahhabi movement in the Arabian Peninsula and jihad efforts organized by Sufi tariqahs in Southeast Asia, West Africa, and elsewhere provide an important foundation for Islamic fundamentalism in the modern era.
In contrast, other scholars argue that fundamentalisms are distinctively the products of the modern era, even though they may have some historical antecedents. In this view, the conditions of modernity are unique, and fundamentalisms are distinctive responses to the religious challenges of modernity. The major examples of Islamic fundamentalist movements are, from this perspective, not the traditionalist movements or nativist revolts of the nineteenth century nor the puritanical holy warriors of pre-modern times. They are those movements – for example, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, that developed in the twentieth century and became most visible in the Islamic resurgence of the last quarter of that century.
Among Muslims there is also a broad spectrum both in the use of the term “fundamentalism” and in evaluation of the phenomenon. In the nineteenth century most Muslims were aware of the power of Western societies and the relative weakness of Muslim communities. One of the major themes of Muslim history in the modern era is the interaction of Muslims with the West and the efforts to revive and/or reform the world of Islam. The first modern response was to adapt to the new world conditions and utilize Western models in reforming Muslim societies. By the second half of the twentieth century, it became clear that the results of these reform programs were not satisfactory, and new, more revolutionary efforts were undertaken. Among these efforts were the major Islamic fundamentalist movements, which adopt positions rejecting the simple copying of Western methods and affirming the comprehensive and effective nature of the Islamic message.
In the 1970s, most Muslim analysts rejected the term “fundamentalism” as an identifying label for the movements of Islamic affirmation. By the 1990s, however, Muslim critics of fundamentalism began to use the term in political and scholarly debates, and some supporters also accepted the term, recognizing its wide use and visibility. Writers in Arabic by the 1980s began to use the term usuliyah, an Arabic neologism that is a direct translation of “fundamentalism” based on usul, the Arabic word for “fundamentals.” In this way, “fundamentalism” became a part of the vocabulary of the Islamic resurgence itself as well as of the study of that resurgence.
In the twenty-first century of the Christian calendar, Islamic fundamentalism's push for Sharia and an Islamic State has come into conflict with conceptions of the secular, democratic state, such as the internationally supported Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Among human rights disputed by fundamentalist Muslims are:
* Freedom from religious police
* Equality issues between men and women
* Separation of religion and state;
* Freedom of speech
* Freedom of religion
Islamists see Fundamentalists.
Fundamentalists. Those who profess an activist affirmation of a particular faith that defines that faith in an absolutist and literalist manner. Fundamentalists are generally engaged in an effort to purify or reform the beliefs and practices of adherents in accord with the self-defined fundamentals of the faith. Fundamentalist interpretation entails a self-conscious effort to avoid compromise, adaptation, or critical reinterpretation of the basic texts and sources of belief. Fundamentalists practice fundamentalism which is a distinctive way of defining and implementing a particular worldview, and fundamentalisms are most frequently presented as styles of religious experience within broader religious traditions.
In the Christian faith, fundamentalists are members of a conservative branch of Christianity which seeks to preserve the core of the religion and its impact on society. Fundamentalists have their origin in the United States, but have reached Europe in modern times. Fundamentalists have one major difference from traditional conservative Christians: fundamentalists define themselves out of a sense of estrangement from society – a society which fundamentalists believe has lost moral values. A traditional conservative Christian does not generally involve such a hard judgment of society. Fundamentalism has had little influence in Southwest Asia and North Africa, as the Christian societies were always minority groups and have not been in a position to mould the social structures outside their small communities. Muslim fundamentalists are misnamed. The correct term would be Islamists.
Originally, fundamentalism was the name applied to a specific Christian experience that emerged as a response to the development of Christian “modernism” in the nineteenth century. While modernism elicited reaction in many areas, it was most vehement in the United States. Between 1909 and 1915, a group of American theologians wrote and published a series of booklets called The Fundamentals: A Testimony to the Truth, in which they defined what they believed to be the absolutely fundamental doctrines of Christianity. The core of these doctrines was the literal inerrancy of the Bible in all its statements and affirmations. During the debates of the 1920s, the supporters of this position came to be called Fundamentalists.
For many years, the term “fundamentalism” was applied almost exclusively to this particular Christian tradition. By the 1970s, as scholars and the general public became increasingly aware of the resurgence of religion in many different societies, the term began to be applied to movements of religious revival in a wide variety of contexts. People spoke of Hindu and Jewish fundamentalism and, in the context of the ideological debates of the 1990s, it was even possible for a major scholar such as Ernest Gellner to speak of “Enlightenment Secular Fundamentalism” when describing the position that both rejected relativism and denied the possibility of revelation. When applied to non-Christians, the term most denoted individuals and movements in the Islamic resurgence of the final quarter of the twentieth century. By the 1990s the phrase “Muslim fundamentalism” (or “Islamic fundamentalism”) was widely used in both scholarly and journalistic literature.
The application of the term “fundamentalism” to Muslims is controversial. Much of the debate starts from the pejorative implications of the term, even when used to describe Christians. It is said by some that the term has connotations of ignorance and backwardness and thus is insulting to movements of legitimate Islamic revival. Others have argued that there is no exactly cognate term in Arabic or other major languages of Muslims, and that this indicates that there is no cognate phenomenon in Muslim societies to which the term might apply.
Despite this, there is general recognition that activist movements of Muslim revival are increasingly important and reference must be made to them. Among the many terms used for this purpose are Islamism, integrism, neo-normative Islam, neo-traditional Islam, Islamic revivalism, and Islamic nativism. However, “fundamentalism” remains the most commonly utilized identification of the various revivalist impulses among Muslims. More technically accurate terms and neologisms have not gained wide acceptance.
The description and analysis of Islamic fundamentalism in the modern era gives rise to many debates. Among the most important of these is whether Islamic fundamentalism is a distinctively modern phenomenon. Some scholars argue that throughout Islamic history it is possible to see activist movements advocating a return to the pristine fundamentals of the faith. From this perspective, the Hanbali tradition, especially as defined by Ibn Taymiyah in the fourteenth century, and reformers in South Asia such as Ahmad Sirhindi (d. 1625), and possibly even early Islamic radicals like the Khariji sect, represent pre-modern expressions of a fundamentalist style of Islamic affirmation. In this view, the fundamentalist movements of the eighteenth century in many parts of the Islamic world, most notably the Wahhabi movement in the Arabian Peninsula and jihad efforts organized by Sufi tariqahs in Southeast Asia, West Africa, and elsewhere provide an important foundation for Islamic fundamentalism in the modern era.
In contrast, other scholars argue that fundamentalisms are distinctively the products of the modern era, even though they may have some historical antecedents. In this view, the conditions of modernity are unique, and fundamentalisms are distinctive responses to the religious challenges of modernity. The major examples of Islamic fundamentalist movements are, from this perspective, not the traditionalist movements or nativist revolts of the nineteenth century nor the puritanical holy warriors of pre-modern times. They are those movements – for example, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, that developed in the twentieth century and became most visible in the Islamic resurgence of the last quarter of that century.
Among Muslims there is also a broad spectrum both in the use of the term “fundamentalism” and in evaluation of the phenomenon. In the nineteenth century most Muslims were aware of the power of Western societies and the relative weakness of Muslim communities. One of the major themes of Muslim history in the modern era is the interaction of Muslims with the West and the efforts to revive and/or reform the world of Islam. The first modern response was to adapt to the new world conditions and utilize Western models in reforming Muslim societies. By the second half of the twentieth century, it became clear that the results of these reform programs were not satisfactory, and new, more revolutionary efforts were undertaken. Among these efforts were the major Islamic fundamentalist movements, which adopt positions rejecting the simple copying of Western methods and affirming the comprehensive and effective nature of the Islamic message.
In the 1970s, most Muslim analysts rejected the term “fundamentalism” as an identifying label for the movements of Islamic affirmation. By the 1990s, however, Muslim critics of fundamentalism began to use the term in political and scholarly debates, and some supporters also accepted the term, recognizing its wide use and visibility. Writers in Arabic by the 1980s began to use the term usuliyah, an Arabic neologism that is a direct translation of “fundamentalism” based on usul, the Arabic word for “fundamentals.” In this way, “fundamentalism” became a part of the vocabulary of the Islamic resurgence itself as well as of the study of that resurgence.
In the twenty-first century of the Christian calendar, Islamic fundamentalism's push for Sharia and an Islamic State has come into conflict with conceptions of the secular, democratic state, such as the internationally supported Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Among human rights disputed by fundamentalist Muslims are:
* Freedom from religious police
* Equality issues between men and women
* Separation of religion and state;
* Freedom of speech
* Freedom of religion
Islamists see Fundamentalists.
Funj
Funj. The Islamic Nubian kingdom of Sinnar dominated the Nile Valley between Egypt and Ethiopia from about 1500 to 1821. Today some people who pride themselves on a historical association with this state identify themselves as Funj, but the terms of their association have been diverse.
Modern Funj identity has been mediated by the historical experience of Sinnar. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries people from lands adjacent to Sinnar often called the land Funjistan, or the “Kingdom of the Funj.” At this time, the term “Funj” applied to the hereditary nobility of Sinnar as a whole and distinguished this group both from the ethnically diverse subject class of commoners and from members of the elite of slave status. This hereditary nobility possessed a corporate identity defined by an intricate and highly disciplined system of compulsory matrilateral parallel cousin marriage. Inheritance was through the female line, by which the right to rule the kingdom itself and each of its constituent territorial parts was distributed over space and through time among appropriate members of the royal clan, the Unsab, and its subordinate lineages.
During the eighteenth century, Sinnar gradually disintegrated in civil strife, and its nobility fractured into territorial patrilineages who claimed Arab descent, usually Abbasid, but occasionally Sharifian. Only two groups are known to have continued to identify themselves as Funj throughout the eighteenth century. The immediate royal family itself and the community of Northern Funj resident along the Nile in and around Karamakol, between Dongola and the Shaiqiya country. Both groups have adopted Umayyad Arab identity and patrilineal descent.
The Turkish government of Egypt conquered Sinnar in 1821. The Turks pensioned off the old royal family and gave them estates in and around al Mayna on the Blue Nile opposite Sinja. A community comprised largely of members of the former sultan’s family reside in this area today, and they are known as Funj and Umayyads -- as are those individual descendants of the former kings who live elsewhere.
The Turks governed substantial parts of southern Sinnar indirectly via members of the family of the former wazirs. These leaders identified themselves as Hamaj rather than Funj, but the Turks nevertheless designated the area they administered the Funj Mountains. With the exception of the family of the former sultans and the Northern Funj, modern Funj are most likely to have their place of origin within this nineteenth century colonial jurisdiction. The Funj Mountains included the diverse sedentary peoples who lived on either side of a belt of more important and therefore directly administered Turkish districts which lined the banks of the Blue Nile and extended southward to embrace the gold-bearing region of Bela Shangul in western Wallagga. Within the Funj Mountains the designation “Funj” was employed as a term of self-identification not only by some surviving members of the hereditary nobility of Sinnar (excluding the Hamaj) but also by many ordinary Muslim individuals who looked back with affection to the pre-colonial period. In most cases these Funj were native speakers of Berta, Gumuz or one of the other languages of the Funj Mountains whose lack of literacy in Arabic and formal education in the Islamic sciences precluded their fabrication of a more sophisticated Arab pedigree.
The Anglo-Egyptian government of the Sudan (1898-1956) preserved a truncated portion of the Turkish Funj Mountains as an administrative district called Southern Funj, towards whose diverse populations, including the Funj, a considerable measure of anthropological attention has been directed.
The Funj first appeared in the early sixteenth century as a nomadic cattle-herding people in the Nilotic Sudan. The gradually extended their range down the Blue Nile. The Muslim dynasty of the Funj kings reigned from 1533 to 1762 and their capital Sinnar is said to have been founded in 1504.
In about 1500, after several turbulent centuries of transition in Nubia, a new Islamic government reunited much of the northern Nile valley Sudan in the area bounded by Egypt, Ethiopia, the Red Sea, Darfur, and the vast swamps of the White Nile. Within this pre-capitalist agrarian polity, an ethnically heterogeneous class of subjects, through an ingeniously structured system of payments in labor and in kind, supported a hereditary ruling elite known as the Funj. The Funj monarch ruled from an elaborate central court through a hierarchy of subordinate governors over the eight central provinces and tributary princedoms such as Fazughli and Taqali, and beneath these, the numerous lesser lords of districts and tribes. The Funj government, though Islamic by faith and (for administrative purposes) Arabic by speech, also drew heavily upon older Sudanic traditions of statecraft. Notably, the geographical and historical coherence of the Funj elite depended on the institution of matrilineal kinship inherited from the states of medieval Christian Nubia.
During the latter half of the seventeenth century, a series of strong sultans brought the originally mobile royal court to rest on the Blue Nile at Sinnar, henceforth the eponymous capital of the realm. They also opened the country to unprecedented commercial relations with neighboring lands via royalty sponsored caravans. By 1700, Sinnar had become a large and cosmopolitan city. Exposure to imported commercial capitalist principles from the Islamic heartlands stimulated the appearance of an indigenous middle class within the Funj kingdom during the eighteenth century. About twenty new towns arose, and the money economy interposed itself into many social and political relationships. Meanwhile, increasing contact with the cultural usages of the Islamic heartlands also challenged the sultanate’s corporate, communal vision of Islam, according to which all loyal subjects of the king were Muslims by definition, despite folkways that were often heterodox. During the eighteenth century, middle-class religious sophisticates imported standard legal handbooks from the Islamic heartlands. They wielded the principles found therein as a weapon of social criticism against the tolerant Funj version of a medieval synthesis that had accommodated universal faith to particularistic culture. Henceforth, communal loyalty to the Muslim king was no longer a substitute for conformity to the stipulations of religious law.
Middle class partisans of the intrusive fundamentalist Islamic culture began to identify themselves as “Arabs” and undertook to seize power. The old matrilineal dynasty was overthrown in 1719, and in 1762 a clique of middle class warlords known as the Hamaj imposed one of their own as ruling wazir (vizier). Yet no new order was achieved. Rather, the collapse of Funj kinship discipline precipitated civil war at all levels of government. In 1820-1821, the remnants of the kingdom fell to Muhammad ‘Ali, Ottoman viceroy of Egypt, with little resistance.
Funj. The Islamic Nubian kingdom of Sinnar dominated the Nile Valley between Egypt and Ethiopia from about 1500 to 1821. Today some people who pride themselves on a historical association with this state identify themselves as Funj, but the terms of their association have been diverse.
Modern Funj identity has been mediated by the historical experience of Sinnar. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries people from lands adjacent to Sinnar often called the land Funjistan, or the “Kingdom of the Funj.” At this time, the term “Funj” applied to the hereditary nobility of Sinnar as a whole and distinguished this group both from the ethnically diverse subject class of commoners and from members of the elite of slave status. This hereditary nobility possessed a corporate identity defined by an intricate and highly disciplined system of compulsory matrilateral parallel cousin marriage. Inheritance was through the female line, by which the right to rule the kingdom itself and each of its constituent territorial parts was distributed over space and through time among appropriate members of the royal clan, the Unsab, and its subordinate lineages.
During the eighteenth century, Sinnar gradually disintegrated in civil strife, and its nobility fractured into territorial patrilineages who claimed Arab descent, usually Abbasid, but occasionally Sharifian. Only two groups are known to have continued to identify themselves as Funj throughout the eighteenth century. The immediate royal family itself and the community of Northern Funj resident along the Nile in and around Karamakol, between Dongola and the Shaiqiya country. Both groups have adopted Umayyad Arab identity and patrilineal descent.
The Turkish government of Egypt conquered Sinnar in 1821. The Turks pensioned off the old royal family and gave them estates in and around al Mayna on the Blue Nile opposite Sinja. A community comprised largely of members of the former sultan’s family reside in this area today, and they are known as Funj and Umayyads -- as are those individual descendants of the former kings who live elsewhere.
The Turks governed substantial parts of southern Sinnar indirectly via members of the family of the former wazirs. These leaders identified themselves as Hamaj rather than Funj, but the Turks nevertheless designated the area they administered the Funj Mountains. With the exception of the family of the former sultans and the Northern Funj, modern Funj are most likely to have their place of origin within this nineteenth century colonial jurisdiction. The Funj Mountains included the diverse sedentary peoples who lived on either side of a belt of more important and therefore directly administered Turkish districts which lined the banks of the Blue Nile and extended southward to embrace the gold-bearing region of Bela Shangul in western Wallagga. Within the Funj Mountains the designation “Funj” was employed as a term of self-identification not only by some surviving members of the hereditary nobility of Sinnar (excluding the Hamaj) but also by many ordinary Muslim individuals who looked back with affection to the pre-colonial period. In most cases these Funj were native speakers of Berta, Gumuz or one of the other languages of the Funj Mountains whose lack of literacy in Arabic and formal education in the Islamic sciences precluded their fabrication of a more sophisticated Arab pedigree.
The Anglo-Egyptian government of the Sudan (1898-1956) preserved a truncated portion of the Turkish Funj Mountains as an administrative district called Southern Funj, towards whose diverse populations, including the Funj, a considerable measure of anthropological attention has been directed.
The Funj first appeared in the early sixteenth century as a nomadic cattle-herding people in the Nilotic Sudan. The gradually extended their range down the Blue Nile. The Muslim dynasty of the Funj kings reigned from 1533 to 1762 and their capital Sinnar is said to have been founded in 1504.
In about 1500, after several turbulent centuries of transition in Nubia, a new Islamic government reunited much of the northern Nile valley Sudan in the area bounded by Egypt, Ethiopia, the Red Sea, Darfur, and the vast swamps of the White Nile. Within this pre-capitalist agrarian polity, an ethnically heterogeneous class of subjects, through an ingeniously structured system of payments in labor and in kind, supported a hereditary ruling elite known as the Funj. The Funj monarch ruled from an elaborate central court through a hierarchy of subordinate governors over the eight central provinces and tributary princedoms such as Fazughli and Taqali, and beneath these, the numerous lesser lords of districts and tribes. The Funj government, though Islamic by faith and (for administrative purposes) Arabic by speech, also drew heavily upon older Sudanic traditions of statecraft. Notably, the geographical and historical coherence of the Funj elite depended on the institution of matrilineal kinship inherited from the states of medieval Christian Nubia.
During the latter half of the seventeenth century, a series of strong sultans brought the originally mobile royal court to rest on the Blue Nile at Sinnar, henceforth the eponymous capital of the realm. They also opened the country to unprecedented commercial relations with neighboring lands via royalty sponsored caravans. By 1700, Sinnar had become a large and cosmopolitan city. Exposure to imported commercial capitalist principles from the Islamic heartlands stimulated the appearance of an indigenous middle class within the Funj kingdom during the eighteenth century. About twenty new towns arose, and the money economy interposed itself into many social and political relationships. Meanwhile, increasing contact with the cultural usages of the Islamic heartlands also challenged the sultanate’s corporate, communal vision of Islam, according to which all loyal subjects of the king were Muslims by definition, despite folkways that were often heterodox. During the eighteenth century, middle-class religious sophisticates imported standard legal handbooks from the Islamic heartlands. They wielded the principles found therein as a weapon of social criticism against the tolerant Funj version of a medieval synthesis that had accommodated universal faith to particularistic culture. Henceforth, communal loyalty to the Muslim king was no longer a substitute for conformity to the stipulations of religious law.
Middle class partisans of the intrusive fundamentalist Islamic culture began to identify themselves as “Arabs” and undertook to seize power. The old matrilineal dynasty was overthrown in 1719, and in 1762 a clique of middle class warlords known as the Hamaj imposed one of their own as ruling wazir (vizier). Yet no new order was achieved. Rather, the collapse of Funj kinship discipline precipitated civil war at all levels of government. In 1820-1821, the remnants of the kingdom fell to Muhammad ‘Ali, Ottoman viceroy of Egypt, with little resistance.
Fuqaha’ al-Madina al-Sab‘a
Fuqaha’ al-Madina al-Sab‘a. One of the seven jurists of Medina, to whom tradition (hadith) attributes a significant role in the formation of Muslim law. All of the jurists died between 709 and 724.
Fuqaha’ al-Madina al-Sab‘a. One of the seven jurists of Medina, to whom tradition (hadith) attributes a significant role in the formation of Muslim law. All of the jurists died between 709 and 724.
Fur
Fur. The Fur is the largest ethnic group in the Darfur region of western Sudan. Their language, Fur, is the most obvious feature distinguishing them from surrounding groups. It is the only member of a major sub-family of the large Nilo-Saharan language family. The Fur are nominally Sunni Muslims following the Maliki juridical school.
The Fur were once rulers of the greatest empire of western Sudan. Succeeding the Tunjur empire in the seventeenth century, the Keira clan of the Fur gained control of vassal states and trade with Cairo -- and brought Islam to the western mountains. In 1874, Sultan Ibrahim ibn Muhammad al Husayn and his forces fell to an army of the Khedive of Egypt. Although nominally under the suzerainty of Egyptian Sudan, Fur leaders continued resistance. Not until 1916, when the British invaded Darfur and defeated Sultan Ali Dinar (1898-1916), did the area become politically integrated into Sudan. Dar Fur became Darfur Province. However, integration of the people into Sudan Arab society remained an uncompleted and contentious problem.
It was through the policies of the sultanate that Islam first gained influence among the Fur. The Islamization process was promoted by the sultan’s policies of granting privileges to Muslim immigrants, especially those from West Africa, to build mosques and establish Islamic education for boys.
Until 1916, the Fur were ruled by an independent sultanate and were oriented politically to peoples in Chad. Though the ruling dynasty before that time, as well as the common people, had long been Muslims, they have not been arabized. They are now incorporated into the Sudan political system. The Fur had been basically independent from the 1600s. After British reconquest in 1899, the British approved the re-establishment of the Fur Sultanate, assumed by Ali Dinar when the Mahdist movement crumbled. Mahdist revolts continued to break out in Sudan until 1916. The fall of Darfur was actually decided, however, when Ali Dinar declared loyalty to the Ottoman Empire in World War I. The British abolished the Fur Sultanate in 1916, after Dinar died in battle. In World War I, Darfur made a bid for independence by allying with Turkey against the British. However, the British conquered Darfur in 1916, since then it has been part of Sudan. Since the 1970s, the Darfur area has suffered some of the effects of the northern Arab war prosecuted in the south against Southern tribes who wanted to secede from the Sudan. War was the primary factor in the last few decades of the twentieth century and the first decade of the twenty-first century for the Darfur area. A civil war lasted about 20 years, until the end of the twentieth century of the Christian calendar. A new conflict arose in 2003, involving local Arab militia called Janjaweed attacking the African peoples village by village in a campaign of terror, reportedly supported by the Sudanese military.
Fur. The Fur is the largest ethnic group in the Darfur region of western Sudan. Their language, Fur, is the most obvious feature distinguishing them from surrounding groups. It is the only member of a major sub-family of the large Nilo-Saharan language family. The Fur are nominally Sunni Muslims following the Maliki juridical school.
The Fur were once rulers of the greatest empire of western Sudan. Succeeding the Tunjur empire in the seventeenth century, the Keira clan of the Fur gained control of vassal states and trade with Cairo -- and brought Islam to the western mountains. In 1874, Sultan Ibrahim ibn Muhammad al Husayn and his forces fell to an army of the Khedive of Egypt. Although nominally under the suzerainty of Egyptian Sudan, Fur leaders continued resistance. Not until 1916, when the British invaded Darfur and defeated Sultan Ali Dinar (1898-1916), did the area become politically integrated into Sudan. Dar Fur became Darfur Province. However, integration of the people into Sudan Arab society remained an uncompleted and contentious problem.
It was through the policies of the sultanate that Islam first gained influence among the Fur. The Islamization process was promoted by the sultan’s policies of granting privileges to Muslim immigrants, especially those from West Africa, to build mosques and establish Islamic education for boys.
Until 1916, the Fur were ruled by an independent sultanate and were oriented politically to peoples in Chad. Though the ruling dynasty before that time, as well as the common people, had long been Muslims, they have not been arabized. They are now incorporated into the Sudan political system. The Fur had been basically independent from the 1600s. After British reconquest in 1899, the British approved the re-establishment of the Fur Sultanate, assumed by Ali Dinar when the Mahdist movement crumbled. Mahdist revolts continued to break out in Sudan until 1916. The fall of Darfur was actually decided, however, when Ali Dinar declared loyalty to the Ottoman Empire in World War I. The British abolished the Fur Sultanate in 1916, after Dinar died in battle. In World War I, Darfur made a bid for independence by allying with Turkey against the British. However, the British conquered Darfur in 1916, since then it has been part of Sudan. Since the 1970s, the Darfur area has suffered some of the effects of the northern Arab war prosecuted in the south against Southern tribes who wanted to secede from the Sudan. War was the primary factor in the last few decades of the twentieth century and the first decade of the twenty-first century for the Darfur area. A civil war lasted about 20 years, until the end of the twentieth century of the Christian calendar. A new conflict arose in 2003, involving local Arab militia called Janjaweed attacking the African peoples village by village in a campaign of terror, reportedly supported by the Sudanese military.
Futa
Futa. In West Africa, Fulbe kingdoms from which many slaves were brought to the New World. These states were often prefaced by Futa, e.g., Futa Toro, Futa Jallon, and sometimes Futa Bondu.
Futa. In West Africa, Fulbe kingdoms from which many slaves were brought to the New World. These states were often prefaced by Futa, e.g., Futa Toro, Futa Jallon, and sometimes Futa Bondu.
Fyzee
Fyzee (Asaf Ali Asghar Fyzee) (1899-1981). Indian educator, public official, and internationally known writer on Islamic law. Fyzee was born at Matheran near Bombay on April 10, 1899 into a Sulaimani Bohora family. The Bohoras are mainly concentrated in western India and are descendants of Hindu converts and Yemeni Arabs. They supported al-Musta‘li’s (r. 1094-1101) claim to succeed his father al-Mustansir as the Fatimid caliph.
Fyzee was educated at Saint Xavier’s College, Bombay and Saint John’s College, Cambridge, where he received a double first in Oriental languages and was subsequently called to the bar. He married the writer Sultana Asaf Fyzee, daughter of Kazi Kabiruddin and an active supporter of the Muslim Ladies Club.
For nearly a decade from 1938, Fyzee was the principal of Government College, Bombay, and Perry Professor of Jurisprudence. From 1947 to 1949, he served as a member of the Bombay Public Service Commission and in 1949 was appointed as Indian ambassador to Egypt and minister plenipotentiary to Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan. From 1952 to 1957, he served as a member of the Union Public Service Commission. Subsequently, he held visiting professorships at McGill University and the University of California at Los Angeles. He also served as the vice-chancellor of Jammu and Kashmir University.
Fyzee received honors both at home and abroad. He was made an honorary member of the Arabic Academy in both Cairo and Damascus. He served as president of Anjuman Taraqqi-i Urdu and as honorary secretary of the Islamic Research Association. In 1962, he received the award of Padma Bhushan from the Indian government.
Fyzee’s fame rests primarily on his numerous writings on Islamic law. His most famous work, Outlines of Muhammadan Law, is characterized by a modernistic and radical approach to the subject but is also sensitive to Muslim sentiments, a balance that others who tried to emulate him found difficult to maintain. He argued that in order to understand the system of Islamic jurisprudence, one ought to be familiar with the historical and cultural background of the law. By the time the second edition of his book was published, Joseph Schacht’s Origins of Muhammad Jurisprudence (Oxford, 1950) had already appeared. Fyzee was impressed by Schacht’s thesis. Islamic law, Fyzee suggested, is the result of a continuous process of development over fourteen centuries and should not be seen as a systematic code. Fyzee agreed in part with Schacht’s thesis that pre-Islamic customs and elements of Roman law influenced the development of Islamic jurisprudence, but he accepted Schacht’s arguments only with some reservations. Fyzee was aware of the inappropriateness of the term “Muhammadan” law and apologized for using it, arguing that for him it denoted those aspects of Islamic law that were applicable in Indian courts.
Like the famous poet-philosopher Muhammad Iqbal, Fyzee called for a reinterpretation of law (ijtihad) that would bring the law into conformity with the perceived needs and realities of modern existence. Given such apparent similarity of views, it is important to remember that whereas Iqbal’s call for reinterpretation was based essentially within a traditional Islamic paradigm, Fyzee’s desire was, in part, a concession to modern demands. Impressed by the Turkish Revolution and the experiments at codification of law in various Middle Eastern countries, Fyzee veered dangerously close to suggesting a uniform civil code for India. Only his caution as a public figure and as a scholar sensitive to his subject kept him from openly advocating it.
Fyzee is an outstanding example of that generation of Indian Muslim scholars who on one hand were struggling to distance themselves from an earlier apologetic trend of writing and on the other felt a powerful pull toward the Western tradition of criticial scholarship – to the extent that, ironically, they often adopted the conclusions of these modern researchers uncritically.
Asaf Ali Asghar Fyzee see Fyzee
Fyzee (Asaf Ali Asghar Fyzee) (1899-1981). Indian educator, public official, and internationally known writer on Islamic law. Fyzee was born at Matheran near Bombay on April 10, 1899 into a Sulaimani Bohora family. The Bohoras are mainly concentrated in western India and are descendants of Hindu converts and Yemeni Arabs. They supported al-Musta‘li’s (r. 1094-1101) claim to succeed his father al-Mustansir as the Fatimid caliph.
Fyzee was educated at Saint Xavier’s College, Bombay and Saint John’s College, Cambridge, where he received a double first in Oriental languages and was subsequently called to the bar. He married the writer Sultana Asaf Fyzee, daughter of Kazi Kabiruddin and an active supporter of the Muslim Ladies Club.
For nearly a decade from 1938, Fyzee was the principal of Government College, Bombay, and Perry Professor of Jurisprudence. From 1947 to 1949, he served as a member of the Bombay Public Service Commission and in 1949 was appointed as Indian ambassador to Egypt and minister plenipotentiary to Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan. From 1952 to 1957, he served as a member of the Union Public Service Commission. Subsequently, he held visiting professorships at McGill University and the University of California at Los Angeles. He also served as the vice-chancellor of Jammu and Kashmir University.
Fyzee received honors both at home and abroad. He was made an honorary member of the Arabic Academy in both Cairo and Damascus. He served as president of Anjuman Taraqqi-i Urdu and as honorary secretary of the Islamic Research Association. In 1962, he received the award of Padma Bhushan from the Indian government.
Fyzee’s fame rests primarily on his numerous writings on Islamic law. His most famous work, Outlines of Muhammadan Law, is characterized by a modernistic and radical approach to the subject but is also sensitive to Muslim sentiments, a balance that others who tried to emulate him found difficult to maintain. He argued that in order to understand the system of Islamic jurisprudence, one ought to be familiar with the historical and cultural background of the law. By the time the second edition of his book was published, Joseph Schacht’s Origins of Muhammad Jurisprudence (Oxford, 1950) had already appeared. Fyzee was impressed by Schacht’s thesis. Islamic law, Fyzee suggested, is the result of a continuous process of development over fourteen centuries and should not be seen as a systematic code. Fyzee agreed in part with Schacht’s thesis that pre-Islamic customs and elements of Roman law influenced the development of Islamic jurisprudence, but he accepted Schacht’s arguments only with some reservations. Fyzee was aware of the inappropriateness of the term “Muhammadan” law and apologized for using it, arguing that for him it denoted those aspects of Islamic law that were applicable in Indian courts.
Like the famous poet-philosopher Muhammad Iqbal, Fyzee called for a reinterpretation of law (ijtihad) that would bring the law into conformity with the perceived needs and realities of modern existence. Given such apparent similarity of views, it is important to remember that whereas Iqbal’s call for reinterpretation was based essentially within a traditional Islamic paradigm, Fyzee’s desire was, in part, a concession to modern demands. Impressed by the Turkish Revolution and the experiments at codification of law in various Middle Eastern countries, Fyzee veered dangerously close to suggesting a uniform civil code for India. Only his caution as a public figure and as a scholar sensitive to his subject kept him from openly advocating it.
Fyzee is an outstanding example of that generation of Indian Muslim scholars who on one hand were struggling to distance themselves from an earlier apologetic trend of writing and on the other felt a powerful pull toward the Western tradition of criticial scholarship – to the extent that, ironically, they often adopted the conclusions of these modern researchers uncritically.
Asaf Ali Asghar Fyzee see Fyzee
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