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Muhammad II Of Seljuk
Muhammad II ibn Mahmud (1128–1159) was Sultan of Seljuq Empire from 1153 to 1159. He was son of Mahmud II and brother of Malik-Shah III. ''The Cambridge History of Iran'' notes that Sultan Muhammad "tried energetically to restore the slipping authority of his dynasty in Iraq." Biography He was raised in Fars along with his brother Malik-Shah III. In 1148, their uncle Sultan Ghiyath ad-Din Mas'ud, who had no heirs and was in a weak position, appointed Malik-Shah III as heir, and gave his daughter in marriage to him. On 13 September 1152, Mas'ud died at Hamadan, and Malik-Shah III ascended the throne. In 1153, Muhammad, who was then in Khuzestan, marched towards Iraq and deposed his brother Malik-Shah III from the Seljuq throne, and ascended the throne himself. Meanwhile, the insurgent Abbasids under caliph al-Muqtafi was seizing the Turks of Iraq, and in 1155 supported a rival claimant to the throne, Suleiman-Shah. Furthermore, al-Muqtafi also sent an army to conquer Jiba ...
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Al-Muqtafi
Abu Abdallah Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Mustazhir ( ar, أبو عبد الله محمد بن أحمد المستظهر; 9 April 1096 – 12 March 1160), better known by his regnal name al-Muqtafi li-Amr Allah (), was the Abbasid caliph in Baghdad from 1136 to 1160, succeeding his nephew al-Rashid, who had been forced to abdicate by the Seljuks. The continued disunion and contests between Seljuk Turks afforded al-Muqtafi opportunity of not only maintaining his authority in Baghdad, but also extending it throughout Iraq. Birth and background The future caliph al-Muqtafi was born on 9 April 1096 as Abu Abdallah Muhammad, the son of the Abbasid caliph al-Mustazhir (). His mother was Ashin, a slave girl from Syria. After his father's death his half-brother al-Mustarshid succeeded him on 6 August 1118. Al-Mustarshid (r. 1118–1135) ruled for sixteen years as Caliph but the last three years of his reign were occupied with war against Seljuq sultan Mas'ud (his deputy). Not long afte ...
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Abbasids
The Abbasid Caliphate ( or ; ar, الْخِلَافَةُ الْعَبَّاسِيَّة, ') was the third caliphate to succeed the Islamic prophet Muhammad. It was founded by a dynasty descended from Muhammad's uncle, Abbas ibn Abdul-Muttalib (566–653 CE), from whom the dynasty takes its name. They ruled as caliphs for most of the caliphate from their capital in Baghdad in modern-day Iraq, after having overthrown the Umayyad Caliphate in the Abbasid Revolution of 750 CE (132  AH). The Abbasid Caliphate first centered its government in Kufa, modern-day Iraq, but in 762 the caliph Al-Mansur founded the city of Baghdad, near the ancient Babylonian capital city of Babylon. Baghdad became the center of science, culture and invention in what became known as the Golden Age of Islam. This, in addition to housing several key academic institutions, including the House of Wisdom, as well as a multiethnic and multi-religious environment, garnered it a worldwide reputation as t ...
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Gold Dinar
The gold dinar ( ar, ﺩﻳﻨﺎﺭ ذهبي) is an Islamic medieval gold coin first issued in AH 77 (696–697 CE) by Caliph Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan. The weight of the dinar is 1 mithqal (). The word ''dinar'' comes from the Latin word denarius, which was a silver coin. The name "dinar" is also used for Sasanid, Kushan, and Kidarite gold coins, though it is not known what the contemporary name was. The first dinars were issued by the Umayyad Caliphate. Under the dynasties that followed the use of the dinar spread from Islamic Spain to Central Asia. Background Although there was a dictum that the Byzantine solidus was not to be used outside of the Byzantine empire, there was some trade that involved these coins which then did not get re-minted by the emperors minting operations, and quickly became worn. Towards the end of the 7th century CE, Arabic copies of solidi – dinars issued by the caliph Abd al-Malik (685–705 CE), who had access to supplies o ...
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Awn Ad-Din Ibn Hubayra
Awn al-Din Abu'l-Muzzafar Yahya ibn Hubayra al-Shaybani al-Duri al-Baghdadi (; 1105-1165), commonly referred to as Ibn Hubayra, was a 12th-century Iraqi Arab official and a Hanbali jurist, who served for sixteen years as vizier of the Abbasid Caliphate under Caliph al-Muqtafi, and his successor al-Mustanjid. Biography Ibn Hubayra was born on Rabi II 499 A.H. (December 1105 / January 1106 CE) in Dur, a village northwest of Baghdad. As a youth, he went to Baghdad where he received a classical Arabic education under several masters, studying the Qur'an, Arabic linguistics, and the Hanbali school of Islamic jurisprudence ('' fiqh''). He was appointed as the chief of the treasury by caliph al-Muqtafi, and in 1149, he was appointed as the vizier (chief minister) of the Caliphate, a post he kept for sixteen years until his death on 27 March 1165, commonly attributed to poisoning through his physician, who was in the pay of his rivals.Makdisi (1971), pp. 802–803 His vizierate mar ...
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Ummah
' (; ar, أمة ) is an Arabic word meaning "community". It is distinguished from ' ( ), which means a nation with common ancestry or geography. Thus, it can be said to be a supra-national community with a common history. It is a synonym for ' (, 'the Islamic community'); it is commonly used to mean the collective community of Islamic people. In the Quran the ummah typically refers to a single group that shares common religious beliefs, specifically those that are the objects of a divine plan of salvation. In the context of pan-Islamism and politics, the word ' can be used to mean the concept of a ''Commonwealth of the Muslim Believers'' ( '). General usage The word ''ummah'' (pl. ''umam'') means nation in Arabic. For example, the Arabic term for the United Nations is ''الأمم المتحدة Al-Umam Al-Mutahedah'', and the term ''الأمة العربية Al-Ummah Al-Arabeyah'' is used to refer to "the Arab Nation". The word ''ummah'' differs from the concept of a country ...
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Tigris
The Tigris () is the easternmost of the two great rivers that define Mesopotamia, the other being the Euphrates. The river flows south from the mountains of the Armenian Highlands through the Syrian and Arabian Deserts, and empties into the Persian Gulf. Geography The Tigris is 1,750 km (1,090 mi) long, rising in the Taurus Mountains of eastern Turkey about 25 km (16 mi) southeast of the city of Elazığ and about 30 km (20 mi) from the headwaters of the Euphrates. The river then flows for 400 km (250 mi) through Southeastern Turkey before becoming part of the Syria-Turkey border. This stretch of 44 km (27 mi) is the only part of the river that is located in Syria. Some of its affluences are Garzan, Anbarçayi, Batman, and the Great and the Little Zab. Close to its confluence with the Euphrates, the Tigris splits into several channels. First, the artificial Shatt al-Hayy branches off, to join the Euphrates near Nasiriy ...
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Wasit, Iraq
Wasit ( ar, وَاسِط, Wāsiṭ, syr, ‎ܘܐܣܛ) is an ancient city in Wasit Governorate, south east of Kut in eastern Iraq. History The city was built by al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf in c. 702 CE on the west bank of the Tigris across from the historical city of Kashkar. Al-Hajjaj is said to have taken the doors for the citadel and the main mosque from Zanzaward. Al-Hajjaj died in Wasit in 714. To quote UNESCO: Wasit is an Islamic city built in the last quarter of the first Hijri century (7th century CE) by Al-Hajaj bin Yousif Al-Thaqafi, as an administrative centre for Iraq. As an ancient city its circumference is 16 kilometres. It was abandoned in the tenth Hijri century (16th century CE), after the change in the course of the river Tigris. Its remains stood sound and safe due to its distance from constructive and agricultural influence. Most of its buildings are of bricks. A survey was carried out from 1936 to 1942, and another in 1985. The large mosque was cleared out in fo ...
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Hillah
Hillah ( ar, ٱلْحِلَّة ''al-Ḥillah''), also spelled Hilla, is a city in central Iraq on the Hilla branch of the Euphrates River, south of Baghdad. The population is estimated at 364,700 in 1998. It is the capital of Babylon Province and is located adjacent to the ancient city of Babylon, and close to the ancient cities of Borsippa and Kish. It is situated in a predominantly agricultural region which is extensively irrigated with water provided by the Hilla canal, producing a wide range of crops, fruit and textiles. Its name may be derived from the word "beauty" in Arabic. The river runs exactly in the middle of the town, and it is surrounded by date palm trees and other forms of arid vegetation, reducing the harmful effects of dust and desert wind. The city was once a major center of Islamic scholarship and education. The tomb of the Jewish prophet Ezekiel is reputed to be located in a nearby village, Al Kifl. It became a major administrative centre during the r ...
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Mosul
Mosul ( ar, الموصل, al-Mawṣil, ku, مووسڵ, translit=Mûsil, Turkish: ''Musul'', syr, ܡܘܨܠ, Māwṣil) is a major city in northern Iraq, serving as the capital of Nineveh Governorate. The city is considered the second largest city in Iraq in terms of population and area after the capital Baghdad, with a population of over 3.7 million. Mosul is approximately north of Baghdad on the Tigris river. The Mosul metropolitan area has grown from the old city on the western side to encompass substantial areas on both the "Left Bank" (east side) and the "Right Bank" (west side), as locals call the two riverbanks. Mosul encloses the ruins of the ancient Assyrian city of Nineveh on its east side. Mosul and its surroundings have an ethnically and religiously diverse population; a large majority of its population are Arabs, with Assyrians, Turkmens, and Kurds, and other, smaller ethnic minorities comprising the rest of the city's population. Sunni Islam is the larges ...
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Qutb Ad-Din Mawdud
Qutb al-Din Mawdud (died 6 September 1170) was the Zengid Emir of Mosul from 1149 to 1169. He was the son of Imad al-Din Zengi and brother and successor of Sayf al-Din Ghazi I. Biography At the death of Zengi, his possessions were divided between his sons: Nur al-Din received Aleppo and Saif al-Din Ghazi Mosul, while Qutb al-Din Mawdud received the emirate of Homs. After the death of Saif al-Din Ghazi in 1149, Qutb al-Din Mawdud was the first to arrive in Mosul and have himself recognized as emir; Nur al-Din, who desired to add the city to his lands, occupied Homs and Sinjar, preparing to attack his brother. Only the intervention of veterans of the Aleppo army, who refused to take part in the fratricide war which would weaken the effort against the Crusaders and the emirate of Damascus, forced Nur al-Din to renounce to the expedition and to reconcile with his brother. During his reign in Mosul, Qutb held the Seljuq prince, Suleiman-Shah b. Muhammad b. Malik Shah, as a priso ...
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Zangid
The Zengid dynasty was a Muslim dynasty of Oghuz Turkic origin, which ruled parts of the Levant and Upper Mesopotamia on behalf of the Seljuk Empire and eventually seized control of Egypt in 1169. In 1174 the Zengid state extended from Tripoli to Hamadan and from Yemen to Sivas. The dynasty was founded by Imad ad-Din Zengi. History Zengi, son of Aq Sunqur al-Hajib, became the Seljuk atabeg of Mosul in 1127. He quickly became the chief Turkic potentate in Northern Syria and Iraq, taking Aleppo from the squabbling Artuqids in 1128 and capturing the County of Edessa from the Crusaders after the siege of Edessa in 1144. This latter feat made Zengi a hero in the Muslim world, but he was assassinated by a slave two years later, in 1146. On Zengi's death, his territories were divided, with Mosul and his lands in Iraq going to his eldest son Saif ad-Din Ghazi I, and Aleppo and Edessa falling to his second son, Nur ad-Din, atabeg of Aleppo. Nur ad-Din proved to be as competent as ...
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Baghdad
Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon. In 762 CE, Baghdad was chosen as the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate, and became its most notable major development project. Within a short time, the city evolved into a significant cultural, commercial, and intellectual center of the Muslim world. This, in addition to housing several key academic institutions, including the House of Wisdom, as well as a multiethnic and multi-religious environment, garnered it a worldwide reputation as the "Center of Learning". Baghdad was the largest city in the world for much of the Abbasid era during the Islamic Golden Age, peaking at a population of more than a million. The city was largely destroyed at the hands of the Mongol Empire in 1258, resulting in a decline that would linger through many centu ...
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