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Ashinas
Abu Ja'far Ashinas (; died 17 or 19 December 844) was a general of the Abbasid caliph Al-Mu'tasim. One of the earliest and most prominent members of al-Mu'tasim's Turkic guard, he rose to become one of the leading figures of the empire under al-Mu'tasim, serving as a commander in the Amorium campaign, and playing a leading role in the purge of the old Abbasid elites that followed. He was also governor of Egypt from 834, as well as of the Levant and Upper Mesopotamia from 838 on, although in practice he appointed deputies to govern in his stead. Under al-Mu'tasim's successor al-Wathiq, his powers were extended further into a virtual viceroyalty over all western provinces of the caliphate. Origin and early career According to the accounts of al-Ya'qubi and al-Tabari, Ashinas was one of the first slaves purchased by Abu Ishaq, the future al-Mu'tasim, for his Turkish guard, along with Itakh al-Khazari, Wasif, and Sima al-Dimashqi. Unlike later practice, whereby the slaves would b ...
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Al-Mu'tasim
Abū Isḥāq Muḥammad ibn Hārūn al-Rashīd (; October 796 – 5 January 842), better known by his laqab, regnal name al-Muʿtaṣim biʾllāh (, ), was the eighth Abbasid Caliphate, Abbasid caliph, ruling from 833 until his death in 842. When al-Ma'mun died unexpectedly on campaign in August 833, al-Mu'tasim was thus well placed to succeed him, with the support of the powerful chief , Ahmad ibn Abi Duwad, he continued to implement the rationalist Islamic doctrine of Mu'tazilism and implementing policy. A younger son of Caliph Harun al-Rashid (r. 786–809), he rose to prominence through his formation of a private army composed predominantly of Turkic peoples, Turkic slave-soldiers (, sing. ). This proved useful to his half-brother, Caliph al-Ma'mun, who employed al-Mu'tasim and his Turkish guard to counterbalance other powerful interest groups in the state, as well as employing them in campaigns against rebels and the Byzantine Empire under the Amorian dynasty, Byzantine ...
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Sack Of Amorium
The siege of Amorium by the Abbasid Caliphate in mid-August 838 was one of the major events in the long history of the Arab–Byzantine Wars. The Abbasid campaign was led personally by the Caliph al-Mu'tasim (), in retaliation to a virtually unopposed expedition launched by the Byzantine emperor Theophilos (r. 829–842) into the Caliphate's borderlands the previous year. Mu'tasim targeted Amorium, an Eastern Roman city in western Asia Minor, because it was the birthplace of the ruling Byzantine dynasty and, at the time, one of Byzantium's largest and most important cities. The caliph gathered an exceptionally large army, which he divided in two parts, which invaded from the northeast and the south. The northeastern army defeated the Byzantine forces under Theophilos at Anzen, allowing the Abbasids to penetrate deep into Byzantine Asia Minor and converge upon Ancyra, which they found abandoned. After sacking the city, they turned south to Amorium, where they arrived on 1 Augu ...
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Al-Wathiq
Abū Jaʿfar Hārūn ibn Muḥammad al-Wathiq bi'Llah (; 18 April 81210 August 847), commonly known by his regnal name al-Wathiq bi'Llah (), was an Abbasid caliph who reigned from 842 until his death in 847. Al-Wathiq is described in the sources as well-educated, intellectually curious, but also a poet, who enjoyed the company of poets and musicians as well as scholars. His brief reign was one of continuity with the policies of his father, al-Mu'tasim (), as power continued to rest in the hands of the same officials whom al-Mu'tasim had appointed. The chief events of the reign were the suppression of revolts: Bedouin rebellions occurred in Syria in 842, the Hejaz in 845, and the Yamama in 846, Armenia had to be pacified over several years, and above all, an abortive uprising took place in Baghdad itself in 846, under Ahmad ibn Nasr al-Khuza'i. The latter was linked to al-Wathiq's continued support for the doctrine of Mu'tazilism, and his reactivation of the to root out oppo ...
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Itakh Al-Khazari
Aytākh or Ītākh al-Khazarī () was a leading commander in the Turkic army of the Abbasid caliph al-Mu'tasim (r. 833-842 C.E.). As the '' nisba'' in his name suggests, he was a Khazar by origin, and is said to have been a slave working in the kitchen of Sallam al-Abrash al-Khadim—whence his nickname ''al-Tabbakh'', "the cook"—before he was purchased as a '' ghulām'' by al-Mu'tasim in 815. He rose to become one of the senior commanders in al-Mu'tasim's "Turkic" guard, and participated in several expeditions such as the Sack of Amorium. Under al-Mu'tasim, he served as ''sahib al-shurta'' at Samarra, and became commander of the Caliph's personal guard. By the time of the accession of al-Wathiq in 842, he was, along with the Turk Ashinas, the "mainstay of the caliphate". Al-Wathiq named him governor of the Yemen in 843/4. After the death of Ashinas, in 844/5, he was named governor of Egypt, but he appointed Harthamah ibn al-Nadr al-Jabali there in his stead. Ya'qubi further r ...
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Abbasid Caliphate
The Abbasid Caliphate or Abbasid Empire (; ) was the third caliphate to succeed the Islamic prophet Muhammad. It was founded by a dynasty descended from Muhammad's uncle, Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib (566–653 CE), from whom the dynasty takes its name. After overthrowing the Umayyad Caliphate in the Abbasid Revolution of 750 CE (132  AH), they ruled as caliphs based in modern-day Iraq, with Baghdad being their capital for most of their history. The Abbasid Revolution had its origins and first successes in the easterly region of Khurasan, far from the Levantine center of Umayyad influence. The Abbasid Caliphate first centered its government in Kufa, modern-day Iraq, but in 762 the caliph al-Mansur founded the city of Baghdad as the new capital. Baghdad became the center of science, culture, arts, and invention in what became known as the Golden Age of Islam. By housing several key academic institutions, including the House of Wisdom, as well as a multiethnic and multi- ...
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Fourth Fitna
The Fourth Fitna, Fourth Muslim Civil War, or Great Abbasid Civil War resulted from the conflict between the brothers al-Amin and al-Ma'mun over the succession to the throne of the Abbasid Caliphate. Their father, Caliph Harun al-Rashid, had named al-Amin as the first successor, but had also named al-Ma'mun as the second, with Khurasan granted to him as an appanage. Later a third son, al-Qasim ibn Harun al-Rashid, al-Qasim, had been designated as third successor. After Harun died in 809, al-Amin succeeded him in Baghdad. Encouraged by the Baghdad court, al-Amin began trying to subvert the autonomous status of Khurasan, and al-Qasim was quickly sidelined. In response, al-Ma'mun sought the support of the provincial élites of Khurasan and made moves to assert his own autonomy. As the rift between the two brothers and their respective camps widened, al-Amin declared his own son Musa as his heir and assembled a large army. In 811, al-Amin's troops marched against Khurasan, but al-Ma'mu ...
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Kharijite
The Kharijites (, singular ) were an Islamic sect which emerged during the First Fitna (656–661). The first Kharijites were supporters of Ali who rebelled against his acceptance of arbitration talks to settle the conflict with his challenger, Mu'awiya, at the Battle of Siffin in 657. They asserted that "judgment belongs to God alone", which became their motto, and that rebels such as Mu'awiya had to be fought and overcome according to Qur'anic injunctions. Ali defeated the Kharijites at the Battle of Nahrawan in 658, but their insurrection continued. Ali was assassinated in 661 by a Kharijite dissident seeking revenge for the defeat at Nahrawan. After Mu'awiya established the Umayyad Caliphate in 661, his governors kept the Kharijites in check. The power vacuum caused by the Second Fitna (680–692) allowed for the resumption of the Kharijites' anti-government rebellion, and the Kharijite factions of the Azariqa and Najdat came to control large areas in Persia and Arabi ...
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Ghilman
Ghilman (singular ',Other standardized transliterations: '' / ''. . plural ')Other standardized transliterations: '' / ''. . were slave-soldiers and/or mercenaries in armies throughout the Islamic world. Islamic states from the early 9th century to the early 19th century consistently deployed slaves as soldiers, a phenomenon that was very rare outside of the Islamic world. The Quran mentions ''ghilman'' () as serving boys who are one of the delights of '' Jannah'' or paradise/heaven of Islam, in vers 52:24(Vers56:17is also thought to refer to ghilman). Etymology The words ''ghilman'' () and its singular variant '' ghulam'' () are of Arabic origin, meaning ' or '. It derives from the Arabic root ''ḡ-l-m'' (). History The ''ghilman'' were slave-soldiers taken as prisoners of war from conquered regions or frontier zones, especially from among the Turkic people of Central Asia and the Caucasian peoples ( Turkish: ''Kölemen''). They fought in bands, and demanded high pay fo ...
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Ferdinand Justi
Ferdinand Justi (2 June 1837 in Marburg, Germany – 17 February 1907 in Marburg) was a German linguist and Orientalist. He finished his studies of linguistics at the University of Marburg and the University of Göttingen. In 1861 he lived in Marburg, where in 1865 he became associate and in 1869 full professor of comparative linguistics and Germanic philology Germanic philology is the philology, philological study of the Germanic languages, particularly from a Comparative method, comparative or historical perspective. The beginnings of research into the Germanic languages began in the 16th century, wi .... In addition to his academic work, he studied with meticulous precision the life of the Hessian peasants in the last third of the 19th century, especially in the immediate and wider area of Marburg, on which he wrote his observations and described it in countless sketches and watercolors. One of his main themes included buildings, furniture, agricultural implements, and esp ...
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Persian Language
Persian ( ), also known by its endonym and exonym, endonym Farsi (, Fārsī ), is a Western Iranian languages, Western Iranian language belonging to the Iranian languages, Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian languages, Indo-Iranian subdivision of the Indo-European languages. Persian is a pluricentric language predominantly spoken and used officially within Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan in three mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible standard language, standard varieties, respectively Iranian Persian (officially known as ''Persian''), Dari, Dari Persian (officially known as ''Dari'' since 1964), and Tajik language, Tajiki Persian (officially known as ''Tajik'' since 1999).Siddikzoda, S. "Tajik Language: Farsi or not Farsi?" in ''Media Insight Central Asia #27'', August 2002. It is also spoken natively in the Tajik variety by a significant population within Uzbekistan, as well as within other regions with a Persianate society, Persianate history in the cultural sphere o ...
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Khazim Ibn Khuzayma Al-Tamimi
Khazim ibn Khuzayma al-Tamimi () () was a Greater Khorasan, Khurasani Arab military leader. One of the early supporters of the Abbasid ''da'wa'' in Khurasan, he played a major role in the Abbasid Revolution against the Umayyad Caliphate, Umayyads, and then spent the next two decades suppressing revolts across the Caliphate. As one of the main figures of the ''Khurasaniyya'', the main power base of the Abbasid regime, he cemented his family in a position of power and influence: his sons would play an important role in the affairs of the Caliphate over the next decades. Biography His family hailed from the Nahshal branch of the Banu Tamim, which had settled at Marw al-Rudh in Greater Khorasan, Khurasan, probably during the early days of the Muslim conquest of the region. The family had apparently become Persianized to some extent; Khazim is recorded as preferring to use Persian language, Persian to address his followers, and his sister had married an Iranian.Kennedy (2001), p. 100 ...
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