|
Dar Al-Magana
Dar al-Magana () is a 14th-century building in Fes, Morocco, built by the Marinid Sultan Abu Inan Faris which houses a weight-powered water clock. It is located opposite the Bou Inania Madrasa on Tala'a Kebira street and was created to serve that madrasa and its mosque, which was also built by Abu Inan around the same time. The building is also sometimes referred to as the "House of Maimonides" due to a popular legend which claims that the house was once the residence of the famous Jews, Jewish philosopher Maimonides. History The clock was part of the large charitable complex centered around the Bou Inania Madrasa built by the Marinid sultan Abu Inan. According to its foundation inscription, construction on the madrasa itself started on December 28, 1350 Common Era, CE (28 Ramadan (month), Ramadan 751 Hijri year, AH) and finished in 1355 (756 AH). According to the historical chronicler Abu al-Hasan Ali al-Jaznai, al-Jazna'i, the water clock was completed on 6 May 1357 (14 Jumad ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dar Al-Muwaqqit
A Dar al-Muwaqqit (), or muvakkithane in Turkish, is a room or structure accompanying a mosque which was used by the ''muwaqqit'' or timekeeper, an officer charged with maintaining the correct times of prayer and communicating them to the muezzin (the person who issued the call to prayer). ''Dar al-Muwaqqit'' was the Arabic term given to such structures added to many mosques in Morocco from the Marinid period onward. In the Ottoman Empire the equivalent of such structures were known in Turkish as a ''muvakkithane'' ("lodge of the ''muwaqqit''"). Role of the Muwaqqit Muslims observe ''salah'', the daily ritual prayer, at prescribed times based on the hadith or the tradition of Muhammad (–632). Each day, there are five obligatory prayers with specific ranges of permitted times determined by daily astronomical phenomena. For example, the time for the maghrib prayer starts after sunset and ends when the red twilight has disappeared. Because the start and end times for prayers ar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Toledo, Spain
Toledo ( ; ) is a city and Municipalities of Spain, municipality of Spain, the capital of the province of Toledo and the ''de jure'' seat of the government and parliament of the autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Castilla–La Mancha. Toledo is primarily located on the right (north) bank of the Tagus in central Iberian Peninsula, Iberia, nestled in a bend of the river. Built on a previous Carpetanian settlement, Toledo developed into an important Roman city of Hispania, later becoming the capital (''civitas regia'') of the Visigothic Kingdom and seat of a Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Toledo, powerful archdiocese. Often unsubmissive to Emirate of Córdoba, Umayyad central rule during the Islamic period, Toledo (طليطلة) nonetheless acquired a status as a major cultural centre (promoting productive cultural exchanges between the Ummah and the Latin Christendom), which still retained after the Fitna of al-Andalus, collapse of the caliphate and the crea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Al-Andalus
Al-Andalus () was the Muslim-ruled area of the Iberian Peninsula. The name refers to the different Muslim states that controlled these territories at various times between 711 and 1492. At its greatest geographical extent, it occupied most of the peninsula as well as Septimania under Umayyad rule. These boundaries changed through a series of conquests Western historiography has traditionally characterized as the ''Reconquista'',"Para los autores árabes medievales, el término Al-Andalus designa la totalidad de las zonas conquistadas – siquiera temporalmente – por tropas arabo-musulmanas en territorios actualmente pertenecientes a Portugal, España y Francia" ("For medieval Arab authors, Al-Andalus designated all the conquered areas – even temporarily – by Arab-Muslim troops in territories now belonging to Spain, Portugal and France"), García de Cortázar, José Ángel. ''V Semana de Estudios Medievales: Nájera, 1 al 5 de agosto de 1994'', Gobie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Damascus
Damascus ( , ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in the Levant region by population, largest city of Syria. It is the oldest capital in the world and, according to some, the fourth Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. Known colloquially in Syria as () and dubbed, poetically, the "City of Jasmine" ( ), Damascus is a major cultural center of the Levant and the Arab world. Situated in southwestern Syria, Damascus is the center of a large metropolitan area. Nestled among the eastern foothills of the Anti-Lebanon mountain range inland from the eastern shore of the Mediterranean on a plateau above sea level, Damascus experiences an arid climate because of the rain shadow effect. The Barada, Barada River flows through Damascus. Damascus is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. First settled in the 3rd millennium BC, it was chosen as the capital of the Umayyad Caliphate from 661 to 750. Afte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Umayyad Mosque
The Umayyad Mosque (; ), also known as the Great Mosque of Damascus, located in the old city of Damascus, the capital of Syria, is one of the largest and oldest mosques in the world. Its religious importance stems from the eschatological reports concerning the mosque and historic events associated with it. Christian and Muslim tradition alike consider it the burial place of John the Baptist's head, a tradition originating in the 6th century. Two shrines inside the premises commemorate the Islamic prophet Muhammad's grandson Husayn ibn Ali, whose Battle of Karbala, martyrdom is frequently compared to that of John the Baptist. The site has been used as a house of worship since the Iron Age, when the Aram-Damascus, Arameans built on it a temple dedicated to their god of rain, Hadad. Under Roman Syria, Roman rule, beginning in 64 CE, it was converted into the center of the imperial cult of ancient Rome, imperial cult of Jupiter, the Roman god of rain, becoming one of the largest templ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ismail Al-Jazari
Badīʿ az-Zaman Abu l-ʿIzz ibn Ismāʿīl ibn ar-Razāz al-Jazarī (1136–1206, , ) was a Muslim polymath: a scholar, inventor, mechanical engineer, artisan and artist from the Artuqid Dynasty of Jazira in Mesopotamia. He is best known for writing ''The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices'' (, also known as ''Automata'') in 1206, where he described 50 mechanical devices, along with instructions on how to construct them. One of his more famous inventions is the elephant clock. He has been described as the "father of robotics" and modern day engineering. Biography Al-Jazari was born in the area of Upper Mesopotamia in 1136. Sources state his exact location is unknown, but they speculate he could have been born in Jazirat ibn Umar, where he got the name Jazari from or Al-Jazira which was used to denote Upper Mesopotamia. The only biographical information known about him is contained in his ''Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices''. Like his father ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Clock Of Ridwan Al-Saati
The Jayrun Water Clock, a water clock built by the Muslim engineer Muhammad al-Sa'ati, was positioned at the gate of Damascus, Syria, at the exit of the Umayyad Mosque in the 12th century during the reign of Nur ad-Din Zangi.Hill, Donald Routledge. "A History of Engineering in Classical and Medieval Times", p. 234 There is a full description of the clock in the treatise ''Ktab 'Amal al-sa'at wa-l-amal biha'' (''On the Construction of Clocks and their Use'') written by Ridwan b. al Saati in 1203. This treatise describes the reconstruction by Ridwan of the water clock which was built by his father, Muhammad al-Saati, in the reign of Nur al-Din Mahmud b. Zanki in Damascus (reigned 1154–74). "The clock-face consisted of wall of timber about 4.23 metres wide and 2.78 metres high. In this screen was a row of doors, at either end of which was the figure of a falcon. During the day a small crescent moved at constant speed in front of the doors and at every hour a door rotated to revea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arabic Script
The Arabic script is the writing system used for Arabic (Arabic alphabet) and several other languages of Asia and Africa. It is the second-most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world (after the Latin script), the second-most widely used List of writing systems by adoption, writing system in the world by number of countries using it, and the third-most by number of users (after the Latin and Chinese characters, Chinese scripts). The script was first used to write texts in Arabic, most notably the Quran, the holy book of Islam. With Spread of Islam, the religion's spread, it came to be used as the primary script for many language families, leading to the addition of new letters and other symbols. Such languages still using it are Arabic language, Arabic, Persian language, Persian (Western Persian, Farsi and Dari), Urdu, Uyghur language, Uyghur, Kurdish languages, Kurdish, Pashto, Punjabi language, Punjabi (Shahmukhi), Sindhi language, Sindhi, South Azerbaijani, Azerb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arabesque
The arabesque is a form of artistic decoration consisting of "surface decorations based on rhythmic linear patterns of scrolling and interlacing foliage, tendrils" or plain lines, often combined with other elements. Another definition is "Foliate ornament, used in the Islamic world, typically using leaves, derived from stylised half-palmettes, which were combined with spiralling stems". It usually consists of a single design which can be ' tiled' or seamlessly repeated as many times as desired. Within the very wide range of Eurasian decorative art that includes motifs matching this basic definition, the term "arabesque" is used consistently as a technical term by art historians to describe only elements of the decoration found in two phases: Islamic art from about the 9th century onwards, and European decorative art from the Renaissance onwards. Interlace and scroll decoration are terms used for most other types of similar patterns. Arabesques are a fundamental element of Isla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stucco
Stucco or render is a construction material made of aggregates, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as a decorative coating for walls and ceilings, exterior walls, and as a sculptural and artistic material in architecture. Stucco can be applied on construction materials such as metal, expanded metal lath, concrete, cinder block, or clay brick and adobe for decorative and structural purposes. In English, "stucco" sometimes refers to a coating for the outside of a building and " plaster" to a coating for interiors. As described below, however, the materials themselves often have little or no difference. Other European languages, notably Italian, do not have the same distinction: ''stucco'' means ''plaster'' in Italian and serves for both. Composition The basic composition of stucco is lime, water, and sand. The difference in nomenclature between stucco, plaster, and mortar is based more on use than composition. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
