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Ibn Jubair
Ibn Jubayr (1 September 1145 – 29 November 1217; ), also written Ibn Jubair, Ibn Jobair, and Ibn Djubayr, was an Arab geographer, traveller and poet from al-Andalus. His travel chronicle describes the pilgrimage he made to Mecca from 1183 to 1185, in the years preceding the Third Crusade. His chronicle describes Saladin's domains in Egypt and the Levant which he passed through on his way to Mecca. Further, on his return journey, he passed through Christian Sicily, which had been recaptured from the Muslims only a century before, and he made several observations on the hybrid polyglot culture that flourished there. Early life Ibn Jubayr was born in 1145 in Valencia, Spain, to an Arab family of the Kinanah tribe. He was a descendant of 'Abdal-Salam ibn Jabayr, who, in 740 AD, had accompanied an army sent by the caliph of Damascus to put down a Berber uprising in his Spanish provinces. Ibn Jubayr studied in the town of Xàtiva, where his father worked as a civil servant. He la ...
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Valencia
Valencia ( , ), formally València (), is the capital of the Province of Valencia, province and Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Valencian Community, the same name in Spain. It is located on the banks of the Turia (river), Turia, on the east coast of the Iberian Peninsula on the Mediterranean Sea. It is the Ranked lists of Spanish municipalities, third-most populated municipality in the country, with 825,948 inhabitants. The urban area of Valencia has 1.5 million people while the metropolitan region has 2.5 million. Valencia was founded as a Roman Republic, Roman colony in 138 BC as '. As an autonomous city in late antiquity, its militarization followed the onset of the threat posed by the Spania, Byzantine presence to the South, together with effective integration to the Visigothic Kingdom of Toledo in the late 6th century. Al-Andalus, Islamic rule and acculturation ensued in the 8th century, together with the introduction of new irrigation syst ...
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Saladin
Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub ( – 4 March 1193), commonly known as Saladin, was the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty. Hailing from a Kurdish family, he was the first sultan of both Egypt and Syria. An important figure of the Third Crusade, he spearheaded the Muslim military effort against the Crusader states in the Levant. At the height of his power, the Ayyubid realm spanned Egypt, Syria, Upper Mesopotamia, the Hejaz, Yemen, and Nubia. Alongside his uncle Shirkuh, a Kurdish mercenary commander in service of the Zengid dynasty, Saladin was sent to Fatimid Egypt in 1164, on the orders of the Zengid ruler Nur ad-Din. With their original purpose being to help restore Shawar as the vizier to the teenage Fatimid caliph al-Adid, a power struggle ensued between Shirkuh and Shawar after the latter was reinstated. Saladin, meanwhile, climbed the ranks of the Fatimid government by virtue of his military successes against Crusader assaults and his personal closeness to al-Adid. A ...
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Robert Irwin (writer)
Robert Graham Irwin (23 August 194628 June 2024) was a British scholar and novelist. Notable among of his scholarly works is '' For Lust of Knowing: The Orientalists and Their Enemies'', a critique of Edward Said's concept of "Orientalism". Biography Robert Graham Irwin was born in Guildford on 23 August 1946. He attended Epsom College, read modern history at the University of Oxford, and did graduate research at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) under the supervision of Bernard Lewis. His thesis was on the Mamluk reconquest of the Crusader states, but he failed to complete it. During his studies, he converted to Islam and spent some time in a dervish monastery in Algeria. From 1972 he was a lecturer in medieval history at the University of St. Andrews. He gave up academic life in 1977 in order to write fiction, while continuing to lecture part-time at Oxford, Cambridge and SOAS. Irwin was a research associate at SOAS, and the Middle East editor of ''The Times ...
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Hajj
Hajj (; ; also spelled Hadj, Haj or Haji) is an annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, the holiest city for Muslims. Hajj is a mandatory religious duty for capable Muslims that must be carried out at least once in their lifetime by all adult Muslims who are physically and financially capable of undertaking the journey, and of supporting their family during their absence from home. In Islamic terminology, Hajj is a pilgrimage made to the Kaaba, the "House of Allah", in the sacred city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia. It is one of the Five Pillars of Islam, alongside (oath that one believes there is no god but Allah), (prayer), (almsgiving), and (fasting during Ramadan). The Hajj is an annual practice when Muslim brotherhood is on display and their solidarity with fellow Muslim people and submission to God (Allah) is fulfilled. The Hajj is taken by Muslims to cleanse their souls of all worldly sins, which connotes both the outward act of a journey after death and th ...
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Granada
Granada ( ; ) is the capital city of the province of Granada, in the autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain. Granada is located at the foot of the Sierra Nevada (Spain), Sierra Nevada mountains, at the confluence of four rivers, the Darro (river), Darro, the Genil, the Monachil (river), Monachil and the Beiro. Ascribed to the Vega de Granada ''comarca'', the city sits at an average elevation of Above mean sea level, above sea level, yet is only one hour by car from the Mediterranean coast, the Costa Tropical. Nearby is the Sierra Nevada Ski Station, where the FIS Alpine World Ski Championships 1996 were held. In the 2021 national census, the population of the city of Granada proper was 227,383, and the population of the entire municipal area was estimated to be 231,775, ranking as the Ranked lists of Spanish municipalities, 20th-largest urban area of Spain. About 3.3% of the population did not hold Spanish citizenship, the largest number of these ...
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Almohad
The Almohad Caliphate (; or or from ) or Almohad Empire was a North African Berber Muslim empire founded in the 12th century. At its height, it controlled much of the Iberian Peninsula (Al-Andalus) and North Africa (the Maghreb). The Almohad movement was founded by Ibn Tumart among the Berber Masmuda tribes, but the Almohad caliphate and its ruling dynasty, known as the Mu'minid dynasty, were founded after his death by Abd al-Mu'min. * Around 1121, Ibn Tumart was recognized by his followers as the Mahdi, and shortly afterwards he established his base at Tinmel in the Atlas Mountains. Under Abd al-Mu'min (r. 1130–1163), they succeeded in overthrowing the ruling Almoravid dynasty governing the western Maghreb in 1147, when he conquered Marrakesh and declared himself caliph. They then extended their power over all of the Maghreb by 1159. Al-Andalus followed, and all of Muslim Iberia was under Almohad rule by 1172. The turning point of their presence in the Iberian Peninsula ...
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Xàtiva
Xàtiva (; ) is a town in eastern Spain, in the province of Valencia, on the right (western) bank of the river Albaida and at the junction of the Valencia, Spain, Valencia–Murcia and Valencia Albacete railways. It is located 25 km west of the Mediterranean Sea. During the Al-Andalus Islamic era, Arabs brought the technology to manufacture paper to Xàtiva. In the 12th century, Xàtiva was known for its schools, education, and learning circles. Islamic scholar Abu Ishaq al-Shatibi's last name refers to Xàtiva where he lived and died. After the Reconquista by Northern Christian kingdoms and the following Christian repopulation, the city became the cradle of one of the most powerful and controversial families of the Renaissance, the House of Borgia, which produced Popes like Callixtus III (Alfonso de Borgia) and Alexander VI (Rodrigo de Borgia). History Xàtiva (''Saetabis'' in Latin) was famous in Roman times for its linen fabrics, mentioned by the Latin poets Ov ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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Banu Kinanah
Kinana () is an Arab tribe based around Mecca in the Tihama coastal area and the Hejaz mountains. The Quraysh of Mecca, the tribe of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, was an offshoot of the Kinana. A number of modern-day tribes throughout the Arab world trace their lineage to the tribe. Location The traditional tribal territory of the Kinana extended from the part of the Tihama coastline near Mecca northeastward to the borders of the territory of their tribal relatives, the Banu Asad. History Origins and branches In the Arab genealogical tradition, the eponymous ancestor of the tribe was Kinana, a son of Khuzaymah ibn Mudrikah. The tribe traced its ancestry to Ishmael, who married a woman of the Yemenite Jurhum tribe and settled in the vicinity of Mecca according to Islamic tradition. The Kinana were polytheists, with their worship centering on the goddess al-Uzza. Islamic tradition holds that the Kinana and the other descendants of Ishmael gradually dispersed throughout ...
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