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Anqa
Anqa (), also spelled '' 'Anqa' '', or ''Anka'', or ''Anqa Mughrib'' or ''Anqa al-Mughrib'' (), is a golden mysterious or fabulous female bird in Arabian mythology. She is said to fly far away and only appear once in ages. However, it is also said that she can be found at "the place of the setting of the sun". Etymology and notes The word ''ʿanqāʾ'' is the feminine form of ''ʾaʿnaq'' () meaning "long-necked" and also "long and thick in the neck". This probably implies that the bird resembles a heron or crane (bird), crane (or other long-necked birds) or simply has a large strong neck like an eagle or falcon (or other birds of prey, raptors) with which she was identified by some. The word ''muḡrib'' has a number of meanings signifying "strange, foreign", "distant, remote", "west, sunset", "desolated, unknown" and "white, dawn" and expresses the enigma as well as unreality associated with the creature. ''ʿAnqāʾ'', however, is also related to ''ʿanāq'' ( "misfortune, h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phoenix (mythology)
The phoenix is a Legendary creature, legendary immortal bird that cyclically regenerates or is otherwise born again. Originating in Greek mythology, it has analogs in many cultures, such as Egyptian mythology, Egyptian and Persian mythology. Associated with the sun, a phoenix obtains new life by rising from the ashes of its predecessor. Some legends say it dies in a show of flames and combustion, while others say that it simply dies and decomposes before being born again. In the ''Motif-Index of Folk-Literature'', a tool used by folklore studies, folklorists, the phoenix is classified as motif B32.Thompson. (2001: 581). The origin of the phoenix has been attributed to Ancient Egypt by Herodotus and later 19th-century scholars, but other scholars think the Egyptian texts may have been influenced by classical folklore. Over time, the phoenix motif spread and gained a variety of new associations; Herodotus, Lucan, Pliny the Elder, Pope Clement I, Lactantius, Ovid, and Isidore of Sev ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mount Qaf
Mount Qaf, or Qaf-Kuh, also spelled Cafcuh and Kafkuh (), or Jabal Qaf, also spelled Djebel Qaf (); ''Koh-i-Qaf'', also spelled ''Koh-Qaf'' and ''Kuh-i-Qaf'' or ''Kuh-e Qaf'' (); or ''Kaf Dağı'' in Turkish is a legendary mountain in the popular mythology of the Middle East. In some early Arab traditions, Mount Qaf is said to be the homeland of the jinn and was made out of shining emerald by God. Iranian tradition Historically Iranian power never extended over all of the Northern Caucasus and ancient lore shrouded these high mountains in mystery. In Iranian tradition this mountain could be any of the following: * The highest mountain in Qafqaz * The "unknown" mountain referred to as ''Gapkuh''''Qāf'' is the Arabized form of the Middle Persian word ''gâp'' meaning "unknown". The oldest mention of ''Gapkuh'' or the "unknown mountain" is in an inscription of Shapur I (241-272 AD) for the mountains between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. The name of the Caucasus Mountains is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Islamic Art
Islamic art is a part of Islamic culture and encompasses the visual arts produced since the 7th century CE by people who lived within territories inhabited or ruled by Muslims, Muslim populations. Referring to characteristic traditions across a wide range of lands, periods, and genres, Islamic art is a concept used first by Western culture, Western Art history, art historians in the late 19th century. Public Islamic art is traditionally non-Representation (arts), representational, except for the widespread use of plant forms, usually in varieties of the spiralling Arabesque (Islamic art), arabesque. These are often combined with Islamic calligraphy, Islamic geometric patterns, geometric patterns in styles that are typically found in a wide variety of media, from small objects in ceramic or metalwork to large decorative schemes in tiling on the outside and inside of large buildings, including mosques. Other forms of Islamic art include Islamic miniature painting, artefacts like I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arabian Legendary Creatures
The Arabian Peninsula (, , or , , ) or Arabia, is a peninsula in West Asia, situated north-east of Africa on the Arabian plate. At , comparable in size to India, the Arabian Peninsula is the largest peninsula in the world. Geographically, the Arabian Peninsula comprises Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Yemen, as well as southern Iraq and Jordan. The largest of these is Saudi Arabia. In the Roman era, the Sinai Peninsula was also considered a part of Arabia. The Arabian Peninsula formed as a result of the rifting of the Red Sea between 56 and 23 million years ago, and is bordered by the Red Sea to the west and south-west, the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman to the north-east, the Levant and Mesopotamia to the north and the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean to the south-east. The peninsula plays a critical geopolitical role in the Arab world and globally due to its vast reserves of oil and natural gas. Before the modern era, t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Al-Khalil Ibn Ahmad Al-Farahidi
Abu ‘Abd ar-Raḥmān al-Khalīl ibn Aḥmad ibn ‘Amr ibn Tammām al-Farāhīdī al-Azdī al-Yaḥmadī (; 718 – 786 CE), known as al-Farāhīdī, or al-Khalīl, was an Arab philologist, lexicographer and leading grammarian of Basra in Iraq. He made the first dictionary of the Arabic language – and the oldest extant dictionary – '' Kitab al-'Ayn'' ( "The Source")Introduction to ''Early Medieval Arabic: Studies on Al-Khalīl Ibn Ahmad'', pg. 3. Ed. Karin C. Ryding. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1998. – introduced the now standard harakat (vowel marks in Arabic script) system, and was instrumental in the early development of ʿArūḍ (study of prosody),al-Khalīl ibn Aḥmad at the [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kitab Al-'Ayn
''Kitāb al-ʿAyn'' () is the first Arabic language dictionary and one of the earliest known dictionaries of any language. It was compiled in the eighth century by al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi. The letter '' ayn'' () of the dictionary's title is regarded as phonetically the deepest letter in the Arabic alphabet. In addition the word ''ayn'' carries the sense of 'a water source in the desert'. Its title "the source" alludes also to the author's interest in etymology and tracing the meanings of words to their Arabic origins. Al-Farahidi, who was from the Basra School, chose an unusual arrangement that does not follow the alphabetical order familiar today as the standard dictionary format. Al-Farahidi devised a phonetic system that followed the pattern of pronunciation of the Arabic alphabet. According to this system the order begins with the deepest letter in the throat, the letter (ayin), and ends with the last letter pronounced by the lips, that being ( mim).Abit Yaşar Ko� ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ibn Manzur
Muhammad ibn Mukarram ibn Alī ibn Ahmad ibn Manzūr al-Ansārī al-Ifrīqī al-Misrī al-Khazrajī () also known as Ibn Manẓūr () (June–July 1233 – December 1311/January 1312) was an Arab lexicographer of the Arabic language and author of a large dictionary, ''Lisan al-ʿArab'' (; ) Biography Ibn Manzur was born in 1233 in Ifriqiya (present day Tunisia). He was of Arab descent, from the Banu Khazraj tribe of Ansar as his ''nisba'' al-Ansārī al-Ifrīqī al-Misrī al-Khazrajī suggests. Ibn Hajar reports that he was a judge (qadi) in Tripoli, Libya and Egypt and spent his life as clerk in the Diwan al-Insha', an office that was responsible among other things for correspondence, archiving and copying. Fück assumes to be able to identify him with Muḥammad b. Mukarram, who was one of the secretaries of this institution (the so called ''Kuttāb al-Inshāʾ'') under Qalawun. Following Brockelmann, Ibn Manzur studied philology. He dedicated most of his life to excerp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ibn Khallikan
Aḥmad bin Muḥammad bin Ibrāhīm bin Abū Bakr ibn Khallikān (; 22 September 1211 – 30 October 1282), better known as Ibn Khallikān, was a renowned Islamic historian of Kurdish origin who compiled the celebrated biographical encyclopedia of Muslim scholars and important men in Muslim history, '' Deaths of Eminent Men and the Sons of the Epoch'' (). Due to this achievement, he is regarded as the most eminent writer of biographies in Islamic history. Life Ibn Khallikān was born in Erbil on 22 September 1211 (11 Rabī’ al-Thānī, 608), into a family that claimed descent from Barmakids, an Iranian dynasty from Balkh. His primary studies took him from Erbil, to Aleppo and to Damascus, before he took up jurisprudence in Mosul and then in Cairo, where he settled. He gained prominence as a jurist, theologian and grammarian. An early biographer described him as "a pious man, virtuous, and learned; amiable in temper, in conversation serious and instructive. His exterior ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anzû
Anzû, also known as dZû and Imdugud ( Sumerian: '' ''), is a demon in several Mesopotamian religions. He was conceived by the cosmic freshwater ocean '' Abzu'' and mother Earth ''Mami'', or as son of Siris. In Babylonian myths Anzû was depicted as a massive bird - also as an eagle with lion head - who can breathe fire and water. This narrative seems to refer to much earlier Sumerian myths, in which he appears as a half-human storm bird who stole the tablet of destiny, challenging Enlil's power over his organisation of different gods that provided Mesopotamia with agriculture (cf. the Flood epic Athrahasis). Stephanie Dalley, in ''Myths from Mesopotamia'', writes that the Epic of Anzu ''itself'' "is principally known in two versions: an Old Babylonian version of the early second millennium C giving the hero as Ningirsu; and 'The Standard Babylonian' version, dating to the first millennium BC, which appears to be the most quoted version, with the hero as Ninurta". However, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roc (mythology)
The roc is an enormous legendary bird of prey in the popular mythology of the Middle East. The roc appears in Arab geographies and natural history, popularized in Arabian fairy tales and sailors' folklore. Ibn Battuta tells of a mountain hovering in the air over the China Seas, which was the roc. The story collection ''One Thousand and One Nights'' includes tales "Abd al-Rahman the Maghribi's Story of the Rukh" and "Sinbad the Sailor", both of which include the roc. Etymology The English form ''roc'' originates via Antoine Galland's French from Arabic ''ruḵḵ'' () and that from Persian language, Persian ''ruḵ'' ().roc /[phonetic transcription]/ n. Also (earlier) ✝roche, ✝rock, ✝ruc(k), ✝rukh. L16 [Sp. ''rocho'', ''ruc'' f. Arab. ''ruḵḵ'', f. Pers. ''ruḵ''.] A mythical bird of Eastern legend, imagined as being of enormous size and strength (''The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary'', Clarendon Press, Oxford, Volume 2 N-Z, 1993 edition, page 2614) In both lang ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
2 Enoch
The Second Book of Enoch (abbreviated as 2 Enoch and also known as Slavonic Enoch, Slavic Enoch, or the Secrets of Enoch) is a pseudepigraphic text in the apocalyptic genre. It describes the ascent of the patriarch Enoch, ancestor of Noah, through ten heavens of an Earth-centered cosmos. The Slavonic edition and translation of 2 Enoch is of Christian origin in the 8th century but is based on an earlier work. 2 Enoch is distinct from the Book of Enoch, known as 1 Enoch, and there is also an unrelated 3 Enoch, although none of the three books are considered canonical scripture by the majority of Jewish or Christian bodies. The numbering of these texts has been applied by scholars to distinguish each from the others. The cosmology of 2 Enoch corresponds closely with beliefs of the Early Middle Ages about the metaphysical structure of the universe. It may have been influential in shaping them. The text was lost for several centuries, then recovered and published at the end of the nin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
