10.13.07

What About Columbus Day?

Posted in , at 10:34 am by Stephanie

Happened upon this about Columbus Day.

Columbus was not the first European to successfully cross the Atlantic. Viking sailors are believed to have established a short-lived settlement in Newfoundland sometime in the 11th century, and scholars have argued for a number of other possible pre-Columbian landings. Columbus, however, initiated the lasting encounter between Europeans and the indigenous peoples of the Western Hemisphere.

Notice the answer to the question of who got here first and why Columbus Day.

09.29.07

History of Islam - Week 6

Posted in , at 3:40 am by Stephanie

A lot of interesting things noted in this week’s readings and lectures.

A book recommendation from DrB: Race and Slavery in the Middle East by British historian Brent Lewis.

Further, on the topic of slavery, DrB says that Mauritania just abolished last month!

This map used in DrB’s lecture.  Which led me to this photo essay and this article, “Does the Koran Condone Killing?”

“Al-Zarqawi,” says Khaled Abou El Fadl, a professor of Western and Islamic law at UCLA, “searches for the trash that everyone threw out centuries ago and declares the trash to be Islam.”

09.28.07

The Little Rock 9

Posted in , at 11:01 am by Stephanie

The continuing news of the Jena 6 has brought comparisons to the Little Rock 9. Vanity Fair has a photo essay about one of the events that brought racism and the need for civil rights for all Americans into stark contrast.

Citizenship Test

Posted in at 10:38 am by Stephanie

The test for naturalization has been changed and will be implemented in 2008. There are 100 questions on it, of which applicants must answer 6 out of 10 correctly. I’d venture to say that a lot of native-born American citizens couldn’t answer some of the questions correctly. What do you think?

09.26.07

Your Knowledge of History Has Been Called into Question

Posted in at 4:46 pm by Stephanie

Play Time Lord at HistoryChannel.com and see how much history trivia you know. I don’t get very far but the questions and the audio/video clips are really interesting.

09.20.07

Auschwitz Scrapbooks

Posted in at 5:17 pm by Stephanie

From boingboing comes this incredible story of a find that’s on display online at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. The officer’s photograph album shows pictures of officers at the largest death camp. boingboing’s headline reads “… the banality of evil,” referring to the juxtaposition of Nazi officers relaxing and having a good time while feet away people were starving and being put to death. I think it’s a very interesting juxtaposition we should all take note of.

09.09.07

History of Islam - Meaning of Caliph

Posted in at 10:11 pm by Stephanie

According to DrB:

The follower of Muhammad was called the “caliph”, which comes from the Arabic word khalifa, which means viceregent. The first four caliphs and the Umayyad caliphs took the full title, which was “Viceregent/Successor to the Prophet of God” or “Khalifat Rasul Allah“.Later on as the Abbasid leaders became the most powerful dynasty, its charismatic rulers expunged the title “rasul” and simply called themselves “Khalifat Allah” or The Viceregent of God!

History of Islam - Shajar-al-Durr

Posted in , at 1:25 pm by Stephanie

In Islam: An Illustrated History by GSP Freeman-Grenville & Stuart C. Munro-Hay on page 102, there is this very brief mention of a woman:

The Mamluk system was initiated by a woman, Shajar-al-Durr (”tree of pearls”), who ruled for only 80 days before she was murdered.

Who was she and why was she murdered? At Women in World History, there is this story about her.

Shagrat al-Durr is one of the very few women in Islamic history to ascend to the throne. Her melodramatic life illustrates the fact that an ambitious woman had to depend on the good will of men to be able to lead.

Briefly: She was married to the sultan of Egypt, Salih Ayyub who died in 1250 CE. She took on the role of Sultan, after the leaders of the army who have defeated the Crusaders, plot to kill her stepson because they would rather have her on the throne. The Caliphate in Baghdad takes umbrage at placing a woman in power and appoints a man to do the job.

Here the details differ from Freeman-Grenville and Munro-Hay. Their snippet, quoted above, make it sound as though she was murdered after 80 days in power. But Women in History says that Shagrat-al-Durr married the new ruler, Aibak, a Mamluk soldier. They are married for seven years, but when Aibak proposes to take another wife, Shagrat-al-Durr kills him out of jealousy. But she is found out:

Spurred on by Aibak’s former wife, Shagrat is beaten to death by the slaves of the harem with their wooden clogs. Her half-naked body is thrown into the moat of the citadel.

The story is fascinating but she seems to be given short shrift in my books. More investigation is necessary.

History of Islam - Plenary Indulgences

Posted in , at 12:29 am by Stephanie

Not an Islamic tenet, a Christian one. The Catholic Encyclopedia defines plenary indulgences as:

By a plenary indulgence is meant the remission of the entire temporal punishment due to sin so that no further expiation is required in Purgatory.

This comes up in Islam: An Illustrated History by GSP Freeman-Grenville & Stuart C. Munro-Hay in the section on “Latin Kingdoms and Muslims.” In November, 1095, Pope Urban II made a call for the Crusade to retake Jerusalem from the “infidels” aka the Muslims. Part of his recruitment plan was to offer the lands each knight took from a Muslim to keep as his own, and plenary indulgences for his participation in the Crusades. (p.84)

The phrase “plenary indulgence” leapt out at me because I had just watched, for the sixth or seventh time, Kevin Smith’s very funny movie, Dogma, about two angels banned from heaven who find a loophole, in the form of a plenary indulgence, that will allow them to return to heaven.

08.30.07

History of Islam - What is Hadith?

Posted in at 11:18 am by Stephanie

Basically, hadith is Arabic for oral traditions. According to DrB:

The earliest Muslim literature outside of the Qur’an includes collected stories and sayings attributed to Muhammad. These accounts were recorded at least a century later, and assigned to Muhammad through a transmission (isnād, اسناد) of authorities. These lists gave an account of a saying stretching back to a Companion (الصحابة) of Muhammad through Followers (التابعون) and later disciples of Islam, which were recorded later. … The term has taken on a specialized meaning in Islam, meaning what is attributed to the prophet. In Islamic tradition, the Hadīth and Sunna formed the basis of communal life. In many cases they were identical, yet there are many divergences. The Sunna described the method of doing something, particularly in regard to ritual. Hadith served as a means of incorporating customs and traditions into the authoritative body of the society. In this respect, ahādīth (pl. of hadith) were used to inculcate into Islamic practice the traditions about Muhammad during his life. The hadīth functioned as a system to verify contemporary Islamic practice by relating what the prophet did in his life and thus abide by his example.

There’s more about hadith at Wikipedia but as always caveat emptor.

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