Boabdil
Boabdil (Abu Abdullah)(Abu 'Abd-Allah Muhammad XII) (also called El Chico – “the little one”) (c.1460- 1533). Last Moorish king of Granada. He reigned under the name Muhammad XII. He became king by dethroning his father Abu al-Hasan (1445?-1500?) in 1482. However, in 1483, his forces were defeated at Lucena (now in Spain) by an army of King Ferdinand V of Aragon, and Boabdil was taken prisoner. On Boabdil’s agreement, in 1486, to rule Granada as a tributary of Spain, Ferdinand restored him to the throne. Boabdil, however, refused to surrender the city, and Ferdinand besieged it in the spring of 1491. Despite a valiant defense by the Moors of their last stronghold in Spain, Granada fell in January 1492. Boabdil was allowed to retire to an estate in Spain, but he later moved to Fez in Morocco, where he died.
Abu 'Abd-Allah Muhammad XII was the twenty-second and last Nasrid ruler of Granada in Iberia. He was also called el chico, the little one, or el zogoybi, the unfortunate one. The name Boabdil is a corruption of the name Abu 'Abd-Allah. Son of Abu l-Hasan Ali, king of the taifa of Granada, he was proclaimed king in 1482 in place of his father, who was driven from the land. Soon afterwards, Boabdil sought to gain prestige by invading Castile. He was taken prisoner at Lucena in 1484. Between 1484 and 1487, he was held prisoner. Power returned to his father and then, in 1485, to his uncle Muhammad XIII (who was also known as Abdullah Zagal).
Boabdil obtained his freedom and support to recover his throne in 1487 by consenting to hold Granada as a tributary kingdom under Ferdinand and Isabella, king and queen of Castile and Aragon, and not to intervene to prevent the conquest of Malaga.
1487 saw the fall of Baeza, Malaga and Almeria. 1489 saw the fall of Almunecar and Salobrena. By the beginning of 1491, Granada was the only Muslim city left in Spain.
In 1491, Muhammad XII was summoned by Ferdinand and Isabella to surrender the city of Granada, and on his refusal it was besieged by the Castilians. Eventually, on January 2, 1492, Granada was surrendered. In most sumptuous attire the royal procession moved from Santa Fe to a place a little more than a mile from Granada, where Ferdinand took up his position by the banks of the Genil
where he received Muhammad XII and Muhammad XII kissed Ferdinand's hand.
Legend has it that as the royal party moved south toward exile, they reached a rocky prominence which gave a last view of the city. Muhammad XII reined in his horse and, surveying for the last time the Alhambra and the green valley that spread below, burst into tears. When his mother approached him she said : "Don't weep like a woman for what you could not defend as a man". The spot from which Muhammad XII looked for the last time on Granada is known as "the Moor's last sigh" (el último suspiro del Moro).
Muhammad XII was given an estate in Láujar de Andarax, Las Alpujarras, a mountainous area between the Sierra Nevada and the Mediterranean Sea, but he soon crossed the Strait of Gibraltar to Fez, where he died in 1533.
Abu Abdullah see Boabdil
El Chico see Boabdil
“the little one” see Boabdil
Abu 'Abd-Allah Muhammad XII see Boabdil
El Zogoybi see Boabdil
"the unfortunate one" see Boabdil
Bohoras
Bohoras (Bohras). Muslim community in western India comprised of Isma‘ili Shi‘a of Hindu descent. They uphold the claims of the Fatimid Caliph al-Musta‘li bi-‘llah (d. 1101) to succeed his father al-Mustansir against his brother Nizar. They are therefore also known as Musta‘lis, Nizar’s adherents being known as Nizaris. Up to 1539, the head of the Bohoras resided in Yemen.
Although a few Bohoras have become Sunni, most are followers of the Tayyibi Isma‘ili Da’i Mutlaq, whose headquarters are in Bombay and Surat. The main branches of this group are the Da’udis, the Sulaymanis, and some smaller offshoots, such as the Aliyyas and Nagoshias.
Bohras see Bohoras
Musta'li Isma'ilis see Bohoras
Bohras
Bohras. See Bohoras.
Bokassa
Bokassa (Jean-Bede Bokassa) (Jean-Bedel Bokassa) (Salah Eddine Ahmed Bokassa) (February 22, 1921 - November 2, 1996). Ruler of the Central African Republic. Jean-Bede Bokassa was one of the most ruthless dictators of twentieth century Africa. He was accused of not only killing those who dared to criticize him but of eating them as well. Jean-Bédel Bokassa, also known as Bokassa I of Central Africa and Salah Eddine Ahmed Bokassa) was the military ruler of the Central African Republic from January 1, 1966 and the Emperor of the Central African Empire from December 4, 1976 until he was overthrown on September 20, 1979.
Jean-Bede Bokassa (Eddine Ahmed Bokassa) was one of twelve children of a Mbaka chief in Lobaye Province, in what was then the French colony of Oubangui-Chari. Included in his extended family were an uncle, independence leader Barthelemy Boganda, and a cousin, David Dacko, who became president of the Central African Republic twice -- before and after Bokassa. Both of Bokassa’s parents died when he was six.
Bokassa was educated in Roman Catholic mission schools in Bangui and Brazzaville. Having given up early plans to study for the priesthood, Bokassa joined the French army at the beginning of World War II. He served in General de Gaulle’s Free French forces, participating in the Brazzaville campaign. Subsequently, Bokassa served with distinction in Indo-china. He was promoted to second lieutenant in 1956.
In 1960, Bokassa retired from the French army with the rank of captain and returned to the newly independent Central African Republic to head its fledgling army. President Dacko attempted to cope with his country’s severe economic problems through a series of unpopular austerity measures. When these were extended to include a significant cut in the military budget, Bokassa organized a coup and seized power on December 31, 1965.
As an army lieutenant colonel, Bokassa seized power six years after the Central African Republic won its independence from France. After consolidating power, Bokassa declared his intention to restore the country to civilian rule when the economy stabilized. His reform measures were unsuccessful, however, in part due to his own increasingly eccentric behavior, much of which centered on attempts to ensure his unchallenged rule of the Central African Republic.
In 1970, Bokassa outlawed strikes and demonstrations. In 1971, in commemoration of Mother’s Day, Bokassa released all women prisoners and executed men accused of serious crimes against women. In 1972, the sole political party, which he controlled, proclaimed him president for life.
Bokassa’s foreign policy was largely opportunistic. He was constantly in search of foreign aid. In 1976, with Libyan promises of financial aid, he converted to Islam and took a Muslim name. When Libyan promises were not kept, however, he returned to Christianity. Relations with France were also erratic. Bokassa desired French aid, but continually antagonized French economic interests.
In December 1976, Bokassa renamed the country the “Central African Empire,” with himself as Emperor Bokassa I. The following year his elaborate coronation, estimated to have cost $30 million, received international attention in the press. Although the new constitution included a legislative body, it never met, and Bokassa retained all power. Meanwhile, the United States announced the phased withdrawal of aid to the country.
During his reign, Bokassa made a fortune for himself by exploiting the country’s mineral resources, particularly its diamond mines while the living standard of millions of his countrymen plummeted.
Long backed by France, which had key interests in the uranium fields of the Central African Republic, Bokassa found himself increasingly alienated by human rights abuses. One such notable abuse occured in 1979 when 100 school children were massacred after they complained about the school uniforms that they were required to buy from Bokassa’s factory.
The slaughter of the schoolchildren in Bangui’s Ngaragba prison incited international condemnation of Bokassa as well as a cutoff of aid from the United States.
The incident involving the massacre, along with such incidents as the embarrassment caused by Bokassa when he divulged that he had given French President Valery Giscard d’Estaing diamonds, ultimately led to Bokassa’s downfall. Late in 1979, while Bokassa was visiting Libya, he was ousted in a bloodless coup engineered by French troops.
The French reinstated the first president of the Central African Republic, David Dacko, as Bokassa replacement. Dacko, in commenting on Bokassa, noted that “He treated Central Africans like they were animals, like dogs.”
Bokassa spent seven years in exile in the Ivory Coast and in France. In France, he lived in luxury with fifteen of his children. Just outside Paris, Bokassa owned four chateaus, a hotel, a villa and an executive jet -- the booty seized by a tyrant.
In 1987, Bokassa returned to the Central African Republic. He returned expecting to be welcomed with open arms. Instead, he was arrested and became the first deposed African chief of state to be publicly tried on charges of murder, torture and cannibalism.
In the sensational trial that followed, prosecutors claimed that Bokassa’s old palace was filled with evidence of atrocities, including the frozen body of a schoolteacher hanging on a freezer hook and mounds of human flesh prepared for roasting.
Bokassa’s former cook testified that he prepared meals with human flesh and watched Bokassa eat them “with relish.” Other witnesses testified that Bokassa enjoyed fooling visiting foreign dignitaries by serving up his opponents as roast beef.
Bokassa tearfully denied the allegations. “I am not a cannibal,” he said.
Bokassa was acquitted of cannibalism charges but was convicted of murder and sentenced to death. The sentence was commuted to 20 years in prison.
Bokassa was freed in September of 1993.
Despite the atrocities that he committed during his reign of terror, Jean-Bede Bokassa was honored with a state funeral after he died in 1996.
Jean-Bede Bokassa see Bokassa
Eddine Ahmed Bokassa see Bokassa
Bokassa I see Bokassa
Boko Haram
The Congregation of the People of Tradition for Proselytism and Jihad (Arabic: جماعة اهل السنة للدعوة والجهاد Jamāʻat Ahl as-Sunnah lid-daʻwa wal-Jihād)—better known by its Hausa name Boko Haram, "Western education is sinful") —is an Islamic jihadist and takfiri militant and terrorist organization based in the northeast of Nigeria, north Cameroon and Niger. Founded by Mohammed Yusuf in 2002, the organization seeks to establish a "pure" Islamic state ruled by sharia law, putting a stop to what it deems "Westernization." The group is known for attacking Christians and government targets, bombing churches, attacking schools and police stations, kidnapping western tourists, but has also assassinated members of the Islamic establishment. Violence linked to the Boko Haram insurgency has resulted in an estimated 10,000 deaths between 2001 and 2013.
Boko Haram, which refers to itself as “Jama‘atu Ahl as-Sunnah li-Da‘awati wal-Jihad” (JASDJ; Group of the Sunni People for the Calling and Jihad) and as the “Nigerian Taliban", is a Nigeria-based group that seeks to overthrow the current Nigerian Government and replace it with a regime based on Islamic law. It is popularly known in Nigerian and Western media as “Boko Haram,” which means “Western education is forbidden” (the word boko is a holdover from the colonial English word for book).
The group exerts influence in the northeastern The group exerts influence in the northeastern Nigerian states of Borno, Adamawa, Kadun, Bauchi, Yobe and Kano. In this region, a state of emergency was declared. The group did not have a clear structure or evident chain of command and was called "diffuse" with a "cell-like structure" facilitating factions and splits. The Boko Haram was reportedly divided into three factions with a splinter group known as Ansaru. The group's main leader is Abubakar Shekau. Its weapons expert, second-in-command and arms manufacturer was Momodu Bama.
Whether it had links to jihadist groups outside Nigeria was disputed. Boko Haram was likely linked to Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), but others found no evidence of material international support, and attacks by the group on international targets were limited. On November 13, 2013 the United States government designated Boko Haram as a terrorist organization.
Many of the group's senior radicals were reportedly partially inspired by the late Islamic preacher known as Maitatsine. Others believe the group is motivated by inter-ethnic disputes as much as religion, and that its founder Yusuf believed there was a campaign of “ethnic cleansing” by Plateau State governor Jonah Jang against the Hausa and Fulani people. Amnesty International accused the Nigerian government of human rights abuses after 950 suspected Boko Haram militants died in detention facilities run by Nigeria's military Joint Task Force in the first half of 2013. The conflicts left around 90,000 people displaced. Human Rights Watch claimed that Boko Haram used child soldiers, including 12 year olds.
The group adopted its official name to be "the Congregation of the People of Tradition for Proselytism and Jihad", which is the English translation from Arabic Jamā'at ahl as-sunnah li-d-da'wa wa-l-jihād (جماعة أهل السنة للدعوة والجهاد).
In the town of Maiduguri, where the group was formed, the residents dubbed it Boko Haram. The term "Boko Haram" comes from the Hausa word boko figuratively meaning "western education" (literally "alphabet", from English "book") and the Arabic word haram figuratively meaning "sin" (literally, "forbidden"). The name, loosely translated from Hausa, means "western education is forbidden". The group earned this name by its strong opposition to anything Western, which it sees as corrupting Muslims. However, this interpretation of the name is disputed, and locals who speak the Hausa language are unsure what it means.
It may be best to consider that the name of the movement should not be understood literally from the Hausa, but rather as meaning "traversing the Western system of education is haram".
Boko Haram was founded as an indigenous group, turning itself into a Jihadist group in 2009. It proposed that interaction with the Western world is forbidden, and also supported opposition to the Muslim establishment and the government of Nigeria.
The members of the group do not interact with the local Muslim population and have carried out assassinations in the past of anyone who criticized it, including Muslim clerics.
In the wake of the 2009 crackdown on its members and its subsequent re-emergence, the growing frequency and geographical range of attacks attributed to Boko Haram have led some political and religious leaders in the north to the conclusion that the group has now expanded beyond its original religious composition to include not only Islamic militants, but criminal elements and disgruntled politicians as well.
The core principles of the group are: an emphasis on 'Hakimiyyah' [sovereignty to God's law]; a belief that they (the Boko Haram) are the "Saved Sect" mentioned in the Prophetic Tradition of Islam; prohibiting studying in Western educational centers of learning as they consider them to be based on non-Islamic traditions and colonialism; prohibiting working in any governmental institution or civil service role; a contorted interpretation of the edicts of scholars from the classical tradition such as Ibn Taymiyyah to support their rebellions and use of violence; post-2009 a close relationship with Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and further incorporation into the global Jihadi and Takfiri worldview. Boko Haram was thus widely rejected and repudiated by adherents of the Salafi tradition in Nigeria.
Before colonization and subsequent annexation into the British Empire, the Bornu Empire ruled the territory where Boko Haram is currently active. It was a sovereign sultanate run according to the principles of the Constitution of Medina, with a majority Kanuri Muslim population. The Bornu Sultanate emerged after the overthrow of the Kanem-Bornu Empire ruled by the Sayfawa dynasty for over 2000 years. The Bornu Sultanate of the Kanuri is distinct from the Sokoto Caliphate of the Hausa/Fulani established in 1802 by the military conquest of Usman dan Fodio. Both the Bornu Sultanate and Sokoto Caliphate came under control of the British in 1903. During this period, Christian missionaries used western education as a tool for evangelism, this led to secular education being viewed with suspicion by many in the local population. Increased dissatisfaction gave rise to many fundamentalists among the Kanuri and other peoples of northeast Nigeria.
One of the most famous such fundamentalists was Mohammed Marwa, also known as Maitatsine, who was at the height of his notoriety during the 1970s and 1980s. Marwa refused to believe Muhammad was the Prophet and instigated riots in the country which resulted in the deaths of thousands of people. Some analysts view Boko Haram as an extension of the Maitatsine riots.
He was sent into exile by the Nigerian authorities.
In 1995, the group was said to be operating under the name Shabaab, Muslim Youth Organisation with Mallam Lawal as the leader. When Lawal left to continue his education, Mohammed Yusuf took over leadership of the group. Yusuf’s leadership allegedly opened the group to political influence and popularity.
Yusuf officially founded the group in 2002 in the city of Maiduguri with the aim of establishing a sharia government in Borno State under then Senator Ali Modu Sheriff. He established a religious complex that included a mosque and a school where many poor families from across Nigeria and from neighbouring countries enrolled their children.
The center had ulterior political goals and soon it was also working as a recruiting ground for future jihadis to fight the state. The group included members who came from neighboring Chad and Niger and speak only Arabic.
In 2004, the complex was relocated to Yusuf's home state of Yobe in the village Kanamma near the Niger border.
Yusuf successfully attracted followers from unemployed youth by speaking out against police and political corruption. It should be noted that violent uprisings in Nigeria at that time were ultimately due to the fallout of frustration with corruption and the attendant social malaise of poverty and unemployment. Religious dimensions of the conflict were misconstrued as the primary driver of violence when, in fact, disenfranchisement and inequality were the root causes. It was noticeably significant that Nigeria has laws giving regional political leaders the power to qualify people as 'indigenes' (original inhabitants) or not. This designation determines whether citizens can participate in politics, own land, obtain a job, or attend school. The system was abused widely to ensure political support and to exclude others. Muslims have been denied indigene-ship certificates disproportionately often. From some perspectives, what may have very well been a group engaged in class warfare began to be portrayed in government propaganda as terrorists in order to win counter-terrorism assistance from the West.
Boko Haram suffered setbacks in July 2009 when clashes with Nigerian Government forces led to the deaths of hundreds of its members, including former leader Muhammad Yusuf.In July 2010, Boko Haram’s former second-in-command, Abubakar Shekau, appeared in a video claiming leadership of the group and threatening attacks on Western influences in Nigeria. Later that month, Shekau issued a second statement expressing solidarity with al-Qa‘ida and threatening the United States. Under Shekau’s leadership, the group continued to demonstrate growing operational capabilities, with an increasing use of improvised explosive device (IED) attacks against soft targets. The group set off its first vehicle-borne IED in June 2011. On August 26, 2011, Boko Haram conducted its first attack against a Western interest—a vehicle-bomb attack on United Nation headquarters in Abuja—killing at least 23 people and injuring more than 80. A purported Boko Haram spokesman claimed responsibility for the attack and promised future targeting of United States and Nigerian Government interests.
Since late 2011, the group has conducted multiple attacks per week against a wide range of targets, including Christians, Nigerian security and police forces, the media, schools, and politicians. Since late 2012, Boko Haram and its splinter group Ansaru have claimed responsibility for three kidnappings of Westerners, raising their international profile and emphasizing the growing threat they pose to Western and regional interests. As of July 2013 Ansaru was holding a French hostage. Also in 2013, Boko Haram expanded its activity in neighboring countries and continues to clash with Nigerian military forces trying to oust it from northeastern Nigeria.
Bonan
Bonan. Bonans are among China’s smaller minority nationalities. Most Bonans (Baoans, Paoans) live in the north central province of Gansu, but a few may still live in Qinghai Province, their former homeland. Those in Gansu live in the villages of Dadun, Ganmei, and Gaoli, located in the foothills of Jishi Mountain, near Linxia, Dahejia and Liuji. The Qinghai Bonans live in Tongren County, specifically in three villages on both banks of the Longwu River. Dahejia is on the Huang (Yellow) River just inside Gansu and only a short distance downstream from Xunhua, home of the Salars. Muslim Dongxiang live in the same general area.
Nothing concrete is known about the Bonans’ origin. The relatively few samples of Bonan oral literature recorded so far strongly suggest that they had originally been Mongol soldiers who during either Jenghiz Khan’s time or the subsequent Mongol world empire were sent to the area around present day Tongren County. After the fall of the Mongol Yuan state in China in 1368, most Mongols retreated to Mongolia, but a few, including the later Bonans, stayed behind. After many generations of mingling with neighboring Tibetans, Hui, Han and Tu, a distinct nationality emerged whose members began calling themselves Bonans.
It is not known exactly when the Bonans were called that name by others, but records of the Wanli reign (1573-1620) report the existence of a Bonan camp in what is now Tongren County. Later this camp became a town which still exists on the banks of the Longwu River under the Chinese transliteration “Baoan.” Sometime in the early nineteenth century a portion of the Bonans converted to Islam, a factor which caused friction to develop with the surrounding Buddhist Tibetans and Tu. Finally, in 1962, this conflict reached a point where the Islamized Bonans decided to move. First, they lived in Xunhua, home of the fellow Salars, for several years, and then they followed the Huang River downstream to the Dahejia area, where they still live. Those Bonans who retained their Buddhist faith stayed in Tongren but became strongly acculturated to their neighbors, especially the Tibetans. Only a small but unknown number of persons remain in Tongren who from an ethnolinguistic point of view can still be considered Bonan.
Baoan see Bonan.
Paoan see Bonan.
Bonerate
Bonerate. Inhabitant of Bonerate, a small island in the Sea of Flores, Indonesia. Egalitarianism between sexes, particularly husband and wife, is a striking feature of the Muslim peoples of Bonerate. Neither sex is confined to the household. Both participate generally in the same economic and family tasks. Inheritance is equal between sons and daughters. Divorce is rare. According to official records, Bonerate is all Sunni Muslim.
Bornu slaves
Bornu slaves. Bornu was an old African kingdom centered west of Lake Chad in the central Sudan. After it converted to Islam, it became a powerful state, monopolizing the trade routes across central Sahara to Tunis and Tripoli. In 1430, it was an ally of the Kano Kingdom of northern Nigeria. It flourished during the sixteenth century. Then, in 1603, it was conquered by the Moors of North Africa. Many Bornu slaves were Muslim blacks of the western Sudan who were imported into Brazil. {See also Moors and slaves.}
The Bornu Empire (1396-1893) was a medieval African state of Nigeria from 1389 to 1893. It was a continuation of the great Kanem Empire founded centuries earlier by the Sayfawa Dynasty. In time it would become even larger than Kanem incorporating areas that are today parts of Chad, Niger and Cameroon.
After decades of internal conflict, rebellions and outright invasion from the Bulala, the once strong Sayfawa Dynasty was forced out of Kanem and back into the nomadic lifestyle they had abandoned nearly 600 years ago. Around 1396, the Kanembu finally overcame attacks from their neighbors (Arabs, Berbers and Hausa) to found a new state in Bornu. Over time, the intermarriage of the Kanembu and Bornu peoples created a new people and language, the Kanuri.
But even in Bornu, the Sayfawa Dynasty's troubles persisted. During the first three-quarters of the 15th century, for example, fifteen mais (kings) occupied the throne. Then, around 1472, Mai Ali Dunamami defeated his rivals and began the consolidation of Bornu. He built a fortified capital at Ngazargamu, to the west of Lake Chad (in present-day Niger), the first permanent home a Sayfawa mai had enjoyed in a century. So successful was the Sayfawa rejuvenation that by the early 16th century Mai Ali Gaji (1497–1515) was able to defeat the Bulala and retake Njimi, the former capital. The empire's leaders, however, remained at Ngazargamu because its lands were more productive agriculturally and better suited to the raising of cattle.
With control over both capitals, the Sayfawa dynasty became more powerful than ever. The two states were merged, but political authority still rested in Bornu. Kanem-Bornu peaked during the reign of the outstanding statesman Mai Idris Aluma (c. 1571–1603).
Idris Aluma is remembered for his military skills, administrative reforms, and Islamic piety. His main adversaries were the Hausa to the west, the Tuareg and Toubou to the north, and the Bulala to the east. One epic poem extols his victories in 330 wars and more than 1,000 battles. His innovations included the employment of fixed military camps (with walls); permanent sieges and "scorched earth" tactics, where soldiers burned everything in their path; armored horses and riders; and the use of Berber camelry, Kotoko boatmen, and iron-helmeted musketeers trained by Turkish military advisers. His active diplomacy featured relations with Tripoli, Egypt, and the Ottoman Empire, which sent a 200-member ambassadorial party across the desert to Aluma's court at Ngazargamu. Aluma also signed what was probably the first written treaty or cease-fire in Chadian history.
Aluma introduced a number of legal and administrative reforms based on his religious beliefs and Islamic law (sharia). He sponsored the construction of numerous mosques and made a pilgrimage to Mecca, where he arranged for the establishment of a hostel to be used by pilgrims from his empire. As with other dynamic politicians, Aluma's reformist goals led him to seek loyal and competent advisers and allies, and he frequently relied on slaves who had been educated in noble homes. Aluma regularly sought advice from a council composed of heads of the most important clans. He required major political figures to live at the court, and he reinforced political alliances through appropriate marriages (Aluma himself was the son of a Kanuri father and a Bulala mother).
Kanem-Bornu under Aluma was strong and wealthy. Government revenue came from tribute (or booty, if the recalcitrant people had to be conquered), sales of slaves, and duties on and participation in trans-Saharan trade. Unlike West Africa, the Chadian region did not have gold. Still, it was central to one of the most convenient trans-Saharan routes. Between Lake Chad and Fezzan lay a sequence of well-spaced wells and oases, and from Fezzan there were easy connections to North Africa and the Mediterranean Sea. Many products were sent north, including natron (sodium carbonate), cotton, kola nuts, ivory, ostrich feathers, perfume, wax, and hides, but the most important of all were slaves. Imports included salt, horses, silks, glass, muskets, and copper.
Aluma took a keen interest in trade and other economic matters. He is credited with having the roads cleared, designing better boats for Lake Chad, introducing standard units of measure for grain, and moving farmers into new lands. In addition, he improved the ease and security of transit through the empire with the goal of making it so safe that "a lone woman clad in gold might walk with none to fear but God."
The administrative reforms and military brilliance of Aluma sustained the empire until the mid-1600s, when its power began to fade. By the late 1700s, Bornu rule extended only westward, into the land of the Hausa of modern Nigeria. The empire was still ruled by the mai who was advised by his councilors (kokenawa) in the state council or "nokena".
Around that time, Fulani people, invading from the west, were able to make major inroads into Bornu. By the early 19th century, Kanem-Bornu was clearly an empire in decline, and in 1808 Fulani warriors conquered Ngazargamu. Usman dan Fodio led the Fulani thrust and proclaimed a holy war (the Fulani War) on the allegedly irreligious Muslims of the area. His campaign eventually affected Kanem-Bornu and inspired a trend toward Islamic orthodoxy. However, a Muslim scholar turned statesman, Muhammad al-Amin al-Kanemi, contested the Fulani advance.
Muhammad al-Amin al-Kanemi was a Muslim scholar and non-Sayfawa commander who had put together an alliance of Shuwa Arabs, Kanembu, and other semi-nomadic peoples. He eventually built, in 1814, a capital at Kukawa (in present-day Nigeria). Sayfawa mais remained titular monarchs until 1846. In that year, the last mai, in league with the Ouaddai Empire, precipitated a civil war. It was at that point that Kanemi's son, Umar, became king, thus ending one of the longest dynastic reigns in regional history.
Although the dynasty ended, the kingdom of Kanem-Bornu survived. Umar eschewed the title mai for the simpler designation shehu (from the Arabic shaykh). However, Umar could not match his father's vitality and gradually allowed the kingdom to be ruled by advisers (wazirs). Bornu began a further decline as a result of administrative disorganization, regional particularism, and attacks by the militant Ouaddai Empire to the east. The decline continued under Umar's sons. In 1893, Rabih az-Zubayr leading an invading army from eastern Sudan, conquered Bornu.
Borujerdi
Borujerdi (Mohammad Hosayn Borujerdi) (Muhammad Husayn Burujirdi) (Seyyed Hossein Borujerdi) (1875 - March 30, 1961). Iranian theologian and religious leader who by the time of his death became the sole source of emulation (marja‘ al-taqlid) for all Iranian Shi‘as. Borujerdi was a Twelver Shi'a Marja and the leading Marja in Iran from roughly 1947 to his death in 1961.
Born in Borujerd (Burujird) Province in western Iran, Ayatollah Borujerdi came from a family known for its religious learning and piety. At twelve, he enrolled in Borujerd’s madrasah (Islamic seminary), where his father, Sayyid ‘Ali Tabataba’i, was one of his main mentors. At eighteen, he went to Isfahan to study jurisprudence and philosophy.
Borujerdi studied under a number of Shi'ite masters of Islamic jurisprudence such as Mohammad-Kazem Khorasani and Aqa Zia Iraqi, and specialized in fiqh. He studied the fiqahat of all the Islamic schools of thought, not just his own, along with the science of rijal. Though he is known for citing masoomeen to support many of his deductions, Borujerdi is known for elucidating many aspects himself and is an influential fiqh jurist in his own right. He had a strong influence on Islamic scholars like Morteza Motahhari and Ayatollah Shaikh Husain Montazeri.
In 1901, he left Isfahan for Najaf, where he studied with Ayatollah Muhammad Kazim Khorasani and ‘Allamah Muhammad Kazim Yazdi. After ten years, he returned to Borujerd, where, apart from brief interruptions, he stayed for the next thirty-seven years. While in Borujerd, he taught jurisprudence and was marja‘ al-taqlid for the people of Khorasan and southwestern Iran. In 1945, he left Borujerd for Tehran to receive medical treatment, and, by invitation of the city of Qom’s ‘ulama’, he settled there. Borujerdi’s arrival at the Iranian center of Shi‘a learning filled the vacuum created by the death of two leading ‘ulama’ of that city. Shaykh ‘Abd al-Karim Ha’iri Yazdi and the chief source of emulation, Sayyid Abu al-Hasan al-Isfahani. These events paved the way for Ayatollah Borujerdi’s ascendance as the new marja‘ al-taqlid of Iranian Shi‘as.
Borujerdi revived the hawza of Qom in 1945 (1364 AH), which had waned after the death in 1937 of its founder, Shaykh Abdul Karim Ha'iri. When Sayyid Abul Hassan Isfahani died the following year, the majority of Shi'a accepted Ayatullah Borujerdi as Marja'-e-Taqlid. Scholar Roy Mottahedeh reports that Borujerdi was the sole marja "in the Shia world" from 1945-6 until his death in 1961. Borujerdi was the first Marja' to look beyond Iraq and Iran. He sent Sayyid Muhaqqiqi to Hamburg, Germany, Aqa-e-Shari'at to Karachi, Pakistan, Al-Faqihi to Madinah and Sayyid Musa Sadr to Lebanon.
He established cordial relations with Shaykh Mahmud Shaltut, the grand Shaykh of Al-Azhar. Together, the two scholars established the "House for Bringing Muslim Sects Nearer" in Cairo. Shaltut issued a famous fatwa accepting the Shi'a faith as one of the recognized sects of Islam.
Because of his lack of political ambition and conservative nature, Ayatollah Borujerdi maintained a quietist attitude toward politics, refraining from using his powerful position to mobilize his vast following. On several important occasions, however, Borujerdi abandoned his political quietism.
On his initiative, after the attempted assassination of the shah at Tehran University on February 4, 1949, a gathering of clergy in Fayziyah Madasah in Qom passed a resolution calling on their colleagues to stay aloof from political involvement and partisan politics. While Mohammad Mossadegh, the nationalist leader, was in power (1951-1953), Borujerdi and Ayatollah ‘Abd Allah Bihbahani opposed most of his policies, most notably the bill on female enfranchisement. Borujerdi agreed to mediate the conflict between Mossadegh and the shah in April 1953. Fearing a communist takeover, however, he tacitly supported the August coup of 1953 that brought the shah back to power, welcoming him on his return to Iran. Borujerdi was also prominent in the anti-Baha’i campaign of 1955. By accusing the Baha’is of secret activities against the monarchy and state, Borujerdi elicited the support of the shah in the campaign. He called on the shah to purge Baha’is from all government positions and to seize their assets in order to build more mosques and madrasahs. He instructed, however, that this should be done without the shedding of blood. He also issued a fatwa (religiously binding authoritative statement) to boycott the consumption of Pepsi Cola, because the Iranian franchise was owned by Sabet Pasal, a wealthy Baha’i. Borujerdi also opposed the government’s 1959 land reform bill. This bill, among other things, affected religious endowments, diminishing the clergy’s means of subsistence and their financial independence from the state.
Borujerdi’s contribution to Shi‘a theology is primarily in the domain of hadith (deeds and words attributed to the Prophet) and the reinvigoration of the practice of independent investigation. He also displayed interest in Sunni-Shi‘a rapprochement and worked to establish closer ties with the Egyptian Sunni ‘ulama’ of al-Azhar.
Unlike many clergy and temporal rulers, Borujerdi and Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, are said to have had cordial and mutually beneficial relations, starting with a visit by the Shah to Borujerdi's hospital room in 1944. Borujerdi is said to have generally remained aloof from politics and given the Shah his "tacit support," while the Shah did not follow his father's harsh anti-clericalism (for example he exempted clergy from military service), and until Borujerdi's death occasionally visited the cleric.
Borujerdi's belief in quietism, or separation of church from state, extended to keeping silent in public on such issues as Israel's treatment of the Palestinians, the overthrow of Mohammed Mossadeq and the end of his campaign to nationalize and control the British-owned oil industry in Iran, and the Baghdad Pact alliance with the United States and United Kingdom. It is thought that as a reward for this support the Shah ensured more religious instruction in state schools, tightened control of cinemas and other offensive secular entertainment during Moharram.
Ayatollah Borujerdi passively opposed the Pahlavi regime's agrarian reforms, which he called "agrarian destruction." In his view, the confiscations of large concentrations of landholdings of aristocrats and clergy by the Pahlavi shahs disrupted the fabric of rural life and eroded religious institutions.
Future revolutionary Ruhollah Khomeini was an underling of Borujerdi and Borujerdi forbade him to take part in political activities, a ban which only ended with Borujerdi's death.
Borujerdi died in Qom on March 30, 1961. The Shah proclaimed three days of mourning and attended a memorial service in his honor.
Mohammad Hosayn Borujerdi see Borujerdi
Muhammad Husayn Burujirdi see Borujerdi
Burujirdi, Muhammad Husayn see Borujerdi
Borujerdi, Seyyed Hossein see Borujerdi
Bosnians
Bosnians. “Bosnian (or Bosnian-Hercegovinian) Muslim” is synonymous with “Serbo-Croatian speaking Muslim,” the former term giving emphasis to the area where most live and the latter to the language that distinguishes them from all other Muslims. Colloquially, they refer to themselves simply as Muslim (Muslimani), and in the Yugoslav census they are categorized as “Muslims in the ethnic sense” (Muslimani u smislu narodnosti). Some Christian Yugoslavs, particularly in the villages and small towns of ethnically mixed regions, will refer to them incorrectly and pejoratively as Turks (Turci), but they should not be confused with the ethnic Turkish minority also living in Yugoslavia.
The ethnogenesis of the Bosnian Muslims took place after first the Bosnian Kingdom (1463) and then the Hercegovinian Duchy (1483) fell to the Ottoman Empire. Over the following 400 year period that the Ottomans ruled Bosnia and Hercegovina, there were wholesale conversions to Islam, unlike any other area of the Ottoman Empire except Albania. The origin of these converts is still subject to debate. The traditional view is that the aristocracy of the medieval Bosnian and Hercegovinian states converted in order to preserve its economic and political superiority under the new regime and that the Bogomils, a heretical sect once important in area, converted en masse in reaction to previous excesses of Catholicism. These views have now been seriously questioned, including whether the heretical sect present in Bosnia-Hercegovina even was the Bogomils. Nor is there conclusive evidence that the converts were predominantly either Serb or Croat. The Bosnian Muslims had their origins in a combination of all these groups, plus smaller numbers of Slavicised Muslim immigrants from elsewhere in the Ottoman Empire.
It is clear that Bosnian Muslim ethnogenesis was both a complex and a gradual process. There was no forcible conversion (except for the child levy, or devshirme), but a variety of factors created a situation favorable to conversion. Chief among these were the various advantages afforded Muslims within the Ottoman Emprire and a tradition of shifting religious allegiances in pre-Ottoman Bosnia-Hercegovina. The development of Bosnian towns as Ottoman centers and the influence of these on the adjacent peasantry created points from which Islam, as well as other Middle Eastern culture traits, could effectively be diffused.
Bosnians are people who reside in, or come from, Bosnia and Herzegovina. By the modern state definition a Bosnian can be anyone who holds citizenship of the state. This includes, but is not limited to, members of the constituent ethnic groups of Bosnia and Herzegovina: Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats. Although those who reside in the Herzegovina part of Bosnia and Herzegovina prefer to call themselves Herzegovinians in the regional sense. Ethnic minorities such as: Jews, Roma, Albanians, Montenegrins, and others may consider Bosnian to be attached to their ethnicity (eg. Bosnian Albanians). These are not confined to Bosnia and Herzegovina, as over 8,000 individuals in Slovenia declare their ethnicity as Bosnian (the majority of them are most probably of Bosnian Muslim descent).
In a 2007 survey conducted by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), 57% of the surveyors identified an ethnic designation as the primary one, while 43% opted for "being a citizen of Bosnia-Herzegovina". However, 75% of the surveyors answered positively to the question "As well as thinking of yourself as a [Bosniak, Croat, Serb], do you also think of yourself as being a citizen of the whole of Bosnia-Herzegovina?". In the same survey, 43% said that they identify as a citizen of Bosnia-Herzegovina as the primary identity, 14% identified themselves solely with their specific ethnic or religious group, while 41% expressed the dual identity.
The earliest cultural and linguistic roots of Bosnian history can be traced back to the Migration Period of the Early Middle Ages. It was then that the Serbs, Croats, other Slavs and Avars from northeastern Europe, invaded the Eastern Roman Empire and settled the Balkan peninsula. There, they mixed with the indigenous paleo-Balkan peoples known collectively as the Illyrians. From the chaos of the Dark Ages, from 800 C.C., the Croatian and Serbian tribes coalesced into early principalities. As these expanded, they came to include other Slavic tribes and territories, and later evolved into centralized Kingdoms. The Croats to the west swore allegiance to Rome, influenced by neighboring Catholic kingdoms, while the Serbs to the east fell under Byzantine influence and embraced Orthodoxy; cementing their separate identities. In contrast, there was no prominent tribe in Bosnia, and an independent Bosnian state did not arise until much later. Prior to this, the core Bosnian lands (between the Drina and Bosna rivers) was in a near-constant state of flux between Serb and Croat rule. In the twelfth century, a semi-independent Bosnian banovina arose which was characterized by a weak religious structure and unclear ethnic affiliation. It rose to become a powerful kingdom in the fourteenth century, when the designation Bošnjani was first used to sometimes describe the kingdom's inhabitants. It was probably a regional name derived from the river Bosna which flows through the heart of the country. Before the collapse of the Roman Empire, the river was called the Bosona by the native Illyrians, and some scholars speculate that the name Bosnia itself derives from this term.
The Bosnian kingdom grew and expanded under the Kotromanic dynasty to include Croatian and Serbian territories. As a consequence, even more Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians dwelt within its borders, along with adherents of a native Bosnian Church whose origins and nature are a subject of continued debate among scholars. Those belonging to this sect simply called themselves Krstjani ("Christians"). Many scholars have argued that these Bosnian Krstjani were Manichaean dualists related to the Bogomils of Bulgaria, while others question this theory, citing lack of historical evidence. Both Catholic and Orthodox Church authorities considered the Bosnian Church heretical, and launched vigorous proselytizing campaigns to stem its influence. As a result of these divisions, no coherent religious identity developed in medieval Bosnia as it had in Croatia and Serbia.
As the centuries passed, the Bosnian kingdom slowly began to decline. It had become fractured by increased political and religious disunity. By then, the Ottoman Turks had already gained a foothold in the Balkans; first defeating the Serbs at the Battle of Kosovo and expanding westward. The Turks eventually conquered all of Bosnia and portions of neighboring Croatia. These developments would alter Bosnian history forever, introducing an Islamic component into the already confounded Bosnian ethno-religious identity. The Bosnian Church would forever disappear, although the circumstances under which it did are as hotly debated as its nature and origins. Some historians contend that the Bosnian Krstjani converted en masse to Islam, seeking refuge from Catholic and Orthodox persecution, while others argue that the Bosnian Church had already ceased to operate many decades before the Turkish conquest. Whatever the case, a distinct Slavic Muslim community developed under Ottoman rule in Bosnia, giving rise to the modern Bosniaks.
During the Austro-Hungarian occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1878 to 1918, the administration of Benjamin Kallay, the Austro-Hungarian governor of Bosnia and Herzegovina, enforced the idea of a strengthened unitary Bosnian nation (Bosanci) that would incorporate Muslim Bosnians as well as the Bosnian Catholics and Bosnian Orthodox Christians, who at that time were slowly beginning to separate into distinct peoples which threatened to destabilize Bosnia. Kallay symbolized the new nation with a structured, modern introduction of an official Bosnian flag, Bosnian language and coat of arms. In this way the Bosnian distinctiveness was strengthened and more importantly underlined and distanced from Serbian and Croatian nationalist interests in Bosnia and Herzegovina. However, another view is that rather than being a reflection of reality or a concern for Bosnian people, the Austrian actions were merely self-serving. As Serbia grew into a regional power and possible focus of a united South Slavic state, Austria's interests were threatened- these being: to preserve its multi-ethnic empire and further expand its influence in the Balkans. Austria aimed to do this by keeping the South Slavic people separate via embedding ideas within them that they are distinct peoples, as is the old axiom "divide and conquer". Some Bosnian Muslim notables jumped at the idea, no doubt partly because they saw an opportunity to promote their personal power by avoiding Serbian or Croatian influence.
The idea was fiercely opposed by Croats and Serbs, as it came at a time when neighboring Serbia and Croatia were reinforcing their national and ethnic identity in the process of building their own nation states.
During the time when Bosnia and Herzegovina was part of Yugoslavia and heavily influenced by Croat and Serb politics neither of the two terms Bosnian or Bosniak were recognized as a nation. Thus, Bosnian Muslims and anyone who confessed themselves to Bosnian ethnicity were listed under the category "regional affiliation" by the Yugoslavian statistics. This also applied to the last census in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1991. However, because of this, the census format in former Yugoslavia was often subject of political manipulation. As a matter of fact, Muslim Bosnians requested the option Bosnian in the constitutional amendments of 1947 and 1973, but instead they had to declare themselves either as Serbs or Croats until 1963, "undecideds" or "Muslim in a national sense" (with lower case m) until 1973, and Muslims (with capital M) until 1993.
In 1990 the name Bosniaks was re-introduced to replace the term Muslim but it was too late for that term to be realistically accepted by non-Muslim ethnic groups in Bosnia.
This resulted in Bosniak, or even Muslim, as terms being (re)coined recently as a political compromise. Peculiarly enough, in the present day Bosnia it is practically impossible for a citizen to declare her/himself as Bosnian. Due to widespread practices in the Ottoman empire, the distinction (for taxation purposes, military service etc.) was made based mainly on religion and this heritage only contributed to the ethnic chaos in the Balkans that followed in the wake of the Empire's retreat from Europe.
In 1999, a Bosnian child born in Sarajevo was announced as the symbolic 6 billionth person in the world to mark the world population reaching this milestone.
Bosnian-Hercegovinian see Bosnians.
Serbo-Croatian speaking Muslim see Bosnians.
