Friday, March 28, 2025

2025: Tomini - Toure

Tomini

Tomini.  The Tomini of Indonesia occupy the northern Sulawesi peninsula from Donggala to Gorontalo.  The name “Tomini” is both a geographic and linguistic designation.  Geographically, Tomini is a thin strip of land which borders the western edge of Tomini Bay.  Linguistically, Tomini is a subgroup of western Central Sulawesi languages which include Toli-toli, Dondo, Bolano, Tinombo, Kasinbar, Dampelas and Ndau.  Although linguists formerly thought all Tomini languages were mutually intelligible and the different names merely referred to dialects, recent research has asserted that each group forms a separate language.  Supposedly these multiple languages originated from the area’s many political trading empires, which remained historically and culturally insulated from each other until Islam unified them in the sixteenth century.

Ninety percent of the Tomini are Sunni Muslims, the rest being animist and Christian.  All of the Muslims live along the coast rather than in the mountains, which span the center of the area and are home for animists and Christians.  Highlanders cultivate dry rice, grow maize and sago and gather rattan and damar (resin) for trade along the coast.  The Muslim coastal people work on clove, copra and palm plantations, cultivate wet rice fields or work as traders, lumberers or sailors.

The cultural history of the area can be divided into four periods: (1) the coming of Islam; (2) the Dutch colonial period; (3) the Japanese occupation and (4) post-independence.  Islam came to Tomini in three waves.  The first arrived from the eastern Indonesian trading empire of Ternate in the sixteenth century, the second from the southern Sulawesi traders, the Bugis and the Mandar, beginning in the sixteenth and increasing in the seventeenth century, and the third in the eighteenth century from Minangkabau (Sumatran) travelers. 

Islam first penetrated and unified Tomini’s disparate kingdoms by converting the nobility, especially the rajas’ or kings’ families, who after conversion married each other rather than non-Muslims within the realm.  The initial ties between kingdoms were thus between elite Muslims. 

Even though all the pre-Islamic kingdoms were distinct, they shared common rules for political and economic organization, including maintenance of regional sovereignty through a system of tribute.  Subjects either gave labor service or prestige objects to the ruler indicating they were willing to be of service to the stronger raja.  The raja’s right to rule or his sign of power was signified by a collection of sacred regalia such as gold objects, trays and umbrellas which were inherited from the former ruler.  Each of the kingdoms ruled with their own particular regalia until Muslim rulers from outside the Tomini area introduced new royal symbols.  In 1556, the Muslim raja, Harian of Ternate, wished to develop new trade networks on the eastern and northwestern coasts of Tomini, especially in Moutong and Buoll, which were rich in gold deposits.  As a sign of friendship, Raja Harian gave a scepter and a letter written in Arabic script to each of the rajas of Buol, Mouton and Toli-Toli.  The Tomini rajas regarded these gifts as sacred.  In acknowledgment, the Buol raja sailed to Ternate in 1595, presenting a golden goal to Harian on behalf of these northern Tomini rajas.

This exchange of gifts signaled the beginning of an epoch in which the Tomini rajas fell under the influence of the Ternate kingdom and also accepted the ruler’s religion.  Tomini kings changed their official titles to Arabic ones, their families began to recite Islamic prayers in the home and they sought sons in other distant Islamic kingdoms to the north to marry their daughters and consolidate power.

The second wave of Islam actually began at the same time as the first, but rather than Ternate traders brought Islam and unified the southwestern coast of Tomini.  This pattern was almost identical to that of the Ternate kingdom’s but did not reach a peak until later in the seventeenth century.  The result was an area divided into two parts, the northern influenced by Ternate, the southern by the south Sulawesi polities of Goa, Bone and Luwu.

Gradually the Bugis and Mandar realms became more powerful than the waning Ternate so that by the early seventeenth century the Tomini nobles oriented themselves towards the southern rulers, especially the Mandar rajas.  During this time, a strict class system emerged such that nobles were divided into two groups, both Islamic.  The first were those with direct genealogical and patrilineal connections to the Mandar nobility and inheriting the right to rule.  The second group of nobles was those who were not so related to the Mandar rajas and whose children could not inherit governmental office.

The second wave was significant in the bifurcation of the noble class, the shift from matrilateral inheritance of property and right to office to an emphasis on patrilater inheritance.  In addition, funeral rites became more Islamic, especially in regard to stipulations for washing and praying over the corpse and using the white shrough over it.  General house architecture (on stilts), clothing styles (sarongs) and types of gifts used in elite brideprice exchanges (coins, trays, krisses and plates) were all adopted from the south Sulawesi Mandar and Bugis society and persist to the present. Generally, however, the Muslim nobility still recited their prayers in private.  There were no mosques, organized clergy or madrasas, Islam was for the nobility.

It was not until the third wave of conversion that Islam became more popular.  In the eighteenth century, Minangkabau visitors acting as Muslim missionaries travelled throughout the Tomini area introducing Islam to the commoners.  Public mosques were built, and each area acquired its own imam.  The vassals paid religious taxes to the rajas as they had always done, but now Muslim subjects paid tribute following the sharia and not pre-Islamic law, adat.  Although the rajas began reciting their prayers with the masses in the mosques, they still retained esoteric religious knowledge which distinguished noble from commoner.  It was always the raja who started Ramadan by quoting Arabic pantuns passed down from Ternate andBugis contacts.  It was during this period that nobler and wealthier Tomini reportedly first made the pilgrimage to Mecca.

Although Islam was firmly established in the Tomini area by the eighteenth century, its character was drastically affected by European contact, especially after the Dutch, who had been attracted by the region’s gold mines, became the effective ruling power.  In response to European contact, Islam became a political rallying point of anti-colonial sentiment.  For instance, the Dutch East Indies Company made frequent stops in Buol and Toli-toli, trading rice for gold.  Early in the 1800s, one agricultural season was particularly unfruitful so the raja raised the amount of rice imported in exchange for gold.  The Dutch head officer was enraged that the raja had violated the specified trade agreement and declared that if the Buol raja were indeed so hungry he could eat pork.  Naturally, the raja refused so the Dutch officer ordered his public execution.  The raja was tied to two horses, which ran in opposite directions until his body was split apart.  The people rebelled, gold trade in the area was suspended and Islam became the vehicle through which anti-Dutch sentiments were expressed. 

In 1862, the Dutch built a fortress in Tinombo and attempted to control the island.  Each raja was asked to sign a trade contract relinquishing all regional authority to the Dutch.  The southern Mandar had already been defeated by the Dutch military forces and could not longer help their Tomini vassals.  The Dutch did not defeat the Tominis until 1904.  By then, all the Tomini rajas had been forced to sign the contracts, surrendering their authority.  The Dutch let them keep their Arabic titles (and gave them Dutch titles as well) in order to take advantage of the raja’s access to the people’s labor service.  Because the local system of religious taxes required commoners to give a certain amount of labor service (or goods, if they could afford it) to their raja, the Dtuch forced the rajas to order their own people to work on plantation and public works projects.  Coffee, coconut and palm plantations were begun by the colonial government throughout the coastal Tomini area.  Wet rice agriculture was introduced to supplement the traditional maize, sago and dry rice production, and an elaborate network of roads and bridges was built to connect the region and facilitate commercial transport -- all using the forced labor of the commoners.

In several regions the people directed their anger at the severity of the forced labor against the rajas.  In some regions, however, the rajas helped the people as best they could by covertly supporting local chapters of nationalist religious parties.  For instance, in Buol and Toli-toli, a chapter of Syarekat Islam was founded in 1916; a chapter was started in Donggala and Parigi the next year.  The Syarekat Islam movement spread quickly into all of the Tomini area unti the Dutch arrested and exiled its leaders and threatened to execute the rajas who were suspected of allowing it to persist.  In 1917, the Raja of Moutong was arrested.  In 1919, the people rebelled but were quickly squelched.  Some local commoners escaped into the mountains.

Persecution by the Dutch served to strengthen the Islamic Party in Tomini, its major focus being anti-Dutch and nationalistic.  In 1941, in Toli-toli a large rebellion broke out in response to being forced to work a full day during Ramadan.   The precipitating event occurred when several laborers, weak from hunger and exhaustion, ostensibly unable to work, escaped from the plantation to the mosque.  Dutch overseers marched into the mosque and shot the laborers while they were praying.  Total rebellion broke out.  The Dutch eventually regained control, but the families of the rebels fled to the mountains.

In the same year, 1942, the Japanese ousted the Dutch, but the situation for the Tomini people changed little. The rajas were given Japanese names rather than Dutch names and were required to work as slaves on the plantations alongside the commoners.  In 1943, another rebellion broke out in Toli-toli, again because the Japanese colonialists had violated religious mores.  Underground Islamic groups grew more fanatic, culminating in the declaration of fisabillah, or holy war.  They sabotaged the bridges and roads so that plantation products could not be marketed.  In 1945, the Dutch returned but were unable to reopen the plantations as viable economic units before independence was declared.

Tomini remained quiet during the early 1950s as the people adjusted to Indonesian national concerns.  Some of the former rajas and their families found positions in the new bureaucracy.  Others became private entrepreneurs.  In the late 1950s, separatist movements against the Indonesian government of Sukarno were led by youth groups throughout the entire island of Sulawesi.  In the Tomini region this reached a peak with the Permesta Rebellion of the 1960s.  Reportedly coconut farmers joined the movement initiated by the “Parmesta rebels” because they received so little return for their work. Without a renewed transportation system, laborers were exploited by private businessmen.  Farmers quit working, and for several years the area produced no marketable products. 

After the 1960s, the government made an effort to integrate the area into the national and international economic system.  For instance, government cooperatives for poor farmers were established to encourage continued production.  New forms of transportation were subsidized by the government.  The trans-Sulawesi highway, which runs along the east coast of Tomini, was opened in 1980, and on the west coast, Buol and Toli-toli have airfields in addition to their harbors.  In the 1970s, the cash crop sector of the region’s economy blossomed.  Cloves were introduced in large plantations and were successful (in the Toli-toli area, clove trees produce three times more often than in any other region.  National and international lumber firms established themselves throughout the area, and rice production increased to the point that the area has the highest ratio of the rice per person in both north and central Sulawesi combined.

 

Topal ‘Othman Pasha
Topal ‘Othman Pasha (1692-1733).  Ottoman Grand Vizier.  In 1733, he defeated Nadir Shah Afshar and drove him out of Baghdad.  Some time later Topal was severely defeated and lost his life in the battle.

Topal Osman Pasha was born in Morea and was educated in the Seraglio at İstanbul. At the age of twenty-six, he attained the rank of Beylerbeyi; and was sent on a mission to the Governor of Egypt. On the voyage his ship encountered a Spanish corsair and Osman was captured after a fight in the course of which he received a wound which lamed him for life, whence he obtained his name of Topal. He became Grand Vizier on September 21, 1731. Topal Osman was superseded in the Grand Vizierate in 1732. Before Topal Osman had been long in retirement, the military victories of the Persian army of Nader Shah made the sultan again require his services. He was sent into Asia as generaIissimo of the Turkish armies in that continent, and was invested with almost unlimited powers. He marched to encounter Nader and on July 19, 1733, defeated him in a pitched battle, near the banks of the Tigris close to Baghdad. The victory thus gained by Topal Osman on the Tigris, rescued Baghdad and he again defeated the Persians, near Leilan, in the same year. But in a third battle with Nader, near Kirkuk, the Turks were desicively defeated by Persians; and Topal Osman himself died fighting sword in hand. His body was borne off the field by some of his attendants, and was afterwards brought for burial to İstanbul.

 

Topal ‘Othman Pasha
Topal ‘Othman Pasha (1804-1874).  Ottoman govenor of Bosnia.  He resided at Sarajevo where he built the so-called Cengic villa, a splendid country house.  His governorship from 1861 until 1869 may be described as a golden period in the history of Bosnia under the Ottomans.  He deprived the powerful Begs of their influence, placed Bosnian notables in public offices, raised the status of artisans and small traders, and protected the common people.  He devoted special attention to education, endowed the mosque of Ghazi Khosrew with a splendid library and instituted printing works.

 

Toqtamish, Ghiyath al-Din
Toqtamish, Ghiyath al-Din (Ghiyath al-Din Toqtamish) (Tokhtamysh) (d.1405/1406). Khan of the Golden Horde (r.1376-1395).  Before his accession to the throne, he went to Timur at Samarkand, who lent him his support against his brothers.  In 1381, he sacked and destroyed Moscow, imposing another century of Tatar rule.  His first hostile act against Timur dates from 1383, when he had coins struck in his own name in Khwarazm, and in 1386 he sent an army against Tabriz, which was laid waste in a terrible fashion.  The next year, he invaded Azerbaijan, but Timur continued to show much restraint.  In 1387, Toqtamish invaded the heart of Timur’s empire, reached the Oxus and besieged Bukhara.  In 1391, Timur reacted, defeated the khan at Qunduzca, advanced as far as the Volga but did not attack the kingdom of the Golden Horde.  In 1393, Timur had sent a mission to Egypt but the Mameluke Sultan Barquq had his ambassador murdered.  In 1394 and 1395, Toqtamish sent missions to Egypt to form an alliance against Timur.  From Mahmudabad the latter again sent an envoy to Toqtamish, but the reply proved unsatisfactory.  In 1395, the khan was defeated on the Terek River in Georgia, and Timur sacked Azov, Astrakhan and Saray.  The next year he went back to Azerbaijan, and Toqtamish returned to his throne, but he had to flee to the prince of Lithuania.  He sent the assurance of his penitence and an appeal for pardon.  Timur promised to come to the land of the Golden Horde after his campaign against China and to restore his throne to Toqtamish.  But Timur died in 1404, and Toqtamish in 1406.

Tokhtamysh was the prominent khan of the White Horde, who briefly unified the White Horde and Blue Horde subdivisions of the Golden Horde into a single state. He was a descendant of Genghis Khan's eldest grandson, Orda Khan or his brother Tuqa-Timur.

Tokhtamysh appears in history in 1376, trying to overthrow his uncle Urus Khan, ruler of the White Horde, and fleeing to the great Timur. Tokhtamysh outlived Urus and both his sons and forcefully ascended the throne of the White Horde in 1378 with Timur's backing.

Tokhtamysh dreamed of emulating his ancestors and made plans to reunite the Ulus Jochi. In 1380, he invaded the Blue Horde by fording across the Volga. The ruler of the Blue Horde, Mamai, was killed shortly after the Battle of Kulikovo, making Tokhtamysh's victory over the horde all the easier.

Having united the Blue and White Hordes into the Golden Horde in 1382 Tokhtamysh led a successful campaign against Russia as a punishment for the Kulikovo defeat - setting back, though not ending, the Russian aspiration to free themselves of Mongol rule. In just six years, Tokhtamysh had reunified the Mongol lands from Crimea to Lake Balkhash.

Believing he could emulate the successes of Genghis Khan himself, in 1385 Tokhtamysh, with an army of 50,000 (or five tumens), invaded Persia and took Tabriz. Returning north they took 200,000 slaves from Caucasus, including tens of thousands of Armenians from the districts of Parskahayk, Syunik, and Artsakh. As Tokhtamysh moved north from the Caucasus, Timur annexed Azerbaijan and Persia to his own expanding kingdom. Furious, Tokhtamysh turned back and made war on his former ally.

Eventually, Tokhtamysh conceded defeat and withdrew to the steppe. However, in 1387 he suddenly invaded Transoxiana, the heart of Timur's realm. Unfortunately for Tokhtamysh, heavy snow forced him back to the steppe.

In 1395, the scenario reached its climax as Timur attacked the Golden Horde and defeated Tokhtamysh at the Terek. Timur sacked the capital, Sarai Berke, vassalized the Golden Horde, and placed a puppet ruler, Koirichak, on the throne of Orda's Ulus and appointed Temur Qutlugh khan of the Horde.

Tokhtamysh escaped to the Ukrainian steppes and asked for help from the Grand Duke Vytautas of Lithuania. In the great Battle of the Vorskla River (1399) the combined forces of Tokhtamysh and Vytautas were defeated by two of Timur's generals, khan Temur Qutlugh and emir (murza, visir) Edigu. The defeated Tokhtamysh was killed in Tyumen by Edigu's men in 1405.

He was the last khan who minted coins with Mongolian script.
Ghiyath al-Din Toqtamish see Toqtamish, Ghiyath al-Din
Tokhtamysh see Toqtamish, Ghiyath al-Din

 

Torodbe
Torodbe. Term which originally applied to those who live from begging.  The torodbe were designated the educated Islamic Tukulor -- the promoters of a victorious Islamic jihad and a new regime in Futa Toro (the middle valley of Senegal) at the end of the 18th century.  The torodbe name was reserved for the cleric class in Futa Toro, but sometimes used, to signify other groups of clerics of Peuhl culture in West Africa.  The term torodbe is the plural of the word torodo.

 

Totovents, Vahan
Totovents, Vahan (Vahan Totovents) (Vahan Hovhannesi Totovents) (September 1, 1889 - July 17, 1937). Armenian novelist and memoirist.  Totovents was born in the small country town of Mezre in the province of Kharput. His first literary effort appeared in 1907 in a Smyrna weekly paper.  In the following year, Totovents went to Constantinople and then proceeded abroad to Paris and to New York. 

Totovents attended the University of Wisconsin.  He returned to the Caucasus in 1915 to fight for the defence of Armenia against the Turks.  In 1917 to 1918, Totovents edited a daily newspaper in Tbilisi, and wrote numerous short stories and literary studies. 

In 1920, Totovents again left for America but returned in 1922 to settle in the newly founded Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic.  In the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic, where Totovents developed into a leading writer of fiction, poetry and plays.  When barely 48 years old, Totovents fell victim to the Stalin-Beria terror and was put to death.

Totovents is best known for his autobiographical Life on the Old Roman Road.  Life on the Old Roman Road tells, in lyrical prose, of life in Turkish Armenia prior to 1915, when the Turks killed or deported Totovents’ fellow countrymen, and “the blue canopy of heaven collapsed like the turquoise dome of an ancient church during an earthquake”.  From Totovents’ house, which lay on an ancient Roman highway, he could see oxen passing by with almond blossom decorating their horns; a camel caravan on its way from Mesopotamia; or on one occasion a mob of children pursuing the president of the town council as he emerged from the local whore’s abode.

Life on the Old Roman Road is rich in glimpses of Turkish provincial life before World War I.  The book has many skilfully drawn character sketches, as of Totovents’ own father carefully trying on his tailor-made coffin shortly before his death.  Nor does Totovents conceal the poverty and violence he witnessed in his childhood -- the beggars asleep on refuse heaps, the public executions, the lunatics beaten by their relatives to “cure” them.  Such grim touches set off the general impression of a lovable people living out their last years before they fell victim to Turkish brutality.

Vahan Totovents was born in Kharpert, Western Armenia (modern Turkey). He studied in Armenia and Istanbul, then at Wisconsin University where he graduated in 1915.  He was a volunteer on the Caucasian front during World War I, and served as the bodyguard, translator and secretary of General Andranik Ozanian, about whom he wrote memoires and published them in 1920. In Tbilisi, Totovents edited "Hayastan" paper, the official organ of Andranik.

After 1922 he lived in Yerevan, Soviet Armenia. In 1937 he became a victim of Stalinism. A prolific and multi-faceted writer, Vahan Totovents (1889-1937) produced with equal facility poems in prose and verse, short stories, novellas, novels, critical and biographical works, comedies, dramas, translations from Shakespeare, and a widely read and admired autobiographical work titled Life on the Old Roman Road.

Totovents was born in Mezre, a small town on the Euphrates in the province of Kharpert, where he studied under such masters of Armenian prose as Telgadinstsi and Rouben Zartarian. In his youth he traveled extensively in the Middle East, Europe, and the United States. After graduating from the University of Wisconsin, he fought as a volunteer in the Caucasus during World War I. "I wanted to see my country liberated," he writes in his autobiographical sketch. "I saw instead its total destruction, and torrents of my countrymen's blood. I saw human suffering of such depth that there can be nothing deeper in this world. I saw nights gorged with blood. I saw men crazed by hunger; I saw bloodthirsty mobs attacking innocent men, women, and children, and I heard the howls of their terrified victims." Another two years (1920-22) of wandering followed - Istanbul, Paris, New York, whence he returned to Yerevan and where, in addition to over a dozen books, he published countless essays and articles in newspapers and periodicals. Criticized for failing to produce works with "proletarian" content, Totovents refused to conform and was eventually arrested and exiled to Siberia. Very little is known about his last years.


Vahan Totovents see Totovents, Vahan
Vahan Hovhannesi Totovents see Totovents, Vahan

 

Toure, Ahmed Sekou
Toure, Ahmed Sekou (Ahmed Sekou Toure) (Sekou Toure)  (b. January 9, 1922, Faranah, French Guinea [now Guinea] - d. March 26, 1984, Cleveland, Ohio, United States).  President of Guinea (1958-1984) and was one of Africa’s most radical politicians. 

Ahmed Sekou Toure was among Africa’s youngest nationalist leaders.  He claimed descent from the nineteenth century revolutionary leader, Samori Toure.  He received his first education in Qur’anic school before entering primary school in Conakry, where he was expelled for leading a strike.  He completed his education by correspondence.  Afterwards he worked as a civil servant and became active in the unions.  In 1945, Toure led a general strike.  Toure was made a high union official, which led to his firing and brief imprisonment in 1947.  Meanwhile he co-founded the Rassamblement Democratique Africain (RDA), an inter-territorial party which lobbied for self-government in the Francophonic colonies.  In 1952, he was elected secretary-general of the RDA’s Guinea branch.

In 1953, Toure gained immense popularity when he led a successful general strike.  At the same time, he was elected to Guinea’s territorial assembly, but failed the next year to win a seat in the French Chamber of Deputies, possibly because of rigged elections. 

In 1955, Toure was elected mayor of Conakry.  The following year, he and his fellow RDA candidates were elected to the French Chamber.  In 1957, French reforms permitted the African colonies a measure of independence.  Toure became vice-president of the governing council of Guinea, second in power to the French governor.  Meanwhile he cut his union’s ties with its European, largely communist, affiliates.

Toure favored a federal form of government for Francophonic West Africa.  He became a leading opponent of RDA leader Felix Houphouet-Boigny of the Ivory Coast who opposedthe federation idea.  More importantly, he advocated total independence -- a stance which only Niger’s Djibo Bakary shared publicly.  In 1958, de Gaulle reluctantly permitted referendums in France’s overseas territories on the issue of independence versus continuing membership in the French community.

Guinea voted overwhelmingly for independence (the only territory to rebuke de Gaulle) and Toure became president at the end of the year.  France reacted harshly, swiftly withdrawing technicians and equipment, which left Guinea in a precarious economic and administrative situation.  Toure then sought development aid from Eastern bloc countries.  His pro-independence stance helped lead other French African countries to independence by 1960.

Toure was an outspoken critic of colonialism and an advocate of pan-Africanism.  In 1978, however, he directed a major policy shift by liberalizing Guinea’s socialist-oriented economy and re-establishing diplomatic relations with France, while seeking new trade with the West.  His relations with other African countries were often strained, and his international reputation suffered from his long record of imprisoning political opponents and purging suspected plotters.

In the 1982 presidential election Toure’s government claimed he had received 100% of the votes.  Two years later, he died while undergoing medical treatment in the United States for a heart attack.  Within weeks the military seized power in Guinea.  Although he was a controversial figure, Africa acknowledges Toure’s dominant role in the independence movement.

Although his parents were poor and uneducated, Touré claimed to be the grandson of Samory, a military leader who resisted French rule at the end of the 19th century, long after many other Africans had surrendered. Reared as a Muslim, Touré attended a French technical school at Conakry, from which he was expelled after one year for leading a food riot (1936). In 1940 Touré was hired as a clerk by a business firm, the Niger Français, and the following year took an administrative assignment in the postal service. There he developed a strong interest in the labor movement and organized the first successful strike, lasting 76 days, in French West Africa. In 1945 he became secretary-general of the Post and Telecommunications Workers’ Union and helped to found the Federation of Workers’ Unions of Guinea, linked to the World Federation of Trade Unions, of which he later became vice president.

Touré became active in politics in the mid-1940s and in 1946 helped Félix Houphouët-Boigny of Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) form the African Democratic Rally. Touré proved to be a powerful orator and was elected to the French National Assembly in 1951 as a representative from Guinea, but he was not allowed to take his seat. Re-elected in 1954, he was again barred. After being elected mayor of Conakry by a large majority in 1955, he was finally permitted to take his place in the National Assembly the following year. By the end of 1957 Touré had become vice president of the Executive Council of Guinea.

When French President Charles de Gaulle in 1958 offered French territories a referendum on whether to join a new federal community or to become independent, Touré and the Democratic Party of Guinea–African Democratic Rally led a successful campaign for independence. Guinea’s voting population overwhelmingly rejected de Gaulle’s offer and instead chose complete independence; Guinea was the only French colony in Africa that did not accept the proposal. On October 2, 1958, Guinea became the first independent French-speaking state in Africa, and shortly afterward Touré was elected its president. The French reacted by recalling all their professional people and civil servants and by removing all transportable equipment. Threatened by an economic breakdown, Touré accepted support from the communist bloc and at the same time sought help from Western nations.

In African affairs Touré was an ardent supporter of Ghana’s president Kwame Nkrumah and his program for African political unity, but a union of the two nations proclaimed in 1958 never became effective. When Nkrumah was deposed in 1966, Touré granted him asylum. After an unsuccessful invasion from neighboring Portuguese Guinea (now Guinea-Bissau) in 1971, he undertook a political purge and imposed severe restrictions on opposition forces in his country. He was re-elected without opposition in subsequent elections and ruled with an iron hand.

Despite his harsh domestic policies, Touré was viewed in international politics as a moderate Islamic leader. In 1982 he led the delegation sent by the Islāmic Conference Organization to mediate in the Iran-Iraq War. He also was a member in the Organization for African Unity (OAU).



Ahmed Sekou Toure see Toure, Ahmed Sekou
Sekou Toure see Toure, Ahmed Sekou
Toure, Sekou see Toure, Ahmed Sekou

2025: Traore - Tughra'i

 

Traore, Falaba
Falaba Issa Traore (b. 1930, Bougouni, Mali – d. August 8, 2003, Rabat, Morocco) was a Malian writer, comedian, playwright, and theater and film director.  

Born in Bougouni, Mali, Traore directed an amateur theater troupe before taking over direction of the regional troupe of Bamako between 1962 and 1968. From 1969 to 1973, he created and directed the Yankadi troupe for folklore and the dramatic arts.

In 1973, Traore traveled to Germany to study cinema direction. On returning to Mali in 1976, he directed the cinema division of the Ministry of Sports, Arts, and Culture.

As a comedian, Traore played notable roles in the films of Kalifa Dienta (A Banna), of Cheick Oumar Sissoko (Nidiougou Guimba), and of Boubacar Sidibe (Le pacte socialSanoudié, and N'Tronkélé). He worked also as a director, making his first film, Juguifolo (First Gleam of Hope), in 1979, and his last, Bamunan (The Sacred Pagne) in 1990. 

Falaba Issa Traore is the author -- the librettist -- of the operas Soundiata ou l'épopée mandingue and Dah Monzon ou l'épopée Bambara.

In 1972, Traore won the prix Afrique de Poesie de la Francophonie -- the African Prize for Poetry in French.  

Falaba Issa Traore died in Rabat, Morocco, on August 8, 2003.


Traore, Moussa
Traore, Moussa (Moussa Traore) (b. September 25, 1936). President of Mali.  Born in the Kayes region, Traore became a French army officer and studied at a French military college before returning to Mali in 1960.  In November 1968, he led a group of fourteen army officers in a coup against Mali’s popular leftist president, Modibo Keita, largely in reaction to the unrestrained activities of the country’s militant youth movement, which the army considered a threat to its own power.  Traore became president the following month.  He immediately took measures to deal with Mali’s weak economy by encouraging private participation in industry and improving strained relations with France, a major trading partner and contributor of aid.  However, the five-year drought that began in 1968 served to worsen economic conditions. 

Keita’s continuing popularity throughout the country made stability elusive.  A number of coup plots and attempts beginning in 1969 caused Traore to imprison his political rivals, including Captain Yoro Diakite, with whom he had shared power after the 1968 coup.  Diakite died in prison in 1973.  In 1974, Traore successfully promoted a referendum on a new constitution that was to take effect five years later.  Keita died in detention in 1977, and his followers were largely prohibited from participating in the 1979 elections, which confirmed Traore’s rule.  Student demonstrations followed and Traore’s government responded by arresting the leader of the student union, who also died in detention.

In the early 1980s, Traore made significant progress in improving Mali’s strained relations with its neighbors, with the exception of Burkina Faso, with which a long-standing boundary dispute led to border skirmishes.   In 1982, Traore and Guinea’s President Sekou Toure agreed on a plan to ultimately unify the two countries.  Mali’s economic problems seemed to defy resolution, and the re-emergence of draught conditions in the mid-1980s forced a heavy dependency on foreign aid for famine relief.  Nevertheless, Traore appeared to have either co-opted or crushed all opposition, and in 1985 he was re-elected to a five-year term with a reported 99 percent of the vote.

As a Lieutenant, Traore led the military ouster of President Modibo Keita in 1968. Thereafter he served as Head of State (by various titles) from 1968-1979, and President of Mali from 1979 to 1991, when he was overthrown by popular protests and a military coup. He was twice condemned to death in the 1990s but eventually pardoned on both occasions and freed in 2002. He then retired from political life.

Born in Kayes Region, he studied at Kita and at the military academy in Fréjus, France. He returned to Mali in 1960, after its 1959 independence. He became a second lieutenant in 1961, and a lieutenant in 1963. He went to Tanganyika (now Tanzania) as military instructor to its liberation movements. He then became instructor at the École militaire interarmes in Kati.

On November 19, 1968, Traore took part in the coup d'état which deposed President Modibo Keïta. He became president of the Comité militaire de libération nationale, which made him effective Head of State of the Republic of Mali. All political activity was banned. A police state was run by Captain Tiécoro Bagayoko. Informers monitored academics and teachers, mostly hostile to the military rule. The socialist economic policies of Modibo Keïta were partially dropped. In 1972-1973, a major drought hit Mali. International aid money was corruptly appropriated. In 1974, he issued a changed constitution for a Malian Second Republic, which was inaugurated in 1978, and was proported to move Mali toward civilian rule. However, the military leaders remained in power. In September 1976, a new political party was established, the Democratic Union of the Malian People (UDPM), based on the concept of non-ideological democratic centralism. Single-party presidential and legislative elections were held in June 1979, and General Moussa Traore received 99% of the votes.

In 1977 ex-president Modibo Keïta died in detention, under suspicious circumstances. His funeral was well attended. The regime reacted strongly and made violent arrests. On February 28, 1978, Moussa Traoré arrested both Tiécoro Bagayoko and Kissima Doukara, defense and security minister, on accusations of plotting a coup. In trying to move to more open politics, he appointed the historian Alpha Oumar Konaré as arts minister. In 1979, he created the UDPM (Union Démocratique du Peuple Malien), a single permitted political party; also the Union Nationale des Femmes du Mali and Union Nationale des Jeunes du Mali, compulsory organizations for women and young people. In 1980, student demonstrations were broken up, and their leader Abdoul Karim Camara ("Cabral") died from torture. In 1982, he was made commander-in-chief. Traoré was chairman of the Organization of African Unity from May 1988 to July 1989. The UDPM-controlled legislature amended the constitution in 1985 to remove limits on the length of time a president could hold office--effectively making Traoré president for life.

The political situation stabilized during 1981 and 1982, and remained generally calm throughout the 1980s. The UDPM began attracting additional members as it demonstrated that it could counter an effective voice against the excesses of local administrative authorities. Shifting its attention to Mali's economic difficulties, the government approved plans for cereal marketing liberalization, reform in the state enterprise system, new incentives to private enterprise, and an agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). However, by 1990, there was growing dissatisfaction with the demands for austerity imposed by the IMF's economic reform programs and the perception that the president and his close associates were not themselves adhering to those demands. As in other African countries, demands for multi-party democracy increased. The Traore Government allowed some opening of the system, including the establishment of an independent press and independent political associations, but insisted that Mali was not ready for democracy.

In 1990, the National Congress for Democratic Initiative (Congrès National d’Initiative démocratique, CNID) was set up by the lawyer Mountaga Tall, and the Alliance for Democracy in Mali (Alliance pour la démocratie au Mali, ADEMA) by Abdramane Baba and historian Alpha Oumar Konaré. These with the Association des élèves et étudiants du Mali (AEEM) and the Association Malienne des Droits de l'Homme (AMDH) aimed to contest Moussa Traoré's rule. Under the old constitution, all labor unions had to belong to one confederation, the National Union of Malian Workers (UNTM). When the leadership of the UNTM broke from the government in 1990, the opposition grew. In part this was a reaction to the stalling of Traoré's "Multiparisme" program, announced in October 1989 but then shelved. In part, these groups were driven by paycuts and layoffs in the government sector, and the Malian government acceding to pressure from international donors to privatize large swathes of the economy that had remained in public hands even after the overthrow of the socialist government in 1968. Students, even children, played an increasing role in Bamako's protest marches, and homes and businesses of those associated with the regime were ransacked by crowds. On March 22, 1991 a huge protest march in central Bamako was put down violently, with estimates of those killed reaching 300. Four days later a military coup deposed Traoré. The Comité de Transition pour le Salut du Peuple was set up, headed by General Amadou Toumani Touré.

In 1993, Traoré was condemned to death for "political crimes", largely focused on the killing of around 300 pro-democracy demonstrators in Bamako, but his sentence was later commuted. In 1999, he was once more condemned to death with his wife Mariam Traoré, for "economic crimes": the embezzling of the equivalent of USD $350,000 during his rule. President Alpha Oumar Konaré commuted these sentences to life imprisonment. Shortly before leaving office, on May 29, 2002, he further pardoned the couple, for the sake of national reconciliation, a stance which incoming president Amadou Toumani Touré championed.

Traoré's once reviled legacy has been somewhat softened under President Amadou Toumani, with the former dictator recognized at least informally as a former head of state and many former supporters now rallying around Chogel Maiga's Patriotic Movement for Renewal party (Mouvement Patriotique pour le Renouveau, MPR).

Imprisoned in Markala local Prison, in February 1993, Traoré was condemned to death for "political crimes", largely focused on the killing of around 300 pro-democracy demonstrators in Bamako,[10] but his sentence was later commuted. In 1999 he was once more condemned to death with his wife Mariam Traoré, for "economic crimes": the embezzling of the equivalent of US$350,000 during his rule. President Alpha Oumar Konaré commuted these sentences to life imprisonment. Shortly before leaving office, on 29 May 2002, he further pardoned the couple, for the sake of national reconciliation, a stance which incoming president Amadou Toumani Touré championed.[11][12]

Traoré's once reviled legacy somewhat softened under Touré, with the former dictator recognised at least informally as a former head of state and many former supporters now rallying around Chogel Maiga's Patriotic Movement for Renewal party (Mouvement Patriotique pour le Renouveau, MPR). Both Traoré and his wife retired from public life, in part due to ill health.[13]

Death

[edit]

Traoré died on 15 September 2020 in Bamako, just ten days before his 84th birthday.[14] He was given a state funeral, which was attended by members of the ruling National Committee for the Salvation of the People.[15]


Moussa Traore see Traore, Moussa

 

Tribe
Tribe.  Group of people (often nomadic) sharing real or fictitious descent from a common ancestor, as well as common traditions, customs, and leaders.

In anthropology, a tribe is a notional form of human social organization based on a set of smaller groups (known as bands), having temporary or permanent political integration, and defined by traditions of common descent, language, culture, and ideology.

The term originated in ancient Rome, where the word tribus denoted a division within the state. It later came into use as a way to describe the cultures encountered through European exploration. By the mid-19th century, many anthropologists and other scholars were using the term, as well as band, chiefdom, and state, to denote particular stages in unilineal cultural evolution.

Although unilineal cultural evolution is no longer a credible theory, these terms continue to be used as a sort of technical shorthand in college courses, documentaries, and popular reference works. In such contexts, members of a tribe are typically said to share a self-name and a contiguous territory; to work together in such joint endeavours as trade, agriculture, house construction, warfare, and ceremonial activities; and to be composed of a number of smaller local communities such as bands or villages. In addition, they may be aggregated into higher-order clusters, such as nations.

As an anthropological term, the word tribe fell out of favor in the latter part of the 20th century. Some anthropologists rejected the term itself, on the grounds that it could not be precisely defined. Others objected to the negative connotations that the word acquired in the colonial context. Scholars of Africa, in particular, felt that it was pejorative as well as inaccurate. Thus, many anthropologists replaced it with the designation ethnic group, usually defined as a group of people with a common ancestry and language, a shared cultural and historical tradition, and an identifiable territory. Ethnic group is a particularly appropriate term within the discussion of modernizing countries, where one’s identity and claims to landownership may depend less on extended kinship ties than on one’s natal village or region of origin.

 
Tuareg


Tuareg (Touareg) (Twareg). Nomadic Berber people living in the parts of the Sahara that covers Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso.  The Tuaregs speak a Berber language called Tamershak, to which there is a proper alphabet.

In earlier times, their three of their principal sources of income were taxation of caravan routs crossing Sahara, plundering settled neighboring peoples and pastoral activities.  These activities have been strongly reduced due to stronger state structures, border control, and the need for control over citizens in the modern state.  Hence a large part of today’s Tuaregs have now moved into cities.

Tuaregs have long since converted to Islam, but their beliefs have a higher component of traditional religious elements than in many other Muslim communities. 

Women in Tuareg societies have a strong and free position.  Men, not women, wear veils in public but this has more to do with practical needs than with moral attitudes since men move around more in the desert than women, they have more need for covering and protecting their face.

However, women play so strong a role in the society that social status depends on matrilineal descent.

The society is strongly hierarchic, divided into nobles, vassals, and serfs (descendants of slaves that have faced problems breaking free from their inherited social status).

The Tuareg are Berber-speaking pastoralists who inhabit an area in North and West Africa ranging from Touat, Algeria, and Ghudāmis, Libya, to northern Nigeria and from Fezzan, Libya, to Timbuktu, Mali. Their political organizations extend across national boundaries. In the late 20th century there were estimated to be 900,000 Tuareg.

The northern Tuareg live mainly in true desert country, whereas the southerners live primarily in steppe and savanna. The Tuareg consist of confederations including the Ahaggar (Hoggar) and Azjer (Ajjer) in the north and the Asben (Aïr Tuareg), Ifora, Itesen (Kel Geres), Aulliminden, and Kel Tademaket in the south. The southerners breed zebu cattle and camels, some of which are sold to the northern Tuareg. Raiding of caravans and travelers was important in pre-European times, as was caravan trading, which declined with the introduction of motor vehicles. Droughts across southern Mauritania, Senegal, Niger, Burkina Faso (Upper Volta), and Chad in the 1970s and ’80s both reduced the numbers of the southern Tuareg and eroded their traditional pastoral way of life.

Tuareg society is traditionally feudal, ranging from nobles, through clergy, vassals, and artisans, to laborers (once slaves). The conventional Tuareg dwelling is a tent of red-dyed skin (sometimes replaced in the later 20th century with plastic). Traditional weapons include two-edged swords, sheathed daggers, iron lances, and leather shields. Adult males wear a blue veil in the presence of women, strangers, and in-laws, but that practice began to be abandoned with urbanization. They have preserved a peculiar script (tifinagh) related to that used by ancient Libyans.

One special cultural note of interest, the Tuareg are the antagonists of the French Foreign Legion in Percival Christopher Wren's 1924 adventure novel Beau Geste and the films that were based on it.

Touareg see Tuareg
Twareg see Tuareg

 

Tudeh
Tudeh (Hezb-e Tudeh-ye Iran) ("Party of the Iranian Masses").  Pro-Communist Worker’s Party of Iran.

The Tudeh Party was formed in 1941 in Iran by members of the famous Fifty-three, who had been arrested in 1937 but were released immediately on the British-Soviet occupation of Iran during World War II. The Fifty-three were predominantly young, university-educated Marxist intellectuals from middle-class and Persian-speaking families. The Tudeh Party quickly grew to become the organization of the masses in reality as well as in name. It did so in part because its labor unions mobilized a significant portion of the wage-earning population; in part because it attracted many civil servants, professionals, and intellectuals; and in part because it successfully portrayed itself as the champion of patriotism and constitutional liberties against foreign imperialism and the threat of royal dictatorship. By 1945, the list of Tudeh sympathizers read like a Who's Who of Iran's intelligentsia.

After 1945, however, the Tudeh suffered a series of setbacks. Its patriotic credentials were undermined when it supported the Soviet-sponsored revolt in Azerbaijan, echoed the demands of the Soviet Union's Josef Stalin for an oil concession, and failed to give full backing to Mohammad Mossadegh's campaign to nationalize the petroleum industry. Its constitutional and democratic credentials were brought into question once it declared itself a Marxist-Leninist party and became a formal member of the Soviet-led Communist movement. Moreover, its ability to function was drastically curtailed - first in 1949, when the party was banned after an attempt was made on the life of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi; and second after the 1953 coup, when SAVAK, the secret police, helped by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, vigorously unearthed its underground network. Over forty Tudeh members were executed in the 1950s.

The Tudeh was further weakened by two major internal disputes. In the aftermath of the Azerbaijan revolt, a number of intellectuals left the party and in later years joined Mosaddegh's National Front (Jebhe-ye Melli). In the 1960s, at the height of the Sino-Soviet dispute, a number of younger activists, denouncing the Tudeh leadership as reformist and revisionist, formed their own pro-Chinese Sazman-e Engelab-e Hezb-e Tudeh-ye Iran (Revolutionary Organization of the Tudeh Party of Iran).

By the time of the Iranian Revolution (1979), little remained of the Tudeh within Iran. Despite this, the party tried a comeback. It instructed its cadres to return and elected as its first secretary Nur al-Din Kianuri, the proponent of an alliance with Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The previous first secretary, Iraj Iskandari, had favored the secular liberals, especially the National Front. From 1978 until 1983, the Tudeh supported the Islamic Republic of Iran, even when much of the left denounced the regime as a medieval theocracy.

This support ended abruptly in 1983, in the midst of the Iran - Iraq War, after Khomeini ordered Iranian troops to cross the border into Iraq. As soon as the Tudeh criticized this action, most of the party's leaders and cadres were arrested and tortured into confessing that they were spies and traitors plotting to overthrow the Islamic Republic. The most extensive recantation came from Ehsan Tabari, a member of the Fifty-three and the most important intellectual in the Tudeh leadership. Tabari died in prison from heart failure, but 163 of his colleagues were killed - some under torture, others by hanging. A few party leaders escaped to Western Europe, where they continued to be active. They published a biweekly, Nameh-ye Mardom (People's newsletter) and a periodical, Donya (The world), and ran a clandestine radio station. They held a party congress in 1998 in Germany and often sent delegates to international communist meetings.

 

Tughluqs
Tughluqs. Dynasty of the Delhi sultanate (r.1320- 1414).  Sultan Ghiyas ud-Din Tughluq (Ghiyath al-Din Tughluq Shah I) (r.1320-1325), Muhammad bin Tughluq (r.1325-1351), and Firuz Shah Tughluq (r. 1351-1388) were the most outstanding among its eleven sultans.

The Tughluq sultans made a deep impact on the political, social, and economic developments of the period.  Although Ghiyas ud-Din and Muhammad bin Tughluq were greater imperialists than Ala ud-Din Khalji, they softened the militaristic aspect of the state and initiated many measures of public welfare.  Ghiyas ud-Din Tughluq brought about reform in agrarian administration.  Muhammad bin Tughluq formulated a code for agricultural development and established a department for that purpose.  Firuz provided irrigational facilities on an extensive scale.

Muhammad bin Tughluq attempted to achieve the political and administrative unity of India and undertook the Qarachil expedition, seeking to complete fortification of vulnerable areas connecting India with China.  He established diplomatic relations with West Asian, Central Asian, and even Southeast Asian countries.  The empire of Delhi having grown in dimensions during his time, Muhammad bin Tughluq created a second administrative city in the South and named it Daulatabad.  Muslim elite administrators, scholars, and mystics were forced to leave Delhi and settle there.  The sultan made an experiment in token currency and introduced copper coin in place of silver.  Under the influence of Ibn Taimiya, the renowned fundamentalist scholar of Damascus, Muhammad bin Tughluq punished some of the mystics who did not fall in line with his policies.  However, he was extremely liberal in his dealings with the Hindus whose festivals he celebrated, and gave endowments to shelters for cows. 

Firuz Shah was interested in the preservation of old buildings and the founding of new cities.  According to the accounts of Arab travelers, there were one thousand colleges and two thousand mystic centers in Delhi during the time of Muhammad bin Tughluq.  The Firuzi College founded by Firuz was an impressive building where free food was given to the students and both teachers and students were required to wear uniforms.

During the later years of Firuz Shah, the empire of Delhi began to decline.  After Firuz, Tughluq power began to disintegrate, and centrifugal tendencies appeared.  The invasion of Timur in 1398 destroyed the empire’s economic prosperity.  The later Tughluqs were unable to cope with the situation and the Tughluq dynasty was replaced by the Sayyids.

The Tughluq rulers were:
 
1  Ghiyas ud din Tughluq Shah I (Ghiyath al-Din Tughluq)  1321 – 1325 
2  Muhammad Shah II (Muhammad bin Tughluq)  1325 – March 20, 1351 
2  Mahmud ibn Muhammad  March 20, 1351 – March 23, 1351 
4  Firuz Shah Tughluq  March 23, 1351 – 1388 
5  Ghiyas-ud-Din Tughluq II  1388 - February 18, 1389 
6  Abu Bakr Shah  February 19, 1389 - August 31, 1390 
7  Nasir ud din Muhammad Shah III  August 31, 1390 - January 20, 1394 
8  Ala-ud-Din Sikandar Shah I   January 22, 1394 - March 8, 1394 
9  Nasir-ud-Din Mahmud Shah Tughluq (Sultan Mahmud II)  March 8, 1394 - 1412 (or February, 1413) 

Nusrat Shah, grandson of Firuz Shah Tughlaq, controlled the western part of the sultanate from Firozabad and Nasir-ud-Din Mahmud Tughluq, youngest son of Nasir-ud-Din Muhammad, controlled the eastern part of the sultanate from Delhi from 1394–1398.

9A   Nusrat Shah Tughluq  1394-1398

 

Tughra’i, Mu’ayyid al-Din al-
Tughra’i, Mu’ayyid al-Din al- (Mu’ayyid al-Din al-Tughra’i) (1061-c.1121).  Arab poet, calligrapher and alchemist from Isfahan.  He is known for a poem in which he complains about the evil times in which he lived.  It was perhaps the earliest specimen of Arabic poetry accessible to wider circles in Europe.

Mu'ayyad al-Din al-Tughra'i, was born in Isfahan. He was an important alchemist, poet, and administrative secretary (therefore the name Tughra'i'). He ultimately became the second most senior official (after the vizier) in the civil administration of the Seljuk empire.  He was, however, executed, unjustifiably according to most historians, in the year 1121 after a Seljuk power struggle.

Al-Tughra'i is best known for his large compendium titled Mafatih al-rahmah wa-masabih al-hikmah, which incorporated extensive extracts from earlier Arabic alchemical writings, as well as Arabic translations from Zosimos of Panopolis, -- old alchemy treatises written in Greek, which were until 1995 erroneously attributed to unknown alchemists.

In 1112, he also composed Kitab Haqa'iq al-istishhad, a rebuttal of a refutation of alchemy written by Ibn Sina (Avicenna).
Mu'ayyid al-Din al-Tughra'i see Tughra’i, Mu’ayyid al-Din al-

 


Friday, February 21, 2025

2025: Tughril - Tukulor

  Tughril I

Tughril I (Rukn al-Dunya wa’l-Din Tughril I) (Tughril Beg) (Tuğril) (Tuğrul) (Toghrïl Beg) (Togrul) (c. 990–September 4, 1063).  First Great Saljuq ruler of Iraq and Persia (r.1038-1063).  He entered Nishapur in 1038 at the request of the ‘Abbasid Caliph al-Qa’im bi-Amr Allah, who had complained about the robberies of the Oghuz, but he was driven out of the town by the Ghaznavids.  After his defeat at Dandanqan in 1040, the Ghaznavid Mas‘ud I was forced to withdraw from Khurasan and leave this province to the Saljuqs.  Tughril, who had a certain pre-eminence among the Saljuqs, submitted the Ziyarids of Tabaristan and Gurgan in 1041, conquered Khwarazm and Rayy, and defeated the Buyid Majd al-Dawla, who had still been holding out in the stronghold of Tabaraq.  The Buyid Abu Kalijar al-Marzuban made peace with the Saljuqs in 1047.  The Marwanids of Diyarbakr submitted to Tughril, and in 1051 he took Isfahan, which he made into his residence.  Tabriz and Ganja in Azerbaijan submitted in 1054.  Meanwhile, the Buyid Khusraw-Firuz had made secret arrangements at Baghdad with the Fatimids of Egypt, and the ‘Abbasid caliph invited Tughril to march against the capital.  Tughril entered Baghdad in 1055 and brought an end to Buyid rule.  While he was away in 1058 to fight the Saljuq Ibrahim Inal, who had joined the pro-Fatimid policy of al-Basasiri, the military commander of Baghdad, the latter re-entered the capital, upon which the caliph left the city.  Tughril returned in 1059, brought the caliph back and defeated al-Basasiri.

Tuğrul was the second ruler of the Seljuk dynasty. Tuğrul united the Turkomen warriors of the Great Eurasian Steppes into a confederacy of tribes, who traced their ancestry to a single ancestor named Seljuk, and led them in conquest of eastern Iran. He would later establish the Seljuk Sultanate after conquering Persia and retaking the Abbasid Capital of Baghdad from the Buyid Dynasty in 1055. Tuğrul relegated the Abbasid Caliphs to state figureheads and took command of the caliphate's armies in military offensives against the Byzantine Empire and the Fatimid Caliphate in an effort to expand his empire's borders and unite the Islamic world.

Tugrul ascended to power in 1016. In 1025 he and his brother Chaghri (Çağrı) served under the Kara-Khanids of Bukhara, but they were defeated by the Ghaznavid Empire under Mahmud of Ghazni, and Toğrul was forced to flee to Khwarezm. When their uncle was later driven out of Khorasan by Mahmud, Toğrul and his brother moved onto Khorasan and conquered the cities of Merv and Nishapur in 1028–1029. They then extended their raids to Bokhara and Balkh and in 1037 sacked Ghazni and in 1038 he was crowned Sultan at Nishapur. In 1040 they decisively won the Battle of Dandanaqan against Mahmud's son, Mas'ud I, forcing Mas'ud I to abandon his western provinces and flee towards Lahore. Toğrul then installed Chagri to govern Khorasan and prevent a Ghaznavid reconquest, then moved on to the conquest of the Iranian plateau in 1040-1044. By 1054, his forces were contending in Anatolia with the Byzantines and in 1055 he was commissioned by the Abbasid Caliph Al-Qa'im (caliph) to recapture Baghdad from the Fatimids. A revolt by Turkmen forces under his foster brother Ibrahim Yinal, Buyid forces and an uprising against the Seljuks led to the loss of the city to the Fatimid Caliph in 1058. Two years later Toğrul crushed the rebellion, personally strangling Ibrahim with his bowstring and entered Baghdad. He then married the daughter of the Abbasid Caliph.

Tugrul died childless in the city of Rayy in modern Iran and was succeeded by his nephew Suleiman which was contested by Alp Arslan, both of them sons of his brother Chagri Begh. His cousin Kutalmish who had both been a vital part of his campaigns and later a supporter of Yinal's rebellion also put forth a claim. Alp Arslan defeated Kutalmish for the throne and succeed on April 27, 1064.

Rukn al-Dunya wa'l-Din Tughril I see Tughril I
Tughril Beg see Tughril I
Tugril see Tughril I
Tugrul see Tughril I
Toghril Beg see Tughril I
Togrul see Tughril I

Tughril II
Tughril II (Rukn al-Din Tughril II ibn Muhammad) (b.1109).  Great Saljuq ruler in Iraq and western Persia (r.1132-1134).  He plotted against his brother the Great Saljuq Mahmud II and sought refuge with the Great Saljuq Sanjar who installed Tughril as sultan in 1132.  The latter however was not a match for his brother Mas‘ud.
Rukn al-Din Tughril II ibn Muhammad see Tughril II


Tughril III
Tughril III (Rukn al-Din Tughril III ibn Arslan) (b. 1168).  Last of the Great Saljuqs in Iraq and western Persia  (r.1175-1194).  He made arrangements with a number of Turkish amirs and seized the Saljuq capital Hamadhan.  In 1188, he defeated an army sent from Baghdad, led by the vizier Ibn Yunus, but was taken prisoner by the Ildenizid Qizil Arslan ‘Uthman (r.1186-1191) of Azerbaijan.  Tughril III fell in a battle against the Khwarazm Shah Tekish.
Rukn al-Din Tughril III ibn Arslan see Tughril III


Tughril-Shah ibn Qilij Arslan II
Tughril-Shah ibn Qilij Arslan II (d.1225). Rum Saljuq.  When his father divided his kingdom among his many sons, Tughril-Shah received the town of Elbistan.  In 1200 his brother Rukn al-Din Sulayman II conquered Erzurum, which he handed over to Tughril Shah.  He was a vassal of the Georgian king Georgi III Lasha in Tiflis.


Tughtigin ibn ‘Abd Allah, Amin al-Dawla
Tughtigin ibn ‘Abd Allah, Amin al-Dawla (Amin al-Dawla Tughtigin ibn ‘Abd Allah) (Zahir ad-Din Toghtekin) (Tuğtekin) (Toghtekin) (d. February 12, 1128).  Founder of the Burid dynasty (r.1104-1128).  He became actual ruler after the death of the Saljuq Duqaq (r.1095-1104), thrusting aside the latter’s brother Ertash, who entered into negotiations with king Baldwin I of Jerusalem.  He is described by historians as an able and just ruler, and as one of the most dreaded enemies of the Christians. 

Toghtekin was a Turkic military leader, who was atabeg of Damascus from 1104 to 1128. He was the founder of the Burid dynasty of Damascus.

Zahir ad-Din Toghtekin was a junior officer to Tutush I, Seljuk ruler of Damascus and Syria. After the former's death in 1095, civil war erupted, and Toghtekin supported Tutush's son Duqaq as emir of the city against Radwan, the emir of Aleppo. In the chaotic years which ensued Toghtekin was sent to reconquer the town of Jebleh, which had rebelled against the qadi of Tripoli, but he was unable to accomplish his task.

On October 21, 1097, a Crusader army appeared at the gates of Antioch. The local emir, Yaghi-Siyan, though nominally under Radwan's suzerainty, appealed to Duqaq to send an armed force to their rescue. Duqaq sent Toghtekin, but on December 31, 1097, he was defeated by Bohemund of Taranto and Robert Curthose, and was forced to retreat. Another relief attempt was made by a joint force under Kerbogha, the emir of Mosul, and Toghtekin, which was also crushed by the Crusaders on June 28, 1098.

When the Crusaders moved southwards from the newly-conquered Antioch, the qadi of Jebleh sold his town to Duqaq, who installed Toghtekin's son, Taj al-Mulk Buri, as its ruler. His tyrannical rule, however, led to his quick downfall. In 1103 Toghtekin was sent by Duqaq to take possession of Homs at the request of its inhabitants, after the emir Janah al-Dawla had been assassinated by order of Radwan.

The following year Duqaq died and Toghtekin, now acting as regent and de facto ruler, had the former's junior son Tutush II proclaimed emir, while he married Duqaq's widow and reserved for himself the title of atabeg. After deposing Tutush II he had another son of Duqaq, Baqtash, named emir, but soon afterward he had him exiled. Baqtash, with the support of Aitekin, the sahib of Bosra, tried to reconquer Damascus, but was pushed back by Toghtekin and forced to find help at the court of King Baldwin I of Jerusalem.

Around 1106 Toghtekin intervened to momentarily raise the siege of Tripoli by the Crusaders, but could not prevent the definitive capture of the city. In May 1108 he was able to defeat a small Christian force under Gervaise of Bazoches, lord of Galilee. Gervaise was proposed to be freed in exchange for his possession, but he refused and was executed. In April 1110 Toghtekin besieged and captured Baalbek and named his son Buri as governor.

Late in November 1111, the town of Tyre, which was besieged by Baldwin's troops, put itself under Toghtekin's protection. Toghtekin, supported by Fatimid forces, intervened, forcing the Franks to raise the siege on April 10, 1112. However, he refused to take part in the anti-Crusade effort launched by Mawdud of Mosul, fearing that the latter could take advantage of it to gain rule over the whole of Syria.

Nonetheless, in 1113 the two Muslim commanders allied in reply to the ravages of Baldwin of Jerusalem and Tancred of Hauteville. Their army besieged Tiberias, but they were unable to conquer it despite a sound victory at the Battle of Al-Sannabra, and they were forced to retreat to Damascus when Christian reinforcements arrived and supplies began to run out. During his sojourn in the city, Mawdud was killed by the Hashshashin (October 2, 1113); the inhabitants accused Toghtekin of the deed. In 1114 he signed an alliance against the Franks with the new emir of Aleppo, Alp Arslan, but the latter was also assassinated a short time later.

In 1115 Toghtekin decided to ally himself with the Kingdom of Jerusalem against the Seljuk general Aq Sonqor Bursuqi, who had been sent by the Seljuk sultan to fight the Crusaders. The following year, judging the Franks too powerful, he visited Baghdad to obtain a pardon from the sultan, though never forgetting to remain independent himself between the two main forces.

Allied with Ilghazi of Aleppo, he attacked Athareb in the Christian Principality of Antioch, but was defeated at Hab on August 14, 1119. In the June of the following year he sent help to Ilghazi, who was again under peril of annihilation in the same place. In 1122 the Fatimids, no longer able to defend Tyre, sold it to Toghtekin, who installed a garrison there, but the garrison was unable to prevent its capture by the Christians on July 7, 1124.

In 1125, Bursuqi, now in control of Aleppo, appeared in the Antiochean territory with a large army which Toghtekin joined. However, the two were defeated at the Battle of Azaz on June 11, 1125. The following January Toghtekin also had to repel an invasion by Baldwin II of Jerusalem. In late 1126 he again invaded the Principality of Antioch with Bursuqi, but again with no results.

Toghtekin died in 1128. He was succeeded by his son Buri.

In the Old French cycle of crusade chansons, Toghtekin is known as "Dodequin".

Amin al-Dawla Tughtigin ibn ‘Abd Allah see Tughtigin ibn ‘Abd Allah, Amin al-Dawla
Zahir ad-Din Toghtekin see Tughtigin ibn ‘Abd Allah, Amin al-Dawla
Tuğtekin see Tughtigin ibn ‘Abd Allah, Amin al-Dawla
Toghtekin see Tughtigin ibn ‘Abd Allah, Amin al-Dawla
Dodequin see Tughtigin ibn ‘Abd Allah, Amin al-Dawla


Tujibids
Tujibids (Banu Tujib).  Name of an Arab family, who ruled in Saragossa (r.1019-1029).  They became divided into the Banu Hisham of Saragossa and the Banu Sumadih of Almeria.

The Banu Tujibi were a dynasty that were appointed to govern Catalayud in 872, and in 886 were given Saragossa (Zaragoza). This they held as governors (sometimes only nominally, carrying out their own foreign policy) under the Umayyads. The collapse of the Caliphate of Córdoba allowed them to found the Taifa of Zaragoza, which they ruled from 1018 until they were expelled by a rival dynasty, the Banu Hud, in 1039.
Banu Tujib see Tujibids


Tukulor
Tukulor (Tukolor) (Toucouleur) (in Arabic, Takrur).  Muslim theocracy of the nineteenth century in the western Sudan.  The name is a corruption of the local Tokoror or Tokolor and denotes, strictly speaking, the Futa of Senegal.  The term may have been derived from the name Takrur, a town in ancient middle Senegal.  Islam penetrated to the Futa around 1050 under the influence of the Almoravid movement, and Tukulor became synonymous with Muslim.

The theocratic Tukulor state was founded by Sulayman Bal, who succeeded in casting off Futa suzerainty in 1775.  In 1841, a treaty of friendship was signed with France.  The state lasted until 1890, when it was annexed to the French colony of Senegal.

The French adopted this term to refer to sedentary peoples who speak Peuhl, but who are of multiple ethnic origins, who settled in the middle valley of the Senegal River (Futa Toro).  The Tukolor call themselves the Futanke (“the people of Futa”) or the Hal-Pularen (“those who speak Peuhl”).  The term Futankobe is the plural of the term Futanke

In 1801, the Tukulor Usman dan Fodio founded the state of Sokoto.  Another Tukulor state was founded by al-Hajj ‘Umar Tal.  It was destroyed by the French in 1893.

Tukulor refers to an ethnic group of Muslims in West Africa.  Arab geographers called them Takarir, inhabitants of the kingdom of Tekrur.  As for themselves, the Tukulor use the term “Haopholaren” (Pholarphone) or “Futankobe,” if they come from Senegal.  They speak Fulani (Fulfulde), a West Atlantic language of the Niger-Congo family.  They are distinguished from the Fulani by the important role thy played in the history of West African Islam and their sedentary occupations, which contrast with Fulani pastoral nomadism.  They are a mixed group through intermarriage with Fulani and, to a lesser extent, Moors and Soninke.  The Tukulor’s main concentration is in Senegal, where they inhabit both banks of the Dagana (a tributary of the Senegal River) to halfway between Matam and Bakel.  They are numerous also in and around Kayes, Nioro-du-Sahel, in the region of Segu on the Niger River, in eastern Massina and Dinginray. 

Islam came to the Tukulor in the eleventh century with the conversion of the ruling class.  The common people followed during the next few centuries, and today nearly all Tukulor are Muslims.

In the past the Tukulor have been associated with various Sufi orders.  Early in the nineteenth century, the Shadhili was introduced among them by a Fulani cleric, Ali As-Sufi, but they ultimately adopted the Tijani upon the rise of Al-Hajj Umar.

The Tukolor are a Muslim people who mainly inhabit Senegal, with smaller numbers in western Mali. Their origins are complex: they seem basically akin to the Serer and Wolof peoples, and contacts with the Fulani have greatly influenced their development. They speak the Fulani language, called Fula, which belongs to the Atlantic branch of the Niger-Congo language family.

From the 10th to the 18th century the Tukulor were organized in the kingdom of Tekrur, which, until the emergence of a Tukulor empire in the 18th century, was ruled by a succession of non-Tukulor groups. In the mid-19th century, many Tukulor supported a religious war against other groups in the area and, unsuccessfully, against the French. Defeated, many fled to present-day Mali, where they continue to live.

The Tukulor embraced Islam in the 11th century and take great pride in their strong Islamic tradition. Their social structure is highly stratified and is based primarily on male lineage (patrilineage) groups, which are usually scattered among several villages. The typical household comprises a segment of a patrilineage (usually a father, his sons, and grandchildren), their wives, children, and sometimes more distant kin. The Tukulor are polygynous, although only some 20 percent of males have more than one wife. A bride-price, often substantial if the bride enjoys high social status, is required. High status attaches to membership in a noble lineage or a prosperous family; low status is associated with membership in certain artisan castes or with slave ancestry. Leadership in Muslim religious brotherhoods has in recent times assumed importance in status rankings.

The Tukulor economy rests equally on stock raising, fishing, and cultivating such crops as millet and sorghum. A corollary of the hierarchical social structure is a marked inequality in the distribution of land; and this, together with a steadily rising population, has resulted in the emigration of considerable numbers of youth to the cities.

The Toucouleur Empire (also known as the Tijaniyya Jihad state or the Segu Tukulor/Toucouleur Empire) was founded in the nineteenth century by El Hadj Umar Tall of the Toucouleur people, in part of present-day Mali.

Umar Tall returned from the Hajj in 1836 with the titles of El Hadj and caliph of the Tijaniyya brotherhood of the Sudan. After a long stay in Fouta-Toro (present day Senegal), he moved to Dinguiraye (to the east of Fouta Djallon in present-day Guinea), which became the staging ground for his 1850 jihad.

Abandoning his assault on the French colonial army after an 1857 failure to conquer Medina fort, Umar Tall struck out against the Bambara kingdoms with much greater success - first Kaarta and then Segou. Following a decisive victory in the Battle of Segou on March 10, 1861, he made Segou the capital of his empire. A year later he left its management to his son Ahmadu Tall to go conquer Hamdullahi, capital of the Fula empire of Massina. Umar Tall again tasted defeat in a failed attempt to conquer Timbuktu, and retreated to Deguembéré, near Bandiagara of the Dogon region. In 1864, he died there in an explosion of his gunpowder reserves.

His nephew Tidiani Tall succeeded him and installed the capital of the Toucouleur Empire at Bandiagara. At Segou, Ahmadu Tall continued to reign, successfully suppressing the attempts of several neighboring cities to break away, but he found himself in increasing conflict with his brothers.

In 1890, the French, allied with the Bambara, entered Ségou, and Ahmadu fled to Sokoto in present-day Nigeria, marking the effective end of the empire.

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The Tukolor people have long inhabited the Senegal River area, with roots of an organized Tekrur kingdom tracing back to the 5th century. They were part of the 10th to the 18th century kingdom but were led by non-Tukolor rulers from other ethnic groups. In the 18th century, a Tukolor empire emerged which reached its peak influence in the 19th century under the Islamic leader Umar Tall (Omar Saidou Tall). Umar was born in a Tukolor clerical family in 1797. During his visit to Mecca in 1827, Umar was designated as the "Caliph of Black Africa." He returned to West Africa in 1833 and subsequently learned political and state building strategies from his father-in-law in the Sokoto Caliphate. 

Umar returned to Senegal in 1845, where he began preaching Islam among the Tukolor. He obtained weapons from Europe, then mobilized the Tukolor to pursue an Islamic holy war in 1854 against the non-Muslim ethnic groups and those Muslims who had strayed. The Tukolor armies succeeded. The Tukolor Empire grew and extended from Senegal to much of Mali over the next ten years. Umar's son Mustafa reigned over this empire and the Tukolor between 1864 and 1870, followed by Omar's second son, Ahmadu Tall. The rule of Ahmadu was as a Tukolor-Muslim despot over the Mandinka people and Bambara people. The empire collapsed in the 1880s as the Fulani, Tuaregs and the Moors attacked the Tukolors, and a civil war between local Tukolor leaders engulfed the region. The empire ended in 1891, after the French colonial forces invaded the region.

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Tukolor see Tukulor
Toucouleur see Tukulor
Takrur see Tukulor