Readers/Reciters of the Qur’an
Readers/Reciters of the Qur’an (in Arabic, Qurra’) (Qari'). Arabic term which occurs in Arabic historiography to indicate a group of Iraqis who rose against the Caliph ‘Uthman and later against ‘Ali after he had accepted the arbitration with Mu‘awiya at Siffin. In European research, the term has been usually rendered as “readers/reciters of the Qur’an.” Recently, the term has been interpreted as “villagers,” denoting those participants in the wars against the Sasanian Empire, who had occupied the vacated estates of southern Iraq and whose privileges had been threatened since ‘Uthman’s reign.
The readers/reciters of the Qur'an (the qurra) are a professional class of reciters of the text of the Muslim sacred scripture, the Qurʾān. In the early Islāmic community, Muḥammad’s divine revelations had often been memorized by his Companions (disciples), a practice derived from the pre-Islāmic tradition of preserving poetry orally. It became common for pious Muslims to memorize the Qurʾān in its entirety, even after it had been assembled in written form. Such reciters were often called upon by scholars to elucidate points of pronunciation and meaning obscured by the early and deficient Arabic script, and thus they helped to define the rudiments of Arabic grammar and linguistics.
The sheer number of reciters—who by the 9th century formed an established, specialized class—produced such a variety of subtly differing interpretations that in the time of the ʿAbbāsid caliph al-Qāhir (r. 932–934) seven qurrāʾ were declared the sole orthodox interpreters of the Qurʾān and all other readings were banned. As early as the 7th century of the Christian calendar, in the confrontation at Ṣiffīn (657) between the fourth caliph, ʿAlī, and Muʿāwiyah, a contender for the caliphate, the influence of the qurrāʾ was such that they forced ʿAlī to submit to the arbitration that cost him the caliphate. At the beginning of the 9th century, a union of qurrāʾ, with its own elected head, the shaykh al-qurrāʾ, is recorded in Baghdad.
The science of reciting the Qurʾān (qirāʾah) soon produced a corresponding art of intoning the Qurʾān (tajwīd), and this ritual chanting enabled large congregations of Muslims to follow the texts with relative ease. Religious figures employed in the mosques still memorize the Qurʾān to aid them in interpreting the revelations to the faithful. In some Arab countries the professional duties of reciting the Qurʾān at festivals and mosque services are generally reserved for blind men, who are trained in qirāʾah from childhood as a means of supporting themselves.
Qurra see Readers/Reciters of the Qur’an
Qari' see Readers/Reciters of the Qur’an
Readers/Reciters of the Qur’an (in Arabic, Qurra’) (Qari'). Arabic term which occurs in Arabic historiography to indicate a group of Iraqis who rose against the Caliph ‘Uthman and later against ‘Ali after he had accepted the arbitration with Mu‘awiya at Siffin. In European research, the term has been usually rendered as “readers/reciters of the Qur’an.” Recently, the term has been interpreted as “villagers,” denoting those participants in the wars against the Sasanian Empire, who had occupied the vacated estates of southern Iraq and whose privileges had been threatened since ‘Uthman’s reign.
The readers/reciters of the Qur'an (the qurra) are a professional class of reciters of the text of the Muslim sacred scripture, the Qurʾān. In the early Islāmic community, Muḥammad’s divine revelations had often been memorized by his Companions (disciples), a practice derived from the pre-Islāmic tradition of preserving poetry orally. It became common for pious Muslims to memorize the Qurʾān in its entirety, even after it had been assembled in written form. Such reciters were often called upon by scholars to elucidate points of pronunciation and meaning obscured by the early and deficient Arabic script, and thus they helped to define the rudiments of Arabic grammar and linguistics.
The sheer number of reciters—who by the 9th century formed an established, specialized class—produced such a variety of subtly differing interpretations that in the time of the ʿAbbāsid caliph al-Qāhir (r. 932–934) seven qurrāʾ were declared the sole orthodox interpreters of the Qurʾān and all other readings were banned. As early as the 7th century of the Christian calendar, in the confrontation at Ṣiffīn (657) between the fourth caliph, ʿAlī, and Muʿāwiyah, a contender for the caliphate, the influence of the qurrāʾ was such that they forced ʿAlī to submit to the arbitration that cost him the caliphate. At the beginning of the 9th century, a union of qurrāʾ, with its own elected head, the shaykh al-qurrāʾ, is recorded in Baghdad.
The science of reciting the Qurʾān (qirāʾah) soon produced a corresponding art of intoning the Qurʾān (tajwīd), and this ritual chanting enabled large congregations of Muslims to follow the texts with relative ease. Religious figures employed in the mosques still memorize the Qurʾān to aid them in interpreting the revelations to the faithful. In some Arab countries the professional duties of reciting the Qurʾān at festivals and mosque services are generally reserved for blind men, who are trained in qirāʾah from childhood as a means of supporting themselves.
Qurra see Readers/Reciters of the Qur’an
Qari' see Readers/Reciters of the Qur’an
re‘aya
re‘aya (ra'aya) Arabic term which originally meant “herds,” then came to mean the subjects of an empire or prince. During the Ottoman Empire, the Ra‘aya were non-Ottoman subjects. The term ra‘aya is the plural of the Arabic word ra‘iyya. The term ra‘aya is synonymous with the term re‘aya.
During the 16th century the institutions of society and government that had been evolving in the Ottoman dominions for two centuries reached the classical forms and patterns that were to persist into modern times. The basic division in Ottoman society was the traditional Middle Eastern distinction between a small ruling class of Ottomans (Osmanlı) and a large mass of subjects called rayas (reʿâyâ). Three attributes were essential for membership in the Ottoman ruling class: profession of loyalty to the sultan and his state; acceptance and practice of Islām and its underlying system of thought and action; and knowledge and practice of the complicated system of customs, behavior, and language known as the Ottoman Way. Those who lacked any of these attributes were considered to be members of the subject class, the “protected flock” of the sultan.
ra'aya see re‘aya
re‘aya (ra'aya) Arabic term which originally meant “herds,” then came to mean the subjects of an empire or prince. During the Ottoman Empire, the Ra‘aya were non-Ottoman subjects. The term ra‘aya is the plural of the Arabic word ra‘iyya. The term ra‘aya is synonymous with the term re‘aya.
During the 16th century the institutions of society and government that had been evolving in the Ottoman dominions for two centuries reached the classical forms and patterns that were to persist into modern times. The basic division in Ottoman society was the traditional Middle Eastern distinction between a small ruling class of Ottomans (Osmanlı) and a large mass of subjects called rayas (reʿâyâ). Three attributes were essential for membership in the Ottoman ruling class: profession of loyalty to the sultan and his state; acceptance and practice of Islām and its underlying system of thought and action; and knowledge and practice of the complicated system of customs, behavior, and language known as the Ottoman Way. Those who lacked any of these attributes were considered to be members of the subject class, the “protected flock” of the sultan.
ra'aya see re‘aya
Reda, Mahmoud
Mahmoud Reda (b. March 18, 1930, Cairo, Kingdom of Egypt [today Egypt] – d. July 10, 2020) was an Egyptian dancer and choreographer, best known for co-founding the Reda Troupe, and as an Olympic gymnast.
Reda was born in Cairo, Egypt. He was the eighth of ten children and his father was the head librarian at Cairo University. His elder brother, Ali, was a dancer and through his influence (and that of Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire films), Mahmoud became interested in dance. He originally trained as a gymnast, representing Egypt in the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki.
Reda attended Cairo University where he received a degree in political economics. However, his main interest was dance and he joined an Argentinian dance troupe after graduating and toured Europe. While on tour in Paris he resolved to start his own dance troupe back in Egypt, but due to lack of funds he had to work as an accountant for Royal Dutch Shell. He joined the Heliolido Club in Cairo, where he met Anglo-Egyptian baladi dancer Farida Fahmy, who became his dancing partner. After the two performed in the Soviet Union in 1957, they decided to start a folk dancing troupe in Egypt with his brother, Ali Reda.
When the Reda brothers and Fahmy founded the state-sponsored Reda Troupe in 1959 it consisted of only twelve dancers and twelve musicians. Reda's choreography combined traditional Egyptian folk dances with Western styles like ballet.
Due to the social connections of Fahmy and her family, the normally stigmatized profession of dance soon became acceptable by Cairo society and both men and women attended performances by the troupe.
Although the Reda Troupe was well known in Cairo society, initially it was not in Egypt as a whole. That changed in 1961, however, when Mahmoud Reda and Fahmy starred in the film Igazah nisf as-sinah along with the rest of the troupe. Directed by Ali Reda, the film was responsible for popularizing the Reda Troupe among ordinary Egyptians. The team followed this success with Gharam fi al-karnak in 1967. In 1970, the troupe appeared in a third film Harami El-Waraqa.
Reda stepped down as the principal dancer of the troupe in 1972, but still continued choreographing and directing performances. By this time, the troupe had grown to one hundred and fifty dancers, musicians and stage crew. Under Reda's direction, the Reda Troupe toured the world, giving performances at Carnegie Hall, and in China. They went on five international tours during his tenure, performing for various world leaders.
In 1990, Reda retired as director of the Reda Troupe.After his retirement, Reda continued to teach dance workshops in Egypt and internationally.
Reda married Farida Fahmy's elder sister Nadeeda (Nadida) Fahmy in 1955. She served as the costume designer for the Reda Troupe until her death from rheumatic heart disease in 1960. His second wife was a Yugoslavian ballet dancer, with whom he had a daughter, Shereen.
He died on July 10, 2020, aged 90.
Refah Partisi
Refah Partisi (Welfare Party). Turkish Islamist political organization known as the Refah Partisi (Welfare Party, RP) was established in 1983. It is the heir to two former parties, Milli Nizam Partisi (National Order Party, MNP) and Milli Selamet Partisi (National Salvation Party, MSP), both of which were banned from political activity. All three parties have functioned under the leadership of Necmettin Erbakan.
Milli Nizam Partisi was founded in 1970. Its program emphasized the encouragement of technological innovation, rapid industrialization, and the construction of a moral society. The latter goal would involve the recreation of a historical consciousness that the party saw as dormant in the national character, yet weakened by republican westernization. Although the party was careful not to include an explicit Islamist element in its program because of existing legislation that outlawed the use of religion for political purposes, it was nevertheless clear that both its ideology and its leadership were inspired by Islamist discourse. The MNP did not get a chance to compete in elections. It was closed down by a decision of the Constitutional Court in 1972, following its first congress, on the grounds that the slogans used by the delegates to the congress violated legal provisions forbidding the inclusion of religious themes in party propaganda.
The MNP was succeeded by the Milli Selamet Partisi, which was founded in 1972 by the MNP leadership. The MSP’s program, like the MNP’s, was critical of the republican road to development, which it saw as an unsymmetrical course of imitating Western culture without succeeding in attaining the technological and industrial levels of the West. The MSP program pointed out that the recreation of a powerful nation would require a reinterpretation of history to show that the greatness of the Ottoman Empire lay in its contributions to Muslim civilization, and that its decline started with the penetration of foreign cultural influences. In the MSP’s view, the republican infatuation with Western civilization was at the root of the anomie facing family and social life, the bases of which no longer rested on morality and faith. Hence the MSP argued that rapid industrial development could not be achieved through the limited vision of the centrist parties that Erbakan colorfully called “members of the Western Club.” Rather, economic development was dependent on a return to indigenous cultural sources, which only the MSP was equipped to regenerate.
Milli Selamet Partisi competed in two general elections, in 1973 and 1977, and received 11.8 and 8.6 percent of the votes, respectively. It participated in three coalition governments between 1973 and 1978, with Erbakan as deputy prime minister in all three. The first coalition was between the MSP and Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi ([CHP] -- Republican People’s Party), with the CHP leader Bulent Ecevit, as prime minister. It was formed in January 1974 and lasted until September 1974. It symbolized a significant success for the MSP, given CHP’s historical role in defending the militant secularism of the Turkish Republic. The second coalition (April 1975-June 1977) was between the MSP, Adalet Partisi ([AP] -- Justice Party), Cumhuriyetci Guven Partisi ([CGP] -- Republican Reliance Party), and Milliyetci Hareket Partisi ([MHP] -- Nationalist Action Party), under the name “Nationalist Front,” with the AP leader Suleyman Demirel as prime minister. The third coalition (July 1977 - January 1978) was between the MSP, AP, and MHP, under the name “Second Nationalist Front,” with Demirel again as prime minister. This experience in governing bolstered the image of the MSP and legitimized Islamist politics, even though the MSP leadership acted less as power-holders and more as spokesmen for the opposition. The MSP was able to leave very little imprint on its electorate, although, as its leadership repeatedly emphasized, it held the “key to government.”
All existing parties, including MSP, were closed down after the 1980 coup d’etat. Its leader, Necmettin Erbakan, shared the fate of other party leaders as they were arrested and banned from political activity for ten years under a provisional article of the 1982 constitution, which later was deleted by a referendum. Unlike the others, the MSP leaders were also tried in military courts but were acquitted.
The MSP was succeeded by the Refah Partisi with the return to competitive politics in 1983. The RP’s ideology has significantly deviated from that of its two predecessors, MNP and MSP, both of which has rested their vision on rapid economic development based on a new Islamic ethics. With the socioeconomic changes of the 1980s, which opened the Turkish economy to world markets through the adoption of a free-market model and export-oriented growth, RP leadership began to view industrial growth as inimical to the interests of its traditional supporters, who were drawn mostly from small-business circles geared to the internal market. Hence the previous emphasis on rapid economic development has been replaced by a critique of the capitalist system and the world economic order. However, this critique verges on a paranoid interpretation of history and of economic models as shaped by Zionist aims. In the new RP perception, the collpase of the Ottoman Empire and the outbreaks of two world wars were part of a Zionist plot to establish the state of Israel with the aim of eventual world domination. Zionism is alleged presently to be seeking the means of establishing a federal Israeli state including Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Egypt. The final aim is to establish a new world order based on the victory of capitalism and therefore under the command of Zionist interests.
In line with this revisionist history, RP is critical of capitalist development in Turkey, which, in its view, integrates the Turkish economy with world markets and thus with Zionist economic and military aims. The party literature argues that as both producers and consumers, working people pay a large portion of their income to the Israeli war industry through the financial transactions of local capitalists and governmental payment of external debts, which end up in Zionist banks in New York. In the RP analysis, a complex network of economic relations between systems integrated with the world economy serves to strengthen Israel’s power.
This interpretation of capitalism as the vehicle of Zionism includes the RP view that an important consequence of Turkish integration with the world economy has been the destruction of the ethical values of an Islamic society. Party propaganda reiterates the MNP/MSP criticism of modern life as decadent and dictated by the logic of the market, where everything is up for sale. The name that the party gives to the new world order is “kole duzeni” (“the slave order”), which is contrasted with the RP’s “adil dozen” (“just order”), whose outlines are given in general terms. Its major premise is to disengage Turkey from world capitalism and its international organizations by instituting an economic system without bank interest and taxes, establishing a “United Muslim Nations” to replace the UN, founding a “Defense Organization of Muslim States” to replace NATO, and creating a “Common Market of Muslim Countries” with a common currency to replace the European Community. The political, economic, and military cooperation of Muslim countries is envisioned as a significant step toward the cultural unification of the Muslim world. The RP promises a leadership role for Turkey in the creation of this alternative Muslim order.
The Refah Partisi has competed in two general elections since its founding, in 1987 and in 1991, receiving 7.2 and 17.1 percent of the votes, respectively. However, it entered the 1991 elections on a common ticket with two smaller parties on the right, an electoral coalition to ensure that it would be able to muster enough votes to pass the ten percent barrier imposed by the Election Law of 1983, under which the RP was unable to qualify in 1987. It currently has forty deputies in the four hundred member Grand National Assembly. Since 1983, it has also competed in four municipal elections, polling 9.8 percent of the votes in March 1989, 10.3 percent in June 1990, 18.5 percent in August 1990, and 24.1 percent in November 1992; the percentages represent votes cast in the limited number of constituencies where elections were held.
The popular vote of the Refah Partisi increased over the years until they became the largest party under Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan in 1996. The coalition government of Erbakan was forced out of power by the Turkish military in 1997, due to being suspected of having an Islamist agenda.
In 1998 the Refah Partisi (Welfare Party) was banned for violating the principle of secularism in the constitution. The ban was upheld by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on February 13, 2003. The ECHR's decision was criticized by Human Rights Watch for lack of consistency, as the ECHR had refused disbanding of other parties in several occasions.
Welfare Party see Refah Partisi
Refah Partisi (Welfare Party). Turkish Islamist political organization known as the Refah Partisi (Welfare Party, RP) was established in 1983. It is the heir to two former parties, Milli Nizam Partisi (National Order Party, MNP) and Milli Selamet Partisi (National Salvation Party, MSP), both of which were banned from political activity. All three parties have functioned under the leadership of Necmettin Erbakan.
Milli Nizam Partisi was founded in 1970. Its program emphasized the encouragement of technological innovation, rapid industrialization, and the construction of a moral society. The latter goal would involve the recreation of a historical consciousness that the party saw as dormant in the national character, yet weakened by republican westernization. Although the party was careful not to include an explicit Islamist element in its program because of existing legislation that outlawed the use of religion for political purposes, it was nevertheless clear that both its ideology and its leadership were inspired by Islamist discourse. The MNP did not get a chance to compete in elections. It was closed down by a decision of the Constitutional Court in 1972, following its first congress, on the grounds that the slogans used by the delegates to the congress violated legal provisions forbidding the inclusion of religious themes in party propaganda.
The MNP was succeeded by the Milli Selamet Partisi, which was founded in 1972 by the MNP leadership. The MSP’s program, like the MNP’s, was critical of the republican road to development, which it saw as an unsymmetrical course of imitating Western culture without succeeding in attaining the technological and industrial levels of the West. The MSP program pointed out that the recreation of a powerful nation would require a reinterpretation of history to show that the greatness of the Ottoman Empire lay in its contributions to Muslim civilization, and that its decline started with the penetration of foreign cultural influences. In the MSP’s view, the republican infatuation with Western civilization was at the root of the anomie facing family and social life, the bases of which no longer rested on morality and faith. Hence the MSP argued that rapid industrial development could not be achieved through the limited vision of the centrist parties that Erbakan colorfully called “members of the Western Club.” Rather, economic development was dependent on a return to indigenous cultural sources, which only the MSP was equipped to regenerate.
Milli Selamet Partisi competed in two general elections, in 1973 and 1977, and received 11.8 and 8.6 percent of the votes, respectively. It participated in three coalition governments between 1973 and 1978, with Erbakan as deputy prime minister in all three. The first coalition was between the MSP and Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi ([CHP] -- Republican People’s Party), with the CHP leader Bulent Ecevit, as prime minister. It was formed in January 1974 and lasted until September 1974. It symbolized a significant success for the MSP, given CHP’s historical role in defending the militant secularism of the Turkish Republic. The second coalition (April 1975-June 1977) was between the MSP, Adalet Partisi ([AP] -- Justice Party), Cumhuriyetci Guven Partisi ([CGP] -- Republican Reliance Party), and Milliyetci Hareket Partisi ([MHP] -- Nationalist Action Party), under the name “Nationalist Front,” with the AP leader Suleyman Demirel as prime minister. The third coalition (July 1977 - January 1978) was between the MSP, AP, and MHP, under the name “Second Nationalist Front,” with Demirel again as prime minister. This experience in governing bolstered the image of the MSP and legitimized Islamist politics, even though the MSP leadership acted less as power-holders and more as spokesmen for the opposition. The MSP was able to leave very little imprint on its electorate, although, as its leadership repeatedly emphasized, it held the “key to government.”
All existing parties, including MSP, were closed down after the 1980 coup d’etat. Its leader, Necmettin Erbakan, shared the fate of other party leaders as they were arrested and banned from political activity for ten years under a provisional article of the 1982 constitution, which later was deleted by a referendum. Unlike the others, the MSP leaders were also tried in military courts but were acquitted.
The MSP was succeeded by the Refah Partisi with the return to competitive politics in 1983. The RP’s ideology has significantly deviated from that of its two predecessors, MNP and MSP, both of which has rested their vision on rapid economic development based on a new Islamic ethics. With the socioeconomic changes of the 1980s, which opened the Turkish economy to world markets through the adoption of a free-market model and export-oriented growth, RP leadership began to view industrial growth as inimical to the interests of its traditional supporters, who were drawn mostly from small-business circles geared to the internal market. Hence the previous emphasis on rapid economic development has been replaced by a critique of the capitalist system and the world economic order. However, this critique verges on a paranoid interpretation of history and of economic models as shaped by Zionist aims. In the new RP perception, the collpase of the Ottoman Empire and the outbreaks of two world wars were part of a Zionist plot to establish the state of Israel with the aim of eventual world domination. Zionism is alleged presently to be seeking the means of establishing a federal Israeli state including Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Egypt. The final aim is to establish a new world order based on the victory of capitalism and therefore under the command of Zionist interests.
In line with this revisionist history, RP is critical of capitalist development in Turkey, which, in its view, integrates the Turkish economy with world markets and thus with Zionist economic and military aims. The party literature argues that as both producers and consumers, working people pay a large portion of their income to the Israeli war industry through the financial transactions of local capitalists and governmental payment of external debts, which end up in Zionist banks in New York. In the RP analysis, a complex network of economic relations between systems integrated with the world economy serves to strengthen Israel’s power.
This interpretation of capitalism as the vehicle of Zionism includes the RP view that an important consequence of Turkish integration with the world economy has been the destruction of the ethical values of an Islamic society. Party propaganda reiterates the MNP/MSP criticism of modern life as decadent and dictated by the logic of the market, where everything is up for sale. The name that the party gives to the new world order is “kole duzeni” (“the slave order”), which is contrasted with the RP’s “adil dozen” (“just order”), whose outlines are given in general terms. Its major premise is to disengage Turkey from world capitalism and its international organizations by instituting an economic system without bank interest and taxes, establishing a “United Muslim Nations” to replace the UN, founding a “Defense Organization of Muslim States” to replace NATO, and creating a “Common Market of Muslim Countries” with a common currency to replace the European Community. The political, economic, and military cooperation of Muslim countries is envisioned as a significant step toward the cultural unification of the Muslim world. The RP promises a leadership role for Turkey in the creation of this alternative Muslim order.
The Refah Partisi has competed in two general elections since its founding, in 1987 and in 1991, receiving 7.2 and 17.1 percent of the votes, respectively. However, it entered the 1991 elections on a common ticket with two smaller parties on the right, an electoral coalition to ensure that it would be able to muster enough votes to pass the ten percent barrier imposed by the Election Law of 1983, under which the RP was unable to qualify in 1987. It currently has forty deputies in the four hundred member Grand National Assembly. Since 1983, it has also competed in four municipal elections, polling 9.8 percent of the votes in March 1989, 10.3 percent in June 1990, 18.5 percent in August 1990, and 24.1 percent in November 1992; the percentages represent votes cast in the limited number of constituencies where elections were held.
The popular vote of the Refah Partisi increased over the years until they became the largest party under Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan in 1996. The coalition government of Erbakan was forced out of power by the Turkish military in 1997, due to being suspected of having an Islamist agenda.
In 1998 the Refah Partisi (Welfare Party) was banned for violating the principle of secularism in the constitution. The ban was upheld by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on February 13, 2003. The ECHR's decision was criticized by Human Rights Watch for lack of consistency, as the ECHR had refused disbanding of other parties in several occasions.
Welfare Party see Refah Partisi
Refi‘i
Refi‘i. Ottoman poet and Hurufi of the fifteenth century. In his Message of Joy he explains the teachings of the Hurufiyya and deals with the life of its founder Fadl Allah Hurufi (1340-1394).
Refi‘i. Ottoman poet and Hurufi of the fifteenth century. In his Message of Joy he explains the teachings of the Hurufiyya and deals with the life of its founder Fadl Allah Hurufi (1340-1394).
Reform Jews
Reform Jews. Jews who have an orientation in Judaism, growing mainly out of Ashkenazi environments in eastern and central Europe in the second half of the eighteenth century. The reform line involved adjustments of the religion to modern times, a secular lifestyle and more individual freedom.
It was with the return to the normal society, with the leaving of the ghettos, that Jews started to challenge old values. Many restrictions seemed both unnecessary and difficult for Jews living in a secular society. Also, there were many who feared that Judaism would lose its members if the dictates of the religion proved to be too hard to live by.
In 1783, Moses Mendelsohn published the book Jerusalem, in which he defined a new attitude towards Judaism, where a secular life was allowed.
In 1789, with the French Revolution, the ideas of Reform Judaism became more popular.
In 1809, the Jewish layman, Israel Jacobson held the first Reform services in Seesen (modern Germany). Women and men were allowed to sit together, and the liturgy was in German, not Hebrew, which had been the practice up to this date.
In 1815, Jacobson held the first Reform services in Berlin (modern Germany), whereupon the movement spread to Denmark, Hamburg, Leipzig, Vienna and Prague.
With Israel Jacobson’s services from the beginning of the nineteenth century, there was no longer references to a liberating Messiah that would reintroduce the state of Israel. Worshippers were no longer required to cover their heads, and there also came an end to daily public worship. Work was allowed on the Sabbath, and the dietary laws were abandoned.
Abraham Geiger concluded that Judaism is the belief that there is one god for all humans, the adherence of certain ethical principles and the obligation of spreading this to all the world.
Samuel Holdheim stated that specific marriage and divorce laws were no longer necessary for the Jews. These matters, he claimed, should be in the hands of the secular authorities.
In 1841, Reform Judaism arrived in the United States.
In 1937, Reform Judaism took back some of the traditional customs and ceremonies, and reintroduced Hebrew as the liturgical language.
During the early twentieth century, Zionism became a strong movement among Jews, but Reform Jews were against the notion of establishing a state of Israel.
Today, Reform Jews reject many of the regulations of Jewish law, the Halacha. Reform Jews use the vernacular language in the ceremonies, and the rituals are far less elaborate and take less time than what is common among other Jewish orientations.
Reform Judaism refers to various beliefs, practices and organizations associated with the Reform Jewish movement in North America, the United Kingdom and elsewhere. In general, it maintains that Judaism and Jewish traditions should be modernized and should be compatible with participation in the surrounding culture. Many branches of Reform Judaism hold that Jewish law should be interpreted as a set of general guidelines rather than as a list of restrictions whose literal observance is required of all Jews. Similar movements that may also be called "Reform" include the Israeli Progressive Movement and its worldwide counterpart.
Reform Judaism is one of the two North American denominations affiliated with the World Union for Progressive Judaism. It is the largest denomination of American Jews today. With an estimated 1.1 million members, it also accounts for the largest number of Jews affiliated with Progressive Judaism worldwide.
After a failed attempt in the 1930s to start an Israeli movement, the World Union for Progressive Judaism tried again in the 1970s and created the movement now known as the Israeli Progressive Movement. Because the first rabbis in the 1970s were trained in the United States, the Israeli press and public often refers to the Israeli Progressive Movement as "Reform".
Along with other forms of non-orthodox Judaism, the United States Reform, United Kingdom Reform, and Israeli Progressive Movement can all trace their intellectual roots to the Reform movement in Judaism. Elements of Orthodoxy developed their cohesive identity in reaction to the Reform movement in Judaism.
Although North American Reform, United Kingdom Reform, and Israeli Progressive Judaism all share an intellectual heritage, they have taken places at different ends of the non-orthodox spectrum. The United States Reform movement reflects the more radical end. The United Kingdom Reform, and Progressive Israeli movements, along with the North American Conservative movement and Masorti Judaism, occupy the more conservative end of the non-orthodox Judaisms.
Reform Jews. Jews who have an orientation in Judaism, growing mainly out of Ashkenazi environments in eastern and central Europe in the second half of the eighteenth century. The reform line involved adjustments of the religion to modern times, a secular lifestyle and more individual freedom.
It was with the return to the normal society, with the leaving of the ghettos, that Jews started to challenge old values. Many restrictions seemed both unnecessary and difficult for Jews living in a secular society. Also, there were many who feared that Judaism would lose its members if the dictates of the religion proved to be too hard to live by.
In 1783, Moses Mendelsohn published the book Jerusalem, in which he defined a new attitude towards Judaism, where a secular life was allowed.
In 1789, with the French Revolution, the ideas of Reform Judaism became more popular.
In 1809, the Jewish layman, Israel Jacobson held the first Reform services in Seesen (modern Germany). Women and men were allowed to sit together, and the liturgy was in German, not Hebrew, which had been the practice up to this date.
In 1815, Jacobson held the first Reform services in Berlin (modern Germany), whereupon the movement spread to Denmark, Hamburg, Leipzig, Vienna and Prague.
With Israel Jacobson’s services from the beginning of the nineteenth century, there was no longer references to a liberating Messiah that would reintroduce the state of Israel. Worshippers were no longer required to cover their heads, and there also came an end to daily public worship. Work was allowed on the Sabbath, and the dietary laws were abandoned.
Abraham Geiger concluded that Judaism is the belief that there is one god for all humans, the adherence of certain ethical principles and the obligation of spreading this to all the world.
Samuel Holdheim stated that specific marriage and divorce laws were no longer necessary for the Jews. These matters, he claimed, should be in the hands of the secular authorities.
In 1841, Reform Judaism arrived in the United States.
In 1937, Reform Judaism took back some of the traditional customs and ceremonies, and reintroduced Hebrew as the liturgical language.
During the early twentieth century, Zionism became a strong movement among Jews, but Reform Jews were against the notion of establishing a state of Israel.
Today, Reform Jews reject many of the regulations of Jewish law, the Halacha. Reform Jews use the vernacular language in the ceremonies, and the rituals are far less elaborate and take less time than what is common among other Jewish orientations.
Reform Judaism refers to various beliefs, practices and organizations associated with the Reform Jewish movement in North America, the United Kingdom and elsewhere. In general, it maintains that Judaism and Jewish traditions should be modernized and should be compatible with participation in the surrounding culture. Many branches of Reform Judaism hold that Jewish law should be interpreted as a set of general guidelines rather than as a list of restrictions whose literal observance is required of all Jews. Similar movements that may also be called "Reform" include the Israeli Progressive Movement and its worldwide counterpart.
Reform Judaism is one of the two North American denominations affiliated with the World Union for Progressive Judaism. It is the largest denomination of American Jews today. With an estimated 1.1 million members, it also accounts for the largest number of Jews affiliated with Progressive Judaism worldwide.
After a failed attempt in the 1930s to start an Israeli movement, the World Union for Progressive Judaism tried again in the 1970s and created the movement now known as the Israeli Progressive Movement. Because the first rabbis in the 1970s were trained in the United States, the Israeli press and public often refers to the Israeli Progressive Movement as "Reform".
Along with other forms of non-orthodox Judaism, the United States Reform, United Kingdom Reform, and Israeli Progressive Movement can all trace their intellectual roots to the Reform movement in Judaism. Elements of Orthodoxy developed their cohesive identity in reaction to the Reform movement in Judaism.
Although North American Reform, United Kingdom Reform, and Israeli Progressive Judaism all share an intellectual heritage, they have taken places at different ends of the non-orthodox spectrum. The United States Reform movement reflects the more radical end. The United Kingdom Reform, and Progressive Israeli movements, along with the North American Conservative movement and Masorti Judaism, occupy the more conservative end of the non-orthodox Judaisms.
refugees, Palestinian
refugees, Palestinian (Palestinian refugees) (Palestine refugees). Palestinians who were forced or who chose to leave their homes in areas which became part of Israel during the 1948 or 1967 wars.
Palestinian refugees or Palestine refugees are the people and their descendants, predominantly Palestinian Arabic-speakers, who fled or were expelled from their homes during and after the 1948 Palestine War, Within that part of the British Mandate of Palestine that after that war became the territory of the State of Israel, and the Palestinian territories.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), an organ of the United Nations created to aid the displaced from the 1948 defines a Palestinian refugee as a person "whose normal place of residence was Palestine between June 1946 and May 1948, who lost both their homes and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict". UNRWA's definition of a Palestinian refugee also covers the descendants of persons who became refugees in 1948 regardless of whether they reside in areas designated as refugee camps or in established, permanent communities.
Descendants of Palestinian refugees under the authority of the UNRWA are the only group to be granted refugee status on the basis of descent alone. Based on the UNRWA definition, the number of Palestine refugees has grown from 711,000 in 1950 to over four million registered with the UN in 2002.
Some displaced Palestinians resettled in other countries where their situation was often precarious. Many remained refugees and continued to reside in refugee camps, including in the Palestinian territories.
Palestinian refugees see refugees, Palestinian
refugees, Palestinian (Palestinian refugees) (Palestine refugees). Palestinians who were forced or who chose to leave their homes in areas which became part of Israel during the 1948 or 1967 wars.
Palestinian refugees or Palestine refugees are the people and their descendants, predominantly Palestinian Arabic-speakers, who fled or were expelled from their homes during and after the 1948 Palestine War, Within that part of the British Mandate of Palestine that after that war became the territory of the State of Israel, and the Palestinian territories.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), an organ of the United Nations created to aid the displaced from the 1948 defines a Palestinian refugee as a person "whose normal place of residence was Palestine between June 1946 and May 1948, who lost both their homes and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict". UNRWA's definition of a Palestinian refugee also covers the descendants of persons who became refugees in 1948 regardless of whether they reside in areas designated as refugee camps or in established, permanent communities.
Descendants of Palestinian refugees under the authority of the UNRWA are the only group to be granted refugee status on the basis of descent alone. Based on the UNRWA definition, the number of Palestine refugees has grown from 711,000 in 1950 to over four million registered with the UN in 2002.
Some displaced Palestinians resettled in other countries where their situation was often precarious. Many remained refugees and continued to reside in refugee camps, including in the Palestinian territories.
Palestinian refugees see refugees, Palestinian
Republican Brothers
Republican Brothers. In 1945, a small group of Sudanese led by Mahmud Muhammad Taha organized the Republican Party to oppose both the establishment of a Mahdist monarchy in Sudan and the unification of Sudan with the Kingdom of Egypt. The party’s manifesto also called for an Islamic resurgence. Following the 1969 revolution led by Colonel Ja‘far Nimeiri, all political parties in Sudan were banned. Taha’s followers consequently changed their organization’s name to the Republican Brothers or, alternatively, the New Islamic Mission. They continued to advocate a new understanding of Islam to address contemporary personal and world problems as well as to meet modern rational-scientific concerns.
Taha was born in 1909 or 1911 in Rufa’a on the Blue Nile. By 1936, he had completed his engineering education at Gordon Memorial College (now Khartoum University). An active nationalist, he was twice arrested by the British colonial government and served more than two years in prison. After a period of seclusion and prayer that ended in October 1951, Taha emerged with his version of the “Second Message of Islam.” He spread his ideas through speeches, newspaper articles, pamphlets, and books until he was arrested and hanged on January 18, 1985, by the Nimeiri government, after a grossly unfair trial.
In their writings, Taha and the Republican Brothers define religion as a behavioral system of morals employed to attain peace, genuine freedom, and ever-growing, eternal happiness. They claim that Islam combines the materialism of Judaism and the spirituality of Christianity into a single religious experience. They stress the importance of achieving inner personal peace through religion as the necessary prerequisite to achieving national and international peace.
Taha and the Republican Brothers became politically controversial by opposing President Nimeiri’s policy of imposing the shari‘ah on Sudan’s diverse peoples. They charged that the traditional shari‘ah based on fundamental political, economic, and social inequalities, could not be reconciled with modern constitutional government. For the Sudan, they advocated a federal democracy with economic socialism and equal political rights for all, regardless of gender or religious preference.
The Republican Brothers’ argument follows from Taha’s belief that the Qur’an contains two divine messages -- the First and the Second, based on the Medinese and meccan texts, respectively. They believe that the portion of the Qur’an revealed to Muhammad at Mecca over a thirteen year period directed the Prophet to call people to God by wisdom and good admonitions, not by compulsion. Muhammad was enjoined to preach the equality before God of men and women and of people of all stations. The ruling Meccan class, fearing the economic and political consequences of these ideas, rejected this message and persecuted the Prophet. God’s later messages were tailored to the specific socioeconomic and political problems that face Muhammad in Medina and were thus less universal. Although they greatly improved social conditions of the time, they were less egalitarian than the Meccan messages that they replaced. They legitimized compulsory conversion as well as the principles of sexual and religious inequality. The Prophet, however, continued to exemplify in his private life the high moral and social precepts embodied in the Meccan texts.
Because Islamic laws up to the present continue to be based on the allegedly inferior Medinese textes, the Republican Brothers claim that all Muslims must now turn back to the Meccan texts, or Second Message. Through ijtihad they must reinstitute a religion and law based on fundamental principles of racial, ethnic, sexual and religious equality. The historic shari‘ah, as advocated by the Muslim Brothers of Sudan, Egypt, and Syria and the governments of Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Libya, is a primitive level of law suited to an earlier stage of cultural development.
In the early 1980s, the Republican Brothers had a few hundred hard-core members of both sexes and more than a thousand sympathizers. Many members were highly educated. Some were university professors. They were widely respected by Muslim moderates and Sudanese non-Muslims, but were strongly opposed by the Muslim Brothers and other Muslim fundamentalists. After Taha’s execution the Republican Brothers movement fell dormant in the Sudan, which continued to be ruled by military backed fundamentalist governments.
Republican Brothers. In 1945, a small group of Sudanese led by Mahmud Muhammad Taha organized the Republican Party to oppose both the establishment of a Mahdist monarchy in Sudan and the unification of Sudan with the Kingdom of Egypt. The party’s manifesto also called for an Islamic resurgence. Following the 1969 revolution led by Colonel Ja‘far Nimeiri, all political parties in Sudan were banned. Taha’s followers consequently changed their organization’s name to the Republican Brothers or, alternatively, the New Islamic Mission. They continued to advocate a new understanding of Islam to address contemporary personal and world problems as well as to meet modern rational-scientific concerns.
Taha was born in 1909 or 1911 in Rufa’a on the Blue Nile. By 1936, he had completed his engineering education at Gordon Memorial College (now Khartoum University). An active nationalist, he was twice arrested by the British colonial government and served more than two years in prison. After a period of seclusion and prayer that ended in October 1951, Taha emerged with his version of the “Second Message of Islam.” He spread his ideas through speeches, newspaper articles, pamphlets, and books until he was arrested and hanged on January 18, 1985, by the Nimeiri government, after a grossly unfair trial.
In their writings, Taha and the Republican Brothers define religion as a behavioral system of morals employed to attain peace, genuine freedom, and ever-growing, eternal happiness. They claim that Islam combines the materialism of Judaism and the spirituality of Christianity into a single religious experience. They stress the importance of achieving inner personal peace through religion as the necessary prerequisite to achieving national and international peace.
Taha and the Republican Brothers became politically controversial by opposing President Nimeiri’s policy of imposing the shari‘ah on Sudan’s diverse peoples. They charged that the traditional shari‘ah based on fundamental political, economic, and social inequalities, could not be reconciled with modern constitutional government. For the Sudan, they advocated a federal democracy with economic socialism and equal political rights for all, regardless of gender or religious preference.
The Republican Brothers’ argument follows from Taha’s belief that the Qur’an contains two divine messages -- the First and the Second, based on the Medinese and meccan texts, respectively. They believe that the portion of the Qur’an revealed to Muhammad at Mecca over a thirteen year period directed the Prophet to call people to God by wisdom and good admonitions, not by compulsion. Muhammad was enjoined to preach the equality before God of men and women and of people of all stations. The ruling Meccan class, fearing the economic and political consequences of these ideas, rejected this message and persecuted the Prophet. God’s later messages were tailored to the specific socioeconomic and political problems that face Muhammad in Medina and were thus less universal. Although they greatly improved social conditions of the time, they were less egalitarian than the Meccan messages that they replaced. They legitimized compulsory conversion as well as the principles of sexual and religious inequality. The Prophet, however, continued to exemplify in his private life the high moral and social precepts embodied in the Meccan texts.
Because Islamic laws up to the present continue to be based on the allegedly inferior Medinese textes, the Republican Brothers claim that all Muslims must now turn back to the Meccan texts, or Second Message. Through ijtihad they must reinstitute a religion and law based on fundamental principles of racial, ethnic, sexual and religious equality. The historic shari‘ah, as advocated by the Muslim Brothers of Sudan, Egypt, and Syria and the governments of Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Libya, is a primitive level of law suited to an earlier stage of cultural development.
In the early 1980s, the Republican Brothers had a few hundred hard-core members of both sexes and more than a thousand sympathizers. Many members were highly educated. Some were university professors. They were widely respected by Muslim moderates and Sudanese non-Muslims, but were strongly opposed by the Muslim Brothers and other Muslim fundamentalists. After Taha’s execution the Republican Brothers movement fell dormant in the Sudan, which continued to be ruled by military backed fundamentalist governments.
Republican People’s Party
Republican People’s Party. See Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi.
Republican People’s Party. See Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi.
Reshawa
Reshawa (Gungawa). They call themselves Reshawa, but throughout the Yauri Division of Sokoto State in Nigeria many call them Gungawa, a Hausa term for “island dwellers.” Their homeland is on the banks and islands of the Niger River, where they excel in fishing, farming and becoming Hausa-ized. Numbering some 50,000, of whom perhaps 70 percent are Muslim, they share their remote area with the Shangawa, Dukawa, Lopawa, Kamberi and the dominant Hausa.
The Reshawa probably settled on the islands in Yauri before the fourteenth century. They came as migrants who adapted to a riverine environment, becoming hoe farmers who grew (and still grow) millet and guinea corn on the highlands and onions along the river. They supplemented their food supply and income through fishing. Although they were not themselves traditional fishermen, they incorporated members of other ethnic groups who were.
By the sixteenth century, the Reshawa had been ruled by five emirs, according to their kings’ lists. In the sixteenth century they expanded their political control from the islands to the mainland. They seized Bin Yauri, then the capital, from the Hausa and the first Emir of Yauri was a Reshawa. The Hausa re-established themselves after the death of the second emir and have remained in power ever since.
Islam came to Yauri with traders, itinerant mallamai (clerics) and Hausa administrators. They were reinforced by Fulani slave raiders; those who were openly Muslim were relatively safe from capture. Being a practical people, the Reshawa found that their future was enhanced not only by becoming Muslim but by becoming Hausa, or “Yaurawa,” the name for Reshawa who enter the governing group.
Gungawa see Reshawa
Island Dwellers see Reshawa
Reshawa (Gungawa). They call themselves Reshawa, but throughout the Yauri Division of Sokoto State in Nigeria many call them Gungawa, a Hausa term for “island dwellers.” Their homeland is on the banks and islands of the Niger River, where they excel in fishing, farming and becoming Hausa-ized. Numbering some 50,000, of whom perhaps 70 percent are Muslim, they share their remote area with the Shangawa, Dukawa, Lopawa, Kamberi and the dominant Hausa.
The Reshawa probably settled on the islands in Yauri before the fourteenth century. They came as migrants who adapted to a riverine environment, becoming hoe farmers who grew (and still grow) millet and guinea corn on the highlands and onions along the river. They supplemented their food supply and income through fishing. Although they were not themselves traditional fishermen, they incorporated members of other ethnic groups who were.
By the sixteenth century, the Reshawa had been ruled by five emirs, according to their kings’ lists. In the sixteenth century they expanded their political control from the islands to the mainland. They seized Bin Yauri, then the capital, from the Hausa and the first Emir of Yauri was a Reshawa. The Hausa re-established themselves after the death of the second emir and have remained in power ever since.
Islam came to Yauri with traders, itinerant mallamai (clerics) and Hausa administrators. They were reinforced by Fulani slave raiders; those who were openly Muslim were relatively safe from capture. Being a practical people, the Reshawa found that their future was enhanced not only by becoming Muslim but by becoming Hausa, or “Yaurawa,” the name for Reshawa who enter the governing group.
Gungawa see Reshawa
Island Dwellers see Reshawa
Reshid, Mustafa
Reshid, Mustafa (Mustafa Reshid) (Mustafa Reşid Pasha) (March 13, 1800, Istanbul, Ottoman Empire – December 17, 1858) . Westernizing Ottoman reformer in the early Tanzimat era.
Born in Constantinople, he entered the public service at an early age and rose rapidly, becoming ambassador in Paris (1834) and in London (1836), minister for foreign affairs (1837), again ambassador in London (1838), and in Paris (1841). Appointed governor of Adrianople in 1843, he returned as ambassador to Paris in the same year. Between 1845 and 1857 he was six times grand vizier.
One of the greatest and most brilliant statesmen of his time, thoroughly acquainted with European politics, and well versed in affairs of state, he was a convinced if somewhat too ardent partisan of reform and the principal author of the legislative remodeling of Turkish administrative methods known as the Tanzimat. His ability was recognized alike by friend and by foe. His effort to promote reforms within the government led him to promote careers of many other reformers such as Fuad Paşa and Ali Paşa.
In the settlement of the Egyptian question in 1840, and during the Crimean War and the ensuing peace negotiations, he rendered valuable services to the state.
A protégé first of his uncle Ispartalı Ali Paşa and later of the statesman Pertev Effendi, Reşid entered government service at an early age and thereafter rose rapidly in the service of the Turkish government, becoming ambassador to France in 1834. During his stay in western Europe he studied the French language and Western civilization and developed friendly relations with French and British statesmen. He supported the westernizing reforms of the Sultan Mahmud II, who appointed him his foreign minister.
Mahmud’s successor, Sultan Abdülmecid I, was determined to continue his father’s programs and entrusted Reşid with the preparation of new reform measures. Elaborated in the form of a rescript, or decree (hatt-ı şerif ), this program was proclaimed on November 3, 1839, and guaranteed to Ottoman subjects equality and security of life and property, without distinction of race and religion. Although not all of these provisions were carried out, Reşid became the symbol of westernizing reforms. Between 1839 and 1858 he was twice appointed minister of foreign affairs and served six times as grand vizier.
Reşid’s reforms included the abolition of the slave trade, the introduction of new codes of commercial and criminal law, and the reform of administrative regulations to end nepotism and traffic in favors and appointments. A supporter of France and Britain in his foreign policy, he was grand vizier at the outbreak of the Crimean War (1853–56).
Mustafa Reshid see Reshid, Mustafa
Mustafa Resid Pasha see Reshid, Mustafa
Reshid, Mustafa (Mustafa Reshid) (Mustafa Reşid Pasha) (March 13, 1800, Istanbul, Ottoman Empire – December 17, 1858) . Westernizing Ottoman reformer in the early Tanzimat era.
Born in Constantinople, he entered the public service at an early age and rose rapidly, becoming ambassador in Paris (1834) and in London (1836), minister for foreign affairs (1837), again ambassador in London (1838), and in Paris (1841). Appointed governor of Adrianople in 1843, he returned as ambassador to Paris in the same year. Between 1845 and 1857 he was six times grand vizier.
One of the greatest and most brilliant statesmen of his time, thoroughly acquainted with European politics, and well versed in affairs of state, he was a convinced if somewhat too ardent partisan of reform and the principal author of the legislative remodeling of Turkish administrative methods known as the Tanzimat. His ability was recognized alike by friend and by foe. His effort to promote reforms within the government led him to promote careers of many other reformers such as Fuad Paşa and Ali Paşa.
In the settlement of the Egyptian question in 1840, and during the Crimean War and the ensuing peace negotiations, he rendered valuable services to the state.
A protégé first of his uncle Ispartalı Ali Paşa and later of the statesman Pertev Effendi, Reşid entered government service at an early age and thereafter rose rapidly in the service of the Turkish government, becoming ambassador to France in 1834. During his stay in western Europe he studied the French language and Western civilization and developed friendly relations with French and British statesmen. He supported the westernizing reforms of the Sultan Mahmud II, who appointed him his foreign minister.
Mahmud’s successor, Sultan Abdülmecid I, was determined to continue his father’s programs and entrusted Reşid with the preparation of new reform measures. Elaborated in the form of a rescript, or decree (hatt-ı şerif ), this program was proclaimed on November 3, 1839, and guaranteed to Ottoman subjects equality and security of life and property, without distinction of race and religion. Although not all of these provisions were carried out, Reşid became the symbol of westernizing reforms. Between 1839 and 1858 he was twice appointed minister of foreign affairs and served six times as grand vizier.
Reşid’s reforms included the abolition of the slave trade, the introduction of new codes of commercial and criminal law, and the reform of administrative regulations to end nepotism and traffic in favors and appointments. A supporter of France and Britain in his foreign policy, he was grand vizier at the outbreak of the Crimean War (1853–56).
Mustafa Reshid see Reshid, Mustafa
Mustafa Resid Pasha see Reshid, Mustafa
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