Pakubuwana
Pakubuwana (Pakubuwono). Name which has been borne by twelve sushunans (“kings”) of Kartasura and Surakarta in Central Java since Pakubuwana I (r. 1704-1719). Pakubuwana II (r. 1726-1749) was one of the least able and most unfortunate monarchs of the Mataram dynasty. Pakubuwana IV (r. 1788-1820) was a mercurial man who tried to overturn existing political arrangements in Central Java and only narrowly escaped deposition by the Europeans on three occasions (in 1790, 1812, and 1815). Pakubuwana VI (r. 1823-1830) was exiled by the Dutch for fear that he would rebel. Pakubuwana XII (r. 1944 to ?) was kidnapped by Indonesian revolutionaries, and his prerogatives were abolished in 1946.
Susuhunan is a title used by the kings of Mataram and then by the hereditary rulers of Surakarta, Indonesia. The rulers of Surakarta traditionally adopt the reign name Pakubuwono (also spelled Pakubuwana). Susuhunan is specific to the rulers of Surakarta; the rulers of Yogyakarta, who are also descended from the Mataram dynasty have the title Sultan.
The following is the list of Susuhunan of Surakarta
* Pakubuwono II, 1727 — 1749 (Kartasura and Surakarta)
* Pakubuwono III, 1749 — 1788
* Pakubuwono IV, 1788 — 1820
* Pakubuwono V, 1820 — 1823
* Pakubuwono VI, 1823 — 1830, (Pangeran Bangun Tapa)
* Pakubuwono VII, 1830 — 1858
* Pakubuwono VIII, 1859 — 1861
* Pakubuwono IX, 1861 — 1893
* Pakubuwono X, 1893 — 1939
* Pakubuwono XI, 1939 — 1944
* Pakubuwono XII, 1944 — 2004
* Pakubuwono XIII 2005 — present
Note: There were two rival claimants to the throne, Hangabehi and Tedjowulan, both are sons of late Pakubuwono XII.
Pakubuwono see Pakubuwana
Pakubuwana (Pakubuwono). Name which has been borne by twelve sushunans (“kings”) of Kartasura and Surakarta in Central Java since Pakubuwana I (r. 1704-1719). Pakubuwana II (r. 1726-1749) was one of the least able and most unfortunate monarchs of the Mataram dynasty. Pakubuwana IV (r. 1788-1820) was a mercurial man who tried to overturn existing political arrangements in Central Java and only narrowly escaped deposition by the Europeans on three occasions (in 1790, 1812, and 1815). Pakubuwana VI (r. 1823-1830) was exiled by the Dutch for fear that he would rebel. Pakubuwana XII (r. 1944 to ?) was kidnapped by Indonesian revolutionaries, and his prerogatives were abolished in 1946.
Susuhunan is a title used by the kings of Mataram and then by the hereditary rulers of Surakarta, Indonesia. The rulers of Surakarta traditionally adopt the reign name Pakubuwono (also spelled Pakubuwana). Susuhunan is specific to the rulers of Surakarta; the rulers of Yogyakarta, who are also descended from the Mataram dynasty have the title Sultan.
The following is the list of Susuhunan of Surakarta
* Pakubuwono II, 1727 — 1749 (Kartasura and Surakarta)
* Pakubuwono III, 1749 — 1788
* Pakubuwono IV, 1788 — 1820
* Pakubuwono V, 1820 — 1823
* Pakubuwono VI, 1823 — 1830, (Pangeran Bangun Tapa)
* Pakubuwono VII, 1830 — 1858
* Pakubuwono VIII, 1859 — 1861
* Pakubuwono IX, 1861 — 1893
* Pakubuwono X, 1893 — 1939
* Pakubuwono XI, 1939 — 1944
* Pakubuwono XII, 1944 — 2004
* Pakubuwono XIII 2005 — present
Note: There were two rival claimants to the throne, Hangabehi and Tedjowulan, both are sons of late Pakubuwono XII.
Pakubuwono see Pakubuwana
Palawanon
Palawanon. The island of Palawan hosts five groups of Muslim Filipinos, including scattered communities of Tausug, Jama Mapun and Pangutaran Sama. The two other groups are the Molbog and the Palawanon. Nearly all are found in the five southern municipalities of Palawanon Province: Aborlon, Balabac, Batarasa, Brooke Point and Quezon.
The Palawanon, of whom approximately ten percent are Muslim, live in the mountainous, forested interior regions of southern Palawan. A few live along the west and east coasts of southern Palawan and also in the midst of Muslim groups on Balabac-Bugsuk islands. Islamization has occurred among these coastal Palawanon only in recent generations and is continuing, a function of increasing interaction with other Muslims. Palawanon in the interior are primarily traditional in religion.
The Palawanon, unlike many other groups, but like the Muslim Yakan, live in houses out of sight of each other, distributed among their plots of farm land. Probably for this reason they are called Ira-an, or “people in scattered places. ” They are primarily subsistence farmers cultivating upland rice.
The history of Palawan may be traced back 22,000 years ago, as confirmed by the discovery of bone fragments of the Tabon Man in the municipality of Quezon. Although the origin of the cave dwellers is not yet established, anthropologists believe they came from Borneo. Known as the Cradle of Philippine Civilization, the Tabon Caves consist of a series of chambers where scholars and anthropologists discovered the remains of the Tabon Man along with his tools and a number of artifacts.
Waves of migrants arrived in the Philippines by way of land bridges between Borneo and Palawan. From 220 up to 263 AD, during the period of the Three Kingdoms, the people living in Anwei province in South China were driven South by Han People. Some settled in Thailand, others went farther south to Indonesia, Sumatra, Borneo. They were known as Aetas and Negritos from whom Palawan's Batak tribe descended. Other tribes known to inhabit the islands such as the Palawano and Tagbanwa, are also descendants of the early settlers, who came via ice-age land bridges. They had a form of indigenous political structure developed in the island, wherein the natives had their non-formal form of government, an alphabet, and a system of trading with sea-borne merchants.
In 982, ancient Chinese traders regularly visited the islands. A Chinese author referred to these islands as Kla-ma-yan (Calamian), Palau-ye (Palawan), and Paki-nung (Busuanga). Pottery, china and other artifacts recovered from caves and waters of Palawan attest to trade relations that existed between Chinese and Malay merchants.
In the 12th century, Malay settlers, who came on boats, began to populate the island. Most of the settlements were ruled by Malay chieftains. These people grew palay, ginger, coconuts, camote, sugar and bananas. They also raised pigs, goats and chickens. Most of their economic activities were fishing, farming, and hunting by the use of bamboo traps and blowguns. The local people had a dialect consisting of 18 syllables. They were followed by the Indonesians of the Majapahit Empire in the 13th century, and they brought with them Buddhism and Hinduism.
Because of Palawan's proximity to Borneo, southern portions of the island were under the control of the Sultanate of Borneo for more than two centuries, and Islam was introduced. During the same period, trade relations flourished, and intermarriages occurred among the natives and the Chinese, Japanese, Arab, Hindu. The inter-mixing of blood resulted to a distinct breed of Palaweños, both in physical stature and features.
After Ferdinand Magellan's death, remnants of his fleet landed in Palawan where the bounty of the land saved them from starvation. Antonio Pigafetta, Magellan's chronicler named the place "Land of Promise."
The first ever recorded act of piracy in the Philippines happened in Palawan when Chief Tuan Mohamad and his staff were captured aboard their vessel and taken hostage by the Spaniards who demanded ransom within 7 days consisting of 400 sukats or 190 sacks of clean rice, 450 chickens, 20 pigs, 20 goats and several jars filled with tuba.
The northern Calamianes Islands were the first to come under Spanish authority, and were later declared a province separate from the Palawan mainland. In the early 17th century, Spanish friars sent out missions in Cuyo, Agutaya, Taytay and Cagayancillo but they met resistance from Moro communities. Before 18th century, Spain began to build churches enclosed by garrisons for protection against Moro raids in the town of Cuyo, Taytay, Linapacan and Balabac. In 1749, the Sultanate of Borneo ceded southern Palawan to Spain.
In 1818, the entire island of Palawan, or Paragua as it was called, was organized as a single province named Calamianes, with its capital in Taytay. By 1858, the province was divided into two provinces, namely, Castilla, covering the northern section with Taytay as capital and Asturias in the southern mainland with Puerto Princesa as capital. It was later then divided into three districts, Calamianes, Paragua and Balabac, with Principe Alfonso town as its capital.
In 1902, after the Philippine-American War, the Americans established civil rule in northern Palawan, calling it the province of Paragua. In 1903, pursuant to Philippine Commission Act No. 1363, the province was reorganized to include the southern portions and renamed Palawan, and Puerto Princesa declared as its capital.
Many reforms and projects were later introduced in the province. Construction of school buildings, promotion of agriculture, and bringing people closer to the government were among the priority plans during this era.
During World War II, in order to prevent the rescue of prisoners of war by the advancing allies, on December 14, 1944, the Japanese herded the remaining 150 prisoners of war at Puerto Princesa into three covered trenches which were then set on fire using barrels of gasoline. Prisoners who tried to escape the flames were shot down. Others attempted to escape by climbing over a cliff that ran along one side of the trenches, but were later hunted down and killed. Only 11 men escaped the slaughter and between 133 and 141 were killed. The site of the massacre can still be visited. The massacre is the premise of the recently published book "Last Man Out: Glenn McDole, USMC, Survivor of the Palawan Massacre in World War II" by Bob Wilbanks, and the opening scenes of the 2005 Miramax movie, "The Great Raid".
The island was liberated from the Japanese Imperial Forces by a task force consisting of Filipino and American military personnel between February 28 and April 22, 1945.
Palawanon. The island of Palawan hosts five groups of Muslim Filipinos, including scattered communities of Tausug, Jama Mapun and Pangutaran Sama. The two other groups are the Molbog and the Palawanon. Nearly all are found in the five southern municipalities of Palawanon Province: Aborlon, Balabac, Batarasa, Brooke Point and Quezon.
The Palawanon, of whom approximately ten percent are Muslim, live in the mountainous, forested interior regions of southern Palawan. A few live along the west and east coasts of southern Palawan and also in the midst of Muslim groups on Balabac-Bugsuk islands. Islamization has occurred among these coastal Palawanon only in recent generations and is continuing, a function of increasing interaction with other Muslims. Palawanon in the interior are primarily traditional in religion.
The Palawanon, unlike many other groups, but like the Muslim Yakan, live in houses out of sight of each other, distributed among their plots of farm land. Probably for this reason they are called Ira-an, or “people in scattered places. ” They are primarily subsistence farmers cultivating upland rice.
The history of Palawan may be traced back 22,000 years ago, as confirmed by the discovery of bone fragments of the Tabon Man in the municipality of Quezon. Although the origin of the cave dwellers is not yet established, anthropologists believe they came from Borneo. Known as the Cradle of Philippine Civilization, the Tabon Caves consist of a series of chambers where scholars and anthropologists discovered the remains of the Tabon Man along with his tools and a number of artifacts.
Waves of migrants arrived in the Philippines by way of land bridges between Borneo and Palawan. From 220 up to 263 AD, during the period of the Three Kingdoms, the people living in Anwei province in South China were driven South by Han People. Some settled in Thailand, others went farther south to Indonesia, Sumatra, Borneo. They were known as Aetas and Negritos from whom Palawan's Batak tribe descended. Other tribes known to inhabit the islands such as the Palawano and Tagbanwa, are also descendants of the early settlers, who came via ice-age land bridges. They had a form of indigenous political structure developed in the island, wherein the natives had their non-formal form of government, an alphabet, and a system of trading with sea-borne merchants.
In 982, ancient Chinese traders regularly visited the islands. A Chinese author referred to these islands as Kla-ma-yan (Calamian), Palau-ye (Palawan), and Paki-nung (Busuanga). Pottery, china and other artifacts recovered from caves and waters of Palawan attest to trade relations that existed between Chinese and Malay merchants.
In the 12th century, Malay settlers, who came on boats, began to populate the island. Most of the settlements were ruled by Malay chieftains. These people grew palay, ginger, coconuts, camote, sugar and bananas. They also raised pigs, goats and chickens. Most of their economic activities were fishing, farming, and hunting by the use of bamboo traps and blowguns. The local people had a dialect consisting of 18 syllables. They were followed by the Indonesians of the Majapahit Empire in the 13th century, and they brought with them Buddhism and Hinduism.
Because of Palawan's proximity to Borneo, southern portions of the island were under the control of the Sultanate of Borneo for more than two centuries, and Islam was introduced. During the same period, trade relations flourished, and intermarriages occurred among the natives and the Chinese, Japanese, Arab, Hindu. The inter-mixing of blood resulted to a distinct breed of Palaweños, both in physical stature and features.
After Ferdinand Magellan's death, remnants of his fleet landed in Palawan where the bounty of the land saved them from starvation. Antonio Pigafetta, Magellan's chronicler named the place "Land of Promise."
The first ever recorded act of piracy in the Philippines happened in Palawan when Chief Tuan Mohamad and his staff were captured aboard their vessel and taken hostage by the Spaniards who demanded ransom within 7 days consisting of 400 sukats or 190 sacks of clean rice, 450 chickens, 20 pigs, 20 goats and several jars filled with tuba.
The northern Calamianes Islands were the first to come under Spanish authority, and were later declared a province separate from the Palawan mainland. In the early 17th century, Spanish friars sent out missions in Cuyo, Agutaya, Taytay and Cagayancillo but they met resistance from Moro communities. Before 18th century, Spain began to build churches enclosed by garrisons for protection against Moro raids in the town of Cuyo, Taytay, Linapacan and Balabac. In 1749, the Sultanate of Borneo ceded southern Palawan to Spain.
In 1818, the entire island of Palawan, or Paragua as it was called, was organized as a single province named Calamianes, with its capital in Taytay. By 1858, the province was divided into two provinces, namely, Castilla, covering the northern section with Taytay as capital and Asturias in the southern mainland with Puerto Princesa as capital. It was later then divided into three districts, Calamianes, Paragua and Balabac, with Principe Alfonso town as its capital.
In 1902, after the Philippine-American War, the Americans established civil rule in northern Palawan, calling it the province of Paragua. In 1903, pursuant to Philippine Commission Act No. 1363, the province was reorganized to include the southern portions and renamed Palawan, and Puerto Princesa declared as its capital.
Many reforms and projects were later introduced in the province. Construction of school buildings, promotion of agriculture, and bringing people closer to the government were among the priority plans during this era.
During World War II, in order to prevent the rescue of prisoners of war by the advancing allies, on December 14, 1944, the Japanese herded the remaining 150 prisoners of war at Puerto Princesa into three covered trenches which were then set on fire using barrels of gasoline. Prisoners who tried to escape the flames were shot down. Others attempted to escape by climbing over a cliff that ran along one side of the trenches, but were later hunted down and killed. Only 11 men escaped the slaughter and between 133 and 141 were killed. The site of the massacre can still be visited. The massacre is the premise of the recently published book "Last Man Out: Glenn McDole, USMC, Survivor of the Palawan Massacre in World War II" by Bob Wilbanks, and the opening scenes of the 2005 Miramax movie, "The Great Raid".
The island was liberated from the Japanese Imperial Forces by a task force consisting of Filipino and American military personnel between February 28 and April 22, 1945.
Palestine Liberation Organization
Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) (Al Fatah). Organization founded in 1964 as a Palestinian nationalist umbrella organization committed to the creation of an independent Palestinian state. After the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, militia groups composing the PLO vied for control, with Al Fatah -- led by Yassir Arafat -- becoming dominant. Al Fatah joined the PLO in 1968 and won the leadership role in 1969. In 1969, Arafat assumed the position of PLO Executive Committee chairman, a position he still holds. Al Fatah essentially became the PLO, with other groups’ influence on PLO actions increasingly marginalized. Al Fatah and other PLO components were pushed out of Jordan following clashes with Jordanian forces in 1970-71. The Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 led to the group’s dispersal to several Southwest Asian and North Africa countries, including Tunisia, Yemen, Algeria, Iraq, and others. The PLO maintains several military and intelligence wings that have carried out terrorist attacks, including Force 17 and the Western Sector. Two of its leaders, Abu Jihad and Abu Iyad, were assassinated in recent years. In the 1960s and the 1970s, Al Fatah offered training to a wide range of European, Southwest Asian, Asian and African terrorist and insurgent groups and carried out numerous acts of international terrorism in Western Europe and Southwest Asia in the early to middle 1970s. Arafat signed the Declaration of Principles (DOP) with Israel in 1993 --- the Oslo Accords -- and renounced terrorism and violence. The organization fragmented in the early 1980s, but remained the leading Palestinian political organization. Following the 1993 Oslo Accords, the PLO -- read Al Fatah -- leadership assumed control of the nascent Palestinian National Authority (PNA).
The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) is an organization which has worked as the official representative for the Palestinian people, and is now the leading force of Palestine. PLO is an umbrella organization made up of a handful of other organizations, like al-Fatah, as-Saiqa and Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, organizations that are very different in many fields, but they all share the same goal of an independent Palestinian state.
However, a large part of the individual members connected to the PLO, are members directly connected to the organization. Earlier the planned Palestinian state was intended to be on the very same ground where Israel was, while they now define the new Palestinian state inside the borders of the areas occupied by Israel since 1967, the West Bank, Gaza Strip, plus East Jerusalem.
The PLO is made up of three bodies, the Executive Committee, exercising central control; the Central Committee, the counsel; and the Palestine National Council, which was earlier the Palestinian people’s parliament in exile.
PLO has performed both military and political actions. Military, the organization has been involved in actions against both Israeli troops and against innocent civilians, not only Israelis, but people of many nationalities. Responsibility for these actions has been denied by PLO though, but this is strongly disputed by international observers.
Politically, the organization has been only partly democratic, dominated as it has been by one person for almost all its history: Yassir Arafat. Yet, this political structure have proven to be effective enough to be implemented as a structure for parliamentarism of the new Palestinian state, called Palestinian National Authority for the transitory period from 1994 to 2000 or longer.
The PLO was founded in Jerusalem (the part belonging to Jordan) in May of 1964 by refugee groups and local Palestinians, and with the aid of Arab nations in the shape of the Arab League.
In 1968, Yassir Arafat, of al-Fatah, became chairman of the PLO
In 1970, there was a battle between the fadayeen (commandos) of PLOand the Jordanian army.
In 1971, the PLO was expelled from Jordan, and their body and many Palestinians move to Lebanon.
In 1974, the PLO was proclaimed the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people by Arab states at the Rabat Conference. The United Nations recognized the PLO as “the representaive of the Palestinian people.”
In 1975, the civil war of Lebanon began, in which the PLO contributed by destabilizing the politics of Lebanon.
In 1982, there was an invasion of Lebanon by Israel. The PLO was once again driven out of their headquarters. About 12,000 members fled to other Arab countries. Arafat moved together with his followers to Borj Cedria, just outside Tunis, Tunisia, aided by the United States government.
In 1983, there was turmoil in the PLO. From this time on, the organization was strongly divided into two factions after disagreements with Arafat.
In October 1985, Israeli jets attacked Tunisia, bombing the PLO head quarters, but failed to kill Arafat who is the presumed target.
In July 1988, with Jordan giving up its claim on the West Bank in favor of the Palestinians, as represented by the PLO, room was given to declare a Palestinian state. On November 15, the Palestinian National Council declared under a meeting in Algiers, Algeria the establishment of a Palestinian state. At the same time they accepted the United Nations resolution 242, which in reality is a recognition Israel. In December, the United States began diplomatic talks with PLO.
In April 1989, Arafat was declared president of Palestine.
In 1991, with the PLO supporting Iraq during the Gulf War, the organization was set back with regard to its popularity among Western governments, as well as in Western public opinion. In July 1991, the PLO was driven out of southern Lebanon by the Lebanese army that is backed by Syria.
In January 1993, Israel’s ban on personal contacts with the PLO was lifted. On September 13, 1993, the Oslo Agreement was signed in Washington between Israel and the PLO, where power over Gaza and West Bank is to be transferred to an elected body of the Palestinian people. With this accord much of the PLO’s authority was restored. However, it was strongly opposed by several Palestinian groups.
In May of 1994, Israel withdrew from most of the Gaza Strip and Jericho, and the Palestinian state under the temporary name of the Palestinian National Authortiy became a reality.
On September 24, 1995, the so-called Oslo 2 Agreement was concluded and signed in Washington, D. C. four days later. This agreement was both a follow-up and a partial renegotiation of the initial Oslo Agreement from two years earlier. Many observers regard this agreement as less advantageous for the Palestinians than the initial agreement.
On January 20, 1996, elections were held in Palestine among non-Israeli residents, for a national council and a president of the council. Yassir Arafat received 88% of the ballots in the presidential election. His sympathizers won about 50 of the 88 seats in the national council. On April 24, the charter of the PLO from 1964 was changed so that the destruction of Israel no longer is the goal of the PLO. Seventy-five percent of the Palestinian National Council voted in favor of this, eight percent against it.
ʿArafāt’s decision to support Iraq during the 1990–91 Persian Gulf War alienated the PLO’s key financial donors among the gulf oil states and contributed to a further softening of its position regarding peace with Israel. In April 1993 the PLO under ʿArafāt’s leadership entered secret negotiations with Israel on a possible peace settlement between the two sides. The first document in a set of Israel-PLO agreements—generally termed the Oslo Accords—was signed on September 13, 1993, by ʿArafāt and the leaders of the Israeli government. The agreements called for mutual recognition between the two sides and set out conditions under which the West Bank and Gaza would be gradually handed over to the newly formed Palestinian Authority, of which ʿArafāt was to become the first president. This transfer was originally to have taken place over a five-year interim period in which Israel and the Palestinians were to have negotiated a permanent settlement. Despite some success, however, negotiations faltered sporadically throughout the 1990s and collapsed completely amid increasing violence—dubbed Al-Aqṣā intifāḍah—in late 2000. This second uprising had a distinctly religious character, and militant Islamic groups such as Ḥamās, which had come to the fore during the first intifāḍah, attracted an ever-larger following and threatened the PLO’s dominance within Palestinian society.
The Second or Al-Aqsa Intifada started concurrent with the breakdown of talks at Camp David with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. The Intifada never ended officially, but violence hit relatively low levels during 2005. The death toll both military and civilians of the entire conflict in 2000-2004 is estimated to be 3,223 Palestinians and 950 Israelis, although this number is criticized for not differentiating between combatants and civilians. Members of the PLO have claimed responsibility for a number of attacks against Israelis during the Second Intifada.
PLO see Palestine Liberation Organization
Al Fatah see Palestine Liberation Organization
Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) (Al Fatah). Organization founded in 1964 as a Palestinian nationalist umbrella organization committed to the creation of an independent Palestinian state. After the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, militia groups composing the PLO vied for control, with Al Fatah -- led by Yassir Arafat -- becoming dominant. Al Fatah joined the PLO in 1968 and won the leadership role in 1969. In 1969, Arafat assumed the position of PLO Executive Committee chairman, a position he still holds. Al Fatah essentially became the PLO, with other groups’ influence on PLO actions increasingly marginalized. Al Fatah and other PLO components were pushed out of Jordan following clashes with Jordanian forces in 1970-71. The Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 led to the group’s dispersal to several Southwest Asian and North Africa countries, including Tunisia, Yemen, Algeria, Iraq, and others. The PLO maintains several military and intelligence wings that have carried out terrorist attacks, including Force 17 and the Western Sector. Two of its leaders, Abu Jihad and Abu Iyad, were assassinated in recent years. In the 1960s and the 1970s, Al Fatah offered training to a wide range of European, Southwest Asian, Asian and African terrorist and insurgent groups and carried out numerous acts of international terrorism in Western Europe and Southwest Asia in the early to middle 1970s. Arafat signed the Declaration of Principles (DOP) with Israel in 1993 --- the Oslo Accords -- and renounced terrorism and violence. The organization fragmented in the early 1980s, but remained the leading Palestinian political organization. Following the 1993 Oslo Accords, the PLO -- read Al Fatah -- leadership assumed control of the nascent Palestinian National Authority (PNA).
The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) is an organization which has worked as the official representative for the Palestinian people, and is now the leading force of Palestine. PLO is an umbrella organization made up of a handful of other organizations, like al-Fatah, as-Saiqa and Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, organizations that are very different in many fields, but they all share the same goal of an independent Palestinian state.
However, a large part of the individual members connected to the PLO, are members directly connected to the organization. Earlier the planned Palestinian state was intended to be on the very same ground where Israel was, while they now define the new Palestinian state inside the borders of the areas occupied by Israel since 1967, the West Bank, Gaza Strip, plus East Jerusalem.
The PLO is made up of three bodies, the Executive Committee, exercising central control; the Central Committee, the counsel; and the Palestine National Council, which was earlier the Palestinian people’s parliament in exile.
PLO has performed both military and political actions. Military, the organization has been involved in actions against both Israeli troops and against innocent civilians, not only Israelis, but people of many nationalities. Responsibility for these actions has been denied by PLO though, but this is strongly disputed by international observers.
Politically, the organization has been only partly democratic, dominated as it has been by one person for almost all its history: Yassir Arafat. Yet, this political structure have proven to be effective enough to be implemented as a structure for parliamentarism of the new Palestinian state, called Palestinian National Authority for the transitory period from 1994 to 2000 or longer.
The PLO was founded in Jerusalem (the part belonging to Jordan) in May of 1964 by refugee groups and local Palestinians, and with the aid of Arab nations in the shape of the Arab League.
In 1968, Yassir Arafat, of al-Fatah, became chairman of the PLO
In 1970, there was a battle between the fadayeen (commandos) of PLOand the Jordanian army.
In 1971, the PLO was expelled from Jordan, and their body and many Palestinians move to Lebanon.
In 1974, the PLO was proclaimed the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people by Arab states at the Rabat Conference. The United Nations recognized the PLO as “the representaive of the Palestinian people.”
In 1975, the civil war of Lebanon began, in which the PLO contributed by destabilizing the politics of Lebanon.
In 1982, there was an invasion of Lebanon by Israel. The PLO was once again driven out of their headquarters. About 12,000 members fled to other Arab countries. Arafat moved together with his followers to Borj Cedria, just outside Tunis, Tunisia, aided by the United States government.
In 1983, there was turmoil in the PLO. From this time on, the organization was strongly divided into two factions after disagreements with Arafat.
In October 1985, Israeli jets attacked Tunisia, bombing the PLO head quarters, but failed to kill Arafat who is the presumed target.
In July 1988, with Jordan giving up its claim on the West Bank in favor of the Palestinians, as represented by the PLO, room was given to declare a Palestinian state. On November 15, the Palestinian National Council declared under a meeting in Algiers, Algeria the establishment of a Palestinian state. At the same time they accepted the United Nations resolution 242, which in reality is a recognition Israel. In December, the United States began diplomatic talks with PLO.
In April 1989, Arafat was declared president of Palestine.
In 1991, with the PLO supporting Iraq during the Gulf War, the organization was set back with regard to its popularity among Western governments, as well as in Western public opinion. In July 1991, the PLO was driven out of southern Lebanon by the Lebanese army that is backed by Syria.
In January 1993, Israel’s ban on personal contacts with the PLO was lifted. On September 13, 1993, the Oslo Agreement was signed in Washington between Israel and the PLO, where power over Gaza and West Bank is to be transferred to an elected body of the Palestinian people. With this accord much of the PLO’s authority was restored. However, it was strongly opposed by several Palestinian groups.
In May of 1994, Israel withdrew from most of the Gaza Strip and Jericho, and the Palestinian state under the temporary name of the Palestinian National Authortiy became a reality.
On September 24, 1995, the so-called Oslo 2 Agreement was concluded and signed in Washington, D. C. four days later. This agreement was both a follow-up and a partial renegotiation of the initial Oslo Agreement from two years earlier. Many observers regard this agreement as less advantageous for the Palestinians than the initial agreement.
On January 20, 1996, elections were held in Palestine among non-Israeli residents, for a national council and a president of the council. Yassir Arafat received 88% of the ballots in the presidential election. His sympathizers won about 50 of the 88 seats in the national council. On April 24, the charter of the PLO from 1964 was changed so that the destruction of Israel no longer is the goal of the PLO. Seventy-five percent of the Palestinian National Council voted in favor of this, eight percent against it.
ʿArafāt’s decision to support Iraq during the 1990–91 Persian Gulf War alienated the PLO’s key financial donors among the gulf oil states and contributed to a further softening of its position regarding peace with Israel. In April 1993 the PLO under ʿArafāt’s leadership entered secret negotiations with Israel on a possible peace settlement between the two sides. The first document in a set of Israel-PLO agreements—generally termed the Oslo Accords—was signed on September 13, 1993, by ʿArafāt and the leaders of the Israeli government. The agreements called for mutual recognition between the two sides and set out conditions under which the West Bank and Gaza would be gradually handed over to the newly formed Palestinian Authority, of which ʿArafāt was to become the first president. This transfer was originally to have taken place over a five-year interim period in which Israel and the Palestinians were to have negotiated a permanent settlement. Despite some success, however, negotiations faltered sporadically throughout the 1990s and collapsed completely amid increasing violence—dubbed Al-Aqṣā intifāḍah—in late 2000. This second uprising had a distinctly religious character, and militant Islamic groups such as Ḥamās, which had come to the fore during the first intifāḍah, attracted an ever-larger following and threatened the PLO’s dominance within Palestinian society.
The Second or Al-Aqsa Intifada started concurrent with the breakdown of talks at Camp David with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. The Intifada never ended officially, but violence hit relatively low levels during 2005. The death toll both military and civilians of the entire conflict in 2000-2004 is estimated to be 3,223 Palestinians and 950 Israelis, although this number is criticized for not differentiating between combatants and civilians. Members of the PLO have claimed responsibility for a number of attacks against Israelis during the Second Intifada.
PLO see Palestine Liberation Organization
Al Fatah see Palestine Liberation Organization
Palestinian Islamic Jihad
Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) (Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine) (Harakat al-Jihād al-Islāmi fi Filastīn). The PIJ, emerging from radical Gazan Palestinians in the 1970s, is apparently a series of loosely affiliated factions rather than a cohesive group. The PIJ focus is the destruction of Israel and the creation of a Palestinian Islamic state. Due to Washington’s support of Israel, the PIJ threatened to strike American targets. Arab regimes deemed to as un-Islamic were also threatened. PIJ cadres reportedly received funding from Iran and logistical support from Syria.
The Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine known in the West as simply Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), is a small Palestinian militant organization. The group has been designated as a terrorist group by the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Japan, Canada, Australia and Israel. Their goal is the destruction of the state of Israel and its replacement with a Palestinian Islamic state.
The Palestinian Islamic Jihad was created after many members of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood found that the organization was becoming too moderate and did not commit enough effort to the Palestinian struggle. So in the late 1970s, the founders of the PIJ, Fathi Shaqaqi and Abd al-Aziz Awda created the group to fight for the sovereignty of Palestine and the destruction of Israel. Shaqaqi and Awda conducted operations out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. The PIJ continued its work in Gaza until it was exiled to Lebanon in 1987. While in Lebanon, the group was able to receive training from Hezbollah and ultimately developed a close relationship with the Lebanese organization. While in Lebanon, the PIJ adopted the use of suicide bombing and other forms of terrorism as their principle method of achieving their goals. In 1989, the PIJ moved its operation to Damascus where it remains to this day.
The group is currently based in the Syrian capital, Damascus, but there are also offices in Beirut, Tehran and Khartoum. Its financial backing is believed to come from Syria and Iran. The group operates primarily in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, but has also carried out attacks in Jordan and Lebanon. Its main strongholds in the West Bank are the cities of Hebron and Jenin. The PIJ has approximately 50 to 200 members as well as recruiting suicide bombers and volunteers. Because of its small size, the PIJ is unable to run large scale training camps so instead they rely heavily on other organizations such as Hezbollah for support.
Islamic Jihad has much in common with Hamas. They both work towards the destruction of Israel as a state as well as restoring the “true faith” to the Muslim world. The distinction between the groups comes in the order of these priorities. “The Islamic Brotherhood, like many other fundamentalist Islamic movements, sees jihad as a general duty of all Muslims and proposed that first ‘proper Islam’ should be established throughout the Muslim world. Only after the primary goal is achieved, violent jihad should be directed against Israel. In contrast, the irredentist Hamas movement switched the two priorities. It maintained that first jihad should be directed at liberating all of Palestine, and then Muslims should direct their attention to the goal of restoring the ‘true faith’ to the rest of the Islamic world.” Both groups were formed as offshoots of the Muslim Brotherhood and receive a large amount of funding from Iran. With similar goals, Hamas and the PIJ have worked together on a number of attacks on Israel including a suicide bombing in Beit-Lid in February 1995 that killed eight Israelis and wounded fifty.
Fathi Shaqaqi led the organization for two decades until his death in Malta in October 1995 by an unknown party. The Palestinian Islamic Jihad often attempts to carry out attacks against Israeli targets on the anniversary of his death, although the identity of the assassins was never determined.
During the Al-Aqsa Intifada, beginning in September 2000, the PIJ committed many suicide bombing attacks against Israelis. Many of the attacks in 2001 and 2002 came from the PIJ in Jenin, headed by Mahmoud Tawallbe, Ali Sefoori, and Tabeth Mardawi. The headquarters of the PIJ in Jenin and the West Bank was seriously damaged during Operation Defensive Shield: Tawallbe was killed by an IDF Caterpillar D9 armored bulldozer while Sefoori and Mardawi were arrested by Israeli security forces.
On February 20, 2003, University of South Florida computer engineering professor Dr. Sami Al-Arian was arrested after being indicted on 50 terrorism-related charges. U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft alleged at a press conference that Al-Arian was the North American head of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. On December 6, 2005, Al-Arian was acquitted on 8 of the 17 charges against him, and the jury deadlocked on the remaining nine counts 10–2. Then on March 2, 2006, Al-Arian entered a guilty plea to a charge of conspiracy to help the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a "specially designated terrorist" organization. Al-Arian was sentenced to 57 months in prison, given credit for time served, and ordered deported following his prison term. In November 2006 he was found guilty of civil contempt for refusing to testify before a federal grand jury. He served 13 months in prison on that conviction. In March 2008, the United States Department of Justice subpoenaed Al-Arian to testify before a grand jury. He refused to testify, and prosecutors charged him with criminal contempt in June 2008. On September 2, 2008, Al-Arian was released from detention on bond. He remains under house arrest, as he awaits a trial on criminal contempt charges.
Islamic Jihad is alleged to have used teens as suicide bombers. On March 29, 2004, 16-year-old Tamer Khuweir in Rifidia, an Arab suburb of Nablus, was apprehended by Israeli security forces as he prepared to carry out a suicide attack. His older brother claimed he was brainwashed to do it by an Islamic Jihad cleric and demanded the Palestinian Authority investigate the incident and arrest those responsible for it.
After Shaqaqi's death, Palestinian Islamic Jihad has been led since 1995 by fellow founder Sheikh Abdullah Ramadan Shallah, AKA Ramadan Abdullah Mohammad Shallah, who was then listed as a "Specially Designated Terrorist" under United States law on November 27, 1995, and subsequently was indicted on RICO charges, and consequently became one of the FBI Most Wanted Terrorists on February 24, 2006.
The PIJ’s main target is Israel but they also see the United States and Western secularism as an enemy. The PIJ “considered the United States an enemy because of its support for Israel. The PIJ also opposes moderate Arab governments that it believes have been tainted by Western secularism and has carried out attacks in Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt.
The Israeli response was to use targeted killings.
The Palestinian Islamic Jihad has claimed responsibility for many militant activities over the years. The organization is responsible for a number of attacks including more than 30 completed suicide bombings. “On December 22, 2001, despite a declaration by Hamas to halt suicide bombings inside Israel, in response to a crackdown on militants by Yassir Arafat, PIJ vowed to continue its terror campaign. PIJ’s representative in Lebanon, Abu Imad Al Rifai, told Reuters, ‘Our position is to continue. We have no other choice. We are not willing to compromise.’” The Palestinian Islamic Jihad have claimed responsibility for the following attacks:
* August 1987: The PIJ claimed responsibility for a shooting that killed the commander of the Israeli military police in the Gaza Strip.
* July 1989: Attack of Egged bus 405 along the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv Highway, at least 14 people killed (including two Canadians and one American) and dozens more wounded. Though intended to be a suicide attack, the perpetrator survived.
* December 1993: Killed an Israeli reservist, David Mashrati, during a public bus shooting.
* April 1994: A car bomb aboard a public bus killed nine people and injured fifty.
* January 1995: Suicide bombing attack near Netanya killing eighteen soldiers and one civilian.
* April 1995: Suicide bomb in Netzarim and Kfar-Darom. The first bomb killed eight people and injured over 30 on an Israel bus. The second attack was a car bomb that injured twelve people.
* March 1996: A Tel Aviv shopping mall is the site of another suicide bombing killing twenty and injuring seventy five.
* November 2000: A car bomb in Jerusalem at an outdoor market killed two people and injured ten.
* June 2001: Suicide bomb attack at a Tel Aviv nightclub killing twenty-one people.
* March 2002: A suicide bomber killed seven people and injured approximately thirty aboard a bus travelling from Tel Aviv to Nazareth.
* June 2002: Eighteen people are killed and fifty injured in a suicide attack at the Meggido Junction.
* July 2002: A double suicide attack killed five people and injured 40 in Tel Aviv.
* November 2002: Ambush in Hebron.
* May 2003: Three people killed and eighty-three injured in a suicide bombing at a shopping mall in Afula.
* August 2003: A suicide bomber killed twenty-one people and injured over one hundred on a bus in Jerusalem.
* October 2003: Suicide bomber killed twenty-two and injured sixty at a Haifa restaurant.
* October 2005: A bomb detonated in a Hedera market was responsible for killing five people.
* April 2006: Suicide bomb in Tel Aviv killed eleven.
* January 2007: Both the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and the PIJ claim responsibility for a suicide bombing at an Eliat bakery that killed three.
* On June 9, 2007, in a failed assault on an IDF position at the Kissufim crossing between Gaza and Israel in a possible attempt to kidnap IDF soldiers, four armed members of the al-Quds Brigades (the military wing of Islamic Jihad) and the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades (the military wing of Fatah) used a vehicle marked with "TV" and "PRESS" insignias penetrated the border fence and assaulted a guard tower in what Islamic Jihad and the army said was a failed attempt to capture an Israeli soldier. IDF troops killed one militant, while the others escaped. The use of a vehicle that resembled a press vehicle evoked a sharp response from many journalists and news organizations.
* On March 26, 2009, two Islamic Jihad terrorists were imprisoned for a conspiracy "to murder Israeli pilots and scientists using booby-trapped toy cars."
Islamic Jihad also deployed its own rocket, similar to the Qassam rocket used by Hamas, called the Al Quds rocket.
PIJ see Palestinian Islamic Jihad
Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine see Palestinian Islamic Jihad
Harakat al-Jihād al-Islāmi fi Filastīn see Palestinian Islamic Jihad
Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) (Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine) (Harakat al-Jihād al-Islāmi fi Filastīn). The PIJ, emerging from radical Gazan Palestinians in the 1970s, is apparently a series of loosely affiliated factions rather than a cohesive group. The PIJ focus is the destruction of Israel and the creation of a Palestinian Islamic state. Due to Washington’s support of Israel, the PIJ threatened to strike American targets. Arab regimes deemed to as un-Islamic were also threatened. PIJ cadres reportedly received funding from Iran and logistical support from Syria.
The Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine known in the West as simply Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), is a small Palestinian militant organization. The group has been designated as a terrorist group by the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Japan, Canada, Australia and Israel. Their goal is the destruction of the state of Israel and its replacement with a Palestinian Islamic state.
The Palestinian Islamic Jihad was created after many members of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood found that the organization was becoming too moderate and did not commit enough effort to the Palestinian struggle. So in the late 1970s, the founders of the PIJ, Fathi Shaqaqi and Abd al-Aziz Awda created the group to fight for the sovereignty of Palestine and the destruction of Israel. Shaqaqi and Awda conducted operations out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. The PIJ continued its work in Gaza until it was exiled to Lebanon in 1987. While in Lebanon, the group was able to receive training from Hezbollah and ultimately developed a close relationship with the Lebanese organization. While in Lebanon, the PIJ adopted the use of suicide bombing and other forms of terrorism as their principle method of achieving their goals. In 1989, the PIJ moved its operation to Damascus where it remains to this day.
The group is currently based in the Syrian capital, Damascus, but there are also offices in Beirut, Tehran and Khartoum. Its financial backing is believed to come from Syria and Iran. The group operates primarily in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, but has also carried out attacks in Jordan and Lebanon. Its main strongholds in the West Bank are the cities of Hebron and Jenin. The PIJ has approximately 50 to 200 members as well as recruiting suicide bombers and volunteers. Because of its small size, the PIJ is unable to run large scale training camps so instead they rely heavily on other organizations such as Hezbollah for support.
Islamic Jihad has much in common with Hamas. They both work towards the destruction of Israel as a state as well as restoring the “true faith” to the Muslim world. The distinction between the groups comes in the order of these priorities. “The Islamic Brotherhood, like many other fundamentalist Islamic movements, sees jihad as a general duty of all Muslims and proposed that first ‘proper Islam’ should be established throughout the Muslim world. Only after the primary goal is achieved, violent jihad should be directed against Israel. In contrast, the irredentist Hamas movement switched the two priorities. It maintained that first jihad should be directed at liberating all of Palestine, and then Muslims should direct their attention to the goal of restoring the ‘true faith’ to the rest of the Islamic world.” Both groups were formed as offshoots of the Muslim Brotherhood and receive a large amount of funding from Iran. With similar goals, Hamas and the PIJ have worked together on a number of attacks on Israel including a suicide bombing in Beit-Lid in February 1995 that killed eight Israelis and wounded fifty.
Fathi Shaqaqi led the organization for two decades until his death in Malta in October 1995 by an unknown party. The Palestinian Islamic Jihad often attempts to carry out attacks against Israeli targets on the anniversary of his death, although the identity of the assassins was never determined.
During the Al-Aqsa Intifada, beginning in September 2000, the PIJ committed many suicide bombing attacks against Israelis. Many of the attacks in 2001 and 2002 came from the PIJ in Jenin, headed by Mahmoud Tawallbe, Ali Sefoori, and Tabeth Mardawi. The headquarters of the PIJ in Jenin and the West Bank was seriously damaged during Operation Defensive Shield: Tawallbe was killed by an IDF Caterpillar D9 armored bulldozer while Sefoori and Mardawi were arrested by Israeli security forces.
On February 20, 2003, University of South Florida computer engineering professor Dr. Sami Al-Arian was arrested after being indicted on 50 terrorism-related charges. U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft alleged at a press conference that Al-Arian was the North American head of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. On December 6, 2005, Al-Arian was acquitted on 8 of the 17 charges against him, and the jury deadlocked on the remaining nine counts 10–2. Then on March 2, 2006, Al-Arian entered a guilty plea to a charge of conspiracy to help the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a "specially designated terrorist" organization. Al-Arian was sentenced to 57 months in prison, given credit for time served, and ordered deported following his prison term. In November 2006 he was found guilty of civil contempt for refusing to testify before a federal grand jury. He served 13 months in prison on that conviction. In March 2008, the United States Department of Justice subpoenaed Al-Arian to testify before a grand jury. He refused to testify, and prosecutors charged him with criminal contempt in June 2008. On September 2, 2008, Al-Arian was released from detention on bond. He remains under house arrest, as he awaits a trial on criminal contempt charges.
Islamic Jihad is alleged to have used teens as suicide bombers. On March 29, 2004, 16-year-old Tamer Khuweir in Rifidia, an Arab suburb of Nablus, was apprehended by Israeli security forces as he prepared to carry out a suicide attack. His older brother claimed he was brainwashed to do it by an Islamic Jihad cleric and demanded the Palestinian Authority investigate the incident and arrest those responsible for it.
After Shaqaqi's death, Palestinian Islamic Jihad has been led since 1995 by fellow founder Sheikh Abdullah Ramadan Shallah, AKA Ramadan Abdullah Mohammad Shallah, who was then listed as a "Specially Designated Terrorist" under United States law on November 27, 1995, and subsequently was indicted on RICO charges, and consequently became one of the FBI Most Wanted Terrorists on February 24, 2006.
The PIJ’s main target is Israel but they also see the United States and Western secularism as an enemy. The PIJ “considered the United States an enemy because of its support for Israel. The PIJ also opposes moderate Arab governments that it believes have been tainted by Western secularism and has carried out attacks in Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt.
The Israeli response was to use targeted killings.
The Palestinian Islamic Jihad has claimed responsibility for many militant activities over the years. The organization is responsible for a number of attacks including more than 30 completed suicide bombings. “On December 22, 2001, despite a declaration by Hamas to halt suicide bombings inside Israel, in response to a crackdown on militants by Yassir Arafat, PIJ vowed to continue its terror campaign. PIJ’s representative in Lebanon, Abu Imad Al Rifai, told Reuters, ‘Our position is to continue. We have no other choice. We are not willing to compromise.’” The Palestinian Islamic Jihad have claimed responsibility for the following attacks:
* August 1987: The PIJ claimed responsibility for a shooting that killed the commander of the Israeli military police in the Gaza Strip.
* July 1989: Attack of Egged bus 405 along the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv Highway, at least 14 people killed (including two Canadians and one American) and dozens more wounded. Though intended to be a suicide attack, the perpetrator survived.
* December 1993: Killed an Israeli reservist, David Mashrati, during a public bus shooting.
* April 1994: A car bomb aboard a public bus killed nine people and injured fifty.
* January 1995: Suicide bombing attack near Netanya killing eighteen soldiers and one civilian.
* April 1995: Suicide bomb in Netzarim and Kfar-Darom. The first bomb killed eight people and injured over 30 on an Israel bus. The second attack was a car bomb that injured twelve people.
* March 1996: A Tel Aviv shopping mall is the site of another suicide bombing killing twenty and injuring seventy five.
* November 2000: A car bomb in Jerusalem at an outdoor market killed two people and injured ten.
* June 2001: Suicide bomb attack at a Tel Aviv nightclub killing twenty-one people.
* March 2002: A suicide bomber killed seven people and injured approximately thirty aboard a bus travelling from Tel Aviv to Nazareth.
* June 2002: Eighteen people are killed and fifty injured in a suicide attack at the Meggido Junction.
* July 2002: A double suicide attack killed five people and injured 40 in Tel Aviv.
* November 2002: Ambush in Hebron.
* May 2003: Three people killed and eighty-three injured in a suicide bombing at a shopping mall in Afula.
* August 2003: A suicide bomber killed twenty-one people and injured over one hundred on a bus in Jerusalem.
* October 2003: Suicide bomber killed twenty-two and injured sixty at a Haifa restaurant.
* October 2005: A bomb detonated in a Hedera market was responsible for killing five people.
* April 2006: Suicide bomb in Tel Aviv killed eleven.
* January 2007: Both the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and the PIJ claim responsibility for a suicide bombing at an Eliat bakery that killed three.
* On June 9, 2007, in a failed assault on an IDF position at the Kissufim crossing between Gaza and Israel in a possible attempt to kidnap IDF soldiers, four armed members of the al-Quds Brigades (the military wing of Islamic Jihad) and the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades (the military wing of Fatah) used a vehicle marked with "TV" and "PRESS" insignias penetrated the border fence and assaulted a guard tower in what Islamic Jihad and the army said was a failed attempt to capture an Israeli soldier. IDF troops killed one militant, while the others escaped. The use of a vehicle that resembled a press vehicle evoked a sharp response from many journalists and news organizations.
* On March 26, 2009, two Islamic Jihad terrorists were imprisoned for a conspiracy "to murder Israeli pilots and scientists using booby-trapped toy cars."
Islamic Jihad also deployed its own rocket, similar to the Qassam rocket used by Hamas, called the Al Quds rocket.
PIJ see Palestinian Islamic Jihad
Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine see Palestinian Islamic Jihad
Harakat al-Jihād al-Islāmi fi Filastīn see Palestinian Islamic Jihad
Palestinians
Palestinians (Palestinian people) (Palestinian Arabs) (ash-sha'b al-filas Tini) (al-filas Tiniyyun) (al-'Arab al-filas Tiniyyun). Inhabitants of Palestine. It is now the term used for Arabs who live in Palestine or who came from Palestine or who are descended from emigrants from Palestine.
The Palestinian people, (Arabic: ash-sha`b al-filasTīni) also referred to as Palestinians or Palestinian Arabs (Arabic: al-filasTīnīyyūn; Arabic: al-`Arab al-filasTīnīyyūn), are an Arabic-speaking people with family origins in Palestine. As of 2009, the total Palestinian population was estimated at approximately 12 million, roughly less than half continuing to live within the boundaries of what was Mandate Palestine, an area encompassing Israel, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip. In this combined area, as of 2009, Arabs constitute 49% of all inhabitants, some of whom are internally displaced. The remainder, over half of all Palestinians, comprise what is known as the Palestinian diaspora, of whom more than half are stateless refugees, lacking citizenship in any country. Of the diaspora, about 1.9 million live in neighboring Jordan, one and a half million between Syria and Lebanon, a quarter million in Saudi Arabia, while Chile's half a million are the largest concentration outside the Arab world.
By religious affiliation, most Palestinians are Muslim, particularly of the Sunni branch of Islam, and there is a significant Palestinian Christian minority of various Christian denominations in the Palestinian territories. However, the majority of Palestinian Christians are found outside of Palestine. As the commonly applied "Palestinian Arab" ethnonym implies, the current traditional vernacular of Palestinians, irrespective of religion, is the Palestinian dialect of Arabic. For those who are Arab citizens of Israel, many are now also bilingual in Modern Hebrew. Recent genetic evidence has demonstrated that Palestinians as an ethnic group are closely related to Jews and represent modern "descendants of a core population that lived in the area since prehistoric times," largely predating the Arabian Muslim conquest that resulted in their acculturation, established Arabic as the predominant vernacular, and over time also Islamized many of them from various prior faiths.
The first widespread use of "Palestinian" as an endonym to refer to the nationalist concept of a Palestinian people by the local Arabic-speaking population of Palestine began prior to the outbreak of World War I, and the first demand for national independence was issued by the Syrian-Palestinian Congress on September 21, 1921. After the creation of Israel, the exodus of 1948, and more so after the exodus of 1967, the term came to signify not only a place of origin, but the sense of a shared past and future in the form of a Palestinian nation-state. The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) represents the Palestinian people before the international community. The Palestinian National Authority, officially established as a result of the Oslo Accords, is an interim administrative body nominally responsible for governance in Palestinian population centers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Since 1967, pan-Arabism has diminished as an aspect of Palestinian identity. The Israeli capture of the Gaza Strip and West Bank in the 1967 Six-Day War prompted fractured Palestinian political and militant groups to give up any remaining hope they had placed in pan-Arabism. Instead, they rallied around the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), founded in 1964, and its nationalistic orientation under the leadership of Yasser Arafat. Mainstream secular Palestinian nationalism was grouped together under the umbrella of the PLO whose constituent organizations include Fatah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, among others. These groups gave voice to a tradition that emerged in 1960s that argues Palestinian nationalism has deep historical roots, with extreme advocates reading a Palestinian nationalist consciousness and identity back into the history of Palestine over the past few centuries, and even millennia, when such a consciousness is in fact relatively modern.
The Battle of Karameh and the events of Black September in Jordan contributed to growing Palestinian support for these groups, particularly among Palestinians in exile. Concurrently, among Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, a new ideological theme, known as sumud, represented the Palestinian political strategy popularly adopted from 1967 onward. As a concept closely related to the land, agriculture and indigenousness, the ideal image of the Palestinian put forward at this time was that of the peasant (in Arabic, fellah) who stayed put on his land, refusing to leave. A strategy more passive than that adopted by the Palestinian fedayeen, sumud provided an important subtext to the narrative of the fighters, in symbolizing continuity and connections with the land, with peasantry and a rural way of life.
In 1974, the PLO was recognized as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people
by the Arab states and was granted observer status as a national liberation movement by the United Nations that same year. Israel rejected the resolution, calling it "shameful".
From 1948 through until the 1980’s, the textbooks used in Israeli schools tried to disavow a unique Palestinian identity, referring to 'the Arabs of the land of Israel' instead of 'Palestinians.' Israeli textbooks now widely use the term 'Palestinians.' Podeh believes that Palestinian textbooks of today resemble those from the early years of the Israeli state.
The First Intifada (1987–1993) was the first popular uprising against the Israeli occupation of 1967. Followed by the PLO's 1988 proclamation of a State of Palestine, these developments served to further reinforce the Palestinian national identity. After the signing of the Oslo Accords failed to bring about a Palestinian state, a Second Intifada (2000-) began, more deadly than the first. The International Court of Justice observed that since the government of Israel had decided to recognize the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people, their existence was no longer an issue. The court noted that the Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip of September 28, 1995 also referred a number of times to the Palestinian people and its legitimate rights. The right of self-determination gives the Palestinians collectively an inalienable right to freely choose their political status, including the establishment of a sovereign and independent state. Israel, having recognized the Palestinians as a separate people, is obliged to promote and respect this right in conformity with the Charter of the United Nations.
Today, most Palestinian organizations conceive of their struggle as either Palestinian-nationalist or Islamic in nature, and these themes predominate even more today. Within Israel itself, there are political movements, such as Abnaa el-Balad that assert their Palestinian identity, to the exclusion of their Israeli one.
Palestinian people see Palestinians
Palestinian Arabs see Palestinians
ash-sha'b al-filas Tini see Palestinians
al-filas Tiniyyun see Palestinians
al-'Arab al-filas Tiniyyun see Palestinians
From 1948 through until the 1980’s, the textbooks used in Israeli schools tried to disavow a unique Palestinian identity, referring to 'the Arabs of the land of Israel' instead of 'Palestinians.' Israeli textbooks now widely use the term 'Palestinians.' Podeh believes that Palestinian textbooks of today resemble those from the early years of the Israeli state.
The First Intifada (1987–1993) was the first popular uprising against the Israeli occupation of 1967. Followed by the PLO's 1988 proclamation of a State of Palestine, these developments served to further reinforce the Palestinian national identity. After the signing of the Oslo Accords failed to bring about a Palestinian state, a Second Intifada (2000-) began, more deadly than the first. The International Court of Justice observed that since the government of Israel had decided to recognize the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people, their existence was no longer an issue. The court noted that the Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip of September 28, 1995 also referred a number of times to the Palestinian people and its legitimate rights. The right of self-determination gives the Palestinians collectively an inalienable right to freely choose their political status, including the establishment of a sovereign and independent state. Israel, having recognized the Palestinians as a separate people, is obliged to promote and respect this right in conformity with the Charter of the United Nations.
Today, most Palestinian organizations conceive of their struggle as either Palestinian-nationalist or Islamic in nature, and these themes predominate even more today. Within Israel itself, there are political movements, such as Abnaa el-Balad that assert their Palestinian identity, to the exclusion of their Israeli one.
Palestinian people see Palestinians
Palestinian Arabs see Palestinians
ash-sha'b al-filas Tini see Palestinians
al-filas Tiniyyun see Palestinians
al-'Arab al-filas Tiniyyun see Palestinians
Pane, Armijn
Pane, Armijn (Armijn Pane) (b. 1908) was an Indonesian novelist, essayist, critic, dramatist and poet. He was the most westernized of the principal figures of the Pudjangga Baru generation -- even more truly western in spirit than the prophet of westernization, Takdir Alisjahbana, himself. His prose, in hybrid “European Malay,” is lively, full of subtleties and sometimes brilliant. In his poetry, he fails to make use of the beauty of the older elements of the language. His principal work is the novel Belenggu (“Shackles”) originally published episodically in Pudjangga Baru in 1940 and republished since the war by Pustaka Rakjat. This is a genuine psychological study and very different from any earlier novel in Indonesian. Much of his work, like that of many Indonesian writers, has appeared in periodicals. In 1953, many of his short stories were collected and republished under the title Kisah antara Manusia (“Stories of Humanity”).
Armijn Pane see Pane, Armijn
Pane, Armijn (Armijn Pane) (b. 1908) was an Indonesian novelist, essayist, critic, dramatist and poet. He was the most westernized of the principal figures of the Pudjangga Baru generation -- even more truly western in spirit than the prophet of westernization, Takdir Alisjahbana, himself. His prose, in hybrid “European Malay,” is lively, full of subtleties and sometimes brilliant. In his poetry, he fails to make use of the beauty of the older elements of the language. His principal work is the novel Belenggu (“Shackles”) originally published episodically in Pudjangga Baru in 1940 and republished since the war by Pustaka Rakjat. This is a genuine psychological study and very different from any earlier novel in Indonesian. Much of his work, like that of many Indonesian writers, has appeared in periodicals. In 1953, many of his short stories were collected and republished under the title Kisah antara Manusia (“Stories of Humanity”).
Armijn Pane see Pane, Armijn
Pane, Sanusi
Pane, Sanusi (Sanusi Pane) (b. 1905). Indonesian poet, dramatist and literary editor, was the elder brother of Armijn Pane. Sanusi Pane originated from the west coast of Sumatra, but while still young was taken to Java. His first poem was published in 1921 when he was only 16. During the following nine years, Pane wrote the poems contained in his three volumes of poetry -- Pantjaran Tjinta (“Outpouring of Love”), which was published in 1926; Puspa Mega (“Flowers and Clouds”), which was published in 1927; and Madah Kelana (“Verses of a Wanderer”), which was published in 1930. A romantic Sanusi Pane had a great love for Indian and Indo-Javanese culture and was the champion of tradition and “art for art’s sake” in public controversy with Takdir Alisjahbana. After 1930, Pane ceased to write verse but wrote a number of dramas, mainly set in ancient Java. In 1941, Pane became Chief Editor of the Balai Pustaka.
Sanusi Pane see Pane, Sanusi
Pane, Sanusi (Sanusi Pane) (b. 1905). Indonesian poet, dramatist and literary editor, was the elder brother of Armijn Pane. Sanusi Pane originated from the west coast of Sumatra, but while still young was taken to Java. His first poem was published in 1921 when he was only 16. During the following nine years, Pane wrote the poems contained in his three volumes of poetry -- Pantjaran Tjinta (“Outpouring of Love”), which was published in 1926; Puspa Mega (“Flowers and Clouds”), which was published in 1927; and Madah Kelana (“Verses of a Wanderer”), which was published in 1930. A romantic Sanusi Pane had a great love for Indian and Indo-Javanese culture and was the champion of tradition and “art for art’s sake” in public controversy with Takdir Alisjahbana. After 1930, Pane ceased to write verse but wrote a number of dramas, mainly set in ancient Java. In 1941, Pane became Chief Editor of the Balai Pustaka.
Sanusi Pane see Pane, Sanusi
Pan-Malayan Islamic Party
Pan-Malayan Islamic Party (Partai Islam Se-Malaysia ) (PAS). Malaysian political party. Formed by a number of Islamic groups in 1951, the PAS has been the chief rival of the United Malays Nationalist Organization, drawing strength from its firm attachment to Islamic and nationalist principles, whatever its difficulties in explaining the practical implications. It formed a coalition with the Alliance Party in 1973 and joined the National Front in 1974 but returned to opposition in 1977. Its main strength has been in Kelantan (where it participated in the state government from 1959 to 1978), Terengganu, Kedah, and Perlis. The party split in 1983.
The Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (Malay: Parti Islam Se-Malaysia), commonly known as PAS or Pas, is an Islamist political party in Malaysia. PAS positions itself as a political party that aims to establish Malaysia as a country based on Islamic legal theory derived from the primary sources of Islam (the Quran, Sunnah as well as Hadiths), as opposed to Barisan Nasional's Islam Hadhari, which PAS sees as based on a watered-down understanding of Islam.
The party enjoys strong support from the northern rural and conservative states such as Kelantan and Terengganu. It is also the first opposition party in independent Malaysia's history to defeat the Barisan Nasional coalition in a Malay dominated state. PAS, together with Parti KeADILan Rakyat (known as PKR), and Democratic Action Party (known as DAP) formed part of a coalition called Pakatan Rakyat following the 2008 election. Together, Pakatan Rakyat now controls four states in Malaysia which are Kelantan, Kedah, Selangor and Penang.
In March 1947, the first Pan-Malayan Islamic conference at Madrasah Ma'ahad al-Ehya as-Sharif at Gunung Semanggul, Perak, was held. The conference was sponsored by Parti Kebangsaan Melayu Malaya (PKMM) under the leadership of Dr. Burhanuddin al-Helmy. The conference set out to address the economic problems faced by the Malay-Muslims. It was meant to bring together the more politically active and progressive Islamic movements and thinkers in the country. As a result of this conference, the Majlis Agama Tertinggi (Supreme Religious Council, MATA) of Malaya was formed.
MATA began organizing political events and meetings for Malay-Muslim activists to meet and discuss their plans for the future and the need to mobilize the masses. The Council also organized a conference on March 13-16, 1948 which discussed local and international issues which are of concern to the public. The conference participants felt that UMNO was not doing enough to raise important issues in public and that the conservative-nationalists were not doing enough to stand up for Malay-Muslim rights. Needless to say, the UMNO representatives at MATA were not happy with the tone of discussion set by the Islamists, which was too revolutionary and militant for their taste. The UMNO delegates reported their findings and observations to the party leaders. In due course, UMNO leader Dato Onn Jaafar began to issue warnings about the "threat from the mountain" (a reference to Gunung Semanggul).
The Parti Orang Muslimin Malaya (Hizbul Muslimin) was formed on March 17, 1948, after the second conference declared that MATA should be reorganized as an Islamic political party. With the formation of Hizbul Muslimin, all political activities were transferred to the organization. MATA served as the party's religious affairs bureau. However, the first Islamist party in Malaya was not destined to last long, as they were banned by the British authorities anxious to retain control of the territories, alleging that Hizbul Muslimin had ties with the Communist Party of Malaya.
Many members of Hizbul Muslimin escaped the purge of the British and joined UMNO. When the ulama faction in UMNO broke away from the party, they formed an association called Persatuan Islam Sa-Malaya (Pan-Malayan Islamic Association), abbreviated as PAS. At the time, the association charter allowed for dual membership in PAS and UMNO and thus many PAS members thought of themselves as UMNO members and vice-versa. Eventually, the dual-membership clause in the party charter was revoked and PAS began to emerge as a distinct entity. For the sake of contesting in the general election of 1955, the party was re-registered under the name Pan-Malayan Islamic Party (PMIP). The name was later changed to Parti Islam Se-Malaysia during the Asri Muda era in the 1970s. Though keeping its official name in Malay, nowadays the party prefers to refer to itself in the English language as the Islamic Party of Malaysia, rather than its old name Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party.
In 1999, riding a groundswell of popular protest after the arrest and conviction of former Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, PAS allied itself with the Democratic Action Party (DAP) and Keadilan (PKR), founded by Anwar Ibrahim's wife Wan Azizah by forming a coalition known as Barisan Alternatif. In the general election, PAS took over Terengganu from the Barisan Nasional.
In the 2004 Malaysian general election, the party's strength was greatly reduced. It won merely seven parliamentary seats, a significant decrease from the 27 parliamentary seats it had won in the 1999 general election. The party leader, Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang even lost his parliamentary seat. PAS also lost control of Terengganu but retained control of Kelantan with a very slim majority of 24 out of 45 seats. The party's majority in Kelantan's state assembly was further reduced to 23 seats following the Pengkalan Pasir by-election in 2005 which left them with the majority of only one seat in the state assembly.
In the recent 2008 Malaysian general election, the party made a comeback in Kelantan, winning 38 out of 45 seats as well as managing to take control of the west coast state of Kedah, and formed coalition governments with the DAP and PKR in the states of Perak and Selangor. The party also increased its share of MPs in the Malaysian Parliament from seven to 23.
PAS often opposed and criticized the Barisan Nasional coalition. However, for a brief period from 1973 to 1978, under the leadership of Asri Muda, PAS was brought into the BN fold. The Islamic opposition party often alleges that the economic and social problems of Malaysians and Malay-Muslims are the fault of the UMNO-dominated Barisan Nasional federal government in Kuala Lumpur. PAS claims that after independence, social problems such as drugs, corruption and promiscuity have increased and blames the UMNO-led government for allowing these problems to arise.
The following is a list of PAS Presidents
* 2003– : Abdul Hadi Awang
* 1989–2002: Fadzil Noor
* 1982–1989: Yusof Rawa
* 1969–1982: Asri Muda
* 1956–1969: Burhanuddin al-Helmy
* 1953–1956: Abbas Alias
* 1951–1953: Ahmad Fuad Hassan
The following is a list of PAS Mursyidul Am (Spiritual Advisors)
* 1987– : Nik Aziz Nik Mat
* 1982–1987: Yusof Rawa
Partai Islam
Se-Malaysia see Pan-Malayan Islamic Party PAS see Pan-Malayan Islamic Party
Panthay
Panthay. Term applied to the Chinese Muslims of Yunnan province in southwest China, and to their rebellion in the nineteenth century. Islam took root in Yunnan after the Mongol conquest of the whole of China in 1279. Under the Manchus (1644-1911), Muslims found it increasingly difficult to uphold their religious freedom in the face of oppressive Confucianism and Han chauvinism. Chief among the factors contributing to the Yunnanese Muslim rebellion of 1855-1873 were religio-cultural and economic conflicts and institutionalized oppression by Han officials. A Muslim sultanate was established at Tali, seeking military assistance from Western Powers. This was however turned down by Great Britain, and the sultanate collapsed. Many Muslims who refused to assimilate further into Confucian society fled to Burma and became the forebears of the present day Chinese Muslims in that country.
The Panthays form a group of Chinese Muslims in Burma. Some people refer to Panthays as the oldest group of Chinese Muslims in Burma. However, because of intermixing and cultural diffusion the Panthays are not as distinct a group as they once were.
Panthay is a term used to refer to the predominantly Muslim Hui people of China who migrated to Burma. They are among the largest groups of Burmese Chinese, and predominantly reside in the northern regions of Burma (formerly known as Upper Burma), particularly in the Tangyan-Maymyo-Mandalay-Taunggyi area and Shan States.
The name Panthay is a Burmese word, which is said to be identical with the Shan word Pang hse. It was the name by which the Burmese called the Chinese Muslims who came with caravans to Burma from the Chinese province of Yunnan. The name was not used or known in Yunnan itself.
Several theories have been suggested as to its derivation, but none of them is strong enough to refute the others. The Burmese word Pathi is a corruption of Persian. The Burmese of Old Burma called their own indigenous Muslims Pathi. It was applied to all Muslims other than the Chinese Muslims. The name Panthay is still applied exclusively to the Chinese Muslims. However Chinese Muslims in Yunnan did not call themselves Panthay. They called themselves Huizu, meaning Muslim in Chinese. Non-Muslim Chinese and Westerners refer to them as Huihui.
Insofar as can be ascertained, the application of the term "Panthay" to Yunnanese Muslims (and, subsequently, to Burmese Muslims of Yunnanese origin) dates from about this time; certainly it was widely employed by British travelers and diplomats in the region from about 1875, and seems to have arisen as a corruption of the Burmese word pa-the meaning simply "Muslim". A considerable body of literature exists surrounding the etymology of this term, but the definitive notice (which remains, as yet, unpublished). indicated that it was introduced by Sladen at the time of his 1868 expedition to Teng-yueh, and that it represents an anglicized and shortened version of the Burmese tarup pase, or "Chinese Muslim". In fact, the term "Panthay" was never employed by the Yunnanese Muslims (whether of China or of Burma) who prefer simply to call themselves Hui-min or Hui-hui; nor did it, apparently, enjoy widespread usage amongst the Burmans, Shan, Karen or other Burmese peoples. However, according to some the designation is virtually unused within Burma today.
Eager to establish close and friendly relations with all the neighboring states, the Sultan Suleiman of Yunnan wasted no time in seizing the opportunity of having a Chinese Muslim mosque installed at the Burmese King's capital. He at once sent out Colonel Mah Too-tu, one of his senior military officers, as his special envoy and agent to Mandalay with the important mission of constructing the mosque. The mosque took about two years to finish and was opened in 1868, the second mosque to be built in the royal capital. Today, 134 years later, the Panthay Mosque is still standing as the second oldest mosque in Mandalay.
Chinese-speaking, and of predominantly Han Chinese ethnic origin, this little-known group of Sunni Muslims of the Hanafi madhhab forms a predominantly endogamous, closely inter-related minority group in four countries – China, Burma, Thailand and Laos – and today represents both Islamic and Chinese cultures in northern Southeast Asia.
Commercial and cultural contacts between the Yun-Kwei Plateau and the Irrawaddy and lower Salween Valleys probably predate significant migration by Han Chinese of Burman populations into either area; certainly it is likely that by the time of the Later Han Dynasty (25-220 C.C.) itinerant traders and Buddhist pilgrims traversed this marginal region of the Sino-Indian cultural frontier on a regular if infrequent basis. By early Tang times, Chinese control over western Yunnan was established for the first time with the submission of the population of the Erh-Hai region, near Ra-li, in 672, and the extension of the Imperial Mandate to the region of the present-day Yunnan-Burma frontier some twenty-two later, in 694. This Han Chinese dominance was to be short-lived, however; thus, within forty-five years – about 738 – the T’ai-dominated Kingdom of Nanzhao had emerged as the dominant power of the Yunnan-Burma frontier region, a position which both it and its successor, the Kingdom of Dali, were to hold until the Mongol conquest of the region five centuries later.
Despite the political independence of the Nanzhao Kingdom, Chinese cultural influence continued to penetrate and influence the Yunnan-Burma frontier region throughout the Tang and Song dynasties. Moreover, it is possible that during the mid-Tang period – in about 801 – surrendered Muslim soldiers, described in the Chinese Annals as Hei-I Ta-shih or "Black-Robed Muslims" (a term generally applied with reference to the Abbasids) were first settled in Yunnan.
Whilst this early settlement remains in some doubt, however, it is at least certain that Muslims of Central Asian origin played a major role in the Yuan (Mongol) conquest and subsequent rule of south-west China, as a result of which a distinct Muslim community was established in Yunnan by the late 13th century A.D. Foremost amongst these soldier-administrators was Sayyid Ajjal Shams al-Din Omar, a court official and general of Turkic origin who participated in the Mongol invasion of Sichuan and Yunnan around 1252, and who became Yuan Governor of the latter province in 1274-79. Hisson Nasir-al-Din was in charge of the road systems of Yunnan and personally commanded the first Mongol invasion of Bagan in 1277-78. And his younger brother Hushin (Husayn) was Transport Commissioner in 1284 and later Senior Governor of Yunnan. Shams al-Din – who is widely believed by the Muslims of Yunnan to have introduced Islam to the region – is represented as a wise and benevolent ruler, who successfully "pacified and comforted" the people of Yunnan, and who is credited with building Confucian temples, as well as mosques and schools. On his death he was succeeded by his eldest son, Nasir al-Din (the "Nescradin" of Marco Polo), who governed Yunnan between 1279 and 1284.
During Shams al-Din’s governorship of Yunnan, Nasir al-Din was first appointed Commissioner of Roads for the province and then, in 1277-78, appointed to command the first Mongol invasion of Burma. Leading to the overthrow of the Pagan Dynasty. Subsequently, during Nasir al-Din’s Governorship, his younger brother Husayn (the third son of Sayyid al-Ajall Shams al-Din) was appointed Transport Commissioner for the province. As a result of the pre-eminence of Shams al-Din and his family during this period, a significant number of Muslim soldiers of Central Asian origin were transferred to the Dali region of western Yunnan – an area still largely unpopulated by Han Chinese settlers – and the descendants of these garrison troops, who participated in a number of Mongol invasions of Burmese territory during the Yuan period, from the nucleus of the present-day Chinese Muslim population both in Yunnan and Burma.
Over the next five hundred years this nascent Yunnanese Muslim community established itself in a position of economic and demographic strength in southern and western Yunnan – though there are few indications of significant settlement in Burmese territory before Qing times and acquired a distinctive ethnic identity through intermarriage with the local population, a process paralleled in areas of Muslim settlement elsewhere in China. Thus, following the demise of the 'Abbasids in 1258 and the related rise of the Mongol Yuan Dynasty in China, the term Ta-shih (as applied loosely both to foreign Muslims and to those settled within China) disappeared from the Chinese Annals and was gradually replaced by a new term, Hui or Hui-hui giving rise in turn to the modern Chinese term Hui-min, the recognized contemporary designation for China's Chinese speaking Muslim minority.
Within Yunnan, the Hui Muslim population seems to have flourished and expanded throughout the Yuan and Ming periods (c. 1280 – 1644). Certainly when Marco Polo visited Yunnan in the early Yuan period he noted the presence of 'Saracens" amongst the population, whilst the Persian historian Rashid al-Din (died 1318) recorded in his Jami' ut-Tawarikh that 'the great city of Yachi' in Yunnan was exclusively inhabited by Muslims. Rashid al-Din may have been referring to the region around Dali in western Yunnan, which was to emerge as the earliest center of Hui Muslim settlement in the province, though other areas of significant Muslim settlement were subsequently established in north-western Yunnan around Chao-t'ung by the Emperor Jen-tsung in about 1313 as well as – much later on, during the Qing Dynasty – in and around Qianshui in southeastern Yunnan.
The history of the Panthays in Burma was inseparably linked to that of Yunnan, their place of origin, whose population was predominantly Muslim. The Chinese Muslims of Yunnan were noted for their mercantile prowess. Within Yunnan, the Muslim population excelled as merchants and soldiers, the two qualities, which made them ideally suited to the rigors of overland trade in the rugged, mountainous regions, and to deserve the rewards therefrom. They might have been helped in this by their religion of' Islam from its inception had flourished as a Religion of Trade. The religious requirement to perform Hajj pilgrimage had also helped them to establish an overland road between Yunnan and Arabia as early as the first half of the 1300s.
During the first decades of the 19th century, population pressures on the Hui Muslim and other minority peoples of Yunnan increased substantially as a result of Han Chinese migration to the province. Resentment against this development, coupled with mounting hostility towards Qing rule, led in 1855 to the rebellion amongst Muslim miners in the Chien-shui region. Within two years, however, the center of rebellion had spread to the west of the province under the leadership of Wenxiu. For the next fifteen years, until the Qing reconquest, Dali remained the capital of Pingnan Guo (the "Country of the peaceful South"), where Tu erected a forbidden city, wore Ming dynasty dress in repudiation of Qing authority, and is reported by some sources to have adopted the Muslim name Sultan Sulayman.
Between 1648 and 1878, more than twelve million Hui and Uyghur Muslims were killed in ten unsuccessful uprisings against the Qing Dynasty. The unfavorable discrimination with which the Hui were treated by the Han and by the imperial administration was at the root of their rebellions. The Panthay Rebellion began out of a conflict between Han and Muslim tin miners in 1853, which degenerated into rebellion. In the following year, a massacre of Muslims was organized by the Qing officials responsible for suppressing the revolt. One of the leaders of the insurrection was Ma Dexin. Anxious to increase his own influence, Ma Dexin finally agreed to submit to the Qing in 1861. He was succeeded by a man called Du Wenxiu (1823 - 1872), an ethnic Hui born in Yongcheng.
Starting from 1855 the Muslim majority of Yunnan had risen against the oppression to which they were subjected by the mandarins. They rose against the tyranny and extortion universally practiced by this official class, from which they were excluded. The mandarins had secretly hounded mobs on to the rich Panthays, provoked anti-Muslim riots and instigated destruction of their mosques. The religious hatred of the Panthays was thus aroused. The widespread Muslim desire for revenge for insults to their religion led to a universal and well-planned rising.
The rebellion started as a local uprising. It was sparked off by the Panthay laborers of the silver mines of Li'nanxian village in Yunnan who rose up against the Chinese. The Chinese Governor of Yunnan sent an urgent appeal to the central government in Beijing. The Imperial Government was handicapped by problems that cropped up in profusion in various parts of the sprawling empire.
They repulsed the desultory attacks of the imperial troops. They wrested one important city after another from the hands of' the Imperial mandarins. The Chinese towns and villages which resisters were pillaged, and the male population massacred. All the places, which yielded, were spared. The ancient holy city of Tali-fu fell to the Panthays in 1857. With the capture of Tali-fu, Muslim supremacy became an established fact in Yunnan.
The Islamic Kingdom of Yunnan was proclaimed after the fall of Tali-fu. Tu Wen-hsiu, leader of the Panthays, assumed the regnal title of Sultan Suleiman and made Tali-fu his capital. In this way, the Sultanate, fashioned after those of' the Middle East, appeared in Yunnan. Panthay governorships were also created in a few important cities, such as Momein (Tengyueh), which were a few stages from the Burmese border town of Bhamo. The Panthays reached the high watermark of their power and glory in 1860.
The eight years from 1860 to 1868 were the heyday of the Sultanate. The Panthays had either taken or destroyed forty towns and one hundred villages. During this period the Sultan Suleiman, on his way to Mecca as a pilgrim, visited Rangoon, presumably via the Kengtung route, and from there to Calcutta where he had a chance to see the power of the British.
The Panthay power declined after 1868. The Chinese Imperial Government had succeeded in reinvigorating itself. By 1871, it was directing a campaign for the annihilation of the obdurate Panthays of Yunnan. By degrees the Imperial Government had tightened the cordon around the Panthays. The Panthay Kingdom proved unstable as soon as the Imperial Government made a regular and determined attack on it. Town after town fell under well-organized attacks made by the imperial troops. Tali-fu itself was besieged by the imperial Chinese. Sultan Suleiman found himself caged in by the walls of his capital. He now desperately looked for outside help. He turned to the British for military assistance. He realized that only British military intervention could have saved the Panthays.
The Sultan had reasons for his turning to the British for military aid. He had seen the British might in India on his pilgrimage to Mecca some years earlier, and was impressed by it. Britain was the only western power with whom the Sultanate was on friendly terms and had contacts with. The British authorities in India and British Burma had sent a mission led by Major Sladen to Momien from May to July 1868. The Sladen mission had stayed seven weeks at Momien. The main purpose of the mission was to revive the Ambassador Route between Bhamo and Yunnan and resuscitate border trade, which had almost ceased since 1855 mainly because of the Panthay rebellion.
Taking advantage of the friendly relations resulting from Sladen's visit, Sultan Suleiman now, in his fight for the survival of the Panthay Kingdom, turned to the British for the vitally, needed military assistance. In 1872 he sent his adopted son Prince Hassan, to England, with a personal letter to Queen Victoria, via Burma, requesting British military assistance. The Hassan Mission was accorded courtesy and hospitality in both British Burma and England. However, the British politely, but firmly, refused to intervene militarily in Yunnan against Peking. The mission was a failure. While Hassan and his party were abroad, Tali-fu was captured by the Imperial troops in January 1873.
The Imperial Government had waged an all-out war against the Panthays with the help of French artillery experts. Their modern equipment, trained personnel and numerical superiority were no match for the ill-equipped Panthays with no allies. Thus, in less than two decades of its rise, the power of the Panthays in Yunnan fell. But the Chinese suffered the loss of more than 20,000 lives in various fights. Seeing no escape and no mercy from his relentless foe, Sultan Suleiman tried to take his own life before the fall of' Tali-fu. But, before the poison he drank took effect fully, he was beheaded by his enemies. The Sultan's head was preserved in honey and then dispatched to the Imperial Court in Peking as a trophy and a testimony to the decisive nature of the victory of the Imperial Chinese over the Pantliays of Yunnan.
The scattered remnants of the Panthay troops continue their resistance after the fall of Tali-fu. But when Momien was next besieged and stormed by the imperial troops in May 1873, their resistance broke completely. Governor Ta-sa-kon was captured and executed by the order of the Imperial Government.
Many adherents to the Panthay cause were persecuted by the imperial mandarins. Wholesale massacres of' Panthays followed. Many fled with their families across the Burmese border and took refuge in the Wa State where, about 1875, they set up the exclusively Panthay town of Panglong.
For a period of perhaps ten to fifteen years following the collapse of the Yunnan Muslim Rebellion, the province's Hui minority was widely discriminated against by the victorious Qing, especially in the western frontier districts contiguous with Burma. During these years the refugee Hui settled across the frontier within Burma gradually established themselves in their traditional callings – as merchants, caravaneers, miners, restaurateurs and (for those who chose or were forced to live beyond the law) as smugglers and mercenaries.
At least 15 years after the collapse of the Yunnan Muslim Rebellion , the original Panthay settlements had grown to include numbers of Shan and other hill peoples.
Beginning from the late Konbaung period, the Panthays started to settle in the royal capital of Mandalay, particularly during the reign of King Mindon. Although their number was small, a few of them seemed to have found their way inside the court as jade-assessors. They lived side by side with non-Muslim Chinese at Chinatowns (tayoke tan), which had been designated by King Mindon as the residential area for the Chinese. The non-Muslim Chinese had started settling in Mandalay considerably earlier than the Panthays so that by the time the latter arrived, there already was a Chinese community at Mandalay, with their own bank, companies and warehouses and some kind of organized social and economic life.
It happened that there were also Chinese jade-assessors in the employ of the king. Rivalry between the Chinese and Panthay jade-assessors in courting the royal favor naturally led to a quarrel between the two groups, resulting in a number of deaths. King Mindon had not given much serious thought to the religious and social differences between the Panthays and the Chinese. He had treated the two more or less alike. But after the Chinatown quarrel, the king began to see the wisdom of separating the two groups.
It was also during this time that King Mindon granted the Panthays of the royal capital land on which to settle as a separate community, with a view to preventing further quarrels between them and the Chinese. The Panthays were given the rare favor of choosing their own place of residence within the confines of the royal capital, and they chose the site on which the present-day Panthay Compound (Chinese Muslim Quarter) is located. It was bounded on the north by 35th Street, in the south by 36th Street, in the east by 79th Street and in the west by 80th Street. This site was chosen because it was the camping ground for the mule caravans from Yunnan, which regularly came to the capital via the Theinni route.
The broadminded King Mindon also permitted a mosque to be built on the granted site so that the Panthays would have their own place of worship. Having no funds for an undertaking of such magnitude, the Panthays of Mandalay put up the matter to the Sultan of Yunnan. Sultan Sulaiman had already started a business enterprise (hao) in Mandalay.
His company was housed in a one-story brick building located at the present-day. Taryedan on the west side of the 80th Street, between 36th and 37th Streets. The hao had been carrying on business in precious stones, jades, cotton, silk and other commodities of both Chinese and Burmese origins.
The demise of the Sultanate had shattered the hopes of all the Panthays for their own Islamic kingdom in Yunnan. The blood-bath that occurred in its wake had made the decision for many Panthays: to flee the country for those who could make it, and not to return to Yunnan for those who were already outside. Colonel Mah Too-tu found himself in the same situation. When the Sultanate fell, Mah Too-tu was stranded at Mandalay. For a man of his rank and stature, going back to Tali-fu meant sure execution by the Manchu authorities. Mah Too-tu had no other alternative but to settle down in Mandalay. In November 1868 he had bought a plot of land with a house on it for 80 pieces of one-kyat coins from Khunit Ywa-sa Princess. On June 7, 1873, Mah Too-tu married Shwe Gwe, a lady from Sagyin-wa village near Amarapura, who happened to be the daughter of a princess of Manipur brought to Mandalay as a captive by the Burmese king. Mah Too-tu spent the last years of his life at the Panthay Compound with his Burmese wife.
After the mass exodus from Yunnan, the number of Panthays residing in Mandalay gradually increased. The new arrivals, usually families, came by way of Bhamo or via the Wa State. When the land for the Panthays was granted by King Mindon, there were a few houses on it, in addition to several old graves. This shows that the place had been an abandoned graveyard. In the years immediately following the completion of the mosque, the number of houses in the Panthay Compound was less than twenty. There were also between ten and twenty Panthay households living in other parts of Mandalay. But a trickle of new arrivals added to their number.
The establishment of the Panthay Mosque in 1868 marked the emergence of the Chinese Muslims as a distinct community at Mandalay. Although the number of this first generation of Panthays remained small, the Mosque, which is still standing, constitutes a historic landmark. It signifies the beginning of the first Panthay Jama'at (Congregation) in Mandalay Ratanabon Naypyidaw.
Over the next thirty or so years the Panthays of Panglong continues to prosper, though by the early 1920s a feud had begun to develop between them and the Was of neighbouring Pankawn. In 1926, this erupted into the local "Wa Panthay War", in which the latter were victorious and as a result of which Panglong threw off its vassalage to Pangkawn and reinforced its dominance over the trade routes of the region31. In addition to legitimate trading, by this time the Panthays, of Panglong were securely established as 'the aristocrats of the opium business' in the region now commonly designated the Golden Triangle, leaving the Petty and risky business of peddlings this highly profitable commodity locally to Shan and Han Chinese dealers, and instead running large, well-armed caravans in long-distance convoys far into Siam, Laos, Tonking and Yunnan. When Harvey visited Panglong in 1931 he found that Panthay numbers had risen to 5,000 ('including local recruits'), that they were financed by Singaporean Chinese, had 130 mauser rifles with 1,500 mules, and exported opium by the hundredweight into French, Siamese and British territory, each muleload escorted by two riflemen.
Meanwhile, despite the relative importance of Panglong and the profits to be made from the long-distance caravan, other Panthays moved further into Burma, initially as miners anxious to exploit the ruby mines of Mogok; the Badwin silver mines of Namtu in the Northern Shan State, the jade mines of Mogaung in Kachin State. Numbers of Panthay restaurateurs and innkeepers, merchants and traders settled in the urban centers of upland Burma – chiefly at Lashio, Kengtung, Bhamo and Taunggyi – to service the needs of theses miners, passing caravaneers and the local inhabitants, whilst other settlements largely devoted to trade with the indigenous Shan and Karen populations sprang up along the Salween River. Finally, other Panthay elements moved to the major urban centers of the Burmese lowlands, most notably to Mandalay and Rangoon, where they flourished as merchants and representatives of their up – country fellows, as well as middle-men between Panglong and the other "Overland Chinese" settlements of Upper Burma and the "Overseas Chinese" community of the lowland port-cities. Bassein and Moulmein must also have attracted some Panthay settlement, the latter port being a terminus of the overland caravan trade from Yunnan in its own right, via the northern Thai trade route through Kengtung, Chiang Mai and Mae Sariang.
During the greater part of the period of British rule in Burma these Panthay settlers flourished, specializing in all levels of commerce from the international gem markets to shop – and inn-keeping, mule-breeding and peddling or hawking – indeed Yunnanese peddlers (who may or may not have been Muslim) even penetrated into the unadministered and inaccessible hill tracts of "The Triangle" between Mali Hka and Nmai Hka, to the north of Myitkyina. Chiefly, however, beyond the urban centers of the Burmese lowlands, the Panthays continued their involvement in the caravan trade with Yunnan, transporting silk, tea, metal goods and foodstuffs (eggs, fruit, nut and even the renowned Yunnanese hams (doubtless for consumption by their Han fellow countrymen) from China to Burma, and carrying back European manufactured goods, broadcloths, specialised foodstuffs (edible birds nests, sea slugs) and above all raw cotton, to Yunnan.
In 1931 Harvey estimated the population of Panglong (which was predominantly Panthay) at 5,000 persons. Yet official estimates put the Panthay population of Burma at 2,202 for 1911 (1,427 males and 775 females), whilst by the 1921 Census of India this had declined to 1,517 (1,076 males and 441 females), and by 1931 to 1,106 (685 males and 421 females).
[edit] World War II and independence
A Census for 1941 was never taken, being interrupted by World War II and the Japanese invasion; indeed, it was as a result of the Japanese invasion the main Panthay settlement at Panglong was destroyed, and many Panthay fled to Yunnan, or crossed the largely unpoliced jungle frontiers into Thailand and Laos to escape Japanese persecution. The traditional dominance of Panthay in the trade of the Burma-Yunnan frontier region was also set back by the construction of the Burma Road between Lashio and Kunming in 1937-38, and by the exodus of thousands of Yunnanese refugees and Kuomintang troops following the seizure of power by the Chinese Communists in 1949. As a result of these developments, which brought a flood of predominantly Han, and not Hui, "Overland Chinese" to the Burmese Shan States, many Panthay seem to have chosen to migrate to northern Thailand, where their communities continue to flourish.
No comprehensive census of the remaining Panthay population within Burma has been taken since 1931, and restrictions on travel for foreigners, combined with the inherent weakness of central government control over those outlying areas of the Shan and Kachin Hills where many Panthays live, makes any attempt to calculate Burma's present (1986) Panthay population almost impossible (though an exaggerated estimate of 100,000 Panthays resident within Burma appeared in the Burmese daily Hanthawaddi in 1960. Certainly readily identifiable Panthay communities continue to exist in several areas which are open to foreign travel (Rangoon, Mandalay, Taunggyi), as well as, by report, in Kengtung, Bhamo, Mogok, Lashio and at Tanyan, near Lashio. Wherever they have settled in sufficient numbers, the Panthays have established their own mosques and madrasas (for example the Panthay Balee at Mandalay Short Lane, Rangoon, at Mandalay and in Myitkyina). Some of these mosques are in "pseudo-Moghul" style, clearly having been influenced by Indian Muslim tastes and styles, whilst others (notably at Mandalay) have Chinese architectural features. As with the Hui in China, the Burmese Panthay are exclusively Hanafi; few are conversant with more than the most elementary phrases of Arabic, and quite often when a Panthay imam is not available to care for the spiritual welfare of a community, a South Asian or Zerbadi Muslim is engaged instead.
Panthays are spread over many parts of Burma with their mosques in Yangon, Taungyi, Lashio, Tangyang, Kyaington, Pyin-Oo-Lwin, Myitkyina and Mogok.
In the pre-colonial times, the Panthays emerged as excellent long-distance caravaneers of southern China and northern Southeast Asia. They had virtually dominated the whole caravan trade of Yunnan. By the time the first agents and adventurous pioneers of the French and British imperialism arrived at the fringes of Yunnan, they found the caravan network of the region dominated by the Chinese Muslim muleteers.
The Chinese Muslim domination of the Yunnan caravan network seems to have continued well into the 20th century. By the mid 19th century the caravans of' Yunnanese traders ranged over an area extending from the eastern frontiers of Tibet, through Assam, Burma, Thailand, Laos and Tongkin (presently part of Vietnam), to the southern Chinese provinces of Sichuan, Guizhou and Guangxi.
The merchandise brought from Yunnan by the Panthay caravaneers included silk cloth, tea, metal utensils, iron in the rough, felts, finished articles of' clothing, walnuts, opium, wax, preserved fruits and foods, and dried meat of' several kinds. The Burmese goods taken back to Yunnan were raw cotton, raw and wrought silk, amber, jades and other precious stones, velvets, betel-nuts, tobacco, gold-leaf', preserves, paps, dye woods, stick lac, ivory, and specialized foodstuffs such as slugs, edible birds’ nests, among other things. Raw cotton, which was reserved as a royal monopoly, was in great demand in China. An extensive trade in this commodity had existed between the Burmese kingdom and Yunnan. It was transported up the Ayeyarwaddy River to Bhamo where it was sold to the Chinese merchants, and conveyed partly by land and partly by water into Yunnan, and from there to other provinces of China. Most caravans consisted of between fifty and one hundred mules, employing ten to fifteen drivers.
A reason for the cessation of trade by the Bhamo routes was due to King Mindon's earlier policy of confining the British to lower Burma. Mindon had feared that trade along the Bhamo route would lead to the extension of British influence to upper Burma and beyond. He did not want a fleet of British steamers to the north of the capital. He also seemed to be desirous of making Mandalay the center of trade instead of Bhamo which was difficult to control.
Later, this short-sighted policy and attitude of King Mindon gradually wore out as he began to see the practical economic and political advantages of the resuscitation of Bhamo trade to his country and people. Thus, he extended all the help he could to the Sladen mission. With the Burmese monarch favorably disposed towards it, the British mission was cordially received by the Panthay Governor of Momien, Ta-sa-kon. Due to lack of' security of the roads, Sladen was not allowed to proceed to Tali-fu to discuss matters directly with the Sultan. However, the Sultan sent letters to Momien in which he expressed the desire of the Panthay government to enter into friendly relations with the British government, and to foster mutual trade. Before returning, Sladen and the Momien Governor Ta-sa-kon, as the Sultan's personal representative, signed an agreement in which the British and the Panthays pledged to foster Yunnan-Burma trade to the best of their ability. Though far from being a satisfactory treaty to both parties, the agreement established some kind of de facto friendship between them.
Panthay. Term applied to the Chinese Muslims of Yunnan province in southwest China, and to their rebellion in the nineteenth century. Islam took root in Yunnan after the Mongol conquest of the whole of China in 1279. Under the Manchus (1644-1911), Muslims found it increasingly difficult to uphold their religious freedom in the face of oppressive Confucianism and Han chauvinism. Chief among the factors contributing to the Yunnanese Muslim rebellion of 1855-1873 were religio-cultural and economic conflicts and institutionalized oppression by Han officials. A Muslim sultanate was established at Tali, seeking military assistance from Western Powers. This was however turned down by Great Britain, and the sultanate collapsed. Many Muslims who refused to assimilate further into Confucian society fled to Burma and became the forebears of the present day Chinese Muslims in that country.
The Panthays form a group of Chinese Muslims in Burma. Some people refer to Panthays as the oldest group of Chinese Muslims in Burma. However, because of intermixing and cultural diffusion the Panthays are not as distinct a group as they once were.
Panthay is a term used to refer to the predominantly Muslim Hui people of China who migrated to Burma. They are among the largest groups of Burmese Chinese, and predominantly reside in the northern regions of Burma (formerly known as Upper Burma), particularly in the Tangyan-Maymyo-Mandalay-Taunggyi area and Shan States.
The name Panthay is a Burmese word, which is said to be identical with the Shan word Pang hse. It was the name by which the Burmese called the Chinese Muslims who came with caravans to Burma from the Chinese province of Yunnan. The name was not used or known in Yunnan itself.
Several theories have been suggested as to its derivation, but none of them is strong enough to refute the others. The Burmese word Pathi is a corruption of Persian. The Burmese of Old Burma called their own indigenous Muslims Pathi. It was applied to all Muslims other than the Chinese Muslims. The name Panthay is still applied exclusively to the Chinese Muslims. However Chinese Muslims in Yunnan did not call themselves Panthay. They called themselves Huizu, meaning Muslim in Chinese. Non-Muslim Chinese and Westerners refer to them as Huihui.
Insofar as can be ascertained, the application of the term "Panthay" to Yunnanese Muslims (and, subsequently, to Burmese Muslims of Yunnanese origin) dates from about this time; certainly it was widely employed by British travelers and diplomats in the region from about 1875, and seems to have arisen as a corruption of the Burmese word pa-the meaning simply "Muslim". A considerable body of literature exists surrounding the etymology of this term, but the definitive notice (which remains, as yet, unpublished). indicated that it was introduced by Sladen at the time of his 1868 expedition to Teng-yueh, and that it represents an anglicized and shortened version of the Burmese tarup pase, or "Chinese Muslim". In fact, the term "Panthay" was never employed by the Yunnanese Muslims (whether of China or of Burma) who prefer simply to call themselves Hui-min or Hui-hui; nor did it, apparently, enjoy widespread usage amongst the Burmans, Shan, Karen or other Burmese peoples. However, according to some the designation is virtually unused within Burma today.
Eager to establish close and friendly relations with all the neighboring states, the Sultan Suleiman of Yunnan wasted no time in seizing the opportunity of having a Chinese Muslim mosque installed at the Burmese King's capital. He at once sent out Colonel Mah Too-tu, one of his senior military officers, as his special envoy and agent to Mandalay with the important mission of constructing the mosque. The mosque took about two years to finish and was opened in 1868, the second mosque to be built in the royal capital. Today, 134 years later, the Panthay Mosque is still standing as the second oldest mosque in Mandalay.
Chinese-speaking, and of predominantly Han Chinese ethnic origin, this little-known group of Sunni Muslims of the Hanafi madhhab forms a predominantly endogamous, closely inter-related minority group in four countries – China, Burma, Thailand and Laos – and today represents both Islamic and Chinese cultures in northern Southeast Asia.
Commercial and cultural contacts between the Yun-Kwei Plateau and the Irrawaddy and lower Salween Valleys probably predate significant migration by Han Chinese of Burman populations into either area; certainly it is likely that by the time of the Later Han Dynasty (25-220 C.C.) itinerant traders and Buddhist pilgrims traversed this marginal region of the Sino-Indian cultural frontier on a regular if infrequent basis. By early Tang times, Chinese control over western Yunnan was established for the first time with the submission of the population of the Erh-Hai region, near Ra-li, in 672, and the extension of the Imperial Mandate to the region of the present-day Yunnan-Burma frontier some twenty-two later, in 694. This Han Chinese dominance was to be short-lived, however; thus, within forty-five years – about 738 – the T’ai-dominated Kingdom of Nanzhao had emerged as the dominant power of the Yunnan-Burma frontier region, a position which both it and its successor, the Kingdom of Dali, were to hold until the Mongol conquest of the region five centuries later.
Despite the political independence of the Nanzhao Kingdom, Chinese cultural influence continued to penetrate and influence the Yunnan-Burma frontier region throughout the Tang and Song dynasties. Moreover, it is possible that during the mid-Tang period – in about 801 – surrendered Muslim soldiers, described in the Chinese Annals as Hei-I Ta-shih or "Black-Robed Muslims" (a term generally applied with reference to the Abbasids) were first settled in Yunnan.
Whilst this early settlement remains in some doubt, however, it is at least certain that Muslims of Central Asian origin played a major role in the Yuan (Mongol) conquest and subsequent rule of south-west China, as a result of which a distinct Muslim community was established in Yunnan by the late 13th century A.D. Foremost amongst these soldier-administrators was Sayyid Ajjal Shams al-Din Omar, a court official and general of Turkic origin who participated in the Mongol invasion of Sichuan and Yunnan around 1252, and who became Yuan Governor of the latter province in 1274-79. Hisson Nasir-al-Din was in charge of the road systems of Yunnan and personally commanded the first Mongol invasion of Bagan in 1277-78. And his younger brother Hushin (Husayn) was Transport Commissioner in 1284 and later Senior Governor of Yunnan. Shams al-Din – who is widely believed by the Muslims of Yunnan to have introduced Islam to the region – is represented as a wise and benevolent ruler, who successfully "pacified and comforted" the people of Yunnan, and who is credited with building Confucian temples, as well as mosques and schools. On his death he was succeeded by his eldest son, Nasir al-Din (the "Nescradin" of Marco Polo), who governed Yunnan between 1279 and 1284.
During Shams al-Din’s governorship of Yunnan, Nasir al-Din was first appointed Commissioner of Roads for the province and then, in 1277-78, appointed to command the first Mongol invasion of Burma. Leading to the overthrow of the Pagan Dynasty. Subsequently, during Nasir al-Din’s Governorship, his younger brother Husayn (the third son of Sayyid al-Ajall Shams al-Din) was appointed Transport Commissioner for the province. As a result of the pre-eminence of Shams al-Din and his family during this period, a significant number of Muslim soldiers of Central Asian origin were transferred to the Dali region of western Yunnan – an area still largely unpopulated by Han Chinese settlers – and the descendants of these garrison troops, who participated in a number of Mongol invasions of Burmese territory during the Yuan period, from the nucleus of the present-day Chinese Muslim population both in Yunnan and Burma.
Over the next five hundred years this nascent Yunnanese Muslim community established itself in a position of economic and demographic strength in southern and western Yunnan – though there are few indications of significant settlement in Burmese territory before Qing times and acquired a distinctive ethnic identity through intermarriage with the local population, a process paralleled in areas of Muslim settlement elsewhere in China. Thus, following the demise of the 'Abbasids in 1258 and the related rise of the Mongol Yuan Dynasty in China, the term Ta-shih (as applied loosely both to foreign Muslims and to those settled within China) disappeared from the Chinese Annals and was gradually replaced by a new term, Hui or Hui-hui giving rise in turn to the modern Chinese term Hui-min, the recognized contemporary designation for China's Chinese speaking Muslim minority.
Within Yunnan, the Hui Muslim population seems to have flourished and expanded throughout the Yuan and Ming periods (c. 1280 – 1644). Certainly when Marco Polo visited Yunnan in the early Yuan period he noted the presence of 'Saracens" amongst the population, whilst the Persian historian Rashid al-Din (died 1318) recorded in his Jami' ut-Tawarikh that 'the great city of Yachi' in Yunnan was exclusively inhabited by Muslims. Rashid al-Din may have been referring to the region around Dali in western Yunnan, which was to emerge as the earliest center of Hui Muslim settlement in the province, though other areas of significant Muslim settlement were subsequently established in north-western Yunnan around Chao-t'ung by the Emperor Jen-tsung in about 1313 as well as – much later on, during the Qing Dynasty – in and around Qianshui in southeastern Yunnan.
The history of the Panthays in Burma was inseparably linked to that of Yunnan, their place of origin, whose population was predominantly Muslim. The Chinese Muslims of Yunnan were noted for their mercantile prowess. Within Yunnan, the Muslim population excelled as merchants and soldiers, the two qualities, which made them ideally suited to the rigors of overland trade in the rugged, mountainous regions, and to deserve the rewards therefrom. They might have been helped in this by their religion of' Islam from its inception had flourished as a Religion of Trade. The religious requirement to perform Hajj pilgrimage had also helped them to establish an overland road between Yunnan and Arabia as early as the first half of the 1300s.
During the first decades of the 19th century, population pressures on the Hui Muslim and other minority peoples of Yunnan increased substantially as a result of Han Chinese migration to the province. Resentment against this development, coupled with mounting hostility towards Qing rule, led in 1855 to the rebellion amongst Muslim miners in the Chien-shui region. Within two years, however, the center of rebellion had spread to the west of the province under the leadership of Wenxiu. For the next fifteen years, until the Qing reconquest, Dali remained the capital of Pingnan Guo (the "Country of the peaceful South"), where Tu erected a forbidden city, wore Ming dynasty dress in repudiation of Qing authority, and is reported by some sources to have adopted the Muslim name Sultan Sulayman.
Between 1648 and 1878, more than twelve million Hui and Uyghur Muslims were killed in ten unsuccessful uprisings against the Qing Dynasty. The unfavorable discrimination with which the Hui were treated by the Han and by the imperial administration was at the root of their rebellions. The Panthay Rebellion began out of a conflict between Han and Muslim tin miners in 1853, which degenerated into rebellion. In the following year, a massacre of Muslims was organized by the Qing officials responsible for suppressing the revolt. One of the leaders of the insurrection was Ma Dexin. Anxious to increase his own influence, Ma Dexin finally agreed to submit to the Qing in 1861. He was succeeded by a man called Du Wenxiu (1823 - 1872), an ethnic Hui born in Yongcheng.
Starting from 1855 the Muslim majority of Yunnan had risen against the oppression to which they were subjected by the mandarins. They rose against the tyranny and extortion universally practiced by this official class, from which they were excluded. The mandarins had secretly hounded mobs on to the rich Panthays, provoked anti-Muslim riots and instigated destruction of their mosques. The religious hatred of the Panthays was thus aroused. The widespread Muslim desire for revenge for insults to their religion led to a universal and well-planned rising.
The rebellion started as a local uprising. It was sparked off by the Panthay laborers of the silver mines of Li'nanxian village in Yunnan who rose up against the Chinese. The Chinese Governor of Yunnan sent an urgent appeal to the central government in Beijing. The Imperial Government was handicapped by problems that cropped up in profusion in various parts of the sprawling empire.
They repulsed the desultory attacks of the imperial troops. They wrested one important city after another from the hands of' the Imperial mandarins. The Chinese towns and villages which resisters were pillaged, and the male population massacred. All the places, which yielded, were spared. The ancient holy city of Tali-fu fell to the Panthays in 1857. With the capture of Tali-fu, Muslim supremacy became an established fact in Yunnan.
The Islamic Kingdom of Yunnan was proclaimed after the fall of Tali-fu. Tu Wen-hsiu, leader of the Panthays, assumed the regnal title of Sultan Suleiman and made Tali-fu his capital. In this way, the Sultanate, fashioned after those of' the Middle East, appeared in Yunnan. Panthay governorships were also created in a few important cities, such as Momein (Tengyueh), which were a few stages from the Burmese border town of Bhamo. The Panthays reached the high watermark of their power and glory in 1860.
The eight years from 1860 to 1868 were the heyday of the Sultanate. The Panthays had either taken or destroyed forty towns and one hundred villages. During this period the Sultan Suleiman, on his way to Mecca as a pilgrim, visited Rangoon, presumably via the Kengtung route, and from there to Calcutta where he had a chance to see the power of the British.
The Panthay power declined after 1868. The Chinese Imperial Government had succeeded in reinvigorating itself. By 1871, it was directing a campaign for the annihilation of the obdurate Panthays of Yunnan. By degrees the Imperial Government had tightened the cordon around the Panthays. The Panthay Kingdom proved unstable as soon as the Imperial Government made a regular and determined attack on it. Town after town fell under well-organized attacks made by the imperial troops. Tali-fu itself was besieged by the imperial Chinese. Sultan Suleiman found himself caged in by the walls of his capital. He now desperately looked for outside help. He turned to the British for military assistance. He realized that only British military intervention could have saved the Panthays.
The Sultan had reasons for his turning to the British for military aid. He had seen the British might in India on his pilgrimage to Mecca some years earlier, and was impressed by it. Britain was the only western power with whom the Sultanate was on friendly terms and had contacts with. The British authorities in India and British Burma had sent a mission led by Major Sladen to Momien from May to July 1868. The Sladen mission had stayed seven weeks at Momien. The main purpose of the mission was to revive the Ambassador Route between Bhamo and Yunnan and resuscitate border trade, which had almost ceased since 1855 mainly because of the Panthay rebellion.
Taking advantage of the friendly relations resulting from Sladen's visit, Sultan Suleiman now, in his fight for the survival of the Panthay Kingdom, turned to the British for the vitally, needed military assistance. In 1872 he sent his adopted son Prince Hassan, to England, with a personal letter to Queen Victoria, via Burma, requesting British military assistance. The Hassan Mission was accorded courtesy and hospitality in both British Burma and England. However, the British politely, but firmly, refused to intervene militarily in Yunnan against Peking. The mission was a failure. While Hassan and his party were abroad, Tali-fu was captured by the Imperial troops in January 1873.
The Imperial Government had waged an all-out war against the Panthays with the help of French artillery experts. Their modern equipment, trained personnel and numerical superiority were no match for the ill-equipped Panthays with no allies. Thus, in less than two decades of its rise, the power of the Panthays in Yunnan fell. But the Chinese suffered the loss of more than 20,000 lives in various fights. Seeing no escape and no mercy from his relentless foe, Sultan Suleiman tried to take his own life before the fall of' Tali-fu. But, before the poison he drank took effect fully, he was beheaded by his enemies. The Sultan's head was preserved in honey and then dispatched to the Imperial Court in Peking as a trophy and a testimony to the decisive nature of the victory of the Imperial Chinese over the Pantliays of Yunnan.
The scattered remnants of the Panthay troops continue their resistance after the fall of Tali-fu. But when Momien was next besieged and stormed by the imperial troops in May 1873, their resistance broke completely. Governor Ta-sa-kon was captured and executed by the order of the Imperial Government.
Many adherents to the Panthay cause were persecuted by the imperial mandarins. Wholesale massacres of' Panthays followed. Many fled with their families across the Burmese border and took refuge in the Wa State where, about 1875, they set up the exclusively Panthay town of Panglong.
For a period of perhaps ten to fifteen years following the collapse of the Yunnan Muslim Rebellion, the province's Hui minority was widely discriminated against by the victorious Qing, especially in the western frontier districts contiguous with Burma. During these years the refugee Hui settled across the frontier within Burma gradually established themselves in their traditional callings – as merchants, caravaneers, miners, restaurateurs and (for those who chose or were forced to live beyond the law) as smugglers and mercenaries.
At least 15 years after the collapse of the Yunnan Muslim Rebellion , the original Panthay settlements had grown to include numbers of Shan and other hill peoples.
Beginning from the late Konbaung period, the Panthays started to settle in the royal capital of Mandalay, particularly during the reign of King Mindon. Although their number was small, a few of them seemed to have found their way inside the court as jade-assessors. They lived side by side with non-Muslim Chinese at Chinatowns (tayoke tan), which had been designated by King Mindon as the residential area for the Chinese. The non-Muslim Chinese had started settling in Mandalay considerably earlier than the Panthays so that by the time the latter arrived, there already was a Chinese community at Mandalay, with their own bank, companies and warehouses and some kind of organized social and economic life.
It happened that there were also Chinese jade-assessors in the employ of the king. Rivalry between the Chinese and Panthay jade-assessors in courting the royal favor naturally led to a quarrel between the two groups, resulting in a number of deaths. King Mindon had not given much serious thought to the religious and social differences between the Panthays and the Chinese. He had treated the two more or less alike. But after the Chinatown quarrel, the king began to see the wisdom of separating the two groups.
It was also during this time that King Mindon granted the Panthays of the royal capital land on which to settle as a separate community, with a view to preventing further quarrels between them and the Chinese. The Panthays were given the rare favor of choosing their own place of residence within the confines of the royal capital, and they chose the site on which the present-day Panthay Compound (Chinese Muslim Quarter) is located. It was bounded on the north by 35th Street, in the south by 36th Street, in the east by 79th Street and in the west by 80th Street. This site was chosen because it was the camping ground for the mule caravans from Yunnan, which regularly came to the capital via the Theinni route.
The broadminded King Mindon also permitted a mosque to be built on the granted site so that the Panthays would have their own place of worship. Having no funds for an undertaking of such magnitude, the Panthays of Mandalay put up the matter to the Sultan of Yunnan. Sultan Sulaiman had already started a business enterprise (hao) in Mandalay.
His company was housed in a one-story brick building located at the present-day. Taryedan on the west side of the 80th Street, between 36th and 37th Streets. The hao had been carrying on business in precious stones, jades, cotton, silk and other commodities of both Chinese and Burmese origins.
The demise of the Sultanate had shattered the hopes of all the Panthays for their own Islamic kingdom in Yunnan. The blood-bath that occurred in its wake had made the decision for many Panthays: to flee the country for those who could make it, and not to return to Yunnan for those who were already outside. Colonel Mah Too-tu found himself in the same situation. When the Sultanate fell, Mah Too-tu was stranded at Mandalay. For a man of his rank and stature, going back to Tali-fu meant sure execution by the Manchu authorities. Mah Too-tu had no other alternative but to settle down in Mandalay. In November 1868 he had bought a plot of land with a house on it for 80 pieces of one-kyat coins from Khunit Ywa-sa Princess. On June 7, 1873, Mah Too-tu married Shwe Gwe, a lady from Sagyin-wa village near Amarapura, who happened to be the daughter of a princess of Manipur brought to Mandalay as a captive by the Burmese king. Mah Too-tu spent the last years of his life at the Panthay Compound with his Burmese wife.
After the mass exodus from Yunnan, the number of Panthays residing in Mandalay gradually increased. The new arrivals, usually families, came by way of Bhamo or via the Wa State. When the land for the Panthays was granted by King Mindon, there were a few houses on it, in addition to several old graves. This shows that the place had been an abandoned graveyard. In the years immediately following the completion of the mosque, the number of houses in the Panthay Compound was less than twenty. There were also between ten and twenty Panthay households living in other parts of Mandalay. But a trickle of new arrivals added to their number.
The establishment of the Panthay Mosque in 1868 marked the emergence of the Chinese Muslims as a distinct community at Mandalay. Although the number of this first generation of Panthays remained small, the Mosque, which is still standing, constitutes a historic landmark. It signifies the beginning of the first Panthay Jama'at (Congregation) in Mandalay Ratanabon Naypyidaw.
Over the next thirty or so years the Panthays of Panglong continues to prosper, though by the early 1920s a feud had begun to develop between them and the Was of neighbouring Pankawn. In 1926, this erupted into the local "Wa Panthay War", in which the latter were victorious and as a result of which Panglong threw off its vassalage to Pangkawn and reinforced its dominance over the trade routes of the region31. In addition to legitimate trading, by this time the Panthays, of Panglong were securely established as 'the aristocrats of the opium business' in the region now commonly designated the Golden Triangle, leaving the Petty and risky business of peddlings this highly profitable commodity locally to Shan and Han Chinese dealers, and instead running large, well-armed caravans in long-distance convoys far into Siam, Laos, Tonking and Yunnan. When Harvey visited Panglong in 1931 he found that Panthay numbers had risen to 5,000 ('including local recruits'), that they were financed by Singaporean Chinese, had 130 mauser rifles with 1,500 mules, and exported opium by the hundredweight into French, Siamese and British territory, each muleload escorted by two riflemen.
Meanwhile, despite the relative importance of Panglong and the profits to be made from the long-distance caravan, other Panthays moved further into Burma, initially as miners anxious to exploit the ruby mines of Mogok; the Badwin silver mines of Namtu in the Northern Shan State, the jade mines of Mogaung in Kachin State. Numbers of Panthay restaurateurs and innkeepers, merchants and traders settled in the urban centers of upland Burma – chiefly at Lashio, Kengtung, Bhamo and Taunggyi – to service the needs of theses miners, passing caravaneers and the local inhabitants, whilst other settlements largely devoted to trade with the indigenous Shan and Karen populations sprang up along the Salween River. Finally, other Panthay elements moved to the major urban centers of the Burmese lowlands, most notably to Mandalay and Rangoon, where they flourished as merchants and representatives of their up – country fellows, as well as middle-men between Panglong and the other "Overland Chinese" settlements of Upper Burma and the "Overseas Chinese" community of the lowland port-cities. Bassein and Moulmein must also have attracted some Panthay settlement, the latter port being a terminus of the overland caravan trade from Yunnan in its own right, via the northern Thai trade route through Kengtung, Chiang Mai and Mae Sariang.
During the greater part of the period of British rule in Burma these Panthay settlers flourished, specializing in all levels of commerce from the international gem markets to shop – and inn-keeping, mule-breeding and peddling or hawking – indeed Yunnanese peddlers (who may or may not have been Muslim) even penetrated into the unadministered and inaccessible hill tracts of "The Triangle" between Mali Hka and Nmai Hka, to the north of Myitkyina. Chiefly, however, beyond the urban centers of the Burmese lowlands, the Panthays continued their involvement in the caravan trade with Yunnan, transporting silk, tea, metal goods and foodstuffs (eggs, fruit, nut and even the renowned Yunnanese hams (doubtless for consumption by their Han fellow countrymen) from China to Burma, and carrying back European manufactured goods, broadcloths, specialised foodstuffs (edible birds nests, sea slugs) and above all raw cotton, to Yunnan.
In 1931 Harvey estimated the population of Panglong (which was predominantly Panthay) at 5,000 persons. Yet official estimates put the Panthay population of Burma at 2,202 for 1911 (1,427 males and 775 females), whilst by the 1921 Census of India this had declined to 1,517 (1,076 males and 441 females), and by 1931 to 1,106 (685 males and 421 females).
[edit] World War II and independence
A Census for 1941 was never taken, being interrupted by World War II and the Japanese invasion; indeed, it was as a result of the Japanese invasion the main Panthay settlement at Panglong was destroyed, and many Panthay fled to Yunnan, or crossed the largely unpoliced jungle frontiers into Thailand and Laos to escape Japanese persecution. The traditional dominance of Panthay in the trade of the Burma-Yunnan frontier region was also set back by the construction of the Burma Road between Lashio and Kunming in 1937-38, and by the exodus of thousands of Yunnanese refugees and Kuomintang troops following the seizure of power by the Chinese Communists in 1949. As a result of these developments, which brought a flood of predominantly Han, and not Hui, "Overland Chinese" to the Burmese Shan States, many Panthay seem to have chosen to migrate to northern Thailand, where their communities continue to flourish.
No comprehensive census of the remaining Panthay population within Burma has been taken since 1931, and restrictions on travel for foreigners, combined with the inherent weakness of central government control over those outlying areas of the Shan and Kachin Hills where many Panthays live, makes any attempt to calculate Burma's present (1986) Panthay population almost impossible (though an exaggerated estimate of 100,000 Panthays resident within Burma appeared in the Burmese daily Hanthawaddi in 1960. Certainly readily identifiable Panthay communities continue to exist in several areas which are open to foreign travel (Rangoon, Mandalay, Taunggyi), as well as, by report, in Kengtung, Bhamo, Mogok, Lashio and at Tanyan, near Lashio. Wherever they have settled in sufficient numbers, the Panthays have established their own mosques and madrasas (for example the Panthay Balee at Mandalay Short Lane, Rangoon, at Mandalay and in Myitkyina). Some of these mosques are in "pseudo-Moghul" style, clearly having been influenced by Indian Muslim tastes and styles, whilst others (notably at Mandalay) have Chinese architectural features. As with the Hui in China, the Burmese Panthay are exclusively Hanafi; few are conversant with more than the most elementary phrases of Arabic, and quite often when a Panthay imam is not available to care for the spiritual welfare of a community, a South Asian or Zerbadi Muslim is engaged instead.
Panthays are spread over many parts of Burma with their mosques in Yangon, Taungyi, Lashio, Tangyang, Kyaington, Pyin-Oo-Lwin, Myitkyina and Mogok.
In the pre-colonial times, the Panthays emerged as excellent long-distance caravaneers of southern China and northern Southeast Asia. They had virtually dominated the whole caravan trade of Yunnan. By the time the first agents and adventurous pioneers of the French and British imperialism arrived at the fringes of Yunnan, they found the caravan network of the region dominated by the Chinese Muslim muleteers.
The Chinese Muslim domination of the Yunnan caravan network seems to have continued well into the 20th century. By the mid 19th century the caravans of' Yunnanese traders ranged over an area extending from the eastern frontiers of Tibet, through Assam, Burma, Thailand, Laos and Tongkin (presently part of Vietnam), to the southern Chinese provinces of Sichuan, Guizhou and Guangxi.
The merchandise brought from Yunnan by the Panthay caravaneers included silk cloth, tea, metal utensils, iron in the rough, felts, finished articles of' clothing, walnuts, opium, wax, preserved fruits and foods, and dried meat of' several kinds. The Burmese goods taken back to Yunnan were raw cotton, raw and wrought silk, amber, jades and other precious stones, velvets, betel-nuts, tobacco, gold-leaf', preserves, paps, dye woods, stick lac, ivory, and specialized foodstuffs such as slugs, edible birds’ nests, among other things. Raw cotton, which was reserved as a royal monopoly, was in great demand in China. An extensive trade in this commodity had existed between the Burmese kingdom and Yunnan. It was transported up the Ayeyarwaddy River to Bhamo where it was sold to the Chinese merchants, and conveyed partly by land and partly by water into Yunnan, and from there to other provinces of China. Most caravans consisted of between fifty and one hundred mules, employing ten to fifteen drivers.
A reason for the cessation of trade by the Bhamo routes was due to King Mindon's earlier policy of confining the British to lower Burma. Mindon had feared that trade along the Bhamo route would lead to the extension of British influence to upper Burma and beyond. He did not want a fleet of British steamers to the north of the capital. He also seemed to be desirous of making Mandalay the center of trade instead of Bhamo which was difficult to control.
Later, this short-sighted policy and attitude of King Mindon gradually wore out as he began to see the practical economic and political advantages of the resuscitation of Bhamo trade to his country and people. Thus, he extended all the help he could to the Sladen mission. With the Burmese monarch favorably disposed towards it, the British mission was cordially received by the Panthay Governor of Momien, Ta-sa-kon. Due to lack of' security of the roads, Sladen was not allowed to proceed to Tali-fu to discuss matters directly with the Sultan. However, the Sultan sent letters to Momien in which he expressed the desire of the Panthay government to enter into friendly relations with the British government, and to foster mutual trade. Before returning, Sladen and the Momien Governor Ta-sa-kon, as the Sultan's personal representative, signed an agreement in which the British and the Panthays pledged to foster Yunnan-Burma trade to the best of their ability. Though far from being a satisfactory treaty to both parties, the agreement established some kind of de facto friendship between them.
Parsis
Parsis (Parsees). Persian term meaning “inhabitants of Fars,” and is given to those descendants of the Zoroastrians who, after the Arab conquest, refused to adopt Islam and migrated to India, mostly to Gujarat. From India, where they form a high-status social group, they have migrated to China, Great Britain, the United States, Australia, Pakistan, in particular to Karachi, and East Africa.
A Parsi, also spelled Parsee, is a member of a group of followers in India of the Iranian prophet Zoroaster. The Parsis, whose name means “Persians,” are descended from Persian Zoroastrians who emigrated to India to avoid religious persecution by the Muslims. They live chiefly in Bombay and in a few towns and villages mostly to the north of Bombay, but also at Karachi (Pakistan) and Bangalore (Karnataka, India). Although they are not, strictly speaking, a caste, since they are not Hindus, they form a well-defined community.
The exact date of the Parsi migration is unknown. According to tradition, the Parsis initially settled at Hormuz on the Persian Gulf, but finding themselves still persecuted they set sail for India, arriving in the 8th century. The migration may in fact have taken place as late as the 10th century, or in both. They settled first at Diu in Kāthiāwār but soon moved to Gujarāt, where they remained for about 800 years as a small agricultural community.
With the establishment of British trading posts at Surat and elsewhere in the early 17th century, the Parsis’ circumstances altered radically, for they were in some ways more receptive of European influence than the Hindus or Muslims and they developed a flair for commerce. Bombay came under the control of the East India Company in 1668, and, since complete religious toleration was decreed soon afterward, the Parsis from Gujarāt began to settle there. The expansion of the city in the 18th century owed largely to their industry and ability as merchants. By the 19th century they were manifestly a wealthy community, and from about 1850 onward they had considerable success in heavy industries, particularly those connected with railways and shipbuilding.
Contact of the Parsis with their fellow countrymen appears to have been almost completely severed until the end of the 15th century, when, in 1477, they sent an official mission to the remaining Zoroastrians in Iran, a small sect called Gabars by the Muslim overlords. Until 1768 letters were exchanged on matters of ritual and law; 17 of these letters (Rivayats)
have survived. As a result of these deliberations, in which the Parsis’ traditions were in conflict with the purer traditions of the Gabars, the Parsis, in the 18th century, split into two sects on questions of ritual and calendar.
Parsees see Parsis
Parsees see Parsis
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