Wednesday, March 8, 2023

2023: Jacob - Jalayrids

 Jacob

Jacob. See Isra'il.


Jadid, Salah
Jadid, Salah (Salah Jadid) (1926 — August 19, 1993).  Syrian politician and soldier.  He was the most influential politician in Syria from early 1966 to late 1970, when allies of Hafez al-Assad had him arrested. 

Jadid was born in Duwayr Ba’abda  in 1926.  In 1958, he was transferred to Egypt, following the establishment of the United Arab Republic.  In 1959, together with Hafez al-Assad and two other officers from the Ba’th Party, Jadid formed the secret Military Committee. 

In 1961, Jadid participated in actions taken by the Military Committee which forced Syria to leave the United Arab Republic.

In March of 1963, Jadid was central in the Ba’th takeover of Syrian politics.  In October of the same year, Jadid was promoted to chief of staff of the Syrian military forces.

In 1964, Jadid lost his position due to a power struggle in the Ba’th Party.  In February of 1966, Jadid used his military allies to take back power, and became the most powerful person in Syrian politics.  He had Nuriddin Attasi appointed prime minister.

In June of 1967, the Syrian defeat at the hands of Israel in the Six Day War dealt a heavy blow to the public opinion of Jadid’s regime.  Thus, in February of 1969, Hafez al-Assad became the real ruler of Syria, although Jadid continued to hold a strong and central position in Syrian politics.

In September of 1970, with the start of combat between the PLO and the Jordanian army, Jadid dispatched Palestinian troops, based in Syria, into Jordan in order to help the PLO.  This action was not supported by the Syrian air forces, which were under Assad’s control.  The end result was failure. 

In November 1970, Jadid attempted to fire Assad and his supporter Mustafa Tlass, which in turn caused Assad to launch an intra-party coup against Jadid, dubbed the Corrective Movement.  On November 12, 1970, Jadid was arrested by Assad’s men, and removed from power.  Jadid was subsequently imprisoned.

In 1983, Jadid was released from prison, but was placed under civil surveillance.

The politics of Jadid were strong socialist attempts to reform Syrian society.  During his period of political influence, Syria removed itself from the countries in the West, and closer to the communist bloc.


Salah Jadid see Jadid, Salah


Ja‘far al-Sadiq
Ja‘far al-Sadiq (Jaʿfar ibn Muhammad al-Sādiq) (702-765).  Last Imam recognized by both “Sevener” and “Twelver” Shi‘as.  Ja‘far al-Sadiq was the sixth imam in both Twelver and Isma‘ili traditions of Shi‘a Islam.   He was one of the most widely respected imams, respected by both Shi‘i and Sunni alike for his learning and piety.  Ja‘far al-Sadiq (the truthful) was an influential teacher, theologian and jurist.  Among his students were Abu Hanifa and Malik ibn Anas who were instrumental in the development of Sunni Islam.  While an active Shi‘a theologian, Ja‘far appears to have had a liberal view of learning and maintained an active discourse with many scholars of differing views.  While he stayed out of politics, he was imprisoned and persecuted on several occasions by the Abbasid Caliphs.

His eldest son, Isma‘il, who had been selected to be his successor, died before Jafar, resulting in a confusion in the succession.  The Isma‘ilis maintain that Isma‘il was the seventh imam even though he had no opportunity to exercise that role.

Musa al-Kazim succeeded Jafar al-Sadiq in the Twelver tradition.

Sadiq, Ja'far al- see Ja‘far al-Sadiq
The Truthful see Ja‘far al-Sadiq
Jaʿfar ibn Muhammad al-Sādiq see Ja‘far al-Sadiq


Ja‘far Celebi
Ja‘far Celebi (1459-1515). Ottoman statesman and man of letters of Amasya.  He was also a famous calligrapher and patron of poets.


Ja‘fari
Ja‘fari. Arabic term which refers to an adept of twelver Shi‘ism.  The Ja‘fari recognize the descendants of Musa, one of Ja‘far al-Sadiq’s sons and the sixth imam, as their imam.  Ja’fari is the Ithna Ashari (Twelver) Shi‘ite school of Islamic law.  It was named after Ja’far al-Sadiq (d. 765), the sixth of the Twelver imams, who is believed to be its founder.  The period of Ja’far’s leadership coincided with a period of intellectual activity in Islam, especially the systematization of the shari’a through collection of the hadith literature.  The eminent figures Abu Hanifa (d. 768) and Malik (d. 795) were occupied by the attempt to fulfill this need in Sunni Islam.  Ja‘far al-Sadiq’s Fatimid ancestry greatly enhanced his prominence in Medina, and he in effect became the fountainhead not only of the Ja‘fari school of law, but of all Shi‘ite intellectual as well as traditional sciences.  His prestigious and generally acknowledged leadership gave ultimate recognition to the line of the Husainid imams among the Shi‘ites, whereas his enlistment as an authentic transmitter of the prophetic traditions in the Sunni “chains of transmission” (isnads) gave recognition to the Ja‘fari school of law as a valid interpretation of Islamic revelation.  The emphasis on aql (the intellect) as a major source of Islamic law has become a distinguishing mark of Ja‘fari legal theory.  Today, the Ja‘fari school is regarded by the Sunni scholars of al-Azhar as the “fifth school” in addition to the four Sunni ones.


Ja‘far ibn Abi Talib
Ja‘far ibn Abi Talib (Jafar at-Tayyar) (d. 629).  Cousin of the Prophet and the elder brother of ‘Ali.  He took part in the so-called first Hijra to Abyssinia, and fell in the battle of Mu’ta.

Ja‘far ibn Abī Tālib was the son of Abu Talib ibn 'Abdul Muttalib (the uncle of the Islamic prophet Muhammad), and the elder brother of the fourth Sunni Khalīfah, Ali ibn Abi Talib. Jafar was raised by his uncle, Abbas ibn 'Abdul Muttalib, for his father was a poor man and had to support a large family.

According to the Qur'an, there was a great resemblance between Jafar and Muhammad, both in his appearance and ethics. Muhammad called him, "The father of the poor", because he used to help and support the poor with all the money he had..

Jafar left his uncle Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib’s house when he became a young man and got married to Asma bint Umays. They were among the very first persons to embrace Islam, and as a result suffered greatly at the hands of the Quraish. The Quraish restricted their movements and freedom until they could not bear it anymore. That is why Jafar went to Muhammed and obtained his permission to immigrate to Ethiopia along with a small group of Sahabas.

They settled down in this new land under the protection of Negus Ashama ibn Abjar, and for the first time since they had become Muslims they knew what freedom was, and could worship Allah without any hindrances. However, the Quraish would not let them enjoy freedom and peace for long. Soon they sent Abdullah ibn Abu Rabiah and another man from the Quraish in order to negotiate with Negus and get all the Muslims back to Mecca.

They took a lot of presents to the Negus, which pleased him a lot, and then told him that there is a group of wicked men moving about freely in his country and asked him to capture them before they caused any harm to his kingship as they did in Quraish. But the Negus refused to do that until he called them and questioned them regarding the Quraish’s allegations. So he asked the group of Muslims, among which was Jafar ibn Abu Talib, to come and meet him and the Muslims chose Jafar to be their spokesman.

The Negus asked them “what is this religion that has cut you off from your people, and made you in no need of our religion”..?

Jafar answered him saying “we were living in darkness and this religion came and commanded us to speak the truth, to honor our promises, to be kind to our relations, to cease all forbidden acts, to abstain from bloodshed. To avoid obstinacies and false witness, nor to appropriate an orphan's property or slander chaste women, Muhammed ordered us to worship Allah only and not to associate any god with Him, to uphold Salat, to give Zakat and fast in the month of Ramadan, so we believed in him and what he brought to us from Allah and we follow him in what he has asked us to do and we keep away from what he forbade us from doing.”

The Negus was eager to know more about what Jafar said, and so he asked Jafar to read him a part from what Muhammad brought concerning Allah. Jafar recited for him the first portion of Surah Maryam, which narrates the story of Jesus and his mother Mary. On hearing the words of the Quran, the Negus was moved and the bishops around him began to weep. The Negus said that he would never harm them.

However, the two Quraish emissaries did not stop at that.  They went to the Negus again and told him that the Muslims say that Jesus is a slave, and asked him to call them and ask them what they think of Jesus.

The Negus called the Muslims and asked them, so Jafar answered him saying, "Our Prophet says that Jesus is Allah’s prophet." The Negus gave back the gifts to Amr so he and his companion left broken and frustrated.

Jafar and his wife Asma spent about ten years in Ethiopia, which became a second home for them. There Asma gave birth to three children whom they named Abdullah, Muhammad and Awn. In the seventh year of the Hijra, Jafar and his family left Abyssinia with a group of Muslims and headed for Medina.

On their arrival at Medina, Muhammad was returning from the Battle of Khaybar and on seeing Jafar he was very happy and said, "I don't know which event is more cheerful - Jafar's coming or the Conquest of Khaybar!"

Muslims in general and the poor among them specifically were as happy with the return of Jafar as Muhammad was. And quickly Jafar became well known as a person who was much concerned with the welfare of the poor.

Jafar did not stay in Medina for long. In the eighth year of the Hijra, Muhammad mobilized an army to confront Byzantine forces in Syria, because a Byzantine governor had treacherously killed one of his emissaries. He appointed Zayd ibn Harithah as commander of the army and gave the following instructions: "If Zayd is wounded or killed, Jafar ibn Abu Talib would take over the command. If Jafar ibn Abu Talib is killed or wounded, then your commander would be Abdullah ibn Rawahah. If Abdullah ibn Rawahah is killed, then let the Muslims choose for themselves a commander."

Despite all the hardship they faced, the Muslim army battled the Byzantines. Zayd ibn Harithah, the beloved companion of Muhammad, was among the first Muslims who was killed in the battle. Jafar ibn Abu Talib then assumed command. Mounted on his horse, he penetrated deep into the Byzantine ranks. As he spurred his horse on, he called out: "How wonderful is Paradise as it draws near! How pleasant and cool is its drink! Punishment for the Byzantines is not far away!" Jafar continued to fight vigorously but was eventually slain.

In the battle of Mu'tah, Ja'far at-Tayyar carried the Banner of Islam and was out-numbered by the enemies and killed. The two arms of one of Muhammad's bravest followers and his army's standard-bearer, Jafar-e-Tayyar (the brother of Ali ibn Abi Talib) were cut off in the battle and he was martyred. When the news reached Muhammad he cried and prayed for Jafar's soul and the angel Gabriel came down and consoled (Muhammad), saying "Jafar was a brave and loyal soldier. God has given him everlasting life, and in place of his arms which were cut off in the battle, the Lord has given him a pair of wings".

The news of the death of the three commanders reached Muhammad in Medina. The pain and grief he felt was intense. He went to Jafar's house and met his wife Asma. She was somehow prepared to receive her absent husband. Asma said: "When the Messenger of Allah approached us, I saw a veil of sadness shrouding his noble face and I became very apprehensive. But I did not dare ask him about Jafar for fear that I would hear some unpleasant news. He greeted and asked, 'Where are Jafar's children?' I called them for him and they came and crowded around him happily, each one wanting to claim him for himself. He leaned over and hugged them while tears flowed from his eyes.

O Messenger of Allah,' I asked, 'why do you cry? Have you heard anything about Jafar and his two companions?

Yes,' he replied. 'They have attained martyrdom. The smiles and the laughter vanished from the faces of the little children when they heard their mother crying and wailing.

The tomb of Jafar was enclosed in an ornate shrine made of gold and silver made by Syedna Mohammed Burhanuddin.

The sons, daughters-in-law, and grandchildren of Jafar include:

    * Abdullah ibn Ja'far married Zaynab bint Ali. Their sons were martyred in the battle of Karbala.
    * Muhammad ibn Ja'far.
    * Awn ibn Ja'far and he married Umm Kulthum bint Ali.
    * Yahya ibn Umar-  a descendant who led a rebellion.


Jafar at-Tayyar see Ja‘far ibn Abi Talib
Tayyar, Jafar at- see Ja‘far ibn Abi Talib


Ja‘far ibn Abi Yahya
Ja‘far ibn Abi Yahya (d. 1177).  Zaydi scholar and judge of Yemen.  He played the most conspicuous role in the introduction in Yemen of the religious literature of the Caspian Zaydi community.


Jafar ibn Uthman al-Mushafi
Jafar ibn Uthman al-Mushafi (Ja‘far Sharif). (d. 982)  Arab poet.  Nineteenth century author of an authoritative account of Indian popular Islam.
Ja'far Sharif see Jafar ibn Uthman al-Mushafi


Jaghmini, al-
Jaghmini, al-.  The name of a thirteenth century Arab astronomer and a fourteenth century Persian physician.

The Arab astronomer al-Jaghmini  (d. 1221) wrote a treatise of astronomy which was frequently commented upon by scholars. The treatise was titled al-Mulakhkhas fi al-hay'ah (Compendium of the Science of Astronomy).

The Persian Mahmud ibn Muhammad ibn Umar Jaghmini, or al-Jaghmini  (d. 1344) was a 14th century Persian physician. He was born at Jaghmin, a village in Khwarezm (Khiva), current day Uzbekistan.

Little is known of his life. He is known only through his very short epitome of The Canon of Medicine by Avicenna that was written in Persian and titled Qanunshah. It proved so popular as to become the subject of commentaries, and several attempts were made to set the Qanunshah in verse.

There is considerable testimony to its being used in schools for teaching medicine in the eastern provinces of the Islamic world.

Mahmud ibn Muhammad ibn Umar Jaghmini see Jaghmini, al-.


Jah, Mukarram

Nizam Mir Barkat Ali Khan Siddiqi Mukarram Jah, Asaf Jah VIII (b. October 6, 1933, Hilafet Palace, Nice, France – d. January 15, 2023, Istanbul, Turkey), less formally known as Mukarram Jah, was the Nizam of Hyderabad between 1967 and 1971. He was the head of the House of Asaf Jah until his death in 2023.


Born as the eldest son of Azam Jah and Durrusehvar Sultan, he was named successor to the title of Nizam of Hyderabad by his grandfather Mir Osman Ali Khan. Upon Osman's death in 1967, he became the titular Nizam. He lost his titles and the privy purses (the sovereign's private income from royal lands) in 1971, when the 26th Amendment to the Indian constitution was passed.


Jah subsequently moved to Australia, where he stayed at the Murchison House Station.  While the prince remained in Australia, his palaces in Hyderabad were encroached upon and fell into disrepair. Numerous divorce settlements and failed business ventures led to the loss of the majority of his fortune. In 1996, he moved to Turkey where he remained until his death in 2023. Jah was buried in Hyderabad at the Mecca Masjid.


Jah chaired the H.E.H. The Nizam's Charitable Trust and the Mukarram Jah Trust for Education & Learning (MJTEL).


Mukarram Jah was born to Azam Jah, the son and heir of Osman Ali Khan, the last reigning Nizam of Hyderabad state, by his wife Princess Durru Shehvar, daughter of the last Caliph of the Ottoman Empire, Abdulmejid II. Jah was educated in India at the Doon School in Dehradun and in England at Harrow and Peterhouse, Cambridge.  He also studied at the London School of Economics and at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. 


Jah stayed at Teen Murti Bhavan in New Delhi for a while and briefly served as an honorary aide-de-camp of Jawaharlal Nehru. He became the titular Nizam of Hyderabad after the death of his grandfather in 1967.


In 1972, Jah visited Australia and came across the Murchison House Station. He bought the farm and permanently moved to Australia.


In 1996, Jah sold the farm and moved to Turkey shortly thereafter.


Due to the efforts of his former wife, Princess Esra Birgin, the  two main palaces in Hyderabad, Chowmahalla and Falaknuma,  have been restored and opened to the public, the former as a museum showcasing the era of the Nizams and the latter as a luxury hotel. The Taj Falaknuma Palace Hotel opened in February 2010, having been leased to the Taj Group, after some ten years of renovations.


Like his grandfather, Mukarram was the richest man in India until the 1980s. However, in the 1990s, he lost some assets to divorce settlements. His net worth was nevertheless estimated at $US 2 billion.


Jah died on January 15, 2023, at the age of 89. According to Jah's wish his funeral took place in Hyderabad which was the former capital of Hyderabad State and of the Nizam of Hyderabad on January 18, 2023.  His remains were laid in state at the Chowmahalla Palace, where family members and government officials paid their respects. In the evening of January 18, 2023, Jah was buried at the Mecca Masjid in Hyderabad. 


Mukarram Jah married five times. His first wife was a Turkish noble woman, Esra Birgin (b. 1936), and they married in 1959. In 1972, Jah left his Hyderabad palace for a sheep station in the Australian outback and divorced his wife, who did not want to move with him. In 1979, he married a former air hostess and employee of the BBC, Helen Simmons (b. 1949 – d. 1989). She converted to Islam and changed her name to Aysha. After Aysha's death, he married Manolya Onur (b. 1954 – d. 2017), a former Miss Turkey in 1992, and divorced her after a five-year marriage in 1997.


Jah also married Jameela Boularous (b. 1972), from Morocco, in 1992, and, in 1994, he married Princess Ayesha Orchedi (b. 1959), who is Turkish.

 

Jah had six children from his marriages:


By Esra Birgin, Mukarram Jah had one son and one daughter:

  • Walashan Nawab Sahibzada Mir Azmat Ali Khan Siddiqi Bayafendi Bahadur (b. 1960), also known as Azmat Jah; and
  • Sahibzadi Shehkyar Unisa Begum (b. 1964);

By Helen Simmons, he had two sons:

  • Walashan Nawab Sahibzada Mir Alexander Azam Khan Siddiqi Bayafendi Bahadur (b. 1979): and
  • Walashan Nawab Sahibzada Mir Mohammod Umar Khan Siddiqi Bayafendi Bahadur (b. 1984 - d. 2004);

By Manolya Onur, he had a daughter:

  • Sahebzadi Nilufer Unisa Begum (b. 1992); and

By Jameela Boularous, he had a daughter:

  • Sahebzadi Zairin Unisa Begum (b. 1994).



Jahangir
Jahangir (1569-1627) (Nur-ud-din Salim Jahangir)  (Al-Sultan al-'Azam wal Khaqan al-Mukarram, Khushru-i-Giti Panah, Abu'l-Fath Nur-ud-din Muhammad Jahangir Padshah Ghazi [Jannat-Makaani]) (September 20, 1569 – November 8, 1627) (OS August 31, 1569  – NS November 8, 1627). Ruler of the Mughal Empire from 1605 until his death in 1627. The name Jahangir is from Persian, meaning "Conqueror of the World". Nur-ud-din or Nur al-Din is an Arabic name which means " Light of the Faith."

The son of Akbar, in 1599, Jahangir revolted against his father, but was nevertheless confirmed as his successor. 

Jahangir was born to a Rajput princess, daughter of the raja of Amber.  Akbar named him Muhammad Sultan Salim after the famous saint Shaikh Salim Chishti, whose blessings he had sought for the birth of a son.  Eminent tutors such as Abdur Rahim Khan-i Khanan looked after Salim’s education.  During the last years of Akbar’s reign court intrigues forced Salim to rebel against his father but he soon became reconciled with him.  On Akbar’s death in 1605, with the support of nobles like Nawab Murtaza Khan, Salim ascended the throne as Nuruddin Muhammad Jahangir.  He soon remitted certain taxes and duties, allowed regular inheritance of the property of nobles, prohibited the cutting of limbs of criminals, and built many hospitals.

Jahangir married Nur Jahan, widow of Sher Afghan, in 1611.  Gradually Nur Jahan became a power in politics, her relatives rose to important positions in the administration, and the Irani faction came to dominate the nobility.  Politics at the court led to the revolt by Jahangir’s son Shah Jahan, an attempted coup by the noble Mahabat Khan, and other contumacious activities.  Jahangir’s eldest son, Khusraw, who revolted in 1606, had been supported by the Sikh Guru Arjun, who was then put to death by the emperor.  This punishment laid the foundations of the deep-rooted hostility which has continued to embitter the relations between the Indian Muslims and the Sikhs over the centuries. 

Jahangir subjugated Mewar (in 1614), conquered Ahmadnagar (in 1616), captured Kangra (in 1620), but lost Qandahar (Kandahar) (in 1622).  He maintained good relations with the Portuguese, the Jesuits, and the English, whose envoys visited his court.  Some cases of conflict with the Europeans are also recorded.  He did not interfere in religion and abandoned Akbar’s experiments in religious leadership.  Jahangir was a kind-hearted person with a deep sense of justice.  He was also devoted to the arts.  Under him painting reached a high-point of development, Persian and Hindi literature flourished, and architecture was patronized.  His memoirs throw interesting light on his policies and personality.


Nur-ud-din Salim Jahangir see Jahangir
"Conqueror of the World" see Jahangir
"Light of the Faith" see Jahangir

Jahangir, Asma
Asma Jilani Jahangir (Urdu: عاصمہ جہانگیر‎, transliteration 'Asimah Jahangir,  January 27, 1952 – February 11, 2018) was a Pakistani human rights lawyer and social activist who co-founded and chaired the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.  She was widely known for playing a prominent role in the Lawyers' Movement and served as the United Nations Special Rapporteur  on Freedom or Belief and as a trustee at the International Crisis Group.
Born and raised in Lahore, Jahangir studied at the Convent of Jesus and Mary before receiving her B.A. from Kinnaird and LLB from the Punjab University in 1978. In 1980, she was called to the Lahore High Court, and to the Supreme Court in 1982. In the 1980s, Jahangir became a democracy activist and was imprisoned in 1983 for participating in the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy against the military regime of Zia-ul-Haq. In 1986, she moved to Geneva, and became the vice-chair of the Defence for Children International and remained until 1988 when she moved back to Pakistan.
In 1987, Jahangir co-founded the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan and became its Secretary General until 1993 when she was elevated as the commission's chairperson. She was again put under house arrest in November 2007 after the imposition of emergency. After serving as one of the leaders of the Lawyers' Movement, she became Pakistan's first woman to serve as the President of Supreme Court Bar Association. She co-chaired South Asia Forum for Human Rights and was the vice president of International Federation for Human Rights. Jahangir served as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion from August 2004 to July 2010, including serving on the United Nations panel for inquiry into Sri Lankan human rights violations and on a fact-finding mission on Israeli settlements.  In 2016, she was named as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Iran, remaining until her death in February 2018.
Jahangir's prominent writings include The Hudood Ordinance: A Divine Sanction? and Children of a Lesser God.

Jahanka
Jahanka.  In the purest sense of the word, the Jahanka (Jahanke, Jahaanke, Diakhanke) are not an ethnic group.  They do not speak a language widely considered as their own, nor do they inhabit a particular area thought clearly to be “Jahanka territory.”  The Jahanka are a group of clans, originally Soninke, who over a period of several centuries have come to recognize their unique identity.  This identity is based in part on a common heritage, in part on close lineage relationships and in part on the strongest Muslim clerical, educational and magical tradition in all of West Africa.

Understanding the nature of Jahanka ethnicity requires knowledge of their history and of their long tradition of Islamic scholarship, education and magical activity.  The Jahanka claim their place of origin to have been Ja (Dia), in Masina on the Niger River in modern Mali, but they uniformly look to a period of residence in Jahaba (“Great Jaha”), on the Baling River east of the modern Mali-Senegal border as the formative period of their ethnicity.  It was in Jahaba, living together, that four major Soninke lineages came under the religious influence of one of West Africa’s greatest clerics of all time, al-Hajj Salim Suwari.  The most persuasive evidence suggests that this influential residence took place late in the fifteenth or early in the sixteenth century. 

Carrying with them the prestige of Suwari’s teachings, the Jahanka (which means “the people of Jaha”) spread from Jahaba south towards Futa Jalon and west towards the mouth of the Gambia River.  In these regions, they established their own villages and took on the status of being the region’s most specialized clerical elite.  Jahanka clericalism was not like any other, however.  It was based upon Suwari’s esoteric interpretation of Muslim scriptures and upon his staunchly held principles of avoidance of political affiliation and pacifism.  In a region that witnessed widespread Muslim militancy, the Jahanka disdained jihad, and they never felt driven to proselytize.  Their specialty became what might loosely be called “Suwarian magic,” which includes divination, offering prayers, making charms and practicing medicine for others -- all grounded in Suwari’s symbolic interpretation of scriptures and his special ways of construing charms and healing.

As with many West African groups, slavery among the Jahanka is an institution that was once widely recognized but is now not so openly discussed.  Large Jahanka famiilies sometimes measured their wealth and status by the numbers of slaves they possessed.  For these reasons, the Jahanka clung to the institution long after colonial governments made slavery illegal.  In fact, according to scholars who lived and studied the Jahanka slavery was still commonly practiced among the Jahanka as late as the 1970s.  For many purposes the institution of slavery (among the Jahanka) continues to exist today and slave families remain distinctly separate from the free-born.




Jahanke see Jahanka.
Jahaanke see Jahanka.
Diakhanke see Jahanka.


Jahan-suz, ‘Ala’ al-Din
Jahan-suz, ‘Ala’ al-Din (‘Ala’ al-Din Jahan-suz).  Ghurid ruler (r. 1149-1161) and poet.  He is notorious for his burning of Ghazna in 1151.
'Ala' al-Din Jahan-suz see Jahan-suz, ‘Ala’ al-Din


Jahirids
Jahirids (Banu Jahir).  Name of a dynasty of viziers during the protectorate of the Great Saljuqs between 1150 and 1240.


Banu Jahir see Jahirids
Jahir, Banu see Jahirids

Jahiz
Jahiz (Al-Jahiz) (Abu ‘Uthman ‘Amr ibn Bahr al-Basri al-Jahiz) (Abu ‘Uthman ‘Amr ibn Bahr al-Kinani al-Fuqaimi al-Basri al-Jahiz) (Abu Uthman Amr ibn Bahr al-Kinani al-Fuqaimi al-Basri) (776/781 – December 868/January 869). A famous Arab scholar. One of his grandparents was a Zanj slave.  He was born in Basra.  The name al-Jahiz (“The Goggle-Eyed”) was actually the nickname of ‘Amr ibn Bahr of Basra (Iraq).  Al-Jahiz was the grandson of an African (Zanj) slave.  He studied in Basra, a major intellectual center, under several well known Islamic scholars.  Al-Jahiz belonged to an average working class family.  During his late teens while continuing his study, he helped his father in the fish market.  Recognizing his more productive talents, one day his mother presented him with a tray of paper notebooks suggesting that he earn his living by means of writing.  This incident helped to launch what was to become an illustrious career that lasted more than sixty years.

Al-Jahiz’s earliest writing on the Institution of the Caliphate was well received at the court of Baghdad.  Around 815, al-Jahiz moved to Baghdad, a city founded about fifteen years before his birth as the seat of the Abbasid Caliphate and the capital of the Islamic Empire (excluding Andalusia, i.e., Spain, Portugal and southern France).  He continued to write on a variety of subjects and was well respected at the Caliph’s court.  Although he was admired by court officials, he never worked for them nor held any official position.

Al-Jahiz wrote more than two hundred works but only thirty are extant.  His works included zoology, Arabic grammar, poetry, rhetoric and lexicography.  He is considered to be one of the few Muslim scientists who wrote on scientific and complex subjects for the non-specialists and common people.  His writings contain many anecdotes regardless of the subject he is discussing to make his point and to bring out both sides of an argument.  Some of his famous books are: The Book of Animals, The Art of Keeping One’s Mouth Shut, Against Civil Servants, Arab Food, In Praise of Merchants,  and Levity and Seriousness.  Al-Jahiz’s most famous book Kitab al-Hayawan (Book of Animals) is an encyclopedia of seven large volumes.  He was rewarded with 5,000 gold dinars from the court official to whom he dedicated the Book of Animals. 

Kitab al-Hayawan contains an amazing array of scientific information that was not to be fully developed until the first half of the twentieth century.  Al-Jahiz discusses his observation in detail on the social organization of ants, animal communication and psychology, and the effects of diet and climate.  He described how ants store and preserve grain in their nests during the rainy season.  He suggested an ingenious way of expelling mosquitoes and flies from a room based on his observation that some insects are responsive to light.  Al-Jahiz expounded on the degree of intelligence of animal species and insects.  He also observed that certain parasites adapt to the color of their host, and expounded on the effects of diet and climate not only on men but also on animals and plants.

Eighty-seven folios of The Book of Animals (about one-tenth of the original text by al-Jahiz) are preserved in Ambrosiana Library in Milan.  This collection (a copy of the original) dates from the 14th century and bears the name of the last owner ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Maghribi and the year 1615.  These folios of The Book of Animals contain more than 30 illustrations in miniature. 

As was common with writings of Muslim scientists of the golden age (eighth to tenth centuries), al-Jahiz recognized the signs of Allah (The One and Only God) in the creation.  In The Book of Animals, al-Jahiz wrote that a pebble proves the existence of Allah just as much as a mountain, and the human body is evidence as strong as the universe -- for the small and slight carries as much weight as the great and vast.

Al-Jahiz was also a famous Arab prose writer.  A master of the Arabic language, he wrote on literature, Mu’tazili theology and politico-religious polemics, showing a thirst for learning, a remarkably inquisitive mind and a great sense of humor.  Among his main prose works are The Book of Elegance of Expression and Clarity of Exposition and The Book of Misers.

Al-Jahiz was a theologian -- some of his theological treatises survive -- but he is better known as an exponent of belles-lettres.  Al-Jahiz was also one of the first writers of what came to be known as “Adab” – “Culture” or “Romance” -- literature.   Adab originated for the purpose of providing handbooks of etiquette and useful information for court secretaries, but it quickly developed, and Adab works became encyclopedias of useful and entertaining knowledge for the educated man.

Arabic literature is very largely compilatory.  A great number of books consist almost entirely of quotations from other authors.  This reflects, in other fields, the importance attached by Muslims to a reliable authority for any religious tradition. 

Al-Jahiz’s greatest works, The Book of Eloquence and Exposition and The Book of Animals, are large compilations containing a quantity of more or less related information concerning, in the first case, the Arabic language, in the second, animals.  Information of scientific value is interspersed with anecdotes, scraps of verse and frequent scarcely relevant digressions.  The object of these works seems to be as much to entertain as to instruct, but they did provide a mass of information otherwise difficult to find, since manuscripts of certain works might not be readily available, and there was, in any case, no way of referring to a page when the pagination of no two manuscripts corresponded.

Al-Jahiz’s books, like those of so many Arab authors, seem to be formless.  Little importance seems to have been attached to form, in a book, or even in a sentence.  It is considered only when a work of conscious artistry is being composed, such as the Maqamat of al-Hamadhani or al-Hariri.  Even then the artistic unit is very small, and the author is concerned only with the arrangement of his words and figures of speech in a sentence, or at most in a paragraph. Digression is always likely in Arabic literature since Arab writers seem far more interested in imparting information than in composing an artistic whole.

Al-Jahiz is often considered one of the most entertaining of Arab authors.  Among the many shorter treatises that are attributed to al-Jahiz are The Book of Misers, The Merits of the Turks, The Superiority of Speech to Silence and The Book of the Crown.   

Al-Jahiz

returned to Basra after spending more than fifty years in Baghdad.  He died in Basra in 868 as a result of an accident in which he was crushed to death by a collapsing pile of books in his private library.

As the first important Arabic prose writer, al-Jahiz employed his vast erudition and innovative stylistic technique to free the Arabic language from its theological and philological restraints, making it a tool for the long-term cultural cohesion of the diverse cutures of Islam.

Al-Jahiz may have been the child of East African slaves, who were numerous in southern Iraq in the eighth and ninth centuries.  His ancestry is uncertain, however.  The sobriquet al-Jahiz (goggle-eyed) refers to a remarkable physical condition which observers may have attributed to African origins.  People of his time described al-Jahiz as an exceptionally ugly individual.

Al-Jahiz studied in his hometown of Basra, then went off to Baghdad for advanced education.  He appears to have been employed early as a clerical official or copyist for the government.  His unusual stylistic flair came to the attention of high officials, and the Abbasid caliph al-Ma’mun (813-833) commissioned him to write a series of essays justifying the Abbasid seizure of power from the previous Umayyad dynasty in Damascus around 750.  According to some sources, the caliph once considered employing al-Jahiz as a personal tutor for his sons, but was so unnerved by his physical appearance that he decided against him.  (In fairness to the caliph, it should be noted that al-Jahiz also had a reputation for having a bitter and irascible temperament.)

Al-Jahiz was an active and productive individual, involved, like many Muslim intellectuals of this time, in a variety of arenas.  He followed the rationalist Mutazilite school of Islamic thought, which reveled in logical analysis and lively debate; the Mutazilite sect which he founded appears to have espoused some radical theological views.  Al-Jahiz was fond of defending unpopular positions in public debate even when he did not personally agree with them.  He also dabbled in the natural sciences.  His zoological treatise, Kitab al-hayawan (Book of Animals), constituted one of the earliest attempts in Islam to formulate orders of living things.  Of the more than 120 works attributed to al-Jahiz by thirteenth century geographer/biographer Yaqut, however, only a few are extant. 

Al-Jahiz, who was fluent in Greek as well as Arabic, borrowed heavily from the Hellenistic tradition, frequently quoting or citing Aristotle and other Greek intellectual figures.  Among Arabic scholars of his time, he was one of the most inclined to acknowledge his debt to Greek learning. 

The literary career of al-Jahiz owes much to the development in Islam of the concept of adab, or high culture.  Adab demanded of its practitioners not only an eclectic knowledge base but also certain mannerisms and styles of expression considered appropriate to a cultivated intellectual elite.  The content of adab might vary according to the personality of the individual. Theology and Islamic canon law (shari‘a) were considered appropriate subject matter.  The keystone of adab, however, was literary and rhetorical expression.  Eloquence was considered one of the essential virtues.  Indeed, in rigorously pious circles the spoken word was one of the few forms of emotional expression to which one might manifest visible reaction.  Conventions of verbal elegance soon came to be applied in literary practice as well, so that good writing was elevated alongside rhetoric as a quality of the cultivated.

The evolution of adab raised difficulties concerning the heretofore restricted and unimaginative use of Arabic in written form.  Written Arabic often adhered slavishly to Qur’anic expression and, in al-Jahiz’s age, prose style was rigid and inflexible.  Writers were essentially clerks and secretaries who compiled rather than created.  There was a heavy emphasis on such traditional topics as the life of Muhammad and early Islam, as well as a consuming regard for philology at the expense of experiment.  Matters of everyday life and those not directly related to the Qur’an or canon law were addressed only in poetry.

Al-Jahiz sensed that Arabic literary expression was at a dead end -- that if the then current trends continued, Arabic would soon be relegated to use in religious observances only.  To overcome this problem, he struck out in new directions with a prose style intended, as he described it, to be both educational and entertaining and to reach a broader segment of the literate public.  Al-Jahiz combined a witty and satirical style with his breadth of learning to produce a large corpus of works on all aspects of contemporary life.  He made extensive use of anecdotes to make his writing accessible by varying its structure and pace.  Al-Jahiz’s frequent use of a rhymed, cadenced prose style call saj’ deeply influenced adab culture even in media such as personal correspondence.  He was also one of the first Arabic writers to employ irony as a literary device.

Among the surviving works of al-Jahiz, one that well illustrates his style is Kitab al-bukhala’ (Book of Misers), in which he rebukes members of the Persian urban middle class, contrasting their behavior with the generosity of the Arabs.  It is not the dubious ethnic stereotypes that make this work interesting, however, but rather the manner of presentation.  Marked by witty, vibrant prose, the work is filled with anecdotes about well-known past and contemporary figures who serve as negative examples of the virtue of generosity.  Some have suggested that the format and style of the work continues in Arabic a tradition going back to Theophrastus’ Characteres ethikoi (The Moral Characters, c. 319 B.C.T., also known as The Moral Characters of Theophrastus or Characters).  These comments are made because al-Jahiz replicates the Greek philosopher’s brief and vigorous descriptions of moral character types.

Never one to dodge controversy, al-Jahiz wrote on a wide variety of issues of the time.  In his Kitab al-Bayan wa-al-Tabyin (Book of Eloquence and Exposition), he attacked the populist Shu‘ubi movement, which proclaimed the superiority of non-Arabs over Arabs in religius and cultural achievement.  Not surprisingly, many Shu‘ubis were Persians, who, in the view of al-Jahiz, were most responsible for the clerical and bureaucratic pedantry to which Arabic literature had been reduced.  Besides an essay which extolled the virtues of the Turks, al-Jahiz wrote one on black Africans and several on corruption and venality in government.

If al-Jahiz was something of a muckraker, he was also a devout Muslim.  Deeply convinced by what he saw as a growing cynicism and infidelity among the literate classes, he never lost an opportunity to weave theology into his commentaries on everyday life and his descriptions of exemplary behavior.

As a scholar and man of letters, al-Jahiz had a lasting effect on Islamic culture.  His zoological treatise which, though wide-ranging and imaginative, treats zoology almost as a branch of philology and literature, found many emulators.  Among them were the cosmographer al-Qazwini and the thirteenth century Egyptian scientist al-Damiri, generally regarded as the greatest Muslim figure in early zoology.

Al-Jahiz changed for all time the nature and function of Arabic prose.  Without al-Jahiz, the development of Arabic secular writing would have been almost unthinkable.  No longer would Arabic be restricted merely to government reports, theology, and the recounting of the life of Muhammad and the Arab conquests.  No longer would Arabic literacy be limited to a privileged few.  Al-Jahiz showed that Arabic is a subtle and supple literary language, able to express the entire spectrum of human activity and desire, a vehicle in which literary devices could be exploited to their fullest effect.

Al-Jahiz was to become something of a cultural hero in Muslim Spain, settling of one of the greatest cultural flowerings in the medieval world.  Spanish Muslims who traveled to Syria and Iraq to study heard al-Jahiz lecture and eagerly sought copies of his manuscripts to take home, where they became models of literary style for several centuries to come.





Abu 'Uthman 'Amr ibn Bahr al-Kinani al-Fuqaimi al-Basri al-Jahiz see Jahiz
The Goggle-Eyed see Jahiz
'Amr ibn Bahr see Jahiz
Abu 'Uthman 'Amr ibn Bahr al-Basri al-Jahiz see Jahiz
Abu Uthman Amr ibn Bahr al-Kinani al-Fuqaimi al-Basri see Jahiz


Jahshiyari, Abu ‘Abd Allah al-
Jahshiyari, Abu ‘Abd Allah al- (Abu ‘Abd Allah al-Jahshiyari).  Tenth century scholar of Kufa.  He wrote a work on the history of the viziers until 908.
Abu 'Abd Allah al-Jahshiyari see Jahshiyari, Abu ‘Abd Allah al-


Jaish-e-Mohammed
Jaish-e-Mohammed (Army of Mohammed) (Jaish-e-Muhammed) (Jaish-e-Mohammad) (Jaish-e-Muhammad),.  Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed (JEM) was greatly expanded after Maulana Masood Azhar, a former ultra-fundamentalist Harakat ul-Ansar (HUA) leader, formed the group in February 2000.  The group’s aim was to unite Kashmir with Pakistan.  It was politically aligned with the radical, pro-Taliban, political party, Jamiat-i Ulema-i Islam (JUI-F).  The JEM maintained training camps in Afghanistan.  Most of the JEM’s cadre and material resources were drawn from the militant groups Harakat ul-Jihad al-Islami (HUJI) and the Harakat ul-Mujahedin (HUM).  The JEM had close ties to Afghan Arabs and the Taliban.  Osama bin Laden was suspected of giving funding to the JEM.  A group by this name claimed responsibility for the U.S.S. Cole attack.

Jaish-e-Mohammed was a major Islamic mujahedeen organization based in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. The group's primary motive was to separate Kashmir from India and it carried out several attacks primarily in Indian-administered Kashmir. It was banned in Pakistan after 2002, yet continued to operate several facilities in Pakistan.

Jaish-e-Mohammed was viewed by some as the principal terrorist organization in Jammu and Kashmir. The group was regarded as a terrorist organization by several countries, including India, the United States and the United Kingdom.

Jaish-e-Mohammed was formed in the mid 1990s in Pakistan after supporters of Maulana Masood Azhar split from Harkat-ul-Mujahideen. The group, in coordination with Lashkar-e-Tayiba, was implicated in the 2001 Indian Parliament attack in New Delhi.
It was also suspected in the murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl in Karachi.
   
An informant, posing as a member of Jaish-e-Mohammed, helped police to arrest four people allegedly plotting to bomb a New York City synagogue as well as to shoot Stinger missiles at military aircraft in the United States. The arrest of the four took place in May 2009. One of the four, by the name of James Cromitie, allegedly expressed the desire to join Jaish-e-Mohammed. This expression allegedly took place approximately a year prior to the arrests.

On December 9, 2009, five Muslim Americans, who knew each other from the ICNA Center in Arlington, Virginia, were detained in Pakistan during a police raid. The men had met with Jaish-e-Muhammed in Pakistan and offered their assistance in jihadi attacks. The house they were detained in was occupied by Khalid Farooq, the father of one of the men. He was suspected of ties to Jaish-e-Muhammed, to which the house itself was also linked.

Army of Mohammed see Jaish-e-Mohammed
JEM see Jaish-e-Mohammed
Jaish-e-Muhammed see Jaish-e-Mohammed
Jaish-e-Mohammad see Jaish-e-Mohammed
Jaish-e-Muhammad see Jaish-e-Mohammed


Jajarmi, Muhammad ibn Badr
Jajarmi, Muhammad ibn Badr (Muhammad ibn Badr Jajarmi). Fourteenth century Persian poet.  He is known for his extensive anthology of poetry, the autograph of which attracted the attention of art historians for its miniatures.
Muhammad ibn Badr Jajarmi see Jajarmi, Muhammad ibn Badr


Jalal al-Dawla, Abu Tahir
Jalal al-Dawla, Abu Tahir (Abu Tahir Jalal al-Dawla) (Abu Tahir Jalal al-Daula) (993/994-March 1044). Member of the Buyid dynasty.  He was governor of Basra and fought the Buyid ruler Abu Kalijar al-Marzuban and, in the end, left the Buyid kingdom in a state of the deepest degradation.

Abu Tahir Jalal al-Daula was the Buyid amir of Iraq (1027-1044). He was the son of Baha' al-Daula.

In 1012, Jalal al-Daula's father died. His brother, Sultan al-Daula came to the throne and appointed him as governor of Basra. He ruled there up until Musharrif al-Daula, who had taken control of Iraq, died in 1025. His death caused a succession crisis. The army took more than two years before choosing Jalal al-Daula as his successor in June of 1027. He subsequently became involved in a bitter fight with his nephew Abu Kalijar, who controlled Fars and Kerman. The two Buyids were not always enemies; for example, Jalal al-Daula provided support to Abu Kalijar when the Ghaznavids invaded Kerman in 1033.

Jalal al-Daula was, however, also forced to deal with problems in his own realm, which consisted of little more than Baghdad and Wasit following Abu Kalijar's seizure of Basra. His army was continually hostile, a situation which devolved to the point where the caliph often acted as a mediator between the amir and his troops. A mutiny led by a Turk named Barstoghan in 1036 or 1037 was, therefore, not surprising. The revolt provided Abu Kalijar with an opportunity to invade. He failed to take Baghdad, but gained Jalal al-Daula's allegiance. The latter, however, had the support of the Uqailid amir of Mosul and the Arab tribe of the Asadids, and he was soon restored to his full power as an independent ruler. Jalal al-Daula continued his rule in Iraq until his death in 1044, following which Abu Kalijar managed to gain control of Iraq.
Dawla, Abu Tahir Jalal al- see Jalal al-Dawla, Abu Tahir
Abu Tahir Jalal al-Dawla see Jalal al-Dawla, Abu Tahir
Abu Tahir Jalal al-Daula see Jalal al-Dawla, Abu Tahir


Jalal al-Din ‘Arif
Jalal al-Din ‘Arif (Celaleddin Arif) (1875-1930).  Turkish lawyer and statesman. 
'Arif, Jalal al-Din see Jalal al-Din ‘Arif
Arif, Celaleddin see Jalal al-Din ‘Arif
Celaleddin Arif see Jalal al-Din ‘Arif


Jalal al-Din Khwarazm-Shah
Jalal al-Din Khwarazm-Shah (Mingburnu or Mangubirti).  Last ruler of the dynasty of the Khwarazm-Shahs (r. 1220-1231).  Pursued by the Mongol Jenghiz Khan, he escaped across the Indus, fought in Azerbaijan and Georgia and met his death near Mayyafariqin.

Jalal ad-Din Mingburnu. also known as Jelal ad-Din Manguberdi or Minkburny in the east (Persian: جلال الدین منگبرنی) was the last ruler of the Khwarezmid Empire. Following the defeat of his father, Ala ad-Din Muhammad II by Genghis Khan in 1220, Jelal ad-Din Manguberdi came to power but he rejected the title shah that his father had assumed and called himself simply sultan. Due to the Mongol invasion and sacking of Samarkand, he was forced to flee to India with an escort of only five thousand men. At the river Indus however, the Mongols caught up with him and killed his forces and thousands of refugees at the Battle of Indus. He escaped and sought asylum in the Sultanate of Delhi. Iltumish however denied this to him in deference to the relationship with the Abassid caliphs.

Jalal ad-Din Mingburnu spent three years in exile in India before returning to Persia. He gathered an army and re-established a kingdom. He never consolidated his power however, and he spent the rest of his days struggling against Mongols, pretenders to the throne and the Seljuk Turks of Rum. He lost his power over Persia in a battle against the Mongols in the Alborz Mountains and fled to the Caucasus, to capture Azerbaijan in 1225, setting up their capital at Tabriz. In 1226 he attacked Georgia and sacked Tbilisi, destroying all the churches.[1]

Jalal had a brief victory over the Seljuks and captured the town Akhlat from Ayyubids. However, he was later defeated by Sultan Kayqubad I at Erzincan on the Upper Euphrates at the Battle of Yassi Chemen in 1230, from where he escaped to Diyarbakir while the Mongols captured Azerbaijan in the ensuing confusion. He was murdered in 1231 in Diyarbakir by a Kurdish assassin hired by the Seljuks or possibly by Kurdish highwaymen.[citation needed]
[edit] Notes
Khwarazm-Shah, Jalal al-Din see Jalal al-Din Khwarazm-Shah
Mingburnu  see Jalal al-Din Khwarazm-Shah
Mangubirti see Jalal al-Din Khwarazm-Shah


Jalal al-Din Rumi
Jalal al-Din Rumi.  See Rumi, Jalal ad-Din. 


Jalal Al-i Ahmad
Jalal Al-i Ahmad (Sayyid Jalal Al-i Ahmad) (Jalal Al-e-Ahmad) (December 2, 1923 - September 9, 1969).  Iranian prose writer and ideologist.  He wrote literary fiction, essays and reports, and regional monographs.

Jalal Al-e-Ahmad was a prominent Iranian writer, thinker, and social and political critic. Jalal Al-e-Ahmad was born into a religious family in Tehran. His father was an Islamic cleric originally from the small village of Owrazan in Taleghan mountains. After elementary school Al-e-Ahmad was sent to earn a living in the Tehran bazaar, but also attended Marvi Madreseh for a religious education, and without his father's permission, night classes at the Tehran Polytechnic. He became acquainted with the speech and words of Ahmad Kasravi and was unable to commit to the clerical career his father and brother had hoped he would take, describing it as a snare in the shape of a cloak and an aba.

In 1946, Jalal Al-e-Ahmad earned a master's degree in Persian literature from Tehran Teachers College and became a teacher, at the same time making a sharp break with his religious family that left him completely on his own resources. He pursued academic studies further and enrolled in a doctoral program of Persian literature at Tehran University but quit before he had defended his dissertation in 1951. In 1950, he married Simin Daneshvar, a well-known Persian novelist. Jalal and Simin were infertile, a topic that was reflected in some of Jalal's works. He died in Asalem, a rural region in the north of Iran, inside a cottage which was built almost entirely by himself. He was buried in Firouzabadi mosque in Ray, Iran.

Al-e-Ahmad is perhaps most famous for coining the term Gharbzadegi - variously translated in English as westernstruck, westoxification, occidentosis - as in a book by the same name Occidentosis: A Plague from the West, clandestinely published in Iran in 1962. In the book, Al-e-Ahmad developed a stinging critique of western technology, and by implication of Western civilization itself. He argued that the decline of traditional Iranian industries such as carpet-weaving were the beginning of Western economic and existential victories over the East.

His message was embraced by the Ayatollah Khomeini and became part of the ideology of the 1979 Iranian Revolution which emphasized nationalization of industry, independence in all areas of live from both the Soviet and the Western world, and self-sufficiency in economics.

Al-e-Ahmad joined the Tudeh Party along with his mentor Khalil Maleki shortly after World War II. They were too independent for the party and resigned in protest over the lack of democracy and the pro-Soviet support for Soviet demands for oil concessions and occupation of Iranian Azerbaijan. They formed an alternative party, the Socialist Society of the Iranian Masses in January 1948 but disbanded it a few days later when Radio Moscow attacked it, unwilling to publicly oppose what they considered the world's most progressive nations. Nonetheless, the dissent of Al-e-Ahmad and Maleki marked the end of the near hegemony of the party over intellectual life.

Al-e-Ahmad later helped found the pro-Mossadegh Toilers Party, one of the component parties of the National Front, and then in 1952 a new party called the Third Force. Following the 1953 Iranian coup d'état, Al-e-Ahmad was imprisoned for several years and so completely lost faith in party politics that he signed a letter of repentance published in an Iranian newspaper declaring that he had resigned from the Third Force, and completely abandoned politics.

Al-e-Ahmad used a colloquial style in prose. In this sense, he is a follower of avant-garde Persian novelists like Mohammad-Ali Jamalzadeh. Since the subjects of his works (novels, essays, travelogues and ethnographic monographs) are usually cultural, social and political issues, symbolic representations and sarcastic expressions are regular characteristics of his books. A distinct characteristic of his writings is his honest examination of subjects, regardless of possible reactions from political, social or religious powers.

On invitation of Richard Nelson Frye, Al-e-Ahmad spent a summer at Harvard University, as part of a Distinguished Visiting Fellowship program established by Henry Kissinger for supporting promising Iranian intellectuals.

Al-e-Ahmad rigorously supported Nima Yushij (father of modern Persian poetry) and had an important role in the acceptance of Nima's revolutionary style.

The works of Al-e-Ahmad include the following:

Novels and novellas

    * The School Principal
    * By the Pen
    * The Tale of Beehives
    * The Cursing of the Land
    * A Stone upon a Grave

Short stories

    * "The setar"
    * "Of our suffering"
    * "Someone else's child"
    * "Pink nail-polish"
    * "The Chinese flower pot"
    * "The postman"
    * "The treasure"
    * "The Pilgrimage"
    * "Sin"

Critical essays

    * "Seven essays"
    * "Hurried investigations"
    * "Plagued by the West" (Gharbzadegi)

Monographs

Jalal traveled to far-off, usually poor, regions of Iran and tried to document their life, culture and problems. Some of these monographs are:

    * "Owrazan"
    * "Tat people of Block-e-Zahra"
    * "Kharg Island, the unique pearl of the Persian Gulf"

Travelogues

    * A Straw in Mecca
    * A Journey to Russia
    * A Journey to Europe
    * A Journey to the Land of Israel
    * A Journey to America

Translations

    * The Gambler by Fyodor Dostoyevsky,
    * L'Etranger by Albert Camus,
    * Les mains sales by Jean-Paul Sartre,
    * Return from the U.S.S.R. by André Gide,
    * Rhinoceros by Eugène Ionesco,

Ahmad, Jalal Al-i  see Jalal Al-i Ahmad
Ahmad, Sayyid Jalal Al-i  see Jalal Al-i Ahmad
Sayyid Jalal Al-i Ahmad see Jalal Al-i Ahmad


Jalayrids
Jalayrids (Jalayirids). Mongol dynasty in Iraq (Mesopotamia), western Iran, and Azerbaijan (r. 1336-1432).  Their main capitals were Baghdad and, from 1358 to 1388, Tabriz.  The important Mongol tribe of Jalayir (of the founding father Ilka) in Transoxiana did not belong to Jenghiz Khan’s federation.  Having arrived in Iran in 1256, they rose to high office under the Ilkhanids and, following the Ilkhanids downfall (in 1335), constituted the major power in Iraq and parts of Persia.  Sheikh Hasan Buzurg the Great (r. 1336-1356) seized power in Baghdad in 1336 and ruled from 1340 as an independent ruler.  His son, Sheikh Uwais (r. 1356-1374), conquered northwest Iran in 1358 (Tabriz-Sultaniyya area) and Azerbaijan in 1360 from the Golden Horde and occupied Mosul and Diyar Bakr in 1365.  Sheikh Uwais was a leading patron of the arts with a splendid household.  His son, Husain (r. 1374-1382), fought violent battles against the Muzaffarids in Iran and the Qara Qoyunlu in Diyar Bakr.  Husain’s brother, Ahmad (r. 1382-1410), fought against Timur, who expelled him from Baghdad in 1393.  Ahmad’s return in 1395 led to the destruction of Baghdad by Timur  in 1401.  Back in Baghdad from 1406, the Jalayirids were finally driven out by the Qara Qoyunlu in 1411.  The last Jalayirids stayed in Basra and Khuzistan until 1432, when they were once again ousted by the Qara Qoyunlu.

The Jalayirids were a Mongol Jalayir dynasty which ruled over Iraq and western Persia after the breakup of the Mongol Khanate of Persia (or Ilkhanate) in the 1330s. The Jalayirid sultanate lasted about fifty years, until disrupted by Tamerlane's conquests and the revolts of the "Black sheep" Turks or Kara Koyunlu . After Tamerlane's death in 1405, there was a brief attempt to re-establish the sultanate in southern Iraq and Khuzistan. The Jalayirids were finally eliminated by Kara Koyunlu in 1432.

The rulers of Jalayirid Sultanate were:

    * Hasan Buzurg (1336 - 1356)
    * Shaikh Uvais I (1356 - 1374)
    * Hasan (1374)
    * Husain I (1374 - 1382)
    * Bayazid (1382 - 1383)
    * Ahmad (1383 - 1410)
    * Shah Walad (1410-1411)
    * Mahmud (1411-1415)
    * Uwais II (1415-1421)
    * Mohammed (1421-1422)
    * Mahmud II (1422-1424)
    * Husain II (1424-1432)

Jalayirids see Jalayrids

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