‘Alawi
‘Alawi. An offshoot of Shi‘i Islam prevalent in part of northern Syria. The ‘Alawis (Alawites) were devotees of a sect evolving out of Shi‘ism in nineteenth century Syria. The term ‘Alawi came to replace that of Nusayri, which had been in usage since the Middle Ages.
The ‘Alawi were an Islamic sect, stemming from the Twelver Shi‘is. Today, they live in Syria, mainly in the mountains near the city of Latakia, but many also live in the cities of Hama and Homs, and in recent decades there has been a migration to Damascus. Most ‘Alawis earn their living from agriculture, but the ‘Alawis are also central in the leadership of Syria, as the president, Bashir al-Assad, is an ‘Alawi, as was his father, Hafez al-Assad.
The name ‘Alawi is a recent one -- earlier they were known as Nusayris, Namiriya or Ansariyya. The names “Nusayri” and “Namiriya” came from their first theologian, Muhammadu ibn Nusairi Namiri. The name “Ansariyya” came from the mountain region in Syria where this sect lived.
From the perspective of the ‘Alawis, ‘Ali, the cousin and son-in-law of Muhammad, is the bearer of the divine essence, in that he is the second most elevated prophet (second only to Muhammad).
The ‘Alawis have seven pillars in their religion. Five of these are similar to other Muslims, (the creed, the prayers, almsgiving, the pilgrimage to Mecca, and fasting during the month of Ramadan), but the ‘Alawis consider these as symbols, and therefore do not practice what other Muslims consider as duties. The other two pillars are jihad (holy struggle) and waliya (devotion to Ali, and struggle against his enemies).
The ‘Alawis celebrate the same festivals as most other Shi‘is, like Id al-Fitr, Id al-Kabir and Ashura. However, they also celebrate some of the same festivals as the Christians, like Christmas and Epiphany, as well as Nawruz, which originally is the Zoroastrian New Year.
Through their history, the ‘Alawis have often been in conflict with the rulers as well as with other Muslims, who often have claimed that the 'Alawis are not Muslims. In 857, Muhammadu ibn Nusair claimed to be the gate -- the bab -- or the representative of the tenth imam among the Shi‘is, Ali al-Hadi. In the tenth century, the sect was firmly established by Husayn ibn Hamdan al-Khasibi, during the Shi‘i Hamdanid dynasty of Aleppo. In 1004, the Hamdanid dynasty fell, and the ‘Alawis were driven out of Aleppo. Centuries of hardship would follow. In the twelfth century, the ‘Alawis were badly mistreated by the Crusaders.
In 1971, the 'Alawi, Hafez al-Assad, became president of Syria. This meant the end of the ‘Alawis being an outcast group in Syrian society. Since then their status has strongly improved, as well as their living standards. In 1974, the Lebanese leader of the Twelver Shi‘is, Imam Musa al-Sadr, issued a legal decision saying that the 'Alawis were Shi‘i Muslims. Today, the ‘Alawis consider themselves to be moderate Shi‘i Muslims.
The Alawis (in Arabic, ‘Alawīyyah) — also known as Nu'sayrī (in Arabic, an-Na'sīriyyah, and al-An'sāriyyah, or in English as Alawites —are a sect of Shī‘a Islam prominent in Syria. Alawi is not to be confused with Alevi, a different religious sect based in Turkey, although they share the same etymology, and may share a common origin.
The Alawis take their name from ‘Alī ibn Abī Tālib, cousin and son-in-law of Muhammad, who was the first Shi'a Imam and the fourth and last "Rightly Guided Caliph" of Sunni Islam.
The origin of the Alawis is disputed. The Alawis themselves trace their origins to the eleventh Imām, Hassan al-‘Askarī (d. 873), and his pupil ibn Nusayr (d. 868).
The sect seems to have been organised by a follower of Muhammad ibn Nusayr known as al-Khasibi, who died in Aleppo in about 969. Al-Khasibi's grandson, al-Tabarani, moved to Latakia on the Syrian coast. After the fall of the Ottoman Empire, Syria and Lebanon came under French mandate. The French recognized the term "Alawi" when they occupied Syria in 1920. The French gave autonomy to the Alawi and other minority groups and accepted them into their colonial troops. Under the mandate, many Alawi chieftains supported the notion of a separate Alawi nation and tried to convert their autonomy into independence. A territory of "Alaouites" was created in 1925. In May 1930, the Government of Latakia was created; it lasted until February 28, 1937, when it was incorporated into Syria.
In 1939, a portion of northwest Syria, the Sanjak of Alexandretta, now Hatay, that contained a large number of Alawis, was given to Turkey by the French, greatly angering the Alawi community and Syrians in general. Zaki al-Arsuzi, the young Alawi leader from Antioch in Iskandarun (later renamed Hatay by the Turks) who led the resistance to the annexation of his province to the Turks, later became a founder of the Ba'ath Party along with the Eastern Orthodox Christian schoolteacher Michel Aflaq. After World War II, Salman Al Murshid played a major role in uniting the Alawi province with Syria. He was executed by the newly independent Syrian government in Damascus on December 12, 1946 only three days after a hasty political trial.
Syria became independent on April 16, 1946. Following the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Syria endured a succession of military coups in 1949, the rise of the Ba'th Party, and unification of the country with Egypt in the United Arab Republic in 1958. The UAR lasted for three years and broke apart in 1961, when a group of army officers seized power and declared Syria independent again; a further succession of coups ensued until a secretive military committee, which included a number of disgruntled Alawi officers, including Hafez al-Assad and Salah Jadid, helped the Ba'th Party take power in 1963. In 1966, Alawi-oriented military officers successfully rebelled and expelled the old Ba'ath that had looked to the Christian Michel Aflaq and the Sunni Muslim Salah al-Din al-Bitar for leadership. They promoted Zaki al-Arsuzi as the "Socrates" of their reconstituted Ba'ath Party.
In 1970, then-Air Force Colonel Hafez al-Assad took power and instigated a "Correctionist Movement" in the Ba'ath Party. In 1971, al-Assad became president of Syria, a function that the Constitution allows only a Muslim to hold. Then, in 1974, Imam Musa Sadr, leader of the Twelver Shi'ites of Lebanon and founder of the Amal Movement, proclaimed that ‘Alawīs are the brothers of the Shi'ites. Under the dictatorial but secular Assad regime, religious minorities were tolerated, political dissent was not.
After the death of Hafez al-Assad in 2000, his son Bashar al-Assad maintained the outlines of his father's regime. Although the Alawis predominate among the top military and intelligence offices, the civilian government and national economy is largely led by Sunnis, who represent about seventy percent (70%) of Syria's population. The Assad regime is careful to allow all of the religious sects a share of power and influence in the government. Today the Alawis exist as a minority but politically powerful sect in Syria.
Theologically, modern Alawis claim to be Twelver Shi'ites, but traditionally they have been designated as "extremists" (Arabic: ghulat) and outside the bounds of Islam by the Muslim mainstream for their high level of devotion to 'Ali.
The Alawi faith is a somewhat esoteric version of Shia Islam. The Alawis believe 'Ali is the true successor of Muhammad. The Alawis do not accept converts or openly publish their texts, which are passed down from scholar to scholar. The vast majority of the Alawis (the Ammah) know little about the contents of their sacred texts or theology, which are guarded by a small class of male initiates (the Khassah). For initiation, a person must be at least 15 and cannot be a non-’Alawī.
Although the Alawis recognize the five pillars of Islam, they do not believe that anyone has the privilege of practicing them because they are too pure to be performed by "any" soul. The Alawis believe that there is no back door entrance to the gates of Heaven (i.e. follow the five pillars and you receive the keys to heaven). Instead they believe that one should devote his life the way that the prophet Muhammad would have approved by following the example of 'Ali.
Nusayri see ‘Alawi.
Namiriya see ‘Alawi.
Ansariyya see ‘Alawi.
Alawites see ‘Alawi.
Alawiyyah see ‘Alawi.
Na'siriyyah see ‘Alawi.
‘Alawi. An offshoot of Shi‘i Islam prevalent in part of northern Syria. The ‘Alawis (Alawites) were devotees of a sect evolving out of Shi‘ism in nineteenth century Syria. The term ‘Alawi came to replace that of Nusayri, which had been in usage since the Middle Ages.
The ‘Alawi were an Islamic sect, stemming from the Twelver Shi‘is. Today, they live in Syria, mainly in the mountains near the city of Latakia, but many also live in the cities of Hama and Homs, and in recent decades there has been a migration to Damascus. Most ‘Alawis earn their living from agriculture, but the ‘Alawis are also central in the leadership of Syria, as the president, Bashir al-Assad, is an ‘Alawi, as was his father, Hafez al-Assad.
The name ‘Alawi is a recent one -- earlier they were known as Nusayris, Namiriya or Ansariyya. The names “Nusayri” and “Namiriya” came from their first theologian, Muhammadu ibn Nusairi Namiri. The name “Ansariyya” came from the mountain region in Syria where this sect lived.
From the perspective of the ‘Alawis, ‘Ali, the cousin and son-in-law of Muhammad, is the bearer of the divine essence, in that he is the second most elevated prophet (second only to Muhammad).
The ‘Alawis have seven pillars in their religion. Five of these are similar to other Muslims, (the creed, the prayers, almsgiving, the pilgrimage to Mecca, and fasting during the month of Ramadan), but the ‘Alawis consider these as symbols, and therefore do not practice what other Muslims consider as duties. The other two pillars are jihad (holy struggle) and waliya (devotion to Ali, and struggle against his enemies).
The ‘Alawis celebrate the same festivals as most other Shi‘is, like Id al-Fitr, Id al-Kabir and Ashura. However, they also celebrate some of the same festivals as the Christians, like Christmas and Epiphany, as well as Nawruz, which originally is the Zoroastrian New Year.
Through their history, the ‘Alawis have often been in conflict with the rulers as well as with other Muslims, who often have claimed that the 'Alawis are not Muslims. In 857, Muhammadu ibn Nusair claimed to be the gate -- the bab -- or the representative of the tenth imam among the Shi‘is, Ali al-Hadi. In the tenth century, the sect was firmly established by Husayn ibn Hamdan al-Khasibi, during the Shi‘i Hamdanid dynasty of Aleppo. In 1004, the Hamdanid dynasty fell, and the ‘Alawis were driven out of Aleppo. Centuries of hardship would follow. In the twelfth century, the ‘Alawis were badly mistreated by the Crusaders.
In 1971, the 'Alawi, Hafez al-Assad, became president of Syria. This meant the end of the ‘Alawis being an outcast group in Syrian society. Since then their status has strongly improved, as well as their living standards. In 1974, the Lebanese leader of the Twelver Shi‘is, Imam Musa al-Sadr, issued a legal decision saying that the 'Alawis were Shi‘i Muslims. Today, the ‘Alawis consider themselves to be moderate Shi‘i Muslims.
The Alawis (in Arabic, ‘Alawīyyah) — also known as Nu'sayrī (in Arabic, an-Na'sīriyyah, and al-An'sāriyyah, or in English as Alawites —are a sect of Shī‘a Islam prominent in Syria. Alawi is not to be confused with Alevi, a different religious sect based in Turkey, although they share the same etymology, and may share a common origin.
The Alawis take their name from ‘Alī ibn Abī Tālib, cousin and son-in-law of Muhammad, who was the first Shi'a Imam and the fourth and last "Rightly Guided Caliph" of Sunni Islam.
The origin of the Alawis is disputed. The Alawis themselves trace their origins to the eleventh Imām, Hassan al-‘Askarī (d. 873), and his pupil ibn Nusayr (d. 868).
The sect seems to have been organised by a follower of Muhammad ibn Nusayr known as al-Khasibi, who died in Aleppo in about 969. Al-Khasibi's grandson, al-Tabarani, moved to Latakia on the Syrian coast. After the fall of the Ottoman Empire, Syria and Lebanon came under French mandate. The French recognized the term "Alawi" when they occupied Syria in 1920. The French gave autonomy to the Alawi and other minority groups and accepted them into their colonial troops. Under the mandate, many Alawi chieftains supported the notion of a separate Alawi nation and tried to convert their autonomy into independence. A territory of "Alaouites" was created in 1925. In May 1930, the Government of Latakia was created; it lasted until February 28, 1937, when it was incorporated into Syria.
In 1939, a portion of northwest Syria, the Sanjak of Alexandretta, now Hatay, that contained a large number of Alawis, was given to Turkey by the French, greatly angering the Alawi community and Syrians in general. Zaki al-Arsuzi, the young Alawi leader from Antioch in Iskandarun (later renamed Hatay by the Turks) who led the resistance to the annexation of his province to the Turks, later became a founder of the Ba'ath Party along with the Eastern Orthodox Christian schoolteacher Michel Aflaq. After World War II, Salman Al Murshid played a major role in uniting the Alawi province with Syria. He was executed by the newly independent Syrian government in Damascus on December 12, 1946 only three days after a hasty political trial.
Syria became independent on April 16, 1946. Following the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Syria endured a succession of military coups in 1949, the rise of the Ba'th Party, and unification of the country with Egypt in the United Arab Republic in 1958. The UAR lasted for three years and broke apart in 1961, when a group of army officers seized power and declared Syria independent again; a further succession of coups ensued until a secretive military committee, which included a number of disgruntled Alawi officers, including Hafez al-Assad and Salah Jadid, helped the Ba'th Party take power in 1963. In 1966, Alawi-oriented military officers successfully rebelled and expelled the old Ba'ath that had looked to the Christian Michel Aflaq and the Sunni Muslim Salah al-Din al-Bitar for leadership. They promoted Zaki al-Arsuzi as the "Socrates" of their reconstituted Ba'ath Party.
In 1970, then-Air Force Colonel Hafez al-Assad took power and instigated a "Correctionist Movement" in the Ba'ath Party. In 1971, al-Assad became president of Syria, a function that the Constitution allows only a Muslim to hold. Then, in 1974, Imam Musa Sadr, leader of the Twelver Shi'ites of Lebanon and founder of the Amal Movement, proclaimed that ‘Alawīs are the brothers of the Shi'ites. Under the dictatorial but secular Assad regime, religious minorities were tolerated, political dissent was not.
After the death of Hafez al-Assad in 2000, his son Bashar al-Assad maintained the outlines of his father's regime. Although the Alawis predominate among the top military and intelligence offices, the civilian government and national economy is largely led by Sunnis, who represent about seventy percent (70%) of Syria's population. The Assad regime is careful to allow all of the religious sects a share of power and influence in the government. Today the Alawis exist as a minority but politically powerful sect in Syria.
Theologically, modern Alawis claim to be Twelver Shi'ites, but traditionally they have been designated as "extremists" (Arabic: ghulat) and outside the bounds of Islam by the Muslim mainstream for their high level of devotion to 'Ali.
The Alawi faith is a somewhat esoteric version of Shia Islam. The Alawis believe 'Ali is the true successor of Muhammad. The Alawis do not accept converts or openly publish their texts, which are passed down from scholar to scholar. The vast majority of the Alawis (the Ammah) know little about the contents of their sacred texts or theology, which are guarded by a small class of male initiates (the Khassah). For initiation, a person must be at least 15 and cannot be a non-’Alawī.
Although the Alawis recognize the five pillars of Islam, they do not believe that anyone has the privilege of practicing them because they are too pure to be performed by "any" soul. The Alawis believe that there is no back door entrance to the gates of Heaven (i.e. follow the five pillars and you receive the keys to heaven). Instead they believe that one should devote his life the way that the prophet Muhammad would have approved by following the example of 'Ali.
Nusayri see ‘Alawi.
Namiriya see ‘Alawi.
Ansariyya see ‘Alawi.
Alawites see ‘Alawi.
Alawiyyah see ‘Alawi.
Na'siriyyah see ‘Alawi.
‘Alawi, Ahmad al-
‘Alawi, Ahmad al- (Abu al-‘Abbas Ahmad ibn Mustafa al-‘Alawi) (1869 - July 14, 1934). Algerian Sufi and poet. Called by some, “one of the most celebrated mystic sheikhs of our times,” al-‘Alawi overcame humble origins and a lack of formal education to create a substantial religious clientele with disciples and affiliated zawiyahs throughout the Maghrib, Mashriq, East Africa, Yemen, and even Europe. His story is one of remarkable spiritual renewal within the idiom of Sufism in an era when Sufis and Sufism were under attack by the reformist Salafiyah movement.
Ahmad al-‘Alawi was born in Mostaganem in western Algeria during the period of intense colonization. The popular appeal of his teachings and the response they elicited were in part linked to the travails of the Muslim population under the French civilian administration. Al-‘Alawi’s great-grandfather had been a local notable. However, the family had fallen on hard times, and his father’s death when the young man was only sixteen forced him into the profession of cobbler, ending what minimal Islamic education he had received. Al-‘Alawi’s first association with formal Sufism came in the 1880s when he joined the ‘Isawi tariqah. After attending Isawiyah dhikr gatherings and participating in their more extravagant practices, such as snake charming, al-‘Alawi began to doubt the spiritual merit of the tariqah. By the time he encountered the celebrated Darqawi Shadhili shaykh, Muhammad al-Buzidi (d. 1909), al-‘Alawi had already distanced himself from the ‘Isawiyah.
Received into the Darqawa tariqah at the hands of al-Buzidi, who also instructed the novice, al-‘Alawi was a muqaddam (one authorized to initiate members into a particular tariqah) by the age of twenty-five, with authority to initiate others into the order.
Al-‘Alawi apparently remained in the Oran until 1909, the year his spiritual master al-Buzidi died. Then he embarked on a journey to Tunis, Tripoli, and Istanbul, where he lingered until 1910. The Ottoman Empire was at that time rent by the political upheavals of the Young Turk revolution that deposed the sultan in April 1909. His experiences in the Ottoman capital during the Committee of Union and Progress’ rule appear to have reinforced al-‘Alawi’s conservative orientation. He returned to his native land shortly thereafter and only returned to the Mashriq for the hajj to Mecca and Medina, visiting Jerusalem and Damascus on the way, just before his death in 1934.
In the Oran, al-‘Alawi’s followers persuaded him after 1909 to serve as head shaykh. Some five years later he established an order independent from the Moroccan Darqawa. In Tidgitt, Mostaganem’s purely Muslim quarter, a great zawiyah was constructed overlooking the sea and drew growing numbers of disciples. The master’s position on the Muslims’ relationship with the colonial regime and on Salafiyah teachings caused conflict with both the Europeans and fellow Muslims. Denouncing Algerians who had become naturalized French citizens, the shaykh also decried westernization, secularism, and modernization. As a riposte to the reformist publication Al-shihab, al-‘Alawi created a weekly newspaper to defend Sufism against its detractors. By his death, al-‘Alawi had written some fifteen works, mostly on Sufism, as well as a diwan of poetry. Some of these works exist only in manuscript form even today and are found at the Tidgitt zawiyah, where the shaykh was buried in 1934.
The Alawiyya spread throughout Algeria, as well as in other parts of North Africa, as a result of Sheikh al-Alawi's travels, preaching and writing, and through the activities of his muqaddams (representatives). By the time of Sheikh al-Alawi's death in 1934, he had become one of the best known and most celebrated shaykhs of the century.
The Alawiyya was one of the first Sufi orders to establish a presence in Europe, notably among Algerians in France and Yemenis in Wales. Sheikh Al-Alawi himself traveled to France in 1926, and led the first communal prayer to inaugurate the newly built Paris Mosque in the presence of the French president. Sheikh Al-Alawi understood French well, though he was reluctant to speak it.
The Alawiyya branch also spread as far as Damascus, Syria where an authorization was given to Muhammad al-Hashimi who spread the Alawi branch all throughout the lands of the Levant.
Sheikh Al-Alawi was a Sufi shaykh in the classic Darqawi Shadhili tradition, though his order differed somewhat from the norm in its use of the systematic practice of khalwa and in laying special emphasis on the invocation of the Supreme Name [of God].
In addition to being a classic Sufi shaykh, Sheikh al-Alawi addressed the problems of modern Algerians using modern methods. As well as writing poetry and books on established Sufi topics, he founded and directed two weekly newspapers, the short-lived Lisan al-Din (Language of Faith) in 1912, and the longer-lived Al-balagh al-jazairi (Algerian Messenger) in 1926.
In his preaching and his writings, Sheikh al-Alawi attempted to reconcile Islam and modernity. On the one hand, he criticized Westernization, both at a symbolic level (by discouraging the adoption of Western costumes that lead to ego attachment) and at a practical level (by attacking the growing consumption of alcohol among Algerian Muslims). On the other hand, he encouraged his followers to send their children to school to learn French, and even favored the translation of the Koran into French and Berber for the sake of making it more accessible, a position that was at that time most controversial.
Although Sheikh al-Alawi showed unusual respect for Christians, and was in some ways an early practitioner of inter-religious dialogue, the centerpiece of his message to Christians was that if only they would abandon the doctrines of the trinity and of incarnation "nothing would then separate us."
The great size of his following may be explained by the combination of classic Sufism with engagement in contemporary issues, combined with his own personal charisma, to which many sources, both Algerian and French, speak.
Abu al-‘Abbas Ahmad ibn Mustafa al-‘Alawi see ‘Alawi, Ahmad al-
“one of the most celebrated mystic sheikhs of our times” see ‘Alawi, Ahmad al-
‘Alawi, Ahmad al- (Abu al-‘Abbas Ahmad ibn Mustafa al-‘Alawi) (1869 - July 14, 1934). Algerian Sufi and poet. Called by some, “one of the most celebrated mystic sheikhs of our times,” al-‘Alawi overcame humble origins and a lack of formal education to create a substantial religious clientele with disciples and affiliated zawiyahs throughout the Maghrib, Mashriq, East Africa, Yemen, and even Europe. His story is one of remarkable spiritual renewal within the idiom of Sufism in an era when Sufis and Sufism were under attack by the reformist Salafiyah movement.
Ahmad al-‘Alawi was born in Mostaganem in western Algeria during the period of intense colonization. The popular appeal of his teachings and the response they elicited were in part linked to the travails of the Muslim population under the French civilian administration. Al-‘Alawi’s great-grandfather had been a local notable. However, the family had fallen on hard times, and his father’s death when the young man was only sixteen forced him into the profession of cobbler, ending what minimal Islamic education he had received. Al-‘Alawi’s first association with formal Sufism came in the 1880s when he joined the ‘Isawi tariqah. After attending Isawiyah dhikr gatherings and participating in their more extravagant practices, such as snake charming, al-‘Alawi began to doubt the spiritual merit of the tariqah. By the time he encountered the celebrated Darqawi Shadhili shaykh, Muhammad al-Buzidi (d. 1909), al-‘Alawi had already distanced himself from the ‘Isawiyah.
Received into the Darqawa tariqah at the hands of al-Buzidi, who also instructed the novice, al-‘Alawi was a muqaddam (one authorized to initiate members into a particular tariqah) by the age of twenty-five, with authority to initiate others into the order.
Al-‘Alawi apparently remained in the Oran until 1909, the year his spiritual master al-Buzidi died. Then he embarked on a journey to Tunis, Tripoli, and Istanbul, where he lingered until 1910. The Ottoman Empire was at that time rent by the political upheavals of the Young Turk revolution that deposed the sultan in April 1909. His experiences in the Ottoman capital during the Committee of Union and Progress’ rule appear to have reinforced al-‘Alawi’s conservative orientation. He returned to his native land shortly thereafter and only returned to the Mashriq for the hajj to Mecca and Medina, visiting Jerusalem and Damascus on the way, just before his death in 1934.
In the Oran, al-‘Alawi’s followers persuaded him after 1909 to serve as head shaykh. Some five years later he established an order independent from the Moroccan Darqawa. In Tidgitt, Mostaganem’s purely Muslim quarter, a great zawiyah was constructed overlooking the sea and drew growing numbers of disciples. The master’s position on the Muslims’ relationship with the colonial regime and on Salafiyah teachings caused conflict with both the Europeans and fellow Muslims. Denouncing Algerians who had become naturalized French citizens, the shaykh also decried westernization, secularism, and modernization. As a riposte to the reformist publication Al-shihab, al-‘Alawi created a weekly newspaper to defend Sufism against its detractors. By his death, al-‘Alawi had written some fifteen works, mostly on Sufism, as well as a diwan of poetry. Some of these works exist only in manuscript form even today and are found at the Tidgitt zawiyah, where the shaykh was buried in 1934.
The Alawiyya spread throughout Algeria, as well as in other parts of North Africa, as a result of Sheikh al-Alawi's travels, preaching and writing, and through the activities of his muqaddams (representatives). By the time of Sheikh al-Alawi's death in 1934, he had become one of the best known and most celebrated shaykhs of the century.
The Alawiyya was one of the first Sufi orders to establish a presence in Europe, notably among Algerians in France and Yemenis in Wales. Sheikh Al-Alawi himself traveled to France in 1926, and led the first communal prayer to inaugurate the newly built Paris Mosque in the presence of the French president. Sheikh Al-Alawi understood French well, though he was reluctant to speak it.
The Alawiyya branch also spread as far as Damascus, Syria where an authorization was given to Muhammad al-Hashimi who spread the Alawi branch all throughout the lands of the Levant.
Sheikh Al-Alawi was a Sufi shaykh in the classic Darqawi Shadhili tradition, though his order differed somewhat from the norm in its use of the systematic practice of khalwa and in laying special emphasis on the invocation of the Supreme Name [of God].
In addition to being a classic Sufi shaykh, Sheikh al-Alawi addressed the problems of modern Algerians using modern methods. As well as writing poetry and books on established Sufi topics, he founded and directed two weekly newspapers, the short-lived Lisan al-Din (Language of Faith) in 1912, and the longer-lived Al-balagh al-jazairi (Algerian Messenger) in 1926.
In his preaching and his writings, Sheikh al-Alawi attempted to reconcile Islam and modernity. On the one hand, he criticized Westernization, both at a symbolic level (by discouraging the adoption of Western costumes that lead to ego attachment) and at a practical level (by attacking the growing consumption of alcohol among Algerian Muslims). On the other hand, he encouraged his followers to send their children to school to learn French, and even favored the translation of the Koran into French and Berber for the sake of making it more accessible, a position that was at that time most controversial.
Although Sheikh al-Alawi showed unusual respect for Christians, and was in some ways an early practitioner of inter-religious dialogue, the centerpiece of his message to Christians was that if only they would abandon the doctrines of the trinity and of incarnation "nothing would then separate us."
The great size of his following may be explained by the combination of classic Sufism with engagement in contemporary issues, combined with his own personal charisma, to which many sources, both Algerian and French, speak.
Abu al-‘Abbas Ahmad ibn Mustafa al-‘Alawi see ‘Alawi, Ahmad al-
“one of the most celebrated mystic sheikhs of our times” see ‘Alawi, Ahmad al-
Alawids
Alawids ('Alawiyyah). Ruling Sharif dynasty in Morocco since 1666. Their main capitals were Fez, Meknes (1672-1727) and Rabat (from 1912). The Alawids, descendants of the Prophet’s grandson al-Hasan, came to Morocco at the end of the thirteenth century and settled to the south of the Haut Atlas and in the oases of Tafilelt.
With the help of religious brotherhoods, the Alawids were rulers of the Tafilelt region from 1631. Mulai al-Rashid (r. 1664-1672) conquered Fez and the sultanate in 1666. His son, Mulai Isma‘il (r. 1672-1727), reorganized the country, created economic prosperity, developed the “dynastic town” of Meknes as a stage for the most important festivals of the Maghreb, and won back Moroccan towns from Europeans (Tangier in 1684, Arzila in 1691). The ensuing political anarchy was ended by his grandson Sidi Muhammad (r. 1757-1790), who stabilized the country’s economy, via trading agreements with Western powers. From the start of the nineteenth century, its economy became increasingly dependent on European powers and it suffered military defeats against the French and Spaniards.
In 1863, a protection treaty was signed with France (the Beclard Convention). Mulai Hasan (r. 1873-1894) implemented reforms based on the European example. Young sultans then reigned until 1927 under the tutelage of France, which imposed a French and Spanish protectorate on Morocco in 1912. The growing nationalist forces gathered around Sultan Sidi Muhammad (r. 1927-1961), who proclaimed Morocco’s independence in March 1956 and assumed the title of king as Muhammad V. The authoritarian government of his son, Hassan II (r. 1961-1999), completed the decolonization process with partially democratic institutions and great foreign policy flexibility but had to defend itself against a number of attempted coups. In 1975/76, Hassan occupied the Spanish Sahara and, in 1979, the western Sahara (the “Green Marsh”). In July 1999, he was succeeded by his son, Muhammad VI.
'Alawiyyah see Alawids
Alawids ('Alawiyyah). Ruling Sharif dynasty in Morocco since 1666. Their main capitals were Fez, Meknes (1672-1727) and Rabat (from 1912). The Alawids, descendants of the Prophet’s grandson al-Hasan, came to Morocco at the end of the thirteenth century and settled to the south of the Haut Atlas and in the oases of Tafilelt.
With the help of religious brotherhoods, the Alawids were rulers of the Tafilelt region from 1631. Mulai al-Rashid (r. 1664-1672) conquered Fez and the sultanate in 1666. His son, Mulai Isma‘il (r. 1672-1727), reorganized the country, created economic prosperity, developed the “dynastic town” of Meknes as a stage for the most important festivals of the Maghreb, and won back Moroccan towns from Europeans (Tangier in 1684, Arzila in 1691). The ensuing political anarchy was ended by his grandson Sidi Muhammad (r. 1757-1790), who stabilized the country’s economy, via trading agreements with Western powers. From the start of the nineteenth century, its economy became increasingly dependent on European powers and it suffered military defeats against the French and Spaniards.
In 1863, a protection treaty was signed with France (the Beclard Convention). Mulai Hasan (r. 1873-1894) implemented reforms based on the European example. Young sultans then reigned until 1927 under the tutelage of France, which imposed a French and Spanish protectorate on Morocco in 1912. The growing nationalist forces gathered around Sultan Sidi Muhammad (r. 1927-1961), who proclaimed Morocco’s independence in March 1956 and assumed the title of king as Muhammad V. The authoritarian government of his son, Hassan II (r. 1961-1999), completed the decolonization process with partially democratic institutions and great foreign policy flexibility but had to defend itself against a number of attempted coups. In 1975/76, Hassan occupied the Spanish Sahara and, in 1979, the western Sahara (the “Green Marsh”). In July 1999, he was succeeded by his son, Muhammad VI.
'Alawiyyah see Alawids
‘Alawiyah
‘Alawiyah. Term derived from the name of the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad, ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib (d. 661). The term ‘Alawiyah was applied originally to those who supported ‘Ali’s exclusive right to lead the Muslim community after the death of the Prophet in 632. The tenth century Shi‘a writer al-Nawbakhti called them al-Shi‘ah al-‘Alawiyah in his Firaq al-Shi‘ah (“The Shi‘a Sects”). These Shi‘a – these partisans of ‘Ali – were also called ‘Alawiyun. According to a Shi‘a source, the Prophet is reported to have told ‘Ali, “At the Day of Resurrection you and your partisans [Shi‘ah] shall come riding on she-camels of light shouting: We are the followers of ‘Ali [‘Alawiyun]!” Throughout history, the term ‘Alawiyah has been generally used to include all the Shi‘a, whether orthodox or heterodox, who place ‘Ali and his descendants, the imams, at the center of their religious system. Thus, there is no contradiction in the fact that the Zaydiyah of Yemen, an orthodox school of thought, and the Ithna ‘Ashariyah (Twelvers), considered moderate Shi‘a, are both ‘Alawiyah. Likewise, heterodox Shi‘a groups, such as the Kizilbash, Takhtajis, and Cepnis of Turkey, the Mutawilah (Mutawallis) of Lebanon, the Shabak and Sarliyah-Kaka’iyah of Iraq, and the ‘Ali Ilahis or Ahl-i Haqq (“People of the Truth”) of Iran, are considered ‘Alawiyah. However, in modern times , the terms ‘Alawiyah, ‘Alawiyun, ‘Alawites, and ‘Alids exclusively denote the Nusayriyah, an extremist Shi‘a school of thought whose adherents live in the northwestern mountain range of Syria (al-‘Alawiyun Mountain).
The major city of al-‘Alawiyah district is al-Ladhiqiyah (Latakia), famous for its choice tobacco. The term Nusayriyah is derived from the name Muhammad ibn Nusayr, a follower of the eleventh Shi‘a imam, al-Hasan al-‘Askari (d. 873). At first, Ibn Nusayr claimed to be the bab (“the gate”) of this imam and privy to the divine mysteries of the twelve Shi‘a imams. But he went further, proclaiming the apotheosis of al-‘Askari, who therefore condemned him. The teachings of Ibn Nusayr led to the growth of a school of thought originally called al-Namiriyah because of Ibn Nusayr’s association with the Arab tribe of this name. But since the time of Abu ‘Abd Allah al-Husayn ibn Hamdan al-Khusaybi (d. 957), the great propagandist of this school, it has been known as Nusayriyah.
In the nineteenth century, because of harsh living conditions, the ‘Alawiyah, who were mostly farmers, began to leave their mountain abode and seek employment in other parts of Syria. Many of them engaged in menial work and were despised by the Sunni Muslim majority. In the wake of World War I, the French occupied Syria, and in 1922, they established Dawlat al-‘Alawiyin (the ‘Alawiyun State) for the ‘Alawiyah, whom they called ‘Alawiyun (“Followers of ‘Ali). Under the French mandate, young ‘Alawi men readily enlisted in the newly established Syrian army, while the Sunni majority, who hated the French imperialists, shunned military service. When the Arab Socialist (Ba‘th) party was established in the 1940s, many ‘Alawis joined. By the middle 1960s, they occupied key positions in both army and government. In 1970, Hafez al-Assad, a high-ranking ‘Alawi military officer, overthrew the government in a coup d’etat, and in February 1971 he became the first ‘Alawi president of Syria.
The ‘Alawiyah are extremist Shi ‘a, known as ghulat (“exaggerators”), whose religious system separates them from Sunni Muslims. The fundamental article of their religion is the absolute oneness of God, but they do not attempt to define God’s existence or attributes either philosophically or theologically. Like another group of ghulat, the Ahl-i Haqq, they believe that God appeared on earth seven times in human form, and that ‘Ali was the last manifestation of the deity and the consummate reality in whom all previous manifestations found their ultimate end and completion. But this God who appeared in seven forms has three personalities, corresponding to a trinity comprised of ‘Ali, also called the Ma‘na (Meaning or Causal Determinant), Muhammad (God’s ism, or “name”), and Salman al-Farisi (God’s bab). This God ‘Ali, the creator of heaven and earth, also created Muhammad and charged him to preach the message of the Qur’an. Thus, Muhammad cannot be homologous with ‘Ali in his divinity; he occupies an inferior position in the trinity. Like the Ithna ‘Ashariyah, the ‘Alawiyah believe that the twelve imams possess divine knowledge and have babs who transmit this knowledge to the faithful of their generation. When the twelfth and last imam, Muhammad (the Mahdi), disappeared at the end of the ninth century, Ibn Nusayr claimed to be his bab, as he had done before with his father al-Askari. The ‘Alawiyah maintain that every generation should have an imam to uphold the Shi‘a faith.
Worship of light forms is an essential part of the ‘Alawiyah religious system, which probably has its origin in the astral religion of the Sabaeans. This light, symbolized by the sun, is the mystery of God; thus ‘Ali is surrounded by light and dwells in the sun (shams). Those who hold this belief are called Shamsis. The Qamaris, however, believe that the God ‘Ali dwells in the moon (qamar), and that the black spots which appear on the moon are the embodiment of the worshiped ‘Ali, who carries his famous sword Dhu al-Fiqar (that which has splitting power).
One of the unique doctrines of the ‘Alawiyah concerns spiritual hierarchies. They believe that there are countless worlds known to God, chief among them al-‘Alam al-Nurani (World of Light), inhabited by spirits of many ranks, including the Aytam (Incomparables), Naqibs (Princes), Najibs (Excellent Ones), Mukhtassun (Peculiars), Mukhlisun (Pure in Faith), and Mumtahanun (the Tried), who correspond to the ranks of angels. They also acknowledge al-‘Alam al-Turabi (Earthly World), where men reside. They believe in the metempsychosis of human beings, animals, and plants. At death the soul of a good ‘Alawi will pass into another human body, while that of a wicked one will pass into an unclean or predatory animal. The ‘Alawiyah are very secretive, refusing to divulge their beliefs to strangers. They resort to taqiyah (dissimulation) to preserve their ancient religion, especially the belief in the principles of good and evil, symbolized by light and darkness, which depends on an allegorical interpretation of the Qur’an and the traditions of the prophet Muhammad. For this reason, initiation into the mysteries of this school is an extremely important ceremony which may have its origins in Sufism and Hikmat al-Ishraq (Neoplatonism).
The ‘Alawiyah celebrate many of the Muslim festivals, like ‘Id al-Fitr and ‘Id al-Adha. Like the rest of the Shi‘a, they observe ‘Ashura’ to commemorate the martyrdom of the imam al-Husayn, whom they regard as divine and liken to Jesus Christ. They also celebrate Persian festivals, chiefly the Nawruz (New Year), because of their belief in the superiority of the Persians over the Arabs. They believe that after the Arabs rejected ‘Ali, he appeared as the Ma‘na in the person of the Persian Sassanian kings. They also celebrate some Christian festivals including Epiphany, Pentecost, Palm Sunday, and the feasts of John the Baptist, John Chrysostom, Barbara, and Mary Magdalene. The ‘Alawiyah also celebrate Mass, including consecration of bread and wine, albeit in a Shi‘a context. In the Mass, the great mystery of God is the sacrament of the flesh and blood which Christ offered to his disciples at the Last Supper, but the ‘Alawiyah maintain that the mystery of faith is ‘Ali the light, who is manifested in the wine. This indicates that they may have Christian origins. At the very least, they were greatly influenced by their Christian neighbors.
Shi‘ah al-‘Alawiyah, al- see ‘Alawiyah.
‘Alawiyun see ‘Alawiyah.
‘Alawiyah. Term derived from the name of the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad, ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib (d. 661). The term ‘Alawiyah was applied originally to those who supported ‘Ali’s exclusive right to lead the Muslim community after the death of the Prophet in 632. The tenth century Shi‘a writer al-Nawbakhti called them al-Shi‘ah al-‘Alawiyah in his Firaq al-Shi‘ah (“The Shi‘a Sects”). These Shi‘a – these partisans of ‘Ali – were also called ‘Alawiyun. According to a Shi‘a source, the Prophet is reported to have told ‘Ali, “At the Day of Resurrection you and your partisans [Shi‘ah] shall come riding on she-camels of light shouting: We are the followers of ‘Ali [‘Alawiyun]!” Throughout history, the term ‘Alawiyah has been generally used to include all the Shi‘a, whether orthodox or heterodox, who place ‘Ali and his descendants, the imams, at the center of their religious system. Thus, there is no contradiction in the fact that the Zaydiyah of Yemen, an orthodox school of thought, and the Ithna ‘Ashariyah (Twelvers), considered moderate Shi‘a, are both ‘Alawiyah. Likewise, heterodox Shi‘a groups, such as the Kizilbash, Takhtajis, and Cepnis of Turkey, the Mutawilah (Mutawallis) of Lebanon, the Shabak and Sarliyah-Kaka’iyah of Iraq, and the ‘Ali Ilahis or Ahl-i Haqq (“People of the Truth”) of Iran, are considered ‘Alawiyah. However, in modern times , the terms ‘Alawiyah, ‘Alawiyun, ‘Alawites, and ‘Alids exclusively denote the Nusayriyah, an extremist Shi‘a school of thought whose adherents live in the northwestern mountain range of Syria (al-‘Alawiyun Mountain).
The major city of al-‘Alawiyah district is al-Ladhiqiyah (Latakia), famous for its choice tobacco. The term Nusayriyah is derived from the name Muhammad ibn Nusayr, a follower of the eleventh Shi‘a imam, al-Hasan al-‘Askari (d. 873). At first, Ibn Nusayr claimed to be the bab (“the gate”) of this imam and privy to the divine mysteries of the twelve Shi‘a imams. But he went further, proclaiming the apotheosis of al-‘Askari, who therefore condemned him. The teachings of Ibn Nusayr led to the growth of a school of thought originally called al-Namiriyah because of Ibn Nusayr’s association with the Arab tribe of this name. But since the time of Abu ‘Abd Allah al-Husayn ibn Hamdan al-Khusaybi (d. 957), the great propagandist of this school, it has been known as Nusayriyah.
In the nineteenth century, because of harsh living conditions, the ‘Alawiyah, who were mostly farmers, began to leave their mountain abode and seek employment in other parts of Syria. Many of them engaged in menial work and were despised by the Sunni Muslim majority. In the wake of World War I, the French occupied Syria, and in 1922, they established Dawlat al-‘Alawiyin (the ‘Alawiyun State) for the ‘Alawiyah, whom they called ‘Alawiyun (“Followers of ‘Ali). Under the French mandate, young ‘Alawi men readily enlisted in the newly established Syrian army, while the Sunni majority, who hated the French imperialists, shunned military service. When the Arab Socialist (Ba‘th) party was established in the 1940s, many ‘Alawis joined. By the middle 1960s, they occupied key positions in both army and government. In 1970, Hafez al-Assad, a high-ranking ‘Alawi military officer, overthrew the government in a coup d’etat, and in February 1971 he became the first ‘Alawi president of Syria.
The ‘Alawiyah are extremist Shi ‘a, known as ghulat (“exaggerators”), whose religious system separates them from Sunni Muslims. The fundamental article of their religion is the absolute oneness of God, but they do not attempt to define God’s existence or attributes either philosophically or theologically. Like another group of ghulat, the Ahl-i Haqq, they believe that God appeared on earth seven times in human form, and that ‘Ali was the last manifestation of the deity and the consummate reality in whom all previous manifestations found their ultimate end and completion. But this God who appeared in seven forms has three personalities, corresponding to a trinity comprised of ‘Ali, also called the Ma‘na (Meaning or Causal Determinant), Muhammad (God’s ism, or “name”), and Salman al-Farisi (God’s bab). This God ‘Ali, the creator of heaven and earth, also created Muhammad and charged him to preach the message of the Qur’an. Thus, Muhammad cannot be homologous with ‘Ali in his divinity; he occupies an inferior position in the trinity. Like the Ithna ‘Ashariyah, the ‘Alawiyah believe that the twelve imams possess divine knowledge and have babs who transmit this knowledge to the faithful of their generation. When the twelfth and last imam, Muhammad (the Mahdi), disappeared at the end of the ninth century, Ibn Nusayr claimed to be his bab, as he had done before with his father al-Askari. The ‘Alawiyah maintain that every generation should have an imam to uphold the Shi‘a faith.
Worship of light forms is an essential part of the ‘Alawiyah religious system, which probably has its origin in the astral religion of the Sabaeans. This light, symbolized by the sun, is the mystery of God; thus ‘Ali is surrounded by light and dwells in the sun (shams). Those who hold this belief are called Shamsis. The Qamaris, however, believe that the God ‘Ali dwells in the moon (qamar), and that the black spots which appear on the moon are the embodiment of the worshiped ‘Ali, who carries his famous sword Dhu al-Fiqar (that which has splitting power).
One of the unique doctrines of the ‘Alawiyah concerns spiritual hierarchies. They believe that there are countless worlds known to God, chief among them al-‘Alam al-Nurani (World of Light), inhabited by spirits of many ranks, including the Aytam (Incomparables), Naqibs (Princes), Najibs (Excellent Ones), Mukhtassun (Peculiars), Mukhlisun (Pure in Faith), and Mumtahanun (the Tried), who correspond to the ranks of angels. They also acknowledge al-‘Alam al-Turabi (Earthly World), where men reside. They believe in the metempsychosis of human beings, animals, and plants. At death the soul of a good ‘Alawi will pass into another human body, while that of a wicked one will pass into an unclean or predatory animal. The ‘Alawiyah are very secretive, refusing to divulge their beliefs to strangers. They resort to taqiyah (dissimulation) to preserve their ancient religion, especially the belief in the principles of good and evil, symbolized by light and darkness, which depends on an allegorical interpretation of the Qur’an and the traditions of the prophet Muhammad. For this reason, initiation into the mysteries of this school is an extremely important ceremony which may have its origins in Sufism and Hikmat al-Ishraq (Neoplatonism).
The ‘Alawiyah celebrate many of the Muslim festivals, like ‘Id al-Fitr and ‘Id al-Adha. Like the rest of the Shi‘a, they observe ‘Ashura’ to commemorate the martyrdom of the imam al-Husayn, whom they regard as divine and liken to Jesus Christ. They also celebrate Persian festivals, chiefly the Nawruz (New Year), because of their belief in the superiority of the Persians over the Arabs. They believe that after the Arabs rejected ‘Ali, he appeared as the Ma‘na in the person of the Persian Sassanian kings. They also celebrate some Christian festivals including Epiphany, Pentecost, Palm Sunday, and the feasts of John the Baptist, John Chrysostom, Barbara, and Mary Magdalene. The ‘Alawiyah also celebrate Mass, including consecration of bread and wine, albeit in a Shi‘a context. In the Mass, the great mystery of God is the sacrament of the flesh and blood which Christ offered to his disciples at the Last Supper, but the ‘Alawiyah maintain that the mystery of faith is ‘Ali the light, who is manifested in the wine. This indicates that they may have Christian origins. At the very least, they were greatly influenced by their Christian neighbors.
Shi‘ah al-‘Alawiyah, al- see ‘Alawiyah.
‘Alawiyun see ‘Alawiyah.
‘Alawiyya
‘Alawiyya. Another name (the other being Filali) under which the reigning Alawid dynasty in Morocco is known. The ‘Alawiyya/Filali dynasty was established in 1631 by Muhammad I al-Sharif of Tafilalt. {See also Alawids and Filali.}
Alawids see ‘Alawiyya.
Filali see ‘Alawiyya.
‘Alawiyya. Another name (the other being Filali) under which the reigning Alawid dynasty in Morocco is known. The ‘Alawiyya/Filali dynasty was established in 1631 by Muhammad I al-Sharif of Tafilalt. {See also Alawids and Filali.}
Alawids see ‘Alawiyya.
Filali see ‘Alawiyya.
Albanians
Albanians. Albania is the only European state of which the majority of the population is Muslim. No religious census exists for contemporary Albania, but it is generally accepted that seventy percent are Muslim or the unpracticing descendants of Muslims. In northern Albania, there is a Roman Catholic population (ten percent of the total), and in the south, an Orthodox one (twenty percent of the total), with an almost exclusively Muslim Albania population in the central region. In addition, there are roughly half as many Albanians in Yugoslavia as in Albania proper. Some seventy percent of these reside in Kosovo (an autonomous province of Serbia), with most of the remainder in Macedonia, Montenegro and southern Serbia, but also scattered as migrant workers elsewhere in Yugoslavia. Nearly all of these Yugoslav Albanians are Muslim.
There also exists an immigrant population of Albanian Muslims in Turkey, which continues to be replenished from Yugoslavia, and a still smaller group in Egypt. All other major communities of expatriate Albanians (in Italy, Greece, Bulgaria, the United States) are overwhelmingly Christian. The Albanian people are thought to be derived predominantly from Illyrians who inhabited the Dinaric region in classical and post-classical times.
By the end of the Roman Empire, of which the area now Albania was a part, much of the region had been converted to Christianity. With the schism between Eastern and Western churches, the Albanians divided their allegiance accordingly. Later, following the Ottoman conquest in the late fourteenth century, great numbers converted to Islam. Many Albanian Muslims served in the Ottoman armies (often converting specifically for this purpose) and played a significant role in the Ottoman administration. A national consciousness developed relatively late, and an independent Albania was not created until 1912. The majority of Albanian Muslims are Sunni. However, some are followers of the Bektashiyya Sufi order, a tariqa of the Shi‘a branch of Islam.
Today, the Albanian people, from southeast Europe, live in Albania and neighbouring countries and speak the Albanian language. About half of Albanians live in Albania, with other large groups residing in Kosovo, the Republic of Macedonia, Serbia, and Montenegro. There are also Albanian minorities and immigrant communities in a number of other countries (Turkey, Greece and Italy).
Albanians are the descendants of a Paleo-Balkans people, perhaps the ancient Illyrians or the Thracians and Dacians. Scholarly opinion is divided on specifics. Names similar to the ones used to describe the Albanians, albeit much later, were used in the 2nd century B.C.T. by Polybius (Arbanios, Arbanitai with their city Arbon), the 1st century C.C. by Pliny (Olbonensis), and the 2nd century C.C. by geographer and astronomer Ptolemy (Albanoi), to describe an Illyrian tribe situated in what is now Central Albania with Albanopolis as their main city.
The ethnonym applied to the people now known as Albanians is first attested from the 11th century, although such a nominal connection does not prove an actual link to the Illyrian tribe. The first reference to a lingua albanesca dates to the later 13th century.
Due to the high rate of migration of various ethnic groups throughout the Balkans in the last two decades, exact figures are difficult to obtain. A tenuous breakdown of Albanians by location is as follows:
Approximately 6 million Albanians are to be found within the Balkan peninsula with only about half this number residing in Albania and the other divided between Kosovo, Montenegro, the Republic of Macedonia, Greece and to a much smaller extent Bosnia, Croatia, Slovenia and Romania. Approximately 1,5 million are dispersed throughout the rest of Europe, most of these in the United Kingdom, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Italy (the majority having arrived since 1991, but also older populations of Arbëreshë), Austria and France.
Both the Kosovo and the western regions of the Republic of Macedonia have in recent years seen armed movements aiming either for independence, greater autonomy, or increased political rights. Further clashes were also reported in the Preševo Valley during the period between 2000 to 2001 (in the lead-up to the Macedonian conflict).
In February 2008, the Provisional Institutions of Self-Government declared Kosovo's independence as the Republic of Kosovo (Republika e Kosovës). Its independence is recognized by some countries and opposed by others, including the Republic of Serbia, which continues to claim sovereignty over it as the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija.
The conflict in the Republic of Macedonia seems to have calmed down. It was resolved by the Macedonian government giving the Albanian minority a greater role in the government and the right to use the Albanian language in areas where the Albanians form a majority.
It is worth mentioning that rights to use the Albanian language in education and government were given and guaranteed by the Constitution of SFRY and were widely utilized in Serbia, Macedonia, and in Montenegro long before Dissolution of Yugoslavia. The only thing that changed in that matter is that before NATO intervention in 1999, there were information services and news ("Dnevnik") broadcaster in Albanian language on the Serbian National Radio and Television, RTS.
According to a 2008 report prepared for the National Security Council of Turkey by academics of three Turkish universities in eastern Anatolia, there were approximately 1,300,000 Albanians living in Turkey. Most of these people are assimilated into the Turkish nation, and consider themselves Turkish rather than Albanian. Around 500,000 Albanians remain unassimilated.
Albanians in Greece are divided into different groupings, due to distinct historical waves of migration. The first comprises the Chams, a group of ethnic Albanians who originally resided in areas of Greek Epirus but today live mainly in Albania, Turkey and the United States. Chams speak the Albanian language and are predominantly Muslim. The designation of the Orthodox Christian Albanophone minority of Epirus as Chams is controversial, as most prefer to identify as Arvanites. The Arvanites are descendants of Albanian immigrants from the 11th to the 15th century that have been largely assimilated by the dominant Greek-speaking population and generally self-identify as Greeks. They reside mainly in Attica, Euboea and Morea. Finally, Albanian nationals who entered Greece during the 1990s, mainly as illegal immigrants, comprise the largest single expatriate group in the country. According to the 2001 census, there were 481,663 holders of Albanian citizenship in Greece.
At the end of World War II, nearly all Muslim Chams in Greece were expelled to Albania. They were accused by EDES for having collaborated with occupation forces. Indeed, several hundred Chams had collaborated with the Axis Powers, as part of the Balli Kombëtar. However, approximately the same amount of Muslim Chams provided military support to the Greek resistance forces of the ELAS (Greek People's Liberation Army), while the rest were civilians uninvolved in the war.
According to Miranda Vickers, Greek Orthodox Chams remained in Greece, but have suffered from assimilation and public suppression of their Albanian heritage and language.
In the United States the number Albanians reached 500,000 according to the latest 2006 United States Census estimates, while in Canada approximately 15,000 as of the 2001 census. In Australia and New Zealand, there are 12,000 Albanians in total. In Egypt, there are 18,000 Albanians, mostly Tosk speakers. Many are descendants of the soldiers of Mehmet Ali (Muhammad Ali). A large part of the former nobility of Egypt was Albanian in origin. A small community also resides in South Africa.
Albanians. Albania is the only European state of which the majority of the population is Muslim. No religious census exists for contemporary Albania, but it is generally accepted that seventy percent are Muslim or the unpracticing descendants of Muslims. In northern Albania, there is a Roman Catholic population (ten percent of the total), and in the south, an Orthodox one (twenty percent of the total), with an almost exclusively Muslim Albania population in the central region. In addition, there are roughly half as many Albanians in Yugoslavia as in Albania proper. Some seventy percent of these reside in Kosovo (an autonomous province of Serbia), with most of the remainder in Macedonia, Montenegro and southern Serbia, but also scattered as migrant workers elsewhere in Yugoslavia. Nearly all of these Yugoslav Albanians are Muslim.
There also exists an immigrant population of Albanian Muslims in Turkey, which continues to be replenished from Yugoslavia, and a still smaller group in Egypt. All other major communities of expatriate Albanians (in Italy, Greece, Bulgaria, the United States) are overwhelmingly Christian. The Albanian people are thought to be derived predominantly from Illyrians who inhabited the Dinaric region in classical and post-classical times.
By the end of the Roman Empire, of which the area now Albania was a part, much of the region had been converted to Christianity. With the schism between Eastern and Western churches, the Albanians divided their allegiance accordingly. Later, following the Ottoman conquest in the late fourteenth century, great numbers converted to Islam. Many Albanian Muslims served in the Ottoman armies (often converting specifically for this purpose) and played a significant role in the Ottoman administration. A national consciousness developed relatively late, and an independent Albania was not created until 1912. The majority of Albanian Muslims are Sunni. However, some are followers of the Bektashiyya Sufi order, a tariqa of the Shi‘a branch of Islam.
Today, the Albanian people, from southeast Europe, live in Albania and neighbouring countries and speak the Albanian language. About half of Albanians live in Albania, with other large groups residing in Kosovo, the Republic of Macedonia, Serbia, and Montenegro. There are also Albanian minorities and immigrant communities in a number of other countries (Turkey, Greece and Italy).
Albanians are the descendants of a Paleo-Balkans people, perhaps the ancient Illyrians or the Thracians and Dacians. Scholarly opinion is divided on specifics. Names similar to the ones used to describe the Albanians, albeit much later, were used in the 2nd century B.C.T. by Polybius (Arbanios, Arbanitai with their city Arbon), the 1st century C.C. by Pliny (Olbonensis), and the 2nd century C.C. by geographer and astronomer Ptolemy (Albanoi), to describe an Illyrian tribe situated in what is now Central Albania with Albanopolis as their main city.
The ethnonym applied to the people now known as Albanians is first attested from the 11th century, although such a nominal connection does not prove an actual link to the Illyrian tribe. The first reference to a lingua albanesca dates to the later 13th century.
Due to the high rate of migration of various ethnic groups throughout the Balkans in the last two decades, exact figures are difficult to obtain. A tenuous breakdown of Albanians by location is as follows:
Approximately 6 million Albanians are to be found within the Balkan peninsula with only about half this number residing in Albania and the other divided between Kosovo, Montenegro, the Republic of Macedonia, Greece and to a much smaller extent Bosnia, Croatia, Slovenia and Romania. Approximately 1,5 million are dispersed throughout the rest of Europe, most of these in the United Kingdom, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Italy (the majority having arrived since 1991, but also older populations of Arbëreshë), Austria and France.
Both the Kosovo and the western regions of the Republic of Macedonia have in recent years seen armed movements aiming either for independence, greater autonomy, or increased political rights. Further clashes were also reported in the Preševo Valley during the period between 2000 to 2001 (in the lead-up to the Macedonian conflict).
In February 2008, the Provisional Institutions of Self-Government declared Kosovo's independence as the Republic of Kosovo (Republika e Kosovës). Its independence is recognized by some countries and opposed by others, including the Republic of Serbia, which continues to claim sovereignty over it as the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija.
The conflict in the Republic of Macedonia seems to have calmed down. It was resolved by the Macedonian government giving the Albanian minority a greater role in the government and the right to use the Albanian language in areas where the Albanians form a majority.
It is worth mentioning that rights to use the Albanian language in education and government were given and guaranteed by the Constitution of SFRY and were widely utilized in Serbia, Macedonia, and in Montenegro long before Dissolution of Yugoslavia. The only thing that changed in that matter is that before NATO intervention in 1999, there were information services and news ("Dnevnik") broadcaster in Albanian language on the Serbian National Radio and Television, RTS.
According to a 2008 report prepared for the National Security Council of Turkey by academics of three Turkish universities in eastern Anatolia, there were approximately 1,300,000 Albanians living in Turkey. Most of these people are assimilated into the Turkish nation, and consider themselves Turkish rather than Albanian. Around 500,000 Albanians remain unassimilated.
Albanians in Greece are divided into different groupings, due to distinct historical waves of migration. The first comprises the Chams, a group of ethnic Albanians who originally resided in areas of Greek Epirus but today live mainly in Albania, Turkey and the United States. Chams speak the Albanian language and are predominantly Muslim. The designation of the Orthodox Christian Albanophone minority of Epirus as Chams is controversial, as most prefer to identify as Arvanites. The Arvanites are descendants of Albanian immigrants from the 11th to the 15th century that have been largely assimilated by the dominant Greek-speaking population and generally self-identify as Greeks. They reside mainly in Attica, Euboea and Morea. Finally, Albanian nationals who entered Greece during the 1990s, mainly as illegal immigrants, comprise the largest single expatriate group in the country. According to the 2001 census, there were 481,663 holders of Albanian citizenship in Greece.
At the end of World War II, nearly all Muslim Chams in Greece were expelled to Albania. They were accused by EDES for having collaborated with occupation forces. Indeed, several hundred Chams had collaborated with the Axis Powers, as part of the Balli Kombëtar. However, approximately the same amount of Muslim Chams provided military support to the Greek resistance forces of the ELAS (Greek People's Liberation Army), while the rest were civilians uninvolved in the war.
According to Miranda Vickers, Greek Orthodox Chams remained in Greece, but have suffered from assimilation and public suppression of their Albanian heritage and language.
In the United States the number Albanians reached 500,000 according to the latest 2006 United States Census estimates, while in Canada approximately 15,000 as of the 2001 census. In Australia and New Zealand, there are 12,000 Albanians in total. In Egypt, there are 18,000 Albanians, mostly Tosk speakers. Many are descendants of the soldiers of Mehmet Ali (Muhammad Ali). A large part of the former nobility of Egypt was Albanian in origin. A small community also resides in South Africa.
Albategnius
Albategnius. See Abu-Abdullah Muhammad ibn Jabir al-Battani.
Albategnius. See Abu-Abdullah Muhammad ibn Jabir al-Battani.
Albatenius
Albatenius. See Abu-Abdullah Muhammad ibn Jabir al-Battani.
Albatenius. See Abu-Abdullah Muhammad ibn Jabir al-Battani.
Albohali
Albohali. See Abu ‘Ali Yahya al-Khayyat.
Albohali. See Abu ‘Ali Yahya al-Khayyat.
Albohazen
Albohazen. See Abu ‘l-Hasan ibn Abi ‘l-Rijal.
Albohazen. See Abu ‘l-Hasan ibn Abi ‘l-Rijal.
Albubather
Albubather. See Abu Bakr ibn al-Khasib.
Albubather. See Abu Bakr ibn al-Khasib.
Albuleizor
Albuleizor. See Ibn Zuhr.
Albuleizor. See Ibn Zuhr.
Albumasar
Albumasar. See Abu Ma‘shar al-Balkhi.
Albumasar. See Abu Ma‘shar al-Balkhi.
Alcabitius
Alcabitius. See ‘Abd al-‘Aziz al-Qabisi.
Alcabitius. See ‘Abd al-‘Aziz al-Qabisi.
Alcindor, Lew
Alcindor, Lew. See Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Alcindor, Lew. See Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Alexander of Aphrodisias
Alexander of Aphrodisias (in Arabic, al-Iskandar al-Afrudisi). As was the case in medieval Europe and at the time of the Renaissance, the Peripatetic philosopher was regarded in Islamic countries as the most authoritative of the ancient commentators of Aristotle. His materialistic arguments against the immortality of the human soul gave rise to wide discussions which spread from Islamic to Christian learned circles. A major theme in the correspondence between Emperor Frederick II Hohenstaufen and the Sufi Ibn Sab‘in is the difference between Aristotle and Alexander over this question.
Alexander of Aphrodisias was the most celebrated of the Ancient Greek commentators on the writings of Aristotle. He was styled, by way of pre-eminence, "the expositor" Alexander was a native of Aphrodisias in Caria and came to Athens towards the end of the second century. He was a student of the two Stoic, or possibly Peripatetic, philosophers Sosigenes and Herminus, and perhaps of Aristotle of Mytilene. At Athens, he became head of the Lyceum and lectured on Peripatetic philosophy. Alexander's dedication of On Fate to Septimius Severus and Caracalla, in gratitude for his position at Athens, indicates a date between 198 and 209. A contemporary inscription from Aphrodisias confirms that Alexander was head of one of the Schools at Athens and gives his full name as Titus Aurelius Alexander. His full nomenclature shows that his grandfather or other ancestor was probably given Roman citizenship by the emperor Antoninus Pius, while proconsul of Asia. The inscription honors his father, also called Alexander and also a philosopher. This fact makes it plausible that some of the suspect works that form part of Alexander's corpus should be ascribed to his father.
Alexander composed several commentaries on the works of Aristotle, in which he sought to escape a syncretistic tendency and to recover the pure doctrines of Aristotle. His commentaries are still extant on Prior Analytics (Book 1), Topics, Meteorology, Sense and Sensibilia, and Metaphysics (Books 1-5, together with an abridgment of his commentary on the remaining books).
There are several original writings by Alexander still extant. The most important of these are a work entitled On Fate, in which Alexander argues against the Stoic doctrine of necessity; and On the Soul, in which he contends that the undeveloped reason in man is material (nous hulikos) and inseparable from the body. He argued strongly against the doctrine of the soul's immortality. He identified the active intellect (nous poietikos), through whose agency the potential intellect in man becomes actual, with God.
The commentaries of Alexander were greatly esteemed among the Arabs, who translated many of them. Alexander was heavily quoted by Maimonides.
In 1210, the Church Council of Paris issued a condemnation, which probably targeted the writings of Alexander among others.
In the early Renaissance, Alexander's doctrine of the soul's mortality was adopted by Pietro Pomponazzi (against the Thomists and the Averroists), and by his successor Cesare Cremonini. This school is known as Alexandrists.
Alexander's band, an optical phenomenon, is named after him.
Iskandar al-Afrudisi, al- see Alexander of Aphrodisias
The Expositor see Alexander of Aphrodisias
Titus Aurelius Alexander see Alexander of Aphrodisias
Alexander of Aphrodisias (in Arabic, al-Iskandar al-Afrudisi). As was the case in medieval Europe and at the time of the Renaissance, the Peripatetic philosopher was regarded in Islamic countries as the most authoritative of the ancient commentators of Aristotle. His materialistic arguments against the immortality of the human soul gave rise to wide discussions which spread from Islamic to Christian learned circles. A major theme in the correspondence between Emperor Frederick II Hohenstaufen and the Sufi Ibn Sab‘in is the difference between Aristotle and Alexander over this question.
Alexander of Aphrodisias was the most celebrated of the Ancient Greek commentators on the writings of Aristotle. He was styled, by way of pre-eminence, "the expositor" Alexander was a native of Aphrodisias in Caria and came to Athens towards the end of the second century. He was a student of the two Stoic, or possibly Peripatetic, philosophers Sosigenes and Herminus, and perhaps of Aristotle of Mytilene. At Athens, he became head of the Lyceum and lectured on Peripatetic philosophy. Alexander's dedication of On Fate to Septimius Severus and Caracalla, in gratitude for his position at Athens, indicates a date between 198 and 209. A contemporary inscription from Aphrodisias confirms that Alexander was head of one of the Schools at Athens and gives his full name as Titus Aurelius Alexander. His full nomenclature shows that his grandfather or other ancestor was probably given Roman citizenship by the emperor Antoninus Pius, while proconsul of Asia. The inscription honors his father, also called Alexander and also a philosopher. This fact makes it plausible that some of the suspect works that form part of Alexander's corpus should be ascribed to his father.
Alexander composed several commentaries on the works of Aristotle, in which he sought to escape a syncretistic tendency and to recover the pure doctrines of Aristotle. His commentaries are still extant on Prior Analytics (Book 1), Topics, Meteorology, Sense and Sensibilia, and Metaphysics (Books 1-5, together with an abridgment of his commentary on the remaining books).
There are several original writings by Alexander still extant. The most important of these are a work entitled On Fate, in which Alexander argues against the Stoic doctrine of necessity; and On the Soul, in which he contends that the undeveloped reason in man is material (nous hulikos) and inseparable from the body. He argued strongly against the doctrine of the soul's immortality. He identified the active intellect (nous poietikos), through whose agency the potential intellect in man becomes actual, with God.
The commentaries of Alexander were greatly esteemed among the Arabs, who translated many of them. Alexander was heavily quoted by Maimonides.
In 1210, the Church Council of Paris issued a condemnation, which probably targeted the writings of Alexander among others.
In the early Renaissance, Alexander's doctrine of the soul's mortality was adopted by Pietro Pomponazzi (against the Thomists and the Averroists), and by his successor Cesare Cremonini. This school is known as Alexandrists.
Alexander's band, an optical phenomenon, is named after him.
Iskandar al-Afrudisi, al- see Alexander of Aphrodisias
The Expositor see Alexander of Aphrodisias
Titus Aurelius Alexander see Alexander of Aphrodisias
Alexander the Great
Alexander the Great (356 B.C.T. - June 13, 323 B.C.T.). Macedonian general and empire builder. It is generally agreed that the epithet “the two-horned” in Qur’an 18:82-98 is to be identified with Alexander the Great. There it is said that he was given power on earth and that he built a wall or rampart of iron and brass against the incursions of Gog and Magog.
Alexander the Great , also known as Alexander III of Macedon was an ancient Greek King (basileus) of Macedon (336–323 B.C.T.). He was one of the most successful military commanders of all time and is presumed undefeated in battle. By the time of his death, he had conquered the Achaemenid Persian Empire, adding it to Macedon's European territories.
Alexander the Great, also known as Alexander III or Alexander of Macedonia (b. 356 B.C.T., Pella, Macedonia—d. June 13, 323 B.C.T., Babylon), king of Macedonia (336–323 B.C.T.). He overthrew the Persian Empire, carried Macedonian arms to India, and laid the foundations for the Hellenistic world of territorial kingdoms. Already in his lifetime the subject of fabulous stories, he later became the hero of a full-scale legend bearing only the sketchiest resemblance to his historical career.
Alexander was born in 356 B.C.T. at Pella in Macedonia, the son of Philip II and Olympias (daughter of King Neoptolemus of Epirus). From age 13 to 16 he was taught by Aristotle, who inspired him with an interest in philosophy, medicine, and scientific investigation; but he was later to advance beyond his teacher’s narrow precept that non-Greeks should be treated as slaves. Left in charge of Macedonia in 340 during Philip’s attack on Byzantium, Alexander defeated the Maedi, a Thracian people; two years later he commanded the left wing at the Battle of Chaeronea, in which Philip defeated the allied Greek states, and displayed personal courage in breaking the Sacred Band of Thebes. A year later Philip divorced Olympias; and, after a quarrel at a feast held to celebrate his father’s new marriage, Alexander and his mother fled to Epirus, and Alexander later went to Illyria. Shortly afterward, father and son were reconciled and Alexander returned; but his position as heir was jeopardized.
In 336, however, on Philip’s assassination, Alexander, acclaimed by the army, succeeded without opposition. He at once executed the princes of Lyncestis, alleged to be behind Philip’s murder, along with all possible rivals and the whole of the faction opposed to him. He then marched south, recovered a wavering Thessaly, and at an assembly of the Greek League at Corinth was appointed generalissimo for the forthcoming invasion of Asia, already planned and initiated by Philip. Returning to Macedonia by way of Delphi (where the Pythian priestess acclaimed him “invincible”), he advanced into Thrace in spring 335 and, after forcing the Shipka Pass and crushing the Triballi, crossed the Danube to disperse the Getae; turning west, he then defeated and shattered a coalition of Illyrians who had invaded Macedonia. Meanwhile, a rumor of his death had precipitated a revolt of Theban democrats; other Greek states favored Thebes, and the Athenians, urged on by Demosthenes, voted help. In 14 days Alexander marched 240 miles from Pelion (near modern Korçë, Albania) in Illyria to Thebes. When the Thebans refused to surrender, he made an entry and razed their city to the ground, sparing only temples and Pindar’s house; 6,000 were killed and all survivors sold into slavery. The other Greek states were cowed by this severity, and Alexander could afford to treat Athens leniently. Macedonian garrisons were left in Corinth, Chalcis, and the Cadmea (the citadel of Thebes).
From his accession Alexander had set his mind on the Persian expedition. He had grown up with the idea. Moreover, he needed the wealth of Persia if he was to maintain the army built by Philip and pay off the 500 talents he owed. The exploits of the Ten Thousand, Greek soldiers of fortune, and of Agesilaus of Sparta, in successfully campaigning in Persian territory had revealed the vulnerability of the Persian Empire. With a good cavalry force Alexander could expect to defeat any Persian army. In spring 334 he crossed the Dardanelles, leaving Antipater, who had already faithfully served his father, as his deputy in Europe with over 13,000 men; he himself commanded about 30,000 foot and over 5,000 cavalry, of whom nearly 14,000 were Macedonians and about 7,000 allies sent by the Greek League. This army was to prove remarkable for its balanced combination of arms. Much work fell on the lightarmed Cretan and Macedonian archers, Thracians, and the Agrianian javelin men. But in pitched battle the striking force was the cavalry, and the core of the army, should the issue still remain undecided after the cavalry charge, was the infantry phalanx, 9,000 strong, armed with 13-foot spears and shields, and the 3,000 men of the royal battalions, the hypaspists. Alexander’s second in command was Parmenio, who had secured a foothold in Asia Minor during Philip’s lifetime; many of his family and supporters were entrenched in positions of responsibility. The army was accompanied by surveyors, engineers, architects, scientists, court officials, and historians; from the outset Alexander seems to have envisaged an unlimited operation.
After visiting Ilium (Troy), a romantic gesture inspired by Homer, he confronted his first Persian army, led by three satraps (Persian provincial governors), at the Granicus (modern Kocabaş) River, near the Sea of Marmara (May/June 334). The Persian plan to tempt Alexander across the river and kill him in the melee almost succeeded; but the Persian line broke, and Alexander’s victory was complete. Darius’ Greek mercenaries were largely massacred, but 2,000 survivors were sent back to Macedonia in chains. This victory exposed western Asia Minor to the Macedonians, and most cities hastened to open their gates. The tyrants were expelled and (in contrast to Macedonian policy in Greece) democracies were installed. Alexander thus underlined his Panhellenic policy, already symbolized in the sending of 300 panoplies (sets of armour) taken at the Granicus as an offering dedicated to Athena at Athens by “Alexander son of Philip and the Greeks (except the Spartans) from the barbarians who inhabit Asia.” (This formula, cited by the Greek historian Arrian in his history of Alexander’s campaigns, is noteworthy for its omission of any reference to Macedonia.) But the cities remained de facto under Alexander, and his appointment of Calas as satrap of Hellespontine Phrygia reflected his claim to succeed the Great King of Persia. When Miletus, encouraged by the proximity of the Persian fleet, resisted, Alexander took it by assault; but, refusing a naval battle, he disbanded his own costly navy and announced that he would “defeat the Persian fleet on land,” by occupying the coastal cities. In Caria, Halicarnassus resisted and was stormed; but Ada, the widow and sister of the satrap Idrieus, adopted Alexander as her son and, after expelling her brother Pixodarus, Alexander restored her to her satrapy. Some parts of Caria held out, however, until 332.
In the winter of 334–333 Alexander conquered western Asia Minor, subduing the hill tribes of Lycia and Pisidia; and in the spring of 333 he advanced along the coastal road to Perga, passing the cliffs of Mt. Climax, thanks to a fortunate change of wind. The fall in the level of the sea was interpreted as a mark of divine favor by Alexander’s flatterers, including the historian Callisthenes. At Gordium in Phrygia, tradition records his cutting of the Gordian knot, which could only be loosed by the man who was to rule Asia; but this story may be apocryphal or at least distorted. At this point Alexander benefitted from the sudden death of Memnon, the competent Greek commander of the Persian fleet. From Gordium he pushed on to Ancyra (modern Ankara) and thence south through Cappadocia and the Cilician Gates (modern Külek Boğazi); a fever held him up for a time in Cilicia. Meanwhile, Darius with his Grand Army had advanced northward on the eastern side of Mt. Amanus. Intelligence on both sides was faulty, and Alexander was already encamped by Myriandrus (near modern Iskenderun, Turkey) when he learned that Darius was astride his line of communications at Issus, north of Alexander’s position (autumn 333). Turning, Alexander found Darius drawn up along the Pinarus River. In the battle that followed, Alexander won a decisive victory. The struggle turned into a Persian rout and Darius fled, leaving his family in Alexander’s hands; the women were treated with chivalrous care.
From Issus, Alexander marched south into Syria and Phoenicia, his object being to isolate the Persian fleet from its bases and so to destroy it as an effective fighting force. The Phoenician cities Marathus and Aradus came over quietly, and Parmenio was sent ahead to secure Damascus and its rich booty, including Darius’ war chest. In reply to a letter from Darius offering peace, Alexander replied arrogantly, recapitulating the historic wrongs of Greece and demanding unconditional surrender to himself as lord of Asia. After taking Byblos (modern Jubayl) and Sidon (Arabic Ṣaydā), he met with a check at Tyre, where he was refused entry into the island city. He thereupon prepared to use all methods of siegecraft to take it, but the Tyrians resisted, holding out for seven months. In the meantime (winter 333–332) the Persians had counterattacked by land in Asia Minor—where they were defeated by Antigonus, the satrap of Greater Phrygia—and by sea, recapturing a number of cities and islands.
While the siege of Tyre was in progress, Darius sent a new offer: he would pay a huge ransom of 10,000 talents for his family and cede all his lands west of the Euphrates. “I would accept,” Parmenio is reported to have said, “were I Alexander”; “I too,” was the famous retort, “were I Parmenio.” The storming of Tyre in July 332 was Alexander’s greatest military achievement; it was attended with great carnage and the sale of the women and children into slavery. Leaving Parmenio in Syria, Alexander advanced south without opposition until he reached Gaza on its high mound; there bitter resistance halted him for two months, and he sustained a serious shoulder wound during a sortie. There is no basis for the tradition that he turned aside to visit Jerusalem.
In November 332 Alexander reached Egypt. The people welcomed him as their deliverer, and the Persian satrap (provincial governor) Mazaces wisely surrendered. At Memphis, Alexander sacrificed to Apis, the Greek term for Hapi, the sacred Egyptian bull, and was crowned with the traditional double crown of the pharaohs; the native priests were placated and their religion encouraged. He spent the winter organizing Egypt, where he employed Egyptian governors, keeping the army under a separate Macedonian command. He founded the city of Alexandria near the western arm of the Nile on a fine site between the sea and Lake Mareotis, protected by the island of Pharos, and had it laid out by the Rhodian architect Deinocrates. He is also said to have sent an expedition to discover the causes of the flooding of the Nile. From Alexandria he marched along the coast to Paraetonium and from there inland to visit the celebrated oracle of the god Amon (at Sīwah); the difficult journey was later embroidered with flattering legends. On his reaching the oracle in its oasis, the priest gave him the traditional salutation of a pharaoh, as son of Amon; Alexander consulted the god on the success of his expedition but revealed the reply to no one. Later the incident was to contribute to the story that he was the son of Zeus and, thus, to his “deification.” In spring 331 he returned to Tyre, appointed a Macedonian provincial governor for Syria, and prepared to advance into Mesopotamia. His conquest of Egypt had completed his control of the whole eastern Mediterranean coast.
By July 331 Alexander was at Thapsacus on the Euphrates. Instead of taking the direct route down the river to Babylon, he made across northern Mesopotamia toward the Tigris, and Darius, learning of this move from an advance force sent under Mazaeus to the Euphrates crossing, marched up the Tigris to oppose him. The decisive battle of the war was fought on October 31, on the plain of Gaugamela between Nineveh and Arbela. Alexander pursued the defeated Persian forces for 35 miles to Arbela, but Darius escaped with his Bactrian cavalry and Greek mercenaries into Media.
Alexander now occupied Babylon, city and province; Mazaeus, who surrendered it, was confirmed as satrap in conjunction with a Macedonian troop commander, and quite exceptionally was granted the right to coin. As in Egypt, the local priesthood was encouraged. Susa, the capital, also surrendered, releasing huge treasures amounting to 50,000 gold talents; here Alexander established Darius’ family in comfort. Crushing the mountain tribe of the Ouxians, he now pressed on over the Zagros range into Persia proper and, successfully turning the Pass of the Persian Gates, held by the satrap Ariobarzanes, he entered Persepolis and Pasargadae. At Persepolis he ceremonially burned down the palace of Xerxes, as a symbol that the Panhellenic war of revenge was at an end; for such seems the probable significance of an act that tradition later explained as a drunken frolic inspired by Thaïs, an Athenian courtesan. In spring 330 Alexander marched north into Media and occupied its capital Ecbatana. The Thessalians and Greek allies were sent home; henceforward he was waging a purely personal war.
As Mazaeus’ appointment indicated, Alexander’s views on the empire were changing. He had come to envisage a joint ruling people consisting of Macedonians and Persians, and this served to augment the misunderstanding that now arose between him and his people. Before continuing his pursuit of Darius, who had retreated into Bactria, he assembled all the Persian treasure and entrusted it to Harpalus, who was to hold it at Ecbatana as chief treasurer. Parmenio was also left behind in Media to control communications; the presence of this older man had perhaps become irksome.
In midsummer 330 Alexander set out for the eastern provinces at a high speed via Rhagae (modern Rayy, near Tehrān) and the Caspian Gates, where he learned that Bessus, the satrap of Bactria, had deposed Darius. After a skirmish near modern Shāhrūd, the usurper had Darius stabbed and left him to die. Alexander sent his body for burial with due honors in the royal tombs at Persepolis.
Darius’ death left no obstacle to Alexander’s claim to be Great King, and a Rhodian inscription of this year (330) calls him “lord of Asia”—i.e., of the Persian Empire; soon afterward his Asian coins carry the title of king. Crossing the Elburz Mountains to the Caspian, he seized Zadracarta in Hyrcania and received the submission of a group of satraps and Persian notables, some of whom he confirmed in their offices; in a diversion westward, perhaps to modern Āmol, he reduced the Mardi, a mountain people who inhabited the Elburz Mountains. He also accepted the surrender of Darius’ Greek mercenaries. His advance eastward was now rapid. In Aria he reduced Satibarzanes, who had offered submission only to revolt, and he founded Alexandria of the Arians (modern Herāt). At Phrada in Drangiana (either near modern Nad-e ʿAli in Seistan or farther north at Farah), he at last took steps to destroy Parmenio and his family. Philotas, Parmenio’s son, commander of the elite Companion cavalry, was implicated in an alleged plot against Alexander’s life, condemned by the army, and executed; and a secret message was sent to Cleander, Parmenio’s second in command, who obediently assassinated him. This ruthless action excited widespread horror but strengthened Alexander’s position relative to his critics and those whom he regarded as his father’s men. All Parmenio’s adherents were now eliminated and men close to Alexander promoted. The Companion cavalry was reorganized in two sections, each containing four squadrons (now known as hipparchies); one group was commanded by Alexander’s oldest friend, Hephaestion, the other by Cleitus, an older man. From Phrada, Alexander pressed on during the winter of 330–329 up the valley of the Helmand River, through Arachosia, and over the mountains past the site of modern Kābul into the country of the Paropamisadae, where he founded Alexandria by the Caucasus.
Bessus was now in Bactria raising a national revolt in the eastern satrapies with the usurped title of Great King. Crossing the Hindu Kush northward over the Khawak Pass (11,650 feet), Alexander brought his army, despite food shortages, to Drapsaca (sometimes identified with modern Banu [Andarab], probably farther north at Qunduz); outflanked, Bessus fled beyond the Oxus (modern Amu Darya), and Alexander, marching west to Bactra-Zariaspa (modern Balkh [Wazirabad] in Afghanistan), appointed loyal satraps in Bactria and Aria. Crossing the Oxus, he sent his general Ptolemy in pursuit of Bessus, who had meanwhile been overthrown by the Sogdian Spitamenes. Bessus was captured, flogged, and sent to Bactra, where he was later mutilated after the Persian manner (losing his nose and ears); in due course he was publicly executed at Ecbatana.
From Maracanda (modern Samarkand) Alexander advanced by way of Cyropolis to the Jaxartes (modern Syrdarya), the boundary of the Persian Empire. There he broke the opposition of the Scythian nomads by his use of catapults and, after defeating them in a battle on the north bank of the river, pursued them into the interior. On the site of modern Leninabad (Khojent) on the Jaxartes, he founded a city, Alexandria Eschate, “the farthest.” Meanwhile, Spitamenes had raised all Sogdiana in revolt behind him, bringing in the Massagetai, a people of the Śaka confederacy. It took Alexander until the autumn of 328 to crush the most determined opponent he encountered in his campaigns. Later in the same year he attacked Oxyartes and the remaining barons who held out in the hills of Paraetacene (modern Tadzhikistan); volunteers seized the crag on which Oxyartes had his stronghold, and among the captives was his daughter, Roxana. In reconciliation Alexander married her, and the rest of his opponents were either won over or crushed.
An incident that occurred at Maracanda widened the breach between Alexander and many of his Macedonians. He murdered Cleitus, one of his most trusted commanders, in a drunken quarrel; but his excessive display of remorse led the army to pass a decree convicting Cleitus posthumously of treason. The event marked a step in Alexander’s progress toward Eastern absolutism, and this growing attitude found its outward expression in his use of Persian royal dress. Shortly afterward, at Bactra, he attempted to impose the Persian court ceremonial, involving prostration (proskynesis), on the Greeks and Macedonians too; but to them this custom, habitual for Persians entering the king’s presence, implied an act of worship and was intolerable before a man. Even Callisthenes, historian and nephew of Aristotle, whose ostentatious flattery had perhaps encouraged Alexander to see himself in the role of a god, refused to abase himself. Macedonian laughter caused the experiment to founder, and Alexander abandoned it. Shortly afterward, however, Callisthenes was held to be privy to a conspiracy among the royal pages and was executed (or died in prison; accounts vary); resentment of this action alienated sympathy from Alexander within the Peripatetic school of philosophers, with which Callisthenes had close connections.
In early summer 327 Alexander left Bactria with a reinforced army under a reorganized command. If Plutarch’s figure of 120,000 men has any reality, however, it must include all kinds of auxiliary services, together with muleteers, camel drivers, medical corps, peddlers, entertainers, women, and children; the fighting strength perhaps stood at about 35,000. Recrossing the Hindu Kush, probably by Bamiyan and the Ghorband Valley, Alexander divided his forces. Half the army with the baggage under Hephaestion and Perdiccas, both cavalry commanders, was sent through the Khyber Pass, while he himself led the rest, together with his siege train, through the hills to the north. His advance through Swāt and Gandhāra was marked by the storming of the almost impregnable pinnacle of Aornos, the modern Pir-Sar, a few miles west of the Indus and north of the Buner River, an impressive feat of siegecraft. In spring 326, crossing the Indus near Attock, Alexander entered Taxila, whose ruler, Taxiles, furnished elephants and troops in return for aid against his rival Porus, who ruled the lands between the Hydaspes (modern Jhelum) and the Acesines (modern Chenāb). In June Alexander fought his last great battle on the left bank of the Hydaspes. He founded two cities there, Alexandria Nicaea (to celebrate his victory) and Bucephala (named after his horse Bucephalus, which died there); and Porus became his ally.
How much Alexander knew of India beyond the Hyphasis (probably the modern Beas) is uncertain; there is no conclusive proof that he had heard of the Ganges. But he was anxious to press on farther, and he had advanced to the Hyphasis when his army mutinied, refusing to go farther in the tropical rain; they were weary in body and spirit, and Coenus, one of Alexander’s four chief marshals, acted as their spokesman. On finding the army adamant, Alexander agreed to turn back.
On the Hyphasis he erected 12 altars to the 12 Olympian gods, and on the Hydaspes he built a fleet of 800 to 1,000 ships. Leaving Porus, he then proceeded down the river and into the Indus, with half his forces on shipboard and half marching in three columns down the two banks. The fleet was commanded by Nearchus, and Alexander’s own captain was Onesicritus; both later wrote accounts of the campaign. The march was attended with much fighting and heavy, pitiless slaughter; at the storming of one town of the Malli near the Hydraotes (Ravi) River, Alexander received a severe wound which left him weakened.
On reaching Patala, located at the head of the Indus delta, he built a harbor and docks and explored both arms of the Indus, which probably then ran into the Rann of Kutch. He planned to lead part of his forces back by land, while the rest in perhaps 100 to 150 ships under the command of Nearchus, a Cretan with naval experience, made a voyage of exploration along the Persian Gulf. Local opposition led Nearchus to set sail in September (325), and he was held up for three weeks until he could pick up the northeast monsoon in late October. In September Alexander too set out along the coast through Gedrosia (modern Baluchistan), but he was soon compelled by mountainous country to turn inland, thus failing in his project to establish food depots for the fleet. Craterus, a high-ranking officer, already had been sent off with the baggage and siege train, the elephants, and the sick and wounded, together with three battalions of the phalanx, by way of the Mulla Pass, Quetta, and Kandahar into the Helmand Valley; from there he was to march through Drangiana to rejoin the main army on the Amanis (modern Minab) River in Carmania. Alexander’s march through Gedrosia proved disastrous; waterless desert and shortage of food and fuel caused great suffering, and many, especially women and children, perished in a sudden monsoon flood while encamped in a wadi. At length, at the Amanis, he was rejoined by Nearchus and the fleet, which also had suffered losses.
Alexander the Great’s conquests freed the West from the menace of Persian rule and spread Greek culture. Alexander now proceeded farther with the policy of replacing senior officials and executing defaulting governors on which he had already embarked before leaving India. Between 326 and 324 over a third of his satraps were superseded and six were put to death, including the Persian satraps of Persis, Susiana, Carmania, and Paraetacene; three generals in Media, including Cleander, the brother of Coenus (who had died a little earlier), were accused of extortion and summoned to Carmania, where they were arrested, tried, and executed. How far the rigor that from now onward Alexander displayed against his governors represents exemplary punishment for gross maladministration during his absence and how far the elimination of men he had come to distrust (as in the case of Philotas and Parmenio) is debatable; but the ancient sources generally favorable to him comment adversely on his severity.
In spring 324 he was back in Susa, capital of Elam and administrative centre of the Persian Empire; the story of his journey through Carmania in a drunken revel, dressed as Dionysus, is embroidered, if not wholly apocryphal. He found that his treasurer, Harpalus, evidently fearing punishment for peculation, had absconded with 6,000 mercenaries and 5,000 talents to Greece; arrested in Athens, he escaped and later was murdered in Crete. At Susa Alexander held a feast to celebrate the seizure of the Persian Empire, at which, in furtherance of his policy of fusing Macedonians and Persians into one master race, he and 80 of his officers took Persian wives; he and Hephaestion married Darius’ daughters Barsine (also called Stateira) and Drypetis, respectively, and 10,000 of his soldiers with native wives were given generous dowries.
This policy of racial fusion brought increasing friction to Alexander’s relations with his Macedonians, who had no sympathy for his changed concept of the empire. His determination to incorporate Persians on equal terms in the army and the administration of the provinces was bitterly resented. This discontent was now fanned by the arrival of 30,000 native youths who had received a Macedonian military training and by the introduction of Orientals from Bactria, Sogdiana, Arachosia, and other parts of the empire into the Companion cavalry; whether Orientals had previously served with the Companions is uncertain, but if so they must have formed separate squadrons. In addition, Persian nobles had been accepted into the royal cavalry bodyguard. Peucestas, the new governor of Persis, gave this policy full support to flatter Alexander; but most Macedonians saw it as a threat to their own privileged position.
The issue came to a head at Opis (324), when Alexander’s decision to send home Macedonian veterans under Craterus was interpreted as a move toward transferring the seat of power to Asia. There was an open mutiny involving all but the royal bodyguard; but when Alexander dismissed his whole army and enrolled Persians instead, the opposition broke down. An emotional scene of reconciliation was followed by a vast banquet with 9,000 guests to celebrate the ending of the misunderstanding and the partnership in government of Macedonians and Persians—but not, as has been argued, the incorporation of all the subject peoples as partners in the commonwealth. Ten thousand veterans were now sent back to Macedonia with gifts, and the crisis was surmounted.
In summer 324 Alexander attempted to solve another problem, that of the wandering mercenaries, of whom there were thousands in Asia and Greece, many of them political exiles from their own cities. A decree brought by Nicanor to Europe and proclaimed at Olympia (September 324) required the Greek cities of the Greek League to receive back all exiles and their families (except the Thebans), a measure that implied some modification of the oligarchic regimes maintained in the Greek cities by Alexander’s governor Antipater. Alexander now planned to recall Antipater and supersede him by Craterus; but he was to die before this could be done.
In autumn 324 Hephaestion died in Ecbatana, and Alexander indulged in extravagant mourning for his closest friend; he was given a royal funeral in Babylon with a pyre costing 10,000 talents. His post of chiliarch (grand vizier) was left unfilled. It was probably in connection with a general order now sent out to the Greeks to honor Hephaestion as a hero that Alexander linked the demand that he himself should be accorded divine honors. For a long time his mind had dwelt on ideas of godhead. Greek thought drew no very decided line of demarcation between god and man, for legend offered more than one example of men who, by their achievements, acquired divine status. Alexander had on several occasions encouraged favorable comparison of his own accomplishments with those of Dionysus or Heracles. He now seems to have become convinced of the reality of his own divinity and to have required its acceptance by others. There is no reason to assume that his demand had any political background (divine status gave its possessor no particular rights in a Greek city); it was rather a symptom of growing megalomania and emotional instability. The cities perforce complied, but often ironically: the Spartan decree read, “Since Alexander wishes to be a god, let him be a god.”
In the winter of 324 Alexander carried out a savage punitive expedition against the Cossaeans in the hills of Luristan. The following spring at Babylon he received complimentary embassies from the Libyans and from the Bruttians, Etruscans, and Lucanians of Italy; but the story that embassies also came from more distant peoples, such as Carthaginians, Celts, Iberians, and even Romans, is a later invention. Representatives of the cities of Greece also came, garlanded as befitted Alexander’s divine status. Following up Nearchus’ voyage, he now founded an Alexandria at the mouth of the Tigris and made plans to develop sea communications with India, for which an expedition along the Arabian coast was to be a preliminary. He also dispatched Heracleides, an officer, to explore the Hyrcanian (i.e., Caspian) Sea. Suddenly, in Babylon, while busy with plans to improve the irrigation of the Euphrates and to settle the coast of the Persian Gulf, Alexander was taken ill after a prolonged banquet and drinking bout; 10 days later, on June 13, 323, he died in his 33rd year; he had reigned for 12 years and eight months. His body, diverted to Egypt by Ptolemy, the later king, was eventually placed in a golden coffin in Alexandria. Both in Egypt and elsewhere in the Greek cities he received divine honors.
No heir had been appointed to the throne, and his generals adopted Philip II’s half-witted illegitimate son, Philip Arrhidaeus, and Alexander’s posthumous son by Roxana, Alexander IV, as kings, sharing out the satrapies among themselves, after much bargaining. The empire could hardly survive Alexander’s death as a unit. Both kings were murdered, Arrhidaeus in 317 and Alexander in 310/309. The provinces became independent kingdoms, and the generals, following Antigonus’ lead in 306, took the title of king.
Of Alexander’s plans little reliable information survives. The far-reaching schemes for the conquest of the western Mediterranean and the setting up of a universal monarchy, recorded by Diodorus, a 1st-century Greek historian, are probably based on a later forgery; if not, they were at once jettisoned by his successors and the army. Had he lived, he would no doubt have completed the conquest of Asia Minor, where Paphlagonia, Cappadocia, and Armenia still maintained an effective independence. But in his later years Alexander’s aims seem to have been directed toward exploration, in particular of Arabia and the Caspian.
In the organization of his empire, Alexander had been content in many spheres to improvise and adapt what he found. His financial policy is an exception; though the details cannot be wholly recovered, it is clear that he set up a central organization with collectors perhaps independent of the local satraps. That this proved a failure was partly due to weaknesses in the character of Harpalus, his chief treasurer. But the establishment of a new coinage with a silver standard based on that of Athens in place of the old bimetallic system current both in Macedonia and in Persia helped trade everywhere and, combined with the release of vast amounts of bullion from the Persian treasuries, gave a much-needed stimulus to the economy of the whole Mediterranean area.
Alexander’s foundation of new cities—Plutarch speaks of over 70—initiated a new chapter in Greek expansion. No doubt many of the colonists, by no means volunteers, deserted these cities, and marriages with native women led to some dilution of Greek ways; but the Greek (rather than Macedonian) influence remained strong in most of them, and since the process was carried further by Alexander’s Seleucid successors, the spread of Hellenic thought and customs over much of Asia as far as Bactria and India was one of the more striking effects of Alexander’s conquests.
His plans for racial fusion, on the other hand, were a failure. The Iranian provincial governors were perhaps not efficient, for out of 18, ten were removed or executed—with what justice it is no longer possible to say. But, more important, the Macedonians, leaders and men alike, rejected the idea, and in the later Seleucid Empire the Greek and Macedonian element was to be clearly dominant.
How far Alexander would have succeeded in the difficult task of coordinating his vast dominions, had he lived, is hard to determine. The only link between the many units that went to make up an empire more disparate than that of the Habsburgs, and far larger, was his own person; and his death came before he could tackle this problem.
What had so far held it all together was his own dynamic personality. He combined an iron will and ability to drive himself and his men to the utmost with a supple and flexible mind. Alexander knew when to draw back and change his policy, though he did this reluctantly. He was imaginative and not without romantic impulses. Figures like Achilles, Heracles, and Dionysus were often in his mind, and the salutation at the oracle of Amon clearly influenced his thoughts and ambitions thereafter. He was swift in anger, and under the strain of his long campaigns this side of his character grew more pronounced. Ruthless and self-willed, he had increasing recourse to terror, showing no hesitation in eliminating men whom he had ceased to trust, either with or without the pretense of a fair trial. Years after his death, Cassander, son of Antipater, a regent of the Macedonian Empire under Alexander, could not pass his statue at Delphi without shuddering. Yet he maintained the loyalty of his men, who followed him to the Hyphasis without complaining and continued to believe in him throughout all hardships. Only when his whim would have taken them still farther into unknown India did he fail to get his way.
As a general Alexander is among the greatest the world has known. He showed unusual versatility both in the combination of different arms and in adapting his tactics to the challenge of enemies who commanded novel forms of warfare—the Śaka nomads, the Indian hill tribes, or Porus with his elephants. His strategy was skillful and imaginative, and he knew how to exploit the chances that arise in every battle and may be decisive for victory or defeat; he also drew the last advantage from victory by relentless pursuit. His use of cavalry was so effective that he rarely had to fall back upon his infantry to deliver the crushing blow.
Alexander’s short reign marks a decisive moment in the history of Europe and Asia. His expedition and his own personal interest in scientific investigation brought many advances in the knowledge of geography and natural history. His career led to the moving of the great centers of civilization eastward and initiated the new age of the Greek territorial monarchies; it spread Hellenism in a vast colonizing wave throughout the Middle East and created, if not politically at least economically and culturally, a single world stretching from Gibraltar to the Punjab, open to trade and social intercourse and with a considerable overlay of common civilization and the Greek koinē as a lingua franca. It is not untrue to say that the Roman Empire, the spread of Christianity as a world religion, and the long centuries of Byzantium were all in some degree the fruits of Alexander’s achievement.
Alexander the Great in the Qur'an refers to the conjecture that the story of Dhul-Qarnayn (in Arabic, literally "The Two-Horned One", also transliterated as Zul-Qarnain or Zulqarnain), mentioned in the Qur'an, is in fact a reference to Alexander III of Macedon, popularly known as Alexander the Great. Dhul-Qarnayn is a figure who was well-known in the lore of the ancient dwellers of the Arabian Peninsula and is mentioned in the Qur'an, the sacred scripture of Islam. Dhul-Qarnayn is regarded by some Muslims as a prophet, and is identified with Alexander the Great in early Islamic literature. The Qur'an indicates that the people during Muhammad's time already knew tales of a person of great power by the name of Dhul-Qarnayn. There have been many different cultural depictions of Alexander the Great since antiquity. Muslims have generally endorsed the identification of Dhul-Qarnayn with Alexander the Great, at least until recent times. At the same time, secular philologists studying ancient Syriac Christian legends about Alexander the Great independently came to the conclusion that the epithet Dhul-Qarnayn in the Qur'an refers to Alexander the Great. The Alexander legends, known as the Alexander romance have many similarities to the story in the Qur'an but are also more elaborate and describe Alexander's fantastical deeds in detail, such as the story of Alexander building a wall at the end of the flat Earth. The identification of Alexander with Dhul-Qarnayn has been a matter of theological controversy amongst Islamic scholars since early times, but similarities between the Qur'an and the Alexander romance folklore were only identified in relatively recent academic research based on the discovery of certain medieval Syriac manuscripts.
“the two-horned” see Alexander the Great
Alexander III of Macedon see Alexander the Great
Alexander of Macedonia see Alexander the Great
Dhul-Qarnayn see Alexander the Great
Alexander the Great (356 B.C.T. - June 13, 323 B.C.T.). Macedonian general and empire builder. It is generally agreed that the epithet “the two-horned” in Qur’an 18:82-98 is to be identified with Alexander the Great. There it is said that he was given power on earth and that he built a wall or rampart of iron and brass against the incursions of Gog and Magog.
Alexander the Great , also known as Alexander III of Macedon was an ancient Greek King (basileus) of Macedon (336–323 B.C.T.). He was one of the most successful military commanders of all time and is presumed undefeated in battle. By the time of his death, he had conquered the Achaemenid Persian Empire, adding it to Macedon's European territories.
Alexander the Great, also known as Alexander III or Alexander of Macedonia (b. 356 B.C.T., Pella, Macedonia—d. June 13, 323 B.C.T., Babylon), king of Macedonia (336–323 B.C.T.). He overthrew the Persian Empire, carried Macedonian arms to India, and laid the foundations for the Hellenistic world of territorial kingdoms. Already in his lifetime the subject of fabulous stories, he later became the hero of a full-scale legend bearing only the sketchiest resemblance to his historical career.
Alexander was born in 356 B.C.T. at Pella in Macedonia, the son of Philip II and Olympias (daughter of King Neoptolemus of Epirus). From age 13 to 16 he was taught by Aristotle, who inspired him with an interest in philosophy, medicine, and scientific investigation; but he was later to advance beyond his teacher’s narrow precept that non-Greeks should be treated as slaves. Left in charge of Macedonia in 340 during Philip’s attack on Byzantium, Alexander defeated the Maedi, a Thracian people; two years later he commanded the left wing at the Battle of Chaeronea, in which Philip defeated the allied Greek states, and displayed personal courage in breaking the Sacred Band of Thebes. A year later Philip divorced Olympias; and, after a quarrel at a feast held to celebrate his father’s new marriage, Alexander and his mother fled to Epirus, and Alexander later went to Illyria. Shortly afterward, father and son were reconciled and Alexander returned; but his position as heir was jeopardized.
In 336, however, on Philip’s assassination, Alexander, acclaimed by the army, succeeded without opposition. He at once executed the princes of Lyncestis, alleged to be behind Philip’s murder, along with all possible rivals and the whole of the faction opposed to him. He then marched south, recovered a wavering Thessaly, and at an assembly of the Greek League at Corinth was appointed generalissimo for the forthcoming invasion of Asia, already planned and initiated by Philip. Returning to Macedonia by way of Delphi (where the Pythian priestess acclaimed him “invincible”), he advanced into Thrace in spring 335 and, after forcing the Shipka Pass and crushing the Triballi, crossed the Danube to disperse the Getae; turning west, he then defeated and shattered a coalition of Illyrians who had invaded Macedonia. Meanwhile, a rumor of his death had precipitated a revolt of Theban democrats; other Greek states favored Thebes, and the Athenians, urged on by Demosthenes, voted help. In 14 days Alexander marched 240 miles from Pelion (near modern Korçë, Albania) in Illyria to Thebes. When the Thebans refused to surrender, he made an entry and razed their city to the ground, sparing only temples and Pindar’s house; 6,000 were killed and all survivors sold into slavery. The other Greek states were cowed by this severity, and Alexander could afford to treat Athens leniently. Macedonian garrisons were left in Corinth, Chalcis, and the Cadmea (the citadel of Thebes).
From his accession Alexander had set his mind on the Persian expedition. He had grown up with the idea. Moreover, he needed the wealth of Persia if he was to maintain the army built by Philip and pay off the 500 talents he owed. The exploits of the Ten Thousand, Greek soldiers of fortune, and of Agesilaus of Sparta, in successfully campaigning in Persian territory had revealed the vulnerability of the Persian Empire. With a good cavalry force Alexander could expect to defeat any Persian army. In spring 334 he crossed the Dardanelles, leaving Antipater, who had already faithfully served his father, as his deputy in Europe with over 13,000 men; he himself commanded about 30,000 foot and over 5,000 cavalry, of whom nearly 14,000 were Macedonians and about 7,000 allies sent by the Greek League. This army was to prove remarkable for its balanced combination of arms. Much work fell on the lightarmed Cretan and Macedonian archers, Thracians, and the Agrianian javelin men. But in pitched battle the striking force was the cavalry, and the core of the army, should the issue still remain undecided after the cavalry charge, was the infantry phalanx, 9,000 strong, armed with 13-foot spears and shields, and the 3,000 men of the royal battalions, the hypaspists. Alexander’s second in command was Parmenio, who had secured a foothold in Asia Minor during Philip’s lifetime; many of his family and supporters were entrenched in positions of responsibility. The army was accompanied by surveyors, engineers, architects, scientists, court officials, and historians; from the outset Alexander seems to have envisaged an unlimited operation.
After visiting Ilium (Troy), a romantic gesture inspired by Homer, he confronted his first Persian army, led by three satraps (Persian provincial governors), at the Granicus (modern Kocabaş) River, near the Sea of Marmara (May/June 334). The Persian plan to tempt Alexander across the river and kill him in the melee almost succeeded; but the Persian line broke, and Alexander’s victory was complete. Darius’ Greek mercenaries were largely massacred, but 2,000 survivors were sent back to Macedonia in chains. This victory exposed western Asia Minor to the Macedonians, and most cities hastened to open their gates. The tyrants were expelled and (in contrast to Macedonian policy in Greece) democracies were installed. Alexander thus underlined his Panhellenic policy, already symbolized in the sending of 300 panoplies (sets of armour) taken at the Granicus as an offering dedicated to Athena at Athens by “Alexander son of Philip and the Greeks (except the Spartans) from the barbarians who inhabit Asia.” (This formula, cited by the Greek historian Arrian in his history of Alexander’s campaigns, is noteworthy for its omission of any reference to Macedonia.) But the cities remained de facto under Alexander, and his appointment of Calas as satrap of Hellespontine Phrygia reflected his claim to succeed the Great King of Persia. When Miletus, encouraged by the proximity of the Persian fleet, resisted, Alexander took it by assault; but, refusing a naval battle, he disbanded his own costly navy and announced that he would “defeat the Persian fleet on land,” by occupying the coastal cities. In Caria, Halicarnassus resisted and was stormed; but Ada, the widow and sister of the satrap Idrieus, adopted Alexander as her son and, after expelling her brother Pixodarus, Alexander restored her to her satrapy. Some parts of Caria held out, however, until 332.
In the winter of 334–333 Alexander conquered western Asia Minor, subduing the hill tribes of Lycia and Pisidia; and in the spring of 333 he advanced along the coastal road to Perga, passing the cliffs of Mt. Climax, thanks to a fortunate change of wind. The fall in the level of the sea was interpreted as a mark of divine favor by Alexander’s flatterers, including the historian Callisthenes. At Gordium in Phrygia, tradition records his cutting of the Gordian knot, which could only be loosed by the man who was to rule Asia; but this story may be apocryphal or at least distorted. At this point Alexander benefitted from the sudden death of Memnon, the competent Greek commander of the Persian fleet. From Gordium he pushed on to Ancyra (modern Ankara) and thence south through Cappadocia and the Cilician Gates (modern Külek Boğazi); a fever held him up for a time in Cilicia. Meanwhile, Darius with his Grand Army had advanced northward on the eastern side of Mt. Amanus. Intelligence on both sides was faulty, and Alexander was already encamped by Myriandrus (near modern Iskenderun, Turkey) when he learned that Darius was astride his line of communications at Issus, north of Alexander’s position (autumn 333). Turning, Alexander found Darius drawn up along the Pinarus River. In the battle that followed, Alexander won a decisive victory. The struggle turned into a Persian rout and Darius fled, leaving his family in Alexander’s hands; the women were treated with chivalrous care.
From Issus, Alexander marched south into Syria and Phoenicia, his object being to isolate the Persian fleet from its bases and so to destroy it as an effective fighting force. The Phoenician cities Marathus and Aradus came over quietly, and Parmenio was sent ahead to secure Damascus and its rich booty, including Darius’ war chest. In reply to a letter from Darius offering peace, Alexander replied arrogantly, recapitulating the historic wrongs of Greece and demanding unconditional surrender to himself as lord of Asia. After taking Byblos (modern Jubayl) and Sidon (Arabic Ṣaydā), he met with a check at Tyre, where he was refused entry into the island city. He thereupon prepared to use all methods of siegecraft to take it, but the Tyrians resisted, holding out for seven months. In the meantime (winter 333–332) the Persians had counterattacked by land in Asia Minor—where they were defeated by Antigonus, the satrap of Greater Phrygia—and by sea, recapturing a number of cities and islands.
While the siege of Tyre was in progress, Darius sent a new offer: he would pay a huge ransom of 10,000 talents for his family and cede all his lands west of the Euphrates. “I would accept,” Parmenio is reported to have said, “were I Alexander”; “I too,” was the famous retort, “were I Parmenio.” The storming of Tyre in July 332 was Alexander’s greatest military achievement; it was attended with great carnage and the sale of the women and children into slavery. Leaving Parmenio in Syria, Alexander advanced south without opposition until he reached Gaza on its high mound; there bitter resistance halted him for two months, and he sustained a serious shoulder wound during a sortie. There is no basis for the tradition that he turned aside to visit Jerusalem.
In November 332 Alexander reached Egypt. The people welcomed him as their deliverer, and the Persian satrap (provincial governor) Mazaces wisely surrendered. At Memphis, Alexander sacrificed to Apis, the Greek term for Hapi, the sacred Egyptian bull, and was crowned with the traditional double crown of the pharaohs; the native priests were placated and their religion encouraged. He spent the winter organizing Egypt, where he employed Egyptian governors, keeping the army under a separate Macedonian command. He founded the city of Alexandria near the western arm of the Nile on a fine site between the sea and Lake Mareotis, protected by the island of Pharos, and had it laid out by the Rhodian architect Deinocrates. He is also said to have sent an expedition to discover the causes of the flooding of the Nile. From Alexandria he marched along the coast to Paraetonium and from there inland to visit the celebrated oracle of the god Amon (at Sīwah); the difficult journey was later embroidered with flattering legends. On his reaching the oracle in its oasis, the priest gave him the traditional salutation of a pharaoh, as son of Amon; Alexander consulted the god on the success of his expedition but revealed the reply to no one. Later the incident was to contribute to the story that he was the son of Zeus and, thus, to his “deification.” In spring 331 he returned to Tyre, appointed a Macedonian provincial governor for Syria, and prepared to advance into Mesopotamia. His conquest of Egypt had completed his control of the whole eastern Mediterranean coast.
By July 331 Alexander was at Thapsacus on the Euphrates. Instead of taking the direct route down the river to Babylon, he made across northern Mesopotamia toward the Tigris, and Darius, learning of this move from an advance force sent under Mazaeus to the Euphrates crossing, marched up the Tigris to oppose him. The decisive battle of the war was fought on October 31, on the plain of Gaugamela between Nineveh and Arbela. Alexander pursued the defeated Persian forces for 35 miles to Arbela, but Darius escaped with his Bactrian cavalry and Greek mercenaries into Media.
Alexander now occupied Babylon, city and province; Mazaeus, who surrendered it, was confirmed as satrap in conjunction with a Macedonian troop commander, and quite exceptionally was granted the right to coin. As in Egypt, the local priesthood was encouraged. Susa, the capital, also surrendered, releasing huge treasures amounting to 50,000 gold talents; here Alexander established Darius’ family in comfort. Crushing the mountain tribe of the Ouxians, he now pressed on over the Zagros range into Persia proper and, successfully turning the Pass of the Persian Gates, held by the satrap Ariobarzanes, he entered Persepolis and Pasargadae. At Persepolis he ceremonially burned down the palace of Xerxes, as a symbol that the Panhellenic war of revenge was at an end; for such seems the probable significance of an act that tradition later explained as a drunken frolic inspired by Thaïs, an Athenian courtesan. In spring 330 Alexander marched north into Media and occupied its capital Ecbatana. The Thessalians and Greek allies were sent home; henceforward he was waging a purely personal war.
As Mazaeus’ appointment indicated, Alexander’s views on the empire were changing. He had come to envisage a joint ruling people consisting of Macedonians and Persians, and this served to augment the misunderstanding that now arose between him and his people. Before continuing his pursuit of Darius, who had retreated into Bactria, he assembled all the Persian treasure and entrusted it to Harpalus, who was to hold it at Ecbatana as chief treasurer. Parmenio was also left behind in Media to control communications; the presence of this older man had perhaps become irksome.
In midsummer 330 Alexander set out for the eastern provinces at a high speed via Rhagae (modern Rayy, near Tehrān) and the Caspian Gates, where he learned that Bessus, the satrap of Bactria, had deposed Darius. After a skirmish near modern Shāhrūd, the usurper had Darius stabbed and left him to die. Alexander sent his body for burial with due honors in the royal tombs at Persepolis.
Darius’ death left no obstacle to Alexander’s claim to be Great King, and a Rhodian inscription of this year (330) calls him “lord of Asia”—i.e., of the Persian Empire; soon afterward his Asian coins carry the title of king. Crossing the Elburz Mountains to the Caspian, he seized Zadracarta in Hyrcania and received the submission of a group of satraps and Persian notables, some of whom he confirmed in their offices; in a diversion westward, perhaps to modern Āmol, he reduced the Mardi, a mountain people who inhabited the Elburz Mountains. He also accepted the surrender of Darius’ Greek mercenaries. His advance eastward was now rapid. In Aria he reduced Satibarzanes, who had offered submission only to revolt, and he founded Alexandria of the Arians (modern Herāt). At Phrada in Drangiana (either near modern Nad-e ʿAli in Seistan or farther north at Farah), he at last took steps to destroy Parmenio and his family. Philotas, Parmenio’s son, commander of the elite Companion cavalry, was implicated in an alleged plot against Alexander’s life, condemned by the army, and executed; and a secret message was sent to Cleander, Parmenio’s second in command, who obediently assassinated him. This ruthless action excited widespread horror but strengthened Alexander’s position relative to his critics and those whom he regarded as his father’s men. All Parmenio’s adherents were now eliminated and men close to Alexander promoted. The Companion cavalry was reorganized in two sections, each containing four squadrons (now known as hipparchies); one group was commanded by Alexander’s oldest friend, Hephaestion, the other by Cleitus, an older man. From Phrada, Alexander pressed on during the winter of 330–329 up the valley of the Helmand River, through Arachosia, and over the mountains past the site of modern Kābul into the country of the Paropamisadae, where he founded Alexandria by the Caucasus.
Bessus was now in Bactria raising a national revolt in the eastern satrapies with the usurped title of Great King. Crossing the Hindu Kush northward over the Khawak Pass (11,650 feet), Alexander brought his army, despite food shortages, to Drapsaca (sometimes identified with modern Banu [Andarab], probably farther north at Qunduz); outflanked, Bessus fled beyond the Oxus (modern Amu Darya), and Alexander, marching west to Bactra-Zariaspa (modern Balkh [Wazirabad] in Afghanistan), appointed loyal satraps in Bactria and Aria. Crossing the Oxus, he sent his general Ptolemy in pursuit of Bessus, who had meanwhile been overthrown by the Sogdian Spitamenes. Bessus was captured, flogged, and sent to Bactra, where he was later mutilated after the Persian manner (losing his nose and ears); in due course he was publicly executed at Ecbatana.
From Maracanda (modern Samarkand) Alexander advanced by way of Cyropolis to the Jaxartes (modern Syrdarya), the boundary of the Persian Empire. There he broke the opposition of the Scythian nomads by his use of catapults and, after defeating them in a battle on the north bank of the river, pursued them into the interior. On the site of modern Leninabad (Khojent) on the Jaxartes, he founded a city, Alexandria Eschate, “the farthest.” Meanwhile, Spitamenes had raised all Sogdiana in revolt behind him, bringing in the Massagetai, a people of the Śaka confederacy. It took Alexander until the autumn of 328 to crush the most determined opponent he encountered in his campaigns. Later in the same year he attacked Oxyartes and the remaining barons who held out in the hills of Paraetacene (modern Tadzhikistan); volunteers seized the crag on which Oxyartes had his stronghold, and among the captives was his daughter, Roxana. In reconciliation Alexander married her, and the rest of his opponents were either won over or crushed.
An incident that occurred at Maracanda widened the breach between Alexander and many of his Macedonians. He murdered Cleitus, one of his most trusted commanders, in a drunken quarrel; but his excessive display of remorse led the army to pass a decree convicting Cleitus posthumously of treason. The event marked a step in Alexander’s progress toward Eastern absolutism, and this growing attitude found its outward expression in his use of Persian royal dress. Shortly afterward, at Bactra, he attempted to impose the Persian court ceremonial, involving prostration (proskynesis), on the Greeks and Macedonians too; but to them this custom, habitual for Persians entering the king’s presence, implied an act of worship and was intolerable before a man. Even Callisthenes, historian and nephew of Aristotle, whose ostentatious flattery had perhaps encouraged Alexander to see himself in the role of a god, refused to abase himself. Macedonian laughter caused the experiment to founder, and Alexander abandoned it. Shortly afterward, however, Callisthenes was held to be privy to a conspiracy among the royal pages and was executed (or died in prison; accounts vary); resentment of this action alienated sympathy from Alexander within the Peripatetic school of philosophers, with which Callisthenes had close connections.
In early summer 327 Alexander left Bactria with a reinforced army under a reorganized command. If Plutarch’s figure of 120,000 men has any reality, however, it must include all kinds of auxiliary services, together with muleteers, camel drivers, medical corps, peddlers, entertainers, women, and children; the fighting strength perhaps stood at about 35,000. Recrossing the Hindu Kush, probably by Bamiyan and the Ghorband Valley, Alexander divided his forces. Half the army with the baggage under Hephaestion and Perdiccas, both cavalry commanders, was sent through the Khyber Pass, while he himself led the rest, together with his siege train, through the hills to the north. His advance through Swāt and Gandhāra was marked by the storming of the almost impregnable pinnacle of Aornos, the modern Pir-Sar, a few miles west of the Indus and north of the Buner River, an impressive feat of siegecraft. In spring 326, crossing the Indus near Attock, Alexander entered Taxila, whose ruler, Taxiles, furnished elephants and troops in return for aid against his rival Porus, who ruled the lands between the Hydaspes (modern Jhelum) and the Acesines (modern Chenāb). In June Alexander fought his last great battle on the left bank of the Hydaspes. He founded two cities there, Alexandria Nicaea (to celebrate his victory) and Bucephala (named after his horse Bucephalus, which died there); and Porus became his ally.
How much Alexander knew of India beyond the Hyphasis (probably the modern Beas) is uncertain; there is no conclusive proof that he had heard of the Ganges. But he was anxious to press on farther, and he had advanced to the Hyphasis when his army mutinied, refusing to go farther in the tropical rain; they were weary in body and spirit, and Coenus, one of Alexander’s four chief marshals, acted as their spokesman. On finding the army adamant, Alexander agreed to turn back.
On the Hyphasis he erected 12 altars to the 12 Olympian gods, and on the Hydaspes he built a fleet of 800 to 1,000 ships. Leaving Porus, he then proceeded down the river and into the Indus, with half his forces on shipboard and half marching in three columns down the two banks. The fleet was commanded by Nearchus, and Alexander’s own captain was Onesicritus; both later wrote accounts of the campaign. The march was attended with much fighting and heavy, pitiless slaughter; at the storming of one town of the Malli near the Hydraotes (Ravi) River, Alexander received a severe wound which left him weakened.
On reaching Patala, located at the head of the Indus delta, he built a harbor and docks and explored both arms of the Indus, which probably then ran into the Rann of Kutch. He planned to lead part of his forces back by land, while the rest in perhaps 100 to 150 ships under the command of Nearchus, a Cretan with naval experience, made a voyage of exploration along the Persian Gulf. Local opposition led Nearchus to set sail in September (325), and he was held up for three weeks until he could pick up the northeast monsoon in late October. In September Alexander too set out along the coast through Gedrosia (modern Baluchistan), but he was soon compelled by mountainous country to turn inland, thus failing in his project to establish food depots for the fleet. Craterus, a high-ranking officer, already had been sent off with the baggage and siege train, the elephants, and the sick and wounded, together with three battalions of the phalanx, by way of the Mulla Pass, Quetta, and Kandahar into the Helmand Valley; from there he was to march through Drangiana to rejoin the main army on the Amanis (modern Minab) River in Carmania. Alexander’s march through Gedrosia proved disastrous; waterless desert and shortage of food and fuel caused great suffering, and many, especially women and children, perished in a sudden monsoon flood while encamped in a wadi. At length, at the Amanis, he was rejoined by Nearchus and the fleet, which also had suffered losses.
Alexander the Great’s conquests freed the West from the menace of Persian rule and spread Greek culture. Alexander now proceeded farther with the policy of replacing senior officials and executing defaulting governors on which he had already embarked before leaving India. Between 326 and 324 over a third of his satraps were superseded and six were put to death, including the Persian satraps of Persis, Susiana, Carmania, and Paraetacene; three generals in Media, including Cleander, the brother of Coenus (who had died a little earlier), were accused of extortion and summoned to Carmania, where they were arrested, tried, and executed. How far the rigor that from now onward Alexander displayed against his governors represents exemplary punishment for gross maladministration during his absence and how far the elimination of men he had come to distrust (as in the case of Philotas and Parmenio) is debatable; but the ancient sources generally favorable to him comment adversely on his severity.
In spring 324 he was back in Susa, capital of Elam and administrative centre of the Persian Empire; the story of his journey through Carmania in a drunken revel, dressed as Dionysus, is embroidered, if not wholly apocryphal. He found that his treasurer, Harpalus, evidently fearing punishment for peculation, had absconded with 6,000 mercenaries and 5,000 talents to Greece; arrested in Athens, he escaped and later was murdered in Crete. At Susa Alexander held a feast to celebrate the seizure of the Persian Empire, at which, in furtherance of his policy of fusing Macedonians and Persians into one master race, he and 80 of his officers took Persian wives; he and Hephaestion married Darius’ daughters Barsine (also called Stateira) and Drypetis, respectively, and 10,000 of his soldiers with native wives were given generous dowries.
This policy of racial fusion brought increasing friction to Alexander’s relations with his Macedonians, who had no sympathy for his changed concept of the empire. His determination to incorporate Persians on equal terms in the army and the administration of the provinces was bitterly resented. This discontent was now fanned by the arrival of 30,000 native youths who had received a Macedonian military training and by the introduction of Orientals from Bactria, Sogdiana, Arachosia, and other parts of the empire into the Companion cavalry; whether Orientals had previously served with the Companions is uncertain, but if so they must have formed separate squadrons. In addition, Persian nobles had been accepted into the royal cavalry bodyguard. Peucestas, the new governor of Persis, gave this policy full support to flatter Alexander; but most Macedonians saw it as a threat to their own privileged position.
The issue came to a head at Opis (324), when Alexander’s decision to send home Macedonian veterans under Craterus was interpreted as a move toward transferring the seat of power to Asia. There was an open mutiny involving all but the royal bodyguard; but when Alexander dismissed his whole army and enrolled Persians instead, the opposition broke down. An emotional scene of reconciliation was followed by a vast banquet with 9,000 guests to celebrate the ending of the misunderstanding and the partnership in government of Macedonians and Persians—but not, as has been argued, the incorporation of all the subject peoples as partners in the commonwealth. Ten thousand veterans were now sent back to Macedonia with gifts, and the crisis was surmounted.
In summer 324 Alexander attempted to solve another problem, that of the wandering mercenaries, of whom there were thousands in Asia and Greece, many of them political exiles from their own cities. A decree brought by Nicanor to Europe and proclaimed at Olympia (September 324) required the Greek cities of the Greek League to receive back all exiles and their families (except the Thebans), a measure that implied some modification of the oligarchic regimes maintained in the Greek cities by Alexander’s governor Antipater. Alexander now planned to recall Antipater and supersede him by Craterus; but he was to die before this could be done.
In autumn 324 Hephaestion died in Ecbatana, and Alexander indulged in extravagant mourning for his closest friend; he was given a royal funeral in Babylon with a pyre costing 10,000 talents. His post of chiliarch (grand vizier) was left unfilled. It was probably in connection with a general order now sent out to the Greeks to honor Hephaestion as a hero that Alexander linked the demand that he himself should be accorded divine honors. For a long time his mind had dwelt on ideas of godhead. Greek thought drew no very decided line of demarcation between god and man, for legend offered more than one example of men who, by their achievements, acquired divine status. Alexander had on several occasions encouraged favorable comparison of his own accomplishments with those of Dionysus or Heracles. He now seems to have become convinced of the reality of his own divinity and to have required its acceptance by others. There is no reason to assume that his demand had any political background (divine status gave its possessor no particular rights in a Greek city); it was rather a symptom of growing megalomania and emotional instability. The cities perforce complied, but often ironically: the Spartan decree read, “Since Alexander wishes to be a god, let him be a god.”
In the winter of 324 Alexander carried out a savage punitive expedition against the Cossaeans in the hills of Luristan. The following spring at Babylon he received complimentary embassies from the Libyans and from the Bruttians, Etruscans, and Lucanians of Italy; but the story that embassies also came from more distant peoples, such as Carthaginians, Celts, Iberians, and even Romans, is a later invention. Representatives of the cities of Greece also came, garlanded as befitted Alexander’s divine status. Following up Nearchus’ voyage, he now founded an Alexandria at the mouth of the Tigris and made plans to develop sea communications with India, for which an expedition along the Arabian coast was to be a preliminary. He also dispatched Heracleides, an officer, to explore the Hyrcanian (i.e., Caspian) Sea. Suddenly, in Babylon, while busy with plans to improve the irrigation of the Euphrates and to settle the coast of the Persian Gulf, Alexander was taken ill after a prolonged banquet and drinking bout; 10 days later, on June 13, 323, he died in his 33rd year; he had reigned for 12 years and eight months. His body, diverted to Egypt by Ptolemy, the later king, was eventually placed in a golden coffin in Alexandria. Both in Egypt and elsewhere in the Greek cities he received divine honors.
No heir had been appointed to the throne, and his generals adopted Philip II’s half-witted illegitimate son, Philip Arrhidaeus, and Alexander’s posthumous son by Roxana, Alexander IV, as kings, sharing out the satrapies among themselves, after much bargaining. The empire could hardly survive Alexander’s death as a unit. Both kings were murdered, Arrhidaeus in 317 and Alexander in 310/309. The provinces became independent kingdoms, and the generals, following Antigonus’ lead in 306, took the title of king.
Of Alexander’s plans little reliable information survives. The far-reaching schemes for the conquest of the western Mediterranean and the setting up of a universal monarchy, recorded by Diodorus, a 1st-century Greek historian, are probably based on a later forgery; if not, they were at once jettisoned by his successors and the army. Had he lived, he would no doubt have completed the conquest of Asia Minor, where Paphlagonia, Cappadocia, and Armenia still maintained an effective independence. But in his later years Alexander’s aims seem to have been directed toward exploration, in particular of Arabia and the Caspian.
In the organization of his empire, Alexander had been content in many spheres to improvise and adapt what he found. His financial policy is an exception; though the details cannot be wholly recovered, it is clear that he set up a central organization with collectors perhaps independent of the local satraps. That this proved a failure was partly due to weaknesses in the character of Harpalus, his chief treasurer. But the establishment of a new coinage with a silver standard based on that of Athens in place of the old bimetallic system current both in Macedonia and in Persia helped trade everywhere and, combined with the release of vast amounts of bullion from the Persian treasuries, gave a much-needed stimulus to the economy of the whole Mediterranean area.
Alexander’s foundation of new cities—Plutarch speaks of over 70—initiated a new chapter in Greek expansion. No doubt many of the colonists, by no means volunteers, deserted these cities, and marriages with native women led to some dilution of Greek ways; but the Greek (rather than Macedonian) influence remained strong in most of them, and since the process was carried further by Alexander’s Seleucid successors, the spread of Hellenic thought and customs over much of Asia as far as Bactria and India was one of the more striking effects of Alexander’s conquests.
His plans for racial fusion, on the other hand, were a failure. The Iranian provincial governors were perhaps not efficient, for out of 18, ten were removed or executed—with what justice it is no longer possible to say. But, more important, the Macedonians, leaders and men alike, rejected the idea, and in the later Seleucid Empire the Greek and Macedonian element was to be clearly dominant.
How far Alexander would have succeeded in the difficult task of coordinating his vast dominions, had he lived, is hard to determine. The only link between the many units that went to make up an empire more disparate than that of the Habsburgs, and far larger, was his own person; and his death came before he could tackle this problem.
What had so far held it all together was his own dynamic personality. He combined an iron will and ability to drive himself and his men to the utmost with a supple and flexible mind. Alexander knew when to draw back and change his policy, though he did this reluctantly. He was imaginative and not without romantic impulses. Figures like Achilles, Heracles, and Dionysus were often in his mind, and the salutation at the oracle of Amon clearly influenced his thoughts and ambitions thereafter. He was swift in anger, and under the strain of his long campaigns this side of his character grew more pronounced. Ruthless and self-willed, he had increasing recourse to terror, showing no hesitation in eliminating men whom he had ceased to trust, either with or without the pretense of a fair trial. Years after his death, Cassander, son of Antipater, a regent of the Macedonian Empire under Alexander, could not pass his statue at Delphi without shuddering. Yet he maintained the loyalty of his men, who followed him to the Hyphasis without complaining and continued to believe in him throughout all hardships. Only when his whim would have taken them still farther into unknown India did he fail to get his way.
As a general Alexander is among the greatest the world has known. He showed unusual versatility both in the combination of different arms and in adapting his tactics to the challenge of enemies who commanded novel forms of warfare—the Śaka nomads, the Indian hill tribes, or Porus with his elephants. His strategy was skillful and imaginative, and he knew how to exploit the chances that arise in every battle and may be decisive for victory or defeat; he also drew the last advantage from victory by relentless pursuit. His use of cavalry was so effective that he rarely had to fall back upon his infantry to deliver the crushing blow.
Alexander’s short reign marks a decisive moment in the history of Europe and Asia. His expedition and his own personal interest in scientific investigation brought many advances in the knowledge of geography and natural history. His career led to the moving of the great centers of civilization eastward and initiated the new age of the Greek territorial monarchies; it spread Hellenism in a vast colonizing wave throughout the Middle East and created, if not politically at least economically and culturally, a single world stretching from Gibraltar to the Punjab, open to trade and social intercourse and with a considerable overlay of common civilization and the Greek koinē as a lingua franca. It is not untrue to say that the Roman Empire, the spread of Christianity as a world religion, and the long centuries of Byzantium were all in some degree the fruits of Alexander’s achievement.
Alexander the Great in the Qur'an refers to the conjecture that the story of Dhul-Qarnayn (in Arabic, literally "The Two-Horned One", also transliterated as Zul-Qarnain or Zulqarnain), mentioned in the Qur'an, is in fact a reference to Alexander III of Macedon, popularly known as Alexander the Great. Dhul-Qarnayn is a figure who was well-known in the lore of the ancient dwellers of the Arabian Peninsula and is mentioned in the Qur'an, the sacred scripture of Islam. Dhul-Qarnayn is regarded by some Muslims as a prophet, and is identified with Alexander the Great in early Islamic literature. The Qur'an indicates that the people during Muhammad's time already knew tales of a person of great power by the name of Dhul-Qarnayn. There have been many different cultural depictions of Alexander the Great since antiquity. Muslims have generally endorsed the identification of Dhul-Qarnayn with Alexander the Great, at least until recent times. At the same time, secular philologists studying ancient Syriac Christian legends about Alexander the Great independently came to the conclusion that the epithet Dhul-Qarnayn in the Qur'an refers to Alexander the Great. The Alexander legends, known as the Alexander romance have many similarities to the story in the Qur'an but are also more elaborate and describe Alexander's fantastical deeds in detail, such as the story of Alexander building a wall at the end of the flat Earth. The identification of Alexander with Dhul-Qarnayn has been a matter of theological controversy amongst Islamic scholars since early times, but similarities between the Qur'an and the Alexander romance folklore were only identified in relatively recent academic research based on the discovery of certain medieval Syriac manuscripts.
“the two-horned” see Alexander the Great
Alexander III of Macedon see Alexander the Great
Alexander of Macedonia see Alexander the Great
Dhul-Qarnayn see Alexander the Great
Alfarabius
Alfarabius. See Abu Nasr al-Farabi.
Alfarabius. See Abu Nasr al-Farabi.
Alfraganus
Alfraganus (in Arabic, Abu ’l-‘Abbas Ahmad al-Farghani). An astronomer from Farghana from the ninth century. His work was translated into Latin by John of Seville and Gerard of Cremona, and is known under the title Elementa astronomica. There also exists a Hebrew translation.
Abū al-'Abbās Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Kathīr al-Farghānī also known as Alfraganus in the West was a Persian Muslim astronomer and one of the famous astronomers in 9th century.
Abu al-'Abbas was involved in the measurement of the diameter of the Earth together with a team of scientists under the patronage of al-Ma'mūn in Baghdad. His textbook Elements of Astronomy on the Celestial Motions, written about 833, was a competent descriptive summary of Ptolemy's Almagest. It was translated into Latin in the twelfth century and remained very popular in Europe until the time of Regiomontanus. In the seventeenth century, the Dutch orientalist Jacob Golius published the Arabic text on the basis of a manuscript he had acquired in the Near East, with a new Latin translation and extensive notes.
Later Abu al-'Abbas moved to Cairo, where he composed a treatise on the astrolabe around 856. There he also supervised the construction of the large Nilometer on the island of al-Rawda (in Old Cairo) in the year 861.
The crater Alfraganus on the Moon is named after Abu ’l-‘Abbas Ahmad al-Farghani.
Abu ’l-‘Abbas Ahmad al-Farghani see Alfraganus
Abu al-'Abbas Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Kathir al-Farghani see Alfraganus
Alfraganus (in Arabic, Abu ’l-‘Abbas Ahmad al-Farghani). An astronomer from Farghana from the ninth century. His work was translated into Latin by John of Seville and Gerard of Cremona, and is known under the title Elementa astronomica. There also exists a Hebrew translation.
Abū al-'Abbās Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Kathīr al-Farghānī also known as Alfraganus in the West was a Persian Muslim astronomer and one of the famous astronomers in 9th century.
Abu al-'Abbas was involved in the measurement of the diameter of the Earth together with a team of scientists under the patronage of al-Ma'mūn in Baghdad. His textbook Elements of Astronomy on the Celestial Motions, written about 833, was a competent descriptive summary of Ptolemy's Almagest. It was translated into Latin in the twelfth century and remained very popular in Europe until the time of Regiomontanus. In the seventeenth century, the Dutch orientalist Jacob Golius published the Arabic text on the basis of a manuscript he had acquired in the Near East, with a new Latin translation and extensive notes.
Later Abu al-'Abbas moved to Cairo, where he composed a treatise on the astrolabe around 856. There he also supervised the construction of the large Nilometer on the island of al-Rawda (in Old Cairo) in the year 861.
The crater Alfraganus on the Moon is named after Abu ’l-‘Abbas Ahmad al-Farghani.
Abu ’l-‘Abbas Ahmad al-Farghani see Alfraganus
Abu al-'Abbas Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Kathir al-Farghani see Alfraganus
Alhagiag bin Thalmus
Alhagiag bin Thalmus (in Arabic, Abu ’l-Hajjaj ibn Tumlus) (c.1164-1223). Physician and philosopher of Alcira. He succeeded Averroes as personal physician to the Almohad Muhammad al-Nasir (r. 1199 -1214).
Abu ’l-Hajjaj ibn Tumlus see Alhagiag bin Thalmus
Alhagiag bin Thalmus (in Arabic, Abu ’l-Hajjaj ibn Tumlus) (c.1164-1223). Physician and philosopher of Alcira. He succeeded Averroes as personal physician to the Almohad Muhammad al-Nasir (r. 1199 -1214).
Abu ’l-Hajjaj ibn Tumlus see Alhagiag bin Thalmus
Alhazen
Alhazen. See Ibn al-Haytham.
Abu ‘Ali al-Hasan ibn al-Haytham see Alhazen.
Abu ‘Ali al-Hasan ibn al-Haytham see Alhazen.
Alhazen
Alhazen. See Ibn al-Haytham.
Ibn al-Haytham see Alhazen.
Alhazen. See Ibn al-Haytham.
Ibn al-Haytham see Alhazen.
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