2025: Tulayha - Turan

 

Tulayha ibn Khuwaylid ibn Nawfal
Tulayha ibn Khuwaylid ibn Nawfal (Tulayha ibn Khuwaylid ibn Nawfal al-Asadi).  One of the tribal leaders who headed the so-called “apostasy” (in Arabic, ridda) under Caliph Abu Bakr after the Bedouin tribes had renounced their personal allegiance to the Prophet.  Tulayha was defeated in the expedition of Qatan in 625, took part in the siege of Medina in 626, but submitted to the Prophet in 630.  In 631, he rebelled again, assuming the role of prophet.  After the Prophet’s death he was defeated by Khalid ibn al-Walid in 632.  On ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab’s election as caliph in634, he came to pay homage, and later took a valiant part in the battles of al-Qadisiyya, Jalula and Nihawand.

Tulayha ibn Khuwaylid ibn Nawfal al-Asadi belonged to the Bani Assad tribe. He was a wealthy chief and a great warrior. In 625, he was defeated in the Expedition of Qatan (against the Muslims). He also took part in the Battle of the Trench in 627. In 630, he submitted to Muhammad. However, he rebelled against Muhammad in 631 when he claimed to be a prophet and the recipient of divine revelation. Thus, Tulayha became the third person to claim prophethood among the Arabs against Muhammad. Many tribes acknowledged him as a prophet, which made him sufficiently strong and powerful to lead a confederacy of numerous tribes against the Muslims. Thereafter, Khalid ibn al-Walid was sent to crush him and his confederacy. The armies of Khalid and Tulayha met at a place named Buzaka in 632. In this engagement, the army of Tulayha was defeated in the Battle of Buzakha. Following this battle, many of the rebellious tribes surrendered and accepted Islam. However, Tulayha escaped from Buzaka and sought refuge in Syria. But when Syria was conquered by the Muslims, Tulayha accepted Islam. In 634, he personally paid homage to Umar after the latter’s assumption of the position of Caliph. Later on, Tulayha enthusiastically took part in the Battle of Jalula, the Battle of al-Qādisiyyah and the Battle of Nahāvand alongside the Muslim armies and later died as a Muslim.
Tulayha ibn Khuwaylid ibn Nawfal al-Asadi  see Tulayha ibn Khuwaylid ibn Nawfal

Tulaytili, Abu’l-Qasim Sa‘id al-
Tulaytili, Abu’l-Qasim Sa‘id al- (Abu'l-Qasim Sa'id al-Tulaytili) (Qadi Sa‘id, al) (1029-1070). Spanish Muslim jurist, historian, mathematician and astronomer.  He was judge at Toledo during the rule of the Dhu’l-Nunids, and compiled a history of the sciences, later considered as a first-hand source of information. 
Abu'l-Qasim Sa'id al-Tulaytili see Tulaytili, Abu’l-Qasim Sa‘id al-
Qadi Sa‘id, al see Tulaytili, Abu’l-Qasim Sa‘id al-

Tulunids
Tulunids. Arabized Turkish dynasty in Egypt, Syria, and Palestine (r.868-905).  Their main capital was Fustat.  The founder of the dynasty was the Turkish military slave Tulun, who rose to the office of commander of the household troops at the court of the Abbasids. His son, Ahmad (r.868-884), inherited this office in 854, and in 868 became deputy governor and resident of the caliph in Egypt, where he immediately gained independence.  In 877, he occupied Syria and Palestine with the help of mercenary armies. Ahmad ibn Tulun (r.868-884) created a strong army and a naval base at Acre and succeeded in uniting Egypt and Syria under his rule, in virtual independence of the caliphate in Baghdad.     His son, Khumavaraih (r. 884-895), gained recognition as governor of Egypt, Syria, and northern son, Harun (896-904), there was a fall from power and battle against the Qaramita.  In 905, the Tulunid territory was reconquered by the caliph’s troops in Baghdad. The Tulunid period was one of marked material prosperity and progress and was in afterdays recalled as a golden age.  The dynasty was brought to an end by the caliphal general Muhammad ibn Sulayman.


The Tulunid dynasty was the first local dynasty of Egypt and Syria to exist independently of the ʿAbbāsid caliphate in Baghdad, ruling 868–905. Its founder, Aḥmad ibn Ṭūlūn, a Turk, arrived in Egypt in 868 as vice governor and promptly (868–872) established a military and financial foothold in the province by organizing an independent Egyptian army and securing the management of the Egyptian and Syrian treasuries. Insufficient payment of tribute brought caliphal troops against him in 877, but Aḥmad maintained his position by occupying Syria (878). During his rule (868–884), the most significant in Ṭūlūnid history, the provinces developed agriculturally, commerce and industry were encouraged, and the artistic traditions of the ʿAbbāsids of Baghdad and Sāmarrāʾ were introduced into western Islām. A public building program was initiated, in which Al-Qaṭāʾīʿ, the Ṭūlūnid capital, and the great Mosque of Aḥmad ibn Ṭūlūn were constructed. The mosque, modeled after the Great Mosque of al-Mutawakkil in Sāmarrāʾ, is made of brick and plaster, materials rarely used previously in Egyptian architecture but popular in Iraq.

The subsequent Ṭūlūnids, Khumārawayh (884–896), Jaysh (896), Hārūn (896–905), and Shaybān (905), were ineffectual rulers, totally reliant on a Turkish-black military caste. Under the administration of Khumārawayh, Aḥmad’s son, the Syro-Egyptian state’s financial and military stability was destroyed, and the state finally reverted to the ʿAbbāsids in 905.

After the fall of the Ṭūlūnids, the arts in Egypt deteriorated and did not recover until the Fāṭimids took power. They were strongly influenced by the Ṭūlūnids and, by the 11th century, had made Egypt the cultural center of western Islām.

The Tulunids were the first independent dynasty in Islamic Egypt (868–905 AD), when they broke away from the central authority of the Abbasid dynasty that ruled the Islamic Caliphate during that time. In the 9th century, internal conflict amongst the Abbasids meant that control of the outlying areas of the empire was increasingly tenuous, and in 868 the Turkic officer Ahmad ibn Tulun established himself as an independent governor of Egypt. He subsequently achieved nominal autonomy from the central Abbasids. During his reign (868–884) and those of his successors, the Tulunid domains were expanded to include Palestine and Syria, as well as small holdings in Asia Minor. Ahmad was succeeded by his son Khumarawayh, whose military and diplomatic achievements made him a major player in the Middle Eastern political stage. The Abbasids affirmed their recognition of the Tulunids as legitimate rulers, and the dynasty's status as vassals to the caliphate. After Khumarawayh's death, his successor emirs were ineffectual rulers, allowing their Turkic and black slave-soldiers to run the affairs of the state. In 905, the Tulunids were unable to resist an invasion by the Abbasid troops, who restored direct caliphal rule in Syria and Egypt.[1][2]

The Tulunid period was marked by economic and administrative reforms alongside cultural ones. Ahmad ibn Tulun changed the taxation system and aligned himself with the merchant community. He also established the Tulunid army. The capital was moved from Fustat to al-Qatta'i, where the celebrated mosque of Ibn Tulun was constructed.

Tuman Bay II, al-Ashraf
Tuman Bay II, al-Ashraf (al-Ashraf Tuman Bay II).  Last of the Mameluke sultans (r.1516-1517).  After the defeat of his predecessor Qansawh al-Ghawri by the Ottoman Sultan Selim I at Marj Dabiq in 1516, he restored order and was unanimously elected sultan.  Sultan Selim offered peace, wanting only to be recognized as suzerain.  Tuman Bay wished to submit, but Selim’s envoys were put to death by the Egyptian amirs, making the continuation of the war inevitable.  The Mameluke army was defeated and Cairo plundered.  Tuman Bay fled to Upper Egypt, again entered into negotiation with Selim I, who promised to retire provided his name was put on the coins and mentioned in the Friday service.  But the Ottoman envoys again were put to death, and the war continued.  After an initial Mameluke success, Tuman Bay’s forces were crushed by the Turkish artillery, a new weapon despised by the Mamelukes.  The Mamelukes sultan finally was betrayed by a Bedouin chief.  Selim I was impressed by his noble bearing and was inclined to give him his life, but had him hanged at Bab Zuwaylain Cairo on the advice of the Egyptian amirs who had gone over to him.

As late as 1968, some Copts still observed the anniversary of Tuman's death as "Holy Friday."
Ashraf Tuman Bay II, al- see Tuman Bay II, al-Ashraf

Tunisi, Muhammad ibn ‘Umar ibn Sulayman al-
Tunisi, Muhammad ibn ‘Umar ibn Sulayman al- (Muhammad ibn ‘Umar ibn Sulayman al-Tunisi) (1789-1857).  Tunisian Arab scholar.  Born in Tunis, he stayed for a number of years in Dar Fur and returned to Tunis in 1813.  From there he moved to Cairo where he entered the service of Muhammad ‘Ali Pasha. He left valuable descriptions of Dar Fur and Wada’i.
Muhammad ibn 'Umar ibn Tunisi see Tunisi, Muhammad ibn ‘Umar ibn Sulayman al-
Muhammad ibn 'Umar ibn Sulayman al-Tunisi see Tunisi, Muhammad ibn ‘Umar ibn Sulayman al-

Tunjur
Tunjur (Tungur). Tradition, supported by archaeological remains, records the existence of a Tunjur kingdom seated in northern Darfur (Sudan), powerful in the sixteenth century and destroyed by the rising power of the Fur at the beginning of the seventeenth century.  A perhaps less important Tunjur kingdom flourished in Wadai (Chad) at about the same time until it was ended by the Maba supporters of Abd al-Karim early in the seventeenth century.  The Tunjur, or at least some of them, migrated to the west and settled among the Kanembu of Mao (Kanem), where they failed in trying to found an autonomous kingdom.

It is their pride in past glories and bitterness against those who later oppressed them which today prevent the few remaining Tunjur from disappearing altogether.

The Tunjur are zealous Muslims and may be described as orthodox Sunni following the Maliki school of jurisprudence and following mainly the teachings of the Risala.  Traces of pre-Islamic rituals do exist and deserve further research, but this is a difficult and sensitive matter.

The Tunjur are a Muslim people, living in central Darfur, a province of Sudan. They are mainly farmers, and closely associated with the Fur, even if differently from these they have been fully Arabized. Like the Fur and the Zaghawa, after the start of the Darfur conflict in February 2003, many Tunjur were displaced and some killed. A number of Tunjur took part to the fight against the Sudanese government fighting under the banners of the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM).

Historically, the Tunjur were one of the ruling dynasties of Darfur, circa 1200-1600. Little is known about them, or about their predecessors (the Daju) or their successors (the Keira), beyond the fact that they were probably centralized, slave-based polities sharing a fondness for stone walling.  The precise timing of Islamization is unclear.

It is not known why the Tunjur dynasty collapsed, apparently in the late sixteenth century. Oral tradition suggests that the last Tunjur ruler Shau Dorshid was driven out by his own subjects because of his dispiriting habit of making them cut the tops off mountains for him to build palaces on. His capital is said to have been the site of Ain Farah, which lies in the Furnung Hills some 130 kilometers north-west of El Fasher and comprises large-scale stone and brick walling. It has an enduring appeal and has been visited or described many times. Ain Farah moved one author to quote Macaulay – “like an eagle’s nest that hangs on the crest”, for it is built some 100 meters above the spring, is characterized by several hundred brick and stone structures and terraces, and is defended by steep ridges and by a massive stone wall three or four kilometers long. There is a brick and stone edifice which appears to have served as a mosque, a large stone group which may have served as a public building, and a main group on the highest point of the ridge, described variously as a royal residence or military defense.

88888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888

The Tunjur (or Tungur) people are a Sunni Muslim ethnic group living in eastern Chad and western Sudan. In the 21st century, their numbers have been estimated at 175,000 people.

Based on linguistic and archaeological evidence, the ethnic ancestry of the Tunjur people goes back to Christian Nubia.  The Tunjur appear to go back to the town of Dongola (Tungul or Old Dongola, where the Tungur name is derived from Tungul, the old name of Dongola) in Nubia. According to their own oral traditions, the Tunjur are of Arab descent, whose ancestors migrated from the Arabian Peninsula to central Sudan either by way of North Africa and Tunis or by way of Nubia. 

Although a minority, the Tunjur became the ruling class of Darfur and Wadai in the 13th century by peacefully taking power from the Daju. In the 16th century, they were overthrown by an Arab group that founded the Keira dynasty and later merged with the Fur people. According to the local legends of the Fur people, Shau Dorshid, the last ruler of the Tunjur, was driven out by his own people because he compelled his subjects to dig wells in the high rocky regions and to undertake the arduous and useless task of levelling the Mail Mountain peak, on the summit of which he wanted to establish his residence. Shau Dorshid capital was at the site of Ain Farah, where specimens of Christian iconography were found.

Around the middle of the 17th century, the Tunjur people were expelled from the Islamic Wadai empire by Abd-el-Kerim of the Bargo people, and the Bargo controlled the slave supply caravans to the north. The Tunjur then migrated west to their current location. Thereafter, they converted to the Maliki fiqh of Sunni Islam.

The Tunjur are farmers and live closely associated with the Fur. Their own Tunjur language has become extinct, they now speak Chadian Arabic, Fur or Bari as their first language.

Following the Darfur conflict in February 2003, like the Fur and the Zaghawa, many Tunjur have been affected by fighting and persecution. A number of Tunjur have taken part in the fight against the Sudanese government under the banners of the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM).

88888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888

Tungur see Tunjur

Tun Mahmud
Tun Mahmud.  Raja muda of Johor (1708-1718).  The younger brother of Sultan Abdul Jalil Riayat Syah, Tun Mahmud was a highly able and ambitious ruler.  His aggressive policy was designed to legitimize the new regime by gaining wealth and power through control of the internal traffic of the straits and by drawing foreign trade to Johor’s port-capital, which he re-established at Riau.  His policies antagonized Dutch Melaka and alienated two groups of recent immigrants to the straits area, the Minangkabau of Siak, who resented his interference in their trade with Melaka, and the Bugis of Selangor.  These conflicts, combined with the weakness of the new regime, led to his defeat and death in a rebellion of 1718.
Mahmud, Tun see Tun Mahmud.

Turabi, Hasan al-
Turabi, Hasan al-  (Hasan al-Turabi) (Hassan Turabi) (Hassan al-Turabi) (Hassan 'Abd Allah al-Turabi) (al-Duktūr Ḥassan 'Abd Allah at-Turābī) (Hassan al-Tourabi) (b. 1932).  Sudanese Islamist and political leader.  Hasan al-Turabi was born in central Sudan and grew up in a particularly devout Muslim family.  He received an Islamic education from his father as well as a standard modern education, going on to study law at the universities of Khartoum, London, and the Sorbonne.  He joined Sudan’s Muslim Brotherhood as a student in the early 1950s and came to prominence during the popular uprising of October 1964.  The brotherhood subsequently founded a small but vociferous party, the Islamic Charter Front, through which al-Turabi pushed for an Islamic constitution.

The military coup of 1969 was a setback, and al-Turabi later went into exile, but in 1977 President Ja‘far Nimeiri sought reconciliation with al-Turabi and his brother-in-law Sadiq al-Mahdi.  Al-Turabi became attorney general and encouraged the Muslim Brothers to move into many areas of public life, including the new Islamic banks and the armed forces.  Many Sudanese believed al-Turabi was behind Nimeiri’s introduction of Islamic law in September 1983.  However, Nimeiri broke with al-Turabi and imprisoned him shortly before the popular uprising of 1985 in which Nimeiri was overthrown.

In the 1986 elections al-Turabi’s party, now known as the National Islamic Front (NIF), came third, but it was clearly the rising force in Sudanese politics.  For the next three years the NIF was in an out of Sadiq al-Mahdi’s weak coalition governments, but the party remained determined to develop Sudan as an Islamic state, even at the expense of perpetuating the civil war in the south.  It was widely believed that it was the prospect of a secularizing compromise with the south which precipitated the NIF backed coup of June 30, 1989 (although al-Turabi was briefly imprisoned along with other leaders of the officially banned parties).  Since 1989, he has been seen as the mastermind behind Sudan’s effort to establish an Islamic state, even though he has held no formal position in the government.

Al-Turabi never published a comprehensive account of his thought, but his various writings and pronouncements presented a relatively liberal interpretation of Islam, including a belief in democracy and pluralism.  He did not repudiate this line of thought.  However, the regime for which he regularly spoke, both in Sudan and abroad, was widely seen as the most restrictive since independence in 1956.  Parliamentary democracy was abolished by the military, which forcibly repressed not only political parties but also many independent groups in civil society in promoting its Islamic revolution.  The Muslim Brotherhood became dominant not only in government but also in the civil service, the professions, and the economy.  Feared by neighborning Arab states as a promoter of radical Islamic activism, the new regime cooperated in turn with Libya, Iraq, and Iran; and the latter connection in particular supported government victories in the civil war in the south in 1992.

Al-Turabi  won a reputation for pragmatism and flexibility in the pursuit of resurgent Islam, which he sought expand not only in Sudan but also in neighboring African and Arab countries.  His success in building the Muslim Brotherhood in Sudan before 1989 enabled the military regime to pursue its islamizing policies.  These actions entrenched the brotherhood within the country and made it a wider force for the promotion of radical Islamic fundamentalism throughout North and East Africa.

After receiving a law degree at Gordon Memorial College (later the University of Khartoum)—where, in the early 1950s, he joined the Sudanese branch of the Muslim Brotherhood—he pursued graduate studies at the University of London and the Sorbonne in Paris. While teaching law at the University of Khartoum, he participated in the 1964 revolution that ended military rule. He later served in the national legislature (1965–67). He supported the 1985 overthrow of Gaafar Mohamed el-Nimeiri. That same year he formed the National Islamic Front (NIF), an incarnation of the Muslim Brotherhood. In 1989 the NIF supported a coup that brought ʿUmar Ḥasan al-Bashīr to power. He later served as speaker of the National Assembly (1996–99), but political hostilities between Turābī and Bashīr led to the dissolution of parliament and a subsequent power struggle. Turābī was arrested and imprisoned in 2001; although he was freed in October 2003, he was arrested over an alleged coup plot several months after his release and held until mid-2005. Conflict with Bashīr persisted thereafter, and Turābī continued to experience periodic arrests and detainment in the years that followed.

After a political falling out with President Omar al-Bashir in 1999, Turabi was imprisoned based on allegations of conspiracy before being released in October 2003. He was again imprisoned in the Kober (Cooper) prison in Khartoum in March 2004. He was released on June 28, 2005.

In 2004, Turabi was reported to have been associated with the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), an Islamist armed rebel group involved in the Darfur conflict. Turabi himself denied these claims.

In 2006, al-Turabi made international headlines when he issued a fatwa allowing Muslim women to marry non-Muslim men, in contradiction to the accepted Sharia law.

After the JEM attacked Khartoum and Omdurman on May 10, 2008, Turabi was arrested on the morning of May 12, 2008, along with other members of his Popular Congress Party (PCP). He said that he had expected the arrest, which occurred while he was returning to Khartoum from a PCP gathering in Sennar. He was questioned and released without charge later in the day, after about 12 hours in detention.

Presidential advisor Mustaf Osman Ismail said that Turabi's name had been found on JEM documents, but he denied that Turabi had been arrested, asserting that he had merely been "summoned" for questioning. Turabi, however, said that it was an arrest and that he had been held at Kober. According to Turabi, he was questioned regarding the relationship between the PCP and JEM, but he did not answer this question, although he denied that there was a relationship after his release. Turabi also said that he was asked why he did not condemn the rebel attack. He said that the security officers questioning him had "terrified" him and that, although they claimed to have proof against him, they did not show him this proof when he asked to see it.

In an interview on May 17, 2008, Turabi described the JEM's attack on Khartoum as "positive" and said that there was "so much misery in Darfur, genocidal measures actually". He also said that the JEM attack could spark more unrest.

On January 12, 2009, Turabi called on Bashir to surrender himself to the International Criminal Court for the sake of the country, while holding Bashir politically responsible for war crimes in Darfur. He was then arrested on January 14 and held in prison for two months (until March 8) at the Kober prison before being moved to Port Sudan prison. During this time members of his family expressed concern about his health and his being held in solitary confinement at least some of the time. Amnesty International also released a statement about Turabi's arrest on January 16, describing it as "arbitrary" and politically motivated. Noting Turabi's advanced age and his need for medication and a special diet. The Sudanese Media Center reported on January 19 that Turabi would be put on trial for his alleged assistance to the JEM.

On March 8, 2009, Turabi was released only days after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant against Omar al-Bashir. On April 11, 2009, the PCP called for the creation of a transitional government to lead Sudan to the planned 2010 election, and Turabi suggested that he would not stand as a candidate due to his advanced age. He emphasized the importance of leadership coming from younger generations and said that he did not have enough energy to run. In April al-Turabi was stopped at Khartoum airport and prevented from travelling to Paris for medical tests despite having obtained permission to travel from the interior ministry.

Turabi announced on January 2, 2010, that the PCP had designated his deputy, Abdullah Deng Nial, as its candidate for the 2010 presidential election. Turabi was again arrested in mid May 2010, but was released on July 1, 2010.



Hasan al-Turabi see Turabi, Hasan al-
Hassan Turabi see Turabi, Hasan al-
Hassan al-Turabi see Turabi, Hasan al-
Hassan 'Abd Allah al-Turabi see Turabi, Hasan al-
Duktūr Ḥassan 'Abd Allah at-Turābī, al- see Turabi, Hasan al-
Hassan al-Tourabi see Turabi, Hasan al-

Turan-Shah ibn Ayyub
Turan-Shah ibn Ayyub (Turan-Shah ibn Ayyub al-Malik al-Mu'azzam Shams ad-Dawla Fakhr ad-Din) (Turan-Shah) (d. 1180).  Founder of the Ayyubid dynasty of Yemen (r.1174-1176).  His brother Saladin sent him to Yemen, where he conquered Zabid, Aden and San‘a’.  Not feeling comfortable there, he urgently requested Saladin for a transfer, and became governor of Damascus in 1176, where he spent three years. He died at Alexandria.

Turan-Shah was the Ayyubid governor of Yemen (1174-1176), then Damascus (1176-1179). He is noted for strengthening the position of his younger brother, Saladin, in Egypt and playing the leading role in the Ayyubid conquests of both Nubia and Yemen. Like many of the Ayyubids, little is known of his early life before his arrival in Egypt.

Nur ad-Din Zangi, the Sultan of Syria at the time, allowed Turan-Shah to join Saladin in Egypt where he was vizier to the Fatimid caliph in 1171 when tensions between Nur al-Din and Saladin were rising. Nur al-Din empowered Turan-Shah to supervise Saladin, hoping to provoke dissension between the brothers. However, this attempt failed as Turan-Shah was immediately granted an immense amount of lands by Saladin who was in the process of reforming the power structure of the Fatimid state around him and his relatives. The iqta' or "fief" given to Turan-Shah composed of the major cities of Qus and Aswan in Upper Egypt as well as the Red Sea port of Aidab. Turan-Shah was the main force behind the deposition of a revolt staged in 1171 by the Black African garrisons of the Fatimid army in 1171.

Turan-Shah developed a close relationship with the poet courtier 'Umara, who had been a power player in Fatimid politics before Saladin's ascendancy to the vizierate in 1169. On September 11, 1171, the last Fatimid caliph al-Adid died and the Ayyubid dynasty gained official control of Egypt. A number of accusations of murder against Turan-Shah arose following his death. According to a eunuch in the service of al-Adid's widow, al-Adid died after hearing that Turan-Shah was in the palace looking for him. In another version, Turan-Shah is said to have killed al-Adid himself after the latter refused to reveal the location of state treasures that were hidden in the palace. After his death, Turan-Shah settled in Cairo in a quarter formerly occupied by Fatimid emirs.

The Nubians and Egyptians had long been engaged in a series of skirmishes along the border region of the two countries in Upper Egypt. After the Fatimids were deposed, tensions rose as Nubian raids against Egyptian border towns grew bolder ultimately leading to the siege of the valuable city of Aswan by former Black Fatimid soldiers in late 1172-early 1173. The governor of Aswan, a former Fatimid loyalist, requested help from Saladin.

Saladin dispatched Turan-Shah with a force of Kurdish troops to relieve Aswan, but the Nubian soldiers had already departed. Nonetheless, Turan-Shah conquered the Nubian town of Ibrim and began to conduct a series of raids against the Nubians. His attacks appear to have been highly successful, resulting in the Nubian king based in Dongola, requesting an armistice with Turan-Shah. Apparently eager for conquest, he was unwilling to accept the offer until his own emissary had visited the King of Nubia and reported that the entire country was poor and not worth occupying. Although the Ayyubids would be forced to take future actions against the Nubians, Turan-Shah set his sights on more lucrative territories. He managed to acquire considerable wealth in Egypt after his campaign against Nubia, bringing back with him many Nubian and Christian slaves.

Following his success in Nubia, Turan-Shah still sought to establish a personal holding for himself while Saladin was facing an ever increasing amount of pressure from Nur al-Din who seemed to be attempting to invad.e Egypt. Baha ad-Din ibn Shaddad, Saladin's aide, suggested that there was a heretical leader in Yemen who was claiming to be the messiah, and that this was the principal reason that Saladin dispatched Turan-Shah to conquer the region. While this is likely, it also appears 'Umara had considerable influence on Turan-Shah's desire to conquer Yemen and may have been the one who pushed him to gain Saladin's approval to use such a large part of the military forces in Egypt when the showdown with Nur al-Din seemed to be so near. Turan-Shah's departure from Egypt did not bode well for his adviser, 'Umara, however, as the poet found himself caught up in an alleged conspiracy against Saladin and was executed

Turan-Shah set out in 1174 and quickly conquered the town of Zabid in May and the strategic port city of Aden (a crucial link in trade with India, the Middle East, and North Africa) later that year. In 1175, he drove out the Hamdanid emir, Ali ibn Hakim al-Wahid, from Sana'a after the latter's army was weakened by continuous raids from the Zaidi tribes of Sa'dah. Turan-Shah then devoted much of his time to securing the whole of southern Yemen and bringing it firmly under the control of the Ayyubids. Although al-Wahid managed to escape Yemen through its northern highlands, Yasir, the head of the Shia Banu Karam tribe that had ruled Aden was arrested and executed on Turan-Shah's orders. The Kharijite rulers of Zabid—Mahdi Abd al-Nabi and his two brothers—shared the same fate. Turan-Shah's conquest held great significance for Yemen which was previously divided into three states (Sana'a, Zabid, and Aden) and was united by the Ayyubid occupation.

Although Turan-Shah had succeeded in acquiring his own territory in Yemen, he had clearly done so at the expense of his power in Cairo. Saladin rewarded him with rich estates in Yemen as his personal property. Turan-Shah did not feel comfortable in Yemen, however, and repeatedly requested from his brother to be transferred. In 1176, he obtained a transfer to Syria which he governed from Damascus. In addition, he was given large fiefs in Baalbek that used to belong to his father Najm ad-Din Ayyub.

Upon leaving Yemen, the administrator of his estates there was unable to promptly transfer the revenue from his properties to Turan-Shah. Instead, he left Turan-Shah behind roughly 200,000 dinars in debt, but this was paid off by Saladin. In 1179, he was transferred to govern Alexandria and died soon after on June 27, 1180. His body was taken by his sister Sitt al-Sham Zumurrud to be buried beside a madrasa built by her in Damascus.
Turan-Shah ibn Ayyub al-Malik al-Mu'azzam Shams ad-Dawla Fakhr ad-Din see Turan-Shah ibn Ayyub
Turan-Shah see Turan-Shah ibn Ayyub

2025: Turk - Turks

Turk, Riad al-

Riad al-Turk (b. April 17,1930, Homs, Syria – d. January1, 2024, Eaubonne [a northern suburb of Paris], France) was a Syrian opposition leader, a political prisoner for about 20 years, and supporter of democracy, who was called "the Old Man of Syrian opposition." He was secretary general of the Syrian Communist Party (Political Bureau) from its foundation in 1973 until 2005.

Al-Turk joined the Syrian Communist Party while a student. He was imprisoned for the first time in 1952 shortly after finishing law school for opposing the military government that came to power in a coup. He was held for five months and tortured but never tried in court. He later wrote articles for the party newspaper, Al-Nour, and became a leading party ideologue. He was imprisoned again in 1958 under Nasser for opposing the merger of Syria and Egypt into the United Arab Republic and held for sixteen months. Again, he was tortured but not tried for any crime.

Turk had for some time been leading a faction within the Communist Party that demanded a more positive view of Arab nationalism, in opposition to Secretary-General Khalid Bakdash, who ruled the party with an iron fist. In 1972, Bakdash decided to merge the party into the National Progressive Front, a coalition of organizations allied with the ruling Arab Baath Socialist Party.  Along with supporters on the radical wing of the party, Turk formed the Syrian Communist Party (Political Bureau), consolidating a split that had been apparent since the late 1960s. The SCP-Political Bureau initially negotiated with the government for terms of legalization and membership in the Front. However, it later took a strong opposition stance, especially from 1976 on after the Syrian intervention in favor of the Maronites right-wing government in the Lebanese Civil War. This led to repression of the party, which was stepped up at the beginning of the 1980s when the Hafez al-Assad government felt itself under increasing pressure from both Islamists and the secular opposition. Al-Turk was arrested and imprisoned on October 28, 1980, and held under very difficult conditions for almost 18 years. He spent most of this period in solitary confinement and suffered regular torture. Al-Turk was locked away in a windowless underground cell, about the length of his body or the size of a small elevator compartment, at an intelligence headquarters. Al-Turk was never allowed out of his cell to exercise. Until the final months, he was not allowed a book, newspaper, mail or anything else to keep his mind occupied. For the first thirteen years of his imprisonment, he was allowed no communication from, or information about, his friends and family, including his two young daughters. His only activity was being allowed three times a day to go to a shared toilet. He was never allowed to use it when other prisoners were there but did scrounge the toilet bin for discarded clothing as his own clothing was worn out. One of his few diversions was collecting grains of dark cereal he found in the thin soup he was served in the evening and using the grains to create pictures in his cell. He suffered considerable ill-health, including diabetes for which he was refused treatment. He was released on May 30, 1998.

After his release in 1998, al-Turk was initially not particularly active politically. In June 2000, however, Syrian president Hafiz al-Asad died and his son Bashar succeeded him. This was followed by an outburst of political debate and demands for democratic changes, known as the Damascus Spring, and al-Turk resumed a prominent role. His statement on al Jazeera television in August 2001 that "the dictator has died" was seen as a direct cause of renewed repression by an angered government, and al-Turk himself was arrested some days later on September 1, 2001, and subjected to a trial widely seen as unfair before a state security court. In June 2002 he was sentenced to three years imprisonment for attempting to change the constitution by illegal means. This led to international protests, especially given his poor health.

Al-Turk was released after serving fifteen months of his sentence. After his release, he resumed his political activities. In spring 2005, the Syrian Communist Party (Political Bureau) held a secret congress at which it decided to change its name to the Syrian Democratic People's Party.  At this congress, Turk stepped down as party secretary, but he remained an influential member of the organization. In the same year, he also emerged as a prominent name in the Damascus Declaration, a pro-democracy coalition of Syrian opposition activists and organizations.

In 2011, he welcomed the onset of the Syrian revolution against Bashar al-Assad's regime. However, the country descended into civil war. Initially supporting an alliance under the National Council of all opposition currents, including Islamists, Riad al-Turk later expressed regret, acknowledging the oversight of ignoring certain violations committed by Islamist groups during the emergency. By 2013, he had been living in seclusion, confined to an apartment in Damascus. Reflecting on his decades-long involvement with the Syrian Communist Party, al-Turk revealed to Le Monde: "Since I joined in the 1950s, clandestine life has been a tradition. My generation understands the importance of secrecy against such a regime. The young revolutionaries were unaware, and they paid a steep price." His wife left the country at the conflict's onset and died in Canada in 2017. Despite initial reluctance, al-Turk eventually yielded to the persuasion of his daughters, who were already refugees abroad. In late July 2018, he went into exile, passing through Turkey, and eventually settling in Paris, France.

Riad al-Turk died on January 1, 2024, in Eaubonne, a northern suburb of Paris, France.

Turkic-speaking peoples
Turkic-speaking peoples.  More than 100 million Turkic speaking peoples of Europe and Asia, here called Turks, occupy an almost continuous band of territory extending from the Balkans to northeastern Siberia.  While the peripheries of their lands are but sparsely populated by Turks, they comprise the predominant ethnic communities in the Anatolian peninsula and in the Central Asian borderlands of the Soviet Union, Iran, Afghanistan and China.

The primordial homeland of the Turks is generally thought to have been in the eastern portion of the Eurasian plain, approximately in the area now occupied by the Mongolian People’s Republic.  Thus, the ancestral Turks would have faced Tungus and Paleo-Siberian tribes on the north and east, Mongols to the south and Tocharian and Iranic-speaking peoples on the west.

The present disposition of the Turks is largely the result of a series of migrations out of the original homeland.  One of these movements, that of the Yakut, whose northward exodus to their present habitat in Siberia probably began in the twelfth century, is of little consequence to the historiography of the Muslim world.  The other migrations consisted of four overlapping waves of Turks and other Altaic people, whose penetrations into Central Asia, the Middle East and Europe exerted an enormous influence on world history.  The four migrations were those of the Huns, the Oguz Turks, the Kipchaks and the Mongols.

The Hunnic Empire, which thrust itself westward until checked in France at the Batal of Catalaunian Fields in 451 C.C., was comprised of numerous ethnic groups, including Turks, who formed the nucleus of the Bulgar and Khazar states in the Russian steppe lands between the fifth and tenth centuries.  Meanwhile, a confederation of Turks consolidated power in the area formerly occupied by the Huns, between the Amur and Irtysh rivers.  The westward advance of these Turks brought them increasingly into contact with Indo-Europeans under the domination of the Persian Sassanid dynasty.  The subsequent history of Central Asia is largely concerned with the defeat and assimilation of the Bactrians, Sogdians and others by the Turks, whose westward progress continued without serious interruption, even though the internal politcal status of the Turks underwent frequent and radical alterations.  The Tajiks, the former Sogdians, retained their Persian speech, but most of the outlying Iranic peoples were assimilated to the language of the Turks, while at the same time assimilating many of the Turks to their more sedentary cultures.  Even today the extensive intermingling of the western Turks with Persians is reflected in the predominantly Caucasian features of the Turks living west of the Amu Darya, as opposed to the mainly Mongoloid features of the Turks living east of the region.  The Persian influence is also manifested in the strong Zoroastrian underlying the Muslim practices of many Turks. 

In the area between the basins of the Volga and Don rivers, the Turkic Khazars had established a khanate which, with the assistance of Byzantium, dominated the area until the eleventh century, when the Kipchak Turks defeated and assimilated the Khazars.  Meanwhile, west of the Khazars the Turkic Bulgars had advanced to the western shore of the Black Sea, where most were Slavicized by their sedentary subjects within two centuries.  Some, however, were able to maintain their Turkic speech, which was subsequently altered and augmented by later influxes of Turks.

A new and important element was injected into the Turkic migrations by the Arabs, whose armies marched into Central Asia in the eighth century, captured Samarkand and Bukhara and imposed Islam on the subject peoples.  Their proselytizing was continued under the Islamic Seljuk confederation, composed of Oguz Turks, which dominated most of Turkestan from the eleventh century to the Mongol conquest of the area in the early years of the thirteenth century.  The Oguz Turks, constituting the second important wave of Turks, held sway over Persia, Transcaucasus, Mesopotamia, and much of Asia Minor by the end of the eleventh century.

The northern element of the Oguz, the Pechenegs, was soon displaced by the third wave of Turks, that of the Kipchaks, whose position in Central Asia and in the Volga basin was strengthened by their alliance with the Mongols, who advanced their conquests to the gates of Vienna. The establishment of the mainly Turkic Golden Horde at the border of Europe and Asia, the conquests of Tamerlane (Timur Lenk, or Timur the Lame) and his successors and the establishment of the Moghul dynasty in India were fundamentally extensions of the expansionism initiated by Genghiz Khan and those who succeeded him.

The period between the thirteenth century, when the Altaian alliance burst into the heart of Europe, and the fifteenth century, when the empire of Tamerlane was at its height and the Ottomans conquered Byzantium and the Balkans, constitutes the high-water mark in the geo-political fortunes of the Turks.  Their subsequent history is largely one of retrenchment from national independence movements and subjugation at the hands of the revivified empires of Russia, China and Persia.

Turkmen
Turkmen (Turcomen) (Turkomen).  Turkish term designating Turkish tribes, nomadic or semi-nomadic, and later the dynasties created by some of these tribes.  Turkmen are a Turkish people, the majority of whom nowadays live in Turkmenistan, while there are large groups in northern Iran, in northeastern and northwestern Afghanistan, in central Turkey, and small groups in northern Iraq and Syria.  From the tenth century onwards, the name is applied to a large section of the Oghuz peoples, more specifically to those who were the descendants of the groups which followed the Saljuqs to the west in eleventh century.  They played an important part in the rise of dynasties such as the Rum Saljuqs and the Great Saljuqs, the Artuqids of Diyarbakr, the Salghurids of Fars, the Danishmendids and the Qaramanids of central Anatolia, the Ottomans, the Qara Qoyunlu and the Aq Qoyunlu.  There were also many Turkmen tribes in the empire of the Mamelukes from Diyarbakr to Gaza.  In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Turkmen suffered a great deal from the attacks of the Kalmuks, the founders of the last great nomad empire in central Asia.  The nomadic Turkmen did not form a state of their own, but maintained their independence in various kingdoms, such as Persia, Khwarazm, Bukhara, and still in eighteenth century Afghanistan.  The treaties following the Russian conquests in central Asia (1869-1885) settled the distribution of the Turkmen in Russia, Persia and Afghanistan.  The literature of the Turkmen, previously only oral, consists of lyric poems and epics, poetry of a religious and didactic nature as well as popular romances.  Well-known poets like Ahmad Yasawi (d. 1166), Nesimi, Mir ‘Ali Shir Nawa’i, Fuduli and Makhdum Quli “Firaqi” (d. 1782), who wrote in Chagatay Turkish, were of Turkmen origin.

The majority of the Turkmen reside in the area surrounding the Kara Kum (“Black Sand”) desert east of the Caspian Sea, between the Amu Darya River and the mountains bordering the northern edge of the Iranian plateau.  The Kara Kum itself is too arid to support a human population of any significant size, the the semi-arid fringes of this low altitude desert can support a population through livestock production and, in some areas, agriculture. 

The people’s name for themselves is Turkmen, a word which in Anglicized form can be either Turkmen or Turkman.  (The fact that the last syllable of this word, “men” or “man,” appears to be an English word is purely coincidental.)  An alternative spelling is Turkoman, Turcoman, derived from the Persian, Turkuman.

The nineteenth and twentieth centuries witnessed the demise of Turkmen political independence and military prowess. From the middle of the nineteenth century on, the sort of irregular cavalry the Turkmen could put together was no longer effective against the well organized armies and artillery of czarist Russia.  Later, they also proved ineffective against the modernized Iranian army established by Reza Shah.  Most of the Turkmen came under Russian control.  The Russian conquest of Merv in 1884 marked the end of any internationally recognized Turkmen polity.  However, the transition to effective control by sedentary states was gradual and characterized by occasional reversals.  The Turkmen of Iran maintained de facto independence until 1925, and some Iranian Turkmen reasserted de facto independence during World War II and again after the Iranian Revolution of 1978.  During the Russian Revolution, many Turkmen asserted independence temporarily as part of the so-called Basmachi movement.  Despite this, however, the general trend for all Turkmen has been effective control by government dominated by other ethnic groups -- Persians, Pushtun or Russians.  These governments are not especially sympathetic with Turkmen traditions and are suspicious of possible desires for an independent Turkmenistan.  Sentiment for the preservation of Turkmen identity is not at present translated into an active movement for independence.

Loss of political independence robbed nomadism of its political and military value, and most Turkmen have responded by adopting either a sedentary or a semi-sedentary residence pattern.

Turks
Turks.  The word Turk first appears as the name of a nomad people in the sixth century.  The two brothers Bu-min and Istemi founded two empires stretching from Mongolia and the northern frontier of China to the Black Sea, distinguished by the Chinese as the Northern and Western Turks.  In the seventh century both empires had to submit to the nominal suzerainty of the Chinese T’ang dynasty (r.618-907).

Between 682 and 744, the Northern Turks were again independent, and it is to this empire that belong the so-called “Orkhon inscriptions”, named after the river Orkhon in Mongolia, which are the oldest monument of the Turkish language. 

The kingdom of the Western Turks, led by the Turgesh tribe, was ended by the Arabs under Nasr ibn Sayyar in 739.  In the Arab, geographical literature of ninth and tenth centuries five Turkish peoples are mentioned who spoke one language and could understand each other: the Toghuzghuz, the Kirgiz, the Kimek, the Oghuz and the Karluk.  The lands on the Upper Yenisei marked the limits of the world as known to the Arabs.

Islam was adopted by the Turks in the tenth century of their own free will.  The spread of Islam in Central Asia was not checked by the foundation of the non-Muslim Karakhitai around 1130.  Turkish culture was brought to Asia Minor and Azerbaijan by the Saljuqs in the eleventh century while Saladin brought bodies of Turkish troops to Egypt whence some of them found their way to North Africa and Spain.

The Mongol Empire, and especially the foundation of the Golden Horde, was of great significance for the Turks. From the latter were formed the “Tatar” kingdoms of Qazan, Astrakhan and of the Crimea.  In the first half of the sixteenth century, all the lands from the Balkan Peninsula to the Chinese frontier were under the rule of Muslim Turks, but they could not cope with the rising power of Russia.  On the other hand, Islam as a religion and Turkish as a language have made new progress under Russian rule.

Different literary languages began to develop in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the most important being Chagatay and Ottoman Turkish.  The former developed in the lands of the Timurids, which consisted of the domain of Chagatay, the second son of Jenghiz Khan, while the latter has been intimately connected with the political and cultural development of the Ottoman Empire.
At present, there are some 70 million speakers of a Turkic language.

Turks are a people who make up around eighty percent of the population of Turkey.  However, the term Turks is a description used for several important peoples in Central Asia.

There are around 100 million Turks in the world.  The Turks of Turkey are descendants of immigrants from Central Asia in the first centuries of this millennium.  They are now ethnically mixed with the indigenous population of Asia Minor as well as peoples that have immigrated to the Ottoman Empire up through history.   People from the Balkans, Caucasia, the Levant, North Africa and Mesopotamia.  For all these people, Turkish language has been the ticket to full association with their new country.

Turks of Turkey speak the language simply known as Turkish, which after all these centuries still resembles the Turkic languages of Central Asia. Communication is here still possible, even if many words have been taken from Persian and Arabic.  Turkish language was originally written with Arabic writing, but a reform of 1928, involved the implementation of Latin writing.

Turks, Anatolian
Turks, Anatolian.  To most of the world, Turks are citizens of the Republic of Turkey, occupying that historic bridge of land called Anatolia (and part of Thrace) which links Europe to Asia and where many civilizations have flourished and waned.

Kemal Ataturk, born Mustafa in 1881 and given a second name of Kemal by a schoolteacher, came onto the national scene at the end of World War I.  No single leader in modern times has so influenced his people.  Nearly 45 years after his death in 1938, the edicts he handed down relating to Turkish culture are still in force and constantly working towards bringing a twentieth-century life style to the village and town Turk.

Ataturk helped bring an end to the control of rural landlords in Anatolia.  These were men who evolved by the end of the nineteenth century from tribal leadership, a process that began in the eleventh century when the Seljuk Turks migrated out of the east and conquered most of the Christian Byzantine Empire.  The Seljuks, with their capital in Konya, ruled for nearly two centuries and firmly implanted Islam and Turkish culture into the existing population.  More migrating Turks entered Anatolia, among them a tribal leader, Ertoghrul, whose tribesmen grew stronger as the Seljuks grew weaker and eventually disappeared from the scene.  Ertoghrul’s son, Osman, became tribal emir in 1299, fought the Greeks of western Anatolia, acquired territory and a following and finally in 1326 established the seat of his domain in Bursa, then the largest Christian city in Asia.  So began the Ottoman (Osmanli) Empire, which expanded to rule over the entire Middle East and Eastern Europe until the twentieth century.

The 600 year history of the Ottoman Empire left a heritage to modern day Turks which gives them a militant pride in being Turkish.  Under great leaders, such as Muhammad II (The Conqueror), who captured Constantinople in 1453 and Suleiman I (The Magnificent) who captured Belgrade in 1521, Turkish soldiers and sailors, the youth of Anatolia, carried war and diplomacy into the eastern Arabian lands, across North Africa, through Greece and the Balkans to the gates of Vienna.  They fought against Napoleon, the Italians, the British and the Russians, who persistently tried to acquire land to give them a port on the Mediterranean Sea (Turks feel that the Russians still want that land.)

Early Ottoman sultans, ruling from Constantinople, established competent and effective administrative control over the vast territories under their suzerainty, combining the assumed religious role of caliph with their temporal power.  Minorities within the empire were left free to govern themselves, provided they paid their taxes and kept the peace.  Christians and other non-Turks, including slaves, rose to high administrative positions in the Ottoman military monarchy.

By the end of the sixteenth century and with the rise of industrialization in Europe, the seams in the Ottoman ship began to crack.  Corruption in the capital and military losses overseas weakened the authority and prestige of the government.  One subjugated country after another rose in successful revolt -- Serbia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and, finally, Greece.  Successively more despotic sultans imposed such harsh rule on Turkish society that the Turks themselves began to seek reform.

Just before and during World War I, which Turkey joined on the side of Germany, Turkish intellectuals wanted for Turks what Europeans had -- a national, political state with a constitution guaranteeing basic political rights.  These intellectuals, called Young Turks, succeeded in setting the stage for Turkey’s true revolution.  This began with Turkey’s military defeat abroad and the Turkish army’s success in Anatolia in driving out the invading Greeks and Italians.  The army’s leader was Mustafa Kemal, who had earlier led the Turks in defeating the British at Gallipoli.

Kemal was a dictator or, more precisely, a social revolutionist, determined to rid by force if necessary the power of non-Turks in the Turkish “homeland” of Anatolia, whether British, Greek, Armenian or Kurd.  He voiced a revulsion common to Turks by then of overseas adventures.  He wanted a modern, democratic Turkey, based on current American and European nationalist, secular and republican principles.

Ataturk's revolutionary program abolished the caliphate and closed religious schools and Shariah courts, declaring Turkey a secular state.  He made the town of Ankara to the Anatolian heartland, rather than the imperial city of Constantinople, the new republic’s capital.  He outlawed the Sufi orders, the turuq so famous in Turkey because of the singular role of Jalaladin Rumi of Konya (during Seljuk times) in developing the mystic philosophy of the brotherhoods.  Drawing on Swiss, German and Italian commercial, penal and civil codes, he declared polygyny illegal and introduced civil marriage.  Sunday, instead of Friday, became the legal holiday.

Kemal decreed that no longer would names follow the traditional pattern of “son of father,” but that each person would adopt a family name, to continue through the generations.  Mustafa Kemal himself became Kemal Ataturk, “Father of Turks.”

His banishments touched all Turks personally, but some with more effect than others.  Forbidden was the conical red fez, worn by Turkish Muslims as a symbol of their loyalty to the caliph.  European clothing in general was recommended and brimmed felt hats for men were mandatory (in 1972 a Turk in Bursa was arrested for wearing a brimless hat).  The fezzes rapidly disappeared, but Ataturk’s attempt to emancipate women met stiffer resistance.  City women discarded their veils soon enough, took to European dress and in many other ways enjoyed new found freedom.  Village women were not veiled, but they continued to clutch their head coverings over their faces in the presence of strangers, and their traditional place in society remained subservient.  The degree of change in towns depended on the character of the town -- whether it was a small city or a large village -- and the amount of urban contact.

Another drastic and dramatic change ordered by Ataturk involved the Turkish language.  Osmanli, or Anatolian Turkish, had been written in Arabic script.  Ataturk introduced Roman script with a modified Latin alphabet, more suited to Turkish language sounds.  Ataturk personally went on tour to demonstrate the intricacies of the new alphabet, sometimes standing in the village square before a blackboard and a cluster of curious onlookers.  Along with this change, Ataturk attempted to “Turkify” the language by purging words derived from Arabic or Persian and supplanting them with “pure”. Turkish ones (today English and French words with Turkish spelling have crept in especially into city usage).

Three sentiments guided Ataturk’s course of government until he died in 1938, and these continue today in varying degrees: nationalism, industrialization and secularization.

The first of these is the strongest.  Turks are loyal and devoted to their country.  Following World War I, attempts were made to wrap all Turkic speaking peoples in the same blanket and create a political unity among the Uzbek, Kirghiz, Turkmen, Kazakhs, Azeri and all those groups speaking Turkic languages, particularly in the new Communist dominated areas of the Caucasus and Central Asia.  Pan-Turanism was a dream that never came to reality, not only because the Soviet Union would have no part of it but also because the Anatolian Turks came to identify themselves exclusively with their new Republic of Turkey.

Industrialization did not overtake the whole of the country in the same manner as nationalism, but impressive gains were made.  Education reached the rural areas in varying degrees, modern technical schools produced thousands of engineers and businessmen and cities grew with new industry.  The urban Turks of Istanbul, Izmir, Adana, Zonguldak, Samsun, Trabson, Exkisehir and Ankara differ not too much from French, German, British and American urbanites.  While maintaining strong family ties, they nevertheless generally marry partners of their own choosing (usually in their own social stratum), observe office hours, commute from their homes to their jobs along clogged avenues and go out to restaurants, movies, beaches and parks for recreation.  They maintain their health and seek their security through public institutions, they join labor unions and the Kiwanis and participate with intensity in party politics.

Secularization is the least successful part of Ataturk’s revolution.  About 85 percent of Turks are Sunni of the Hanafi rite; 15 percent are Alawi or Shia.  Traditionally, the hoca was an inspirational figure in Turkish communities, leading services in the mosques, reading the Qur’an, teaching the young and presiding over life-cycle ceremonies.  When their sultan was also the caliph, hocas spoke with great authority.

Bit by bit, Ataturk’s revolutionaries clipped away at the religious fabric, abolishing the caliphate and the sharia courts.  Many, if not most, of the hocas were made government servants.  Religious instruction, government controlled, was offered in the primary schools, not private madrasas.  As recently as 1982, the military government banned head scarves on female teachers and students, despite strong protests.

Anatolian Turks see Turks, Anatolian.

Turks, Rumelian
Turks, Rumelian.  Rumelian Turks are literally the Turks of Roman lands.  The term “Rumeli” in Turkish refers to the Balkans, which were, before their occupation by the Ottomans, in the hands of the Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire.  The Balkan peninsula includes the moder states of Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Albania and Yugoslavia.  Historically, the lands of Rumeli also encompassed Hungary, Cyprus, Rhodes and Crete, as well as the smaller Greek islands.  The term “Rumelian Turk,” then, refers to those Turks who came to Eastern Europe from Anatolia, along with Turkmen and others from Central Asia and the Crimea.  It also has come to apply to Circassians from the Caucasus who settled in the Balkans.

The earliest recorded settlement of Muslim Turks in Rumelian lands occurred in 1249.  Sultan Izzeddin Kayka’us , ruler of the Seljuks of Anatolia, having lost his crown to his brothers, took refuge in Byzantium and was given land by the Byzantines in Dobruja.  He was followed by about 30 to 40 obas, or small groups of closely related families, of nomadic Turkmen from Anatolia, who settled there. When Dobruja and Bessarabia fell to the Mongols of the Golden Horde who mingled with the Turkmen and became Muslim.  Under the pressure of the Christian Bulgars, the majority of these early Turkish Mongol settlers returned to Anatolia in the fourteenth century.  Those who stayed became converts to the Greek Orthodox religion.

The more permanent and large scale settlement of Turks in the Balkans took place during the long period of Ottoman domination of the peninsula, beginning in 1350.  The lands gained in Europe by Ottomans were united until the mid-sixteenth century under one administrative system, and the Rumeli territory was headed by a beylerbeyi or “lord of the lords.”  He retained a status equivalent to that of a vizier and attended cabinet meetings at the Ottoman court in Constantinople.  After 1550, the Balkans were divided into smaller administrative territories, following more or less ethnic divisions of the area, such as Bosnia, Macedonia or Morea.

Although Ottomans were the rulers in Rumeli until about the mid-nineteenth century, or until various Balkan nations gained their independence, Turks have always been in the minority except in Turkish Thrace.  Because of religious, linguistic, and social differences, Turkish settlers in the Balkans did not intermarry in large numbers or mix with the indigenous Christian and Albanian or Bosnian populations.  Probably such intermarriage as occurred involved men marrying non-Turkish women.  The Turks were mostly settled in towns in the Balkans and served as military personnel and administrators, and as artisans.  Land was granted to individuals, usually of the military class, as fiefs in the Balkans from the Ottoman crown holdings.  Since ownership of such land was not inherited, it eventually reverted back to the state.  Therefore, no Turkish landed noble class developed, and Turkish peasants in the Balkans were rare, with the exception of Dobruja.  After annexation of the Crimean khanate to czarist Russia in the late eighteenth century, many Tatars from the Crimea and Circassians from the Caucasus migrated to Dobruja andwere given land by the Ottoman government, where they formed villages and became farmers.  The Dobruja Turks remain a distinctive cultural entity to this day.

Rumelian Turks see Turks, Rumelian.

2025: Tursun - Tyeddo

Tursun Beg
Tursun Beg (Lebibi).  Ottoman historian of the sixteenth century.  He wrote a history of the reign of Muhammad II and of the first years of his successor Bayezid II.
Lebibi see Tursun Beg

Tusi, Muhammad ibn al-Hasan al-
Tusi, Muhammad ibn al-Hasan al- (Muhammad ibn al-Hasan al-Tusi) (995-1067).  Shi‘a scholar.  He studied with Shaykh al-Mufid and al-Sayyid al-Murtada.  Public agitation drove him from Baghdad to al-Najaf, where he died.  He wrote a commentary on the Qur’an, and works on hadith, Shi‘a law and creed, and on prayers and pious rites.  He is considered as one of the great Shi‘a scholars.
Muhammad ibn al-Hasan al-Tusi see Tusi, Muhammad ibn al-Hasan al-

Tusi, Nasir al-Din Abu Ja‘far al-
Tusi, Nasir al-Din Abu Ja‘far al- (Nasir al-Din Abu Ja‘far al-Tusi) (Abu Jafar Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn al-Hasan Nasir al-Din al-Tusi)  (Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ibn Ḥasan Ṭūsī) (b. February 18, 1201, Ṭūs, Khorasan – d. June 26, 1274, al-Kāżimiyyah, Baghdad).  Astronomer and Shi‘a politician.  In 1256, he lured the Assassin leader Rukn al-Din Khurshah into the hands of the Il-Khan Hulegu, accompanied the latter to Baghdad and founded the observatory of Maragha.  He had a strong sympathy with the Twelver Shi‘a, to whom a certain degree of mercy was shown during the Mongol holocaust and whose sanctuaries were spared.  He wrote on dogmatics, logic and philosophy, law and belles-lettres, and above all on the sciences, in particular on astronomy.

Al-Tusi was one of the greatest scientists, mathematicians, astronomers, philosophers, theologians and physicians of his time.  He was a prolific writer.  He wrote many treatises on such varied subjects as algebra, arithmetic, trigonometry, geometry, logic, metaphysics, medicine, ethics, and theology. 

Abu Jafar Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn al-Hasan Nasir al-Din al-Tusi was born in Tus, Khurasan (present day Iran) in 1201.  He studied sciences and philosophy under the tutelage of Kamal al-Din ibn Yunus.  Al-Tusi was kidnapped by the Isma‘ili Hasan ibn Sabah’s agents and sent to Alamut where he remained until its capture by the Mongol Hulegu Khan in 1256.

Impressed by al-Tusi’s exceptional abilities and astrological competency, Il-Khanid Hulegu Khan appointed him as one of his ministers.  Later, he served as an administrator of Auqaf.  In 1262, he built an observatory at Meragha and directed its activity.  It was equipped with the best instruments from Baghdad and other Islamic centers of learning.  It contained a twelve foot wall quadrant made from copper and an azimuth quadrant and turquet invented by al-Tusi.  Other instruments included astrolabes, representations of constellation, epicycles and shapes of spheres.  Al-Tusi designed several other instruments for the observatory.

Al-Tusi produced a very accurate table of planetary movements and a star catalogue, and he published it under the title al-Zij Ilkhani which was dedicated to the Ilkhan, Hulegu Khan.  The tables were developed from observations over a twelve year period and were primarily based on original observations.  Al-Tusi calculated the value of 51 feet for the precession of equinoxes.  Al-Tusi was among the first of several Muslim astronomers who pointed out several serious shortcomings in Ptolemy’s models based on mechanical principles and modified it.  His critique on the Ptolemy’s theories convinced future astronomers of the need to develop an alternative model ending in Copernicus’ famous work.  The al-Zij Ilkhani was the most popular book among astronomers until fifteenth century.  His memoir on astronomy entitled Tadhkira fi Ilm al-Hayy, includes his ingenious device for generating rectilinear motion along the diameter of the outer circle from two circular motions.  At the end of his long outstanding career, he moved to Baghdad and died within a year in 1274 in Kadhimain (near Baghdad, in present day Iraq).

Al-Tusi pioneered spherical trigonometry which includes six fundamental formulas for the solution of spherical right angled triangles.  One of his most important mathematical contributions was the treatment of trigonometry as a new mathematical discipline.  He wrote on binomial coefficients which Pascal later introduced.

Al-Tusi revived the philosophy of Ibn Sina.  His book Akhlaq-i-Nasri (Nasirean Ethics) was regarded as the most important book on ethics and was popular for centuries.  Al-Tusi’s Tajrid-al-‘Aqaid was an excellent work on Islamic scholastic philosophy.  He also composed a few verses of poetry.

Al-Tusi was a prolific writer.  He wrote his works in Arabic and Persian.  Sixty-four treatises are known to have survived.  Al-Tusi’s works were translated into Latin and other European languages in the Middle Ages.  Al-Tusi’s book Shaq al-Qatta was translated into Latin by the title Figura Cata.  Among al-Tusi’s well-known students are Nizam al-Araj, who wrote a commentary on the Almagest, and Qutb ad-Din ash-Shirazi, who gave the first satisfactory mathematical explanation of the rainbow.


Nasir al-Din Abu Ja'far al-Tusi see Tusi, Nasir al-Din Abu Ja‘far al-
Abu Jafar Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn al-Hasan Nasir al-Din al-Tusi see Tusi, Nasir al-Din Abu Ja‘far al-
Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ibn Ḥasan Ṭūsī see Tusi, Nasir al-Din Abu Ja‘far al-

Tutush ibn Alp Arslan, Taj al-Dawla
Tutush ibn Alp Arslan, Taj al-Dawla (Taj al-Dawla Tutush ibn Alp Arslan) (Tutush I) (Abu Sa'id Taj ad-Dawla Tutush I)  (1058-1095).  Saljuq ruler of Syria (r.1079-1095).  Syria was allotted to him by his brother the Great Saljuq Malik-Shah I.  He had to fight the Turkmen Atsiz who had taken the whole of Palestine including Jerusalem from the Fatimids, who however continued to claim the country.  While making conquests around Aleppo, the ‘Uqaylid Muslim ibn Quraysh drove the Mirdasids out of the town and got his rule recognized by Malik Shah.  Muslim ibn Quraysh fell in a battle with Sulayman ibn Qutlumish, the founder of the Rum Saljuqs, who now became Tutush’s rival for Aleppo.  After Sulayman’s death, Malik Shah gave the town to the amir Aqsunqur, and Edessa to the amir Buzan. Together with them, Tutush made notable conquests in Syria.  After the sudden death of Malik Shah, the amirs had to pay homage to Tutush, and supported him in the conquest of Nisibis, Diyarbakr, Mayyafariqin and Mosul.  When Malik Shah’s son Berkyaruq came forward as his father’s rightful heir, the amirs joined him.  They were defeated by Tutush in 1094, but the latter was conquered by Berkyaruq in 1095. Aleppo then passed to Ridwan, and Damascus to Duqaq, both sons of Tutush.

Abu Sa'id Taj ad-Dawla Tutush I was the Seljuk ruler (probably sultan or emir) of Damascus from 1079 to 1095, succeeding Abaaq al-Khwarazmi. He took control of Syria in 1085 from his brother, the Great Seljuk Sultan Malik Shah I, but lost it in 1086, only to recapture it in 1094. After his death in 1095, his younger son Duqaq inherited Damascus, causing Duqaq's older brother Radwan to revolt, splitting their father's realm.

Taj al-Dawla Tutush ibn Alp Arslan see Tutush ibn Alp Arslan, Taj al-Dawla
Tutush I see Tutush ibn Alp Arslan, Taj al-Dawla
Abu Sa'id Taj ad-Dawla Tutush I see Tutush ibn Alp Arslan, Taj al-Dawla

Twelvers
Twelvers.  See Ithna-‘ashari.

Tyabji, Badruddin
Tyabji, Badruddin (Badaruddin Taiyabji) (Tyab Ali) (1844-1906).  Indian lawyer, politician, and jurist.  An adherent of the Sulaimani Bohras, a small Isma’ili sect, Tyabji was the most prominent of the many members of the Tyabji-Fyzee clan who distinguished themselves at the Bombay Bar.  The Tyabjis were socially and religiously “liberal” and deeply involved in the civic associations of nineteenth century Bombay.  Before his appointment as a justice of the Bombay High Court in 1895 ended his public political career, Tyabji was one of the few Muslim leaders to involve himself seriously in the Indian National Congress, serving as its president from 1887 to 1888.  He engaged in a lengthy debate with Sayyid Ahmad Khan and AmirAli over whether Muslims should stay out of the Congress. His support of the organization was, however, qualified.  He believed that its role should be limited to the discussion of topics on which Hindus and Muslims completely agreed. 

Badruddin Tyabji was the third President of the Indian National Congress. He was succeeded by George Yule.  He was born on October 10, 1844 in Bombay (now Mumbai), India. He was the son of Mullah Tyab Ali Bhai Mian, a Sulaimani Bohra, and a scion of an old Cambay emigrant Arab family.

He passed the London Matriculation and joined the Middle Temple. He became the first Indian Barrister in Bombay in April, 1867. He accepted a Judgeship of the Bombay High Court in 1895. In 1902, he became the first Indian to hold the post of Chief Justice in Bombay.
Badruddin Tyabji see Tyabji, Badruddin

Tyeddo
Tyeddo. Term which refers to the name of the warrior elite in Senegambia.