title: Darwin Awards

text: In addition, later revisions to the qualification criteria add several requirements that have not been made into formalized "rules":


title: Darwin Awards

text: The Darwin Awards have received varying levels of scrutiny from the scientific community. In his book "Encyclopedia of Evolution", biology professor Stanley A. Rice comments: "Despite the tremendous value of these stories as entertainment, it is unlikely that they represent evolution in action", citing the nonexistence of "judgment impairment genes". On an essay in the book "The Evolution of Evil", professor Nathan Hallanger acknowledges that the Darwin Awards are meant as black humor, but associates them with the eugenics movement of the early 20th century. University of Oxford biophysicist Sylvia McLain, writing for "The Guardian", says that while the Darwin Awards are "clearly meant to be funny", they do not accurately represent how genetics work, further noting that "'smart' people do stupid things all the time". Geologist and science communicator Sharon A. Hill has criticized the Darwin Awards on both scientific and ethical grounds, claiming that no genetic traits impact personal intelligence or good judgment to be targeted by natural selection, and calling them an example of "ignorance" and "heartlessness".


title: Analytic philosophy

text: Analytic philosophy is a branch and tradition of philosophy using analysis, popular in the Western world and particularly the Anglosphere, which began around the turn of the 20th century in the contemporary era in the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Scandinavia, and continues today. Analytic philosophy is often contrasted with continental philosophy, coined as a catch-all term for other methods prominent in Europe.


title: Analytic philosophy

text: Central figures in this historical development of analytic philosophy are Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell, G. E. Moore, and Ludwig Wittgenstein. Other important figures in its history include the logical positivists (particularly Rudolf Carnap), W. V. O. Quine, and Karl Popper. After the decline of logical positivism, Saul Kripke, David Lewis, and others led a revival in metaphysics. Elizabeth Anscombe, Peter Geach, Anthony Kenny and others brought analytic approach to Thomism.


title: Analytic philosophy

text: Analytic philosophy is characterized by an emphasis on language, known as the linguistic turn, and for its clarity and rigor in arguments, making use of formal logic and mathematics, and, to a lesser degree, the natural sciences. It also takes things piecemeal, in "an attempt to focus philosophical reflection on smaller problems that lead to answers to bigger questions".


title: Analytic philosophy

text: Analytic philosophy is often understood in contrast to other philosophical traditions, most notably continental philosophies such as existentialism, phenomenology, and Hegelianism. The analytical tradition has been critiqued for ahistoricism.


title: Analytic philosophy

text: The history of analytic philosophy (taken in the narrower sense of "20th-/21st-century analytic philosophy") is usually thought to begin with the rejection of British idealism, a neo-Hegelian movement.


title: Analytic philosophy

text: British idealism as taught by philosophers such as F. H. Bradley (1846–1924) and T. H. Green (1836–1882), dominated English philosophy in the late 19th century. Since its beginning, a basic goal of analytic philosophy has been conceptual clarity, in the name of which Moore and Russell rejected Hegelianism for being obscure—see for example Moore's "A Defence of Common Sense" and Russell's critique of the doctrine of internal relations. Inspired by developments in modern formal logic, the early Russell claimed that the problems of philosophy can be solved by showing the simple constituents of complex notions. An important aspect of British idealism was logical holism—the opinion that there are aspects of the world that can be known only by knowing the whole world. This is closely related to the opinion that relations between items are "internal relations", that is, properties of the nature of those items. Russell, along with Wittgenstein, in response promulgated logical atomism and the doctrine of "external relations"—the belief that the world consists of "independent" facts.


title: Analytic philosophy

text: Russell, during his early career, along with his collaborator Alfred North Whitehead, was much influenced by Gottlob Frege (1848–1925), who developed predicate logic, which allowed a much greater range of sentences to be parsed into logical form than was possible using the ancient Aristotelian logic. Frege was also influential as a philosopher of mathematics in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. In contrast to Edmund Husserl's 1891 book "Philosophie der Arithmetik", which argued that the concept of the cardinal number derived from psychical acts of grouping objects and counting them, Frege argued that mathematics and logic have their own validity, independent of the judgments or mental states of individual mathematicians and logicians (which were the basis of arithmetic according to the "psychologism" of Husserl's "Philosophie"). Frege further developed his philosophy of logic and mathematics in "The Foundations of Arithmetic" (1884) and "The Basic Laws of Arithmetic" (, 1893–1903), where he provided an alternative to psychologistic accounts of the concept of number.


title: Analytic philosophy

text: Like Frege, Russell argued that mathematics is reducible to logical fundamentals in "The Principles of Mathematics" (1903). Later, his book written with Whitehead, "Principia Mathematica" (1910–1913), encouraged many philosophers to renew their interest in the development of symbolic logic. Additionally, Russell adopted Frege's predicate logic as his primary philosophical method, a method Russell thought could expose the underlying structure of philosophical problems. For example, the English word "is" has three distinct meanings which predicate logic can express as follows:


title: Analytic philosophy

text: Russell sought to resolve various philosophical problems by applying such logical distinctions, most famously in his analysis of definite descriptions in "On Denoting" (1905).


title: Analytic philosophy

text: From about 1910 to 1930, analytic philosophers like Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein emphasized creating an ideal language for philosophical analysis, which would be free from the ambiguities of ordinary language that, in their opinion, often made philosophy invalid. During this phase, Russell and Wittgenstein sought to understand language (and hence philosophical problems) by using logic to formalize how philosophical statements are made.


title: Analytic philosophy

text: Russell became an advocate of logical atomism. Wittgenstein developed a comprehensive system of logical atomism in his "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus" (, 1921). He thereby argued that the universe is the totality of actual states of affairs and that these states of affairs can be expressed by the language of first-order predicate logic. Thus a "picture" of the universe can be constructed by expressing facts in the form of atomic propositions and linking them using logical operators.


title: Analytic philosophy

text: During the late 1920s to 1940s, a group of philosophers of the Vienna Circle and the Berlin Circle developed Russell and Wittgenstein's formalism into a doctrine known as "logical positivism" (or logical empiricism). Logical positivism used formal logical methods to develop an empiricist account of knowledge. Philosophers such as Rudolf Carnap and Hans Reichenbach, along with other members of the Vienna Circle, claimed that the truths of logic and mathematics were tautologies, and those of science were verifiable empirical claims. These two constituted the entire universe of meaningful judgments; anything else was nonsense. The claims of ethics, aesthetics, and theology were consequently reduced to pseudo-statements, neither empirically true nor false and therefore meaningless. In reaction to what he considered excesses of logical positivism, Karl Popper insisted on the role of falsification in the philosophy of science—although his general method was also part of the analytic tradition. With the coming to power of Adolf Hitler and Nazism in 1933, many members of the Vienna and Berlin Circles fled to Britain and the US, which helped to reinforce the dominance of logical positivism and analytic philosophy in anglophone countries.


title: Analytic philosophy

text: Logical positivists typically considered philosophy as having a minimal function. For them, philosophy concerned the clarification of thoughts, rather than having a distinct subject matter of its own. The positivists adopted the verification principle, according to which every meaningful statement is either analytic or is capable of being verified by experience. This caused the logical positivists to reject many traditional problems of philosophy, especially those of metaphysics or ontology, as meaningless.


title: Analytic philosophy

text: After World War II, during the late 1940s and 1950s, analytic philosophy became involved with ordinary-language analysis. This resulted in two main trends. One continued Wittgenstein's later philosophy, which differed dramatically from his early work of the "Tractatus". The other, known as "Oxford philosophy", involved J. L. Austin. In contrast to earlier analytic philosophers (including the early Wittgenstein) who thought philosophers should avoid the deceptive trappings of natural language by constructing ideal languages, ordinary-language philosophers claimed that ordinary language already represents many subtle distinctions not recognized in the formulation of traditional philosophical theories or problems. While schools such as logical positivism emphasize logical terms, supposed to be universal and separate from contingent factors (such as culture, language, historical conditions), ordinary-language philosophy emphasizes the use of language by ordinary people. The most prominent ordinary-language philosophers during the 1950s were the aforementioned Austin and Gilbert Ryle.


title: Analytic philosophy

text: Ordinary-language philosophers often sought to dissolve philosophical problems by showing them to be the result of ordinary misunderstanding language. Examples include Ryle, who tried to dispose of "Descartes' myth", and Wittgenstein.


title: Analytic philosophy

text: Although contemporary philosophers who self-identify as "analytic" have widely divergent interests, assumptions, and methods—and have often rejected the fundamental premises that defined analytic philosophy before 1960—analytic philosophy today is usually considered to be determined by a particular style, characterized by precision and thoroughness about a specific topic, and resistance to "imprecise or cavalier discussions of broad topics".


title: Analytic philosophy

text: During the 1950s, logical positivism was challenged influentially by Wittgenstein in the "Philosophical Investigations", Quine in "Two Dogmas of Empiricism", and Sellars in "Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind". After 1960, anglophone philosophy began to incorporate a wider range of interests, opinions, and methods. Still, many philosophers in Britain and America still consider themselves "analytic philosophers". They have done so largely by expanding the notion of "analytic philosophy" from the specific programs that dominated anglophone philosophy before 1960 to a much more general notion of an "analytic" style.


title: Analytic philosophy

text: Many philosophers and historians have attempted to define or describe analytic philosophy. Those definitions often include an emphasis on conceptual analysis: A.P. Martinich draws an analogy between analytic philosophy's interest in conceptual analysis and analytic chemistry, which aims to determine chemical compositions. Steven D. Hales described analytic philosophy as one of three types of philosophical method practiced in the West: "[i]n roughly reverse order by number of proponents, they are phenomenology, ideological philosophy, and analytic philosophy".


title: Analytic philosophy

text: Scott Soames agrees that clarity is important: analytic philosophy, he says, has "an implicit commitment—albeit faltering and imperfect—to the ideals of clarity, rigor and argumentation" and it "aims at truth and knowledge, as opposed to moral or spiritual improvement [...] the goal in analytic philosophy is to discover what is true, not to provide a useful recipe for living one's life". Soames also states that analytic philosophy is characterized by "a more piecemeal approach. There is, I think, a widespread presumption within the tradition that it is often possible to make philosophical progress by intensively investigating a small, circumscribed range of philosophical issues while holding broader, systematic questions in abeyance".


title: Analytic philosophy

text: A few of the most important and active topics and subtopics of analytic philosophy are summarized by the following sections.


title: Analytic philosophy

text: Motivated by the logical positivists' interest in verificationism, logical behaviorism was the most prominent theory of mind of analytic philosophy for the first half of the 20th century. Behaviorists tended to opine either that statements about the mind were equivalent to "statements about" behavior and dispositions to behave in particular ways or that mental states were directly equivalent to behavior and dispositions to behave. Behaviorism later became much less popular, in favor of type physicalism or functionalism, theories that identified mental states with brain states. During this period, topics of the philosophy of mind were often related strongly to topics of cognitive science such as modularity or innateness. Finally, analytic philosophy has featured a certain number of philosophers who were dualists, and recently forms of property dualism have had a resurgence; the most prominent representative is David Chalmers.


title: Analytic philosophy

text: John Searle suggests that the obsession with the philosophy of language during the 20th century has been superseded by an emphasis on the philosophy of mind, in which functionalism is currently the dominant theory. In recent years, a central focus of research in the philosophy of mind has been consciousness. While there is a general consensus for the global neuronal workspace model of consciousness, there are many opinions as to the specifics. The best known theories are Daniel Dennett's heterophenomenology, Fred Dretske and Michael Tye's representationalism, and the higher-order theories of either David M. Rosenthal—who advocates a higher-order thought (HOT) model—or David Armstrong and William Lycan—who advocate a higher-order perception (HOP) model. An alternative higher-order theory, the higher-order global states (HOGS) model, is offered by Robert van Gulick.


title: Analytic philosophy

text: Due to the commitments to empiricism and symbolic logic in the early analytic period, early analytic philosophers often thought that inquiry in the ethical domain could not be made rigorous enough to merit any attention. It was only with the emergence of ordinary language philosophers that ethics started to become an acceptable area of inquiry for analytic philosophers. Philosophers working with the analytic tradition have gradually come to distinguish three major types of moral philosophy.


title: Analytic philosophy

text: Twentieth-century meta-ethics has two origins. The first is G.E. Moore's investigation into the nature of ethical terms (e.g., good) in his "Principia Ethica" (1903), which identified the naturalistic fallacy. Along with Hume's famous is/ought distinction, the naturalistic fallacy was a major topic of investigation for analytical philosophers.


title: Analytic philosophy

text: The second is in logical positivism and its attitude that unverifiable statements are meaningless. Although that attitude was adopted originally to promote scientific investigation by rejecting grand metaphysical systems, it had the side effect of making (ethical and aesthetic) value judgments (as well as religious statements and beliefs) meaningless. But because value judgments are of significant importance in human life, it became incumbent on logical positivism to develop an explanation of the nature and meaning of value judgments. As a result, analytic philosophers avoided normative ethics and instead began meta-ethical investigations into the nature of moral terms, statements, and judgments.


title: Analytic philosophy

text: The logical positivists opined that statements about value—including all ethical and aesthetic judgments—are non-cognitive; that is, they cannot be objectively verified or falsified. Instead, the logical positivists adopted an emotivist theory, which was that value judgments expressed the attitude of the speaker. For example, in this view, saying, "Killing is wrong", is equivalent to saying, "Boo to murder", or saying the word "murder" with a particular tone of disapproval.


title: Analytic philosophy

text: While analytic philosophers generally accepted non-cognitivism, emotivism had many deficiencies. It evolved into more sophisticated non-cognitivist theories such as the expressivism of Charles Stevenson, and the universal prescriptivism of R.M. Hare, which was based on J.L. Austin's philosophy of speech acts.


title: Analytic philosophy

text: These theories were not without their critics. Philippa Foot contributed several essays attacking all these theories. J.O. Urmson's article "On Grading" called the is/ought distinction into question.


title: Analytic philosophy

text: As non-cognitivism, the is/ought distinction, and the naturalistic fallacy began to be called into question, analytic philosophers showed a renewed interest in the traditional questions of moral philosophy. Perhaps the most influential being Elizabeth Anscombe, whose monograph "Intention" was called by Donald Davidson "the most important treatment of action since Aristotle". A favorite student and friend of Ludwig Wittgenstein, her 1958 article "Modern Moral Philosophy" introduced the term "consequentialism" into the philosophical lexicon, declared the "is-ought" impasse to be unproductive, and resulted in a revival of virtue ethics.


title: Analytic philosophy

text: The first half of the 20th century was marked by skepticism toward and neglect of normative ethics. Related subjects, such as social and political philosophy, aesthetics, and philosophy of history, became only marginal topics of English-language philosophy during this period.


title: Analytic philosophy

text: During this time, utilitarianism was the only non-skeptical type of ethics to remain popular. However, as the influence of logical positivism began to decrease mid-century, analytic philosophers had renewed interest in ethics. G.E.M. Anscombe's 1958 "Modern Moral Philosophy" sparked a revival of Aristotle's virtue ethical approach and John Rawls's 1971 "A Theory of Justice" restored interest in Kantian ethical philosophy. Today, contemporary normative ethics is dominated by three schools: consequentialism, virtue ethics, and deontology.


title: Analytic philosophy

text: A significant feature of analytic philosophy since approximately 1970 has been the emergence of applied ethics—an interest in the application of moral principles to specific practical issues. The philosophers following this orientation view ethics as involving humanistic values, which involve practical implications and applications in the way people interact and lead their lives socially.


title: Analytic philosophy

text: Topics of special interest for applied ethics include environmental issues, animal rights, and the many challenges created by advancing medical science. In education, applied ethics addressed themes such as punishment in schools, equality of educational opportunity, and education for democracy.


title: Analytic philosophy

text: As with the study of ethics, early analytic philosophy tended to avoid the study of philosophy of religion, largely dismissing (as per the logical positivists) the subject as part of metaphysics and therefore meaningless. The demise of logical positivism renewed interest in philosophy of religion, prompting philosophers like William Alston, John Mackie, Alvin Plantinga, Robert Merrihew Adams, Richard Swinburne, and Antony Flew not only to introduce new problems, but to re-study classical topics such as the nature of miracles, theistic arguments, the problem of evil, (see existence of God) the rationality of belief in God, concepts of the nature of God, and many more.


title: Analytic philosophy

text: Plantinga, Mackie and Flew debated the logical validity of the "free will defense" as a way to solve the problem of evil. Alston, grappling with the consequences of analytic philosophy of language, worked on the nature of religious language. Adams worked on the relationship of faith and morality. Analytic epistemology and metaphysics has formed the basis for some philosophically sophisticated theistic arguments, like those of the reformed epistemologists like Plantinga.


title: Analytic philosophy

text: Analytic philosophy of religion has also been preoccupied with Wittgenstein, as well as his interpretation of Søren Kierkegaard's philosophy of religion. Using first-hand remarks (which was later published in "Philosophical Investigations", "Culture and Value", and other works), philosophers such as Peter Winch and Norman Malcolm developed what has come to be known as "contemplative philosophy", a Wittgensteinian school of thought rooted in the "Swansea tradition", and which includes Wittgensteinians such as Rush Rhees, Peter Winch, and D.Z. Phillips, among others. The name "contemplative philosophy" was first coined by D.Z. Phillips in "Philosophy's Cool Place", which rests on an interpretation of a passage from Wittgenstein's "Culture and Value". This interpretation was first labeled, "Wittgensteinian Fideism", by Kai Nielsen but those who consider themselves Wittgensteinians in the Swansea tradition have relentlessly and repeatedly rejected this construal as a caricature of Wittgenstein's considered position; this is especially true of D.Z. Phillips. Responding to this interpretation, Kai Nielsen and D.Z. Phillips became two of the most prominent philosophers on Wittgenstein's philosophy of religion.


title: Analytic philosophy

text: Current analytic political philosophy owes much to John Rawls, who in a series of papers from the 1950s onward (most notably "Two Concepts of Rules" and "Justice as Fairness") and his 1971 book "A Theory of Justice", produced a sophisticated defense of a generally liberal egalitarian account of distributive justice. This was followed soon by Rawls's colleague Robert Nozick's book "Anarchy, State, and Utopia", a defence of free-market libertarianism. Isaiah Berlin also had a lasting influence on both analytic political philosophy and liberalism with his lecture "Two Concepts of Liberty".


title: Analytic philosophy

text: During recent decades there have also been several critiques of liberalism, including the feminist critiques of Catharine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin, the communitarian critiques of Michael Sandel and Alasdair MacIntyre (although neither of them endorses the term), and the multiculturalist critiques of Amy Gutmann and Charles Taylor. Although not an analytic philosopher, Jürgen Habermas is another prominent—if controversial—author of contemporary analytic political philosophy, whose social theory is a blend of social science, Marxism, neo-Kantianism, and American pragmatism.


title: Analytic philosophy

text: Another development of political philosophy was the emergence of the school of analytical Marxism. Members of this school seek to apply techniques of analytic philosophy and modern social science such as rational choice theory to clarify the theories of Karl Marx and his successors. The best-known member of this school is G. A. Cohen, whose 1978 work, "", is generally considered to represent the genesis of this school. In that book, Cohen used logical and linguistic analysis to clarify and defend Marx's materialist conception of history. Other prominent analytical Marxists include the economist John Roemer, the social scientist Jon Elster, and the sociologist Erik Olin Wright. The work of these later philosophers have furthered Cohen's work by bringing to bear modern social science methods, such as rational choice theory, to supplement Cohen's use of analytic philosophical techniques in the interpretation of Marxian theory.


title: Analytic philosophy

text: Cohen himself would later engage directly with Rawlsian political philosophy to advance a socialist theory of justice that contrasts with both traditional Marxism and the theories advanced by Rawls and Nozick. In particular, he indicates Marx's principle of from each according to his ability, to each according to his need.


title: Analytic philosophy

text: Communitarians such as Alasdair MacIntyre, Charles Taylor, Michael Walzer, and Michael Sandel advance a critique of liberalism that uses analytic techniques to isolate the main assumptions of liberal individualists, such as Rawls, and then challenges these assumptions. In particular, communitarians challenge the liberal assumption that the individual can be considered as fully autonomous from the community in which he lives and is brought up. Instead, they argue for a conception of the individual that emphasizes the role that the community plays in forming his or her values, thought processes and opinions.


title: Analytic philosophy

text: One striking difference with respect to early analytic philosophy was the revival of metaphysical theorizing during the second half of the 20th century. Philosophers such as David Kellogg Lewis and David Armstrong developed elaborate theories on a range of topics such as universals, causation, possibility and necessity, and abstract objects.


title: Analytic philosophy

text: Among the developments that resulted in the revival of metaphysical theorizing were Quine's attack on the analytic–synthetic distinction, which was generally considered to weaken Carnap's distinction between existence questions internal to a framework and those external to it. Important also for the revival of metaphysics was the further development of modal logic, including the work of Saul Kripke, who argued in "Naming and Necessity" and elsewhere for the existence of essences and the possibility of necessary, a posteriori truths.


title: Analytic philosophy

text: Metaphysics remains a fertile topic of research, having recovered from the attacks of A.J. Ayer and the logical positivists. Although many discussions are continuations of old ones from previous decades and centuries, the debate remains active. The philosophy of fiction, the problem of empty names, and the debate over existence's status as a property have all become major concerns, while perennial issues such as free will, possible worlds, and the philosophy of time have been revived.


title: Analytic philosophy

text: Science has also had an increasingly significant role in metaphysics. The theory of special relativity has had a profound effect on the philosophy of time, and quantum physics is routinely discussed in the free will debate. The weight given to scientific evidence is largely due to widespread commitments among philosophers to scientific realism and naturalism.


title: Analytic philosophy

text: Philosophy of language is a topic that has decreased in activity during the last four decades, as evidenced by the fact that few major philosophers today treat it as a primary research topic. Indeed, while the debate remains fierce, it is still strongly influenced by those authors from the first half of the century: Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, J.L. Austin, Alfred Tarski, and W.V.O. Quine.


title: Analytic philosophy

text: In Saul Kripke's publication "Naming and Necessity", he argued influentially that flaws in common theories of proper names are indicative of larger misunderstandings of the metaphysics of necessity and possibility. By wedding the techniques of modal logic to a causal theory of reference, Kripke was widely regarded as reviving theories of essence and identity as respectable topics of philosophical discussion.


title: Analytic philosophy

text: Another influential philosopher, Pavel Tichý initiated Transparent Intensional Logic, an original theory of the logical analysis of natural languages—the theory is devoted to the problem of saying exactly what it is that we learn, know and can communicate when we come to understand what a sentence means.


title: Analytic philosophy

text: Reacting against both the verificationism of the logical positivists as well as the critiques of the philosopher of science Karl Popper, who had suggested the falsifiability criterion on which to judge the demarcation between science and non-science, discussions of philosophy of science during the last 40 years were dominated by social constructivist and cognitive relativist theories of science. Thomas Samuel Kuhn with his formulation of paradigm shifts and Paul Feyerabend with his epistemological anarchism are significant for these discussions. The philosophy of biology has also undergone considerable growth, particularly due to the considerable debate in recent years over the nature of evolution, particularly natural selection. Daniel Dennett and his 1995 book "Darwin's Dangerous Idea", which defends Neo-Darwinism, stand at the foreground of this debate.


title: Analytic philosophy

text: Owing largely to Gettier's 1963 paper "Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?", epistemology resurged as a topic of analytic philosophy during the last 50 years. A large portion of current epistemological research is intended to resolve the problems that Gettier's examples presented to the traditional justified true belief model of knowledge, including developing theories of justification to deal with Gettier's examples, or giving alternatives to the justified true belief model. Other and related topics of contemporary research include debates between internalism and externalism, basic knowledge, the nature of evidence, the value of knowledge, epistemic luck, virtue epistemology, the role of intuitions in justification, and treating knowledge as a primitive concept.


title: Analytic philosophy

text: As a result of attacks on the traditional aesthetic notions of beauty and sublimity from post-modern thinkers, analytic philosophers were slow to consider art and aesthetic judgment. Susanne Langer and Nelson Goodman addressed these problems in an analytic style during the 1950s and 1960s. Since Goodman, aesthetics as a discipline for analytic philosophers has flourished. Rigorous efforts to pursue analyses of traditional aesthetic concepts were performed by Guy Sircello in the 1970s and 1980s, resulting in new analytic theories of love, sublimity, and beauty.


title: Laurent Blanc

text: Laurent Robert Blanc (born 19 November 1965) is a French professional football manager and former player who played as a centre-back, and is currently the manager of Ligue 1 club Lyon. He has the nickname "Le Président", which was given to him following his stint at Marseille in tribute to his leadership skills.


title: Laurent Blanc

text: Blanc played professional football for numerous clubs, including Montpellier, Napoli, Barcelona, Marseille, Inter Milan and Manchester United, often operating in the sweeper position. He is also a former French international, earning 97 caps and scoring 16 international goals. He represented the country in several international tournaments, including the 1998 FIFA World Cup and UEFA Euro 2000, both of which France won. On 28 June 1998, Blanc scored the first golden goal in World Cup history against Paraguay.


title: Laurent Blanc

text: He began his managerial career at Bordeaux in 2007, winning domestic honours including the 2008–09 Ligue 1 title. After leaving Bordeaux in 2010 he became the manager of the French national team until 2012, replacing Raymond Domenech in the wake of the 2010 FIFA World Cup and leading the country to the quarter-finals of UEFA Euro 2012. In 2013, he was hired by Paris Saint-Germain, winning further honours. After three successful years with Paris Saint-Germain he left the club in June 2016.


title: Laurent Blanc

text: Blanc was born in Alès, France. His career started at Montpellier, where he signed his first professional contract in 1983. A very technical, yet slow player, he played as an attacking midfielder and helped the club get promoted to Division 1 in 1987. Only a few years later did he settle as a defender following the advice from Michel Mézy, a position in which his physical stature (1.92 m, 86 kg) and his temperament would prove invaluable. His game being perfectly fitted for the French league, he managed to score at least 12 Division 1 goals per season in his last three seasons at Montpellier, for the most part penalties and headers. He also won the Coupe de France in 1990, scoring a goal in the final match. Blanc remains Montpellier's all-time leading goal scorer, with 83 in all competitions (76 altogether in Division 1 and Division 2). On 5 August 2017, Souleymane Camara scored the only goal (in the 59th minute) in Montpellier's Matchday 1 Ligue 1 1–0 win against SM Caen to register his 48th Ligue 1 goal for Montpellier, breaking Blanc's longstanding Montpellier record of 47 Division 1 goals scored in four seasons.


title: Laurent Blanc

text: In 1991, Blanc tried his luck abroad when he left Montpellier for Napoli in the Italian Serie A. Despite a decent season during which he managed to score six goals, he felt like he could not fully express his potential and returned to France after just one year, to Nîmes and then Saint Étienne, where again he imposed himself as one of the best defenders in the league. Although Blanc scored 13 goals in his last season at Saint-Étienne, les Verts were almost relegated, only staying up because Marseille were not allowed to return to the first division because of the club's financial difficulties. Guy Roux, impressed by Blanc and looking for a replacement for Dutch international Frank Verlaat, convinced him to join Auxerre in 1995. Despite injuring himself early in the season, Blanc came back strongly and played a great part in the team's double that year.


title: Laurent Blanc

text: Blanc's success at Auxerre drew the attention of several big European clubs. Blanc agreed to join Barcelona in Spain largely because manager Johan Cruyff wanted him and persuaded him to sign. But on the very day that Blanc said yes to "Barça", Cruyff was sacked, and Blanc's spell with the club was a less than happy one. Blanc was in the side when Barcelona won the Supercopa de España against Atlético Madrid, but was injured soon afterwards. He played regularly upon his return from injury, but was sent off during the Cup Winners' Cup quarter-final against AIK. He then injured himself again against Extremadura, which forced him to miss the "Clásico" and the Cup Winners' Cup final against Paris Saint-Germain. After this disappointing season and only one year away from the 1998 World Cup, he decided to leave.


title: Laurent Blanc

text: Rolland Courbis managed to convince Blanc to join Marseille, which proved beneficial for both the club and Blanc. Blanc quickly became a leader in a team that was desperately lacking confidence, and helped Marseille finish in fourth place in his first season, during which he scored 11 goals and earned the nickname ""Le Président"" ("The President"). The season following the World Cup was both successful and frustrating for Blanc and Marseille, as they finished runners-up in the championship, only one point shy of Bordeaux, and reached the UEFA Cup final, only to lose 3–0 to Parma, with Hernán Crespo intercepting Blanc's back pass to Stéphane Porato to score the opener. Afterwards, Blanc left Marseille for Inter Milan, where he enjoyed some success, winning the "Pirata d'Oro" (Inter Player of the Year) in 2000.


title: Laurent Blanc

text: Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson had attempted to lure Blanc several times since 1996 and finally succeeded in August 2001 when, at the age of 35, Blanc was brought in to replace the departing Jaap Stam. He was criticised for poor performances in the early months of his stay at Old Trafford, when United suffered five defeats in the league by 1 December 2001 – with some critics even being keen to point out that the five teams who had beaten them in the league began with the letters which spelt out Blanc's surname – "Bolton Wanderers, Liverpool, Arsenal, Newcastle United, and Chelsea." He initially arrived at Old Trafford on a one-year contract, and as his form and his team's form improved throughout the season (although it wasn't enough for United to catch Arsenal in the title race), he was eventually awarded a fresh one-year contract to give him a second season in Manchester. He was nicknamed "Larry White" by fans as a loose translation of his name.


title: Laurent Blanc

text: He scored four goals during his time at Manchester United. One of these came in the league against Tottenham Hotspur, and the other three all came in the Champions League in games against Olympiacos and Boavista (both home and away). Blanc retired from football after helping United win the 2002–03 FA Premier League title.


title: Laurent Blanc

text: Blanc won the 1988 UEFA European Under-21 Championship, his team beating Greece in the final. He was named the tournament's Golden Player by UEFA.


title: Laurent Blanc

text: On 7 February 1989, Blanc made his debut for the senior national team against the Republic of Ireland. France, then in reconstruction after the retirement of numerous key players, did not manage to qualify for the 1990 FIFA World Cup. Shortly after that, they started an impressive 19-game unbeaten streak, including eight wins out of eight in Euro 1992 qualifying, making them one of the favorites to win the competition. They would, however, get knocked out in the group stage by eventual winners Denmark.


title: Laurent Blanc

text: After France failed to qualify for the 1994 FIFA World Cup, Blanc was heavily criticised, as well the rest of the team, and he subsequently decided to retire from international football. Aimé Jacquet, after taking over the managerial position of the national team, made it one of his priorities to convince Blanc to change his mind. Blanc returned to the team for the Euro 1996 qualification campaign and scored in a 4–0 win over Slovakia. At the tournament finals, he formed a central defensive partnership with Marcel Desailly. Blanc scored France's opening goal in the final group match against Bulgaria in a 3–1 win to put the team into the quarter-finals, where they faced the Netherlands at Anfield. Blanc scored France's winning penalty kick in the shootout after the match had ended 0–0. France then lost on penalty kicks at the semi-final stage after drawing 0–0 with the Czech Republic. However, Blanc again successfully converted his kick.


title: Laurent Blanc

text: France then entered the 1998 FIFA World Cup, which was held on home soil. Blanc was exemplary during the competition and, on 28 June 1998, scored the first-ever golden goal in World Cup history against Paraguay in the round of 16. In the quarter-final, Blanc helped France to a clean sheet over Italy and scored the winning penalty as "Les Bleus" prevailed in the shootout. He missed the final after being sent off in the semi-final against Croatia for slapping Slaven Bilić. The sending off was the first (and only) red card of Blanc's international professional career. Despite Blanc's absence, France lifted the World Cup for the first time after defeating Brazil 3–0 at the Stade de France. The two goals conceded during the tournament by France was a new record for a World Cup winner. This record was matched by Italy in 2006 and Spain in 2010.


title: Laurent Blanc

text: Blanc was also part of the team that won UEFA Euro 2000 during which, despite having been criticised for his age and lack of speed during the qualifications, he proved reliable in defence and even scored France's first goal of the tournament against Denmark in the group stage. He announced his retirement from international football after the competition, following the example of his captain Didier Deschamps. On 2 September 2000, Blanc, along with Deschamps and Bernard Lama, played his final match for "Les Bleus" in a friendly against England at the Stade de France.


title: Laurent Blanc

text: Blanc was well known for kissing good friend and goalkeeper Fabien Barthez's head before the start of every match, supposedly for good luck (the two did repeat this ritual when they played together for Manchester United, but only for Champions League matches). The French national team was unbeaten in all matches when it fielded the World Cup and European Championship winning defence of Blanc, Desailly, Lilian Thuram and Bixente Lizarazu. Overall, Blanc recorded 97 caps and scored 16 goals. In 1999, the readers of "France Football" magazine voted him the fourth-best French player of all time, behind Michel Platini, Zinedine Zidane and Raymond Kopa.


title: Laurent Blanc

text: On 8 June 2007, Blanc was named the new manager of Bordeaux, replacing Brazilian Ricardo Gomes. For his first season on the bench, he led the club to second place in Ligue 1 and won the Manager of the Year award. His second Ligue 1 season was extremely successful. Bordeaux won the final 11 league matches of the 2008–09 Ligue 1 season, setting a new French record for consecutive wins, to clinch the Ligue 1 title three points clear of Olympique de Marseille. Bordeaux also won the 2008–09 Coupe de la Ligue. Blanc was again nominated for Manager of the Year but lost to Marseille manager Eric Gerets.


title: Laurent Blanc

text: In the 2009–10 Champions League campaign, Blanc's Bordeaux topped a group featuring Juventus and Bayern Munich without losing a match. After defeating Olympiacos in the Round of 16, they were eliminated by fellow French side Lyon in the quarter-finals.


title: Laurent Blanc

text: On 16 May 2010, Blanc confirmed his departure from Bordeaux after three seasons in charge of the French outfit. After resigning from his position, Blanc contacted the French Football Federation (FFF) to inquire about the French national team job, which was eventually vacated by Raymond Domenech following the 2010 World Cup. Later that day, FFF President Jean-Pierre Escalettes confirmed that Blanc was a candidate for the position. On 18 May 2010, with Blanc's appointment to the position becoming more probable, Bordeaux chairman Jean-Louis Triaud demanded compensation from the Federation. On 20 May 2010, the club reached an agreement with the FFF for €1.5 million. On 26 June, French media confirmed that Blanc had signed a two-year contract with the Federation to lead the team to Euro 2012. The deal was finalised a week later and Blanc was officially named as manager of the team on 2 July.


title: Laurent Blanc

text: As he took charge of France, the Federation had decided to suspend all 23 players who took part in the South African World Cup, much to Blanc's regret. On 11 August, in his first game as manager, France lost 2–1 to Norway at the Ullevaal Stadion in Oslo. However, Blanc's team soon managed to top their Euro 2012 qualifying group while also achieving friendly wins over England, Brazil and Germany. France's first match in Group D of Euro 2012 was against England and ended in a 1–1 draw, after Samir Nasri scored to cancel out a goal scored by Joleon Lescott. France then went on to win their second match 2–0 against Ukraine. They advanced to the quarter-finals by finishing in second position in Group D, despite losing to Sweden 2–0 in their final group match. France were defeated 2–0 by the defending champions Spain in the quarter-final match. Blanc stepped down as manager of the national team on 30 June 2012.


title: Laurent Blanc

text: Blanc was appointed manager of Paris Saint-Germain on 25 June 2013 shortly after previous manager Carlo Ancelotti left for Real Madrid. On 3 August, Blanc won his first trophy with the club, the 2013 Trophée des Champions, defeating Bordeaux 2–1 in the Stade d'Angondjé in Libreville, Gabon, coming from behind with late goals from Hervin Ongenda and Alex. A second item of silverware was won on 19 April 2014, as two goals from Edinson Cavani defeated Lyon 2–1 in the 2014 Coupe de la Ligue Final. PSG's European campaign ended in the quarter-finals of the 2013–14 UEFA Champions League with elimination by Chelsea on away goals. On 7 May 2014, after nearest rivals Monaco drew with Guingamp, PSG won the league, despite losing to Rennes later that day in the match in which they celebrated their triumph. The following day, Blanc was given a one-year contract extension to 2016, with club President Nasser Al-Khelaifi saying, "We are very happy with his results this season, as well as the very attractive football the team has played. We are convinced we will win a lot more trophies together."


title: Laurent Blanc

text: Blanc's second season in charge began with victory in the 2014 Trophée des Champions against Guingamp at the Workers' Stadium in Beijing. On 11 April 2015, PSG retained the Coupe de la Ligue with a victory over Bastia in the final, with Edinson Cavani and Zlatan Ibrahimović scoring two goals each in a 4–0 victory. PSG won the Ligue 1 title for the third consecutive year on 16 May 2015 with a 2–1 victory at Montpellier. On 11 February 2016, Blanc signed a two-year contract extension. PSG reached the quarter-finals of the Champions League for the fourth consecutive year after dispatching Chelsea in the round of 16, but lost to Manchester City in the quarter-finals. Blanc was criticised by the French media after the Champions League quarterfinal second-leg match against Manchester City, where he had surprised many by having his team play in an untried 5–3–2 formation that backfired completely. On 21 May 2016, PSG defeated Olympique de Marseille 4–2 in the 2016 Coupe de France Final. PSG thus won the Ligue 1–Coupe de France–Coupe de la Ligue domestic treble for the second consecutive season and equalled Olympique de Marseille's all-time record of 10 Coupe de France titles. On 3 June 2016, when asked for his assessment of the season during an interview given to the newspaper Le Parisien, PSG's president, Nasser Al-Khelaifi described the 2015–2016 season as a failure because of PSG's elimination from the Champions League by Manchester City at the quarter-final stage and stated that changes would be made before the following season and a new cycle would begin. On 27 June 2016, PSG announced that Blanc and assistant coach Jean-Louis Gasset had left the club by mutual agreement that "preserved the interests of both parties", noting that Blanc had "left a significant mark on the great history of Paris Saint-Germain". The French sports daily "L'Équipe" reported that Blanc would receive a severance deal worth 22 million euros.


title: Laurent Blanc

text: On 19 December 2020, Blanc was appointed as the head coach of Qatari club Al-Rayyan, replacing Uruguayan Diego Aguirre.


title: Laurent Blanc

text: On 9 October 2022, Blanc was appointed as the manager of French club Lyon. He replaced outgoing Dutch manager Peter Bosz.


title: That Vegan Teacher

text: Kadie Karen Diekmeyer (born September 24, 1964), popularly known as That Vegan Teacher, is a Canadian animal rights activist, former educator and singer-songwriter mainly known for promoting veganism. Before she started her online career, Diekmeyer was a nurse and later an ESL teacher but eventually left the latter job at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Diekmeyer is known for her TikTok and YouTube that promote veganism. Diekmeyer's content has been controversial, for which she has received accusations of racism and homophobia.


title: That Vegan Teacher

text: Diekmeyer was born on September 24, 1964, in Montreal, and is of German and Swiss descent. Diekmeyer worked as a registered nurse at the Lakeshore General Hospital for 25 years, and attended Concordia University to become an ESL teacher in French Canadian schools for nine years. She worked both jobs before dropping her nursing career to work full time in the school system and eventually leaving her job at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: That Vegan Teacher

text: In 1995 Diekmeyer composed the nationalistic English-French folk song "Imaginez un Pays/Imagine a Country" for performing at the Unity Rally at the Place du Canada. She spoke of her anxiety before her public performance, which she had never done before, and got help from her friends and relatives to write the French lyrics. Cheryl Cornacchia of the "Montreal Gazette" called her one of "the dozens of do-it-yourself artists making a place for themselves in Montreal". As of 1999, Diekmeyer had written 47 songs, mainly about life and women's empowerment.


title: That Vegan Teacher

text: Diekmeyer is known for her TikTok and YouTube career of promoting veganism. She went viral on TikTok for a song, "Eating Animals is Wrong, McDonald's", in July 2020. Rachel Kiley of "The Daily Dot" characterizes some of Diekmeyer's content as racist and homophobic, including repurposing the slogan of "I can't breathe" for a song about the process of killing animals and arguing that coming out as LGBT is a selfish act as opposed to doing so as vegan. Diekmeyer has drawn criticism for comparing the animal agriculture industry to the Holocaust. In September 2020, she was criticized for saying she would no longer sign her organ donor card, not wanting to donate her organs to meat eaters after she dies. In the month, the video received more than 750,000 views on TikTok and over 100,000 on Twitter.


title: That Vegan Teacher

text: In March 2021, she made a YouTube video, titled "Are You Racist?", in which she spelled out the word "nigger" and encouraged people to ban cruelty instead of words. Another controversy arose in result of Diekmeyer's comment on a 2021 TikTok video by gaming YouTuber TommyInnit, where he talked about his YouTube Play Button. Using TikTok's stitch function, she responded, "Tommy! The nice vegan girls don't want to see your buttons, but if you want them to play with your buttons, you're going to have to show them your fruits and your vegetables," while taking out a cucumber, pear, and apple. This sexual joke enraged people online, owing to TommyInnit's age, then 16. Later that year, she was IP banned from TikTok for breaching community guidelines, though the exact cause was unknown. Diekmeyer posted a video on her YouTube page, promising to not give up on her platform. She has made more TikTok accounts but ended up with most of them being banned.


title: That Vegan Teacher

text: Diekmeyer is bisexual. Despite her Catholic upbringing, she later denounced the church, and Christianity, in general, becoming an atheist with some sorts of pantheistic worldviews. She is a Unitarian Universalist.


title: That Vegan Teacher

text: Diekmeyer speaks English and French. A vegan since June 27, 2016, she condemns what she considers to be vegaphobia. Her open letter, "Dog persuaded them to give up meat", censuring cruelty to animals, was published in the "Montreal Gazette" in 2004. She has married at least two times, first with Dave, with whom she has three children. She married Giorgio on December 4, 2021 following a courtship of nine and a half years.


title: Iris (anatomy)

text: In humans and most mammals and birds, the iris (plural: irides or irises) is a thin, annular structure in the eye, responsible for controlling the diameter and size of the pupil, and thus the amount of light reaching the retina. Eye color is defined by the iris. In optical terms, the pupil is the eye's aperture, while the iris is the diaphragm.


title: Iris (anatomy)

text: The iris consists of two layers: the front pigmented layer known as a stroma and, beneath the stroma, pigmented epithelial cells.


title: Iris (anatomy)

text: The stroma is connected to a sphincter muscle (sphincter pupillae), which contracts the pupil in a circular motion, and a set of dilator muscles (dilator pupillae), which pull the iris radially to enlarge the pupil, pulling it in folds.


title: Iris (anatomy)

text: The sphincter pupillae is the opposing muscle of the dilator pupillae. The pupil's diameter, and thus the inner border of the iris, changes size when constricting or dilating. The outer border of the iris does not change size. The constricting muscle is located on the inner border.


title: Iris (anatomy)

text: The back surface is covered by a heavily pigmented epithelial layer that is two cells thick (the iris pigment epithelium), but the front surface has no epithelium. This anterior surface projects as the dilator muscles. The high pigment content blocks light from passing through the iris to the retina, restricting it to the pupil. The outer edge of the iris, known as the root, is attached to the sclera and the anterior ciliary body. The iris and ciliary body together are known as the anterior uvea. Just in front of the root of the iris is the region referred to as the trabecular meshwork, through which the aqueous humour constantly drains out of the eye, with the result that diseases of the iris often have important effects on intraocular pressure and indirectly on vision. The iris along with the anterior ciliary body provide a secondary pathway for aqueous humour to drain from the eye.


title: Iris (anatomy)

text: The collarette is the thickest region of the iris, separating the pupillary portion from the ciliary portion. The collarette is a vestige of the coating of the embryonic pupil. It is typically defined as the region where the sphincter muscle and dilator muscle overlap. Radial ridges extend from the periphery to the pupillary zone, to supply the iris with blood vessels. The root of the iris is the thinnest and most peripheral.


title: Iris (anatomy)

text: The muscle cells of the iris are smooth muscle in mammals and amphibians, but are striated muscle in reptiles (including birds). Many fish have neither, and, as a result, their irises are unable to dilate and contract, so that the pupil always remains of a fixed size.


title: Iris (anatomy)

text: The stroma and the anterior border layer of the iris are derived from the neural crest, and behind the stroma of the iris, the sphincter pupillae and dilator pupillae muscles, as well as the iris epithelium, develop from optic cup neuroectoderm.


title: Iris (anatomy)

text: The iris is usually strongly pigmented, with the color typically ranging between brown, hazel, green, gray, and blue. Occasionally, the color of the iris is due to a lack of pigmentation, as in the pinkish-white of oculocutaneous albinism, or to obscuration of its pigment by blood vessels, as in the red of an abnormally vascularised iris. Despite the wide range of colors, the only pigment that contributes substantially to normal human iris color is the dark pigment melanin. The quantity of melanin pigment in the iris is one factor in determining the phenotypic eye color of a person. Structurally, this huge molecule is only slightly different from its equivalent found in skin and hair. Iris color is due to variable amounts of eumelanin (brown/black melanins) and pheomelanin (red/yellow melanins) produced by melanocytes. More of the former is found in brown-eyed people and of the latter in blue- and green-eyed people.


title: Iris (anatomy)

text: Iris color is a highly complex phenomenon consisting of the combined effects of texture, pigmentation, fibrous tissue, and blood vessels within the iris stroma, which together make up an individual's epigenetic constitution in this context. A person's "eye color" is actually the color of one's iris, the cornea being transparent and the white sclera entirely outside the area of interest.


title: Iris (anatomy)

text: Melanin is yellowish to dark hazel in the stromal pigment cells, and black in the iris pigment epithelium, which lies in a thin but very opaque layer across the back of the iris. Most human irises also show a condensation of the brownish stromal melanin in the thin anterior border layer, which by its position has an overt influence on the overall color. The degree of dispersion of the melanin, which is in subcellular bundles called melanosomes, has some influence on the observed color, but melanosomes in the iris of humans and other vertebrates are not mobile, and the degree of pigment dispersion cannot be reversed. Abnormal clumping of melanosomes does occur in disease and may lead to irreversible changes in iris color (see heterochromia, below). Colors other than brown or black are due to selective reflection and absorption from the other stromal components. Sometimes, lipofuscin, a yellow "wear and tear" pigment, also enters into the visible eye color, especially in aged or diseased green eyes.


title: Iris (anatomy)

text: The optical mechanisms by which the nonpigmented stromal components influence eye color are complex, and many erroneous statements exist in the literature. Simple selective absorption and reflection by biological molecules (hemoglobin in the blood vessels, collagen in the vessel and stroma) is the most important element. Rayleigh scattering and Tyndall scattering, (which also happen in the sky) and diffraction also occur. Raman scattering, and constructive interference, as in the feathers of birds, do not contribute to the color of the human eye, but interference phenomena are important in the brilliantly colored iris pigment cells (iridophores) in many animals. Interference effects can occur at both molecular and light-microscopic scales, and are often associated (in melanin-bearing cells) with quasicrystalline formations, which enhance the optical effects. Interference is recognised by characteristic dependence of color on the angle of view, as seen in eyespots of some butterfly wings, although the chemical components remain the same.


title: Iris (anatomy)

text: White babies are usually born blue-eyed since no pigment is in the stroma, and their eyes appear blue due to scattering and selective absorption from the posterior epithelium. If melanin is deposited substantially, brown or black color is seen; if not, they will remain blue or gray.


title: Iris (anatomy)

text: All the contributing factors towards eye color and its variation are not fully understood. Autosomal recessive/dominant traits in iris color are inherent in other species, but coloration can follow a different pattern.


title: Iris (anatomy)

text: Heterochromia (also known as a heterochromia iridis or heterochromia iridum) is an ocular condition in which one iris is a different color from the other iris (complete heterochromia), or where the part of one iris is a different color from the remainder (partial heterochromia or sectoral heterochromia). Uncommon in humans, it is often an indicator of ocular disease, such as chronic iritis or diffuse iris melanoma, but may also occur as a normal variant. Sectors or patches of strikingly different colors in the same iris are less common. Anastasius the First was dubbed "dikoros" (having two irises) for his patent heterochromia since his right iris had a darker color than the left one.


title: Iris (anatomy)

text: In contrast, heterochromia and variegated iris patterns are common in veterinary practice. Siberian Husky dogs show heterochromia, possibly analogous to the genetically determined Waardenburg syndrome of humans. Some white cat fancies (e.g., white Turkish Angora or white Turkish van cats) may show striking heterochromia, with the most common pattern being one uniformly blue, the other copper, orange, yellow, or green. Striking variation within the same iris is also common in some animals, and is the norm in some species. Several herding breeds, particularly those with a blue merle coat color (such as Australian Shepherds and Border Collies) may show well-defined blue areas within a brown iris, as well as separate blue and darker eyes. Some horses (usually within the white, spotted, palomino, or cremello groups of breeds) may show amber, brown, white and blue all within the same eye, without any sign of eye disease.


title: Iris (anatomy)

text: Iridology (also known as iridodiagnosis) is an alternative medicine technique whose proponents believe that patterns, colors, and other characteristics of the iris can be examined to determine information about a patient's systemic health. Practitioners match their observations to "iris charts", which divide the iris into zones corresponding to specific parts of the human body. Iridologists see the eyes as "windows" into the body's state of health.


title: Iris (anatomy)

text: Iridology is not supported by quality research studies, and is considered pseudoscience by the majority of medical practitioners and eye-care professionals.


title: Iris (anatomy)

text: The word "iris" is derived from the Greek word for "rainbow", also its goddess plus messenger of the gods in the "Iliad", because of the many colours of this eye part.


title: Muslim conquest of Persia

text: The Muslim conquest of Persia, also known as the Arab conquest of Iran, was carried out by the Rashidun Caliphate from 633 to 654 AD and led to the fall of the Sasanian Empire as well as the eventual decline of the Zoroastrian religion.


title: Muslim conquest of Persia

text: The rise of the Muslims in Arabia coincided with an unprecedented political, social, economic, and military weakness in Persia. Once a major world power, the Sasanian Empire had exhausted its human and material resources after decades of warfare against the Byzantine Empire. The Sasanian state's internal political situation quickly deteriorated after the execution of King Khosrow II in 628. Subsequently, ten new claimants were enthroned within the next four years. Following the Sasanian civil war of 628–632, the empire was no longer centralized.


title: Muslim conquest of Persia

text: Arab Muslims first attacked Sasanian territory in 633, when Khalid ibn al-Walid invaded Mesopotamia (then known as the Sasanian province of "Asōristān"; roughly corresponding to modern-day Iraq), which was the political and economic centre of the Sasanian state. Following the transfer of Khalid to the Byzantine front in the Levant, the Muslims eventually lost their holdings to Sasanian counterattacks. The second Muslim invasion began in 636, under Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas, when a key victory at the Battle of al-Qadisiyyah led to the permanent end of Sasanian control west of modern-day Iran. For the next six years, the Zagros Mountains, a natural barrier, marked the border between the Rashidun Caliphate and the Sasanian Empire. In 642, Umar ibn al-Khattab, then-Caliph of the Muslims, ordered a full-scale invasion of Persia by the Rashidun army, which led to the complete conquest of the Sasanian Empire by 651. Directing from Medina, a few thousand kilometres away, Umar's quick conquest of Persia in a series of well-coordinated, multi-pronged attacks became his greatest triumph, contributing to his reputation as a great military and political strategist. In 644, prior to the complete annexation of Persia by the Arab Muslims, Umar was assassinated by Abu Lu'lu'a Firuz, a Persian craftsman who was captured in battle and brought to Arabia as a slave.


title: Muslim conquest of Persia

text: Some Iranian historians have defended their forebears using Arab sources to illustrate that "contrary to the claims of some historians, Iranians, in fact, fought long and hard against the invading Arabs." By 651, most of the urban centres in Iranian lands, with the notable exception of the Caspian provinces (Tabaristan and Transoxiana), had come under the domination of Arab Muslim forces. Many localities fought against the invaders; although Arabs had established hegemony over most of the country, many cities rose in rebellion by killing their Arab governors or attacking their garrisons. Eventually, Arab military reinforcements quashed the Iranian insurgencies and imposed complete Islamic control. The Islamization of Iran was gradual and incentivized in various ways over a period of centuries with some Iranians never converting and widespread cases of Zoroastrian scriptures being burnt and priests being executed, particularly in areas that experienced violent resistance. The Persians began to reassert themselves by maintaining the Persian language and Iranian culture. Islam became the dominant religion in Iran by the late Middle Ages.


title: Muslim conquest of Persia

text: When Western academics first investigated the Muslim conquest of Persia, they relied solely on the accounts of the Armenian Christian bishop Sebeos, and accounts in Arabic written some time after the events they describe. The most significant work was probably that of Arthur Christensen, and his "L’Iran sous les Sassanides", published in Copenhagen and Paris in 1944.


title: Muslim conquest of Persia

text: Recent scholarship has begun to question the traditional narrative: Parvaneh Pourshariati, in her "Decline and Fall of the Sasanian Empire: The Sasanian-Parthian Confederacy and the Arab Conquest of Iran", published in 2008, provides both a detailed overview of the problematic nature of trying to establish exactly what happened, and a great deal of original research that questions fundamental facts of the traditional narrative, including the timeline and specific dates.


title: Muslim conquest of Persia

text: Pourshariati's central thesis is that contrary to what was commonly assumed, the Sassanian Empire was highly decentralized, and was in fact a "confederation" with the Parthians, who themselves retained a high level of independence. Despite their recent victories over the Byzantine Empire, the Parthians unexpectedly withdrew from the confederation, and the Sassanians were thus ill-prepared and ill-equipped to mount an effective and cohesive defense against the Muslim armies. Moreover, the powerful northern and eastern Parthian families, the kust-i khwarasan and kust-i adurbadagan, withdrew to their respective strongholds and made peace with the Arabs, refusing to fight alongside the Sassanians.


title: Muslim conquest of Persia

text: Another important theme of Pourshariati's study is a re-evaluation of the traditional timeline. Pourshariati argues that the Arab conquest of Mesopotamia "took place, not, as has been conventionally believed, in the years 632–634, after the accession of the last Sasanian king Yazdgerd III (632–651) to power, but in the period from 628 to 632." An important consequence of this change in timeline means that the Arab conquest started precisely when the Sassanians and Parthians were engaged in internecine warfare over succession to the Sassanian throne.


title: Muslim conquest of Persia

text: Since the 1st century BC, the border between the Roman (later Byzantine) and Parthian (later Sasanian) empires had been the Euphrates River. The border was constantly contested. Most battles, and thus most fortifications, were concentrated in the hilly regions of the north, as the vast Arabian or Syrian Desert (Roman Arabia) separated the rival empires in the south. The only dangers expected from the south were occasional raids by nomadic Arab tribesmen. Both empires therefore allied themselves with small, semi-independent Arab principalities, which served as buffer states and protected Byzantium and Persia from Bedouin attacks. The Byzantine clients were the Ghassanids; the Persian clients were the Lakhmids. The Ghassanids and Lakhmids feuded constantly, which kept them occupied, but that did not greatly affect the Byzantines or the Persians. In the 6th and 7th centuries, various factors destroyed the balance of power that had held for so many centuries.


title: Muslim conquest of Persia

text: The conflict with the Byzantines greatly contributed to its weakness, by draining Sassanid resources, leaving it a prime target for the Muslims.


title: Muslim conquest of Persia

text: Sasanian society was divided into four classes: priests, warriors, secretaries, and commoners. The latter formed the bulk of the population, served as its sole tax base, and remained its poorest class.


title: Muslim conquest of Persia

text: At the climax of Khosrau II's ambitious Byzantine territory conquests in the Levant and much of Asia Minor, taxes rose dramatically, and most people could not pay. Years of Sassanid-Byzantine wars had ruined trade routes and industry, the population's main income sources. The existing Sassanid administrative structure proved inadequate when faced with the combined demands of a suddenly expanded empire, economy, and population. Rapid turnover of rulers and increasing provincial landholder (dehqan) power further diminished the Sasanians. Over a period of fourteen years and twelve successive kings, the Sassanid Empire weakened considerably, and the power of the central authority passed into the hands of its generals. Even when a strong king emerged following a series of coups, the Sassanids never completely recovered.


title: Muslim conquest of Persia

text: The Byzantine clients, the Arab Ghassanids, converted to the Monophysite form of Christianity, which was regarded as heretical by the established Byzantine Eastern Orthodox Church. The Byzantines attempted to suppress the heresy, alienating the Ghassanids and sparking rebellions on their desert frontiers. The Lakhmids also revolted against the Persian king Khusrau II. Nu'man III (son of Al-Monder IV), the first Christian Lakhmid king, was deposed and killed by Khusrau II in 602, because of his attempt to throw off Persian suzerainty. After Khusrau's assassination in 628, the Persian Empire fractured and the Lakhmids were effectively semi-independent. It is now widely believed that the annexation of the Lakhmid kingdom was one of the main factors behind the fall of the Sasanian Empire and the subsequent Islamic conquest of Persia, as the Lakhmids agreed to act as spies for the Muslims after being defeated in the Battle of Hira by Khalid ibn al-Walid.


title: Muslim conquest of Persia

text: The Persian ruler Khosrau II (Parviz) defeated a dangerous rebellion within his own empire, Bahram Chobin's rebellion. He then turned his focus to his traditional Byzantine enemies, leading to the Byzantine-Sassanid War of 602–628. For a few years, he succeeded. From 612 to 622, he extended the Persian borders almost to the same extent that they were under the Achaemenid dynasty (550–330 BC), capturing Western states as far as Egypt, Palestine (the conquest of the latter being assisted by a Jewish army), and more.


title: Muslim conquest of Persia

text: The Byzantines regrouped and pushed back in 622 under Heraclius. Khosrau was defeated at the Battle of Nineveh in 627, and the Byzantines recaptured all of Syria and penetrated far into the Persian provinces of Mesopotamia. In 629, Khosrau's general Shahrbaraz agreed to peace, and the border between the two empires was once again the same as it had been in 602.


title: Muslim conquest of Persia

text: The Plague of Sheroe (627–628) was one of several epidemics that occurred in or close to Iran within two centuries after the first epidemic was brought by the Sasanian armies from its campaigns in Constantinople, Syria, and Armenia. It contributed to the fall of the Sasanian Empire.


title: Muslim conquest of Persia

text: Khosrau II was executed in 628 and, as a result, there were numerous claimants to the throne; from 628 to 632 there were ten kings and queens of Persia. The last, Yazdegerd III, was a grandson of Khosrau II and was said to be a mere child aged 8 years.


title: Muslim conquest of Persia

text: After the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah in 628, Islamic tradition holds that Muhammad sent many letters to the princes, kings, and chiefs of the various tribes and kingdoms of the time, exhorting them to convert to Islam and bow to the order of God. These letters were carried by ambassadors to Persia, Byzantium, Ethiopia, Egypt, Yemen, and Hira (Iraq) on the same day. This assertion has been brought under scrutiny by some modern historians of Islam—notably Grimme and Caetani. Particularly in dispute is the assertion that Khosrau II received a letter from Muhammad, as the Sassanid court ceremony was notoriously intricate, and it is unlikely that a letter from what at the time was a minor regional power would have reached the hands of the Shahanshah.


title: Muslim conquest of Persia

text: With regards to Persia, Muslim histories further recount that at the beginning of the seventh year of migration, Muhammad appointed one of his officers, Abdullah Huzafah Sahmi Qarashi, to carry his letter to Khosrau II inviting him to convert:


title: Muslim conquest of Persia

text: Years of warfare between the Sasanians and the Byzantines, as well as the strain of the Khazar invasion of Transcaucasia, had exhausted the army. No effective ruler followed Khosrau II, causing chaos in society and problems in the provincial administration, until Yazdegerd III rose to power. All these factors undermined the strength of the Persian army. Yazdegerd III was merely 8 years old when he came to the throne and, lacking experience, did not try to rebuild the army. The Sasanian Empire was highly decentralized, and was in fact a "confederation" with the Parthians, who themselves retained a high level of independence. After the last Sasanian-Byzantine war, the Parthians wanted to withdraw from the confederation, and the Sasanians were thus ill-prepared and ill-equipped to mount an effective and cohesive defense against the Muslim armies. Moreover, the powerful northern and eastern Parthian families, the Kust-i Khwarasan and Kust-i Adurbadagan, withdrew to their respective strongholds and made peace with the Arabs, refusing to fight alongside the Sasanians.


title: Muslim conquest of Persia

text: Pourshariati argues that the Arab conquest of Mesopotamia "took place, not, as has been conventionally believed, in the years 632–634, after the accession of the last Sasanian king Yazdgerd III (632–651) to power, but in the period from 628 to 632." An important consequence of this change in timeline means that the Arab conquest started precisely when the Sasanians and Parthians were engaged in internecine warfare over who was to succeed the Sasanian throne.


title: Muslim conquest of Persia

text: When Arab squadrons made their first raids into Sasanian territory, Yazdegerd III did not consider them a threat, and he refused to send an army to encounter the invaders. When the main Arab army reached the Persian borders, Yazdegerd III procrastinated in dispatching an army against the Arabs. Even Rostam-e Farokhzad, who was both Eran Spahbod and Viceroy, did not see the Arabs as a threat. Without opposition, the Arabs had time to consolidate and fortify their positions.


title: Muslim conquest of Persia

text: When hostilities between the Sasanians and the Arabs finally began, the Persian army faced fundamental problems. While their heavy cavalry had proved effective against the Roman forces, it was too slow and regimented to act with full force against the agile and unpredictable lightly armed Arab cavalry and foot archers.


title: Muslim conquest of Persia

text: The Persian army had a few initial successes. War elephants temporarily stopped the Arab army, but when Arab veterans returned from the Syrian fronts where they had been fighting against Byzantine armies, they taught the Arab army how to deal with these beasts.


title: Muslim conquest of Persia

text: These factors contributed to the decisive Sassanid defeat at the Battle of al-Qādisiyyah. The Persians, who had only one generation before conquered Egypt and Asia Minor, lost decisive battles when nimble, lightly armed Arabs accustomed to skirmishes and desert warfare attacked them. The Arab squadrons defeated the Persian army in several more battles culminating in the Battle of Nahāvand, the last major battle of the Sassanids. The Sassanid dynasty came to an end with the death of Yazdegerd III in 651.


title: Muslim conquest of Persia

text: Muhammad died in June 632, and Abu Bakr took the title of Caliph and political successor at Medina. Soon after Abu Bakr's succession, several Arab tribes revolted, in the Ridda Wars (Arabic for the Wars of Apostasy). The Ridda Wars preoccupied the Caliphate until March 633, and ended with the entirety of the Arab Peninsula under the authority of the Caliph at Medina.


title: Muslim conquest of Persia

text: Abu Bakr set in motion a historical trajectory (continued later by Umar and Uthman) that in a few decades led to one of the largest empires in history, beginning with a confrontation with the Sassanid Empire under the general Khalid ibn al-Walid.


title: Muslim conquest of Persia

text: After the Ridda wars, a tribal chief of northeastern Arabia, Al-Muthanna ibn Haritha, raided the Sasanian towns in Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq). Abu Bakr was strong enough to attack the Persian Empire in the north-east and the Byzantine Empire in the north-west. There were three purposes for this conquest. First, along the border between Arabia and these two great empires were numerous nomadic Arab tribes serving as a buffer between the Persians and Romans. Abu Bakr hoped that these tribes might accept Islam and help their brethren in spreading it. Second, the Persian and Roman populations were very highly taxed; Abu Bakr believed that they might be persuaded to help the Muslims, who agreed to release them from the excessive tributes. Finally, Abu Bakr hoped that by attacking Iraq and Syria he might remove the danger from the borders of the Islamic State. With the success of the raids, a considerable amount of booty was collected. Al-Muthanna ibn Haritha went to Medina to inform Abu Bakr about his success and was appointed commander of his people, after which he began to raid deeper into Mesopotamia. Using the mobility of his light cavalry, he could easily raid any town near the desert and disappear again into the desert, beyond the reach of the Sasanian army. Al-Muthanna's acts made Abu Bakr think about the expansion of the Rashidun Empire.


title: Muslim conquest of Persia

text: To ensure victory, Abu Bakr used a volunteer army and put his best general, Khalid ibn al-Walid, in command. After defeating the self-proclaimed prophet Musaylimah in the Battle of Yamama, Khalid was still at Al-Yamama when Abu Bakr ordered him to invade the Sasanian Empire. Making Al-Hirah the objective of Khalid, Abu Bakr sent reinforcements and ordered the tribal chiefs of northeastern Arabia, Al-Muthanna ibn Haritha, Mazhur bin Adi, Harmala and Sulma to operate under Khalid's command. Around the third week of March 633 (first week of Muharram 12th Hijrah) Khalid set out from Al-Yamama with an army of 10,000. The tribal chiefs, with 2,000 warriors each, joined him, swelling his ranks to 18,000.


title: Muslim conquest of Persia

text: After entering Mesopotamia, he dispatched messages to every governor and deputy who ruled the provinces. The messages said; “In the Name of God, the Most Compassionate and Merciful. Khalid ibn Walid sends this message to the satraps of Persia. Peace will be upon him who follows the guidance. All praise and thanks be to God who disperses your power and thwarted your deceitful plots. On the one hand, he who performs our prayers facing the direction of our Qiblah to face the sacred Mosque in Mekkah and eats our slaughtered animals is a Muslim. He has the same rights and duties that we have. On the other hand, if you do not want to embrace Islam, then as soon as you receive this message, send over the jizya and I give you my word that I will respect and honor this covenant. But if you do not agree to either choice, then, by God, I will send to you people who crave death as much as you crave life.” Khalid did not receive any responses and continued with his tactical plans.


title: Muslim conquest of Persia

text: Khalid won decisive victories in four consecutive battles: the Battle of Chains, fought in April; the Battle of River, fought in the third week of April; the Battle of Walaja the following month (where he successfully used a double envelopment manoeuvre), and the Battle of Ullais, fought in mid-May. The Persian court, already disturbed by internal problems, was thrown into chaos. In the last week of May, the important city of Hira fell to the Muslims. After resting his armies, in June, Khalid laid siege to the city of al-Anbar, which surrendered in July. Khalid then moved south, and conquered the city of Ayn al-Tamr in the last week of July. At this point, most of what is now Iraq was under Islamic control.


title: Muslim conquest of Persia

text: Khalid received a call for aid from northern Arabia at Dawmat al-Jandal, where another Muslim Arab general, Iyad ibn Ghanm, was trapped among the rebel tribes. Khalid went there and defeated the rebels in the Battle of Dawmat al-Jandal in the last week of August. Upon his return, he received news of the assembling of a large Persian army. He decided to defeat them all separately to avoid the risk of being defeated by a large unified Persian army. Four divisions of Persian and Christian Arab auxiliaries were present at Hanafiz, Zumiel, Sanni and Muzieh. Khalid divided his army into three units, and employed them in well-coordinated attacks against the Persians from three different sides at night, in the Battle of Muzayyah, then the Battle of Saniyy, and finally the Battle of Zumail, all during the month of November. These devastating defeats ended Persian control over Mesopotamia, and left the Persian capital Ctesiphon vulnerable. Before attacking Ctesiphon, Khalid decided to eliminate all Persian forces in the south and west. He accordingly marched against the border city of Firaz, where he defeated the combined forces of the Sasanian Persians, the Byzantines and Christian Arabs in December. This was the last battle in his conquest of Mesopotamia. While Khalid was on his way to attack Qadissiyah (a key fort en route to Ctesiphon), Abu Bakr ordered him to the Roman front in Syria to assume command there.


title: Muslim conquest of Persia

text: According to the will of Abu Bakr, Umar was to continue the conquest of Syria and Mesopotamia. On the northeastern borders of the Empire, in Mesopotamia, the situation was rapidly deteriorating. During Abu Bakr's era, Khalid ibn al-Walid had left Mesopotamia with half his army of 9000 soldiers to assume command in Syria, whereupon the Persians decided to take back their lost territory. The Muslim army was forced to leave the conquered areas and concentrate on the border. Umar immediately sent reinforcements to aid Muthanna ibn Haritha in Mesopotamia under the command of Abu Ubaid al-Thaqafi. At that time, a series of battles between the Persians and Arabs occurred in the region of Sawad, such as Namaraq, Kaskar and Baqusiatha, in which the Arabs managed to maintain their presence in the area. Later on, the Persians defeated Abu Ubaid in the Battle of the Bridge. Muthanna bin Haritha was later victorious in the Battle of Buwayb. In 635 Yazdgerd III sought an alliance with Emperor Heraclius of the Eastern Roman Empire, marrying the latter's daughter (or, by some traditions, his granddaughter) in order to seal the arrangement. While Heraclius prepared for a major offence in the Levant, Yazdegerd ordered the concentration of massive armies to push the Muslims out of Mesopotamia for good through a series of well-coordinated attacks on two fronts.


title: Muslim conquest of Persia

text: Umar ordered his army to retreat to the Arabian border and began raising armies at Medina for another campaign into Mesopotamia. Owing to the critical situation, Umar wished to command the army personally, but the members of Majlis ash-Shura demurred, claiming that the two-front war required Umar's presence in Medina. Accordingly, Umar appointed Saad ibn Abi Waqqas, a respected senior officer, even though Saad was suffering from sciatica. Saad left Medina with his army in May 636 and arrived at Qadisiyyah in June.


title: Muslim conquest of Persia

text: While Heraclius launched his offensive in May 636, Yazdegerd was unable to muster his armies in time to provide the Byzantines with Persian support. Umar, allegedly aware of this alliance and not wanting to risk a battle with two great powers simultaneously, quickly reinforced the Muslim army at Yarmouk to engage and defeat the Byzantines. Meanwhile, he ordered Saad to enter into peace negotiations with Yazdegerd III and invite him to convert to Islam to prevent Persian forces from taking the field. Heraclius instructed his general Vahan not to engage in battle with the Muslims before receiving explicit orders. Fearing more Arab reinforcements, Vahan attacked the Muslim army in the Battle of Yarmouk in August 636, and was routed.


title: Muslim conquest of Persia

text: With the Byzantine threat ended, the Sasanian Empire was still a formidable power with vast manpower reserves, and the Arabs soon found themselves confronting a huge Persian army with troops drawn from every corner of the empire, including war elephants, and commanded by its foremost generals. Within three months, Saad defeated the Persian army in the Battle of al-Qādisiyyah, effectively ending Sasanian rule west of Persia proper. This victory is largely regarded as a decisive turning point in Islam's growth: with the bulk of Persian forces defeated, Saad with his companions later conquered Babylon (Battle of Babylon (636)), Kūthā, Sābāṭ (Valashabad) and Bahurasīr (Veh-Ardashir). Ctesiphon, the capital of the Sassanid Empire, fell in March 637 after a siege of three months.


title: Muslim conquest of Persia

text: In December 636, Umar ordered Utbah ibn Ghazwan to head south to capture al-Ubulla (known as "port of Apologos" in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea) and Basra, in order to cut ties between the Persian garrison there and Ctesiphon. Utbah ibn Ghazwan arrived in April 637, and captured the region. The Persians withdrew to the Maysan region, which the Muslims seized later as well.


title: Muslim conquest of Persia

text: After the conquest of Ctesiphon, several detachments were immediately sent west to capture Circesium and Heet, both forts at the Byzantine border. Several fortified Persian armies were still active north-east of Ctesiphon at Jalawla and north of the Tigris at Tikrit and Mosul.


title: Muslim conquest of Persia

text: After withdrawal from Ctesiphon, the Persian armies gathered at Jalawla, a place of strategic importance due to routes leading from here to Mesopotamia, Khurasan and Azerbaijan. The Persian forces at Jalawla were commanded by Mihran. His deputy was Farrukhzad, a brother of Rustam, who had commanded the Persian forces at the Battle of al-Qadisiyyah. Umar decided to deal with Jalawla first, thereby clearing the way to the north, before taking any decisive action against Tikrit and Mosul. Umar appointed Hashim ibn Utbah to take Jalawla and Abdullah ibn Muta'am to conquer Tikrit and Mosul. In April 637, Hashim led 12,000 troops from Ctesiphon to win a victory over the Persians at the Battle of Jalawla. He then laid siege to Jalawla for seven months, ending in the city's capture. Then, Abdullah ibn Muta'am marched against Tikrit and captured the city with the help of Christians, after fierce resistance. He next sent an army to Mosul which surrendered on the condition of paying Jizya. With victory at Jalawla and occupation of the Tikrit-Mosul region, the whole of Mesopotamia was under Muslim control.


title: Muslim conquest of Persia

text: Thereafter, a Muslim force under Qa'qa marched in pursuit of the escaping Persians at Khaniqeen, 25 kilometres (15 mi) from Jalawla on the road to Iran, still under the command of Mihran. Qa'qa defeated the Persian forces in the Battle of Khaniqeen and captured the city. The Persians then withdrew to Hulwan. Qa'qa followed and laid siege to the city, which was captured in January 638. Qa'qa sought permission to operate deeper in Persia, but Umar rejected the proposal, writing in response:


title: Muslim conquest of Persia

text: By February 638 there was a lull in the fighting on the Persian front. The Suwad, the Tigris valley, and the Euphrates valley were now under complete Muslim control. The Persians had withdrawn to Persia proper, east of the Zagros mountains. The Persians continued raiding Mesopotamia, which remained politically unstable. It seemed the Zagros range was the dividing line between the Rashidun Caliphate and the Sassanids. In the latter part of 638, Hormuzan, who was one of the seven great chiefs of Persia, and had commanded a corps at the Battle of Qadisiyyah, intensified his raids in Mesopotamia. Saad, on Umar's instructions, attacked Hormuzan, while Utbah ibn Ghazwan, aided by Nouman ibn Muqarin, attacked Ahvaz and forced Hormuzan into a peace treaty, under which Ahvaz would remain in Hormuzan's possession as a Muslim vassal state and would pay tribute. Hormuzan broke the treaty, leading Umar to send Abu Musa Ashaari, governor of Busra, to deal with him. After another defeat, Hormuzan signed another treaty on similar terms to the last. This peace also proved short-lived once Hormuzan was reinforced by fresh Persian troops sent by Emperor Yazdgerd III in late 640. The troops concentrated at Tuster, north of Ahvaz. Umar sent the Governor of Kufa, Ammar ibn Yasir, the governor of Busra, Abu Musa, and Nouman ibn Muqarin there, where Hormuzan was defeated, captured and sent to Umar in Medina. Hormuzan apparently converted to Islam and remained a useful adviser to Umar throughout the remainder of the Persian campaign. He is also believed to be the mastermind behind Umar's assassination in 644.


title: Muslim conquest of Persia

text: After the victory at Tustar, Abu Musa marched against the strategically important Susa in January 641, capturing it after a siege of a couple of months. Next, Abu Musa marched against Junde Sabur, the only place left of military importance in the Persian province of Khuzistan, which surrendered to the Muslims after a siege of a few weeks.


title: Muslim conquest of Persia

text: After the conquest of Khuzistan, Umar wanted peace. Though considerably weakened, the image of the Persian Empire as a fearsome superpower still resonated in the minds of the newly-ascendant Arabs, and Umar was wary of unnecessary military engagement with it, preferring to leave the rump of the Persian Empire alone, commenting, "I wish there was a mountain of fire between us and the Persians, so that neither they could get to us, nor we to them."


title: Muslim conquest of Persia

text: After the defeat of the Persian forces at the Battle of Jalula in 637, Yazdgerd III went to Rey and from there moved to Merv, where he set up his capital and directed his chiefs to conduct continuous raids in Mesopotamia. Within four years, Yazdgerd III felt powerful enough to challenge the Muslims again for control of Mesopotamia. Accordingly, he recruited 100,000 hardened veterans and young volunteers from all parts of Persia, under the command of Mardan Shah, which marched to Nahavand for the last titanic struggle with the Caliphate.


title: Muslim conquest of Persia

text: The Governor of Kufa, Ammar ibn Yasir, received intelligence of the Persian movements and concentration at Nahavand and reported them to Umar. Although Umar had expressed a desire for Mesopotamia to be his easternmost frontier, the concentration of the Persian army at Nahavand forced him to act. He now believed that as long as Persia proper remained under Sasanian rule, the raids into Mesopotamia would continue. Hudheifa ibn Al Yaman was appointed commander of the forces of Kufa, and was ordered to march to Nahavand. Abu Musa was to march to Nahavand from Busra, while Nouman ibn Muqarrin marched from Ctesiphon. Umar decided to personally take the army concentrated at Medina to Nahavand to assume overall command. The members of the Majlis al Shura suggested that Umar should command the campaign from Medina, appointing an astute field commander for Nahavand. Umar acquiesced, appointing Mugheera ibn Shuba as commander of the forces concentrated at Medina, and Nouman ibn Muqarrin as commander-in-chief at Nahavand. The Muslim army first concentrated at Tazar, and then defeated the Persians at the Battle of Nahavand in December 642. Nouman died in the action, and, as per Umar's instructions, Hudheifa ibn Al Yaman became the new commander-in-chief. Thereafter, the Muslims captured the whole district of Hamadan, encountering only feeble resistance.


title: Muslim conquest of Persia

text: After several years, Caliph Umar adopted a new offensive policy, preparing to launch a full-scale invasion of what remained of the Sasanian Empire. The Battle of Nahavand was one of the most decisive battles in Islamic history and proved to be the key to Persia. After the devastating defeat at Nahavand, the last Sassanid emperor, Yazdegerd III, fled to different parts of Persia to raise a new army, with limited success, while Umar attempted to capture him.


title: Muslim conquest of Persia

text: Umar decided to strike the Persians immediately after their defeat at Nahavand, while he still possessed a psychological advantage. Umar had to decide which of three provinces to conquer first: Fars in the south, Azerbaijan in the north or Isfahan in the center. Umar chose Isfahan, as it was the heart of the Persian Empire and a conduit for supply and communications among the Sasanian garrisons, and its capture would isolate Fars and Azerbaijan from Khorasan, Yazdegerd's stronghold. After he had taken Fars and Isfahan, the next attacks would be simultaneously launched against Azerbaijan, the northwestern province, and Sistan, the easternmost province of the Persian Empire. The conquest of those provinces would leave Khorasan isolated and vulnerable, the last stage of the conquest of Sassanid Persia.


title: Muslim conquest of Persia

text: Preparations were complete by January 642. The success of the plan depended upon how effectively Umar could coordinate these attacks from Medina, about 1500 kilometers from Persia, and upon the skill of his field commanders. Umar adopted a different approach to the command structure. Instead of appointing a single field commander to press the campaign, Umar appointed several commanders, each assigned a different mission. Once a commander's mission ended, he would become an ordinary soldier under the new field commander for the latter's mission. The purpose of this strategy was to allow commanders to mix with their soldiers and to remind them that they are like everyone else: command is only given to the most competent, and, once the battle is over, the commander returns to his previous position.


title: Muslim conquest of Persia

text: On the eve of the campaign, Umar, in order to boost morale, decided to reinstall Khalid as field commander, four years after his dismissal. Khalid's reputation as the conqueror of the Eastern Roman provinces demoralized the Persian commanders, most of whom had already been defeated by him during his conquest of Mesopotamia in 633. Before Umar could issue the reappointment order, Khalid died in Emesa.


title: Muslim conquest of Persia

text: Throughout the Persian campaign, Umar even appointed the commanders of the wings, the center and the cavalry of the army. Umar strictly instructed his commanders to consult him before making any decisive move in Persia. All the commanders, before starting their assigned campaigns, were instructed to send a detailed report of the geography and terrain of the region and the positions of the Persian garrisons, forts, cities and troops. Umar then would send them a detailed plan of how he wanted the region to be captured. Only the tactical issues were left to the field commanders to tackle in accordance with the situation they faced at their fronts. Umar appointed the best available and well-reputed commanders for the campaign.


title: Muslim conquest of Persia

text: In the wake of Khalid's demise, Umar appointed Abdullah ibn Uthman as commander of the Muslim forces for the invasion of Isfahan. From Nahavand, Nu'man ibn Muqaarin marched to Hamadan, and then proceeded 370 kilometres (230 mi) southeast to the city of Isfahan, defeating a Sasanian army there. The enemy commander, Shahrvaraz Jadhuyih, along with another Sasanian general, was killed during the battle. Nu'man, reinforced by fresh troops from Busra and Kufa under the command of Abu Musa Ashaari and Ahnaf ibn Qais, then besieged the city. The siege continued for a few months before the city surrendered.


title: Muslim conquest of Persia

text: In 651, Nu'aym ibn Muqaarin, Nu'man's brother, marched northeast to Rey, Iran, about 320 kilometres (200 mi) from Hamadan, and laid siege to the city, which surrendered after fierce resistance. Nu'aym then marched 240 kilometres (150 mi) northeast toward Qom, which was captured without much resistance. This represented the boundary of the Isfahan region. Further northeast was Khurasan, and southeast lay Sistan. Meanwhile, Hamadan and Rey had rebelled. Umar sent Nu'aym, whose brother Nu'man had recently died, to Hamadan to crush the rebellion and clear Isfahan's western frontier. Nu'aym recaptured Hamadan after a bloody battle, and then proceeded to Rey. There too the Persians resisted but were defeated outside the fort, and the Muslims recaptured the city. The Persian citizens sued for peace, agreeing to pay the Jizya. From Rey, Nu'aym moved north to Tabaristan, south of the Caspian Sea. The ruler of Tabaristan then signed a peace treaty with the Caliphate.


title: Muslim conquest of Persia

text: The Muslim invasion of Fars began in 638/9, when the Rashidun governor of Bahrain, al-'Ala' ibn al-Hadrami, having defeated some rebellious Arab tribes, seized an island in the Persian Gulf. Although al-'Ala' and the rest of the Arabs had been ordered to not invade Fars or its surrounding islands, he and his men continued their raids into the province. Al-'Ala quickly prepared an army which he divided into three groups, one under al-Jarud ibn Mu'alla, the second under al-Sawwar ibn Hammam, and the third under Khulayd ibn al-Mundhir ibn Sawa.


title: Muslim conquest of Persia

text: When the first group entered Fars, it was quickly defeated and al-Jarud was killed. The same thing soon happened to the second group. Khulayd and the third group kept the defenders at bay, but were blocked from withdrawing to Bahrain by the Sasanians. Umar, having found out about al-'Ala's invasion of Fars, had him replaced with Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas as governor. Umar then ordered Utbah ibn Ghazwan to send reinforcements to Khulayd. Once the reinforcements arrived, Khulayd and some of his men managed to withdraw to Bahrain, while the rest withdrew to Basra.