The Alawites, also known as Nusayrites, are an Arab ethnoreligious group that live primarily in the Levant and follow Alawism, a religious sect that splintered from early Shi'ism as a ghulat branch during the ninth century. Alawites venerate Ali ibn Abi Talib, revered as the first Imam in the Twelver school, as the physical manifestation of God. The group was founded by Ibn Nusayr during the 9th century. Ibn Nusayr was a disciple of the tenth Twelver Imam, Ali al-Hadi and of the eleventh Twelver Imam, Hasan al-Askari. For this reason, Alawites are also called Nusayris.

Surveys suggest Alawites represent an important portion of the Syrian population and are a significant minority in the Hatay Province of Turkey and northern Lebanon. There is also a population living in the village of Ghajar in the Golan Heights. Alawites form the dominant religious group on the Syrian coast and towns near the coast, which are also inhabited by Sunnis, Christians, and Ismailis. They are often confused with the Alevis, a distinct religious sect in Turkey.

Alawites identify as a separate ethnoreligious group. The Quran is only one of their holy books and texts, and their interpretation thereof has very little in common with the Shia Muslim interpretation but is in accordance with the early Batiniyya and other ghulat sects. Alawite theology and rituals sharply differ from Shia Islam in several important ways. For instance, various Nusayrite rituals involve the drinking of wine and the sect does not prohibit the consumption of alcoholic drinks on its adherents. As a creed that teaches the symbolic/esoteric reading of Qur'anic verses, Nusayrite theology is based on the belief in reincarnation and views Ali as a divine incarnation of God. Moreover, Alawite clergy and scholarship insist that their religion is also theologically distinct from Shi'ism.

Alawites have historically kept their beliefs secret from outsiders and non-initiated Alawites, so rumours about them have arisen. Arabic accounts of their beliefs tend to be partisan (either positively or negatively). However, since the early 2000s, Western scholarship on the Nusayrite religion has made significant advances. At the core of Alawite creed is the belief in a divine Trinity, comprising three aspects of the one God. The aspects of the Trinity are Mana (meaning), Ism (Name) and Bab (Door). Nusayrite beliefs hold that these emanations underwent re-incarnation cyclically seven times in human form throughout history. According to Alawites, the seventh incarnation of the trinity consists of Ali, Muhammad and Salman al-Farisi.

Alawites, considered disbelievers by classical Sunni and Shi'ite theologians, faced periods of subjugation or persecution under various Muslim empires such as the Ottomans, Abbasids, Mamluks, and others. The establishment of the French Mandate of Syria in 1920 marked a turning point in Alawite history. Until then, the community had commonly self-identified as "Nusayris", emphasizing their connections to Ibn Nusayr. French administration prescribed the label "Alawite" to categorise the sect alongside Shiism in official documents. French recruited large number of minorities into their armed forces and created exclusive areas for minorities, including the Alawite State. Alawite State was later dismantled, but the Alawites continued to play a significant role in the Syrian military and later in the Ba'ath Party.

Etymology
In older sources, Alawis are often called "Ansaris". According to Samuel Lyde, who lived among the Alawites during the mid-19th century, this was a term they used among themselves. Other sources indicate that "Ansari" is simply a Western error in the transliteration of "Nusayri". Alawites historically self-identified as Nusayrites, after their religious founder Ibn Nusayr al-Numayri. However, the term "Nusayri" had fallen out of currency by the 1920s, as a movement led by intellectuals within the community during the French Mandate sought to replace it with the modern term "Alawi".

They characterised the older name (which implied "a separate ethnic and religious identity") as an "invention of the sect's enemies", ostensibly favouring an emphasis on "connection with mainstream Islam"—particularly the Shia branch. The French also popularised the new term by officially categorising them as "Alawites". As such, "Nusayri" is now generally regarded as antiquated, and has even come to have insulting and abusive connotations. The term is frequently employed as hate speech by Sunni fundamentalists fighting against Bashar al-Assad's government in the Syrian civil war, who use its emphasis on Ibn Nusayr in order to insinuate that Alawi beliefs are "man-made" and not divinely inspired.

Nekati Alkan argued in an article that the "Alawi" appellation was used in an 11th century Nusayri book and was not a 20th century invention. The following quote from the same article illustrates his point: "As to the change from "Nuṣayrī" to "ʿAlawī": most studies agree that the term "ʿAlawī" was not used until after WWI and probably coined and circulated by Muḥammad Amīn Ghālib al-Ṭawīl, an Ottoman official and writer of the famous Taʾrīkh al-ʿAlawiyyīn (1924). In actual fact, the name 'Alawī' appears as early as in an 11th century Nuṣayrī tract as one the names of the believer (…). Moreover, the term 'Alawī' was already used at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1903 the Belgian-born Jesuit and Orientalist Henri Lammens (d. 1937) visited a certain Ḥaydarī-Nuṣayrī sheikh Abdullah in a village near Antakya and mentions that the latter preferred the name 'Alawī' for his people. Lastly, it is interesting to note that in the above-mentioned petitions of 1892 and 1909 the Nuṣayrīs called themselves the 'Arab Alawī people' (ʿArab ʿAlevī ṭāʾifesi) 'our ʿAlawī Nuṣayrī people' (ṭāʾifatunā al-Nuṣayriyya al-ʿAlawiyya) or 'signed with Alawī people' (ʿAlevī ṭāʾifesi imżāsıyla). This early self-designation is, in my opinion, of triple importance. Firstly, it shows that the word 'Alawī' was always used by these people, as ʿAlawī authors emphasize; secondly, it hints at the reformation of the Nuṣayrīs, launched by some of their sheikhs in the 19th century and their attempt to be accepted as part of Islam; and thirdly, it challenges the claims that the change of the identity and name from 'Nuṣayrī' to 'ʿAlawī' took place around 1920, in the beginning of the French mandate in Syria (1919–1938)."

The Alawites are distinct from the Alevi religious sect in Turkey, although the terms share a common etymology and pronunciation.

Genealogical origin theories

The origin of the genetics of Alawites is disputed. Local folklore suggests that they are descendants of the followers of the eleventh Imam, Hasan al-Askari (d. 873) and his pupil, Ibn Nusayr (d. 868). During the 19th and 20th centuries, some Western scholars believed that Alawites were descended from ancient Middle Eastern peoples such as the Arameans, Canaanites, Hittites, and Mardaites. Many prominent Alawite tribes are also descended from 13th century settlers from Sinjar.

In his Natural History, Book V, Pliny the Elder said:

The "Tetrarchy of the Nazerini" refers to the western region, between the Orontes and the sea, which consists of a small mountain range called An-Nusayriyah Mountains bordered with a valley running from south-east to north-west known as "Al-Ghab plain"; the region was populated by a portion of Syrians, who were called Nazerini. However, scholars are reluctant to link between Nazerini and Nazarenes. Yet, the term "Nazerini" can be possibly connected to words which include the Semitic triliteral root n-ṣ-r such as the subject naṣer in Eastern Aramaic which means "keeper of wellness".

History
Ibn Nusayr and his followers are considered the founders of the religion. After the death of the Eleventh Imam, al-Askari, problems emerged in the Shia Community concerning his succession, and then Ibn Nusayr claimed to be the Bab and Ism of the deceased Imam and that he received his secret teachings. Ibn Nusayr and his followers development seems to be one of many other early ghulat mystical Islamic sects, and were apparently excommunicated by the Shia representatives of the 12th Hidden Imam.

The Alawites were later organised during Hamdanid rule in northern Syria (947–1008) by a follower of Muhammad ibn Nusayr known as al-Khaṣībī, who died in Aleppo about 969, after a rivalry with the Ishaqiyya sect, which claimed also to have the doctrine of Ibn Nusayr. The embrace of Alawism by the majority of the population in the Syrian coastal mountains was likely a protracted process occurring over several centuries. Modern research indicates that after its initial establishment in Aleppo, Alawism spread to Sarmin, Salamiyah, Homs and Hama before becoming concentrated in low-lying villages west of Hama, including Baarin, Deir Shamil, and Deir Mama, the Wadi al-Uyun valley, and in the mountains around Tartus and Safita.

In 1032, al-Khaṣībī's grandson and pupil, Abu Sa'id Maymun al-Tabarani (d. 1034), moved to Latakia (then controlled by the Byzantine Empire). Al-Tabarani succeeded his mentor al-Jilli of Aleppo as head missionary in Syria and became "the last definitive scholar of Alawism", founding its calendar and giving Alawite teachings their final form, according to the historian Stefan Winter. Al-Tabarani influenced the Alawite faith through his writings and by converting the rural population of the Syrian Coastal Mountain Range. Winter argues that while it is likely the Alawite presence in Latakia dates to Tabarani's lifetime, it is unclear if Alawite teachings spread to the city's mountainous hinterland, where the Muslim population generally leaned toward Shia Islam, in the eleventh century. In the early part of the century, the Jabal al-Rawadif (part of the Syrian Coastal Mountains around Latakia) were controlled by the local Arab chieftain Nasr ibn Mushraf al-Rudafi, who vacillated between alliance and conflict with Byzantium. There is nothing in the literary sources indicating al-Rudafi patronized the Alawites. To the south of Jabal al-Rawadif, in the Jabal Bahra, a 13th-century Alawite treatise mentions the sect was sponsored by the Banu'l-Ahmar, Banu'l-Arid, and Banu Muhriz, three local families who controlled fortresses in the region in the 11th and 12th centuries. From this southern part of the Syrian coastal mountain range, a significant Alawite presence developed in the mountains east of Latakia and Jableh during the Mamluk period (1260s—1516).

According to Bar Hebraeus, many Alawites were killed when the Crusaders initially entered Syria in 1097; however, they tolerated them when they concluded they were not a truly Islamic sect. They even incorporated them within their ranks, along with the Maronites and Turcopoles. Two prominent Alawite leaders in the following centuries, credited with uplifting the group, were Shaykhs al-Makzun (d. 1240) and al-Tubani (d. 1300), both originally from Mount Sinjar in modern Iraq.

In the 14th century, the Alawites were forced by Mamluk sultan Baibars to build mosques in their settlements, to which they responded with token gestures described by the Muslim traveller Ibn Battuta.

Ottoman Empire

During the reign of Sultan Selim I, of the Ottoman Empire, the Alawites would again experience significant persecution; especially in Aleppo when a massacre occurred in the Great Mosque of Aleppo on 24 April 1517. The massacre was known as the "Massacre of the Telal" () in which the corpses of thousands of victims accumulated as a tell located west of the castle. The horrors of the massacre which caused the immigration of the survivors to the coastal region are documented at the National and University Library in Strasbourg, the manuscript is reserved as a letter sent by an Ottoman commander to Sultan Selim I:

The Ottoman Empire took aggressive actions against Alawites, due to their alleged "treacherous activities" as "they had long history of betraying the Muslim governments due to their mistrust towards Sunnis." The Alawis rose up against the Ottomans on several occasions, and maintained their autonomy in their mountains.

In his book, Seven Pillars of Wisdom, T. E. Lawrence wrote:

During the 18th century, the Ottomans employed a number of Alawite leaders as tax collectors under the iltizam system. Between 1809 and 1813, Mustafa Agha Barbar, the governor of Tripoli, attacked the Kalbiyya Alawites with "marked savagery". Some Alawites supported Ottoman involvement in the Egyptian-Ottoman Wars of 1831–1833 and 1839–1841, and had careers in the Ottoman army or as Ottoman governors. Moreover, they even initiated the Alawite revolt (1834–35) against the Egyptian rule of the region, which was later suppressed by the Governor of Homs.

By the mid-19th century, the Alawite people, customs and way of life were described by Samuel Lyde, an English missionary among them, as suffering from nothing except a gloomy plight. The 19th century historian Elias Saleh described the Alawites as living in a "state of ignorance" and having the negative traits of "laziness, lying, deceitfulness, inclination to robbery and bloodshed, and backstabbing". By the 1870s, Alawite bandits were impaled on spikes and left on crossroads as a warning, according to the historian Joshua Landis.

Early in the 20th century, the mainly-Sunni Ottoman leaders were bankrupt and losing political power; the Alawites were poor peasants.

French Mandate period

After the end of World War I and the fall of the Ottoman Empire, Syria and Lebanon were placed by the League of Nations under the French Mandate for Syria and Lebanon. On 15 December 1918, Alawite leader Saleh al-Ali called for a meeting of Alawite leaders in the town of Al-Shaykh Badr, urging them to revolt and expel the French from Syria.

When French authorities heard about the meeting, they sent a force to arrest Saleh al-Ali. He and his men ambushed and defeated the French forces at Al-Shaykh Badr, inflicting more than 35 casualties. After this victory, al-Ali began organizing his Alawite rebels into a disciplined force, with its general command and military ranks.

The Al-Shaykh Badr skirmish began the Syrian Revolt of 1919. Al-Ali responded to French attacks by laying siege to (and occupying) al-Qadmus, from which the French had conducted their military operations against him. In November, General Henri Gouraud mounted a campaign against Saleh al-Ali's forces in the An-Nusayriyah Mountains. His forces entered al-Ali's village of Al-Shaykh Badr, arresting many Alawi leaders; however, Al-Ali fled to the north. When a large French force overran his position, he went underground.

Despite these instances of opposition, the Alawites mostly favored French rule and sought its continuation beyond the mandate period.

Alawite State

When the French began to occupy Syria in 1920, an Alawite State was created in the coastal and mountain country comprising most Alawite villages; the French justified this by citing differences between the "backward" mountain people and the mainstream Sunnis. The division also intended to protect the Alawite people from more-powerful majorities, such as the Sunnis.

The French also created microstates, such as Greater Lebanon for the Maronite Christians and Jabal al-Druze for the Druze. Aleppo and Damascus were also separate states. Under the Mandate, many Alawite chieftains supported a separate Alawite nation, and tried to convert their autonomy into independence.

The French Mandate Administration encouraged Alawites to join their military forces, in part to provide a counterweight to the Sunni majority (which was more hostile to their rule). According to a 1935 letter by the French minister of war, the French considered the Alawites and the Druze the only "warlike races" in the Mandate territories. Between 1926 and 1939, the Alawites and other minority groups provided the majority of the locally recruited component of the Army of the Levant - the designation given to the French military forces garrisoning Syria and the Lebanon.

The region was home to a mostly-rural, heterogeneous population. The landowning families and 80 percent of the population of the port city of Latakia were Sunni Muslim; however, in rural areas 62 percent of the population were Alawite peasants. According to some researchers, there was considerable Alawite separatist sentiment in the region, their evidence is a 1936 letter signed by 80 Alawi leaders addressed to the French Prime Minister which said that the "Alawite people rejected attachment to Syria and wished to stay under French protection". Among the signatories was Sulayman Ali al-Assad, father of Hafez al-Assad. However, according to associate professor Stefan Winter, this letter is a forgery. Even during this time of increased Alawite rights, the situation was still so bad for the group that many women had to leave their homes to work for urban Sunnis.

In May 1930, the Alawite State was renamed the Government of Latakia in one of the few concessions by the French to Arab nationalists before 1936. Nevertheless, on 3 December 1936 the Alawite State was re-incorporated into Syria as a concession by the French to the National Bloc (the party in power in the semi-autonomous Syrian government). The law went into effect in 1937.

In 1939, the Sanjak of Alexandretta (now Hatay) contained a large number of Alawites. The Hatayan land was given to Turkey by the French after a League of Nations plebiscite in the province. This development greatly angered most Syrians; to add to Alawi contempt, in 1938, the Turkish military went into İskenderun and expelled most of the Arab and Armenian population. Before this, the Alawite Arabs and Armenians comprised most of the province's population. Zaki al-Arsuzi, a young Alawite leader from Iskandarun province in the Sanjak of Alexandretta who led the resistance to the province's annexation by the Turks, later became a co-founder of the Ba'ath Party with Eastern Orthodox Christian schoolteacher Michel Aflaq and Sunni politician Salah ad-Din al-Bitar.

After World War II, Sulayman al-Murshid played a major role in uniting the Alawite province with Syria. He was executed by the Syrian government in Damascus on 12 December 1946, only three days after a political trial.

After Syrian independence

Syria became independent on 17 April 1946. In 1949, after the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, Syria experienced a number of military coups and the rise of the Ba'ath Party.

In 1958, Syria and Egypt were united by a political agreement into the United Arab Republic. The UAR lasted for three years, breaking apart in 1961, when a group of army officers seized power and declared Syria independent.

A succession of coups ensued until, in 1963, a secretive military committee (including Alawite officers Hafez al-Assad and Salah Jadid) helped the Ba'ath Party seize power. In 1966, Alawite-affiliated military officers successfully rebelled and expelled the Ba'ath Party old guard followers of Greek Orthodox Christian Michel Aflaq and Sunni Muslim Salah ad-Din al-Bitar, calling Zaki al-Arsuzi the "Socrates" of the reconstituted Ba'ath Party.

In 1970, Air Force General Hafez al-Assad, an Alawite, took power and instigated a "Corrective Movement" in the Ba'ath Party. The coup of 1970 ended the political instability which had existed since independence. Robert D. Kaplan compared Hafez al-Assad's coming to power to "an untouchable becoming maharajah in India or a Jew becoming tsar in Russia—an unprecedented development shocking to the Sunni majority population which had monopolized power for so many centuries". In 1971, al-Assad declared himself president of Syria, a position the constitution at the time permitted only for Sunni Muslims. In 1973, a new constitution was adopted, replacing Islam as the state religion with a mandate that the president's religion be Islam, and protests erupted. In 1974, to satisfy this constitutional requirement, Musa as-Sadr (a leader of the Twelvers of Lebanon and founder of the Amal Movement, who had unsuccessfully sought to unite Lebanese Alawites and Shiites under the Supreme Islamic Shiite Council) issued a fatwa that Alawites were a community of Twelver Shiite Muslims. When the Muslim Brotherhood led anti-Ba'athist Islamic revolts during 1970s 1982, Hafez Assad crushed the uprisings through a brutal military crackdown, which culminated in the Hama massacre.

Syrian Civil War
After the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War, the Ba'athist state imposed forced conscription of able bodied men, mainly the youth. Due to Assad regime's fear of mass-defections in military ranks, it prefers to send Alawite recruits for active combat in the frontlines and the conscriptions disproportionately targeted Alawite regions. This has resulted in a large number of 'Alawite casualties and Alawite villages in the coastal areas have suffered immensely a result of their support for the Assad government. Many Alawites, particularly the younger generation who believes that the Ba'athists have held their community hostage, have reacted with immense anger at Assad regime's  corruption and hold the government responsible for the crisis. There has been rising demands across Alawite regions to end the conflict by achieving reconciliation with Syrian opposition and prevent their community from perceived as being associated with the Assad regime.

Some have claimed many Alawite loyalists fear a negative outcome for the government may result in an existential threat to their community. In May 2013, pro opposition SOHR stated that out of 94,000 Syrian regime soldiers killed during the war, at least 41,000 were Alawites. Reports estimate that up to a third of 250,000 young Alawite men of fighting age has been killed in the  conflict by 2015, due to being disproportionately sent to fight in the frontlines by the Assad regime.
In April 2017, a pro-opposition source claimed 150,000 young Alawites had died. Another report estimates that around 100,000 Alawite youths were killed in combat by 2020.

Many Alawites feared significant danger during the Syrian Civil War; particularly from Islamic groups who were a part of the opposition, though denied by secular opposition factions. Alawites have also been wary of the increased Iranian influence in Syria since its intervention in the Syrian civil war, viewing it as a threat to their long-term survival due to Khomeinist conversion campaigns focused in Alawite coastal regions. Many Alawites, including Assad loyalists, criticize such activities as a plot to absorb their ethno-religious identity into Iran's Twelver Shia umbrella and spread religious extremism in the country.

Beliefs

Alawites and their beliefs have been described as "secretive"
(Yaron Friedman, for example, in his scholarly work on the sect, has written that the Alawi religious material quoted in his book came only from "public libraries and printed books" since the "sacred writings" of the Alawi "are kept secret"); some tenets of the faith are kept secret from most Alawi and known only to a select few, they have therefore been described as a mystical sect.

Alawite doctrines originated from the teachings of Iraqi priest Muhammad ibn Nusayr who claimed Prophethood and declared himself as the "Bāb (door) of the Imams" and attributed divinity to Hasan al-Askari. Al-Askari denounced Ibn Nusayr and Islamic authorities expelled his disciples, most of whom emigrated to the Coastal Mountains of Syria wherein they established a distinct community. Nusayri creed views Ali as "the supreme eternal God" and consists of various gnostic beliefs. Nusayrite doctrine regards the souls of Alawites as re-incarnations of "lights that rebelled against God".

Alawite beliefs have never been confirmed by their modern religious authorities. As a highly secretive and esoteric sect, Nusayri religious priests tend to conceal their core doctrines, which are only introduced to a chosen minority of the sect's adherents. Alawites have also adopted the practice of taqiya to avoid victimization. Nusayri cree

Theology and practices
Alawite doctrine incorporates elements of Phoenician mythology, Gnosticism, neo-Platonism, Christian Trinitarianism (for example, they celebrate Mass including the consecration of bread and wine); blending them with Muslim symbolism and has, therefore, been described as syncretic.

Alawite Trinity envisions God as being  composed of three distinct manifestations, Ma'na (meaning), Ism (Name) and Bab (Door); which together constitute an "indivisible Trinity". Ma'na symbolises the "source and meaning of all things" in Alawite mythology. According to Alawite doctrines, Ma'na generated the Ism, which in turn built the Bab. These beliefs are closely tied to the Nusayri doctrine of re-incarnations of the Trinity.

The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World classifies Alawites as part of extremist Shia sects referred to as the ghulat which are unrelated to Sunni Islam; owing to the secretive nature of the Alawite religious system and hierarchy. Due to their esoteric doctrines of strict secrecy, conversions into the community were also forbidden.

Alawites do not believe in daily Muslim prayers (salah). The central tenet of Nusayrite creed is their belief of Ali ibn Abi Talib being an incarnation of God. Nusayrite testimony of faith translates as "there is no God but Ali".

Reincarnation
Alawites hold that they were originally stars or divine lights that were cast out of heaven through disobedience and must undergo repeated reincarnation (or metempsychosis) before returning to heaven. Females are excluded from the Nusayrite belief in re-incarnation.

Alawite theologians divided history into seven eras, associating each era with one of the seven re-incarnations of the Nusayrite Trinity (Ma'na, Ism, Bab). The seven re-incarnations of the Trinity in the Alawite faith consists of:
 Abel, Adam, Gabriel
 Seth, Noah, Yail ibn Fatin
 Joseph, Jacob, Ham ibn Kush
 Joshua, Moses, Dan ibn Usbaut
 Asaf, Solomon, Abd Allah ibn Siman
 Simon Peter, Jesus, Rawzaba ibn al-Marzuban
 Ali, Muhammad, Salman al-Farisi

The last triad of re-incarnations in the Nusayri Trinity consists of Ali (Ma'na), Muhammad (Ism) and Salman al-Farsi (Bab). Alawites depict them as the sky, the sun and the moon respectively. They deify Ali as the "last and supreme manifestation of God" who built the universe, attributing him with divine superiority  and believe that Ali created Muhammad, bestowing upon him the mission to spread Qur'anic teachings on earth.

The Israeli institution of Begin–Sadat Center for Strategic Studies describes the Alawite faith as Judeophilic and "anti-Sunni" since they believe that God's incarnations consist of Israelite Prophet Joshua who conquered Canaan, in addition to the fourth Caliph, Ali. It also denies the Arab ethnicity of Alawites even though Alawites themselves self-identify ethnically as Arabs  and assert that Alawites claim to be Arabs because of a supposed "political expediency".

Other beliefs

Other beliefs and practices include: the consecration of wine in a secret form of Mass performed only by males; frequently being given Christian names; entombing the dead in sarcophagi above ground; observing Epiphany, Christmas and the feast days of John Chrysostom and Mary Magdalene; the only religious structures they have are the shrines of tombs; the book Kitab al-Majmu, which is allegedly a central source of Alawite doctrine, where they have their own trinity, comprising Mohammed, Ali, and Salman the Persian.

In addition, they celebrate different holidays such as Old New Year, Akitu, Eid al-Ghadir, Mid-Sha'ban and Eid il-Burbara. They also believe in intercession of certain legendary saints such as Khidr (Saint George) and Simeon Stylites.

Evolution

Yaron Friedman and many researchers of Alawi doctrine write that the founder of the religion, Ibn Nusayr, did not necessarily believe he was representative of a splinter, rebel group of the Shias, but rather believed he held the true doctrine of the Shias, and most of the aspects that are similar to Christianity are considered more a coincidence and not a direct influence from it, as well as other external doctrines that were actually popular among Shia esoteric groups in Basra in the 8th century. According to Friedman and other scholars, the Alawi movement started as many other mystical ghulat sects with an explicit concentration on an allegorical and esoteric meaning of the Quran and other mystical practices, and not as a pure syncretic sect, though later, they embraced some other practices as they believed all religions had the same Batin core.

Journalist Robert F. Worth argues that the idea that the Alawi religion as a branch of Islam is a rewriting of history made necessary by the French colonialists' abandonment of the Alawi and departure from Syria. Worth describes the "first ... authentic source for outsiders about the religion" (written by Soleyman of Adana – a 19th-century Alawi convert to Christianity who broke his oath of secrecy on the religion) explaining that the Alawi (according to Soleyman) deified Ali, venerated Christ, Muhammad, Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle, and held themselves apart from Muslims and Christians, whom they considered heretics. According to Tom Heneghan:"Alawite religion is often called "an offshoot of Shi'ism," Islam's largest minority sect, but that is something like referring to Christianity as "an offshoot of Judaism." Alawites broke away from Shi'ism over 1,000 years ago"

According to a disputed letter, in 1936, six Alawi notables petitioned the French colonialists not to merge their Alawi enclave with the rest of Syria, insisting that "the spirit of hatred and fanaticism embedded in the hearts of the Arab Muslims against everything that is non-Muslim has been perpetually nurtured by the Islamic religion". However, according to associate professor Stefan Winter, this letter is a forgery. According to Worth, later fatwas declaring Alawi to be part of the Shia community were by Shia clerics "eager for Syrian patronage" from Syria's Alawi president Hafez al-Assad, who was eager for Islamic legitimacy in the face of the hostility of Syria's Muslim majority.

Yaron Friedman does not suggest that Alawi did not consider themselves Muslims, but does state that:

According to Peter Theo Curtis, the Alawi religion underwent a process of "Sunnification" during the years under Hafez Al Assad's rule, so that Alawites became not Shia, but effectively Sunni. Public manifestation or "even mentioning of any Alawite religious activities" was banned, as were any Alawite religious organizations or "any formation of a unified religious council" or a higher Alawite religious authority. "Sunni-style" mosques were built in every Alawite village, and Alawi were encouraged to perform Hajj.

Opinions on position within Islam
The Sunni Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, issued a fatwa recognizing them as part of the Muslim community in the interest of Arab nationalism. However, classical Sunni scholars such as the Syrian historian Ibn Kathir categorized Alawites as non-Muslim and mushrikeen (polytheists), in their writings. Ibn Taymiyya, Ibn Kathir's mentor and arguably the most virulent anti-Alawite Sunni theologian, categorised Nusayrites as non-Muslims and listed them amongst the worst sects of polytheists.

Through many of his fatawa, Ibn Taymiyya described Nusayrites as "the worst enemies of the Muslims" who were far more dangerous than Crusaders and Mongols. Ibn Taymiyya also accused Alawites of aiding the Crusades and Mongol invasions against the Muslim World. Other Sunni scholars, such as Al-Ghazali, likewise considered them as non-Muslims. Benjamin Disraeli, in his novel Tancred, also expressed the view that Alawites are not Shia Muslims.

Historically, Twelver Shia scholars (such as Shaykh Tusi) did not consider Alawites as Shia Muslims while condemning their heretical beliefs.

In 2016, according to several international media reports, an unspecified number of Alawite community leaders released a "Declaration of an Alawite Identity Reform" (of the Alawite community). The manifesto presents Alawism a current "within Islam" and rejects attempts to incorporate the Alawite community into Twelver Shiism. The document was interpreted as an attempt by representatives of the Alawite community to overcome the sectarian polarisation and to distance themselves from the growing Sunni-Shia divide in the Middle East.

According to Matti Moosa,
The Christian elements in the Nusayri religion are unmistakable. They include the concept of trinity; the celebration of Christmas, the consecration of the Qurbana, that is, the sacrament of the flesh and blood which Christ offered to his disciples, and, most important, the celebration of the Quddas (a lengthy prayer proclaiming the divine attributes of Ali and the personification of all the biblical patriarchs from Adam to Simon Peter, founder of the Church, who is seen, paradoxically, as the embodiment of true Islam).

Barry Rubin has suggested that Syrian leader Hafez al-Assad and his son and successor Bashar al-Assad pressed their fellow Alawites "to behave like 'regular Muslims', shedding (or at least concealing) their distinctive aspects". During the early 1970s, a booklet, al-'Alawiyyun Shi'atu Ahl al-Bait ("The Alawites are Followers of the Household of the Prophet") was published, which was "signed by numerous 'Alawi' men of religion", described the doctrines of the Imami Shia as Alawite.

The relationship between Alawite-ruled Ba'athist Syria and Khomeinist Iran have been described as a "marriage of convenience"; due to the former being ruled by the ultra-secularist Arab Socialist Ba'ath party and latter by anti-secular Twelver Shi'ite clergy. The alliance was established during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, when Hafez al-Assad backed Iran against his Iraqi Ba'athist rivals, departing from the consensus of rest of the Arab world. Iranian-backed militant groups like Hezbollah, Fatemeyoun, etc. have been acting as proxy forces for Assad regime in various conflicts in the region; such as Lebanese civil war, 2006 Lebanon war and Syrian civil war.

Some sources have discussed the "Sunnification" of Alawites under the al-Assad regime. Joshua Landis, director of the Center for Middle East Studies, writes that Hafiz al-Assad "tried to turn Alawites into 'good' (read Sunnified) Muslims in exchange for preserving a modicum of secularism and tolerance in society". On the other hand, Al-Assad "declared the Alawites to be nothing but Twelver Shiites". In a paper, "Islamic Education in Syria", Landis wrote that "no mention" is made in Syrian textbooks (controlled by the Al-Assad regime) of Alawites, Druze, Ismailis or Shia Islam; Islam was presented as a monolithic religion.

Ali Sulayman al-Ahmad, chief judge of the Baathist Syrian state, has said:

Population

Syria
Alawites have traditionally lived in the Coastal Mountain Range, along the Mediterranean coast of Syria. Latakia and Tartus are the region's principal cities. They are also concentrated in the plains around Hama and Homs. Alawites also live in Syria's major cities, and are estimated at 11 percent of the country's population

There are four Alawite confederations — Kalbiyya, Khaiyatin, Haddadin, and Matawirah – each divided into tribes based on their geographical origins or their main religious leader, such as Ḥaidarīya of Alī Ḥaidar, and Kalāziyya of Sheikh Muḥammad ibn Yūnus from the village Kalāzū near Antakya. Those Alawites are concentrated in the Latakia region of Syria, extending north to Antioch (Antakya), Turkey, and in and around Homs and Hama.

Before 1953, Alawites held specifically reserved seats in the Syrian Parliament, in common with all other religious communities. After that (including the 1960 census), there were only general Muslim and Christian categories, without mention of subgroups, to reduce sectarianism (taifiyya).

Golan Heights
There are also about 3,900 Alawites living in the village of Ghajar, which is located on the border between Lebanon and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. In 1932, the residents of Ghajar were given the option of choosing their nationality, and overwhelmingly chose to be a part of Syria, which has a sizable Alawite minority. Before the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, the residents of Ghajar were counted in the 1960 Syrian census. According to Joshua Project, after Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria, and after implementing Israeli civil law in 1981, the Alawite community chose to become Israeli citizens. However, according to Al-Marsad, Alawites were forced to undergo a process of naturalisation.

Before the 1967 war, Alawites in the Golan Heights lived mainly in three northern villages, 'Ayn Fit, Za'ura and Ghajar.

Turkey

To avoid confusion with the ethnic-Turkish and Kurdish Alevis, the Alawites call themselves Arap Alevileri ("Arab Alevis") in Turkish. The term Nusayrī, previously used in theological texts, has been revived in recent studies. In Çukurova, Alawites are known as Fellah and Arabuşağı (although the latter is considered offensive) by the Sunni population. A quasi-official name used during the 1930s by Turkish authorities was Eti Türkleri ("Hittite Turks"), to conceal their Arabic origins. Although this term is obsolete, it is still used by some older people as a euphemism.

In 1939, the Alawites accounted for some 40 percent of the population of the province of Iskenderun. According to French geographer Fabrice Balanche, relations between the Alawites of Turkey and the Alawites of Syria are limited. Community ties were broken by the Turkification policy and the decades-long closure of the Syria-Turkey border.

The exact number of Alawites in Turkey is unknown; there were 185,000 in 1970. As Muslims, they are not recorded separately from Sunnis. In the 1965 census (the last Turkish census where informants were asked their mother tongue), 185,000 people in the three provinces declared their mother tongue as Arabic; however, Arabic-speaking Sunnis and Christians were also included in this figure. Turkish Alawites traditionally speak the same dialect of Levantine Arabic as Syrian Alawites. Arabic is preserved in rural communities and in Samandağ. Younger people in the cities of Çukurova and İskenderun tend to speak Turkish. The Turkish spoken by Alawites is distinguished by its accents and vocabulary. Knowledge of the Arabic alphabet is confined to religious leaders and men who have worked or studied in Arab countries.

Alawites demonstrate considerable social mobility. Until the 1960s, they were bound to Sunni aghas (landholders) around Antakya and were poor. Alawites are prominent in the sectors of transportation and commerce and a large, professional middle class has emerged. Male exogamy has increased, particularly by those who attend universities or live in other parts of Turkey. These marriages are tolerated; however, female exogamy (as in other patrilineal groups) is discouraged.

Alawites, like Alevis, have strong leftist political beliefs. However, some people in rural areas (usually members of notable Alawite families) may support secular, conservative parties such as the Democrat Party. Most Alawites feel oppressed by the policies of the Presidency of Religious Affairs in Turkey (Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı).

Lebanon
There are an estimated 40,000 Alawites in Lebanon, where they have lived since at least the 16th century. They are one of the 18 official Lebanese sects; due to the efforts of their leader, Ali Eid, the Taif Agreement of 1989 gave them two reserved seats in Parliament. Lebanese Alawites live primarily in the Jabal Mohsen neighbourhood of Tripoli and in 10 villages in the Akkar District, and are represented by the Arab Democratic Party. Their Mufti is Sheikh Assad Assi. The Bab al-Tabbaneh–Jabal Mohsen conflict between pro-Syrian Alawites and anti-Syrian Sunnis has affected Tripoli for decades.

Language
Alawites in Syria speak a special dialect (part of Levantine Arabic) famous for the usage of letter (qāf), but this feature is also shared with neighboring non-Alawite villages, such as Idlib. Due to foreign occupation of Syria, the same dialect is characterized by multiple borrowings, mainly from Turkish and then French, especially terms used for imported inventions such as television, radio, elevator (ascenseur), etc.

See also
 List of Alawites

Notes

References

Further reading

 Kazimi, Nibras. Syria Through Jihadist Eyes: A Perfect Enemy, Hoover Institution Press, 2010. .

  RFWRfO2016

External links

Arab groups
Esoteric schools of thought
Ethnoreligious groups in Asia
Islam in Syria
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Alawites


The Larrabee's Point Complex consists of a collection of ferry-related buildings and structures at the western end of Vermont Route 74 in Shoreham, Vermont.  Included are facilities currently used by the oldest operating ferry on Lake Champlain, the Ticonderoga-Larrabees Point Ferry, and two buildings historically associated with the ferry operation.  The complex was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.

Description and history
Larrabee's Point is located in southwestern Shoreham, on the eastern shore of Lake Champlain at a narrow point in the lake opposite Ticonderoga, New York.  John Larrabee purchased the land in this area in 1787, and in 1799 received permission from the state to operate a ferry.  By 1875, the Larrabee's Point complex included a large hotel and a wharf capable of docking large steamships that carried tourists on the lake.  The ferry's importance in commercial freight transportation declined in the second half of the 19th century, due to the arrival of the railroads in Addison County.  The stone warehouse standing adjacent to the current ferry slip, built in 1823, is a surviving reminder of this historic importance.

The historic elements of the Larrabee's Point complex include the ferry slip area, still in use by the modern ferry, and the adjacent stone wharf.  The three story stone warehouse, standing at the land side of the wharf, now houses a lake cruise ship service.  Across Vermont 74 from the warehouse stands the c. 1835 house of John Larrabee, a brick -story structure.  It is a particularly fine example of transitional Federal-Greek Revival architecture, with a later Victorian porch extending across the lake-facing front.  The small wood-frame building housing the ferry office, between the ferry slip and the warehouse, is not historic.

See also
National Register of Historic Places listings in Addison County, Vermont

References

External links

National Register of Historic Places in Vermont
Greek Revival architecture in Vermont
Buildings and structures completed in 1823
Transportation buildings and structures in Addison County, Vermont
Buildings and structures in Shoreham, Vermont
National Register of Historic Places in Addison County, Vermont

Larrabee's Point Complex


Lady Alicia Blackwood née Lambart, (1818 – 30 July 1913), the daughter of George Frederick Augustus Lambart, Viscount Kilcoursie (1789–1828) and Sarah Coppin, was an English painter and nurse, married to the Rev. James Stevenson Blackwood (1805–1882).

Crimean War experiences

As she recounts in A Narrative of Personal Experiences & Impressions during a Residence on the Bosphorus throughout the Crimean War (1881), Lady Alicia Blackwood and her husband "were deeply moved to go out" after hearing of "the battle of Inkerman, that terribly hard-fought struggle".  Dr. Blackwood obtained a chaplaincy to the forces; Lady Alicia and two young women friends accompanied him, determined to find some way to help. Lady Alicia applied to Florence Nightingale at Scutari in December 1854. Nightingale's opinion of ladies who came out to assist the hospitals was generally low, as is shown in their first conversation, related by Lady Alicia:

I applied to Miss Nightingale to know where I could be most usefully employed. Possibly at this long distance of time she may forget that particular interview, but I do not; for the reply she gave me, or rather the question she put to me in reply, after a few seconds of silence, with a peculiar expression of countenance, made an indelible impression.

"Do you mean what you say?"

I own I was rather surprised.

"Yes, certainly; why do you ask me that?" I said.

"Oh, because," she responded, "I have had several such applications before, and when I have suggested work, I found it could not be done, or some excuse was made; it was not exactly the sort of thing that was intended, it required special suitability, &c."

"Well," I replied, "I am in earnest; we came out here with no other wish than to help where we could, and to be useful if possible."

"Very well, then," said Miss Nightingale, "if this is so, you really can help me if you will; in this Barrack are now located some two hundred poor women in the most abject misery. They are the wives of the soldiers who were allowed to accompany their husbands; a great number have been sent down from Varna; they are in rags, and covered with vermin. My heart bleeds for them, and they are at our doors daily clamouring for everything; but it is impossible for me to attend to them, my work is with the soldiers, not with their wives. Now, will you undertake to look after these poor women and relieve me from their importunity? there are funds to help, and bales of free gifts sent out; but we are so occupied, it is not possible for us to administer them. If you will take the women as your charge, I will send an orderly who will show you their haunts."

Of course I assented at once.

In this way Lady Alicia Blackwood was delegated by Florence Nightingale to create and manage an unofficial hospital for the wives, widows and children of soldiers in Scutari. In a letter of March 18, 1855, Nightingale disparagingly refers to the women and children as Allobroges, the shrieking camp followers of the ancient Gauls. In her account, Lady Alicia describes the horrific conditions under which she found them, "as much sinned against as sinning", and discusses the changes she was able to make for their relief as part of her work. Blackwood's respect for Nightingale and her work are evident throughout her account, which is both vivid and enjoyable to read.

References

External links

1818 births
1913 deaths
19th-century English painters
20th-century English painters
19th-century English women artists
20th-century English women artists
19th-century English memoirists
19th-century English women writers
19th-century nurses
British people of the Crimean War
Daughters of viscounts
English nurses
English women painters
Female wartime nurses
Florence Nightingale
Women of the Victorian era
British women memoirists

Lady Alicia Blackwood


Irish Mist is an Irish whiskey-based liqueur produced in Tullamore, Ireland, by the Irish Mist Liqueur Company Ltd. In September 2010 it was announced that the brand was being bought by Gruppo Campari from William Grant, only a few months after Grants had bought it from the C&C Group. It is made from aged Irish whiskey, heather and clover honey, aromatic herbs, and other spirits, blended to an ancient recipe claimed to be 1,000 years old. Though it was once 80 US proof (40% alcohol per volume), Irish Mist is now 35% or 70 US proof. The bottle shape has also been changed from a "decanter" style to a more traditional whiskey bottle shape. It is currently available in more than 40 countries.

History
Irish Mist was the first liqueur to be produced in Ireland when commercial production began in 1947 at Tullamore, County Offaly. Tullamore is the hometown of the Williams family who were the original owners of Irish Mist. The company history goes back to 1829 when the Tullamore Distillery was founded to produce Irish whiskey. In the mid-1940s Desmond E. Williams began the search for an alternative yet related product, eventually deciding to produce a liqueur based on the ancient beverage known as heather wine.

In 1985 the Cantrell & Cochrane Group purchased the Irish Mist Liqueur Company from the Williams family. In the summer of 2010 Irish Mist and the entire spirit division of C&C was bought by William Grant of Scotland. In September 2010 they in turn sold Irish Mist to Gruppo Campari.

Recipes
Irish Mist is typically served straight up or on ice, but also goes with coffee, vodka, or cranberry juice. Per the makers, Irish Mist's most popular recipe is Irish Mist with Cola and Lime. A Rusty Mist is an ounce of Irish Mist with an ounce of Drambuie Scotch whisky liqueur.

A Black Nail is made from equal parts Irish Mist and Irish whiskey.

References

External links
 Official website

Honey liqueurs and spirits
Herbal liqueurs
Irish liqueurs
Campari Group

Irish Mist


Aksumite currency was coinage produced and used within the Kingdom of Aksum (or Axum) centered in present-day Eritrea and Ethiopia. Its mintages were issued and circulated from the reign of King Endubis around AD 270 until it began its decline in the first half of the 7th century where they started using Dinar along with most parts of the Middle East. During the succeeding medieval period, Mogadishu currency, minted by the Sultanate of Mogadishu, was the most widely circulated currency in eastern and souther part Horn of Africa from the start of the 12th century.

Aksum's currency serves as an indicator of the kindom's contemporary cultural influences and religious climate (first polytheistic and later Oriental Christianity). It also facilitated the Red Sea trade on which it thrived. The coinage has also proved invaluable in providing a reliable chronology of Aksumite kings due to the lack of extensive archaeological work in the area.

Origins

Pre-coinage period
Though the issuing of minted coins didn't begin until around 270, metal coins may have been used in Aksum centuries prior to centralized minting. The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea mentions that the Aksumite state imported brass (), "which they use[d] for ornaments and for cutting as money", and they imported "a little money (denarion) for [use by] foreigners who live there." It can be inferred, therefore, that early Aksumite kings, located on the international trading waters of the Red Sea, recognized the utility of a standardized currency for facilitating both domestic and international trade.

Influences
Though Aksumite coins are indigenous in design and creation, some outside influences encouraging the use of coins is undeniable. By the time coins were first minted in Aksum, there was widespread trade with Romans on the Red Sea; Kushana or Persian influence also cannot be ruled out. Roman, Himyarite, and Kushana coins have all been found in major Aksumite cities, however, only very small quantities have been attested and the circulation of foreign currency seems to have been limited. Though South Arabian kingdoms had also minted coins, they had already gone out of use by the time of certain Aksumite involvement in South Arabia under GDRT, and only very rarely produced electrum or gold denominations (silver mainly in Saba' and Himyar, while bronze in Hadhramaut), making influence unlikely. The major impetus, however, was not emulation but economical; the Red Sea and its coasts had always been an international trade area and coins would greatly facilitate trade and wealth in the now "world power." Despite these influences, the coins were of genuinely indigenous design, and foreign influences were relatively weak and few in number.

Pre-Christian period
Aksumite currency were first minted in the later stages of the growth of the empire, when its Golden Age had already begun. The minting of coins began around 270, beginning with the reign of Endubis.

Source of materials

Gold

Gold seems to have been acquired from a number of sources. Gold probably came from Sasu (southern Sudan), as well as more nearby Ethiopian sources, though the latter isn't well documented for the north. A gold trade from the southern areas of Ethiopia such as the medieval province/kingdom of Innarya has been attested from the 6th century (i.e. from the writings of Cosmas Indicopleustes) and continued through James Bruce's day (18th century). Ethiopian Trade with modern Zimbabwe for gold was also a source.Gold also came from more northerly sources such as Gojjam, Beja lands, and what is now Eritrea, though the latter two are less certain. However, a recent gold exploration assay in Eritrea has found significant gold deposits at Emba Derho, and deposits are also attested at Zara in central-western Eritrea.

Silver and others

While local sources of gold are attested during the Aksumite era, silver seems to have been rarer in Aksum. No mention of silver mines in the region exist until the 15th and 16th centuries. Though silver was imported as attested by the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, given the preponderance of silver coins, it could not have been the only source of silver in Aksum. Furthermore, a significant number of the silver coins contain gold inlays (presumably to increase the value), which would have been unnecessary if silver were so rare that it had to be mainly imported. Silver may have been obtained from the refinement of gold, which sometimes occurs naturally with silver in an alloy called electrum. Copper and bronze do not seem to have existed locally in the Aksumite empire, though they were noted as imports in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea.

Value
Though the gold coins were certainly the most valuable issue, followed by the silver one, the exact relationship between the three issues (gold, silver, and bronze) is not known. The supply of gold was closely controlled by the Aksumite state, as noted by Cosmas Indicopleustes, and other precious metals were undoubtedly also closely controlled, allowing the Aksumite state to ensure the usage of its currency.

The quality of the Aksumite coins were also closely controlled, usually of high purity. For example, the lowest purity of gold recorded thus far for Aphilas is 90 percent. Early issues were often very close to their theoretical weights, and some were even over.) However, the weight of the coins tended to decrease over time (though not continuously or uniformly). This may have reflected a desire to conform to the Diocletian monetary reform of 301, when the aureus was decreased from  of a Roman pound to . Despite decreases in weight, the purity of the gold was largely maintained, even by later kings. The relative abundance of Aksumite coins as well as the many that have yet to be found indicate that Aksum must have had access to large quantities of gold.

Design

The coins were often inscribed in Greek, as much of its trade was with the "Graecised Orient." Later inscriptions made more use of Ge'ez, the language of the Aksumites, perhaps indicating a decline in its use for more international trade (i.e. with Rome and India). The obverse of the coins would always feature an image of the king (almost always in profile) wearing either a crown or helmet/regnal headcloth. The headcloth had some image perhaps representing pleats, rays, or sunburst in the front, as well as the tied end of a cloth or fillet to hold the helmet or headcloth in place. Most coins also included an inscription (usually in Greek) meaning "King of Aksum" or King of the Aksumites" (Basileus AXWMITW). However, many coins were also minted anonymously (or even posthumously), especially during the 5th century. Inscriptions on the coins could include a bisi name ("man of," Ge'ez: bə'əsyä ብእስየ) or an epithet (beginning with Əllä, Ge'ez: እለ "he who") in addition to the king's personal name. Bisi names were used more often in conjuncture with personal names on earlier coins, while the epithets were more common in later years, being the only inscribed name in a few sources. Greek text was used in conjunction with Ge'ez script inscriptions, but was the only language used on the gold coins, with the exception of the Ge'ez language coins of Wazeba and MHDYS. Over time, the Greek used on the coins (gold, silver and bronze) deteriorated, indicative of Aksum's decline. Moreover, beginning with MHDYS for bronze coins and Wazeba for silver coins, Ge'ez gradually replaced Greek on the legends.

Mottoes
Aksumite coins used a number of mottoes throughout the period in which they were minted, beginning in the early 4th century. Around this time, numerous anonymous bronze coins with simply Βασιλεύς (Basileus, "King") on the obverse were minted by either King Ezana or one of his successors. The coins bore the first example of an Aksumite motto on the reverse, "May this please the people" (Greek: ΤΟΥΤΟΑΡΕΣΗΤΗΧΩΡΑ). It was later written in unvocalized Ge'ez as "ለሐዘበ ፡ ዘየደአ" LʾḤZB ZYDʾ and under King Kaleb also "ለሀገረ ፡ ዘየደአ" LHGR ZYDʾ, "may this please the city [country]." Similar mottoes were used by other kings. Coins of the early 7th-century Emperor Armah had inscribed on the back "ፈሰሐ ፡ ለየከነ ፡ ለአዘሐበ" FŚḤ LYKN LʾḤZB (vocalization: ፍሥሓ ፡ ለይኲን ፡ ለአሕዛብ ፡ fiśśiḥā la-yikʷin la-'aḥzāb, "Let the people be glad," lit. "Gladness let there be to the peoples").

Kings
Coins were made in the name of eighteen Aksumite kings from c. 295 until c. 620: Endybis, Aphilas, Ousanas I, WZB, Ezana, Ouazebas, Eon, MHDYS, Ebana, Nezana, Ousanas II, Kaleb, Armah, Ella Gabaz, Israel, Gersem, Joel, and Hethasas.

Endybis

Endubis, the first known Aksumite king to mint coins, focused almost entirely on his image on both the obverse and reverse. The images were of his head and upper half of his chest in profile, wearing a regnal headcloth or helmet and abundant jewelry. In addition to inscribing his regnal name, Endybis also noted his "bisi name, a practice continued by his early successors, but often missing in later coins. The bisi name was a sort of tribal affiliation or "ethnikon" (i.e. a reference to the king's lineage) that was different for every king. Endybis also emphasized his religion through the pre-Christian symbol of the disk and crescent as a propaganda method (a purpose which the coins already served). A second motif used by Enybis and continued by following coins was that of two (though sometimes one in later years) ears of barley or wheat around the image of his head in profile. Though no inscriptional evidence exists, given its prominent position around the image of the king, the two ears of barley (or wheat) may have been representative symbols of the Aksumite state. Though later coins would be smaller, Endybis chose the Roman aureus to standardize Aksumite coin weights against, with gold issues at half-aureus around 2.70 grams (more precisely, the theoretical weight may have been 2.725g).

Aphilas

Whereas all of Endubis's coins feature the king with a headcloth or helmet, Aphilas's coins show the king wearing an impressive high crown on top of the headcloth. The crown featured colonnades of arches supporting high spikes, on top of which rested large discs of unidentified composition. In addition to the crown and headcloth, Aphilas's coins included further images of regalia, such as a spear, a branch with berries, the depiction of the arms, the addition of tassels with fringes to the imperial robe, and more jewelry, such as amulets and bracelets. Despite this innovation, Aphilas continued to use the image of himself in the regnal headcloth in some coins, sometimes as the reverse, while his crowned image is only found on the obverse.

One of his issues included his frontal image on the obverse, which ended with his reign and was only revived by the late kings. Two other minting features of Aphilas were also abandoned by later rulers. One of these was the use of just the inscription "King Aphilas" as the reverse of a coin, the only purely epigraphical side ever used on an Aksumite coin. The other was his use of a single ear of barley or wheat as a reverse, though his use of two ears circling around the king's image continued.

Aphilas introduced a number of different standards for all three metals, some of which lasted through to the 7th century, while the use of others ended with his reign. His new gold coins (issued in conjunction with the older) of a quarter aureus and eighth aureus were soon abandoned (each are known from only one specimen), and 1/16 aureus coins have been found, though these are more likely to be deliberate debasements to increase profit (Aksumite gold was generally very pure, however). Aphilas's silver coin, however, issued at half the weight of the former, became the new Aksumite standard for silver up until the end of coinage. The older coin was presumably more valuable than needed, and the new coin remedied the problem. Aphilas's bronze issue, however, was instead doubled to 4.83 grams. The coin's rarity may attest to its quick withdrawal from the market, as is assumed with his quarter-aureus. These two issues are the only one of Aphilas's issues to portray him frontally, rather than in profile.

Ezana

During Ezana's reign a major change in both the Aksumite kingdom and its coinage took place as a result of the change of the official religion to Christianity, one of the first states ever to do so. While Ezana's coins in the first half of his reign are almost identical to those of Aphilas, barring minimal weight reductions, those of his second half employ revolutionary designs. With his conversion to Christianity, Ezana began to feature the Cross on his coins, the first time the Christian cross had ever been featured in coinage in the world. Some of his gold Christian coins are of the weight before Constantine I's weight reform in 324, indicating a conversion before this date or perhaps a few years after, as the Aksumite coinage may not have changed weights immediately. Along with the adoption of the Cross on his coins came, of course, the abandonment of the star and crescent symbol on the coins. Later Christian coins reflect the adoptment of the 4.54 g standard by Constantine, with theoretical weights in Aksumite coins likewise dropping to 1.70 g for the gold coins.

Coins of Ezana without any symbol at all have also been found, along with similar symbolless coins of his father, Ousanas. These may reflect a transition in the religion in Aksum when Frumentius was influencing Ezana's father and gathering Christians in the country, giving weight to the writings of Rufinus. The lack of symbol altogether may reflect an uncertainty as how best to exhibit the change in religion of the Aksumite state.

Weight standards

Gold coins
The gold coin weighed on average 2.5-2.8 grams and was 15–21 mm in diameter at the start of issue, in 270-300. This would make it half an Aureus which weighed 4.62-6.51 grams at the time of Probus. The issue of Israel (570-600) weighed 1.5 grams and was 17 mm in diameter. The Roman solidus of Maurice Tiberius was 4.36-4.47 grams. A majority of these coins were found in South Arabia and not Aksum. The name is unknown so it is referred to as an AU Unit.

Silver coinage
Also starting with Endubis these coins were 2.11-2.5 grams in weight which is half the weight of a Roman antoninianus of 3.5-4.5 grams. A Denarius in the early 3rd century was 2.5-3.00 grams of 52 percent or less of silver, but the Aksum coins were almost pure silver at first later debased. The name is unknown so it is referred to as an AR Unit.

Base coinage
Most bronze and silver coins have mainly been found in Aksum territory, with very few pieces found in Judea, Meroë and Egypt. They are based roughly on the size of older Roman As and Sestertius in shape and thickness. The design also developed like Roman coins in first being good but then the pictures turn archaic and non recognisable. The name is unknown so it is referred to as an Æ diameter in mm Unit, like Æ17 for a coin of 17 mm.

Trade
At the time of Aksum's minting of currency, the state already had a long trade history with Greece, Rome, the Persian Empire, and India. That coinage began so late is in fact a little surprising. The late use of coinage may be attributed to the lack of a developed economy, required for coinage to be accepted. Most Aksumite coins were found in the large trade centres with very few in remote villages, where trade would be more through barter and not coinage based. In fact, the motivation for Aksum's initial minting of coins was for foreign trade and markets, as evidenced by the use of Greek on most of its coins. Moreover, gold coins seem to have been intended primarily for external trade, while copper and silver coins probably mainly circulated within the Aksumite empire, as the gold issues generally specified "king of the Aksumites" as title of the Aksumite king, whereas the title of silver and copper issues generally only read "king." International use of Aksumite coins seems to have begun early on, as coins of King Ezana and even of King Aphilas (the second Aksumite ruler to issue coins) have been found in India.

Decline
During the 7th century, Aksumite power began to fail, and Ethiopian society began to withdraw further into the highland hinterlands, with the coastal areas becoming peripheral areas. The coins continued circulation, but were restricted to more local areas such as Nubia, South Arabia and the Horn of Africa.

Archaeology
Due to the nature of the coins (e.g. providing kings' names), they have proved essential in constructing a chronology of the Kings of Aksum. An estimated 98 percent of the city of Aksum remains unexcavated, and other areas even more so. Through analysis of the number of coins produced and the style of coins, archaeologists have been able to construct a rough chronology, generally agreed upon until the late 6th- and 7th-century kings. Of the 20 Aksumite Kings attested by their coins, inscriptions corroborate the existence of only two, who happen to be the most famous kings: Ezana and Kaleb, both of whose reigns were periods of exceptional prosperity during the height of the Aksumite kingdom.

Many coins have been found in northern Ethiopia and Eritrea, the central region of Aksum, though Aksumite coins are reported to have been found in Arato and Lalibela. Many coins have been also found further afield. Numerous hoards of coins (always gold save one silver coin) have been found in Southern Arabia, much more than in Aksum itself, attesting perhaps to an Aksumite presence in parts of the region (perhaps supporting the use of titles claiming control over parts of South Arabia from GDRT's time). The hoards may be the remnants of hoards left in Kaleb's time (perhaps used to pay soldiers), when it was under an Aksumite governor. Outside of the Horn of Africa and Arabian Peninsula, coins have been found as far as Israel, Meroe, Egypt, and India. Silver and copper coins are mainly found in Aksum, though some can be traced to Palestinian pilgrim centers.

In addition to historical evidence, the coins' use of Ge'ez provides valuable linguistic information. Though rarely used, the vocalization of Ge'ez sometimes employed on Aksumite coins allows linguists to analyze vowel changes and shifts that cannot be represented in the older Semitic abjads such as Hebrew, Arabic, South Arabian, and earlier, unvocalized Ge'ez.

See also

History of Ethiopia

References

Further reading

 Barrandon, Jean-Noël; Godet, Éric; Morrisson, Cécile, "Le monnayage d'or axoumite: une alteration particulière", Revue Numismatique, 32 (1990), pp. 186-211.

 Munro-Hay, Stuart, "The al-Madhāriba Hoard of Gold Aksumite and Late Roman Coins", Numismatic Chronicle, 149 (1989), pp.  83-100
 Munro-Hay, Stuart, "Forgeries of the Aksumite series", American Journal of Numismatics, 3/4 (1992), pp. 49-64.

External links

Vincent West, Aksumite Numismatics
About Axum
Photos of Axum coinage
Axumite Coinage

Kingdom of Aksum
Currencies of ancient Africa
Numismatics

Aksumite currency


Is the Egyptian idea of the underworld (also called Akert, Amenthes, or Neter-khertet). To the Egyptians, the underworld was divided into sections filled with dangers that the Egyptian Soul had to pass through. This is the same realm that Ra was believed to pass into each night and battle Apophis. The Egyptian Underworld is described in many funerary texts that are found in tombs of mummies, believed to help guide them through death.

Duat is where the famous Weighing of the Heart is displayed. Where the soul, shown as a heart, is weighed on the scales of Anubis against the feather of Ma'at. Ammut was believed to eat the souls of the people whose heart did not match the exact weight of Ma'at's feather. It was thought that the heart itself was then eaten by a lion.

The Egyptian idea of the underworld influenced many other ideas of afterlife in other cultures.

Egyptian mythology

Duat


The IWK Health Centre is a major pediatric hospital and trauma centre in Halifax, Nova Scotia that provides care to maritime youth, children and women from Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and beyond. The IWK is the largest facility in Atlantic Canada caring for children, youth and adolescents, and is the only Level 1 pediatric trauma centre east of Quebec.

Location
The IWK Health Centre is located in the south end of Halifax. The front entrance is on University Avenue between Robie Street and Summer Street. The IWK emergency entrance is located on South Street.

History
The present-day IWK Health Centre traces its history to the development of two separate facilities, a pediatric hospital and a maternity hospital.

Pediatric hospital

In the early 20th century, a group of Halifax residents along with interested physicians proposed the idea of establishing a children's hospital in Halifax. A multi-year fundraising campaign ensued, raising $6,000 by 1907; later that year a donation of $10,000 by the late Mr. F.D. Corbett resulted in the beginning of construction of the Halifax Children's Hospital which opened for use in 1909. It was located on the east side of Robie Street on the block bounded by University Avenue and South Street; in 1922 the Grace Maternity Hospital would be built on the opposite (north) side of University Avenue. This early pediatric facility had no private beds and, since health care in Canada at that time was private, surgical and medical staff donated their services without charge. The building expanded in 1919 to increase bed capacity to 50, followed by a further expansion in 1931 to 90 beds, and finally 217 beds in 1955.

Mrs. Dorothy J. Killam donated $8 million toward construction of a new pediatric hospital in the memory of her late husband Izaak Walton Killam. Construction of the new Izaak Walton Killam Hospital for Children (informally nicknamed the IWK) began in 1967 and the $20 million 325-bed facility opened in 1970. The location chosen was immediately west and adjacent to the province's largest health care facility, the Victoria General Hospital, which was the teaching hospital associated with the Dalhousie University Faculty of Medicine; the IWK would continue the Halifax Children's Hospital's affiliation with the Faculty of Medicine's Department of Pediatrics. Upon the opening of the IWK in 1970, the historic Halifax Children's Hospital was demolished.

The Children's Hospital School of Nursing operated from 1916 until 1971, having trained and graduated 801 pediatric nurses over its existence.

Maternity hospital
In 1906 The Salvation Army purchased an old school in Halifax's South End as a haven for "fallen women". The facility was named Harrow House. Physicians there donated their time and the facility gained an excellent reputation for maternity care. The Halifax Explosion of December 6, 1917 gave momentum to the Halifax Medical Association's desire for a dedicated maternity institution, resulting in a resolution from that association on September 15, 1918 to Halifax City Council requesting funds for such a facility and that the Salvation Army be asked to run it. Dalhousie University offered the Salvation Army both land and funds to build and run the hospital.

The Grace Maternity Hospital (informally nicknamed the Grace) opened on April 29, 1922 as the only independent maternity hospital at that time in Canada; from the outset, the facility was affiliated as a teaching hospital with the Department of Pediatrics at Dalhousie University Faculty of Medicine. It was located on the east side of Robie Street on the block bounded by University Avenue and College Street; it was opposite the Halifax Children's Hospital which was located on the south side of University Avenue. The initial facility could accommodate 65 mothers and 65 babies. Major renovations to the facility took place in 1956, 1962, 1973 and 1977. In 1975 the Halifax Infirmary announced that it would no longer handle maternity cases, forcing the Grace to absorb its patients. By the 1970s the Grace occupied half a city block with 126 adult beds and 166 bassinets with 40 in the neo-natal intensive care unit (NICU).

According to the Halifax Mail Star of May 28, 1970, the children's hospital financed by the Killam Estate opened, despite the failed condition that the South Street Poor House be eliminated. Today, this hospital is gone, torn down after only 40 years for a much larger provincially funded building set much further back on the former Poor House property.

A Government of Nova Scotia proposal in the late 1970s to construct a new maternity facility for the Grace as part of the $120 million Camp Hill Medical Centre was postponed in 1982, forcing the Salvation Army to undertake an independent plan for a new Grace. By 1984, plans were underway to build a $30 million facility on the old site of the Halifax Children's Hospital which was adjacent to and immediately west of the Izaak Walton Killam Hospital for Children that had opened in 1970. The new Grace facility opened in 1992 bounding the block formed by University Avenue, Robie Street and South Street west of the IWK. The new  building was connected to the IWK to provide access to that facility's pediatric medicine departments. It was designed by Nycum Fowler Group and DuBois Plumb Partnership and won the 1994 Lieutenant Governor's Award for Architecture.  The old Grace Maternity Hospital located on the north side of the intersection of University Avenue and Robie Street was transferred to Dalhousie University and became home to the Faculty of Dentistry and the Faculty of Pharmacology.

The Grace Maternity School of Nursing opened in 1922 at the time the hospital itself opened, offering an 18-month course in Obstetrical and Newborn Nursing (these programs ended in 1959) and the school began a 3-year nursing program in affiliation with the Victoria General Hospital, Halifax Children's Hospital, Nova Scotia Sanatorium and Nova Scotia Hospital. The program ended in 1964, having trained and graduated almost 400 nurses over its existence.

1996 merger to present

In 1996 the Izaak Walton Killam Hospital for Children and the adjacent Grace Maternity Hospital merged to become the IWK Grace Hospital for Women, Children and Families. At that time a new "Link" building was constructed to join the separate buildings. In 2000 a helipad  was constructed on the southwest corner of the former Grace Maternity Hospital building; this proposal caused some concern in the adjacent residential area on the west side of Robie Street.

In 2001 the Salvation Army ended its involvement with the amalgamated institution and the name was simplified to become the IWK Health Centre which remains in current use as of 2013.

A 5-year $48 million redevelopment began in 2004 which resulted in the construction of  of new space and renovations to  of existing space. Inpatient units, perioperative facilities and ambulatory care space also saw major redevelopment. The most prominent exterior change to the facility was the addition of a parking garage accessed from University Avenue as well as an atrium connected to the Link Building. Today the IWK Health Centre terms the former Izaak Walton Killam Hospital for Children as the "Children's Site" and the former Grace Maternity Hospital building as the "Women's Site". Around 2006 two floors were added to the link building, which provided  of additional space.

On June 24, 2013, philanthropist Marjorie Lindsay announced she would be donating $1 million to help fund the construction of a new inpatient mental health unit due to open in 2014.
The Garron Center for Child and Adolescent Mental Health opened for patients on May 14, 2014.

Education and research
The IWK is a teaching hospital and is affiliated with Dalhousie University. The hospital is also renowned as a research hospital in the areas of children's and women's health.

Telethon
In 1985, CBC Television affiliates began airing the Children's Miracle Network telethon. CHSJ-TV, the private CBC station and the last private CBC station province wide simultaneously aired the telethon for 10 years. The Telethon aired at the IWK and the CBHT studios until 1994. The IWK logo changed in 1996. In 1995, CTV Atlantic began airing the telethon. Various CBC stations stopped airing Children's Miracle Network telethons in the 1990s, except for CBNT-DT, which aired the telethon until 2011 for the Janeway Telethon. Steve Murphy has been hosting the telethon since 1995 on CTV Atlantic (formerly ATV) when CBC stopped airing the telethon in 1994. The original host was Don Tremaine. The new host is Todd Battis.

Statistics
 Approximately 5,000 babies are delivered at the IWK Health Centre each year.
 There are more than 3,200 employees at the IWK Health Centre.
 Approximately 29,170 patient visits to the emergency department each year.
 Approximately 1,298,717 tests are completed in laboratories at the IWK Health Centre each year.
 Approximately $20 million of funded research was underway at the IWK Health Centre in 2010.
 As of 2010, the IWK Health Center has 1,252 beds.

See also
 List of hospitals in Canada

Notes

References
 "The Izaak Walton Killam Hospital is born". Dalhousie University. Accessed February 10, 2006.
 "Dalhousie Medical Alumni Association (DMAA) Medical History Walking Tour". Dalhousie Medical Alumni Association/ Accessed February 12, 2006.

External links

 Official site
 IWK Foundation
 IWK Telethon for Children

Hospitals established in 1970
Children's hospitals in Canada
Hospitals in Halifax, Nova Scotia
Teaching hospitals in Canada
Heliports in Canada
Certified airports in Nova Scotia
Hospitals established in 1909

IWK Health Centre


Dina statistik,  fungsi likelihood mangrupa fungsi conditional probabilitas dumasar kana "pertimbangan" fungsi alesan kadua nu mana fungsi mimiti dianggap angger, ahirna:

salian ti éta fungsi séjén proporsional saperti halna fungsi likelihood.
ku sabab kitu, fungsi likelihood keur B mangrupa kelas ékivalénsi tina fungsi

keur unggal babandingan konstanta α > 0. Mangka nilai numerik L(b) teu bisa dijéntrékeun; sakabéh nu aya bakal mibanda babandingan
L(b2)/L(b1),
ku sabab ieu konstanta bakal gumantung kana babandingan konstanta tadi.

Likelihood nyaéta istilah nu dipaké keur fungsi likelihood.  Dina basa nu ilahat dipaké sapopoe, "likelihood" nyaéta salah sahiji harti nu sarua keur istilah "probability", tapi dina artikel ieu bakal ngagunakeun dina harti sacara téhnik.

In a sense, likelihood works backwards from probability: given B, we use the conditional probability P(A | B) to réason about A, and, given A, we use the likelihood function P(A | B) to réason about B.
This mode of réasoning is formalized in Bayes' theorem;
note the appéarance of a likelihood function for B given A in:

since, as functions of B, both P(A|B) and P(A|B)/P(A) are likelihood functions for B given A.

For more about making inferences via likelihood functions, see also
the method of maximum likelihood, and likelihood-ratio testing.

Likelihood function of a parametrized model

Among many applications, we consider here one of broad théoretical and practical importance.
Given a parametrized family of probability density functions

where θ is the paraméter (in the case of discrete distributions, the probability density functions are probability "mass" functions) the likelihood function is

where x is the observed outcome of an experiment.  In other words, when f(x | θ) is viewed as a function of x with θ fixed, it is a probability density function, and when viewed as a function of θ with x fixed, it is a likelihood function.

Note: This is not the same as the probability that those paraméters are the right ones, given the observed sample. Attempting to interpret the likelihood of a hypothesis given observed evidence as the probability of the hypothesis is a common error, with potentially disastrous réal-world consequences in medicine, engineering or jurisprudence. See prosecutor's fallacy for an example of this.

Conto

For example, if I toss a coin, with a probability pH of landing héads up ('H'), the probability of getting two héads in two trials ('HH') is pH2. If pH = 0.5, then the probability of seeing two héads is 0.25.

In symbols, we can say the above as

Another way of saying this is to reverse it and say that "the likelihood of pH = 0.5 given the observation 'HH' is 0.25", i.e.,

.

But this is not the same as saying that the probability of pH = 0.5 given the observation is 0.25.

To take an extreme case, on this basis we can say "the likelihood of pH = 1 given the observation 'HH' is 1". But it is cléarly not the case that the probability of pH = 1 given the observation is 1: the event 'HH' can occur for any pH > 0 (and often does, in réality, for pH roughly 0.5).

The likelihood function does not in general follow all the axioms of probability: for example, the integral of a likelihood function is not in general 1.  This is because integration of the likelihood density function L is performed over all possible values of the modél paraméters (in this case, pH), while integration of a probability density function f is performed over the random variables (which in this case take on the four pairs of values 'TT', 'TH', 'HT' and 'HH').  In this example, the integral of the likelihood density over the interval [0, 1] in pH is 1/3, demonstrating again that the likelihood density function cannot be interpreted as a probability density function for pH.  On the other hand, given any particular value of pH, e.g. pH=0.5, the integral of the probability density function over the domain of the variabel acaks is 1.

See also:
 Bayesian inference
 Likelihood principle
 Likelihood-ratio test
 Maximum likelihood method
 The principle of maximum entropy is also related to the maximum likelihood method
 Minimum entropy method
 score (statistics)

Statistika

Likelihood


Carl Gottfried Wilhelm Taubert (23 March 1811 – 7 January 1891) was a German pianist, composer, and conductor, and the father of philologist and writer Emil Taubert.

Life
Born in Berlin, Taubert studied under Ludwig Berger (piano) and Bernhard Klein (composition). In 1831, he became assistant conductor and accompanist for Berlin court concerts. Between 1845 and 1848, he was music director of the Berlin Royal Opera and was also court conductor in Berlin from 1845 to 1869. From 1865, he taught music at the Prussian Academy of Arts; Theodor Kullak was one of his pupils.

His compositions include six operas, incidental music, four symphonies, concertos for piano and cello, four string quartets, other orchestral, choral, and piano works, and more than 300 songs. His early compositions were praised by the composer Felix Mendelssohn, who had also studied piano with Berger.

Taubert died in Berlin. His grave is preserved in the Protestant "Friedhof I der Jerusalems- und Neuen Kirchengemeinde" (Cemetery No. I of the congregations of Jerusalem's Church and New Church) in Berlin-Kreuzberg, south of Hallesches Tor.

Operas
 Die Kirmes, comic opera, libretto by Eduard Devrient, 23 January 1832, Berlin, Königliches Theater
 Die Zigeuner, libretto by E. Devrient, 14 September 1834, Berlin, Königliches Theater
 Marquis und Dieb, comic opera, libretto by L Schneider, 15 February 1842, Berlin, Königliches Theater
 Joggeli, libretto by H. Kloster, 9 October 1953, Berlin, Königliches Theater
 Macbeth, libretto by F. H. Eggers, 16 November 1857, Berlin, Königliches Theater
 Caesario, oder Was ihr wollt, comic opera, libretto by E. Taubert, 13 November 1874, Berlin, Königliches Theater

References
 Stanley Sadie (ed.): "Taubert, Wilhelm", in: The New Grove Dictionary of Opera (London: Macmillan, 1992),

External links

 Deutschen Nationalbibliothek catalogue information about the composer, accessed 18 November 2009

1811 births
1891 deaths
19th-century classical composers
19th-century German composers
19th-century conductors (music)
German classical pianists
German conductors (music)
German male classical composers
German male conductors (music)
German male pianists
German opera composers
German Romantic composers
Male classical pianists
Male opera composers
Pupils of Bernhard Klein
String quartet composers

Wilhelm Taubert


Metropolitan France ( or la Métropole) is the part of France that is in Europe. It can also be described as mainland France plus the island of Corsica. By contrast, Overseas France (France d'outre-mer) is the collective name for all of the French overseas departments, territories and collectivities and New Caledonia. Metropolitan France and Overseas France together form the French Republic.

Metropolitan France covers an area of 551,695 km² (213,011 sq. miles). Excluding the territory of Adélie Land in Antarctica, this is 81.8% of the nation's territory. As of January 1, 2011, 63,136,180 people lived in metropolitan France. This is 95.9% of the nation's population.

The five overseas departments – Martinique, Guadeloupe, Réunion, French Guiana, and Mayotte – have the same political status as the departments in metropolitan France. Metropolitan France and these five overseas departments together are sometimes called France entière ("entire France") by the French administration, especially by INSEE. This grouping does not include the French overseas collectivities and territories, which have more autonomy than the overseas departments.

Related pages
 French colonial empire

References

Geography of France

Metropolitan France


Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò, located at 24 West 12th Street in Manhattan, is the home of the Department of Italian Studies at New York University.

History
Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò was founded in 1990 thanks to a donation from the Baroness Mariuccia Zerilli-Marimò, in memory of her husband Guido Zerilli-Marimò.

The donation consisted of the purchase and complete restoration of the 19th century household in the Greenwich Village, situated near Washington Square.

Mission
Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò was founded with the specific intent of spreading Italian culture outside of its national boundaries. The Center offers cultural events pertinent to Italian culture, including art exhibits, concerts, lectures, film screenings, literary presentations and awards. The ground floor serves as an art gallery.

The programs of Casa Italiana deal with literature, cinema and political and social reflection.

Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò houses and involves itself with Italian artists, scholars and politicians, whose presence engages new points of discussion, opening and encouraging dialog with Americans on Italian life and culture.

Casa Italiana collaborates with Italian centers and institutes, both public and private, developing a program of extra-curricular cultural events, embracing literary, musical and artistic events.

Directors
 Professor Luigi Ballarini (1990–1993)
 Professor James Ziskin (1993–1998)
 Professor Stefano Albertini (1998–today)

See also
 The Zerilli-Marimò Prize for Italian Fiction
 Villa La Pietra

External links

 The Department of Italian Studies at New York University

New York University
University art museums and galleries in New York City

Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò


Gyaruo (which can be written as ギャル男, ギャルオ, ギャル汚 in Japanese) are a sub-group of modern Japanese youth culture. They are the male equivalent of the gyaru. The o suffix that is added to the word, is one reading of the kanji for male (男). And recently, the kanji for 'dirty' in Japanese (汚), which also has the same reading, is often used by gyaru and gyaruo in a light hearted way, poking fun at themselves because of the reputation that their subculture has gained within society due to their dark skin, hairstyles and often gritty, rough style of clothing that they wear. Gyaruo are characterised by their deep tans, dyed hair, party lifestyle and a liking for all different types of trance music including para-para dancing music, Eurobeat, etc.

Lifestyle
Most major cities in Japan will have certain streets or districts within the city centre where gyaruo and gyaru are most likely to be hanging out. Using the two biggest gyaruo culture influencing cities as example: in Tokyo two of the popular places to hang out are around the Shibuya or Shinjuku areas. In Osaka, Amerikamura, which is often shortened to Ame-mura (アメ村), and the Shinsaibashi (心斎橋) areas are popular places for gyaruo to hang around.

In 2005, Tokyu Hands opened up a second branch of their popular girl's gyaru fashion shopping complex, 109, called 109-②. Two floors of the Shibuya located 109-② store are dedicated to gyaruo brands such as Vanquish, Jack Rose, Varosh, Diavlo, Roi Franc, and Gennaro. The rise in gyaruo fashion has led to openings of other 109-② stores featuring male brands in Fukuoka, Machida, Shizuoka and Nagoya. The 109-② in Shibuya has since been renamed 109-mens, with all floors dedicated to gyaruo fashion instead of the initial two.

Magazines
Gyaruo fashion can be seen in certain magazines such as Men's Egg, "Men's Roses" or Men's Egg Bitter (for gyaruo aged 23+) and a fairly new magazine called Men's Digger. Then there is the popular Men's Knuckle magazine which is aimed at wearers of the more mature looking onii-kei fashion (お兄系), hosts (ホスト) and gyaruo.

Men's Egg is the most popular magazine amongst gyaruo, and is often described as the "gyaruo bible". It is this magazine that has arguably had the largest influence on the development and constant change of gyaruo lifestyle and fashion. Men's Egg magazine which is published monthly, has everything from the latest fashion to articles about the sex lives of the readers. It was this last part that got the magazine a temporary ban by the government, due to complaints by parents and disgruntled traditional politicians who had heard news of the magazines content. Every month this magazine hosts Men's Egg Events at different clubs around Japan keeping its customers entertained by inviting along the magazine's most popular models along to the events to be adored by the excited crowd. The events which are called 'Men's Egg Night', is often shortened to just 'mennai' (メンナイ).

Fashion
Within the gyaruo fashion There are a number of sub fashions, which can roughly broken down into the following groups:

Military (ミリタリー系)
Rock (ロック系)
Biker (バイカー系)
American Casual (アメカジ系)
Surfer (サーファー系)
Adult (お兄系)

Reputation
Since the gyaruo youth culture sprang up in Japan alongside its female counterpart, it has gained quite a negative reputation with the older members of society and through the media, which has led a lot of people in the Japanese public to look down upon the gyaruo lifestyle due to what they have heard about it, and from what they have learned through the media.  Since gyaruo do not fit in with the normal Japanese tradition of blending into the crowd because of their appearance, they are associated with youth rebellion.

Further reading
The online blogs of the top Men's Egg magazine models (in Japanese)

External links
Yukihide Sawamotos Blog
Kazuaki Oishi Blog

Japanese words and phrases
Japanese subcultures
Japanese youth culture
Slang terms for men
Japanese fashion
Gyaru

Gyaruo


The Irish rebellion of 1798 was an uprising of Irish people against British rule in Ireland. It was led by Wolfe Tone and consisted primarily of a secret society called the United Irish. It was aided by Republican France. However, it never gained much traction due to its alliance with anti-Catholic France, because Ireland was primarily Catholic. Despite the British government's anti-Catholicism, most Irish Catholics supported the Crown as the lesser of two evils because of the issue of Revolutionary France's involvement. The uprising lasted several months. A group called the United Irishmen were the main driving force in the rebellion. They were influenced by revolutions taking place in America and France around the time. The uprising is also known as United Irishmen Rebellion.

Between 10.000 and 50.000 people died as casualties on the Irish side, between 500 and 2000 on the English side.

References

History of Ireland
1798
1790s in Europe
18th-century rebellions

Irish rebellion of 1798


Harare (/həˈrɑːreɪ/; officially Salisbury until 1982) is the capital and most populous city of Zimbabwe. The city proper has an area of 960.6 km2 (371 mi2) and an estimated population of 1,606,000 in 2009, with 2,800,000 in its metropolitan area in 2006. Situated in north-eastern Zimbabwe in the country's Mashonaland region, Harare is a metropolitan province, which also incorporates the municipalities of Chitungwiza and Epworth. The city sits on a plateau at an elevation of 1,483 metres (4,865 feet) above sea level and its climate falls into the subtropical highland category.

IZimbabhwe

Harare


In tort law, an invitee is a member of the public who has been invited to do business with the owner of a property.  For example, if someone owns a store and invites someone else to come into the store to buy something, the person who is invited is an invitee.

In some places (or jurisdictions), tort law asks whether a person is an invitee when it decides what duty the owner of land has to keep that person safe from harm.

Business law

Invitee


The AH-64 Apache is an attack helicopter that first flew in 1975 and has been produced since 1984. It was designed by Hughes Helicopters, but that later became McDonnell Douglas, which later became Boeing. It is designed to attack things on the ground to help soldiers. To do this, it can carry 16 AGM-114 Hellfire missiles, along with rocket pods, and a 30mm chain gun that can fire 625 rounds per minute. It can carry 1,200 bullets. It can also carry missiles like the AIM-9 Sidewinder to shoot down things in the air if it is attacked by fighter aircraft or other helicopters.

AH-64 details

The AH-64 is 49.11 feet (14.97 meters) long, 17.16 feet (5.23 meters) wide, and 16.24 feet (4.95 meters) tall. Without anything, it weighs 11,799 pounds (5,352 kilograms). Full, it weighs 22,282 pounds (10,107 kilograms). It is powered by 2 General Electric T700-GE-701C engines. It can go 162 miles per hour (261 kilometers per hour), can fly 1,181 miles (1,900 kilometers) without refueling, can fly 9,478 feet (2,889 meters) high, and can climb 2,415 feet a minute (736 meters a minute).

The AH-64's users

The AH-64 has been used by the United States. It was first used in Operation Just Cause. It has also been used by Israel, Japan, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Kuwait, Greece, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Singapore.

Concept and Building History

The need of a new and highly secure helicopter was first felt in the beginning of the 1990s. The great military power, the British Army, identified this need and by February 1993 they finalised the need with an invitation to bid for the design, construction and trial of the new concept.

Among the bidding companies were: Boeing and Sikorsky with the RAH-66 Comanche, Agusta with the A129 Mangusta, British Aerospace and Eurocopter with the Tiger, GEC Marconi and Bell Helicopter the Cobra Venom, and Westland and McDonnell Douglas with the AH-64 Apache. The decision was taken later in July in 2005 and the winning aircraft builder was Westland and McDonnell Douglas with the Apache. One year later in 2006 the tow Parties signed a contract for 67 helicopters. This is how the WAH-64D Apache era started.

The 67 WAH-64D Apache attack helicopters were built by the merged companies Boeing and McDonnell Douglas (1997) and Westland between 1999 and 2004. The first aircraft was built by Boeing and delivered to the Army in March 1999, followed by the Westland, who built their first aircraft in 2000 and delivered in July 2000. The last aircraft was built and delivered in July 2004.
.

References

Military aviation
Helicopters
Military of Japan
Israel Defense Forces
Netherlands
Greece
United Arab Emirates
Military of Saudi Arabia
British military aircraft
United States military aircraft

Boeing AH-64 Apache