title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: Frederick has to a great extent been overshadowed by his popular, long-reigning son Christian IV, and often been portrayed with skepticism and resentment, resulting in the prevailing portrait of Frederick as a man and as king: an unlettered, inebriated, brutish sot. This portrayal is, however, inequitable and inaccurate, and recent studies reappraise and acknowledge him as highly intelligent; he craved the company of learned men, and in the correspondence and legislation he dictated to his secretaries he showed himself to be quick-witted and articulate. Frederick was also open and loyal, and had a knack for establishing close personal bonds with fellow princes and with those who served him.


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: In 1572, Frederick married his cousin Sophie of Mecklenburg. Their relationship is regarded as one of the happiest royal marriages in Renaissance Europe. In the first ten years after the wedding, they had seven children, and are described as inseparable and harmonious.


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: Frederick was committed to becoming the mightiest king in the North, and for several years he fought exhausting wars against his archrival Erik XIV of Sweden, after which the battles changed character. It became a competition to see who could trace their family history the furthest, and who could construct the most formidable castles. In the 1570s he constructed Kronborg, a large Renaissance castle that became widely recognized abroad, and its dance hall was the largest in Northern Europe at the time. He enjoyed entertaining guests and throwing elaborate festivities, which were well-known throughout Europe. During the same period, the Danish-Norwegian fleet was developed into one of Europe's largest and most modern. As part of his efforts to strengthen the kingdoms, he provided much support for science and culture.


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: Frederick was born on 1 July 1534 at Haderslevhus Castle, the son of Duke Christian of Schleswig and Holstein (later King Christian III of Denmark and Norway) and Dorothea of Saxe-Lauenburg, the daughter of Magnus I, Duke of Saxe-Lauenburg. His mother was the sister of Catherine, the first wife of the Swedish king Gustav Vasa, and the mother of Eric XIV, his future rival.


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: At the time of Frederick's birth, a civil war of Denmark was coming to an end (just three days after Frederick's birth his father Christian became King of Denmark). The previous king, Frederick I, died on 10 April the year before, but the Danish Council of the Realm, which traditionally ruled the kingdom with the king, had not chosen a successor, and now Denmark had, for more than a year, functioned as an Aristocratic Republic. The father of the newborn Frederik, Christian, although eldest son of the late king, was not automatically King of Denmark, as the kingship in Denmark was not hereditary, but elective. Noblemen of the Council of the Realm could choose to pick another member of the royal family as king if they so decided.


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: Frederick I and his son Christian were staunch Protestants and adherents to the Lutheran cause, however, in the Council of the Realm, which consisted of many Catholic bishops as well as a number of powerful noblemen from the old nobility, there were a majority to support the established Catholic Church. After a period of interregnum and after subsequent risings in favour of the former King Christian II, a period known as the Count's Feud, Christian III finally became victorious, and was proclaimed King of a new Protestant Denmark.


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: After King Christian III's victory in the Count's Feud, royal power had now returned to Denmark, and in such a way that the king could set his own terms. In his "haandfæstning", a document which all former Danish Kings must sign, and which regulates the relationship between king and nobility, he reduced the nobility's power, and established that the first son of the king should always be seen as heir apparent, and succeed his father automatically.


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: On 30 October 1536 Christian convened the estates of the realm ("Rigsdag") to Copenhagen, were they formally proclaimed Frederick heir apparent and successor to the throne, granting him the title "Prince of Denmark". In 1542, the Prince travelled around Denmark and was hailed by the people. In the Midsummer of 1548 Christian III and his son Frederick, in a fleet of 7 ships and together with 30 Danish nobles, sailed for Oslo, were Frederick was hailed as heir apparent to the Throne of the Kingdom of Norway. The royal reception included Danish nobles holding fiefs in Norway, received by Prince Frederik on his ship. The entire Norwegian nobility had been summoned to Oslo.


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: While Christian III secured control of Denmark and Norway, his and Dorothea's children grew up in the bosom of the family. In addition to Anna, who was born in 1532, and Frederik from 1534, the group of siblings consisted of Magnus, born 1540, and John, who was born in 1545 and called John the Younger, to distinguish him from Christian III's half-brother, John the Elder. Youngest was a girl who was born in 1546 and named after her mother.


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: It was the usual pedagogical view of the time that parents were so inclined to spoil their own children that the upbringing of the children should be delegated to other members of the family, typically the child's maternal grandparents. But Queen Dorothea didn't want to send the children away when in infancy. Moreover, her own mother was suspected of nurturing Catholic sympathies, and in the religious era, a Lutheran Danish king could not in good conscience expose his child to Catholic influences. Another contributing factor has probably been the royal couple's concern by leaving the children too much out of sight in the tense political situation that prevailed in the first ten years of Frederik's life.


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: Frederik's education, although profound and thorough, was focused on the ecclesiastical and lutheran doctrine, Frederick mainly learning instructions in theology. While a princely educational program, which included learning the art of stewardship, diplomacy and war, was proposed and planned by the Danish Chancellor, it was not executed in full as the Danish Chancellor's relationship with Christian III deteriorated before the education could begin.


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: Life at the court of Christian III and Dorothea was imbued with a fervent Lutheran Christianity with which all their children naturally grew up. In March 1538 Chancellor Wolfgang von Utenhof proposed an educational program for the young Prince Frederick. He was to have a Danish court steward, but he also had to work with and be inspected daily by a chamberlain, who was to be a reliable and sobering man from the Holstein nobility. The prince had to learn Latin, German, Danish, French and other languages, and when he got older he had to learn fencing and other chivalry exercises. He was to have 10–15 young men for company both in his studies and in his chivalrous exercises.


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: To which extent this educational program was followed is not known. In 1541, Frederick aged 7, he began his schooling. Frederick was appointed Hans Svenning, a reputed Danish humanist and professor of rhetoric at University of Copenhagen, as teacher.


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: Christian III and Dorothea had probably been expecting a lot from Frederick's schooling. The son was obviously bright and had a good memory. So much bigger has the disappointment, and the amazement, been when the teaching started. Frederick learned to write beautiful and clear letters, but when it came to reading and spelling, the royal student was "a disaster".


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: For Hans Svaning, this deranged spelling of Frederick's could only be seen as sloppy and laziness, given that the royal boy otherwise seemed smart enough. Time and time again, Frederick has been punished, probably not only by the teacher, but also by his strict mother, who would gladly step in if Svaning's teaching was not sufficient.


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: Because of Frederick's heavy dyslexia, he was perceived by his contemporaries as unlettered and illiterate. Both Frederick's father and mother looked with skepticism at the heir to the throne, and they kept him under the watchful eye of knowledgeable men as far as possible to prevent him from publicly speaking out. Neither did his father entrust Frederik with any administrative duties.


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: It was only at the age of 20 in 1554 that Frederik was allowed to hold his own court at Malmö Castle in Scania, but under the supervision of the middle-aged lensman ('Fief-man') Ejler Hardenberg, who was appointed the prince's court master. At the same time, political training began, which was put in the hands of the two driven noblemen Eiler Rønnow and Erik Rosenkrantz. The years in Scania, must have felt like a liberation for Frederick. He had finally escaped from the royal court with its tightly regulated existences and pious daily lives. Just outside the moats around Malmö Castle was the lively trading town of Malmö, which offered a young man all-out experiences.


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: While spending many of his youth years in Scania, he became known as the "Prince of Scania" ("princeps Scaniæ") (). It is not known whether this title was ever officially decreed to him.


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: The only political education that Frederik received came from his close friendship with his brother-in-law, Elector Augustus of Saxony (reigned 1553–86). Some authors have later stated that Augustus was "the only strong emotional support" Frederick received in his youth.


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: Augustus, who was the husband of Frederik's elder sister Anne, took Frederik under his wing, chaperoning him on a trip throughout the Holy Roman Empire in 1557–58. Here Frederik made the acquaintance of the new emperor, Ferdinand I (reigned 1558–64) at his coronation, his son and heir apparent Maximilian (emperor 1564–76), William of Orange, and a host of other more prominent German Protestant princes. The experience nurtured in Frederik a lasting appreciation of the great complexity of German politics and a taste for all things military.


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: This was most troubling to Frederick's father, the ageing Christian III, who feared that in the Empire Frederick would develop ambitions that would exceed both his abilities and the resources of his kingdoms, and that the trip would ultimately drag Denmark-Norway into the maelstrom of German princely politics.


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: In 1552, Steward of the Realm, Peder Oxe (1520–1575), had been raised to Councillor of State ("Rigsraad"). During the spring of 1557, Oxe and the King had quarreled over a mutual property exchange. Failing to compromise matters with the King, Oxe had fled to Germany in 1558.


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: Frederick's father Christian III died on 1 January 1559 at Koldinghus. Frederick was not present at his father's bedside when he died, a circumstance that did not endear the new king, now King Frederick II of Denmark-Norway, to the councillors who had grown to appreciate and revere Christian.


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: On 12 August 1559 Frederick signed his haandfæstning (lit. "Handbinding" viz. curtailment of the monarch's power, a Danish parallel to the Magna Carta) and on 20 August 1559 Frederick II was crowned at the Church of Our Lady in Copenhagen by a Danish superintendent, with Nicolaus Palladius and Jens Skielderup two Norwegian superintendent assisting, symbolizing the relationship between the kingdoms of Denmark and Norway. Week-long and elaborate celebrations are said to have taken place after the coronation.


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: Within weeks of Christian's passing, Frederick joined with his uncles in Holstein, John and Adolf, in a military campaign to conquer the Ditmarschen, under Johan Rantzau. Frederik II's great-uncle, King John, had failed to subjugate the peasant republic in 1500, but the Frederick's 1559-campaign was a quick and relatively painless victory for the Danish Kingdom. The brevity and low cost of the campaign were cold comforts to the members of the Council of the Realm, Johan Friis in particular. Friis had warned Frederick that a very real threat of conflict with Sweden loomed just over the horizon, but the king had not listened, and had not even consulted with the Council about the Ditmarschen.


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: The adversarial king–Council relationship improved relatively quickly however, and not because Frederik caved in to conciliar opposition. Rather, the two parties quickly learned to work together because their interests, and the Kingdom's, required that they did so. From an early time, the council invested much power in Frederick, as they had no desire to go back to the destructive near-anarchy of the pre-civil war years.


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: Frederik would soon learn how to play the constitutional game, that is required in a consensual monarchy, such as Denmark; namely to humour the Council without sacrificing his own royal interests. This meant showing generosity to the conciliar aristocracy through various gifts and concessions, which he did in grand style. Shortly before the signing of his coronation charter ("haandfæstning"), Andreas von Barby, leader of the German Chancery, died. Barby was not well liked in the Council of the Realm, but he was extreamly wealthy. The extensive fiefs in his possession reverted to the Crown, and Frederik was careful to distribute out these properties among the leading members of the Council of the Realm. Throughout his reign, Frederik would reward his conciliar aristocracy generously. Fiefs were distributed on highly favourable terms.


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: The substantially warmer relationship between king and Council of the Realm after the Ditmarschen campaign is best illustrated by the Danish central administration's performance in the greatest national crisis of the reign, the Northern Seven Years' War (1563–70) against Sweden.


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: From his predecessor, Frederick inherited the Livonian War. In 1560, he installed his younger brother, Magnus of Holstein (1540–1583), in the Bishopric of Ösel–Wiek. King Frederick II largely tried to avoid conflict in Livonia and consolidated amicable relations with Tsar Ivan IV of Russia in the 1562 Treaty of Mozhaysk. His brother Magnus was later made titular King of Livonia, as a vassal of Tsar Ivan IV.


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: King Frederick's competition with Sweden for supremacy in the Baltic broke out into open warfare in 1563, the start of the Northern Seven Years' War, the dominating conflict of his rule.


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: The leading councillors, Johan Friis foremost among them, had feared a Swedish onslaught for several years, and after the succession of Frederick II's first cousin, the ambitious and unbalanced Eric XIV (reigned 1560–1568) to the Vasa throne a confrontation appeared inevitable. Still, few councillors wanted war, and they preferred to wait until it was forced upon them, while Frederik preferred a preemptive strike. Despite its initial opposition to the war, the Council of the Realm went along with the king. Frederik II, wisely, made no effort to exclude the council from the direction of the war, and though he retained chief operational control he entrusted much responsibility to his councillors, including Holger Ottesen Rosenkrants, Marshal Otte Krumpen, and Admiral Herluf Trolle.


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: Only one constitutional crisis emerged during the war; in late 1569, after six years of war, the Council decided not to provide the king with further grants of taxation. The war had been costly, both in lives and in gold, but since 1565 Denmark had made no appreciable gains. The council had already asked Frederik to make peace, and he had made a half-hearted attempt to do so in 1568, but neither Frederik nor his Swedish opponent was willing to concede defeat.


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: The war developed into an extremely expensive war of attrition in which the areas of Scania were ravaged by the Swedes, and Norway was almost lost. During this war, King Frederick II led his army personally on the battlefield, but although with some small success, overall without much result.


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: The council, in cutting off financial support, had hoped to coerce the king into ending the war. Frederik felt betrayed, and after some reflection, Frederick felt that the only honourable recourse was abdication. With his letter of resignation in the hands of the councillors, he left the capital to go hunting in the countryside. The king, still unmarried, had no heir, and consequently the Council of the Realm had good reason to fear another leaderless interregnum and even another civil war. It played into the king's hands; the Council begging for his return to the throne and allowed him to summon a Diet to consider additional tax levies.


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: The conflict damaged his relationship with his noble councillors; however, the later Sture murders of 24 May 1567 by the insane King Eric XIV in Sweden, eventually helped stabilize the situation in Denmark-Norway. After King John III of Sweden, King Eric's successor, refused to accept a peace favoring Denmark-Norway in the Treaties of Roskilde (1568), the ongoing war dragged on until it was ended by a status quo peace in the Treaty of Stettin (1570), that let Denmark-Norway save face but also show limits of Danish and Norwegian military power.


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: Frederik II learned a great deal about kingship during the war with Sweden. He learned to include the Council of the Realm in most matters of policy, but he also learned that it was possible to manipulate the council, even to bend it to his own will, without humiliating it or undermining its authority. He would later come to master this ability and use it extensively.


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: During the eighteen remaining years of his reign, Frederik would come to drew extensively on the lessons he learned in the Northern Seven Years' War with Eric XIV of Sweden. In the peacetime years, he maintained a rather peripatetic court, moving from residence to residence throughout the Danish countryside, spending a fair share of his time in hunting. This allowed him the opportunity to meet members of the Council individually and informally, in their home regions. As was required of the Danish King, he did summon the Council of the Realm once annually to meet at the "herredag", but most of his business with the council was done on a one-to-one basis. This ensured a very close personal bond with each member of the council while minimizing the opportunity for the council to oppose him as a full body. Frederik's personable disposition also helped, and so, too, did the informal nature of court life under Frederik II. The king hunted, feasted, and drank with his noble councillors and advisers, and even with visiting foreign dignitaries, treating them as his equal peers and companions rather than as political opponents or inferiors. The eighteenth-century chronicler Ludvig Holberg claimed that when dining at his court, Frederik would frequently announce that ‘the king is not at home’, which signalled to his guests that all court formalities were temporarily suspended, and that they could talk and joke as they pleased without restraint. The Danish court of Frederick II may have appeared to be unsophisticated to outside observers, but the openness and bawdiness of court life served Frederik's political purposes. In 1585, he visited Norway for the first and only time as king, but only went to Bohuslen.


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: The great cost of the Northern Seven Years' War, some 1.1 million rigsdaler, was recovered chiefly from higher taxation on both Danish and Norwegian farm properties. After state finances collapsed in the aftermath of the war, King Frederick II called Peder Oxe home to address the kingdom's economy. The taking over of Danish administration and finances by the able councillor, provided a marked improvement for the national treasury. Councillors of experience, including Niels Kaas, Arild Huitfeldt, and Christoffer Valkendorff, took care of the domestic administration. Subsequently, government finances were put in order and Denmark-Norway's economy improved. One of the chief expedients of the improved state of affairs was the raising of the Sound Dues. Oxe, as lord treasurer, reduced the national debt considerably and redeemed portions of crown lands.


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: After the Northern Seven Years' War a period of affluence and growth followed in Danish history. The greater financial liquidity of the crown and the king's decreased dependence on the Council for funding, while not meaning that Frederick was actively seeking to sidestep conciliar control, it did allow him to be less frugal than his late father, Christian III, had been. Considerable funds were devoted to an expansion of the Danish fleet and of the facilities for its support, not merely for security purposes but also to aid Frederick's active endeavours to rid the Baltic Sea of pirates. The increased revenues likewise enabled Frederik to undertake the construction of Denmark's first national road network, the so-called "kongevej" ('King's Road'), connecting the larger towns and the royal residences.


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: The most visible area of expenditure, however, was the royal castles and the court itself. Frederick spent freely on the reconstruction of several royal residences and other cities:


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: For all Frederick's egalitarian behaviour at his court, Frederick was acutely aware of his elevated status. Like most monarchs of his day, he sought to bolster his international reputation through a measure of ostentatious display, in his patronage of artists and musicians, as well as in the elaborate ceremonies staged for royal weddings and other public celebrations.


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: Frederick II had claimed naval supremacy in 'the king's sound', as he called The Sound and, indeed, the whole expanse of waters lying between his Norwegian and Icelandic possessions. In 1583 he secured an agreement by which England made an annual payment for permission to sail there, and France later followed suit.


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: He also tried to bring the Icelandic trade and fisheries into the hands of his own subjects instead of Englishmen and Germans and encouraged adventurers such as Magnus Heinason, to whom he gave a monopoly of trade with the Faeroes, a half-share in ships captured on unlawful passage to the White Sea, and backing for a bold but unsuccessful attempt to reach east Greenland.


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: The necessity of maintaining order within the church meant that royal interference into ecclesiastical affairs was unavoidable. There was no longer an archbishop within the hierarchy, so the king was the final authority in matters that could not be settled by the bishops alone. As his father, Christian III, put it, kings were the ‘father to the superintendents’.


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: As protector of the church and therefore of the clergy, Frederick frequently intervened in disputes between clergy and laity, even when the issues involved were trivial ones.


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: Frederik II, repeatedly came to the defence of new parish priests whose congregations tried to force them to marry their predecessors’ widows, and sometimes to protect preachers from the wrath of overbearing noblemen. Conversely, the king – and especially Frederik II – would see to it personally that unruly, incompetent, or disreputable priests lost their parishes, or he would pardon those who had been punished by their superintendents for minor infractions. Protecting and disciplining the clergy was, after all, part of the king's obligation to the state church.


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: Frederik II was more active than his late father in extending his royal authority into areas that the 1537 Ordinance had protected from secular power. Frederik consulted with members of the theological faculty at the University of Copenhagen—the so-called ‘most learned ones’ ("højlærde")—but he did not shy away from making changes in the most minute liturgical matters. He stipulated the books that every parish priest should have in his library, set standardized times for worship services in the towns, and set minimal standards of competence for all preachers.


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: Although Frederick interfered much in ecclesiastical affairs, Paul Douglas Lockhart pointed out, that Frederick "was not interested in dictating conscience", stating that "he wanted only to prevent useless religious disputes, disputes that could weaken the kingdom and leave it vulnerable to Catholic aggression".


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: A good testimony of Frederik's stubborn resistance to all religious controversy can be found in his response to the late sixteenth-century Lutheran statement of faith, the Formula and Book of Concord. The ‘Concord’, which was written by leading Saxon divines and sponsored by Frederik II's brother-in-law, Augustus, Elector of Saxony, was an attempt to promote unity among the German Lutheran princes. As a unifier, however, the Concord was an abject failure.


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: August had recently purged his court of Calvinists and Philippists, and orthodox Lutherans like Jacob Andreae composed the document. The Concord was extremely orthodox. Frederik II had already clashed with his old friend and companion Augustus over theological issues: in 1575, Augustus had complained profoundly about the Calvinist sentiments expounded by Niels Hemmingsen in the treatise Syntagma institutionum christianarum (1574). Though Frederik tried to defend Hemmingsen, who was his favourite divine, he also wanted to keep Augustus' friendship, and he therefor dismissed Hemmingsen – with honour – from his post at the University of Copenhagen in 1579. Frederik was not nearly so receptive to August's promotion of the Concord.


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: Like many other contemporaries of his time, Frederick believed that the Book of Concord promoted discord, and not harmony. Ignoring Augustus's warnings that a Calvinist plot had taken root in Denmark's clergy, he banned the Concord from his lands in July 1580. Possession of the book, or even discussion of its contents, would be punished severely. The king burned his own personal copies, which were sent to him by his sister Anne, wife of Augustus. The Concord, he argued, contained "teachings which are foreign and alien to us and to our churches, [and which] could easily disrupt the unity which ... these kingdoms have hitherto maintained".


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: Frederik II's ‘Marriage Ordinance’ of 1582, inspired by Niels Hemmingsen’s writings on the institution, allowed divorce for a wide range of reasons, including infidelity, impotence, leprosy, venereal disease, and outlawry.


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: Though often stated as a drunkard and unlettered; leaving state affairs to his councillors to go hunting in the countryside, this is incorrect, and Frederick was highly intelligent. He craved the company of learned men, who composed his inner circle of intellectuals, and they had many interests.


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: Frederick was a great patron of the University of Copenhagen, were he introduced educational reforms in the 1570s and 1580s. Frederik increased the university's budget almost exponentially, expanding the size of its teaching staff and providing substantially higher salaries. While demanding higher educational standards from the priesthood, Frederick and his advisers provided more support for impoverished students. One hundred students, selected by the faculty, received room and board free of fee from the crown, each for a period of five years. Four especially promising students would be awarded the "stipendium regium", which paid all costs for study abroad so long as the recipient returned to Copenhagen to finish his doctorate.


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: The interests of Frederik II and his intellectual circle of wise men were more wide-ranging than that of his father's theological one. Frederik had a strong proclivity for Paracelsian medicine: in 1571 he appointed Johannes Pratensis to the medical faculty of the University of Copenhagen, and in the same year Petrus Severinus became his personal physician. Severinus wielded considerable influence among Paracelsian practitioners, following the publication of his Idea "medicinæ philosophicæ" (1571).


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: Frederik II's fascination with alchemy and astrology, common to contemporary sovereigns, sped the rise of the astronomer Tycho Brahe to international renown as a pioneer in Europe's ‘scientific revolution’. Tyge Brahe came from the highest ranks of the Danish ruling elite: his father, Otte Brahe til Knudstrup, was a fiefholder in Scania and a member of the Council of the Realm, as was Tyge's brother .


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: After an extensive education abroad, Tycho Brahe returned to Denmark not to pursue a career in state service as men of his blood typically did, but instead retreated to the monastery at Herrevad, where he and his maternal uncle Sten Bille experimented with the manufacture of paper and glass and maintained a private observatory. Brahe's treatise on the supernova that appeared in Cassiopeia in November 1572, published at the behest of the rigshofmester Peder Oxe, brought his activities to the attention of Frederik and his court. At the king's insistence, Brahe took up a lectureship at the University of Copenhagen in 1574, and two years later he was granted the island of Ven as his fief. As a fiefholder, he turned out to be a minor disaster, but the observatory at his residence, Uraniborg, drew students from all over Europe. From 1576 until his expulsion by Christian IV in 1597, Brahe supervised the first publicly funded scientific research institute in European history.


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: In his later life, Frederik was fiscally cautious in all matters of state, but he gave an abundance of royal support when it was directed towards the life of the mind. Even after he dismissed Hemmingsen from the University of Copenhagen in 1579, for example, he made sure that the theologian still had a gracious salary and the opportunity to study. Tycho Brahe received not only Ven as a ‘free fief’, but also several other fiefs, canonries, and farms in Scania to fund his work at Uraniborg.


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: Frederik himself picked out the island of Ven as a place where Brahe could conduct his experiments without distraction. Perhaps the king was driven, in part, by a desire to enhance Denmark's reputation among the great nations of Europe, but even so he demonstrated a finely tuned appreciation for intellectual talent.


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: As Frederick is alleged to have said to Brahe:As Paul Douglas Lockhart later stated: "Frederik II may have been a near illiterate (...) but nonetheless he was enlightened as few monarchs of his generation were. It is difficult to see how Danish historians for so long laboured under the impression that he was little better than a drunken fool".


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: Frederick's areas of interest did not consist only of theological and scientific ones. Frederick is known very well for his love of hunting, drinking and feasting. In his youth and in the start of his reign this was a way for Frederick to get away from the Danish court and its formalities. However, in Frederick's later reign he began using hunting and feasting as a political tool. In the peacetime years of his reign, Frederick would maintain a peripatetic court, moving from residence to residence throughout the Danish countryside, spending a fair share of his time hunting. This allowed him the opportunity to meet members of the Council individually and informally, in their own home regions. Most of his business with the Council of the Realm was therefor done on a one-to-one basis. This ensured a very close personal bond with each member of the council while minimizing the opportunity for the council to oppose him as a body. Frederik's personable disposition undoubtedly helped.


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: The king hunted, feasted, and drank with his councillors and advisers, and even with visiting European foreign dignitaries, treating them as his peers and companions rather than as political opponents or inferiors. The eighteenth-century chronicler Ludvig Holberg claimed that when dining at the court of Frederick II, he would frequently announce that ‘the king is not at home’, which signalled to his guests that all court formalities were temporarily suspended, and that they could talk and joke as they pleased without restraint. The Danish court may have appeared unsophisticated to outside observers, but the openness and bawdiness of court life served Frederik's political purposes.


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: As a young man, Frederick II had desired to marry the noblewoman, Anne Hardenberg, who had served as a lady-in-waiting to his mother, the Dowager Queen Dorothea of Denmark, however as she was not of princely birth, this was impossible. There is no evidence that either of them had any interest in entering af morganatic marriage and Anne Hardenberg was married six months after Frederick, after which there is no known contact between them.


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: Negotiations to find a suitable royal bride were manifold during the 1560s, but mostly it came to nothing, often because Frederick strongly insisted on meeting the prospective bride before committing to her. The proposed matrimonies included:


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: On 20 July 1572, he was married to Sophie of Mecklenburg-Güstrow, a descendant of King John of Denmark, and also his own first half-cousin, through their grandfather, Frederick I, King of Denmark and Norway.


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: Sophie was the daughter of Ulrich III, Duke of Mecklenburg-Güstrow and Elizabeth of Denmark. Their marriage was harmonious and happy. Sophie is consistently mentioned in Frederick's handwritten diary as "mynt Soffye", meaning "my Sophie" and she followed him through the country as the court was very mobile. Queen Sophie was a loving mother, nursing her children personally during their illnesses. When Frederick was sick with malaria in 1575, she personally nursed him and wrote many worried letters to her father about his progress.


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: After Frederick's death Sophie was granted a 'Dowager-pension' (), consisting of Nykøbing Castle and the islands of Lolland and Falster. The Dowager Queen Sophie managed her estates in Lolland-Falster so well that her son could borrow money from her on several occasions for his wars.


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: Frederick was buried on 5 August 1588 in Christian I's chapel at Roskilde Cathedral, where his son King Christian IV of Denmark later built a large monument in honour of his late father.


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: Many recent historians, such as Poul Grinder-Hansen, Paul Douglas Lockhart, Thomas Kingston Derry and Frede P. Jensen have expressed, that it is difficult to see how the reign, and especially the later reign, of Frederik II could be viewed as anything other than a resounding success. Frederick's character have throughout time been misinterpreted by Danish historians as unlettered, foolish and stupid; leaving state affairs to his councillors to go hunting in the countryside.


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: However, this is incorrect, and Frederick was highly intelligent. He craved the company of learned men, who composed his inner circle of intellectuals, and they had many interests, including medicine, alchemy, astrology and theology. As Paul Douglas Lockhart later stated: "Frederik II may have been a near illiterate (...) but nonetheless he was enlightened as few monarchs of his generation were. It is difficult to see how Danish historians for so long laboured under the impression that he was little better than a drunken fool".


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: The negative portrayal of Frederik II was founded by the cultural historian Troels Frederik Lund in his 1906 biography of Peder Oxe, who in his opinion saved Denmark on the brink of abyss against the foolhardy young king and his German war-mad officers. This portrayal was continued by Erik Arup, he wrote:


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: Often described as wilful and impatient, he was easily moved to anger, and by his early twenties had exhibited a weakness for strong drink and an addiction to the hunt. These are the traits upon which Danish historians have most often focused, resulting in the prevailing portrait of Frederik as a man and as king: an unlettered, inebriated, brutish sot, who virtually abdicated his responsibilities of king in favour of hunting and binge drinking.


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: This portrayal is, however, unfair and inaccurate, and thanks to the research of Frede P. Jensen it has been redrawn. Frede P. Jensen (1940–2008), after thorough archival studies, was one of the first historians in Denmark who, in his works, radically changed the view of the King Frederick II.


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: Frederik was indeed no great scholar, owing largely to the fact that he was very dyslexic. Throughout his entire life he would struggle with his difficulty in reading and writing, and it embarrassed him immensely. But he was, as those close to him would attest, highly intelligent; he craved the company of learned men, and in the correspondence and legislation he dictated to his secretaries he showed himself to be quick-witted and articulate. Frederik was also open and loyal, and had a knack for establishing close personal bonds with fellow princes and with those who served him. These qualities would make him an ideal politician. Indeed, Frederik would take the chief legacy of his father's kingship – the close symbiosis between king and aristocracy – to its logical limits, and simultaneously would bring Denmark to the height of its power and influence in European affairs.


title: Frederick II of Denmark

text: The rebirth of the University of Copenhagen and the professionalization of the central administration, coupled with the prominence of learned men within the king's inner circle, gave the court of Frederik II a uniquely refined and scholarly character that was lacking in his father's court. This, in turn, gave rise to increased intellectual activity throughout the realm. Literature, mostly theological, blossomed in the second half of the century.


title: Prohibited airspace

text: A prohibited airspace is an area (volume) of airspace within which flight of aircraft is not allowed, usually due to security concerns. It is one of many types of special use airspace designations and is depicted on aeronautical charts with the letter "P" followed by a serial number. It differs from restricted airspace in that entry is typically forbidden at all times from all aircraft and is not subject to clearance from ATC or the airspace's controlling body.


title: Prohibited airspace

text: According to the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA): "Prohibited areas contain airspace of defined dimensions identified by an area on the surface of the earth within which the flight of aircraft is prohibited. Such areas are established for security or other reasons associated with the national welfare. These areas are published in the Federal Register and are depicted on aeronautical charts."


title: Prohibited airspace

text: Some prohibited airspace may be supplemented via NOTAMs. For example, Prohibited Area 40 (P-40) and Restricted Area 4009 (R4009) often have additional restricted airspace added via a NOTAM when the President of the United States visits Camp David in Maryland, while normally the airspace outside of P-40 and R4009 is not prohibited/restricted.


title: Prohibited airspace

text: Violating prohibited airspace established for national security purposes may result in military interception and/or the possibility of an attack upon the violating aircraft, or if this is avoided then large fines and jail time are often incurred. Aircraft violating or about to violate prohibited airspace are often warned beforehand on 121.5 MHz, the emergency frequency for aircraft.


title: Prohibited airspace

text: Besides, due to Arab-Israeli conflict, Israeli aircraft are not allowed to fly over these countries. These include:


title: Prohibited airspace

text: After the Western countries banned Russian planes from its skies following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, aircraft registered in or operated by the Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, United Kingdom, United States and the European Union and the EFTA member states are banned from using Russian airspace.


title: Prohibited airspace

text: On October 30, 2022, Cathay Pacific announced that it would resume using Russian airspace on some flights such as the "polar route" from New York to Hong Kong, which had stopped following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.


title: Prohibited airspace

text: According to Air Navigation (Air Defence) Regulation 1 (2007), airspace over the territory and territorial waters of Sri Lanka (except Ruhuna Open Skies Area) are declared an air defence identification zone (ADIZ) with prohibited areas and restricted areas within it. No aircraft may operate in prohibited or restricted areas without valid air defence clearance (ADC) from the Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF).


title: Prohibited airspace

text: Since October 25, 2015 all traffic by Russian aircraft has been prohibited. As the result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the civilian flights flying over Ukraine and flights to the Ukrainian cities are suspended for the time being.


title: Prohibited airspace

text: The FAA issues Temporary Flight Restrictions (TFR) in the form of a Notice to Airmen (NOTAM) which are effective for the duration of an event, typically a few days or weeks. TFRs are issued for VIP movement such as the president's travels outside Washington, D.C., surface-based hazards to flight such as toxic gas spills or volcanic eruptions, air-shows, military security, and special events including political ones like national party conventions. TFRs have also been issued to ensure a safe environment for firefighting operations in the case of wildfires and for other reasons as necessary. A TFR was quickly issued around the crash site of Cory Lidle's airplane in New York City. Later, a broader TFR was issued to require pilots traveling over the East River to obtain air traffic control clearance.


title: Prohibited airspace

text: Temporary restrictions over Disney theme parks were made permanent with language added to a 2003 federal spending bill. Additionally, an indirect TFR prohibits flight below above ground level and within a radius of stadiums with seating capacity of 30,000 or more, in which an World Series, MLS Cup Final, Super Bowl, College Football Playoff National Championship, a major motor speedway event, or a WrestleMania is taking place, from one hour before to one hour after the event.


title: Prohibited airspace

text: TFAs over public and corporate venues have been controversial. Groups have questioned whether these last TFRs served a public need, or the needs of politically connected venue operators.


title: Prohibited airspace

text: In addition to areas off limits to civil aviation, a variety of other airspace restrictions exists in the United States. Notable ones include the Flight Restriction Zone (FRZ) encompassing all airspace up to within approximately of Ronald Reagan National Airport around Washington, D.C. Flights within this airspace, while not entirely prohibited, are highly restricted. All pilots flying within the FRZ are required to undergo a background check and fingerprinting. An additional "Special Flight Rules Area" encompassing most of the Baltimore-Washington D.C. metropolitan area requires the filing of a flight plan and communication with air traffic control.


title: Pranav Adani

text: Pranav Adani is an Indian businessman and the director of Adani Enterprises. He is a member of the National Council of the Confederation of Indian Industry.


title: Pranav Adani

text: Adani was born into a Jain family. Later, he graduated from Boston University in business management studies. After that, he attended the Owner/President Management Program of Harvard Business School.


title: Pranav Adani

text: He led a business venture with Singapore's leading agribusiness group Wilmar International Limited.The Adani Wilmar joint venture owns India's oil brand Fortune. The company hosts upwards of 450 manufacturing plants and a distribution network that spans more than 50 countries including India, Indonesia and China.


title: Pranav Adani

text: Adani became the director of Agro at Adani Enterprises Ltd. As chairman of Adani Agri Logistics Ltd, he also invested in grain storage technology and agricultural logistics. This model is being considered by state and central governments for nationwide adoption.


title: Pranav Adani

text: He is a director of Adani Group's Oil and Gas and City Gas Distribution vertical, Adani Welspun Joint Venture. In August 2009, Adani became a director of Adani Gas Limited, the largest private city gas distribution company in India. He is now its chairman. He has implemented city gas distribution projects in Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Faridabad, and Khurja.


title: Pranav Adani

text: He has ventures in the real estate industry in the cities of Ahmedabad, Mumbai, and Gurgaon. He is involved in building a 600-acre project in Ahmedabad township under the Adani Real Estate Company. He also heads the global coal business of the Adani Group. The project has upcoming expansions in Mumbai and Gurgaon.


title: Pranav Adani

text: In April 2015, Adani was appointed as an additional director of Adani Enterprises. He serves as a member of the Confederation of Indian Industry's National Council on Agriculture and National Council on Fast Moving Consumer Goods.


title: Pranav Adani

text: In January 2018, he addressed the Bengal Global Business Summit alongside Mamata Banerjee. He stated that the Adani Wilmar Limited will invest ₹750 crores ($108.3 million US) in the state.


title: Pranav Adani

text: In March 2022, he spearheaded the listing of Adani Wilmar at the Bombay Stock Exchange and National Stock Exchange.


title: Pranav Adani

text: Pranav introduced the "'Garv Hai"' initiative to promote sports and support athletes in India to compete in international tournaments including the 2016 Rio Olympics. A few candidates across India were selected and assisted. In 2015 the campaign supported Indian shot-putter Inderjeet Singh, then Asia's best, for the Asian Championships in China. The list included others like Khushbir Kaur and Shiva Thapa.


title: Pranav Adani

text: In 2017, the Adani introduced the pro kabaddi team the Fortune Giants through Adani Wilmar. Adani chose to support kabaddi instead of cricket to present opportunities for new sports persons. In the same year, he announced a fourfold increase in the prize money to ₹8 crores ($1.15 million US) for the season. The Meadows, a part of the Shantigram, houses a football field in the centre lit by flood lights to promote football.


title: Pranav Adani

text: In 2017, Adani initiated the first marathon in Ahmedabad which is dedicated to the Indian Armed Forces. On 26 November around 8,000 people participated in the Adani Ahmedabad Marathon. It consisted of two categories: full (10 km) and half (5 km). The runners included about 1,000 members from the Indian Army, Air Force and the Navy. The marathon collected ₹25 Lakh and the company donated another ₹25 lakhs to present a total of ₹50 Lakh (roughly $70,000 US) to the Armed Forces of India.


title: Pranav Adani

text: Garv Hai has been re-launched for a second time as a long-term incubation programme to discover and support athletes in archery, shooting, boxing, wrestling and athletics for 2020 Summer Olympics, 2022 Asian Games and Commonwealth Games.


title: Shashka

text: The shashka (, – "long-knife") () or shasqua, is a kind of sabre; a single-edged, single-handed, and guardless backsword. In appearance, the "shashka" is midway between a typically curved sabre and a straight sword. It has a slightly curved blade, and can be effective for both cutting and thrusting.


title: Shashka

text: The "shashka" originated among the mountain tribes of the Caucasus. The earliest depictions of this sword date to the late 17th century, though most extant shashkas have hilts dating to the 19th century. The earliest datable example is from 1713. Later, most of the Russian and Ukrainian Cossacks adopted the weapon. Two styles of "shashka" exist: the Caucasian/Circassian "shashka" and the Cossack "shashka". In 1834 the Russian government produced the first military-issue shashka pattern.


title: Shashka

text: The blades of non-regulation shashkas were of diverse origins; some were locally made in the Caucasus, others in Russia, some were manufactured in Germany, mostly in Solingen, and displayed imitations of the 'running wolf' mark of Passau.


title: Shashka

text: The typically Circassian (Adyghe) form of sabre was longer than the Cossack type; in fact, the Russian word "shashka" originally came from the Adyghe word – ("Sashko") – meaning "long knife". It gradually replaced the sabre in all cavalry units except hussars during the 19th century.


title: Shashka

text: Russian troops, having encountered it during their conquest of the Caucasus (1817–1864), preferred it to their issued sabres.


title: Shashka

text: The first officially regulated Russian military shashka was the 1834 pattern, also called the "Nizhegorodka". This was followed by the 1838 pattern shashka. In 1881, two patterns were introduced: a 'Cossack' pattern, which was typical in not having a guard, and a 'dragoon' pattern, which was much more like a standard sabre in having a brass knuckle-bow, and was derived from the 1841 dragoon sabre. The blades of the two types were, however, essentially identical.


title: Shashka

text: The Cossack hosts (not full-time regiments) used non-regulation shashkas until 1904, when they received their own regulation pattern.


title: Shashka

text: The Communist government introduced the 1927 pattern, which was very similar to the 1881 Cossack pattern; production of this pattern continued until 1946. The last pattern shashkas to be introduced were the 1940 patterns for "line commanding personnel" and generals—both had knuckle-bows.


title: Shashka

text: The shashka was a relatively short sabre, typically being in total length. It had a slightly curved, fullered, blade with a single edge; the back of the blade was often sharpened for the 3rd of the blade nearest the tip (a false edge). The hilt had no guard (except for Russian Dragoon 'shashka' patterns, which had a brass knuckle-bow and quillon, and a conventional sabre pommel). The pommel was hook-shaped and divided into two 'ears'. This is a feature found in many weapons of the Western Asian highlands, from the Turkish yataghan to the Afghan pesh-kabz. The sword was worn in a scabbard suspended with the edge uppermost. The Caucasian form of the shashka had a scabbard which enclosed most of the hilt, with little more than the hooked pommel protruding.


title: Shashka

text: Plainer, non-regulation shashkas often had hilts of horn, more highly decorated examples had hilts sheathed in niello-inlaid silver, with scabbard mounts to match. Russian military shashkas were much plainer, with hilts typically consisting of a brass ferrule, ribbed wooden grip and brass pommel. Unlike traditional non-regulation shashkas, the pommel of pattern shashkas was pierced to receive a sword-knot. The pommel was decorated with an imperial insignia; following the 1917 revolution, this was often ground off. Shashkas manufactured under the Soviet regime (Pattern 1927) had Communist symbols in place of the imperial ones. Later trooper models often had modified brass scabbard furniture to hold a bayonet for the Mosin–Nagant carbine. Officer's models, though of similar construction, did not have an attached bayonet, and were much more heavily decorated. In Tsarist times officers had considerable freedom in the decoration of their shaskas and some had non-regulation blades.


title: Shashka

text: The 1834 pattern shashka was a popular weapon, when it was replaced by the 1881 pattern, several regiments complained so vociferously that their 1834s were returned to them.


title: Shashka

text: There is little or no surviving contemporary written information on how the people of the Caucasus used the shashka. However, surviving Russian military manuals indicate that, despite the lack of protection for the hand, the military shashka was used in much the same manner as a Western European sabre, with very similar cuts, thrusts, guards and parries. In particular, Russian soldiers were not taught to cut in one movement from unsheathing, whatever Caucasus traditions suggest.


title: Amr ibn al-As

text: Amr launched the conquest of Egypt on his own initiative in late 639, defeating the Byzantines in a string of victories ending with the surrender of Alexandria in 641 or 642. It was the swiftest of the early Muslim conquests. This was followed by westward advances by Amr as far as Tripoli in present-day Libya. In a treaty signed with the Byzantine governor Cyrus, Amr guaranteed the security of Egypt's population and imposed a poll tax on non-Muslim adult males. He maintained the Coptic-dominated bureaucracy and cordial ties with the Coptic patriarch Benjamin. He founded Fustat as the provincial capital with the mosque later called after him at its center. Amr ruled relatively independently, acquired significant wealth, and upheld the interests of the Arab conquerors who formed Fustat's garrison in relation to the central authorities in Medina. After gradually diluting Amr's authority, Caliph Uthman () dismissed him in 646 after accusations of incompetency from his successor Abdallah ibn Sa'd.


title: Amr ibn al-As

text: After mutineers from Egypt assassinated Uthman, Amr distanced himself from their cause, despite previously instigating opposition against Uthman. In the ensuing First Muslim Civil War, Amr joined Mu'awiya ibn Abi Sufyan against Caliph Ali () due to promises of the governorship of Egypt and its tax revenues. Amr served as Mu'awiya's representative in the abortive arbitration talks to end the war. Afterward, he wrested control of Egypt from Ali's loyalists, killing its governor Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr, and assumed the governorship instead. Mu'awiya kept him in his post after establishing the Umayyad Caliphate in 661 and Amr ruled the province until his death.


title: Amr ibn al-As

text: Amr ibn al-As was born in . His father, al-As ibn Wa'il, was a wealthy landowner from the Banu Sahm clan of the Quraysh tribe of Mecca. Following the death of al-As in , Amr inherited from him the lucrative estate and vineyards near Ta'if. Amr's mother was al-Nabigha bint Harmala from the Banu Jallan clan of the Anaza tribe. She had been taken captive and sold, in succession, to several members of the Quraysh, one of whom was Amr's father. As such, Amr had two maternal half-brothers, Amr ibn Atatha of the Banu Adi and Uqba ibn Nafi of the Banu Fihr, and a half-sister from the Banu Abd Shams. Amr is physically described in the traditional sources as being short with broad shoulders, having a large head with a wide forehead and wide mouth, long arms and a long beard.


title: Amr ibn al-As

text: There are conflicting reports about when Amr embraced Islam, with the most credible version placing it in 629/630, not long before the conquest of Mecca by Muhammad. According to this account, he converted alongside the Qurayshites Khalid ibn al-Walid and Uthman ibn Talha. According to Amr's own testimony, transmitted by his fourth-generation descendant Amr ibn Shu'ayb, he converted in Axum in the presence of King Armah (Najashi) and met Muhammad in Medina upon the latter's return from the Battle of Khaybar in 628. Amr conditioned his conversion on the forgiveness of his past sins and an "active part in affairs", according to a report cited by the historian Ibn Asakir (d. 1176).


title: Amr ibn al-As

text: Indeed, in October 629, Amr was tasked by Muhammad with leading the raid on Dhat al-Salasil, likely located in the northern Hejaz (western Arabia), a lucrative opportunity for Amr in view of the potential war spoils. The purpose of the raid is unclear, though the modern historian Fred Donner speculates that it was to "break up a gathering of hostile tribal groups" possibly backed by the Byzantine Empire. The historian Ibn Hisham (d. 833) holds that Amr rallied the nomadic Arabs in the region "to make war on [Byzantine] Syria". The tribal groups targeted in the raid included the Quda'a in general and the Bali specifically. Amr's paternal grandmother hailed from the Bali, and this may have motivated his appointment to the command by Muhammad as Amr was instructed to recruit tribesmen from the Bali and the other Quda'a tribes of Balqayn and Banu Udhra. Following the raid, a delegation of the Bali embraced Islam. Amr further consecrated ties with the tribe by marrying a Bali woman, with whom he had his son Muhammad.


title: Amr ibn al-As

text: Muhammad appointed Amr the governor of Oman and he remained there until being informed of Muhammad's death in 632. The death of Muhammad prompted several Arab tribes to defect from the nascent Medina-based Muslim polity in the Ridda wars. Muhammad's successor Caliph Abu Bakr () appointed Amr to rein in the apostate Quda'a tribes, and among those targeted were the Hejazi branches of the Bali. Amr's campaigns, which were supported by the commander Shurahbil ibn Hasana, succeeded in restoring Medina's authority as far as the northern frontier with Syria.


title: Amr ibn al-As

text: Amr was one of four commanders dispatched by Abu Bakr to conquer Syria in 633. The focus of Amr's campaign was Palestine, to which he had been appointed governor by Abu Bakr before his departure. As a Qurayshite merchant Amr was likely already well-acquainted with the routes to Gaza, a principle terminal for Meccan caravans. He took the coastal route of the Hejaz, reaching Ayla, a Muslim possession since 630, before breaking west into the Negev desert or possibly the Sinai. He arrived near the villages of Dathin and Badan in Gaza's environs where he entered into talks with Gaza's Byzantine commander. After the negotiations broke down, Amr's men bested the Byzantines at the Battle of Dathin on 4 February 634 and set up headquarters at Ghamr al-Arabat in the middle of the Wadi Araba. Most accounts hold that Amr's army was 3,000-strong; the Muhajirun (emigrants from Mecca to Medina) and the Ansar (natives of Medina), who together formed the core of the earliest Muslim converts, dominated his forces according to al-Waqidi (d. 823), while the 9th-century historian Ibn A'tham holds that Amr's army consisted of 3,300 Qurayshite and allied horsemen, 1,700 horsemen from the Banu Sulaym and 200 from the Yemenite tribe of Madh'hij. The historian Philip Mayerson considers the troop figures to be "unquestionably exaggerated" but still representing the largest Arab fighting force to have ever been assembled in southern Palestine and the Sinai until then.


title: Amr ibn al-As

text: Amr conquered the area around Gaza by February or March 634 and proceeded to besiege Caesarea, the capital of Byzantine Palestine, in July. He soon after abandoned the siege upon the approach of a large Byzantine army. After being reinforced by the remainder of the Muslim armies in Syria, including the new arrivals commanded by Khalid ibn al-Walid, Amr, with overall command of the 20,000-strong Muslim forces, routed the Byzantine army at the Battle of Ajnadayn, the first major confrontation between the Muslims and Byzantium, in July–August 634. Amr occupied numerous towns in Palestine, including Bayt Jibrin, Yibna, Amwas, Lydda, Jaffa, Nablus and Sebastia. Most of these localities surrendered after little resistance due to the flight of Byzantine troops; consequently, there is scant information about them in the traditional accounts of the conquest. Abu Bakr's successor Umar () appointed or confirmed Amr as the commander of the military district of Palestine.


title: Amr ibn al-As

text: The Muslims pursued the Byzantine army northward and besieged them at Pella for four months. Amr may have retained overall command of the Muslim armies until this point, though other accounts assign command to Khalid or Abu Ubayda ibn al-Jarrah. In any case, the Muslims landed a heavy blow against the Byzantines in the ensuing Battle of Fahl in December 634 or January 635. Afterward, Amr and Shurahbil may have been sent to besiege Beisan, which capitulated after minor resistance. The Muslims proceeded to besiege Damascus, where the remnants of the Byzantine army from the battles of Ajnadayn and Fahl had gathered. Amr was positioned at the Bab Tuma gate, the Muslim commanders having each been assigned to block one of the city's entrances. By August–September 635, Damascus surrendered to the Muslims. Amr acquired several residences within the city.


title: Amr ibn al-As

text: In response to the series of defeats, the Byzantine emperor Heraclius () led a large army in person to confront the Muslims; its rout at the Battle of Yarmouk, in which Amr played a key role by confining the Byzantines between the banks of the Yarmouk River and the Yarmouk's ravine, in August–September 636, paved the way for the rest of Syria's conquest by the Muslims. Following Yarmouk, the Muslims attempted to capture Jerusalem, where Amr had previously sent an advance force. Abu Ubayda led the siege of Jerusalem, in which Amr participated, but the city only surrendered after Caliph Umar arrived in person to conclude a treaty with its defenders. Amr was one of the witnesses of the Treaty of Umar. From Jerusalem, Amr proceeded to besiege and capture the city of Gaza.


title: Amr ibn al-As

text: From his base in southern Palestine, Amr launched the conquest of Byzantine Egypt. He had established trading interests there before his conversion to Islam, making him aware of its importance in international trade. The traditional Muslim sources generally hold that Amr undertook the campaign with Caliph Umar's reluctant approval, though a number of accounts hold that he entered the region without Umar's authorization. At the head of 4,000 cavalries and with no siege engines, Amr arrived at the frontier town of al-Arish along the northern Sinai coastline on 12 December 639. He captured the strategic Mediterranean port city of Pelusium (al-Farama) following a month-long siege and moved against Bilbeis, which also fell after a month-long siege.


title: Amr ibn al-As

text: Amr halted his campaign before the fortified Byzantine stronghold of Babylon, at the head of the Nile Delta, and requested reinforcements from Umar. The latter dispatched al-Zubayr ibn al-Awwam, a leading Qurayshite companion of Muhammad, with a 4,000-strong force, which joined Amr's camp in June 640. Amr retained the supreme command of Arab forces in Egypt. In the following month, his army decisively defeated the Byzantines at the Battle of Heliopolis. He captured Memphis soon after and besieged Babylon. During the siege, Amr entered truce negotiations with the Alexandria-based Byzantine governor Cyrus; Emperor Heraclius opposed the talks and recalled Cyrus to Constantinople. Though strong resistance was put up by Babylon's defenders, their morale was sapped after news of Heraclius' death in February 641. Amr made an agreement with the Byzantine garrison, allowing their peaceful withdrawal toward the provincial capital Alexandria on 9 April 641. Amr then sent his lieutenants to conquer different parts of the country. One of them, Kharija ibn Hudhafa, captured the Fayyum oasis, Oxyrhynchus (Bahnasa), Hermopolis (el-Ashmunein) and Akhmim, all in Middle Egypt, and an unspecified number of villages in Upper Egypt.


title: Amr ibn al-As

text: In late 641, Amr besieged Alexandria. It fell virtually without resistance after Cyrus, who had since been restored to office, and Amr finalized a treaty in Babylon guaranteeing the security of Egypt's inhabitants and imposing a poll tax on adult males. The date of the city's surrender was likely November 642. Taking advantage of the uncertain political situation in the wake of Umar's death in 644 and the meager Arab military presence in Alexandria, Emperor Constans II () dispatched a naval expedition led by a certain Manuel which occupied the city and killed most of its Arab garrison in 645. Alexandria's elite and most of the inhabitants assisted the Byzantines; medieval Byzantine, Coptic and, to a lesser extent, Muslim sources indicate the city was not firmly in Arab hands during the preceding three years. Byzantine forces pushed deeper into the Nile Delta, but Amr forced them back at the Battle of Nikiou. He besieged and captured Alexandria in the summer of 646; most of the Byzantines, including Manuel, were slain, many of its inhabitants were killed and the city was burned until Amr ordered an end to the onslaught. Afterward, Muslim rule in Alexandria was gradually solidified.


title: Amr ibn al-As

text: In contrast to the disarray of the Byzantine defense, the Muslim forces under Amr's command were unified and organized; Amr frequently coordinated with Caliph Umar and his own troops for all major military decisions. According to the historian Vassilios Christides, Amr "cautiously counterbalanced the superiority in numbers and equipment of the Byzantine army by applying skillful military tactics" and despite the lack of "definite, prepared, long-term plans ... the Arab army moved with great flexibility as the occasion arose". In the absence of siege engines, Amr oversaw long sieges of heavily fortified Byzantine positions, most prominently Babylon, cut supply lines and engaged in long wars of attrition. He made advantageous use out of the nomads in his ranks, who were seasoned in hit-and-run tactics, and his settled troops, who were generally more acquainted with siege warfare. His cavalry-dominated army moved through Egypt's deserts and oases with relative ease. Moreover, political circumstances became more favorable to Amr with the death of the hawkish Heraclius and his short-term replacement with the more pacifist Heraklonas and Martina.


title: Amr ibn al-As

text: After the surrender of Alexandria in 642, Amr marched his army westward, bypassing the fortified Byzantine coastal strongholds of Paraetonium (Marsa Matruh), Appolonia Sozusa (Marsa Soussa) and Ptolemais (Tolmeita), capturing Barca and reaching Torca in Cyrenaica. Toward the end of the year, Amr launched a second cavalry assault targeting Tripoli. The city was heavily fortified by the Byzantines and contained several naval vessels in its harbor. Due to his lack of siege engines, he employed the lengthy siege tactic used in the Egyptian conquest. After about a month, his troops entered Tripoli through a vulnerable point in its walls and sacked the city. Its fall, which entailed the evacuation by sea of the Byzantine garrison and most of the population, is dated to 642 or 643/44. Though the Arab hold over Cyrenaica and Zawila to the far south remained firm for decades except for a short-lived Byzantine occupation in 690, Tripoli was recaptured by the Byzantines a few years after Amr's entry. The region was definitively conquered by the Arabs during the reign of Caliph Abd al-Malik ().


title: Amr ibn al-As

text: Amr "regulated the government of the country [Egypt], administration of justice and the imposition of taxes", according to the historian A. J. Wensinck. During his siege of Babylon, Amr had erected an encampment near the fortress. He originally intended for Alexandria to serve as the Arabs' capital in Egypt, but Umar rejected this on the basis that no body of water, i.e. the Nile, should separate the caliph from his army. Instead, following Alexandria's surrender, in 641 or 642, Amr made his encampment near Babylon the permanent garrison town ("miṣr") of Fustat, the first town founded by the Arabs in Egypt. Its location along the eastern bank of the Nile River and at the head of the Nile Delta and edge of the Eastern Desert strategically positioned it to dominate the Upper and Lower halves of Egypt. Fustat's proximity to Babylon, where Amr also established an Arab garrison, afforded the Arab settlers a convenient means to employ and oversee the Coptic bureaucratic officials who inhabited Babylon and proved critical to running the day-to-day affairs of the Arab government.


title: Amr ibn al-As

text: Amr had the original tents of Fustat replaced with mud brick and baked brick dwellings. Documents found in Hermopolis (el-Ashmunein) dating from the 640s confirm official orders to forward building materials to Babylon to construct the new city. The city was organized into allotments over an area stretching along the Nile and inland to the east. The allotments were distributed among the components of Amr's army, with priority given to the Quraysh, the Ansar and Amr's personal guard, the 'Ahl al-Rāya' (People of the Banner), which included several Bali tribesmen as a result of their kinship and marital ties to Amr. An opposing theory holds that Amr did not assign the plots; rather, the tribes staked their own claims and Amr established a commission to resolve the ensuing land disputes. At the center of the new capital Amr built a congregational mosque, later known as the Mosque of Amr ibn al-As; the original structure was frequently redesigned and expanded between its foundation and its final form in 827. Amr had his own dwelling built immediately east of the mosque and it most likely served as his government headquarters.


title: Amr ibn al-As

text: In the northwestern part of Alexandria, Amr built a hilltop congregational mosque, later called after him, before the Byzantine occupation of 645/46, after which he built a second called the Mosque of Mercy; neither mosque has been presently identified. Adjacent to the congregational mosque, Amr took personal ownership of a fort, which he later donated for government use. This part of the city became the administrative and social core of Arab settlement in Alexandria. Accounts vary as to the number of troops Amr garrisoned in the city, ranging from 1,000 soldiers from the Azd and Banu Fahm tribes to a quarter of the army which was replaced on a rotational basis every six months.


title: Amr ibn al-As

text: As per the 641 treaty with Cyrus, Amr imposed a poll tax of two gold dinars on non-Muslim adult males. He imposed other measures, sanctioned by Umar, that entailed the inhabitants' regular provision of wheat, honey, oil and vinegar as a subsistence allowance for the Arab troops. He had these goods stored in a distribution warehouse called "dār al-rizq". After taking a census of the Muslims, he further ordered that each Muslim be annually supplied by the inhabitants a highly embroidered wool robe (Egyptian robes were prized by the Arabs), a burnous, a turban, a sirwal (trousers) and shoes. In a Greek papyrus dated to 8 January 643 and containing Amr's seal (a fighting bull), Amr (transliterated as "Ambros") requests fodder for his army's animals and bread for his soldiers from an Egyptian village. According to the historian Martin Hinds, there is "no evidence" that Amr "did anything to streamline the cumbersome fiscal system taken over from the Byzantines; rather, the upheavals of conquest can only have made the system more open to abuse than ever".


title: Amr ibn al-As

text: After entering Alexandria, Amr invited the Coptic patriarch Benjamin to return to the city after his years of exile under Cyrus. The patriarch maintained close ties with Amr and restored the monasteries of Wadi el-Natrun, including the Saint Macarius Monastery, which functions until the present-day. According to the historian Hugh N. Kennedy, "Benjamin played a major role in the survival of the Coptic Church through the transition to Arab rule".


title: Amr ibn al-As

text: Amr acted relatively independent as governor and retained much of the surplus tax revenue of the province for the benefit of its troops despite pressure from Umar to forward proceeds to Medina. He also amassed significant personal wealth in Egypt, part of which was confiscated by Muhammad ibn Maslama on Umar's orders. At a certain point, the Caliph separated Upper Egypt from Amr's administration and appointed Abd Allah ibn Abi Sarh over the region.


title: Amr ibn al-As

text: Umar's successor Caliph Uthman () initially kept Amr in his governorship and forged marital links with him by wedding to him his maternal half-sister Umm Kulthum bint Uqba ibn Abi Mu'ayt. Uthman diluted Amr's power in 645/46 by transferring fiscal responsibilities to Ibn Abi Sarh, his own relative, leaving Amr in charge of military affairs. Amr and Ibn Abi Sarh lodged complaints to Uthman each alleging the other of incompetence, prompting Uthman to dismiss Amr entirely and replace him in his duties with Ibn Abi Sarh. Uthman's appointee established an effective fiscal system that largely preserved its Byzantine predecessor. Ibn Abi Sarh reduced the fiscal privileges of Egypt's original Arab military settlers, who had been shown favor by Amr, and secured the remittance of the surplus to Medina. This led to the consternation of the Arab garrisons and the native officials and elite, all of whom were "deprived of the opportunities for self-enrichment which they had hitherto enjoyed", according to Hinds. Open opposition to Ibn Abi Sarh and Uthman began under the leadership of the Qurayshite Muhammad ibn Abi Hudhayfa in 654/55.


title: Amr ibn al-As

text: Upon his return to Medina, Amr divorced Umm Kulthum and openly criticized Uthman. The Caliph and Amr engaged in a number of heated public exchanges and, according to a report in the Islamic traditional sources, Amr incited Muhammad's senior companions Ali, al-Zubayr and Talha ibn Ubayd Allah, as well as the Hajj pilgrims in Mecca, against Uthman. He lobbied Muhammad's wife A'isha for support and the latter pressed Uthman to reappoint Amr to Egypt citing its garrisons' satisfaction with his rule. In a sermon at the mosque in Medina in June 656 and a letter penned to the Muslim leaders in Syria, Uthman mentioned that he had intended to reappoint Amr but did not follow through as a result of the latter's excessive insult. According to the historian Wilferd Madelung, the insult Uthman cited was likely Amr's public reaction to the Caliph's statement that the mutinous Egyptian troops who had arrived in Medina to protest the Caliph's policies had withdrawn because they were misinformed: "Fear God, Uthman, for you have ridden over abysses and we have ridden over them with you. So repent to God, that we may repent".


title: Amr ibn al-As

text: After his last exchange with Uthman, Amr retired to his estate in southern Palestine. The estate was called "Ajlan" after one of his "mawālī" (non-Arab, Muslim freedmen) and was located in the vicinity of "al-Sab'", which had conventionally been identified with modern Beersheba, but more likely corresponds with Bayt Jibrin, according to the historian Michael Lecker; the medieval historians al-Baladhuri (d. 892) and Yaqut al-Hamawi (d. 1226) also suggest that Ajlan was located in the area of Bayt Jibrin. Amr had likely become owner of the estate through a caliphal grant, though he possibly could have taken possession of it in the course of his conquest of Palestine and his ownership had been confirmed by the caliphs. He lived on the estate, where he derived agricultural revenue, with his sons Muhammad and Abd Allah.


title: Amr ibn al-As

text: At his estate Amr received news of the Siege of Uthman and the Caliph's subsequent assassination by Amr's Egyptian partisans. The roughly 400–600 Egyptian mutineers had protested Uthman's fiscal centralization policies in Medina and accused him of favoring his relatives over the early Muslim converts. The Caliph persuaded them to withdraw, but after they intercepted a letter on their departure ordering Ibn Abi Sarh to punish them, they turned back and assaulted Uthman in his home. In an anecdote cited by al-Baladhuri, Amr is quoted taking partial credit for Uthman's killing. Ali succeeded Uthman, but did not reappoint Amr to his post in Egypt. Amr was one of a number of figures held culpable for Uthman's death by the slain caliph's clan, the Banu Umayya (Umayyads), most prominently by Uthman's uterine brother and Amr's former brother-in-law al-Walid ibn Uqba. Nonetheless, the governor of Syria—which included Palestine—the Umayyad Mu'awiya ibn Abi Sufyan, had left Amr on his estate undisturbed. As pressure from the Umayyads increased against him, Amr distanced himself from any role in Uthman's death and wrote Mu'awiya to execute or banish the participating Egyptian troops who had been apprehended when they passed through Mu'awiya's jurisdiction on their way back to Egypt.


title: Amr ibn al-As

text: After Ali's victory against al-Zubayr, Talha and A'isha at the Battle of the Camel in Iraq, Mu'awiya, who maintained his opposition to Ali, became the focus of the Caliph's attention. Mu'awiya summoned Amr to discuss an alliance against Ali. In the ensuing negotiations, Amr pressed Mu'awiya for lifetime possession of Egypt, to which Mu'awiya ultimately acceded after being persuaded by his brother Utba ibn Abi Sufyan. The public agreement, composed by Amr's "mawlā" Wardan and made in Jerusalem, secured Amr's allegiance to Mu'awiya in return for the latter's assistance in gaining control of Egypt from Ali's governor. According to Madelung, the "alliance between Mu'awiya and Amr b. al-As constituted a formidable political force"; in forging the alliance, Mu'awiya sought to benefit from Amr's political acumen, "practical battle experience and sure judgement of military strategy and tactics", as well as his "expertise" and support base in Egypt. Amr became Mu'awiya's chief adviser. To secure the defense of his Syrian realm from Ali's loyalists in Egypt, Amr counseled Mu'awiya to secure the support of the Judhamite chief in Palestine, Natil ibn Qays, by ignoring his seizure of the district treasury; Natil subsequently joined Mu'awiya's cause. Amr then advised Mu'awiya to lead the Syrian army in person against Ali, who began his march toward Syria in late May 657.


title: Amr ibn al-As

text: When Ali's army set up camp around Siffin, south of the Euphrates town of Raqqa, in early June, Mu'awiya's advance guard led by Abu'l-A'war refused them access to the watering places under their control. After Ali protested, Amr advised Mu'awiya to accept their request as preventing access to water might rally the hitherto demotivated Iraqis to a determined fight against the Syrians. Mu'awiya refused and the Iraqis subsequently defeated the Syrians led by Amr and Abu'l-A'war in a skirmish known as the "Day of the Euphrates". As head of the Syrian cavalry, Amr held the overall field command for Mu'awiya's forces in the ensuing weeks-long Battle of Siffin and on occasion personally participated in direct combat, though without particular distinction. At one point in the battle, he raised a black fabric given to him by Muhammad at the tip of his spear, symbolizing the command role given to him by Muhammad.


title: Amr ibn al-As

text: As the Iraqis gained the battlefield advantage, Amr proposed to Mu'awiya that their men tie leaves from the Qur'an at the tips of their lances in an appeal to Ali's men to settle the conflict peacefully. It served as a successful ruse which ended the fighting as the battle turned in Ali's favor and sowed uncertainty in Ali's ranks. The Caliph heeded the majority will in his army to settle the matter diplomatically; an arbitration was agreed with Amr representing Mu'awiya and Abu Musa al-Ash'ari representing Ali. Amr met with Ali once and the two exchanged insults, but Ali ultimately agreed to Amr's condition that he omit his caliphal title, "amīr al-muʾminīn" (commander of the faithful), from the preliminary arbitration document drafted on 2 August. The omission effectively placed Ali and Mu'awiya on an equal political footing and thereby weakened Ali's leadership position over the Muslim polity.


title: Amr ibn al-As

text: Amr and Abu Musa likely met twice, at Dumat al-Jandal and then Adhruh, to forge an agreement. At Dumat al-Jandal, Amr succeeded in gaining Abu Musa's recognition that Uthman was wrongfully killed, a verdict opposed by Ali and which strengthened Syrian support for Mu'awiya, who had taken up the cause of revenge for the death of his kinsman Uthman. At the last meeting in Adhruh, the office of the caliphate was discussed, but the meeting ended in violence and without agreement; during the brawl, Amr was physically assaulted by a Kufan partisan of Ali, but the latter was fended off by one of Amr's sons. Abu Musa retired to Mecca, while Amr and the Syrians returned to Mu'awiya and recognized him as "amīr al-muʾminīn" before formally pledging allegiance to him in April/May 658. As a result, Amr was among those invoked in a ritual curse issued by Ali during the morning prayers and became the subject of derision among the Kufan core of Ali's supporters.


title: Amr ibn al-As

text: As early as 656/57, Amr and Mu'awiya persuaded Ibn Abi Hudhayfa, who had seized control of Egypt after Uthman's assassination, to meet them in al-Arish, where they took him captive in a ruse. Amr and Mu'awiya did not advance further than this point and Ibn Abi Hudhayfa was executed. Ali's second governor in Egypt, Qays ibn Sa'd al-Ansari, was dismissed in late 657 due to concerns that he would defect to Mu'awiya and his next appointee, Malik al-Ashtar, died in Qulzum (Suez) on his way to the province. Al-Ashtar's replacement was Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr, son of the first caliph and a foster son of Ali. Ibn Abi Bakr burned the homes and arrested the families of pro-Uthman mutineers from the Fustat garrison led by Mu'awiya ibn Hudayj al-Kindi and Maslama ibn Mukhallad al-Ansari. The latter two requested intervention by Mu'awiya, who dispatched Amr to Egypt with a 4,000–6,000-strong army. Despite his thirteen-year absence from Egypt, Amr nonetheless mustered the support of Egypt's original Arab military settlers and their sons. In July/August 658, his forces defeated Ali's troops at the Battle of al-Musannah between Heliopolis (Ain Shams) and Fustat. He subsequently captured Fustat. Ibn Hudayj pursued and captured Ibn Abi Bakr and had him executed over the objections of Amr, who had been lobbied by Ibn Abi Bakr's brother Abd al-Rahman to spare his life.


title: Amr ibn al-As

text: As per his agreement with Mu'awiya, Amr was installed as governor of Egypt for life and ruled as a virtual partner rather than a subordinate of Mu'awiya, who had become caliph after Ali's assassination and his son al-Hasan's abdication in 661. On 22 January of that year, Amr escaped an assassination attempt by the Kharijite Zadawayh or Amr ibn Bakr, who killed Amr's stand-in for the Friday prayers, Kharija ibn Hudhafa, mistaking the latter for Amr. When the Kharijite was apprehended and brought before him, Amr proclaimed "You wanted me, but God wanted Kharija!" and he personally executed him.


title: Amr ibn al-As

text: Amr was permitted by the Caliph to retain personally the surplus revenues of the province after the payment of the troops' stipends and other government expenses. He increased the original garrison at Fustat, numbering some 15,000 soldiers, with the Syrian troops he brought with him. According to the historian Clive Foss "Amr ruled the country successfully, and with considerable independence and privilege, until his death".


title: Amr ibn al-As

text: Amr died of natural causes over the age of 90. Accounts vary regarding the date of his death, though the most credible versions place it in 43 AH (663–664 CE). He was buried at the foot of the Mokattam hills to the east of Fustat. Due to the early Muslims' reticence to mark the graves of their dead, Amr's burial place has not been identified. In a testament to the personal wealth that he accrued, at the time of his death he left seventy sacks of gold dinars. His sons Abd Allah and Muhammad refused inheritance of the sums, which were then confiscated by Mu'awiya. Abd Allah succeeded his father as governor for a few weeks until Mu'awiya replaced him with his own brother Utba.


title: Amr ibn al-As

text: The traditional Egypt-based Arabic and Coptic sources regard Amr positively. The major source of information about the Muslim conquest of Egypt and the province's early Arab military generations, Ibn Abd al-Hakam (d. 871), commends Amr for his leadership of the Egyptian conquest and as the upholder of the interests of Egypt's troops and their families against the central authorities in Medina and later Damascus. The Egyptian Arab tradition holds that Amr was personally praised by Muhammad and was a man of wisdom and piety on his deathbed. The nearly contemporary Coptic historian John of Nikiu (), who was generally critical of Arab rule, said of Amr that he "had no mercy on the Egyptians, and did not observe the covenant they had made with him", but also says of him that: "He exacted the taxes which had been determined upon but he took none of the property of the churches, and he committed no act of spoliation or plunder, and he preserved them throughout all his days." In the words of Kennedy, "Of his [Amr's] competence as a military commander and politician there can be no doubt—the results speak for themselves—but he also has a reputation for straight dealing and justice." Amr's roughly two-year conquest of Egypt was the quickest in the history of the early Muslim conquests. Though demographically Egypt remained largely non-Arab and non-Muslim for centuries after the conquest, the country has been continuously ruled by Muslims until the present day.


title: Amr ibn al-As

text: Amr's estates in Palestine remained in the possession of his descendants as late as the 10th or 11th centuries. His granddaughter Umm Abd Allah bint Abd Allah married the Umayyad viceroy of Egypt Abd al-Aziz ibn Marwan (d. 705) and bore his sons Suhayl and Sahl and daughters Sahla and Umm al-Hakam. The estates in Medina that Amr's descendants inherited from him were confiscated by the Abbasids after they took over the Caliphate from the Umayyads in 750. The estates were restored to Amr's family after the intercession of his great-granddaughter Abida al-Hasna bint Shu'ayb ibn Abd Allah, who married the Abbasid prince al-Husayn ibn Abd Allah ibn Ubayd Allah ibn Abbas (d. 758).


title: Luwian language

text: Luwian (), sometimes known as Luvian or Luish, is an ancient language, or group of languages, within the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family. The ethnonym Luwian comes from "Luwiya" (also spelled "Luwia" or "Luvia") – the name of the region in which the Luwians lived. Luwiya is attested, for example, in the Hittite laws.


title: Luwian language

text: The two varieties of Proto-Luwian or Luwian (in the narrow sense of these names) are known after the scripts in which they were written: Cuneiform Luwian ("CLuwian") and Hieroglyphic Luwian ("HLuwian"). There is no consensus as to whether these were a single language or two closely related languages.


title: Luwian language

text: Several other Anatolian languages – particularly Carian, Lycian, Lydian and Milyan (also known as Lycian B or Lycian II) – are now usually identified as related to Luwian – and as mutually connected more closely than other constituents of the Anatolian branch. This suggests that these languages formed a sub-branch within Anatolian. Some linguists follow Craig Melchert in referring to this broader group as Luwic, whereas others refer to the "Luwian group" (and, in that sense, "Luwian" may mean several distinct languages). Likewise, Proto-Luwian may mean the common ancestor of the whole group, or just the ancestor of Luwian (normally, under tree-naming conventions, were the branch to be called Luwic, its ancestor should be known as Proto-Luwic or Common Luwic; in practice, such names are seldom used). Luwic or Luwian (in the broad sense of the term), is one of three major sub-branches of Anatolian, alongside Hittite and Palaic.


title: Luwian language

text: As Luwian has numerous archaisms, it is regarded as important to the study of Indo-European languages ("IE") in general, the other Anatolian languages, and the Bronze Age Aegean. These archaisms are often regarded as supporting the view that the Proto-Indo-European language ("PIE") had three distinct sets of velar consonants: plain velars, palatovelars, and labiovelars. For Melchert, PIE ' → Luwian "z" (probably ); ' → "k"; and "" → "ku" (probably ). Luwian has also been enlisted for its verb "kalut(t)i(ya)-", which means "make the rounds of" and is probably derived from "*kalutta/i-" "circle". It has been argued that this derives from a proto-Anatolian word for "wheel", which in turn would have derived from the common word for "wheel" found in all other Indo-European families. The wheel was invented in the 5th millennium BC and, if "kaluti" does derive from it, then the Anatolian branch left PIE after its invention (so validating the Kurgan hypothesis as applicable to Anatolian). However, "kaluti" need not imply a wheel and so need not have been derived from a PIE word with that meaning. The IE words for a wheel may well have arisen in those other IE languages after the Anatolian split.


title: Luwian language

text: Luwian was among the languages spoken during the 2nd and 1st millennia BC by groups in central and western Anatolia and northern Syria. The earliest Luwian texts in cuneiform transmission are attested in connection with the Kingdom of Kizzuwatna in southeastern Anatolia, as well as a number of locations in central Anatolia. Beginning in the 14th century BC, Luwian-speakers came to constitute the majority in the Hittite capital Hattusa. It appears that by the time of the collapse of the Hittite Empire "ca". 1180 BC, the Hittite king and royal family were fully bilingual in Luwian. Long after the extinction of the Hittite language, Luwian continued to be spoken in the Neo-Hittite states of Syria, such as Milid and Carchemish, as well as in the central Anatolian kingdom of Tabal that flourished in the 8th century BC.


title: Luwian language

text: A number of scholars in the past attempted to argue for the Luwian homeland in western Anatolia. According to James Mellaart, the earliest Indo-Europeans in northwest Anatolia were the horse-riders who came to this region from the north and founded (Eskişehir Province) in Phrygia c. 3000 BC. They were allegedly ancestors of the Luwians who inhabited Troy II, and spread widely in the Anatolian peninsula. He cited the distribution of a new type of wheel-made pottery, Red Slip Wares, as some of the best evidence for his theory. According to Mellaart, the proto-Luwian migrations to Anatolia came in several distinct waves over many centuries. The recent detailed review of Mellaart's claims suggests that his ethnolinguistic conclusions cannot be substantiated on archaeological grounds.


title: Luwian language

text: Other arguments were advanced for the extensive Luwian presence in western Anatolia in the late second millennium BC. In the Old Hittite version of the Hittite Code, some, if not all, of the Luwian-speaking areas were called "Luwiya". Widmer (2007) has argued that the Mycenaean term "ru-wa-ni-jo", attested in Linear B, refers to the same area. but the stem *"Luwan-" was recently shown to be non-existent. In a corrupt late copy of the Hittite Code the geographical term "Luwiya" is replaced with "Arzawa" a western Anatolian kingdom corresponding roughly with Mira and the Seha River Land. Therefore, several scholars shared the view that Luwian was spoken—to varying degrees—across a large portion of western Anatolia, including Troy ("Wilusa"), the Seha River Land ("Sēḫa" ~ "Sēḫariya", i.e., the Greek Hermos river and Kaikos valley), and the Mira-Kuwaliya kingdom with its core being the Maeander valley. In a number of recent publications, however, the geographic identity between Luwiya and Arzawa was rejected or doubted. In the post-Hittite era, the region of Arzawa came to be known as Lydia (Assyrian "Luddu", Greek Λυδία), where the Lydian language was in use. The name "Lydia" has been derived from the name "Luwiya" (Lydian *"lūda"- < *"luw(i)da"- < "luwiya"-, with regular Lydian sound change "y" > "d"). The Lydian language, however, cannot be regarded as the direct descendant of Luwian and probably does not even belong to the Luwic group (see Anatolian languages). Therefore, none of the arguments in favour of the Luwian linguistic dominance in Western Asia Minor can be regarded as compelling, although the issue continues to be debated.


title: Luwian language

text: Luwian was split into many dialects, which were written in two different writing systems. One of these was the "Cuneiform Luwian" which used the form of Old Babylonian cuneiform that had been adapted for the Hittite language. The other was "Hieroglyphic Luwian", which was written in a unique native hieroglyphic script. The differences between the dialects are minor, but they affect vocabulary, style, and grammar. The different orthographies of the two writing systems may also hide some differences.


title: Luwian language

text: Cuneiform Luwian (or Kizzuwatna Luwian) is the corpus of Luwian texts attested in the tablet archives of Hattusa; it is essentially the same cuneiform writing system used in Hittite. In Laroche's "Catalog of Hittite Texts," the corpus of Hittite cuneiform texts with Luwian insertions runs from CTH 757–773, mostly comprising rituals. Cuneiform Luwian texts are written in several dialects, of which the most easily identifiable are Kizzuwatna Luwian, Ištanuwa Luwian, and Empire Luwian. The last dialect represents the vernacular of Hattusan scribes of the 14th–13th centuries BC and is mainly attested through "Glossenkeil" words in Hittite texts.


title: Luwian language

text: Compared to cuneiform Hittite, logograms (signs with a set symbolic value) are rare. Instead, most writing is done with the syllabic characters, where a single symbol stands for a vowel, or a consonant-vowel pair (either VC or CV). A striking feature is the consistent use of 'full-writing' to indicate long vowels, even at the beginning of words. In this system a long vowel is indicated by writing it twice. For example, "īdi" "he goes" is written "i-i-ti" rather than "i-ti", and "ānda" "in" is written "a-an-ta" rather than "an-ta".


title: Luwian language

text: Hieroglyphic Luwian is the corpus of Luwian texts written in a native script, known as Anatolian hieroglyphs. Once thought to be a variety of the Hittite language, "Hieroglyphic Hittite" was formerly used to refer to the language of the same inscriptions, but this term is now obsolete. The dialect of Luwian hieroglyphic inscriptions appears to be either Empire Luwian or its descendant, Iron Age Luwian.


title: Luwian language

text: The first report of a monumental inscription dates to 1850, when an inhabitant of Nevşehir reported the relief at Fraktin. In 1870, antiquarian travellers in Aleppo found another inscription built into the south wall of the Al-Qaiqan Mosque. In 1884, Polish scholar discovered an inscription near Köylütolu, in western Turkey. The largest known inscription was excavated in 1970 in Yalburt, northwest of Konya. Luwian hieroglyphic texts contain a limited number of lexical borrowings from Hittite, Akkadian, and Northwest Semitic; the lexical borrowings from Greek are limited to proper nouns, although common nouns borrowed in the opposite direction do exist.


title: Luwian language

text: The reconstruction of the Luwian phoneme inventory is based mainly on the written texts and comparisons with the known development of other Indo-European languages. Two series of stops can be identified, transliterated as geminate in the cuneiform script. These fortis and lenis stops may have been distinguished by either voicing or gemination. The contrast was lost initially and finally, suggesting that any voicing only appeared intervocalically.


title: Luwian language

text: The following table provides a minimal consonant inventory, as can be reconstructed from the script. The existence of other consonants, which were not differentiated in writing, is possible.


title: Luwian language

text: There are only three vowels, "a", "i", and "u", which could be short or long. Vowel length is not stable but changes with the stress and word position. For example, "annan" occurs alone as an adverb as "ānnan" ('underneath') but as a preposition, it becomes "annān pātanza" ('under the feet').


title: Luwian language

text: The characters that are transliterated as "-h-" and "-hh-" have often been interpreted as pharyngeal fricatives and . However, they may have instead been uvular and or velar fricatives and . In loans to Ugaritic, these sounds are transcribed with <ḫ> and <ġ>, while in Egyptian they are transcribed with "ḫ" and "g." As both of these languages had pharyngeal consonants, the Luwian sounds are unlikely to have been pharyngeal.


title: Luwian language

text: In transcriptions of Luwian cuneiform, "š" is traditionally distinguished from "s", since they were originally distinct signs for two different sounds, but in Luwian, both signs probably represented the same "s" sound.


title: Luwian language

text: A noteworthy phonological development in Luwian is rhotacism; in some cases, "d", "l", and "n" becomes "r". For example, *"īdi" ('he gets') becomes "īri" and "wala-" '(die') becomes "wara-". Additionally, a "d" in word final position can be dropped, and an "s" may be added between two dental consonants and so "*ad-tuwari" becomes "aztuwari" ('you all eat') ("ds" and "z" are phonetically identical).