Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Mahdi mäˈdē [key] [Arab.,=he who is divinely guided], in Sunni Islam, the restorer of the faith. He will appear at the end of time to restore justice on earth and establish universal Islam. The Mah...

(Encyclopedia) Baha'i bähäˈē, –hīˈ, bə– [key], religion founded by Baha Ullah (born Mirza Huseyn Ali Nuri) and promulgated by his eldest son, Abdul Baha (1844–1921). It is a doctrinal outgrowth of Babis...

(Encyclopedia) Abd al-Hamid II, 1842–1918, Ottoman sultan (1876–1909). His uncle, Abd al-Aziz, was deposed from the throne of the Ottoman Empire (Turkey) in 1876 by the Young Turks, a liberal reformist group. Ab...

(Encyclopedia) Akko āˈkər, äˈ– [key], Fr. Saint-Jean d'Acre, Arab. Acca, city, NW Israel, a port on the Bay of Haifa (an arm of the Mediterranean Sea). Its manufactures include ir...

(Encyclopedia) Köprülü köprülüˈ [key], family of humble Albanian origin, several members of which served as grand vizier (chief executive officer) in the Ottoman Empire. The name is also spelled Kiuprili, Kop...

(Encyclopedia) Karzai, Hamid hämēdˈ kärzīˈ [key], 1957–, Afghan political leader, b. Kandahar. Karzai's father and grandfather, who both served in the government of King Muhammad Zahir Shah, were heads of th...

(Encyclopedia) Selim III, 1761–1808, Ottoman sultan (1789–1807), nephew and successor of Abd al-Hamid I to the throne of the Ottoman Empire (Turkey). He suffered severe defeats in the second of the Russo-Turkish...

(Encyclopedia) Sèvres, Treaty of, 1920, peace treaty concluded after World War I at Sèvres, France, between the Ottoman Empire (Turkey), on the one hand, and the Allies (excluding Russia and the United States) on ...

(Encyclopedia) era, period of historic time. In geology, it is the name applied to large divisions of geological process, e.g., Paleozoic era (see geology). In chronology an era is a period reckoned from a fixed poi...

(Encyclopedia) hajj häj [key], the pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, one of the five basic requirements (arkan or “pillars”) of Islam. Its annual observance corresponds to the major holy day id al-adha, itself...