ArmeniaArmenia, officially the Republic of Armenia, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of West Asia, with geopolitical ties to Europe. It is a part of the Caucasus region and is bordered by Turkey to the west, Georgia to the north and Azerbaijan to the east, and Iran and the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhchivan to the south. Yerevan is the capital, largest city and financial center. Armenia is a unitary, multi-party, democratic nation-state with an ancient cultural heritage.
Ibn BattutaAbu Abdullah Muhammad ibn Battutah (ˌɪbən_bætˈtuːtɑː; 24 February 1304 - 1368/1369), commonly known as Ibn Battuta, was a Maghrebi traveller and scholar. Over a period of thirty years from 1325 to 1354, Ibn Battuta visited most of North Africa, the Middle East, East Africa, Central Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, China, the Iberian Peninsula, and West Africa. Near the end of his life, he dictated an account of his journeys, titled A Gift to Those Who Contemplate the Wonders of Cities and the Marvels of Travelling, but commonly known as The Rihla.
Syrian civil warThe Syrian civil war (al-ḥarb al-ʾahlīyah al-sūrīyah) is an ongoing multi-sided civil war in Syria fought between the Syrian Arab Republic led by Syrian president Bashar al-Assad (supported by domestic and foreign allies) and various domestic and foreign forces that oppose both the Syrian government and each other, in varying combinations. Popular discontent with the Ba'athist government led to eruption of large-scale protests, student demonstrations and pro-democracy rallies across Syria in March 2011 as part of the wider Arab Spring protests.
Safavid IranSafavid Iran or Safavid Persia ('sæfəvɪd,_ˈsɑː-), also referred to as the Safavid Empire, was one of the greatest Iranian empires after the 7th-century Muslim conquest of Persia, which was ruled from 1501 to 1736 by the Safavid dynasty. It is often considered the beginning of modern Iranian history, as well as one of the gunpowder empires. The Safavid Shāh Ismā'īl I established the Twelver denomination of Shīʿa Islam as the official religion of the empire, marking one of the most important turning points in the history of Islam.
DiyarbakırDiyarbakır (diˈjaɾ.bakɯɾ; Տիգրանակերտ, local pronunciation: Dikranagerd; Amed; ܐܡܝܕ) is the largest Kurdish-majority city in Turkey. It is the administrative center of Diyarbakır Province. Situated around a high plateau by the banks of the Tigris river on which stands the historic Diyarbakır Fortress, it is the administrative capital of the Diyarbakır Province of southeastern Turkey. It is the second-largest city in the Southeastern Anatolia Region.
RumiJalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī (جلالالدین محمد رومی), or simply Rumi (30 September 1207 – 17 December 1273), was a 13th-century poet, Hanafi faqih, Islamic scholar, Maturidi theologian and Sufi mystic originally from Greater Khorasan in Greater Iran. Rumi's works were written mostly in Persian, but occasionally he also used Turkish, Arabic and Greek in his verse. His Masnavi (Mathnawi), composed in Konya, is considered one of the greatest poems of the Persian language.
Armenian genocideThe Armenian genocide was the systematic destruction of the Armenian people and identity in the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Spearheaded by the ruling Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), it was implemented primarily through the mass murder of around one million Armenians during death marches to the Syrian Desert and the forced Islamization of others, primarily women and children. Before World War I, Armenians occupied a somewhat protected, but subordinate, place in Ottoman society.
YazidisYazidis or Yezidis (jəˈzi:di:z; ئێزیدی) are a Kurdish-speaking endogamous religious group who are indigenous to Kurdistan, a geographical region in Western Asia that includes parts of Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Iran. The majority of Yazidis remaining in the Middle East today live in Iraq, primarily in the governorates of Nineveh and Duhok. There is a disagreement among scholars and in Yazidi circles on whether the Yazidi people are a distinct ethnoreligious group or a religious sub-group of the Kurds, an Iranic ethnic group.
Ayyubid dynastyThe Ayyubid dynasty (الأيوبيون al-Ayyūbīyūn; ئەیووبیەکان, Eyûbiyan), also known as the Ayyubid Empire, was the founding dynasty of the medieval Sultanate of Egypt established by Saladin in 1171, following his abolition of the Fatimid Caliphate of Egypt. A Sunni Muslim of Kurdish origin, Saladin had originally served Nur ad-Din of Syria, leading Nur ad-Din's army in battle against the Crusaders in Fatimid Egypt, where he was made Vizier.
PersiansThe Persians (ˈpɜrʒənz or ˈpɜrʃənz ) are an Iranian ethnic group who comprise over half of the population of Iran. They share a common cultural system and are native speakers of the Persian language as well as of the languages that are closely related to Persian. The ancient Persians were originally an ancient Iranian people who had migrated to the region of Persis (corresponding to the modern-day Iranian province of Fars) by the 9th century BCE.
