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Please select a historical
period:
25
years ago / 50 years ago / 80
years ago / 125 years ago
/ 150 years ago
250 years ago / 400
years ago / 700 years ago /
1,200 years ago
1,500 years ago / 2,000
years ago / 3,000 years ago
/ 4,000 years ago / 5,000
years ago / 10,000 years ago
125
Years Ago in West Asia
Growing
public unrest in Persia breaks out in revolution in 1907. After
suffering military defeats, the Shah Muhammad Ali abdicates.
A new majlis or parliament is created with the new emperor,
Ahmad Shah, ruling as a constitutional monarch. But the new
monarchy remained weak due to European interference. Britain
and Russia use this time of trouble to divide the country into
two halves, the north dominated by Russia, and the south under
British control. While Persia was officially considered independent,
it had really become a colony of Britain and Russia.
Published under the title Crowning Anguish, the memoirs of Taj
al-Saltana, daughter of the emperor Nasir al-Din Shah, provides
a unique view of the creation of modern Iran out of the ancient
Persian empire. She began life in the pampered seclusion of
the imperial andaroon, or the women's quarters, ("harem"
is the English word usually used to translate this term, but
it literally means "inside"--the men's quarters were
called the biryoon, or the "outside". Except for immediate
family, no males were allowed in the andaroon.) And in spite
of the limited education then available to girls, Taj provides
a very vivid, well written chronicle of a vital 30-year period
between 1884 and 1914. When Taj no longer wore the traditional
veil in public, it caused a major scandal, yet her ideas are
as important as these outward symbols of her status. She symbolizes
the generation of women who leapt from the sheltered world of
the andaroon into the exposed and sometimes dangerous, yet emotionally
and intellectually freer, world of a new Iran. Taj's writings
qualify her not only as a feminist by her society's standards
but also in comparison with feminists of her generation in Europe
and America--this in a region of the world usually, and unfairly,
not given much credit for women's rights. Beyond her fascination
for the material glamours of the West at the turn of the twentieth
century--fashion, architecture, furniture, the motorcar--she
was also influenced by Western culture's painting, music, history,
literature and language. And yet throughout this time she kept
her bond with her own literary and cultural heritage and what
she calls her "Persianness."
The Ottoman Empire also saw a revolution in 1908, led by what
are called the Young Turks. This was a group of young, nationalistic
army officers seeking to save the empire from European exploitation.
The Young Turks (and the term has remained in use to describe
any ambitious, radical movement of young people) wanted the
empire to be industrialized and modernized on the European model--to
be the Japan of the West. Britain, France and Russia wanted
Turkey to be another China, a weak empire that could be economically
dominated. While, the Young Turks gained a dominant position
in the imperial government, however, the Ottoman Empire lost
more territory in the Balkans. Italy occupied Libya in 1911,
the last Turkish province in North Africa (Egypt had been lost
to Britain, while Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia had been taken
by France).
Kahlil Gibran, poet, philosopher, and artist, was born in Lebanon
in 1883. The millions of Arabic-speaking people familiar with
his writings in that language consider him the genius of his
age. But he was a man who crossed cultural frontiers. He moved
to the United States and lived in New York for the last 20 years
of his life, and his last books are written in English. His
Arabic works have been translated into more than twenty languages.
The Prophet is Gibran's most famous book of poetry. His drawings
and paintings have been exhibited in the great capitals of the
world. The great French sculptor, Auguste Rodin compared them
to the work of William Blake. Gibran died in 1931.
While the Al Saud family bickered after the death of King Faisal,
a rival clan, the family of Muhammad ibn Rashid took control
of the Saudi capital Riyadh in 1890. The Saudis were forced
to flee to the protection of the Amir of Kuwait. Under Abd al
Aziz (1880- 1969), the Saudis struck back and defeated the Al
Rashid, with Abd al Aziz becoming king in 1902. The fighting
for control of Arabia would become tied up into the so-called
Arab Revolt against Turkish rule in the First World War.
From
The Prophet
Your
children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you
cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them
like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows
are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and
He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and
far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the
bow that is stable.
by
Kahlil Gibran
back to map
25
years ago / 50 years ago / 80
years ago / 125 years ago
/ 150 years ago
250 years ago / 400
years ago / 700 years ago /
1,200 years ago
1,500 years ago / 2,000
years ago / 3,000 years ago
/ 4,000 years ago / 5,000
years ago / 10,000 years ago
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