How could conscription into military service be avoided?

During the Eastern Han, conscription could be avoided if one paid a commutable tax. The Eastern Han court favored the recruitment of a volunteer army. The volunteer army comprised the Southern Army (Nanjun 南軍), while the standing army stationed in and near the capital was the Northern Army (Beijun 北軍). Led by Colonels (Xiaowei 校尉), the Northern Army consisted of five regiments, each composed of several thousand soldiers. When central authority collapsed after 189 AD, wealthy landowners, members of the aristocracy/nobility, and regional military-governors relied upon their retainers to act as their own personal troops (buqu 部曲).


What army was considered to be the volunteer army?


How many regiments were in the Northern Army?


Around how many soldiers were in each regiment of the Northern Army?


Where did the Han dynasty receive their coin type from?

The Han dynasty inherited the ban liang coin type from the Qin. In the beginning of the Han, Emperor Gaozu closed the government mint in favor of private minting of coins. This decision was reversed in 186 BC by his widow Grand Empress Dowager Lü Zhi (d. 180 BC), who abolished private minting. In 182 BC, Lü Zhi issued a bronze coin that was much lighter in weight than previous coins. This caused widespread inflation that was not reduced until 175 BC when Emperor Wen allowed private minters to manufacture coins that were precisely 2.6 g (0.09 oz) in weight.


In what year was the decision reversing the closure of the government mint implemented?


Who released new lighter coinage that caused significant amounts of inflation because of it's weight?


In what year were private manufactures allowed to create coins that were exactly 2.6g in mass?


What coin replaced the ban liangs after only a year of distribution?

In 144 BC Emperor Jing abolished private minting in favor of central-government and commandery-level minting; he also introduced a new coin. Emperor Wu introduced another in 120 BC, but a year later he abandoned the ban liangs entirely in favor of the wuzhu (五銖) coin, weighing 3.2 g (0.11 oz). The wuzhu became China's standard coin until the Tang dynasty (618–907 AD). Its use was interrupted briefly by several new currencies introduced during Wang Mang's regime until it was reinstated in 40 AD by Emperor Guangwu.


Who introduced new coinage in the year of 120 BC?


During what dynasty did the wuzhu stop being the standard coin?


What interrupted the use of the wuzhu coin during the reign of Wang Mang?


Which group made up the bulk of the Han tax base?

The small landowner-cultivators formed the majority of the Han tax base; this revenue was threatened during the latter half of Eastern Han when many peasants fell into debt and were forced to work as farming tenants for wealthy landlords. The Han government enacted reforms in order to keep small landowner-cultivators out of debt and on their own farms. These reforms included reducing taxes, temporary remissions of taxes, granting loans and providing landless peasants temporary lodging and work in agricultural colonies until they could recover from their debts.


Who made reductions in the taxes that landowner-cultivators were forced to pay?


During what period did a large number of peasants incur debt?


What type of housing did the Han government provide to landless indebted peasants?


What did the Han government do to help out smaller landowners?


In which year did Emperor Wu monopolize several industries?

In the early Western Han, a wealthy salt or iron industrialist, whether a semi-autonomous king or wealthy merchant, could boast funds that rivaled the imperial treasury and amass a peasant workforce of over a thousand. This kept many peasants away from their farms and denied the government a significant portion of its land tax revenue. To eliminate the influence of such private entrepreneurs, Emperor Wu nationalized the salt and iron industries in 117 BC and allowed many of the former industrialists to become officials administering the monopolies. By Eastern Han times, the central government monopolies were repealed in favor of production by commandery and county administrations, as well as private businessmen.


Who allowed industrialists to become officials in the newly state sanctioned industries?


During what period did the governmental monopolies become privatized once again?


What did Emperor Wu do to negate the influence of private entrepreneurs?


During what era could a wealthy iron industrialist be able to rival the treasury in funds?


What industry was monopolized by the government in 98 BC?

Liquor was another profitable private industry nationalized by the central government in 98 BC. However, this was repealed in 81 BC and a property tax rate of two coins for every 0.2 L (0.05 gallons) was levied for those who traded it privately. By 110 BC Emperor Wu also interfered with the profitable trade in grain when he eliminated speculation by selling government-stored grain at a lower price than demanded by merchants. Apart from Emperor Ming's creation of a short-lived Office for Price Adjustment and Stabilization, which was abolished in 68 AD, central-government price control regulations were largely absent during the Eastern Han.


In what year did the liquor industry once again become privatized?


What was mostly missing during the Eastern Han?


What did Emperor Wu sell that offended the merchants?


What type of furnace was functional in China in 722 BC?

Evidence suggests that blast furnaces, that convert raw iron ore into pig iron, which can be remelted in a cupola furnace to produce cast iron by means of a cold blast and hot blast, were operational in China by the late Spring and Autumn period (722–481 BC). The bloomery was nonexistent in ancient China; however, the Han-era Chinese produced wrought iron by injecting excess oxygen into a furnace and causing decarburization. Cast iron and pig iron could be converted into wrought iron and steel using a fining process.


What element was used in the production of wrought iron?


What type of iron could pig iron be converted into?


What type of process was used to convert various metals into steel?


What can iron ore be converted into in a blast furnace?


What was an invention that allowed farmers to place their crops into rows?

The Han-era Chinese used bronze and iron to make a range of weapons, culinary tools, carpenters' tools and domestic wares. A significant product of these improved iron-smelting techniques was the manufacture of new agricultural tools. The three-legged iron seed drill, invented by the 2nd century BC, enabled farmers to carefully plant crops in rows instead of casting seeds out by hand. The heavy moldboard iron plow, also invented during the Han dynasty, required only one man to control it, two oxen to pull it. It had three plowshares, a seed box for the drills, a tool which turned down the soil and could sow roughly 45,730 m2 (11.3 acres) of land in a single day.


How many animals were neccessary to pull an iron plow?


How many acres of land could succesfully be sowed with a seed box in a day?


How many persons were necessary to operate an iron plow?


What methodology allowed the production of new agricultural tools?


What helped insure the safety of crops from wind?

To protect crops from wind and drought, the Grain Intendant Zhao Guo (趙過) created the alternating fields system (daitianfa 代田法) during Emperor Wu's reign. This system switched the positions of furrows and ridges between growing seasons. Once experiments with this system yielded successful results, the government officially sponsored it and encouraged peasants to use it. Han farmers also used the pit field system (aotian 凹田) for growing crops, which involved heavily fertilized pits that did not require plows or oxen and could be placed on sloping terrain. In southern and small parts of central Han-era China, paddy fields were chiefly used to grow rice, while farmers along the Huai River used transplantation methods of rice production.


What was the name of the system that for growing crops that did not require plows?


What were paddy fields used for primarily to grow in smaller areas?


What system did the government recommend the usage of?


What was the name of the Grain Intendant?


What building material was used primarily during the Han dynasty?

Timber was the chief building material during the Han dynasty; it was used to build palace halls, multi-story residential towers and halls and single-story houses. Because wood decays rapidly, the only remaining evidence of Han wooden architecture is a collection of scattered ceramic roof tiles. The oldest surviving wooden halls in China date to the Tang dynasty (618–907 AD). Architectural historian Robert L. Thorp points out the scarcity of Han-era archaeological remains, and claims that often unreliable Han-era literary and artistic sources are used by historians for clues about lost Han architecture.


What dynasty can the oldest wooden buildings in China be dated to?


What is considered to be the last year of the Tang dynasty?


What type of object is the only evidence of Han's wooden constructions?


What was the primary component of a palace hall during the Han dynasty?


How many stone pillar-gates survive from the Han era?

Though Han wooden structures decayed, some Han-dynasty ruins made of brick, stone, and rammed earth remain intact. This includes stone pillar-gates, brick tomb chambers, rammed-earth city walls, rammed-earth and brick beacon towers, rammed-earth sections of the Great Wall, rammed-earth platforms where elevated halls once stood, and two rammed-earth castles in Gansu. The ruins of rammed-earth walls that once surrounded the capitals Chang'an and Luoyang still stand, along with their drainage systems of brick arches, ditches, and ceramic water pipes. Monumental stone pillar-gates, twenty-nine of which survive from the Han period, formed entrances of walled enclosures at shrine and tomb sites. These pillars feature artistic imitations of wooden and ceramic building components such as roof tiles, eaves, and balustrades.


What architectural feature contained an imitation of a balustrade?


What building material were tomb chambers constructed with?


What were the walls that encompassed the city of Luoyang comprised of?


What type of system used ceramic water pipes?


What type of scholars have provided proof that mechanical engineering was prominent during the Han period?

Evidence of Han-era mechanical engineering comes largely from the choice observational writings of sometimes disinterested Confucian scholars. Professional artisan-engineers (jiang 匠) did not leave behind detailed records of their work. Han scholars, who often had little or no expertise in mechanical engineering, sometimes provided insufficient information on the various technologies they described. Nevertheless, some Han literary sources provide crucial information. For example, in 15 BC the philosopher Yang Xiong described the invention of the belt drive for a quilling machine, which was of great importance to early textile manufacturing. The inventions of the artisan-engineer Ding Huan (丁緩) are mentioned in the Miscellaneous Notes on the Western Capital. Around 180 AD, Ding created a manually operated rotary fan used for air conditioning within palace buildings. Ding also used gimbals as pivotal supports for one of his incense burners and invented the world's first known zoetrope lamp.


Which philosopher described the invention of a belt drive?


Which engineer was responsible for first inventing the zoetrope lamp?


What can be used as a support structure in incense burners?


What type of invention was used to provide air conditioning for the palace buildings?


During which period was the odometer cart first created?

Modern archaeology has led to the discovery of Han artwork portraying inventions which were otherwise absent in Han literary sources. As observed in Han miniature tomb models, but not in literary sources, the crank handle was used to operate the fans of winnowing machines that separated grain from chaff. The odometer cart, invented during Han, measured journey lengths, using mechanical figures banging drums and gongs to indicate each distance traveled. This invention is depicted in Han artwork by the 2nd century AD, yet detailed written descriptions were not offered until the 3rd century AD. Modern archaeologists have also unearthed specimens of devices used during the Han dynasty, for example a pair of sliding metal calipers used by craftsmen for making minute measurements. These calipers contain inscriptions of the exact day and year they were manufactured. These tools are not mentioned in any Han literary sources.


What item was used to make very small measurements during this era?


What has allowed us to discover long lost inventions of the Han era?


What was used to separate parts of grain?


What was used to power chain pumps to raise water to irrigation ditches?

The waterwheel appeared in Chinese records during the Han. As mentioned by Huan Tan in about 20 AD, they were used to turn gears that lifted iron trip hammers, and were used in pounding, threshing and polishing grain. However, there is no sufficient evidence for the watermill in China until about the 5th century. The Nanyang Commandery Administrator Du Shi (d. 38 AD) created a waterwheel-powered reciprocator that worked the bellows for the smelting of iron. Waterwheels were also used to power chain pumps that lifted water to raised irrigation ditches. The chain pump was first mentioned in China by the philosopher Wang Chong in his 1st-century-AD Balanced Discourse.


What commandery was the creator of the waterwheel-powered reciprocator from?


Who was the author of the essay entitled Balance Discourse?


During what century is it likely that the watermill made an appearance in China?


During what era did the waterwheel first appear in recordings?


Who was responsible for the invention of the seismometer?

The armillary sphere, a three-dimensional representation of the movements in the celestial sphere, was invented in Han China by the 1st century BC. Using a water clock, waterwheel and a series of gears, the Court Astronomer Zhang Heng (78–139 AD) was able to mechanically rotate his metal-ringed armillary sphere. To address the problem of slowed timekeeping in the pressure head of the inflow water clock, Zhang was the first in China to install an additional tank between the reservoir and inflow vessel. Zhang also invented a seismometer (Houfeng didong yi 候风地动仪) in 132 AD to detect the exact cardinal or ordinal direction of earthquakes from hundreds of kilometers away. This employed an inverted pendulum that, when disturbed by ground tremors, would trigger a set of gears that dropped a metal ball from one of eight dragon mouths (representing all eight directions) into a metal toad's mouth.


In what year was the seismometer first invented?


How many dragons were represented in Zhang Heng's invention of the seismometer?


What invention included an inverted pendulum?


What was exchanged from mouth to mouth in the usage of the seismometer?


What type of treatise is the Book on Numbers and Computation considered to be?

Three Han mathematical treatises still exist. These are the Book on Numbers and Computation, the Arithmetical Classic of the Gnomon and the Circular Paths of Heaven and the Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art. Han-era mathematical achievements include solving problems with right-angle triangles, square roots, cube roots, and matrix methods, finding more accurate approximations for pi, providing mathematical proof of the Pythagorean theorem, use of the decimal fraction, Gaussian elimination to solve linear equations, and continued fractions to find the roots of equations.


How many mathematical treatises have still managed to survive to this day?


What achievement of the Han era can be used to help solve linear equations?


During what era was the Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art from?


What can be used to help find the roots of equations?


In what treatise did negative numbers first appear?

One of the Han's greatest mathematical advancements was the world's first use of negative numbers. Negative numbers first appeared in the Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art as black counting rods, where positive numbers were represented by red counting rods. Negative numbers are used in the Bakhshali manuscript of ancient India, but its exact date of compilation is unknown. Negative numbers were also used by the Greek mathematician Diophantus in about 275 AD, but were not widely accepted in Europe until the 16th century AD.


How were negative numbers first described during the Han period?


In what century were negative numbers more commonly accepted in Europe?


What Indian manuscript also contains the useage of negative numbers?


What were positive numbers portayed as in the treatise of the Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art?


In what era was a geocentric view of the universe adopted?

Han-era astronomers adopted a geocentric model of the universe, theorizing that it was shaped like a sphere surrounding the earth in the center. They assumed that the Sun, Moon, and planets were spherical and not disc-shaped. They also thought that the illumination of the Moon and planets was caused by sunlight, that lunar eclipses occurred when the Earth obstructed sunlight falling onto the Moon, and that a solar eclipse occurred when the Moon obstructed sunlight from reaching the Earth. Although others disagreed with his model, Wang Chong accurately described the water cycle of the evaporation of water into clouds.


Who was able to describe the process of evaporation?


What object was assumed to block sunlight during a lunar eclipse?


What did astronomers believe the shape of the Sun to be during this era?


What did astronomers during this area believe to be the center of the universe?


What textile were some of the early Han maps made from?

Evidence found in Chinese literature, and archaeological evidence, show that cartography existed in China before the Han. Some of the earliest Han maps discovered were ink-penned silk maps found amongst the Mawangdui Silk Texts in a 2nd-century-BC tomb. The general Ma Yuan created the world's first known raised-relief map from rice in the 1st century AD. This date could be revised if the tomb of Qin Shi Huang is excavated and the account in the Records of the Grand Historian concerning a model map of the empire is proven to be true.


In what type of building were silken maps found?


Which individual created the very first raised relief map?


What food stable was the first raised relief map created from?


What type of boat design was first invented during the Han era?

The Han-era Chinese sailed in a variety of ships differing from those of previous eras, such as the tower ship. The junk design was developed and realized during Han. Junks featured a square-ended bow and stern, a flat-bottomed hull or carvel-shaped hull with no keel or sternpost, and solid transverse bulkheads in the place of structural ribs found in Western vessels. Moreover, Han ships were the first in the world to be steered using a rudder at the stern, in contrast to the simpler steering oar used for riverine transport, allowing them to sail on the high seas.


In what areas were Han ships able to be sailed in part due to the stern rudder?


What ship design contained a flat-bottomed hull?


What type of transport was the steering oar most likely to be used during?


Who believed that the same forces that controlled the universe also controlled the human body?

Han-era medical physicians believed that the human body was subject to the same forces of nature that governed the greater universe, namely the cosmological cycles of yin and yang and the five phases. Each organ of the body was associated with a particular phase. Illness was viewed as a sign that qi or "vital energy" channels leading to a certain organ had been disrupted. Thus, Han-era physicians prescribed medicine that was believed to counteract this imbalance. For example, since the wood phase was believed to promote the fire phase, medicinal ingredients associated with the wood phase could be used to heal an organ associated with the fire phase. To this end, the physician Zhang Zhongjing (c. 150–c. 219 AD) prescribed regulated diets rich in certain foods that were thought to cure specific illnesses. These are now known to be nutrition disorders caused by the lack of certain vitamins consumed in one's diet. Besides dieting, Han physicians also prescribed moxibustion, acupuncture, and calisthenics as methods of maintaining one's health. When surgery was performed by the physician Hua Tuo (d. 208 AD), he used anesthesia to numb his patients' pain and prescribed a rubbing ointment that allegedly sped the process of healing surgical wounds.


What was used during surgery to relieve patients of their pain?


What profession was the individual Zhang Zhongjing involved in?


How did Zhang Zhongjing attempt to cure various illnesses?


Which two seas have been most central to Greek history?

Greek colonies and communities have been historically established on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea and Black Sea, but the Greek people have always been centered around the Aegean and Ionian seas, where the Greek language has been spoken since the Bronze Age. Until the early 20th century, Greeks were distributed between the Greek peninsula, the western coast of Asia Minor, the Black Sea coast, Cappadocia in central Anatolia, Egypt, the Balkans, Cyprus, and Constantinople. Many of these regions coincided to a large extent with the borders of the Byzantine Empire of the late 11th century and the Eastern Mediterranean areas of ancient Greek colonization. The cultural centers of the Greeks have included Athens, Thessalonica, Alexandria, Smyrna, and Constantinople at various periods.


During which prehistoric age was the Greek language invented?


Which city in modern Turkey was once a major center of Greek culture?


Which area of North Africa has hosted Greek communities in the past?


What eleventh century empire had roughly the same extent as ancient Greece's?


Where are Greek States believed to have been settled ?


Which two bodies of water are believed to be central to the establishment of the Greek society ?


When was the emergence of the Greek spoken dialect believed to have started ?


What other culture did the Greek states share boarders with ?


Where have the centers of culture been located for the Grecian world historically ?


What progression coincided with the the early Greek states that makes it difficult to give credit for the language and differences ?

The evolution of Proto-Greek should be considered within the context of an early Paleo-Balkan sprachbund that makes it difficult to delineate exact boundaries between individual languages. The characteristically Greek representation of word-initial laryngeals by prothetic vowels is shared, for one, by the Armenian language, which also seems to share some other phonological and morphological peculiarities of Greek; this has led some linguists to propose a hypothetical closer relationship between Greek and Armenian, although evidence remains scant.


What is commonly seen in the Greek language that is not a constant ?


What other language has this same trait ?


What other things do the two languages seem to have in common ?


How much evidence of the link between the languages is currently available ?


What group of people came with others who left the geographical and historical region in southeastern Europe, now a mutual region between Greece and Albania ?

Around 1200 BC, the Dorians, another Greek-speaking people, followed from Epirus. Traditionally, historians have believed that the Dorian invasion caused the collapse of the Mycenaean civilization, but it is likely the main attack was made by seafaring raiders (sea peoples) who sailed into the eastern Mediterranean around 1180 BC. The Dorian invasion was followed by a poorly attested period of migrations, appropriately called the Greek Dark Ages, but by 800 BC the landscape of Archaic and Classical Greece was discernible.


When did these groups make the migration ?


What civilization is the group credited with putting an end to ?


Is it believed that they truly are responsible in full for the collapse ?


What areas were being explored by others in by sea faring vessels and when are they believed to have arrived ?


How did the Greeks look upon their forebears ?

The Greeks of classical antiquity idealized their Mycenaean ancestors and the Mycenaean period as a glorious era of heroes, closeness of the gods and material wealth. The Homeric Epics (i.e. Iliad and Odyssey) were especially and generally accepted as part of the Greek past and it was not until the 19th century that scholars began to question Homer's historicity. As part of the Mycenaean heritage that survived, the names of the gods and goddesses of Mycenaean Greece (e.g. Zeus, Poseidon and Hades) became major figures of the Olympian Pantheon of later antiquity.


How did they believe their forebears lived ?


What literary events were believed to be a fact of truth ?


What were the names of some of the figures for the established religion that are based on ancestral ties ?


What event is believed to be the ethnic basis of the Greeks society?

The ethnogenesis of the Greek nation is linked to the development of Pan-Hellenism in the 8th century BC. According to some scholars, the foundational event was the Olympic Games in 776 BC, when the idea of a common Hellenism among the Greek tribes was first translated into a shared cultural experience and Hellenism was primarily a matter of common culture. The works of Homer (i.e. Iliad and Odyssey) and Hesiod (i.e. Theogony) were written in the 8th century BC, becoming the basis of the national religion, ethos, history and mythology. The Oracle of Apollo at Delphi was established in this period.


What national sporting event was held during this time period still goes on in celebration today ?


What was the foundation for spirituality and church ?


What famous spiritual guide and God was a devotional temple made to in the 8th century ?


The time span that is counted as the classical for the Greeks is from eras ?

The classical period of Greek civilization covers a time spanning from the early 5th century BC to the death of Alexander the Great, in 323 BC (some authors prefer to split this period into 'Classical', from the end of the Persian wars to the end of the Peloponnesian War, and 'Fourth Century', up to the death of Alexander). It is so named because it set the standards by which Greek civilization would be judged in later eras. The Classical period is also described as the "Golden Age" of Greek civilization, and its art, philosophy, architecture and literature would be instrumental in the formation and development of Western culture.


What is so well known about this period ?


Are there some discrepancies among scholars for the distinction of the period ?


What shiny other name is this time also called ?


What did the Greeks do that made it possible for the expansion and growth of the opposite of the Eastern Civilization ?


What Macedonian ruler helped to advance Greek beliefs and ways of life ?

In any case, Alexander's toppling of the Achaemenid Empire, after his victories at the battles of the Granicus, Issus and Gaugamela, and his advance as far as modern-day Pakistan and Tajikistan, provided an important outlet for Greek culture, via the creation of colonies and trade routes along the way. While the Alexandrian empire did not survive its creator's death intact, the cultural implications of the spread of Hellenism across much of the Middle East and Asia were to prove long lived as Greek became the lingua franca, a position it retained even in Roman times. Many Greeks settled in Hellenistic cities like Alexandria, Antioch and Seleucia. Two thousand years later, there are still communities in Pakistan and Afghanistan, like the Kalash, who claim to be descended from Greek settlers.


How was this achievement of advancing culture undertaken ?


What types of cities did the expansion of the great ruler inspire ?


Are any relatives of the first people of the Grecian world still around ?


With the secession away from the smaller communities in the Grecian world, what living situation became of great importance ?

This age saw the Greeks move towards larger cities and a reduction in the importance of the city-state. These larger cities were parts of the still larger Kingdoms of the Diadochi. Greeks, however, remained aware of their past, chiefly through the study of the works of Homer and the classical authors. An important factor in maintaining Greek identity was contact with barbarian (non-Greek) peoples, which was deepened in the new cosmopolitan environment of the multi-ethnic Hellenistic kingdoms. This led to a strong desire among Greeks to organize the transmission of the Hellenic paideia to the next generation. Greek science, technology and mathematics are generally considered to have reached their peak during the Hellenistic period.


The kingdoms of Diadochi was comprised of what ?


How did the cites remind themselves of their beginnings ?


What did the Greeks wants to be imparted to their descendants ?


What academia was heightened during this time of Hellenism ?


When did the religions of the past begin to dissipate ?

In the religious sphere, this was a period of profound change. The spiritual revolution that took place, saw a waning of the old Greek religion, whose decline beginning in the 3rd century BC continued with the introduction of new religious movements from the East. The cults of deities like Isis and Mithra were introduced into the Greek world. Greek-speaking communities of the Hellenized East were instrumental in the spread of early Christianity in the 2nd and 3rd centuries, and Christianity's early leaders and writers (notably St Paul) were generally Greek-speaking, though none were from Greece. However, Greece itself had a tendency to cling to paganism and was not one of the influential centers of early Christianity: in fact, some ancient Greek religious practices remained in vogue until the end of the 4th century, with some areas such as the southeastern Peloponnese remaining pagan until well into the 10th century AD.


What religions form of worship came from the Eastern sects ?


What group was significant in the expansion of the Christian faith ?


What language are the Apostle's namely believed to have spoken ?


What alternative name were the Greeks known by ?

Of the new eastern religions introduced into the Greek world, the most successful was Christianity. From the early centuries of the Common Era, the Greeks identified as Romaioi ("Romans"), by that time the name ‘Hellenes’ denoted pagans. While ethnic distinctions still existed in the Roman Empire, they became secondary to religious considerations and the renewed empire used Christianity as a tool to support its cohesion and promoted a robust Roman national identity. Concurrently the secular, urban civilization of late antiquity survived in the Eastern Mediterranean along with Greco-Roman educational system, although it was from Christianity that the culture's essential values were drawn.


What did the label of Hellenes come to stand for during the Common Era of Greece ?


Did the Roman world consider one ethnocentric lineage to be a great concern ?


What imperative value was extolled from the Christian community to the Roman world ?


When did the Byzantine Kingdom come under the impact of the Greeks.

The Eastern Roman Empire – today conventionally named the Byzantine Empire, a name not in use during its own time – became increasingly influenced by Greek culture after the 7th century, when Emperor Heraclius (AD 575 - 641) decided to make Greek the empire's official language. Certainly from then on, but likely earlier, the Roman and Greek cultures were virtually fused into a single Greco-Roman world. Although the Latin West recognized the Eastern Empire's claim to the Roman legacy for several centuries, after Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne, king of the Franks, as the "Roman Emperor" on 25 December 800, an act which eventually led to the formation of the Holy Roman Empire, the Latin West started to favour the Franks and began to refer to the Eastern Roman Empire largely as the Empire of the Greeks (Imperium Graecorum).


Who ruled Rome during this time period ?


What decision did he make that influenced the culture in an attempt to make things more homogeneous ?


What made the Eastern Empire be known as the Imperium Graecorum ?


Who was favored by those who lived in the west and mainly used another form of well know verbal language ?


What caused the resurface of the Grecian monotony in politics ?

A distinct Greek political identity re-emerged in the 11th century in educated circles and became more forceful after the fall of Constantinople to the Crusaders of the Fourth Crusade in 1204, so that when the empire was revived in 1261, it became in many ways a Greek national state. That new notion of nationhood engendered a deep interest in the classical past culminating in the ideas of the Neoplatonist philosopher Gemistus Pletho, who abandoned Christianity. However, it was the combination of Orthodox Christianity with a specifically Greek identity that shaped the Greeks' notion of themselves in the empire's twilight years. The interest in the Classical Greek heritage was complemented by a renewed emphasis on Greek Orthodox identity, which was reinforced in the late Medieval and Ottoman Greeks' links with their fellow Orthodox Christians in the Russian Empire. These were further strengthened following the fall of the Empire of Trebizond in 1461, after which and until the second Russo-Turkish War of 1828-29 hundreds of thousands of Pontic Greeks fled or migrated from the Pontic Alps and Armenian Highlands to southern Russia and the Russian South Caucasus (see also Greeks in Russia, Greeks in Armenia, Greeks in Georgia, and Caucasian Greeks).


When did the nation reestablish itself ?


What was the specialty of great Pietho and what is famous for ?


What was bolstered by the the final downward spiral of the Empire of Trebizond ?


Which factoring war was on gong in 1828 and shares the of a previous scuttle ? ?


When did the emperor Constantine lose rule over in 1453 ?

Following the Fall of Constantinople on 29 May 1453, many Greeks sought better employment and education opportunities by leaving for the West, particularly Italy, Central Europe, Germany and Russia. Greeks are greatly credited for the European cultural revolution, later called, the Renaissance. In Greek-inhabited territory itself, Greeks came to play a leading role in the Ottoman Empire, due in part to the fact that the central hub of the empire, politically, culturally, and socially, was based on Western Thrace and Greek Macedonia, both in Northern Greece, and of course was centred on the mainly Greek-populated, former Byzantine capital, Constantinople. As a direct consequence of this situation, Greek-speakers came to play a hugely important role in the Ottoman trading and diplomatic establishment, as well as in the church. Added to this, in the first half of the Ottoman period men of Greek origin made up a significant proportion of the Ottoman army, navy, and state bureaucracy, having been levied as adolescents (along with especially Albanians and Serbs) into Ottoman service through the devshirme. Many Ottomans of Greek (or Albanian or Serb) origin were therefore to be found within the Ottoman forces which governed the provinces, from Ottoman Egypt, to Ottomans occupied Yemen and Algeria, frequently as provincial governors.


What did the populace do in response to the loss ?


What type of position did Greeks come to hold in the Ottoman Empire ?


Who made up the majority of soldiers in the Ottoman Empire ?


What type of work were must young boys antiquated with in the Ottoman Empire ?


How were the population factions of the Ottoman Empire classified ?

For those that remained under the Ottoman Empire's millet system, religion was the defining characteristic of national groups (milletler), so the exonym "Greeks" (Rumlar from the name Rhomaioi) was applied by the Ottomans to all members of the Orthodox Church, regardless of their language or ethnic origin. The Greek speakers were the only ethnic group to actually call themselves Romioi, (as opposed to being so named by others) and, at least those educated, considered their ethnicity (genos) to be Hellenic. There were, however, many Greeks who escaped the second-class status of Christians inherent in the Ottoman millet system, according to which Muslims were explicitly awarded senior status and preferential treatment. These Greeks either emigrated, particularly to their fellow Greek Orthodox protector, the Russian Empire, or simply converted to Islam, often only very superficially and whilst remaining crypto-Christian. The most notable examples of large-scale conversion to Turkish Islam among those today defined as Greek Muslims - excluding those who had to convert as a matter of course on being recruited through the devshirme - were to be found in Crete (Cretan Turks), Greek Macedonia (for example among the Vallahades of western Macedonia), and among Pontic Greeks in the Pontic Alps and Armenian Highlands. Several Ottoman sultans and princes were also of part Greek origin, with mothers who were either Greek concubines or princesses from Byzantine noble families, one famous example being sultan Selim the Grim, whose mother Gülbahar Hatun was a Pontic Greek.


What did it mean to be classified as a Greek by the millet command ?


What moniker did the Greeks grant themselves for distinction ?


What did the literate segment of Greeks consider to be a part of their ethic lines ?


Were Christian prized among the Ottomans ?


What did the Greeks offer to the Ottoman Empire that was a superb benefit ?

The roots of Greek success in the Ottoman Empire can be traced to the Greek tradition of education and commerce. It was the wealth of the extensive merchant class that provided the material basis for the intellectual revival that was the prominent feature of Greek life in the half century and more leading to the outbreak of the Greek War of Independence in 1821. Not coincidentally, on the eve of 1821, the three most important centres of Greek learning were situated in Chios, Smyrna and Aivali, all three major centres of Greek commerce. Greek success was also favoured by Greek domination of the Christian Orthodox church.


Who held much of the wealth in the Greek society ?


What three cities were imperative for the scholarly and economic exchanges ?


What other area fields were overshadowed by Greek influence ?


When was the Greece that we know today officially formed ?

The relationship between ethnic Greek identity and Greek Orthodox religion continued after the creation of the Modern Greek state in 1830. According to the second article of the first Greek constitution of 1822, a Greek was defined as any Christian resident of the Kingdom of Greece, a clause removed by 1840. A century later, when the Treaty of Lausanne was signed between Greece and Turkey in 1923, the two countries agreed to use religion as the determinant for ethnic identity for the purposes of population exchange, although most of the Greeks displaced (over a million of the total 1.5 million) had already been driven out by the time the agreement was signed.[note 1] The Greek genocide, in particular the harsh removal of Pontian Greeks from the southern shore area of the Black Sea, contemporaneous with and following the failed Greek Asia Minor Campaign, was part of this process of Turkification of the Ottoman Empire and the placement of its economy and trade, then largely in Greek hands under ethnic Turkish control.


Is this identifying factor for official citizens of Greece still in effect today ?


How did the original Constitution identify its society members ?


When was the original Grecian constitution formed ?


What factor was used to expel or include citizens in the Lausanne Treaty ?


What do Westerners believe it means to belong to the Greek heritage ?

The terms used to define Greekness have varied throughout history but were never limited or completely identified with membership to a Greek state. By Western standards, the term Greeks has traditionally referred to any native speakers of the Greek language, whether Mycenaean, Byzantine or modern Greek. Byzantine Greeks called themselves Romioi and considered themselves the political heirs of Rome, but at least by the 12th century a growing number of those educated, deemed themselves the heirs of ancient Greece as well, although for most of the Greek speakers, "Hellene" still meant pagan. On the eve of the Fall of Constantinople the Last Emperor urged his soldiers to remember that they were the descendants of Greeks and Romans.


What do the Grecian Romioi descendants of the Constantine rule believe to be true in regards to the status as beneficiaries ?


What other cultures do the Romioi clam to be their birthright ?


What is an alternative word used by Greeks to mean those who worship and alternative religion to the mainstreams ?


From what era is the Rigas Feraios believed to be a part of ?

Before the establishment of the Modern Greek state, the link between ancient and modern Greeks was emphasized by the scholars of Greek Enlightenment especially by Rigas Feraios. In his "Political Constitution", he addresses to the nation as "the people descendant of the Greeks". The modern Greek state was created in 1829, when the Greeks liberated a part of their historic homelands, Peloponnese, from the Ottoman Empire. The large Greek diaspora and merchant class were instrumental in transmitting the ideas of western romantic nationalism and philhellenism, which together with the conception of Hellenism, formulated during the last centuries of the Byzantine Empire, formed the basis of the Diafotismos and the current conception of Hellenism.


When was the Greek state of modern times birthed into exsistence ?


What did Greeks do that caused the formation of the new state ?


What foundation was laid that is the demographics of Modern Greek Enlightenment Era ?


What area is given to be the nesting point of a small group of pagans by a infamous philosopher from Greek ?

Homer refers to the "Hellenes" (/ˈhɛliːnz/) as a relatively small tribe settled in Thessalic Phthia, with its warriors under the command of Achilleus. The Parian Chronicle says that Phthia was the homeland of the Hellenes and that this name was given to those previously called Greeks (Γραικοί). In Greek mythology, Hellen, the patriarch of Hellenes, was son of Pyrrha and Deucalion, who ruled around Phthia, the only survivors after the great deluge. It seems that the myth was invented when the Greek tribes started to separate from each other in certain areas of Greece and it indicates their common origin. Aristotle names ancient Hellas as an area in Epirus between Dodona and the Achelous river, the location of the great deluge of Deucalion, a land occupied by the Selloi and the "Greeks" who later came to be known as "Hellenes". Selloi were the priests of Dodonian Zeus and the word probably means "sacrificers" (compare Gothic saljan, "present, sacrifice"). There is currently no satisfactory etymology of the name Hellenes. Some scholars assert that the name Selloi changed to Sellanes and then to Hellanes-Hellenes. However this etymology connects the name Hellenes with the Dorians who occupied Epirus and the relation with the name Greeks given by the Romans becomes uncertain. The name Hellenes seems to be older and it was probably used by the Greeks with the establishment of the Great Amphictyonic League. This was an ancient association of Greek tribes with twelve founders which was organized to protect the great temples of Apollo in Delphi (Phocis) and of Demeter near Thermopylae (Locris). According to the legend it was founded after the Trojan War by the eponymous Amphictyon, brother of Hellen.


From what mystical lineage does this name benefactor ascend from ?


Is the name more ancient than other group names in the area ?


How many orginal founding patrons are there of the Great Amphictyonic League ?


what does the author of the mortal female focused early example hexameter poetry say of the Hellenic protector ?

In the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women, Graecus is presented as the son of Zeus and Pandora II, sister of Hellen the patriarch of Hellenes. Hellen was the son of Deucalion who ruled around Phthia in central Greece. The Parian Chronicle mentions that when Deucalion became king of Phthia, the previously called Graikoi were named Hellenes. Aristotle notes that the Hellenes were related with Grai/Greeks (Meteorologica I.xiv) a native name of a Dorian tribe in Epirus which was used by the Illyrians. He also claims that the great deluge must have occurred in the region around Dodona, where the Selloi dwelt. However, according to the Greek tradition it is more possible that the homeland of the Greeks was originally in central Greece. A modern theory derives the name Greek (Latin Graeci) from Graikos, "inhabitant of Graia/Graea," a town on the coast of Boeotia. Greek colonists from Graia helped to found Cumae (900 BC) in Italy, where they were called Graeces. When the Romans encountered them they used this name for the colonists and then for all Greeks (Graeci.) The word γραῖα graia "old woman" comes from the PIE root *ǵerh2-/*ǵreh2-, "to grow old" via Proto-Greek *gera-/grau-iu; the same root later gave γέρας geras (/keras/), "gift of honour" in Mycenean Greek. The Germanic languages borrowed the word Greeks with an initial "k" sound which probably was their initial sound closest to the Latin "g" at the time (Goth. Kreks). The area out of ancient Attica including Boeotia was called Graïke and is connected with the older deluge of Ogyges, the mythological ruler of Boeotia. The region was originally occupied by the Minyans who were autochthonous or Proto-Greek speaking people. In ancient Greek the name Ogygios came to mean "from earliest days".


What caused a name change according to the Chronicles of Parian ?


What is the origins of the term "old woman " ?


Where do modern theorist believe the name of Greek originated from ?


What interchangeable terms did Homer use in his poems for Greeks ?

Homer uses the terms Achaeans and Danaans (Δαναοί) as a generic term for Greeks in Iliad, and they were probably a part of the Mycenean civilization. The names Achaioi and Danaoi seem to be pre-Dorian belonging to the people who were overthrown. They were forced to the region that later bore the name Achaea after the Dorian invasion. In the 5th century BC, they were redefined as contemporary speakers of Aeolic Greek which was spoken mainly in Thessaly, Boeotia and Lesbos. There are many controversial theories on the origin of the Achaeans. According to one view, the Achaeans were one of the fair-headed tribes of upper Europe, who pressed down over the Alps during the early Iron age (1300 BC) to southern Europe. Another theory suggests that the Peloponnesian Dorians were the Achaeans. These theories are rejected by other scholars who, based on linguistic criteria, suggest that the Achaeans were mainland pre-Dorian Greeks. There is also the theory that there was an Achaean ethnos that migrated from Asia minor to lower Thessaly prior to 2000 BC. Some Hittite texts mention a nation lying to the west called Ahhiyava or Ahhiya. Egyptian documents refer to Ekwesh, one of the groups of sea peoples who attached Egypt during the reign of Merneptah (1213-1203 BCE), who may have been Achaeans.


What is believed to be the derivative of these names ?


What was redefined in the 5th century about the people of these names?


Where was this origin of this redefinition ?


In Homer's poems who were the Greeks at odds with ?

In Homer's Iliad, the names Danaans (or Danaoi: Δαναοί) and Argives (Argives: Αργείοι) are used to designate the Greek forces opposed to the Trojans. The myth of Danaus, whose origin is Egypt, is a foundation legend of Argos. His daughters Danaides, were forced in Tartarus to carry a jug to fill a bathtub without a bottom. This myth is connected with a task that can never be fulfilled (Sisyphos) and the name can be derived from the PIE root *danu: "river". There is not any satisfactory theory on their origin. Some scholars connect Danaans with the Denyen, one of the groups of the sea peoples who attacked Egypt during the reign of Ramesses III (1187-1156 BCE). The same inscription mentions the Weshesh who might have been the Achaeans. The Denyen seem to have been inhabitants of the city Adana in Cilicia. Pottery similar to that of Mycenae itself has been found in Tarsus of Cilicia and it seems that some refugees from the Aegean went there after the collapse of the Mycenean civilization. These Cilicians seem to have been called Dananiyim, the same word as Danaoi who attacked Egypt in 1191 BC along with the Quaouash (or Weshesh) who may be Achaeans. They were also called Danuna according to a Hittite inscription and the same name is mentioned in the Amarna letters. Julius Pokorny reconstructs the name from the PIE root da:-: "flow, river", da:-nu: "any moving liquid, drops", da: navo "people living by the river, Skyth. nomadic people (in Rigveda water-demons, fem.Da:nu primordial goddess), in Greek Danaoi, Egypt. Danuna". It is also possible that the name Danaans is pre-Greek. A country Danaja with a city Mukana (propaply: Mycenea) is mentioned in inscriptions from Egypt from Amenophis III (1390-1352 BC), Thutmosis III (1437 BC).


From where did the basis of the Argos tales originate ?


What did the female descendants of Argos have to accomplish ?


What country is spoken of in the inscriptions of a country in Northern Africa from 1390-1352 BC ?


What is the easiest connection between the Greeks of old and those of today ?

The most obvious link between modern and ancient Greeks is their language, which has a documented tradition from at least the 14th century BC to the present day, albeit with a break during the Greek Dark Ages (lasting from the 11th to the 8th century BC). Scholars compare its continuity of tradition to Chinese alone. Since its inception, Hellenism was primarily a matter of common culture and the national continuity of the Greek world is a lot more certain than its demographic. Yet, Hellenism also embodied an ancestral dimension through aspects of Athenian literature that developed and influenced ideas of descent based on autochthony. During the later years of the Eastern Roman Empire, areas such as Ionia and Constantinople experienced a Hellenic revival in language, philosophy, and literature and on classical models of thought and scholarship. This revival provided a powerful impetus to the sense of cultural affinity with ancient Greece and its classical heritage. The cultural changes undergone by the Greeks are, despite a surviving common sense of ethnicity, undeniable. At the same time, the Greeks have retained their language and alphabet, certain values and cultural traditions, customs, a sense of religious and cultural difference and exclusion, (the word barbarian was used by 12th-century historian Anna Komnene to describe non-Greek speakers), a sense of Greek identity and common sense of ethnicity despite the global political and social changes of the past two millennia.


How log did the age of darkness last for the Greeks ?


Who else has a history as long standing as those of the Greeks ?


When did most of the Eastward sector of the Roman expanse choose to have a rebirth of Greek traditions and appreciations ?


What aspects of the Greek culture have remained steadfast throughout the years ?


In the Rupublic of Hellenic who is the ethnic majority and what percentage of the populace do they represent ?

Today, Greeks are the majority ethnic group in the Hellenic Republic, where they constitute 93% of the country's population, and the Republic of Cyprus where they make up 78% of the island's population (excluding Turkish settlers in the occupied part of the country). Greek populations have not traditionally exhibited high rates of growth; nonetheless, the population of Greece has shown regular increase since the country's first census in 1828. A large percentage of the population growth since the state's foundation has resulted from annexation of new territories and the influx of 1.5 million Greek refugees after the 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey. About 80% of the population of Greece is urban, with 28% concentrated in the city of Athens


What's the estimated populace of Greeks on the isle of Cyprus ?


Are Greeks in danger of contributing vastly to the problem of population control ?


Is the Greek populace on a whole increasing or decreasing in numbers ?


Where there any significances that contributed to the increase or decrease in population numbers ?


Which colonial enterprise for land was the Greek Isles a part of

Greeks from Cyprus have a similar history of emigration, usually to the English-speaking world because of the island's colonization by the British Empire. Waves of emigration followed the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974, while the population decreased between mid-1974 and 1977 as a result of emigration, war losses, and a temporary decline in fertility. After the ethnic cleansing of a third of the Greek population of the island in 1974, there was also an increase in the number of Greek Cypriots leaving, especially for the Middle East, which contributed to a decrease in population that tapered off in the 1990s. Today more than two-thirds of the Greek population in Cyprus is urban.


Who was living on with the Greeks in Cyprus s 1974 ?


During the early seventies where did most Cyprus Greeks decide to go ?


What other countries boast of a Greek populace ?

There is a sizeable Greek minority of about 105,000 (disputed, sources claim higher) people, in Albania. The Greek minority of Turkey, which numbered upwards of 200,000 people after the 1923 exchange, has now dwindled to a few thousand, after the 1955 Constantinople Pogrom and other state sponsored violence and discrimination. This effectively ended, though not entirely, the three-thousand-year-old presence of Hellenism in Asia Minor. There are smaller Greek minorities in the rest of the Balkan countries, the Levant and the Black Sea states, remnants of the Old Greek Diaspora (pre-19th century).


What acts have caused the population of Greeks to be numbered so few in the country who name is reminiscent of a big American holiday?


How long was there a Greek influence represented in "little" Asia ?


Are there any Greek who still live in the area around the dark sea in any majority of numbers?


How many people that are of Greek ascendancy live elsewhere than Greece ?

The total number of Greeks living outside Greece and Cyprus today is a contentious issue. Where Census figures are available, they show around 3 million Greeks outside Greece and Cyprus. Estimates provided by the SAE - World Council of Hellenes Abroad put the figure at around 7 million worldwide. According to George Prevelakis of Sorbonne University, the number is closer to just below 5 million. Integration, intermarriage, and loss of the Greek language influence the self-identification of the Omogeneia. Important centres of the New Greek Diaspora today are London, New York, Melbourne and Toronto. In 2010, the Hellenic Parliament introduced a law that enables Diaspora Greeks in Greece to vote in the elections of the Greek state. This law was later repealed in early 2014.


Who provided the contradictory population numbers for Greeks abroad ?


How many Greeks do they believe would be an accurate number for census numbers ?


At what university is this issue of accurate consensus for Greeks living elsewhere being debated an


Who has presented the contradictory number to the census groups ?


What helped to advance the Greek way of life beyond its boarders ?

In ancient times, the trading and colonizing activities of the Greek tribes and city states spread the Greek culture, religion and language around the Mediterranean and Black Sea basins, especially in Sicily and southern Italy (also known as Magna Grecia), Spain, the south of France and the Black sea coasts. Under Alexander the Great's empire and successor states, Greek and Hellenizing ruling classes were established in the Middle East, India and in Egypt. The Hellenistic period is characterized by a new wave of Greek colonization that established Greek cities and kingdoms in Asia and Africa. Under the Roman Empire, easier movement of people spread Greeks across the Empire and in the eastern territories, Greek became the lingua franca rather than Latin. The modern-day Griko community of southern Italy, numbering about 60,000, may represent a living remnant of the ancient Greek populations of Italy.


What other close by countries have been greatly influenced by the Greek way of life ?


How were the rulers of social class picked to be representatives in the now traditionally Arabic speaking part of the world and in Northern Africa ?


What period marked the expansion of Greek thinking and expression ?


After freedom was won by the Greeks who was of import to forming the rules ?

During and after the Greek War of Independence, Greeks of the diaspora were important in establishing the fledgling state, raising funds and awareness abroad. Greek merchant families already had contacts in other countries and during the disturbances many set up home around the Mediterranean (notably Marseilles in France, Livorno in Italy, Alexandria in Egypt), Russia (Odessa and Saint Petersburg), and Britain (London and Liverpool) from where they traded, typically in textiles and grain. Businesses frequently comprised the extended family, and with them they brought schools teaching Greek and the Greek Orthodox Church.


What did they do that contributed to the Greek's success of establishment?


Who already had contact over a network of countries ready to offer assistance to the Greeks ?


How were these relationships with the other countries most likely established ?


What is considered the start of the Grecian cultural world ?

Greek culture has evolved over thousands of years, with its beginning in the Mycenaean civilization, continuing through the Classical period, the Roman and Eastern Roman periods and was profoundly affected by Christianity, which it in turn influenced and shaped. Ottoman Greeks had to endure through several centuries of adversity that culminated in genocide in the 20th century but nevertheless included cultural exchanges and enriched both cultures. The Diafotismos is credited with revitalizing Greek culture and giving birth to the synthesis of ancient and medieval elements that characterize it today.


Which devotion of time was heavily influenced by the religious followers of the Son of God ?


In what centennial was the massacre of the Greeks of Ottoman descent ?


Was there anything good that could be found from the divergence into exchange ?


Who was given the merit for the reemergence of the Greek way of life ?


What other dialects share a thread with the Greek language.

Greek demonstrates several linguistic features that are shared with other Balkan languages, such as Albanian, Bulgarian and Eastern Romance languages (see Balkan sprachbund), and has absorbed many foreign words, primarily of Western European and Turkish origin. Because of the movements of Philhellenism and the Diafotismos in the 19th century, which emphasized the modern Greeks' ancient heritage, these foreign influences were excluded from official use via the creation of Katharevousa, a somewhat artificial form of Greek purged of all foreign influence and words, as the official language of the Greek state. In 1976, however, the Hellenic Parliament voted to make the spoken Dimotiki the official language, making Katharevousa obsolete.


What radical political changes occurred during the 19th century ?


What became the official dialect of Greeks and what was it missing ?


What choices in 1976 made a change to the decisions concerning the official dialect ?


What is different about the use of Greek language today as opposed to the language of the past ?

Modern Greek has, in addition to Standard Modern Greek or Dimotiki, a wide variety of dialects of varying levels of mutual intelligibility, including Cypriot, Pontic, Cappadocian, Griko and Tsakonian (the only surviving representative of ancient Doric Greek). Yevanic is the language of the Romaniotes, and survives in small communities in Greece, New York and Israel. In addition to Greek, many Greeks in Greece and the Diaspora are bilingual in other languages or dialects such as English, Arvanitika/Albanian, Aromanian, Macedonian Slavic, Russian and Turkish.


What are some of the local jargon used in Greek speaking?


What language still survives as the representation of the one of the three religious orders of historic Greece ?


What ancient language is still in use today in some of the minuscule societies in the Grecian world ?


Do the people of Greek ascendancy only speak Grecian languages ?


What is the religion of the Greek majority ?

Most Greeks are Christians, belonging to the Greek Orthodox Church. During the first centuries after Jesus Christ, the New Testament was originally written in Koine Greek, which remains the liturgical language of the Greek Orthodox Church, and most of the early Christians and Church Fathers were Greek-speaking. There are small groups of ethnic Greeks adhering to other Christian denominations like Greek Catholics, Greek Evangelicals, Pentecostals, and groups adhering to other religions including Romaniot and Sephardic Jews and Greek Muslims. About 2,000 Greeks are members of Hellenic Polytheistic Reconstructionism congregations.


What denominational variance do they adhere to for the most part ?


What language was the second half of the Bible originally written in ?


This language is the official dialect of worship for the traditional sect for church worshipers of Greece ?


What other varieties of Christianity can be found among the Grecian people ?


What input did the Greeks have on artistry of the world ?

Greek art has a long and varied history. Greeks have contributed to the visual, literary and performing arts. In the West, ancient Greek art was influential in shaping the Roman and later the modern western artistic heritage. Following the Renaissance in Europe, the humanist aesthetic and the high technical standards of Greek art inspired generations of European artists. Well into the 19th century, the classical tradition derived from Greece played an important role in the art of the western world. In the East, Alexander the Great's conquests initiated several centuries of exchange between Greek, Central Asian and Indian cultures, resulting in Greco-Buddhist art, whose influence reached as far as Japan.


What period in Europe was full of an appreciation for earlier cultures ?


What important heritage of art from Greece was celebrated during this time ?


What enacted the transactions of customs and ways of life for the people of the Asian continent and the Grecian people ?


In the Land of the Rising Sun, what influence was of Greek descent ?


Who was one of the old masters from the Greeks ?

Notable modern Greek artists include Renaissance painter Dominikos Theotokopoulos (El Greco), Panagiotis Doxaras, Nikolaos Gyzis, Nikiphoros Lytras, Yannis Tsarouchis, Nikos Engonopoulos, Constantine Andreou, Jannis Kounellis, sculptors such as Leonidas Drosis, Georgios Bonanos, Yannoulis Chalepas and Joannis Avramidis, conductor Dimitri Mitropoulos, soprano Maria Callas, composers such as Mikis Theodorakis, Nikos Skalkottas, Iannis Xenakis, Manos Hatzidakis, Eleni Karaindrou, Yanni and Vangelis, one of the best-selling singers worldwide Nana Mouskouri and poets such as Kostis Palamas, Dionysios Solomos, Angelos Sikelianos and Yannis Ritsos. Alexandrian Constantine P. Cavafy and Nobel laureates Giorgos Seferis and Odysseas Elytis are among the most important poets of the 20th century. Novel is also represented by Alexandros Papadiamantis and Nikos Kazantzakis.


Who sang in a voice that is in the high octave range from the Modern Greek Era ?


Who was one the most well known modern decorative modelers of the Greeks ?


Name one of the poetic authors who was also nominated for the Nobel Peace Award from the Greeks ?


What contribution to the scientific community have the Greeks left the world ?

The Greeks of the Classical era made several notable contributions to science and helped lay the foundations of several western scientific traditions, like philosophy, historiography and mathematics. The scholarly tradition of the Greek academies was maintained during Roman times with several academic institutions in Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria and other centres of Greek learning while Eastern Roman science was essentially a continuation of classical science. Greeks have a long tradition of valuing and investing in paideia (education). Paideia was one of the highest societal values in the Greek and Hellenistic world while the first European institution described as a university was founded in 5th century Constantinople and operated in various incarnations until the city's fall to the Ottomans in 1453. The University of Constantinople was Christian Europe's first secular institution of higher learning since no theological subjects were taught, and considering the original meaning of the world university as a corporation of students, the world’s first university as well.


What school practices were kept by the Roman world after the fall of Greece ?


What has been maintained by the Greeks throughout their extended history ?


What is one the most elevated values among the Grecian society ?


At what location did education begin for the first set of people to be eligible to earn and advanced degree in a particular subject ?


According to recent research who is enrolled in the Universities in Greece in higher number men or women ?

As of 2007, Greece had the eighth highest percentage of tertiary enrollment in the world (with the percentages for female students being higher than for male) while Greeks of the Diaspora are equally active in the field of education. Hundreds of thousands of Greek students attend western universities every year while the faculty lists of leading Western universities contain a striking number of Greek names. Notable modern Greek scientists of modern times include Dimitrios Galanos, Georgios Papanikolaou (inventor of the Pap test), Nicholas Negroponte, Constantin Carathéodory, Manolis Andronikos, Michael Dertouzos, John Argyris, Panagiotis Kondylis, John Iliopoulos (2007 Dirac Prize for his contributions on the physics of the charm quark, a major contribution to the birth of the Standard Model, the modern theory of Elementary Particles), Joseph Sifakis (2007 Turing Award, the "Nobel Prize" of Computer Science), Christos Papadimitriou (2002 Knuth Prize, 2012 Gödel Prize), Mihalis Yannakakis (2005 Knuth Prize) and Dimitri Nanopoulos.


Do those who from Greek descent desire an education from other parts of the world ?


Are university educators from he Greek world working as professors and teachers in other countries ?


Who made significant addition to a charming little quirky scientific deviant that lead to the winning of a prestigious award of recognition and gave birth to a model ?


What are the representations of the Greek reference freedom or death that are held on a cloth symbol of the nation ?

The most widely used symbol is the flag of Greece, which features nine equal horizontal stripes of blue alternating with white representing the nine syllables of the Greek national motto Eleftheria i thanatos (freedom or death), which was the motto of the Greek War of Independence. The blue square in the upper hoist-side corner bears a white cross, which represents Greek Orthodoxy. The Greek flag is widely used by the Greek Cypriots, although Cyprus has officially adopted a neutral flag to ease ethnic tensions with the Turkish Cypriot minority – see flag of Cyprus).


This reference also holds significance as what the the Grecian people ?


Is religion also represented on this cloth symbol of the Greek?


Have the people of Turkey held any feeling towards the cloth symbol of the Greeks ?


Have the people of Greece done anything to make the matter more palatable for the people of Turkey ?


What names are used that are typically from a father and have usually added a suffix or prefix ?

Greek surnames were widely in use by the 9th century supplanting the ancient tradition of using the father’s name, however Greek surnames are most commonly patronymics. Commonly, Greek male surnames end in -s, which is the common ending for Greek masculine proper nouns in the nominative case. Exceptionally, some end in -ou, indicating the genitive case of this proper noun for patronymic reasons. Although surnames in mainland Greece are static today, dynamic and changing patronymic usage survives in middle names where the genitive of father's first name is commonly the middle name (this usage having been passed on to the Russians). In Cyprus, by contrast, surnames follow the ancient tradition of being given according to the father’s name. Finally, in addition to Greek-derived surnames many have Latin, Turkish and Italian origin.


What letter of the alphabet do most of the last names the men of Greecs end with ?


What other beginnings of origination do some of the last names of the Greeks share ?


What does it mean to have the letters OU added to the ending of a males last name ?


What are considered to be the motherland of the Greeks ?

The traditional Greek homelands have been the Greek peninsula and the Aegean Sea, the Southern Italy (Magna Graecia), the Black Sea, the Ionian coasts of Asia Minor and the islands of Cyprus and Sicily. In Plato's Phaidon, Socrates remarks, "we (Greeks) live around a sea like frogs around a pond" when describing to his friends the Greek cities of the Aegean. This image is attested by the map of the Old Greek Diaspora, which corresponded to the Greek world until the creation of the Greek state in 1832. The sea and trade were natural outlets for Greeks since the Greek peninsula is rocky and does not offer good prospects for agriculture.


What statement of note was given by a great philosopher from Greece written by another great philosopher ?


What is the name of the ancient map of the Greek world named ?


When did changes of this ancient map become notable ?


Are there many product available from farm cultivation on the Greek lands ?


What else is this particular captain known for doing ?

Notable Greek seafarers include people such as Pytheas of Marseilles, Scylax of Caryanda who sailed to Iberia and beyond, Nearchus, the 6th century merchant and later monk Cosmas Indicopleustes (Cosmas who sailed to India) and the explorer of the Northwestern passage Juan de Fuca. In later times, the Romioi plied the sea-lanes of the Mediterranean and controlled trade until an embargo imposed by the Roman Emperor on trade with the Caliphate opened the door for the later Italian pre-eminence in trade.


Who was the well known sea vessel captain of the Greeks who sailed to Asia ?


What did Greeks do that caused a later deal to be made with the Italians ?


Who proposed that change was needed in the way business with the Greeks was to be conducted ?


What was brought about by the Ottomans that caused and uplift in the classes of Greek society ?

The Greek shipping tradition recovered during Ottoman rule when a substantial merchant middle class developed, which played an important part in the Greek War of Independence. Today, Greek shipping continues to prosper to the extent that Greece has the largest merchant fleet in the world, while many more ships under Greek ownership fly flags of convenience. The most notable shipping magnate of the 20th century was Aristotle Onassis, others being Yiannis Latsis, George Livanos, and Stavros Niarchos.


Is the seafaring business still of any relevancy to the Greek economy ?


What did the development of these changes lead to for the Greeks under Ottoman rulers ?


What was the last husband of Jacquelyn Kennedy known for ?


What dominant hair color is to believed to be prevalent among Greeks

Another study from 2012 included 150 dental school students from University of Athens, the result showed that light hair colour (blonde/light ash brown) was predominant in 10.7% of the students. 36% had medium hair colour (Light brown/Medium darkest brown). 32% had darkest brown and 21% black (15.3 off black, 6% midnight black). In conclusion the hair colour of young Greeks are mostly brown, ranging from light to dark brown. with significant minorities having black and blonde hair. The same study also showed that the eye colour of the students was 14.6% blue/green, 28% medium (light brown) and 57.4% dark brown.


Which colors lay outside of the nor for those of Greek descent ?


What eye color shows the least presence among those of Greek heritage ?


What eye color is believed to be the norm among Greeks ?


What location did many of the Greek people decide to live in other than Greece after the 19th century ?

The history of the Greek people is closely associated with the history of Greece, Cyprus, Constantinople, Asia Minor and the Black Sea. During the Ottoman rule of Greece, a number of Greek enclaves around the Mediterranean were cut off from the core, notably in Southern Italy, the Caucasus, Syria and Egypt. By the early 20th century, over half of the overall Greek-speaking population was settled in Asia Minor (now Turkey), while later that century a huge wave of migration to the United States, Australia, Canada and elsewhere created the modern Greek diaspora.


During what period of domination were many Greeks unable to interact with it's central location ?


The anthology of the Greek world is intimately joined with what areas of the world ?


What has lead to the current situation of vast dispersion of the Greek people ?


After the 19th century about how much of the Greek population resided in little Asia ?


Which angel is believed to have communicated the Quran to Muhammad?

Muslims believe the Quran was verbally revealed by God to Muhammad through the angel Gabriel (Jibril), gradually over a period of approximately 23 years, beginning on 22 December 609 CE, when Muhammad was 40, and concluding in 632, the year of his death. Muslims regard the Quran as the most important miracle of Muhammad, a proof of his prophethood, and the culmination of a series of divine messages that started with the messages revealed to Adam and ended with Muhammad. The word "Quran" occurs some 70 times in the text of the Quran, although different names and words are also said to be references to the Quran.


On which date did Muhammad begin receiving the Quran?


How many times is the word "Quran" used in the Quran?


Who first recorded Muhammad revelations?

According to the traditional narrative, several companions of Muhammad served as scribes and were responsible for writing down the revelations. Shortly after Muhammad's death, the Quran was compiled by his companions who wrote down and memorized parts of it. These codices had differences that motivated the Caliph Uthman to establish a standard version now known as Uthman's codex, which is generally considered the archetype of the Quran known today. There are, however, variant readings, with mostly minor differences in meaning.


Who first standardized the earliest versions of the Quran?


By what name is the first standardized version of the Quran known?


In which language is the Quran spoken during prayer?

The Quran assumes familiarity with major narratives recounted in the Biblical scriptures. It summarizes some, dwells at length on others and, in some cases, presents alternative accounts and interpretations of events. The Quran describes itself as a book of guidance. It sometimes offers detailed accounts of specific historical events, and it often emphasizes the moral significance of an event over its narrative sequence. The Quran is used along with the hadith to interpret sharia law. During prayers, the Quran is recited only in Arabic.


The Quran is used in the interpretation of which form of law?


What accounts are form the basis of much of the accounts in the Quran?


Which religious text calls itself a book of guidance?


From which Arabic verb might "Quran" be derived?

The word qurʼān appears about 70 times in the Quran itself, assuming various meanings. It is a verbal noun (maṣdar) of the Arabic verb qaraʼa (قرأ), meaning "he read" or "he recited". The Syriac equivalent is (ܩܪܝܢܐ) qeryānā, which refers to "scripture reading" or "lesson". While some Western scholars consider the word to be derived from the Syriac, the majority of Muslim authorities hold the origin of the word is qaraʼa itself. Regardless, it had become an Arabic term by Muhammad's lifetime. An important meaning of the word is the "act of reciting", as reflected in an early Quranic passage: "It is for Us to collect it and to recite it (qurʼānahu)."


What Syriac word might be related to "Quran"?


The words from which the name "Quran" might be described are related to which act?


Which word do most Muslim scholars point to as the origin of the Quran's name?


Which term used in the Quran to indicate itself means "book"?

The term also has closely related synonyms that are employed throughout the Quran. Each synonym possesses its own distinct meaning, but its use may converge with that of qurʼān in certain contexts. Such terms include kitāb (book); āyah (sign); and sūrah (scripture). The latter two terms also denote units of revelation. In the large majority of contexts, usually with a definite article (al-), the word is referred to as the "revelation" (waḥy), that which has been "sent down" (tanzīl) at intervals. Other related words are: dhikr (remembrance), used to refer to the Quran in the sense of a reminder and warning, and ḥikmah (wisdom), sometimes referring to the revelation or part of it.


Which term does the Quran use to refer to itself as "scripture"?


What meaning does the Quran take when it calls itself hikmah?


What name does the Quran use for itself that means "revelation"?


Which term meaning "the mother book" does the Quran apply to itself?

The Quran describes itself as "the discernment" (al-furqān), "the mother book" (umm al-kitāb), "the guide" (huda), "the wisdom" (hikmah), "the remembrance" (dhikr) and "the revelation" (tanzīl; something sent down, signifying the descent of an object from a higher place to lower place). Another term is al-kitāb (The Book), though it is also used in the Arabic language for other scriptures, such as the Torah and the Gospels. The adjective of "Quran" has multiple transliterations including "quranic", "koranic", and "qur'anic", or capitalised as "Qur'anic", "Koranic", and "Quranic". The term mus'haf ('written work') is often used to refer to particular Quranic manuscripts but is also used in the Quran to identify earlier revealed books. Other transliterations of "Quran" include "al-Coran", "Coran", "Kuran", and "al-Qurʼan".


What term is used in the Quran to indicate previous revelations?


What is the Arabic term commonly used to refer to works like the Torah or the Gospels?


In which mountain cave did Mohammad experience his first revelation?

Islamic tradition relates that Muhammad received his first revelation in the Cave of Hira during one of his isolated retreats to the mountains. Thereafter, he received revelations over a period of 23 years. According to hadith and Muslim history, after Muhammad immigrated to Medina and formed an independent Muslim community, he ordered many of his companions to recite the Quran and to learn and teach the laws, which were revealed daily. It is related that some of the Quraysh who were taken prisoners at the battle of Badr regained their freedom after they had taught some of the Muslims the simple writing of the time. Thus a group of Muslims gradually became literate. As it was initially spoken, the Quran was recorded on tablets, bones, and the wide, flat ends of date palm fronds. Most suras were in use amongst early Muslims since they are mentioned in numerous sayings by both Sunni and Shia sources, relating Muhammad's use of the Quran as a call to Islam, the making of prayer and the manner of recitation. However, the Quran did not exist in book form at the time of Muhammad's death in 632. There is agreement among scholars that Muhammad himself did not write down the revelation.


Where did Mohammad move to found a separate Muslim community?


Prisoners from which battle are thought to have helped Muslims learn to write?


Vegetation from which tree served as an early recording medium for the Quran?


When Muhammad dies, what had not yet been compiled as a book?


What is the most common interpretation of the word "ummi" that the Quran applies to Muhammad?

The Quran describes Muhammad as "ummi", which is traditionally interpreted as "illiterate," but the meaning is rather more complex. Medieval commentators such as Al-Tabari maintained that the term induced two meanings: first, the inability to read or write in general; second, the inexperience or ignorance of the previous books or scriptures (but they gave priority to the first meaning). Muhammad's illiteracy was taken as a sign of the genuineness of his prophethood. For example, according to Fakhr al-Din al-Razi, if Muhammad had mastered writing and reading he possibly would have been suspected of having studied the books of the ancestors. Some scholars such as Watt prefer the second meaning of "ummi" - they take it to indicate unfamiliarity with earlier sacred texts.


Because Mohammed was "ummi," what would he not have known about that lent credence to his prophethood?


What term does the Quran use to describe Mohammad's lack of exposure to scripture?


What skills would have made others more suspicious that Mohammad was not getting his revelations in the way he said?


Which caliph decided to preserve the Quran as a single book after some of Muhammad's companions were killed in battle?

Based on earlier transmitted reports, in the year 632, after the demise of Muhammad a number of his companions who knew the Quran by heart were killed in a battle by Musaylimah, the first caliph Abu Bakr (d. 634) decided to collect the book in one volume so that it could be preserved. Zayd ibn Thabit (d. 655) was the person to collect the Quran since "he used to write the Divine Inspiration for Allah's Apostle". Thus, a group of scribes, most importantly Zayd, collected the verses and produced a hand-written manuscript of the complete book. The manuscript according to Zayd remained with Abu Bakr until he died. Zayd's reaction to the task and the difficulties in collecting the Quranic material from parchments, palm-leaf stalks, thin stones and from men who knew it by heart is recorded in earlier narratives. After Abu Bakr, Hafsa bint Umar, Muhammad's widow, was entrusted with the manuscript. In about 650, the third Caliph Uthman ibn Affan (d. 656) began noticing slight differences in pronunciation of the Quran as Islam expanded beyond the Arabian Peninsula into Persia, the Levant, and North Africa. In order to preserve the sanctity of the text, he ordered a committee headed by Zayd to use Abu Bakr's copy and prepare a standard copy of the Quran. Thus, within 20 years of Muhammad's death, the Quran was committed to written form. That text became the model from which copies were made and promulgated throughout the urban centers of the Muslim world, and other versions are believed to have been destroyed. The present form of the Quran text is accepted by Muslim scholars to be the original version compiled by Abu Bakr.


Which scribe led the production of the first written Quran?


Who took possession of the first Quran manuscript after Abu Bakr?


Which caliph ordered the Quran manuscript copied and standardized?


What is the term for recycled parchments used in ancient manuscripts?

In 1972, in a mosque in the city of Sana'a, Yemen, manuscripts were discovered that were later proved to be the most ancient Quranic text known to exist at the time. The Sana'a manuscripts contain palimpsests, a manuscript page from which the text has been washed off to make the parchment reusable again—a practice which was common in ancient times due to scarcity of writing material. However, the faint washed-off underlying text (scriptio inferior) is still barely visible and believed to be "pre-Uthmanic" Quranic content, while the text written on top (scriptio superior) is believed to belong to Uthmanic time. Studies using radiocarbon dating indicate that the parchments are dated to the period before 671 AD with a 99 percent probability.


Before which year were the Sana'a manuscripts produced?


What version of the Quran was the scriptio superior of the Sana'a manuscripts?


In which city was evidence of pre-Uthmanic Quranic writing discovered in 1972?


What script were the Birmingham Quran fragments written in?

In 2015, fragments of a very early Quran, dating back to 1370 years ago, were discovered in the library of the University of Birmingham, England. According to the tests carried out by Oxford University Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, "with a probability of more than 95%, the parchment was from between 568 and 645". The manuscript is written in Hijazi script, an early form of written Arabic. This is possibly the earliest extant exemplar of the Quran, but as the tests allow a range of possible dates, it cannot be said with certainty which of the existing versions is the oldest. Saudi scholar Saud al-Sarhan has expressed doubt over the age of the fragments as they contain dots and chapter separators that are believed to have originated later.


Which modern script descends from the script on the Birmingham Quran fragments?


What feature of the Birmingham Quran fragments' text make some doubt that it is older than other known versions of the Quran?


How many years old were the Quran fragments discovered in Birmingham in 2015?


Which section of the Quran inspires some Muslims to ritually wash themselves before touching their copy?

Respect for the written text of the Quran is an important element of religious faith by many Muslims, and the Quran is treated with reverence. Based on tradition and a literal interpretation of Quran 56:79 ("none shall touch but those who are clean"), some Muslims believe that they must perform a ritual cleansing with water before touching a copy of the Quran, although this view is not universal. Worn-out copies of the Quran are wrapped in a cloth and stored indefinitely in a safe place, buried in a mosque or a Muslim cemetery, or burned and the ashes buried or scattered over water.


What is done with the ashes of burned copies of the Quran?


In what state are copies of the Quran sometime wrapped in cloth and buried?


Which are the safest places to inter an older copy of the Quran?


What term indicates that the contents of the Quran cannot be reproduced in speech?

Inimitability of the Quran (or "I'jaz") is the belief that no human speech can match the Quran in its content and form. The Quran is considered an inimitable miracle by Muslims, effective until the Day of Resurrection—and, thereby, the central proof granted to Muhammad in authentication of his prophetic status. The concept of inimitability originates in the Quran where in five different verses opponents are challenged to produce something like the Quran: "If men and sprites banded together to produce the like of this Quran they would never produce its like not though they backed one another." So the suggestion is that if there are doubts concerning the divine authorship of the Quran, come forward and create something like it. From the ninth century, numerous works appeared which studied the Quran and examined its style and content. Medieval Muslim scholars including al-Jurjani (d. 1078) and al-Baqillani (d. 1013) have written treatises on the subject, discussed its various aspects, and used linguistic approaches to study the Quran. Others argue that the Quran contains noble ideas, has inner meanings, maintained its freshness through the ages and has caused great transformations in individual level and in the history. Some scholars state that the Quran contains scientific information that agrees with modern science. The doctrine of miraculousness of the Quran is further emphasized by Muhammad's illiteracy since the unlettered prophet could not have been suspected of composing the Quran.


Until what day is the Quran believed to be in effect?


In which year did the Medieval Muslim scholar al-Baqillani die?


Which Muslim scholar studied the Quran's inimitability until his death in 1078?


The Quran consists of 114 chapters of varying lengths, each known as a sura. Suras are classified as Meccan or Medinan, depending on whether the verses were revealed before or after the migration of Muhammad to the city of Medina. However, a sura classified as Medinan may contain Meccan verses in it and vice versa. Sura titles are derived from a name or quality discussed in the text, or from the first letters or words of the sura. Suras are arranged roughly in order of decreasing size. The sura arrangement is thus not connected to the sequence of revelation. Each sura except the ninth starts with the Bismillah (بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم), an Arabic phrase meaning "In the name of God". There are, however, still 114 occurrences of the Bismillah in the Quran, due to its presence in Quran 27:30 as the opening of Solomon's letter to the Queen of Sheba.


What two city-related categories divide the Quran's suras?


Which Arabic phrase opens almost all suras?


What determines the order in which suras are placed in the Quran?


What division of the Quran is used for a month-long reading?

In addition to and independent of the division into suras, there are various ways of dividing the Quran into parts of approximately equal length for convenience in reading. The 30 juz' (plural ajzāʼ) can be used to read through the entire Quran in a month. Some of these parts are known by names—which are the first few words by which the juzʼ starts. A juz' is sometimes further divided into two ḥizb (plural aḥzāb), and each hizb subdivided into four rubʻ al-ahzab. The Quran is also divided into seven approximately equal parts, manzil (plural manāzil), for it to be recited in a week.


What is the term for a subdivision of a hizb?


What division is used for a week-long recital of the Quran?


Quranic verses concerning which phenomena are thought by Muslims to authenticate its contents?

The Quranic content is concerned with basic Islamic beliefs including the existence of God and the resurrection. Narratives of the early prophets, ethical and legal subjects, historical events of Muhammad's time, charity and prayer also appear in the Quran. The Quranic verses contain general exhortations regarding right and wrong and historical events are related to outline general moral lessons. Verses pertaining to natural phenomena have been interpreted by Muslims as an indication of the authenticity of the Quranic message.


What types of events are related in the Quran in support of its moral teachings?


Historical narratives from whose time period are unique to the Quran among holy books?


What fraction of the Quran deals with eschatology?

The doctrine of the last day and eschatology (the final fate of the universe) may be reckoned as the second great doctrine of the Quran. It is estimated that approximately one-third of the Quran is eschatological, dealing with the afterlife in the next world and with the day of judgment at the end of time. There is a reference to the afterlife on most pages of the Quran and belief in the afterlife is often referred to in conjunction with belief in God as in the common expression: "Believe in God and the last day". A number of suras such as 44, 56, 75, 78, 81 and 101 are directly related to the afterlife and its preparations. Some suras indicate the closeness of the event and warn people to be prepared for the imminent day. For instance, the first verses of Sura 22, which deal with the mighty earthquake and the situations of people on that day, represent this style of divine address: "O People! Be respectful to your Lord. The earthquake of the Hour is a mighty thing."


What general topic is eschatology about?


Which natural disaster features in Sura 22?


What topic do suras 44, 56, 75, and 101 have in common?


In what form does the Quran say God sends his messages to people?

According to the Quran, God communicated with man and made his will known through signs and revelations. Prophets, or 'Messengers of God', received revelations and delivered them to humanity. The message has been identical and for all humankind. "Nothing is said to you that was not said to the messengers before you, that your lord has at his Command forgiveness as well as a most Grievous Penalty." The revelation does not come directly from God to the prophets. Angels acting as God's messengers deliver the divine revelation to them. This comes out in Quran 42:51, in which it is stated: "It is not for any mortal that God should speak to them, except by revelation, or from behind a veil, or by sending a messenger to reveal by his permission whatsoever He will."


Who intermediates between God and prophets?


Which part of the Quran describes God's use of intermediaries between himself and his prophets?


How does the Quran describe the similarity of messages God has delivered throughout human history?


What mental state is the foundation of morality as described by the Quran?

Belief is a fundamental aspect of morality in the Quran, and scholars have tried to determine the semantic contents of "belief" and "believer" in the Quran. The ethico-legal concepts and exhortations dealing with righteous conduct are linked to a profound awareness of God, thereby emphasizing the importance of faith, accountability, and the belief in each human's ultimate encounter with God. People are invited to perform acts of charity, especially for the needy. Believers who "spend of their wealth by night and by day, in secret and in public" are promised that they "shall have their reward with their Lord; on them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve". It also affirms family life by legislating on matters of marriage, divorce, and inheritance. A number of practices, such as usury and gambling, are prohibited. The Quran is one of the fundamental sources of Islamic law (sharia). Some formal religious practices receive significant attention in the Quran including the formal prayers (salat) and fasting in the month of Ramadan. As for the manner in which the prayer is to be conducted, the Quran refers to prostration. The term for charity, zakat, literally means purification. Charity, according to the Quran, is a means of self-purification.


What finance-related acts are forbidden by the Quran?


What is the name of the formal prayer proscribed by the Quran?


Which month is designated for fasting in the Quran?


The Quran uses a term that also means purification for what social act?


Which astrophysicist has written about the ways the Quran encourages scientific thinking?

The astrophysicist Nidhal Guessoum while being highly critical of pseudo-scientific claims made about the Quran, has highlighted the encouragement for sciences that the Quran provides by developing "the concept of knowledge.". He writes: "The Qur'an draws attention to the danger of conjecturing without evidence (And follow not that of which you have not the (certain) knowledge of... 17:36) and in several different verses asks Muslims to require proofs (Say: Bring your proof if you are truthful 2:111), both in matters of theological belief and in natural science." Guessoum cites Ghaleb Hasan on the definition of "proof" according the Quran being "clear and strong... convincing evidence or argument." Also, such a proof cannot rely on an argument from authority, citing verse 5:104. Lastly, both assertions and rejections require a proof, according to verse 4:174. Ismail al-Faruqi and Taha Jabir Alalwani are of the view that any reawakening of the Muslim civilization must start with the Quran; however, the biggest obstacle on this route is the "centuries old heritage of tafseer (exegesis) and other classical disciplines" which inhibit a "universal, epidemiological and systematic conception" of the Quran's message. The philosopher Muhammad Iqbal, considered the Quran's methodology and epistemology to be empirical and rational.


Verse 2:111 of the Quran supports which aspect of scientific thought and practice?


Whose scholarship on the concept of proof in the Quran does Guessoum cite?


Which philosopher believed the Quran had a rational and empirical basis like science?


Nature and its phenomena are mentioned in approximately how many of the Quran's verses?

It's generally accepted that there are around 750 verses in the Quran dealing with natural phenomenon. In many of these verses the study of nature is "encouraged and highly recommended," and historical Islamic scientists like Al-Biruni and Al-Battani derived their inspiration from verses of the Quran. Mohammad Hashim Kamali has the stated that "scientific observation, experimental knowledge and rationality" are the primary tools with which humanity can achieve the goals laid out for it in the Quran. Ziauddin Sardar built a case for Muslims having developed the foundations of modern science, by highlighting the repeated calls of the Quran to observe and reflect upon natural phenomenon. "The 'scientific method,' as it is understood today, was first developed by Muslim scientists" like Ibn al-Haytham and Al-Biruni, along with numerous other Muslim scientists.


Al-Battani is an example of a Muslim scientist who drew inspiration from which text?


Who recommended science as a way to achieve the goals of the Quran?


Who argued that the Quran inspired the first practitioners of the scientific method we use today?


Al-Biruni is a example of a scientists of which religion?