title: Red Sea

text: "Red Sea" is a direct translation of the Greek "Erythra Thalassa" (). The sea itself was once referred to as the Erythraean Sea by Europeans. As well as "Mare Rubrum" in Latin (alternatively "Sinus Arabicus", literally "Arabian Gulf"), the Romans called it "Pontus Herculis" (Sea of Hercules). Other designations include the (alternatively بحر القلزم "Baḥr Al-Qulzum", literally "the Sea of Clysma"), the Coptic ⲫⲓⲟⲙ ̀ⲛϣⲁⲣⲓ "Phiom ̀nšari", Syriac ܝܡܐ ܣܘܡܩܐ Yammāʾ summāqā, Somali "Badda cas" and Tigrinya "Qeyyiḥ bāḥrī" (ቀይሕ ባሕሪ). The name of the sea may signify the seasonal blooms of the red-coloured "Trichodesmium erythraeum" near the water's surface. A theory favored by some modern scholars is that the name "red" is referring to the direction south, just as the Black Sea's name may refer to north. The basis of this theory is that some Asiatic languages used color words to refer to the cardinal directions. Herodotus on one occasion uses Red Sea and Southern Sea interchangeably.


title: Red Sea

text: The name in "Phiom Enhah" ("Sea of Hah") is connected to Ancient Egyptian root "ḥ-ḥ" which refers to water and sea (for example the names of the Ogdoad gods Heh and Hauhet).


title: Red Sea

text: Historically, it was also known to western geographers as "Mare Mecca" (Sea of Mecca), and "Sinus Arabicus" (Gulf of Arabia). Some ancient geographers called the Red Sea the Arabian Gulf or Gulf of Arabia.


title: Red Sea

text: The association of the Red Sea with the biblical account of the Israelites crossing the Red Sea is ancient, and was made explicit in the Septuagint translation of the Book of Exodus from Hebrew to Koine Greek in approximately the third century B.C. In that version, the "Yam Suph" () is translated as "Erythra Thalassa" (Red Sea).


title: Red Sea

text: The Red Sea is one of four seas named in English after common color terms – the others being the Black Sea, the White Sea and the Yellow Sea. The direct rendition of the Greek "Erythra thalassa" in Latin as Mare Erythraeum refers to the north-western part of the Indian Ocean, and also to a region on Mars.


title: Red Sea

text: The earliest known exploration of the Red Sea was conducted by ancient Egyptians, as they attempted to establish commercial routes to Punt. One such expedition took place around 2500 BC, and another around 1500 BC (by Hatshepsut). Both involved long voyages down the Red Sea. The biblical Book of Exodus tells the account of the Israelites' crossing of a body of water, which the Hebrew text calls "Yam Suph" (). "Yam Suph" was traditionally identified as the Red Sea. Rabbi Saadia Gaon (882‒942), in his Judeo-Arabic translation of the Pentateuch, identifies the crossing place of the Red Sea as "Baḥar al-Qulzum", meaning the Gulf of Suez.


title: Red Sea

text: The Red Sea was favored for Roman trade with India starting with the reign of Augustus, when the Roman Empire gained control over the Mediterranean, Egypt, and the northern Red Sea. The route had been used by previous states but grew in the volume of traffic under the Romans. From Indian ports goods from China were introduced to the Roman world. Contact between Rome and China depended on the Red Sea, but the route was broken by the Aksumite Empire around the 3rd century AD.


title: Red Sea

text: During the Middle Ages, the Red Sea was an important part of the spice trade route. In 1183, Raynald of Châtillon launched a raid down the Red Sea to attack the Muslim pilgrim convoys to Mecca. The possibility that Raynald's fleet might sack the holy cities of Mecca and Medina caused fury throughout the Muslim world. However, it appears that Reynald's target were the lightly armed Muslim pilgrim convoys rather the well guarded cities of Mecca and Medina, and the belief in the Muslim world that Reynald was seeking to sack the holy cities was due to the proximity of those cities to the areas that Raynald raided. In 1513, trying to secure that channel to Portugal, Afonso de Albuquerque laid siege to Aden but was forced to retreat. They cruised the Red Sea inside the Bab al-Mandab, as the first fleet from Europe in modern times to have sailed these waters. Later in 1524 the city was delivered to Governor Heitor da Silveira as an agreement for protection from the Ottomans.


title: Red Sea

text: In 1798, France ordered General Napoleon to invade Egypt and take control of the Red Sea. Although he failed in his mission, the engineer Jean-Baptiste Lepère, who took part in it, revitalised the plan for a canal which had been envisaged during the reign of the Pharaohs. Several canals were built in ancient times from the Nile to the Red Sea along or near the line of the present Sweet Water Canal, but none lasted for long. The Suez Canal was opened in November 1869. After the Second World War, the Americans and Soviets exerted their influence whilst the volume of oil tanker traffic intensified. However, the Six-Day War culminated in the closure of the Suez Canal from 1967 to 1975. Today, in spite of patrols by the major maritime fleets in the waters of the Red Sea, the Suez Canal has never recovered its supremacy over the Cape route, which is believed to be less vulnerable to piracy.


title: Red Sea

text: The Red Sea is between arid land, desert and semi-desert. Reef systems are better developed along the Red Sea mainly because of its greater depths and an efficient water circulation pattern. The Red Sea water mass-exchanges its water with the Arabian Sea, Indian Ocean via the Gulf of Aden. These physical factors reduce the effect of high salinity caused by evaporation in the north and relatively hot water in the south.


title: Red Sea

text: The climate of the Red Sea is the result of two monsoon seasons; a northeasterly monsoon and a southwesterly monsoon. Monsoon winds occur because of differential heating between the land and the sea. Very high surface temperatures and high salinities make this one of the warmest and saltiest bodies of seawater in the world. The average surface water temperature of the Red Sea during the summer is about in the north and in the south, with only about 2 °C (3.6 °F) variation during the winter months. The overall average water temperature is . Temperature and visibility remain good to around 200 m (656 ft). The sea is known for its strong winds and unpredictable local currents.


title: Red Sea

text: The rainfall over the Red Sea and its coasts is extremely low, averaging per year. The rain is mostly short showers, often with thunderstorms and occasionally with dust storms. The scarcity of rainfall and no major source of fresh water to the Red Sea result in excess evaporation as high as per year and high salinity with minimal seasonal variation. A recent underwater expedition to the Red Sea offshore from Sudan and Eritrea found surface water temperatures in winter and up to in the summer, but despite that extreme heat, the coral was healthy with much fish life with very little sign of coral bleaching, with only 9% infected by "Thalassomonas loyana", the 'white plague' agent. "Favia favus" coral there harbours a virus, BA3, which kills "T. loyana".


title: Red Sea

text: Scientists are investigating the unique properties of these coral and their commensal algae to see if they can be used to salvage bleached coral elsewhere.


title: Red Sea

text: The Red Sea is one of the saltiest bodies of water in the world, owing to high evaporation and low precipitation; no significant rivers or streams drain into the sea, and its southern connection to the Gulf of Aden, an arm of the Indian Ocean, is narrow. Its salinity ranges from between ~36 ‰ in the southern part and 41 ‰ in the northern part around the Gulf of Suez, with an average of 40 ‰. (Average salinity for the world's seawater is ~35 ‰ on the Practical Salinity Scale, or PSU; that translates to 3.5% of actual dissolved salts).


title: Red Sea

text: In general, tide ranges between in the north, near the mouth of the Gulf of Suez and in the south near the Gulf of Aden, but it fluctuates between and away from the nodal point. The central Red Sea (Jeddah area) is therefore almost tideless, and as such the annual water level changes are more significant. Because of the small tidal range the water during high tide inundates the coastal sabkhas as a thin sheet of water up to a few hundred metres rather than flooding the sabkhas through a network of channels. However, south of Jeddah in the Shoiaba area, the water from the lagoon may cover the adjoining sabkhas as far as , whereas north of Jeddah in the Al-Kharrar area the sabkhas are covered by a thin sheet of water as far as . The prevailing north and northeast winds influence the movement of water in the coastal inlets to the adjacent sabkhas, especially during storms. Winter mean sea level is higher than in summer. Tidal velocities passing through constrictions caused by reefs, sand bars and low islands commonly exceed 1–2 m/s (3–6.5 ft/s). Coral reefs in the Red Sea are near Egypt, Eritrea, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan.


title: Red Sea

text: Detailed information regarding current data is lacking, partially because the currents are weak and both spatially and temporally variable. The variation of temporal and spatial currents is as low as and are governed all by wind. During the summer, NW winds drive surface water south for about four months at a velocity of 15–20 cm/s (6–8 in/s), whereas in winter the flow is reversed resulting in the inflow of water from the Gulf of Aden into the Red Sea. The net value of the latter predominates, resulting in an overall drift to the north end of the Red Sea. Generally, the velocity of the tidal current is between 50 and 60 cm/s (20–23.6 in/s) with a maximum of at the mouth of the al-Kharrar Lagoon. However, the range of the north-northeast current along the Saudi coast is 8–29 cm/s (3–11.4 in/s).


title: Red Sea

text: The north part of the Red Sea is dominated by persistent north-west winds, with speeds ranging between and . The rest of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden are subjected to regular and seasonally reversible winds. The wind regime is characterized by seasonal and regional variations in speed and direction with average speed generally increasing northward.


title: Red Sea

text: Wind is the driving force in the Red Sea to transport material as suspension or as bedload. Wind-induced currents play an important role in the Red Sea in resuspending bottom sediments and transferring materials from sites of dumping to sites of burial in quiescent environment of deposition. Wind-generated current measurement is therefore important in order to determine the sediment dispersal pattern and its role in the erosion and accretion of the coastal rock exposure and the submerged coral beds.


title: Red Sea

text: The Red Sea was formed by the Arabian peninsula being split from the Horn of Africa by movement of the Red Sea Rift. This split started in the Eocene and accelerated during the Oligocene. The sea is still widening (in 2005, following a three-week period of tectonic activity it had grown by 8m), and it is considered that it will become an ocean in time (as proposed in the model of John Tuzo Wilson). In 1949, a deep water survey reported anomalously hot brines in the central portion of the Red Sea. Later work in the 1960s confirmed the presence of hot, 60 °C (140 °F), saline brines and associated metalliferous muds. The hot solutions were emanating from an active subseafloor rift. Lake Asal in Djibouti is eligible as an experimental site to study the evolution of the deep hot brines of the Red Sea. By observing the strontium isotope composition of the Red Sea brines, it is possible to deduce how these salt waters found at the bottom of the Red Sea could have evolved in a similar way to Lake Asal, which ideally represents their compositional extreme. The high salinity of the waters was not hospitable to living organisms.


title: Red Sea

text: Sometime during the Tertiary period, the Bab el Mandeb closed and the Red Sea evaporated to an empty hot dry salt-floored sink. Effects causing this would have been:


title: Red Sea

text: A number of volcanic islands rise from the center of the sea. Most are dormant. However, in 2007, Jabal al-Tair island in the Bab el Mandeb strait erupted violently. Two new islands were formed in 2011 and 2013 in the Zubair Archipelago, a small chain of islands owned by Yemen. The first island, Sholan Island, emerged in an eruption in December 2011, the second island, Jadid, emerged in September 2013.


title: Red Sea

text: The Durwara 2 Field was discovered in 1963, while the Suakin 1 Field and the Bashayer 1A Field were discovered in 1976, on the Egyptian side of the Red Sea. The Barqan Field was discovered in 1969, and the Midyan Field in 1992, both within the Midyan Basin on the Saudi Arabian side of the Red Sea. The 20-m thick Middle Miocene Maqna Formation is an oil source rock in the basin. Oil seeps occur near the Farasan Islands, the Dahlak Archipelago, along the coast of Eritrea, and in the southeastern Red Sea along the coasts of Saudi Arabia and Yemen.


title: Red Sea

text: The Red Sea is a rich and diverse ecosystem. More than 1200 species of fish have been recorded in the Red Sea, and around 10% of these are found nowhere else. This also includes 42 species of deepwater fish.


title: Red Sea

text: The rich diversity is in part due to the of coral reef extending along its coastline; these fringing reefs are 5000–7000 years old and are largely formed of stony acropora and porites corals. The reefs form platforms and sometimes lagoons along the coast and occasional other features such as cylinders (such as the Blue Hole (Red Sea) at Dahab). These coastal reefs are also visited by pelagic species of Red Sea fish, including some of the 44 species of shark.


title: Red Sea

text: The Red Sea also contains many offshore reefs including several true atolls. Many of the unusual offshore reef formations defy classic (i.e., Darwinian) coral reef classification schemes, and are generally attributed to the high levels of tectonic activity that characterize the area.


title: Red Sea

text: The special biodiversity of the area is recognized by the Egyptian government, who set up the Ras Mohammed National Park in 1983. The rules and regulations governing this area protect local marine life, which has become a major draw for diving enthusiasts.


title: Red Sea

text: Divers and snorkellers should be aware that although most Red Sea species are innocuous, a few are hazardous to humans.


title: Red Sea

text: There is extensive demand for desalinated water to meet the needs of the population and the industries along the Red Sea.


title: Red Sea

text: There are at least 18 desalination plants along the Red Sea coast of Saudi Arabia which discharge warm brine and treatment chemicals (chlorine and anti-scalants) that bleach and kill corals and cause diseases in the fish. This is only localized, but it may intensify with time and profoundly impact the fishing industry.


title: Red Sea

text: The Red Sea serves an important role in the global economy, with cargo vessels travelling between the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea every year, thus shortening the path between Asia and Europe almost twice (as compared to travelling around Africa via the Atlantic Ocean).


title: Red Sea

text: The sea is known for its recreational diving sites, such as Ras Mohammed, SS Thistlegorm (shipwreck), Elphinstone Reef, The Brothers, Daedalus Reef, St.John's Reef, Rocky Island in Egypt and less known sites in Sudan such as Sanganeb, Abington, Angarosh and Shaab Rumi.


title: Red Sea

text: The Red Sea became a popular destination for diving after the expeditions of Hans Hass in the 1950s, and later by Jacques-Yves Cousteau. Popular tourist resorts include El Gouna, Hurghada, Safaga, Marsa Alam, on the west shore of the Red Sea, and Sharm-el-Sheikh, Dahab, and Taba on the Egyptian side of Sinaï, as well as Aqaba in Jordan and Eilat in Israel in an area known as the Red Sea Riviera.


title: Red Sea

text: The popular tourist beach of Sharm el-Sheikh was closed to all swimming in December 2010 due to several serious shark attacks, including a fatality. As of December 2010, scientists are investigating the attacks and have identified, but not verified, several possible causes including over-fishing which causes large sharks to hunt closer to shore, tourist boat operators who chum offshore for shark-photo opportunities, and reports of ships throwing dead livestock overboard. The sea's narrowness, significant depth, and sharp drop-offs, all combine to form a geography where large deep-water sharks can roam in hundreds of meters of water, yet be within a hundred meters of swimming areas. The Red Sea Project is building highest quality accommodation and a wide range of facilities on the coast line in Saudi Arabia. This will allow people to visit the coastline of the Red Sea by the end of 2022 but will be fully finished by 2030.


title: Red Sea

text: Tourism to the region has been threatened by occasional terrorist attacks, and by incidents related to food safety standards.


title: Red Sea

text: The Red Sea is part of the sea roads between Europe, the Persian Gulf and East Asia, and as such has heavy shipping traffic. Government-related bodies with responsibility to police the Red Sea area include the Port Said Port Authority, Suez Canal Authority and Red Sea Ports Authority of Egypt, Jordan Maritime Authority, Israel Port Authority, Saudi Ports Authority and Sea Ports Corporation of Sudan.


title: Red Sea

text: The Red Sea may be geographically divided into three sections: the Red Sea proper, and in the north, the Gulf of Aqaba and the Gulf of Suez. The six countries bordering the Red Sea proper are:


title: Red Sea

text: The Gulf of Suez is entirely bordered by Egypt. The Gulf of Aqaba borders Egypt, Israel, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.


title: Red Sea

text: In addition to the standard geographical definition of the six countries bordering the Red Sea cited above, areas such as Somaliland are sometimes also described as Red Sea territories. This is primarily due to their proximity to and geological similarities with the nations facing the Red Sea and/or political ties with said areas.


title: Prophets and messengers in Islam

text: Prophets in Islam () are individuals in Islam who are believed to spread God's message on Earth and to serve as models of ideal human behaviour. Some prophets are categorized as messengers (, sing. , ), those who transmit divine revelation, most of them through the interaction of an angel. Muslims believe that many prophets existed, including many not mentioned in the Quran. The Quran states: "And for every community there is a messenger." Belief in the Islamic prophets is one of the six articles of the Islamic faith.


title: Prophets and messengers in Islam

text: Muslims believe that the first prophet was also the first human being, Adam, created by God. Many of the revelations delivered by the 48 prophets in Judaism and many prophets of Christianity are mentioned as such in the Quran but usually with Arabic versions of their names; for example, the Jewish Elisha is called Alyasa', Job is Ayyub, Jesus is 'Isa, etc. The Torah given to Moses (Musa) is called "Tawrat", the Psalms given to David (Dawud) is the "Zabur", the Gospel given to Jesus is "Injil".


title: Prophets and messengers in Islam

text: The last prophet in Islam is Muhammad ibn ʿAbdullāh, whom Muslims believe to be the "Seal of the Prophets" ("Khatam an-Nabiyyin"), to whom the Quran was revealed in a series of revelations (and written down by his companions). Muslims believe the Quran is the sole divine and literal word of God, thus immutable and protected from distortion and corruption, destined to remain in its true form until the Last Day.


title: Prophets and messengers in Islam

text: In Islam, every prophet preached the same core beliefs, the Oneness of God, worshipping of that one God, avoidance of idolatry and sin, and the belief in the Day of Resurrection or the Day of Judgement and life after death. Prophets and messengers are believed to have been sent by God to different communities during different times in history.


title: Prophets and messengers in Islam

text: The words "prophet" and "messenger" appear several times in the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Biblical Hebrew word "nabi" ("spokesperson, prophet") occurs often in the Hebrew Bible. The biblical word for "messenger", "mal'akh", refers today to Angels in Judaism, but originally was used for human messenger both of God and of men, thus it is only somewhat comparable to "rasūl". According to Judaism, Haggai, Zaqariah, and Malachi were the last prophets, all of whom lived at the end of the 70-year Babylonian exile. With them, the authentic period of "Nevuah" ("prophecy") died, and nowadays only the "Bath Kol" (, , "voice of God") exists (Sanhedrin 11a).


title: Prophets and messengers in Islam

text: In the New Testament, however, the word "messenger" becomes more frequent, sometimes in association with the concept of a preacher (apostle or prophet). "Messenger" may refer to Jesus, to his Apostles and to John the Baptist. But the last book of the Old Testament, the Book of Malachi, speaks of a messenger that Christian commentators interpret as a reference to the future prophet John the Baptist (Yahya).


title: Prophets and messengers in Islam

text: The Syriac form of "rasūl Allāh" (), "s̲h̲eliḥeh d-allāhā", occurs frequently in the apocryphal "Acts of St. Thomas". The corresponding verb for "s̲h̲eliḥeh"—"s̲h̲alaḥ", occurs in connection with the prophets in the Hebrew Bible.


title: Prophets and messengers in Islam

text: In Arabic, the term "nabī" (Arabic plural form: , ) means "prophet". Forms of this noun occur 75 times in the Quran. The term "nubuwwah" ( "prophethood") occurs five times in the Quran. The terms "rasūl" (Arabic plural: , ) and "mursal" (Arabic: , , pl: , ) denote "messenger with law given by/received from God" and occur more than 300 times. The term for a prophetic "message" (Arabic: , , pl: , ) appears in the Quran in ten instances.


title: Prophets and messengers in Islam

text: In Islam, the Quran is believed to be a revelation from the last prophet in the Abrahamic succession, Muhammad, and its contents detail what Muslims refer to as the straight path. According to Islamic belief, every prophet preached submission and obedience to God (Islam). There is an emphasis on charity, prayer, pilgrimage, fasting, with the most emphasis given to the strict belief and worship of a singular God. The Quran itself calls Islam the "religion of Abraham" (Ibrahim) and refers to Jacob (Yaqub) and the Twelve Tribes of Israel as being Muslims.


title: Prophets and messengers in Islam

text: Prophets in Islam are exemplars to ordinary humans. They exhibit model characteristics of righteousness and moral conduct. Prophetic typologies shared by all prophets include prophetic lineage, advocating monotheism, transmitting God's messages, and warning of the eschatological consequences of rejecting God. Prophetic revelation often comes in the form of signs and divine proofs. Each prophet is connected to one another, and ultimately support the final prophetic message of Muhammad. The qualities prophets possess are meant to lead people towards the straight path. In one hadith, it was stated: "Among men the prophets suffer most."


title: Prophets and messengers in Islam

text: Classical Islamic teaching, especially Shia Islam, teach that unlike other human beings, prophets have the quality of "ʿiṣmah", i.e., are protected by God from making mistakes or committing grave sins. This does not mean that they do not err, rather that they always seek to correct their mistakes. It is argued that sins are necessary for prophets, so they can show the people how to repent.


title: Prophets and messengers in Islam

text: Some doubt whether there is Quranic basis for "ʿiṣmah", but the notion became "mainstream Sunni doctrine" by the ninth century CE.


title: Prophets and messengers in Islam

text: The Quran speaks of the prophets as being the greatest human beings of all time. lists various virtuous groups of human beings, among whom prophets (including messengers) occupy the highest rank. Verse 4:69 reads:


title: Prophets and messengers in Islam

text: Stories of the prophets in the Quran demonstrate that it is "God's practice" ("Sunnat Allah") to make faith triumph finally over the forces of evil and adversity. "We have made the evil ones friends to those without faith." "Assuredly God will defend those who believe." The prophets are divinely inspired by God but "share no divine attributes", and possess "no knowledge or power" other than that granted to them by God. Prophets are considered to be chosen by God for the specific task of teaching the faith of Islam.


title: Prophets and messengers in Islam

text: Some were called to prophesy late in life, such as Muhammad at the age of 40. Some were called to prophesy at a young age, such as John the Baptist. Jesus prophesied while still in his cradle.


title: Prophets and messengers in Islam

text: The question of Mary's prophethood has been debated amongst Muslim theologians. The Zahirite ("literalist") school argued that Mary as well as Sara the mother of Isaac, and Asiya, the mother of Moses are not considered as prophets. The Zahirites-based this determination on the instances in the Quran where angels spoke to the women and divinely guided their actions. According to the Zahirite Ibn Hazm of Cordova (d. 1064) women could be placed under the categorization of "nubuwwa" ("prophethood") but not under "risala" ("messengerhood") which could only be attained by men. Ibn Hazm also based his position on Mary's prophethood on which refers to Mary as "a woman of truth" just as it refers to Joseph as a "man of truth" in . Other linguistic examples which augment scholarship around Mary's position in Islam can be found in terms used to describe her. For example, In Mary is described as being one of the "qanitin", or one who exhibits "qunut" ("devout obedience"). This is the same term used for male prophets in the masculine gender plural of Arabic. The feminine plural, which is not used, would be "qanitat".


title: Prophets and messengers in Islam

text: Challenges to Mary's prophethood have often been based on which reads "We have only sent men prior to you". Some scholars have argued that the use of the term "rijal" or men should be interpreted as providing a contrast between men and angels and not necessarily as contrasting men and women.


title: Prophets and messengers in Islam

text: The majority of scholars, particularly in the Sunni tradition, have rejected this doctrine as "bid'a" ("heretical innovation").


title: Prophets and messengers in Islam

text: Abraham is widely recognized for being the father of monotheism in the Abrahamic religions, however, in the Quran he is recognized as a messenger and a link in the chain of Muslim prophets. Muhammad, God's final messenger and the revelator of the Quran, is a descendant of Abraham. In the Quran it reads, "He [God] said: 'I am making you [Abraham] a spiritual exemplar to mankind.'" () This phrase is affirming Islam as an Abrahamic religion, and further promoting Abraham as an important figure in the history of the Quran. This confirmation of the prophetic relationship (between Abraham and Muhammad) is significant to Abraham's story in the Quran – due to the fact that the last messenger, Muhammad, completes Abraham's prophetic lineage. This relationship can be seen in the Quranic chapter 6:


title: Prophets and messengers in Islam

text: "That is Our Argument which We imparted to Abraham against his people. We raise up in degrees whomever We please. Your Lord is indeed Wise, All-Knowing. And We granted him Isaac and Jacob, and guided each of them; and Noah We guided before that, and of his progeny, [We guided] David, Solomon, Job, Joseph, Moses and Aaron. Thus We reward the beneficent. And Zechariah, John, Jesus and Elias, each was one of the righteous. And Ishmael, Elijah, Jonah and Lot; each We exalted above the whole world. [We also exalted some] of their fathers, progeny and brethren. And We chose them and guided them to a straight path." ()


title: Prophets and messengers in Islam

text: These particular verses support the Quranic narrative for Abraham to be recognized as a patriarch and is supported by his prophetic lineage concluding with Muhammad. Although Muhammad is considered the last prophet, some Muslim traditions also recognize and venerate saints (though modern schools, such as Salafism and Wahhabism, reject the theory of sainthood).


title: Prophets and messengers in Islam

text: The Quran presents the world of Abraham as interlocking dramas or conflicts. The divine drama concerns the events of creation and banishment from the garden; while the human drama concerns the life and history of humanity but, also inclusive of the ever-changing events in of individual lives and those of the prophets. This is the situation that calls the faith of the Prophets to follow and reclaim the message of the Straight path and this is characterization of the conflicts between the two dramas. The Islamic morality is founded on this virtuous living through faith in the life ordained by the divine. This is the divine task given to believers accompanied by the divine gift that the Prophets had in revelation and perspective of ayat. This the key feature to the authority of their revelation because not only is the source of revelation is God but it produces texts that are seen as distinctive than other poetry but it fits within the Abrahamic tradition. Poetry especially, in the Arabian context, connects the Quran to Pre-Islamic poetry which originates from the jihn; however, the Quran's place within other religious contexts gives the revelation to Muhammed the same authority of the Hebrew texts and the New Testament.


title: Prophets and messengers in Islam

text: "And (remember) Abraham, when he said to his people: 'Worship Allah and fear Him; that is far better for you, if only you knew. Indeed, you only worship, apart from Allah, mere idols, and you invent falsehood. Surely, those you worship, apart from Allah, have no power to provide for you. So, seek provision from Allah, worship Him and give Him thanks. You shall be returned unto Him.'" (Q. 29:16-17)


title: Prophets and messengers in Islam

text: This passage promotes Abraham's devotion to God as one of his messengers along with his monotheism. Islam is a monotheistic religion, and Abraham is one who is recognized for this transformation of the religious tradition. This prophetic aspect of monotheism is mentioned several times in the Quran. Abraham believed in one true God (Allah) and promoted an "invisible oneness" ("tawḥīd") with him. The Quran proclaims, "Say: 'My lord has guided me to a Straight Path, a right religion, the creed of Abraham, an upright man who was no polytheist.'" (Q. 6:161) One push Abraham had to devote himself to God and monotheism is from the pagans of his time. Abraham was devoted to cleansing the Arabian Peninsula of this impetuous worship. His father was a wood idol sculptor, and Abraham was critical of his trade. Due to Abraham's devotion, he is recognized as the father of monotheism.


title: Prophets and messengers in Islam

text: Prophets and messengers in Islam often fall under the typologies of "nadhir" ("warner") and "bashir" ("announcer of good tidings"). Many prophets serve as vessels to inform humanity of the eschatological consequences of not accepting God's message and affirming monotheism. A verse from the Quran reads: "Verily, We have sent thee [Muhammad] with the truth, as a bearer of glad tidings and a warner: and thou shalt not be held accountable for those who are destined for the blazing fire." () The prophetic revelations found in the Quran offer vivid descriptions of the flames of Hell that await nonbelievers but also describe the rewards of the gardens of Paradise that await the true believers. The warnings and promises transmitted by God through the prophets to their communities serve to legitimize Muhammed's message. The final revelation that is presented to Muhammed is particularly grounded in the belief that the Day of Judgement is imminent.


title: Prophets and messengers in Islam

text: Throughout the Quran, prophets such as Moses and Jesus often perform miracles or are associated with miraculous events. The Quran makes clear that these events always occur through God and not of the prophet's own volition. Throughout the Meccan passages there are instances where the Meccan people demand visual proofs of Muhammad's divine connection to God to which Muhammad replies "The signs are only with Allah, and I am only a plain warner." () This instance makes clear that prophets are only mortals who can testify to God's omnipotence and produce signs when he wills it. Furthermore, the Quran states that visual and verbal proofs are often rejected by the unbelievers as being "sihr" ("magic") The Quran reads: "They claim that he tries to bewitch them and make them believe that he speaks the word of God, although he is just an ordinary human being like themselves. ()


title: Prophets and messengers in Islam

text: There are patterns of representation of Quranic prophecy that support the revelation of Muhammad. Since Muhammad is in Abraham's prophetic lineage, they are analogous in many aspects of their prophecy. Muhammad was trying to rid the Pagans of idolatry during his lifetime, which is similar to Abraham. This caused many to reject Muhammad’s message and even made him flee from Mecca due to his unsafety in the city. Carl Ernest, the author of How to Read the Qur’an: A New Guide, with Select Translations, states, "The Qur’an frequently consoles Muhammad and defends him against his opponents." This consolation can also be seen as parallel to Abraham's encouragement from God. Muhammad is also known to perform miracles as Abraham did. Sura 17 ("al-isrā") briefly describes Muhammad's miraculous Night Journey where he physically ascended to the Heavens to meet with previous prophets. This spiritual journey is significant in the sense that many Islamic religious traditions and transformations were given and established during this miracle, such as the ritual of daily prayer. () Muhammad is a descendant of Abraham; therefore, this not only makes him part of the prophetic lineage, but the final prophet in the Abrahamic lineage to guide humanity to the Straight Path. In Sura 33 ("al-ahzāb") it confirms Muhammad and states, "Muhammad is not the father of any of your men, but is the Messenger of Allah and the seal of the Prophets. Allah is Cognizant of everything". ()


title: Prophets and messengers in Islam

text: The Quran emphasizes the importance of obedience to prophets in Surah 26 Ash-Shu'ara, in which a series of prophets preaching fear of God and obedience to themselves.


title: Prophets and messengers in Islam

text: The revealed books are the records which Muslims believe were dictated by God to various Islamic prophets throughout the history of mankind, all these books promulgated the code and laws of Islam. The belief in all the revealed books is an article of faith in Islam and Muslims must believe in all the scriptures to be a Muslim. Muslims believe the Quran, the final holy scripture, was sent because all the previous holy books had been either corrupted or lost. Nonetheless, Islam speaks of respecting all the previous scriptures, even in their current forms.


title: Prophets and messengers in Islam

text: Muhammad was given a divine gift of revelation through the angel Gabriel. This direct communication with the divine underlines the human experience but the message of the Quran dignifies this history of revelation with these select people in human history the foundation for Muhammed's prophetic lineage.


title: Prophets and messengers in Islam

text: The Quran mentions various divinely-bestowed gifts given to various prophets. These may be interpreted as books or forms of celestial knowledge. Although all prophets are believed by Muslims to have been immensely gifted, special mention of "wisdom" or "knowledge" for a particular prophet is understood to mean that some secret knowledge was revealed to him. The Quran mentions that Abraham prayed for wisdom and later received it. It also mentions that Joseph and Moses both attained wisdom when they reached full age; David received wisdom with kingship, after slaying Goliath; Lot (Lut) received wisdom whilst prophesying in Sodom and Gomorrah; John the Baptist received wisdom while still a mere youth; and Jesus received wisdom and was vouchsafed the Gospel.


title: Prophets and messengers in Islam

text: During the time of Muhammad's revelation, the Arabian peninsula was made up of many pagan tribes. His birthplace, Mecca, was a central pilgrimage site and a trading center where many tribes and religions were in constant contact. Muhammad's connection with the surrounding culture was foundational to the way the Quran was revealed. Though it is seen as the direct word of God, it came through to Muhammad in his own native language of Arabic, which could be understood by all the peoples in the peninsula. This is the key feature of the Quran which makes it unique to the poetry and other religious texts of the time. It is considered immune to translation and culturally applicable to the context of the time it was revealed. Muhammad was criticized for his revelation being poetry which, according to the cultural perspective, is revelation purely originating from the jihn and the Qurash but the typology of duality and its likeness to the other prophets in the Abrahamic line affirms his revelation. This likeness is found in the complexity of its structure and its message of submission of faith to the one God, Allah. This also revels that his revelation comes from God alone and he is the preserver of the Straight Path as well as the inspired messages and lives of other prophets, making the Quran cohesive with the monotheistic reality in the Abrahamic traditions.


title: Prophets and messengers in Islam

text: To believe in God's messengers (Rusul) means to be convinced that God sent men as guides to fellow human beings and jinn (khalq) to guide them to the truth.


title: Prophets and messengers in Islam

text: The Quran mentions 25 prophets by name but also tells that God sent many other prophets and messengers, to all the different nations that have existed on Earth. Many verses in the Quran discuss this:


title: Prophets and messengers in Islam

text: Numerous other people have been mentioned by scholars in the Hadith, exegesis, commentary. These people include:


title: Prophets and messengers in Islam

text: The Ahmadiyya Community does not believe that messengers and prophets are different individuals. They interpret the Quranic words "warner" ("nadhir"), "prophet", and "messenger" as referring to different roles that the same divinely appointed individuals perform. Ahmadiyya distinguish only between law-bearing prophets and non-law-bearing ones. They believe that although law-bearing prophethood ended with Muhammad, non-law-bearing prophethood subordinate to Muhammad continues. The Ahmadiyya Community recognizes Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (1835–1908) as a prophet of God and the promised Messiah and Imam Mahdi of the latter days. The Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement rejects his status as a prophet, instead considering him to be a renewer of the faith. However, all other Muslims and their scholars argue that the Ahmadiyya community are not Muslim.


title: Prophets and messengers in Islam

text: In contrast to the Muslims, Baháʼís do not believe that Muhammad is the final messenger of God, or rather define eschatology and end times references as metaphorical for changes in the ages or eras of mankind but that it and progress of God's guidance continues. Although, in common with Islam, the title the Seal of the Prophets is reserved for Muhammad, Baháʼís interpret it differently. They believe that the term Seal of the Prophets applies to a specific epoch, and that each prophet is the "seal" of his own epoch. Therefore, in the sense that all the prophets of God are united in the same "Cause of God", having the same underlying message, and all "abiding in the same tabernacle, soaring in the same heaven, seated upon the same throne, uttering the same speech, and proclaiming the same Faith", they can all claim to be "the return of all the Prophets".


title: Nick Drake

text: Nicholas Rodney Drake (19 June 1948 – 25 November 1974) was an English singer-songwriter known for his acoustic guitar-based songs. He did not find a wide audience during his lifetime, but his work gradually achieved wider notice and recognition. Drake signed to Island Records when he was 20 years old and a student at the University of Cambridge. He released his debut album, "Five Leaves Left", in 1969. He recorded two more albums—"Bryter Layter" (1971) and "Pink Moon" (1972). Neither sold more than 5,000 copies on initial release. His reluctance to perform live, or be interviewed, contributed to his lack of commercial success. There is no known video footage of the adult Drake; he was only ever captured in still photographs and in home footage from his childhood.


title: Nick Drake

text: Drake experienced depression, particularly during the latter part of his life, a fact often reflected in his lyrics. On completion of his third album, 1972's "Pink Moon", he withdrew from both live performance and recording, retreating to his parents' home in rural Warwickshire. On 25 November 1974, Drake died from an overdose of a prescribed antidepressant; he was 26 years old. Whether his death was an accident or suicide has not been resolved.


title: Nick Drake

text: Drake's music remained available through the mid-1970s, but the 1979 release of the retrospective album "Fruit Tree" allowed his back catalogue to be reassessed. By the mid-1980s, Drake was being credited as an influence by such artists as Robert Smith of The Cure and Peter Buck of R.E.M. In 1985, The Dream Academy reached the UK and US charts with "Life in a Northern Town", a song written for and dedicated to Drake. By the early 1990s, he had come to represent a certain type of "doomed romantic" musician in the UK music press and was frequently cited as an influence by artists including Kate Bush, Paul Weller, Aimee Mann, Beck, Robyn Hitchcock and The Black Crowes. Drake's first biography appeared in 1997, followed in 1998 by the documentary film "A Stranger Among Us".


title: Nick Drake

text: Drake's father, Rodney Shuttleworth Drake (1908–1988), moved to Rangoon, Burma, in the early 1930s as an engineer with the Bombay Burmah Trading Corporation. In 1934, Rodney met Molly Lloyd (1916–1993), the daughter of a senior member of the Indian Civil Service. Rodney proposed in 1936, though they had to wait a year until she turned 21 before her family allowed them to marry. Nick was born in Burma on 19 June 1948. In 1950, the family returned to England to live in Warwickshire at their home, Far Leys, in Tanworth-in-Arden, south of Birmingham. Rodney worked from 1952 as the chairman and managing director of Wolseley Engineering.


title: Nick Drake

text: Nick's older sister, Gabrielle, became a successful screen actress. Both parents wrote music. Recordings of Molly's songs, which have come to light since her death, are similar in tone and outlook to the later work of her son; they shared a similar fragile vocal delivery, and Gabrielle and biographer Trevor Dann noted a parallel foreboding and fatalism in their music. Encouraged by his mother, Drake learned to play piano at an early age and began to compose songs which he recorded on a reel-to-reel tape recorder that she kept in the family drawing-room.


title: Nick Drake

text: In 1957, Drake was sent to Eagle House School, a preparatory boarding school near Sandhurst, Berkshire. Five years later, he went to Marlborough College, a public school in Wiltshire which had also been attended by his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather. He developed an interest in sport, becoming an accomplished 100- and 200-yard sprinter, representing the school's Open Team in 1966. He played rugby for the C1 House team and was appointed a House Captain in his last two terms. School friends recall Drake as having been confident, often aloof, and "quietly authoritative". His father remembered: "In one of his reports [the headmaster] said that none of us seemed to know him very well. All the way through with Nick, people didn't know him very much."


title: Nick Drake

text: Drake played piano in the school orchestra, and learned clarinet and saxophone. He formed a band, the Perfumed Gardeners, with four schoolmates in 1964 or 1965. With Drake on piano and occasional alto sax and vocals, the group performed Pye International R&B covers and jazz standards, as well as Yardbirds and Manfred Mann songs. Chris de Burgh asked to join the band, but was rejected as his taste was "too poppy".


title: Nick Drake

text: Drake's attention to his studies deteriorated and, although he had accelerated a year in Eagle House, at Marlborough he neglected his studies in favour of music. In 1963 he attained seven GCE O-Levels, fewer than his teachers had been expecting, failing "Physics with Chemistry". In 1965, Drake paid £13 () for his first acoustic guitar, a Levin, and was soon experimenting with open tuning and finger-picking techniques.


title: Nick Drake

text: In 1966 Drake enrolled at a tutorial college in Five Ways, Birmingham, where he won a scholarship to study at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge. He delayed attendance to spend six months at the University of Aix-Marseille, France, beginning in February 1967, where he began to practise guitar in earnest. To earn money, he would busk with friends in the town centre. Drake began to smoke cannabis, and he travelled with friends to Morocco; according to travelling companion Richard Charkin, "that was where you got the best pot". He most likely began using LSD while in Aix, and lyrics written during this period—in particular for "Clothes of Sand"—suggest an interest in hallucinogens.


title: Nick Drake

text: Drake returned to England in 1967 and moved into his sister's flat in Hampstead, London. That October, he enrolled at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, to study English literature. His tutors found him bright but unenthusiastic and unwilling to apply himself. His biographer, Trevor Dann, notes that he had difficulty connecting with staff and fellow students, and that matriculation photographs from this time portray a sullen young man. Cambridge placed emphasis on its rugby and cricket teams, but Drake had lost interest in sport, preferring to stay in his college room smoking cannabis and playing music. According to fellow student Brian Wells, "They were the rugger buggers and we were the cool people smoking dope."


title: Nick Drake

text: In September 1967, Drake met Robert Kirby, a music student who went on to write many of the string and woodwind arrangements for Drake's first two albums. By this time, Drake had discovered the British and American folk music scenes, and was influenced by performers such as Bob Dylan, Donovan, Van Morrison, Josh White and Phil Ochs (he later cited Randy Newman and the Beach Boys as influences). He began performing in local clubs and coffee houses around London, and in December 1967, while playing at a five day event at the Roundhouse in Camden Town, made an impression on Ashley Hutchings, bass player with Fairport Convention. Hutchings recalls being impressed by Drake's guitar skill, but even more so by his image: "He looked like a star. He looked wonderful, he seemed to be 7 ft [tall]."


title: Nick Drake

text: Hutchings introduced Drake to the 25-year-old American producer Joe Boyd, owner of the production and management company Witchseason Productions, which at the time was licensed to Island Records. Boyd, who had discovered Fairport Convention and introduced John Martyn and the Incredible String Band to a mainstream audience, was a respected figure in the UK folk scene. He and Drake formed an immediate bond, and Boyd acted as a mentor to Drake throughout his career. Impressed by a four-track demo recorded in Drake's college room in early 1968, Boyd offered Drake a management, publishing, and production contract. Boyd recalled listening to a reel-to-reel home recording Drake had made: "Halfway through the first song, I felt this was pretty special. And I called him up, and he came back in, and we talked, and I just said, 'I'd like to make a record.' He stammered, "Oh, well, yeah. Okay." Nick was a man of few words." According to Drake's friend Paul Wheeler, Drake had already decided not to complete his third year at Cambridge and was excited about the contract.


title: Nick Drake

text: Drake recorded his debut album "Five Leaves Left" later in 1968, with Boyd as producer. He had to skip lectures to travel by train to the sessions in Sound Techniques studio, London. Inspired by John Simon's production of Leonard Cohen's 1967 album "Songs of Leonard Cohen", Boyd was keen to record Drake's voice in a similar close and intimate style, "with no shiny pop reverb". He sought to include a string arrangement similar to Simon's, "without overwhelming ... or sounding cheesy". To provide backing, Boyd enlisted contacts from the London folk rock scene, including Fairport Convention guitarist Richard Thompson and Pentangle bassist Danny Thompson (no relation).


title: Nick Drake

text: Initial recordings did not go well: the sessions were irregular and rushed, taking place during studio downtime borrowed from Fairport Convention's production of their "Unhalfbricking" album. Tension arose as to the direction of the album: Boyd was an advocate of George Martin's approach of using the studio as an instrument, while Drake preferred a more organic sound. Dann observed that Drake appears "tight and anxious" on bootleg recordings from the sessions, and notes a number of Boyd's unsuccessful attempts at instrumentation. Both were unhappy with arranger Richard Anthony Hewson's contribution, which they felt was too mainstream for Drake's songs. Drake suggested his college friend Robert Kirby as a replacement. Though Boyd was sceptical about taking on an inexperienced amateur music student, he was impressed by Drake's uncharacteristic assertiveness and agreed to a trial. Kirby had previously presented Drake with some arrangements for his songs. While Kirby provided most arrangements for the album, its centrepiece "River Man", which echoed the tone of Frederick Delius, was orchestrated by the veteran composer Harry Robertson.


title: Nick Drake

text: Post-production difficulties delayed the release by several months, and the album was poorly marketed and supported. In July, "Melody Maker" described "Five Leaves Left" as "poetic" and "interesting", though "NME" wrote in October that there was "not nearly enough variety to make it entertaining". It received little radio play outside shows by more progressive BBC DJs such as John Peel and Bob Harris. Drake was unhappy with the inlay sleeve, which printed songs in the wrong running order and reproduced verses omitted from the recorded versions. In an interview, his sister Gabrielle said: "He was very secretive. I knew he was making an album but I didn't know what stage of completion it was at until he walked into my room and said, 'There you are.' He threw it onto the bed and walked out!"


title: Nick Drake

text: Drake ended his studies at Cambridge nine months before graduation and in late 1969 moved to London. His father remembered, "writing him long letters, pointing out the disadvantages of going away from Cambridge ... a degree was a safety net, if you manage to get a degree, at least you have something to fall back on; his reply to that was that a safety net was the one thing he did not want." Drake spent his first few months in London drifting from place to place, occasionally staying at his sister's Kensington flat but usually sleeping on friends' sofas and floors. Eventually, in an attempt to bring some stability and a telephone into Drake's life, Boyd organised and paid for a ground floor bedsit in Belsize Park, Camden.


title: Nick Drake

text: On 5 August 1969, Drake recorded five songs for the BBC's John Peel show ("Cello Song", "Three Hours", "River Man", "Time of No Reply" and an early version of "Bryter Layter"), three of which were broadcast the following night. A month later, on 24 September, he opened for Fairport Convention at the Royal Festival Hall in London, followed by appearances at folk clubs in Birmingham and Hull. According to the folk singer Michael Chapman, the audiences did not appreciate Drake and wanted "songs with choruses". Chapman said: "They completely missed the point. He didn't say a word the entire evening. It was actually quite painful to watch. I don't know what the audience expected, I mean, they must have known they weren't going to get sea-shanties and sing-alongs at a Nick Drake gig!"


title: Nick Drake

text: The experience reinforced Drake's decision to retreat from live appearances; the few concerts he did play were usually brief, awkward, and poorly attended. Drake seemed reluctant to perform and rarely addressed his audience. As many of his songs were played in different tunings, he frequently paused to retune between numbers. Although "Five Leaves Left" attracted little publicity, Boyd was keen to build on what momentum there was. Drake's second album, "Bryter Layter" (1971), again produced by Boyd and engineered by John Wood, introduced a more upbeat, jazzier sound. Disappointed by his debut's poor sales, Drake sought to move away from his pastoral sound and agreed to Boyd's suggestions to include bass and drum tracks. "It was more of a pop sound, I suppose," Boyd later said. "I imagined it as more commercial." Like its predecessor, the album featured musicians from Fairport Convention, as well as contributions from John Cale on two songs: "Northern Sky" and "Fly". Trevor Dann noted that while sections of "Northern Sky" sound more characteristic of Cale, the song was the closest Drake came to a release with chart potential. Cale used heroin during this period, and his older friend Brian Wells suspected that Drake was also using.


title: Nick Drake

text: "Bryter Layter" was a commercial failure, and reviews were again mixed; "Record Mirror" praised Drake as a "beautiful guitarist—clean and with perfect timing, [and] accompanied by soft, beautiful arrangements", but "Melody Maker" described the album as "an awkward mix of folk and cocktail jazz". Soon after its release, Boyd sold Witchseason to Island Records and moved to Los Angeles to work with Warner Brothers to develop film soundtracks. The loss of his mentor, coupled with the album's poor sales, led Drake into further depression. His attitude to London had changed: he was unhappy living alone, and visibly nervous and uncomfortable performing at a series of concerts in early 1970. In June, Drake gave one of his final live appearances at Ewell Technical College, Surrey. Ralph McTell, who also performed that night, remembered: "Nick was monosyllabic. At that particular gig he was very shy. He did the first set and something awful must have happened. He was doing his song 'Fruit Tree' and walked off halfway through it."


title: Nick Drake

text: In 1971, Drake's family persuaded him to visit a psychiatrist at St Thomas' Hospital, London. He was prescribed antidepressants, but felt uncomfortable and embarrassed about taking them, and tried to hide the fact from his friends. He worried about their side effects and was concerned that they would react with his regular cannabis use. Island Records urged Drake to promote "Bryter Layter" through interviews, radio sessions, and live appearances. Drake, who by this time was smoking what Kirby described as "unbelievable amounts" of cannabis and exhibiting "the first signs of psychosis", refused. Disappointed by the reaction to "Bryter Layter", he turned inwards and withdrew from family and friends. He rarely left his flat, and then only to play an occasional concert or to buy drugs. According to photographer Keith Morris, by 1971 Drake was a "hunched, dishevelled figure, staring vacantly...ignoring the overtures of a friendly labrador or gazing blankly over Hampstead Heath." His sister recalled: "This was a very bad time. He once said to me that everything started to go wrong from [this] time on, and I think that was when things started to go wrong."


title: Nick Drake

text: Although Island neither expected nor wanted a third album, Drake approached Wood in October 1971 to begin work on what would be his final release. Sessions took place over two nights, with only Drake and Wood in the studio. The bleak songs of "Pink Moon" are short, and the eleven-track album lasts only 28 minutes, a length described by Wood as "just about right. You really wouldn't want it to be any longer." Drake had expressed dissatisfaction with the sound of "Bryter Layter", and believed that the string, brass, and saxophone arrangements resulted in a sound that was "too full, too elaborate". Drake appears on "Pink Moon" accompanied only by his own carefully recorded guitar save for a piano overdub on the title track. Wood later said: "He was very determined to make this very stark, bare record. He definitely wanted it to be him more than anything. And I think, in some ways, "Pink Moon" is probably more like Nick is than the other two records."


title: Nick Drake

text: Drake delivered the tapes of "Pink Moon" to Chris Blackwell at Island Records, contrary to a popular legend which claims that he dropped them off at the receptionist's desk without saying a word. An advertisement for the album in "Melody Maker" in February opened with ""Pink Moon"—Nick Drake's latest album: the first we heard of it was when it was finished." "Pink Moon" sold fewer copies than its predecessors, although it received some favourable reviews. In "Zigzag", Connor McKnight wrote: "Nick Drake is an artist who never fakes. The album makes no concession to the theory that music should be escapist. It's simply one musician's view of life at the time, and you can't ask for more than that."


title: Nick Drake

text: Blackwell felt "Pink Moon" had the potential to bring Drake to a mainstream audience; however, his staff were disappointed by Drake's unwillingness to promote it. A&R manager Muff Winwood recalled "tearing his hair out" in frustration and said that without Blackwell's enthusiastic support "the rest of us would have given him the boot". At Boyd's insistence, Drake agreed to an interview with Jerry Gilbert of "Sounds Magazine". The "shy and introverted" Drake spoke of his dislike of live appearances and little else. "There wasn't any connection whatsoever," Gilbert said. "I don't think he made eye contact with me once." Disheartened and convinced he would be unable to write again, Drake retired from music. He toyed with the idea of a different career and considered the army. His three albums had together sold fewer than 4,000 copies.


title: Nick Drake

text: In the months following "Pink Moon"'s release, Drake became increasingly asocial and distant. He returned to live at his parents' home in Tanworth-in-Arden, and while he resented the regression, he accepted that it was necessary. "I don't like it at home," he told his mother, "but I can't bear it anywhere else." His return was often difficult for his family, as Gabrielle said: "Good days in my parents' home were good days for Nick, and bad days were bad days for Nick. And that was what their life revolved around, really."


title: Nick Drake

text: Drake lived a frugal existence; his only income was a £20-a-week retainer from Island Records (). At one point he could not afford a new pair of shoes. He would disappear for days, sometimes arriving unannounced at friends' houses, uncommunicative and withdrawn. Robert Kirby described a typical visit: "He would arrive and not talk, sit down, listen to music, have a smoke, have a drink, sleep there the night, and two or three days later he wasn't there, he'd be gone. And three months later he'd be back." Nick's supervision partner at Cambridge, John Venning, saw him on an underground train in London and felt he was seriously depressed: "There was something about him which suggested that he would have looked straight through me and not registered me at all. So I turned around."


title: Nick Drake

text: John Martyn (who in 1973 wrote the title song of his album "Solid Air" about Drake) described Drake in this period as the most withdrawn person he had ever met. Drake would borrow his mother's car and drive for hours without purpose, until he ran out of petrol and had to ring his parents to ask to be collected. Friends recalled the extent to which his appearance had changed. During particularly bleak periods, he refused to wash his hair or cut his nails. Early in 1972, Drake had a nervous breakdown, and was hospitalised for five weeks. He was initially believed to have major depression, although his former therapist suggested he had schizophrenia.


title: Nick Drake

text: In February 1973, Drake contacted John Wood, stating he was ready to begin work on a fourth album. Boyd was in England at the time and agreed to attend the recordings. The initial session was followed by recordings in July 1974. In his 2006 autobiography, Boyd recalled being taken aback at Drake's anger and bitterness: "[He said that] I had told him he was a genius, and others had concurred. Why wasn't he famous and rich? This rage must have festered beneath that inexpressive exterior for years." Boyd and Wood noticed a deterioration in Drake's performance, requiring him to overdub his voice separately over the guitar. However, the return to the Sound Techniques studio raised Drake's spirits; his mother recalled, "We were so absolutely thrilled to think that Nick was happy because there hadn't been any happiness in Nick's life for years."


title: Nick Drake

text: By late 1974, Drake's weekly retainer from Island had ceased, and his depression meant that he remained in contact with only a few close friends. He had tried to stay in touch with Sophia Ryde, whom he had met in London in 1968. Ryde has been described by Drake's biographers as "the nearest thing" to a girlfriend in his life, but she used the description "best (girl) friend". In a 2005 interview, Ryde said that a week before he died, she had sought to end the relationship: "I couldn't cope with it. I asked him for some time. And I never saw him again." As with the relationship he had shared with fellow folk musician Linda Thompson, Drake's relationship with Ryde was not consummated.


title: Nick Drake

text: During the early hours of 25 November 1974, Drake died at his home from an overdose of amitriptyline, an antidepressant. He had gone to bed early after spending the afternoon visiting a friend. His mother said that around dawn he left his room for the kitchen. His family had heard him do this many times before, and presumed he was eating cereal. He returned to his room a short while later, and took some amitriptyline.


title: Nick Drake

text: Drake had been accustomed to keeping his own hours; he frequently had difficulty sleeping and often stayed up through the night playing and listening to music, then slept late into the following morning. His mother later said: "I never used to disturb him at all. But it was about 12 o'clock, and I went in, because really it seemed it was time he got up. And he was lying across the bed. The first thing I saw was his long, long legs." According to Rodney Drake's personal diary, Nick's body was first discovered by their housemaid who looked in on Drake around 11.45 and called out to Molly who went in to discover he was dead. There was no suicide note, although a letter addressed to Ryde was found close to his bed.


title: Nick Drake

text: At the inquest in December, the coroner stated that the cause of death was "Acute amitriptyline poisoning—self-administered when suffering from a depressive illness", and concluded a verdict of suicide. Although the verdict has been disputed by some of his friends and members of his family, there is a widely held view that, accidental or not, Drake had by then "given up on life". Rodney described his son's death as unexpected and extraordinary; however, in a 1979 interview he said he had been worried about Drake's depression, and that the family hid painkillers from him.


title: Nick Drake

text: Boyd recalled that Drake's parents had described his mood in the preceding weeks as positive and that he had planned to move back to London to restart his music career. Boyd believes that this uplift in spirits was followed by a "crash back into despair". Reasoning that Drake may have taken a high dosage of antidepressants to recapture this sense of optimism, he said he prefers to imagine Drake "making a desperate lunge for life rather than a calculated surrender to death". In 1975, the "NME" journalist Nick Kent wrote of the irony of Drake's death when he had begun to regain a sense of "personal balance". In contrast, Gabrielle said she would "rather he died because he wanted to end it than it to be the result of a tragic mistake. That would seem to me to be terrible: for it to be a plea for help that nobody hears."


title: Nick Drake

text: On 2 December 1974, after a service in the Church of St Mary Magdalene, Tanworth-in-Arden, Drake's remains were cremated at Solihull Crematorium and his ashes interred under an oak tree in the church's graveyard. The funeral was attended by around fifty mourners, including friends from Marlborough, Aix, Cambridge, London, Witchseason, and Tanworth. Referring to Drake's tendency to compartmentalise relationships, Brian Wells observed that many met each other for the first time that morning. His mother recalled "a lot of his young friends came up here. We'd never met many of them."


title: Nick Drake

text: There were no documentaries or compilation albums in the wake of Drake's death. His public profile remained low throughout the 1970s, although his name appeared occasionally in the music press. By this time, his parents were receiving an increasing number of fans at the family home. Following a 1975 "NME" article by Nick Kent, Island Records stated they had no plans to reissue Drake's albums, but in 1979 Rob Partridge joined Island Records as press officer and commissioned the release of the "Fruit Tree" box set. The release compiled Drake's three studio albums, the four tracks he recorded with Wood in 1974 and an extensive biography written by the American journalist Arthur Lubow. Although sales were poor, Island Records did not delete the albums from its catalogue.


title: Nick Drake

text: By the mid-1980s, Drake was being cited as an influence by musicians such as Kate Bush, Paul Weller, the Black Crowes, Peter Buck of R.E.M. and Robert Smith of the Cure – the Cure's name derives from Drake's song "Time Has Told Me" ("a troubled cure for a troubled mind"). Drake gained further exposure in 1985 with the release of the Dream Academy's hit single "Life in a Northern Town", which included a dedication to Drake on its sleeve. In 1986, a biography of Drake was published in Danish; it was translated, updated with new interviews, and published in English in February 2012. Drake's reputation continued to grow, and by the end of the 1980s, his name was appearing regularly in newspapers and music magazines in the UK; he had come to represent a "doomed romantic hero".


title: Nick Drake

text: On 20 June 1998, BBC Radio 2 broadcast a documentary, "Fruit Tree: The Nick Drake Story", featuring interviews with Boyd, Wood, Gabrielle and Molly Drake, Paul Wheeler, Robert Kirby, and Ashley Hutchings, and narrated by Danny Thompson. In early 1999, BBC Two broadcast a 40-minute documentary, "A Stranger Among Us—In Search of Nick Drake". The following year, Dutch director Jeroen Berkvens released the documentary "A Skin Too Few: The Days of Nick Drake", featuring interviews with Boyd, Gabrielle Drake, Wood and Kirby. Later that year, "The Guardian" named "Bryter Layter" the best alternative album of all time.


title: Nick Drake

text: In 1999, "Pink Moon" was used in a Volkswagen commercial, boosting Drake's US album sales from about 6,000 copies in 1999 to 74,000 in 2000. The "LA Times" saw it as an example of how, following the consolidation of US radio stations, previously unknown music was finding audiences through advertising. Fans used the filesharing software Napster to circulate digital copies of Drake's music; according to the "Atlantic," "The chronic shyness and mental illness that made it hard for Drake to compete with 1970s showmen like Elton John and David Bowie didn't matter when his songs were being pulled one by one out of the ether and played late at night in a dorm room." In November 2014, Gabrielle Drake published a biography of her brother.


title: Nick Drake

text: Over the following years, Drake's songs appeared in soundtracks of "quirky, youthful" films such as "The Royal Tenenbaums", "Serendipity" and "Garden State". "Made to Love Magic", an album of outtakes and remixes released by Island Records in 2004, far exceeded Drake's lifetime sales. American musician Duncan Sheik released an album of songs inspired by Drake, "Phantom Moon", in 2001. In 2017, Kele Okereke cited "Pink Moon" as an influence on his third solo album "Fatherland." Other contemporary artists influenced by Drake include José González, Bon Iver, Iron & Wine, Alexi Murdoch and Philip Selway of Radiohead.


title: Nick Drake

text: Drake was obsessive about practising his guitar technique, and would stay up through the night writing and experimenting with alternative tunings. His mother remembered hearing him "bumping around at all hours. I think he wrote his nicest melodies in the early morning hours." Self-taught, he achieved his guitar style through the use of alternative tunings to create cluster chords, which are difficult to achieve on a guitar using standard tuning. Similarly, many of his vocal melodies rest on the extensions of chords, not just on notes of the triad. He sang in the baritone range, often quietly and with little projection.


title: Nick Drake

text: Drake, who studied English literature at Cambridge University, was drawn to the works of William Blake, William Butler Yeats, and Henry Vaughan, whose influences are reflected in his lyrics. He also employed a series of elemental symbols and codes, largely drawn from nature. The moon, stars, sea, rain, trees, sky, mist, and seasons are all commonly used, influenced in part by his rural upbringing. Images related to summer figure centrally in his early work; from "Bryter Layter" on, his language is more autumnal, evoking a season commonly used to convey senses of loss and sorrow. Throughout, Drake writes with detachment, more as an observer than a participant, a point of view "Rolling Stone's" Anthony DeCurtis described "as if he were viewing his life from a great, unbridgeable distance".


title: Nick Drake

text: This perceived inability to connect has caused speculation about Drake's sexuality. Boyd has said he detects a virginal quality in Drake's lyrics and music, and notes that he never knew of him behaving in a sexual way with anyone, male or female. Kirby described Drake's lyrics as a "series of extremely vivid, complete observations, almost like a series of epigrammatic proverbs", though he doubts that Drake saw himself as "any sort of poet". Instead, Kirby believes that Drake's lyrics were crafted to "complement and compound a mood that the melody dictates in the first place".


title: Nick Drake

text: Drake received little critical success during his lifetime, but has since been widely acclaimed. Based on professional rankings of his albums and songs, the aggregate website Acclaimed Music lists him as the 101st most acclaimed recording artist in history. "Rolling Stone" included all three of his albums on its 2003 list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. On 4 April 2018, he was inducted into the Folk Hall of Fame at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards.


title: Nick Drake

text: In 1994, "Rolling Stone" journalist Paul Evans said Drake's music "throbs with [an] aching beauty" similar to the 1968 Van Morrison album "Astral Weeks". According to AllMusic critic Richie Unterberger, Drake was a "singular talent" who "produced several albums of chilling, somber beauty", now "recognized as peak achievements of both the British folk-rock scene and the entire rock singer/songwriter genre". Unterberger felt that Drake's following spanned generations "in the manner of the young Romantic poets of the 19th century who died before their time ... Baby boomers who missed him the first time around found much to revisit once they discovered him, and his pensive loneliness speaks directly to contemporary alternative rockers who share his sense of morose alienation." More ambivalently, critic Robert Christgau wrote in "" (1981): "I'm not inclined to revere suicides. But Drake's jazzy folk-pop is admired by a lot of people who have no use for Kenny Rankin, and I prefer to leave open the possibility that he's yet another English mystic (romantic?) I'm too set in my ways to hear."


title: 2021–22 Ligue 1

text: The 2021–22 Ligue 1 season, also known as Ligue 1 Uber Eats for sponsorship reasons, was a French association football tournament within Ligue 1. It was the 84th season since its establishment. It began on 6 August 2021 and concluded on 21 May 2022. The league fixtures were announced on 25 June 2021. Lille were the defending champions.


title: 2021–22 Ligue 1

text: On 23 April, Paris Saint-Germain won a record-equalling tenth title with four matches to spare following a 1–1 draw against Lens.


title: 2021–22 Ligue 1

text: Troyes (promoted after a three-year absence) and Clermont (promoted to Ligue 1 for the first time) were promoted from the 2020–21 Ligue 2. Dijon (relegated after five years in the top flight) and Nîmes (relegated after three years in the top flight) were relegated to 2021–22 Ligue 2.


title: 2021–22 Ligue 1

text: The 2021–22 season ended with a relegation play-off between the 18th-placed Ligue 1 team, Saint-Étienne, and the winner of the semi-final of the Ligue 2 play-off, Auxerre, on a two-legged confrontation.


title: 2021–22 Ligue 1

text: "2–2 on aggregate. Auxerre won 5–4 on penalties and were promoted to 2022–23 Ligue 1; Saint-Étienne were relegated to 2022–23 Ligue 2."


title: Benny Andersson

text: Göran Bror Benny Andersson (; born 16 December 1946) is a Swedish musician, singer, composer and producer best known as a member of the musical group ABBA and co-composer of the musicals "Chess", "Kristina från Duvemåla", and "Mamma Mia!" For the 2008 film version of "Mamma Mia!" and its 2018 sequel, "Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again", he worked also as an executive producer. Since 2001, he has been active with his own band Benny Anderssons orkester.


title: Benny Andersson

text: Göran Bror Benny Andersson was born 16 December 1946 in the Vasastan district of Stockholm to civil engineer Gösta Andersson (1912–1973) and his wife Laila (1920–1971). His sister Eva-Lis Andersson followed in 1948. Andersson's musical background comes from his father and grandfather (Efraim); they both enjoyed playing the accordion, and at six, Benny got his own. His father and grandfather taught him Swedish folk music, traditional music, and schlager. The first records Benny bought were "Du Bist Musik" by Italian schlager singer Caterina Valente and Elvis Presley's "Jailhouse Rock". He was especially impressed by the flip side, "Treat Me Nice", as this featured a piano. This variety of different kinds of music influenced him through the years.


title: Benny Andersson

text: At ten, Andersson got his own piano and taught himself to play. He left school at 15 and began to perform at youth clubs. This is when he met his first girlfriend Christina Grönvall, with whom he had two children: Peter (born 1963) and Heléne (born 1965). In early 1964, Benny and Christina joined "Elverkets Spelmanslag" ("The Electricity Board Folk Music Group"); the name was a punning reference to their electric instruments. Their repertoire consisted mainly of instrumentals, including "Baby Elephant Walk"; he also wrote his first songs.


title: Benny Andersson

text: In October 1964 he joined the Hep Stars as keyboardist and they made a breakthrough in March 1965 with their hit "Cadillac", eventually becoming the most celebrated of the Swedish 1960s pop bands. Andersson secured his place as the band's keyboardist and musical driving force as well as a teen idol. The band performed mostly covers of international hits, but Andersson soon started writing his own material, and gave the band the classic hits "No Response", "Sunny Girl", "Wedding", "Consolation", "It's Nice To Be Back" and "She Will Love You," among others.


title: Benny Andersson

text: Andersson met Björn Ulvaeus in June 1966, and the two men started writing songs together, their first being "Isn't It Easy To Say", eventually recorded by the Hep Stars. He also had a fruitful songwriting collaboration with Lasse Berghagen, with whom he wrote several songs and submitted "Hej, Clown" for the 1969 Melodifestivalen – the Swedish Eurovision Song Festival finals. The song finished in second place. During this contest, he met vocalist Anni-Frid Lyngstad, and they soon became a couple. Around the same time, his songwriting companion Ulvaeus met vocalist Agnetha Fältskog.


title: Benny Andersson

text: The personal relationships and Andersson and Ulvaeus' songwriting collaboration led quite naturally to the very close cooperation which the four friends had during the following years. Benny and Björn scored their first hits as songwriters in the spring of 1969: "Ljuva sextital" (a hit with Brita Borg) and "Speleman" (a hit for the Hep Stars). As the two couples began supporting each other during recording sessions, the sound of the women's voices convinced the songwriters to model their 'group' on various MOR acts such as Blue Mink, Middle of the Road and Sweet. Thus, ABBA came to life.


title: Benny Andersson

text: The group's breakthrough came with winning the Eurovision Song Contest for Sweden with "Waterloo" on 6 April 1974. During the next eight years, Andersson (together with Ulvaeus) wrote music for and produced eight studio albums with ABBA. The group achieved great success globally and scored a chain of No. 1 hits.


title: Benny Andersson

text: After ABBA, Andersson continued writing music with Ulvaeus. Their first project was the stage musical "Chess", written with Tim Rice. The "Chess" concept album – with vocals by Elaine Paige, Barbara Dickson, Murray Head and Swedes Tommy Körberg and Björn Skifs – was released in October 1984, selling two million copies worldwide. The Paige/Dickson duet "I Know Him So Well" became a major UK No. 1 hit, and Murray Head's "One Night in Bangkok" gave Andersson/Ulvaeus a US No. 3 hit.


title: Benny Andersson

text: "Chess" was staged in London's West End Prince Edward Theatre in May 1986 and received mixed to positive reviews, running for about three years. A revised staging on Broadway in April 1988 received poor reviews, running for two months.


title: Benny Andersson

text: In 1985, Andersson produced and released an album with brother and sister Anders and Karin Glenmark, featuring new songs by Andersson/Ulvaeus. The duo named themselves Gemini, and a second album with more music by Björn and Benny was released in April 1987, containing the big hit "Mio My Mio"; also to be found on the soundtrack to the film "Mio in the Land of Faraway", for which Andersson co-produced the music.


title: Benny Andersson

text: In 1987, Andersson released his first solo album "Klinga Mina Klockor" ("Chime, My Bells"). All the music was written by and performed by himself on accordion, backed by the "Orsa Spelmän" (Orsa Folk Musicians) on fiddles. A second solo album followed: "November 1989".


title: Benny Andersson

text: In 1990, Andersson scored a Swedish No. 1 hit with "Lassie", sung by female cabaret group Ainbusk, for whom he also wrote the Svensktoppen hits "Älska Mig" and "Drömmarnas Golv". He decided to produce an album with Josefin Nilsson from this quartet, resulting in the 1993 English-language album "Shapes", featuring ten new Andersson/Ulvaeus compositions.


title: Benny Andersson

text: In 1992, he wrote the introduction melody for the European football championship, which was organised by Sweden that year.


title: Benny Andersson

text: From the late 1980s, Andersson had worked on an idea for an epic Swedish language musical based on his affection for traditional folk music, and in October 1995, "Kristina från Duvemåla" premiered in Sweden. The musical was based on "The Emigrants" novels by Swedish writer Vilhelm Moberg. The musical ran successfully for almost five years, before closing in June 1999. An English-language version, simply titled "Kristina", was staged in concert at Carnegie Hall in New York City for two nights in September 2009, yielding a live recording, and at the Royal Albert Hall for one night in April 2010.


title: Benny Andersson

text: Andersson's next project was "Mamma Mia!", a musical built around 24 of ABBA's songs, which has become a worldwide box-office blockbuster, with versions in several languages being played in many countries, including the UK (West End premiere in April 1999), Canada (Toronto premiere in 2000), the USA (Broadway premiere in 2001), and Sweden (Swedish language premiere in 2005).


title: Benny Andersson

text: For the 2004 semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest, staged in Istanbul thirty years after ABBA had won the contest in Brighton, Benny appeared briefly in a special comedy video made for the interval act, entitled "Our Last Video". Each of the four members of the group appeared briefly in cameo roles, as did others such as Cher and Rik Mayall. The video was not included in the official DVD release of the Eurovision Contest, but was issued as a separate DVD release. It was billed as the first time the four had worked together since the group split; however, Frida's appearance was filmed separately.


title: Benny Andersson

text: A film version of "Mamma Mia!" premiered on 18 July 2008. In April/May 2007, Andersson worked on the film soundtrack, re-recording the ABBA songs with musicians from the original ABBA recording sessions. "Mamma Mia! The Movie" has become the most successful film musical of all time, and the biggest-selling DVD ever in the UK.


title: Benny Andersson

text: Andersson currently performs with his own band of 16 musicians, Benny Anderssons Orkester ("Benny Andersson's orchestra", BAO), with fellow Swedes Helen Sjöholm (of "Kristina from Duvemåla") and Tommy Körberg (of "Chess"), with lyrics to new material sometimes written by Björn Ulvaeus. BAO has released five albums to huge success in Sweden, all containing hit singles.


title: Benny Andersson

text: In 2009 BAO achieved a new record in Sweden on the Svensktoppen chart by staying there for 243 weeks with the song ""Du är min man"" ("You Are My Man"), sung by Sjöholm.


title: Benny Andersson

text: Andersson composes primarily for his band BAO, with vocalists Sjöholm and Körberg, but he keeps his older material alive by re-visiting it, as in "Mamma Mia!" and the Swedish version of "Chess".


title: Benny Andersson

text: For a compilation album of the Glenmark duo Gemini, Andersson had Björn Ulvaeus write new Swedish lyrics for the re-recording of two songs from 1984 and 1987.


title: Benny Andersson

text: Andersson and Ulvaeus have continuously been writing new material; most recently the two wrote seven songs for Andersson's BAO 2011 album O klang och jubeltid, performed as usual by vocalists Sjöholm, Körberg and Kalle Moraeus. In July 2009, BAO, now named "The Benny Andersson Band", released their first international record, the album "The Story of a Heart". It was a compilation of 14 tracks from Andersson's five Swedish-language releases between 1987 and 2007, including five songs now recorded with lyrics by Ulvaeus in English, and the new title song premiered on BBC2's "Ken Bruce Show". A Swedish-language version of the title track, ""Sommaren Du Fick"" ("The Summer You Got"), was released as a single in Sweden prior to the English version, with vocals by Helen Sjöholm.


title: Benny Andersson

text: In the spring of 2009, Andersson also released a single recorded by the staff at his privately owned Stockholm hotel Hotel Rival, titled "2nd Best to None", accompanied by a video showing the staff at work. In 2008, Andersson and Ulvaeus wrote a song for Swedish singer Sissela Kyle, titled ""Jag vill bli gammal"" ("I Wanna Grow Old"), for her Stockholm stage show ""Your Days Are Numbered"", which was never recorded and released but did get a TV performance. Ulvaeus also contributed lyrics to ABBA's 1976 instrumental track "Arrival" for Sarah Brightman's cover version recorded for her 2008 album "A Winter Symphony". New English lyrics have also been written for Andersson's 1999 song ""Innan Gryningen"" (then also named "Millennium Hymn"), with the new title "The Silence of the Dawn" for Barbara Dickson was performed live, but not yet recorded and released. In 2007, they wrote the new song ""Han som har vunnit allt"" ("He Who's Won It All") for actor and singer Anders Ekborg. Ulvaeus wrote English lyrics for two older songs from Andersson's solo albums "I Walk with You Mama" ("Stockholm by Night", 1989) and "After the Rain" ("Efter regnet", 1987) for opera singer Anne Sofie Von Otter, for her Andersson tribute album "I Let the Music Speak". Barbara Dickson recorded an Ulvaeus and Andersson song called "The Day The Wall Came Tumbling Down"; the song eventually was released by Australian "Mamma Mia!" musical star Anne Wood's album of ABBA covers, "Divine Discontent". As of October 2012, Ulvaeus had mentioned writing new material with Andersson for a BAO Christmas release (also mentioned as a BAO box), and Andersson is busy writing music for a Swedish language obscure musical, "Hjälp Sökes" (""Help is Wanted"") together with Kristina Lugn and Lars Rudolfsson, premiering 8 February 2013.


title: Benny Andersson

text: Andersson has also written music for a documentary film about Olof Palme, re-recording the track "Sorgmarch" from his last album as a theme throughout the film.


title: Benny Andersson

text: The song ""Kärlekens Tid"", recorded 2004 by Helen Sjöholm with BAO, has also been performed in concert in English (lyrics by Ylva Eggehorn) by opera baritone Bryn Terfel.


title: Benny Andersson

text: On 15 April 2013, it was officially announced by the EBU and the SVT that Andersson, along with Ulvaeus and the late Stockholm based DJ and record producer Avicii, had composed the anthem for the 2013 Eurovision Song Contest. The song was performed for the first time in the Final on 18 May.


title: Benny Andersson

text: A new album of Andersson compositions presented in a choral style was released on 18 September 2015. ""Kärlekens Tid"" was produced in Andersson's Mono Music studio, under the direction of choirmaster Gustaf Sjökvist, who died before the album's release. Gustaf Sjökvists Choir, conducted by Cecilia Rydinger Alin, performed two concerts at Skeppsholmen on 20 September, featuring Benny Andersson on piano. The album includes songs in Swedish and English from a range of Andersson's projects, such as "Chess", "Kristina" and BAO.


title: Benny Andersson

text: In November 2018, Deutsche Grammophon released "Piano", a collection of ABBA tunes, tunes from Chess and original compositions all played by Andersson on solo piano.


title: Benny Andersson

text: Andersson reunited with ABBA in 2018. On 2 September 2021, via YouTube livestream, ABBA announced their upcoming virtual concert residency "ABBA Voyage", as well as the imminent release of an eponymous album, recorded between 2017 and 2021. The new record, their first studio album in 40 years, features ten tracks, including "I Still Have Faith In You" and "Don't Shut Me Down", which also were first shown in the aforementioned livestream event and released as a double A-side single. On 5 November 2021, the "Voyage" album was released worldwide. On 27 May 2022, ABBA Voyage opened in a purpose-built venue named the ABBA Arena at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London.


title: Benny Andersson

text: Andersson has written music to several films for screen and television; the first attempt in the early 1970s for the Swedish erotica movie "The Seduction of Inga"; the film was not a success, but the 'Björn & Benny' single "She's My Kind of Girl" surprised the composers by being released in Japan and becoming a Top 10 hit (the song renamed in Japan as "The Little Girl of the Cold Wind").


title: Benny Andersson

text: In 1987, Andersson wrote music and co-produced the soundtrack with Anders Eljas for the film "Mio in the Land of Faraway", based on Swedish author Astrid Lindgrens "Mio, My Son". The title song became a huge hit in Sweden for Gemini.


title: Benny Andersson

text: In 2000, he wrote the music for fellow Swede (no relation) Roy Andersson's film "Songs from the Second Floor" (the music later re-recorded, featuring new lyrics, with BAO! with vocals by Helen Sjöholm). He also wrote the theme for Roy Andersson's next film, "You, the Living", from 2007.


title: Benny Andersson

text: Andersson worked on the film adaptation of "Mamma Mia!". He also wrote the film score for the 2012 documentary "Palme" about Swedish prime minister Olof Palme. He later won a Guldbagge Award for Best Original Score, for that film at the 48th Guldbagge Awards.


title: Benny Andersson

text: Together with Ulvaeus, Andersson was nominated for a Drama Desk Award in a category "Outstanding Music" (for the musical "Chess"), and for a Tony Award in a category "Best Orchestrations" (for musical "Mamma Mia!"). Original cast recordings of both musicals were nominated for a Grammy Award. Andersson/Ulvaeus also won a Touring Broadway Award for the musical "Mamma Mia" (best score).


title: Benny Andersson

text: During his post-ABBA career Andersson won four Swedish Grammis awards, and together with Ulvaeus received the "Special International" Ivor Novello award from 'The British Academy of Composers and Songwriters', twice "The Music Export Prize" from the Swedish Ministry of Industry and Trade (2008), as well as the "Lifetime Achievement" award from the Swedish Music Publishers Association (SMFF). In 2002, Andersson was given an honorary professorship by the Swedish Government for his "ability to create high-class music reaching people around the world".


title: Benny Andersson

text: In 2007, he was elected a member of Royal Swedish Academy of Music, and in 2008 received an Honorary Doctorate from the Stockholm University Faculty of Humanities for contributing importantly both to the preservation and the growth of the Swedish folk music tradition.


title: Benny Andersson

text: On 15 March 2010, Andersson appeared on stage in New York with former wife Anni-Frid Lyngstad to accept ABBA's award of induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. During his acceptance speech he reflected on the important influence of traditional European music and the melancholy of the Swedish soul on ABBA's brand of pop music. "If you live in a country like Sweden, with five, six months of snow, and the sun disappears totally for like two months, that would be reflected in the work of artists," he said. "It's definitely in the Swedish folk music, you can hear it in the Russian folk songs, you can hear in the music from Jean Sibelius or Edvard Grieg from Norway, you can see it in the eyes of Greta Garbo and you can hear it in the voice of Jussi Björling. And you can hear in the sound of Frida and Agnetha on some of our songs too."


title: Benny Andersson

text: In 2012, he received an Honorary Doctorate of Philosophy from the Luleå Tekniska Universitet Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences.


title: Benny Andersson

text: Andersson was engaged to Christina Grönvall. In 1963, they had a son, Peter, and in 1965, a daughter, Heléne. Both children were given their mother's surname. The couple split in 1966 and Christina kept custody of the children as Andersson was then at the peak of his Hep Stars' success. In the 1990s, Peter formed One More Time, a group that enjoyed European success with the ABBA-like "Highland" and, later, as Sweden's entry to the Eurovision Song Contest 1996.


title: Benny Andersson

text: Andersson was in a relationship with Anni-Frid Lyngstad of ABBA for about 11 years, from 1969 till 1980. They married on 6 October 1978, but separated on 26 November 1980 and divorced in 1981.


title: Benny Andersson

text: He married Swedish TV presenter Mona Nörklit in 1981 and had a son, Ludvig (born January 1982), who has since followed in his father's footsteps in forming his own band. Ludvig is also one of the producers of the concert residency ABBA Voyage.


title: Benny Andersson

text: Andersson was an alcoholic through much of his adult life. He has remained a teetotaler since 2001. Andersson did not disclose the extent of his substance abuse problems until a 2011 interview, at which point he had maintained nearly a decade of sobriety.


title: Sharp Objects (miniseries)

text: Sharp Objects is a 2018 American psychological thriller television miniseries based on Gillian Flynn's 2006 debut novel of the same name that premiered on July 8, 2018, on HBO. The series was created by Marti Noxon, directed by Jean-Marc Vallée, and stars Amy Adams, Patricia Clarkson, Chris Messina, Eliza Scanlen, Matt Craven, Henry Czerny, Taylor John Smith, Madison Davenport, Miguel Sandoval, Will Chase, Jackson Hurst, Sophia Lillis, Lulu Wilson, and Elizabeth Perkins. It follows Camille Preaker, an emotionally troubled reporter who returns to her hometown to cover the murders of two young girls.


title: Sharp Objects (miniseries)

text: The series received critical acclaim, particularly for its visuals, dark atmosphere, directing, and acting (particularly that of Adams, Clarkson, and Scanlen). Among its accolades, Clarkson won the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Series, Miniseries or Television Film and Adams received a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Miniseries or Television Film. It also received eight nominations at the 71st Primetime Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Limited Series and acting nominations for Adams and Clarkson. It is the final directorial work of Vallée before his death in 2021.


title: Sharp Objects (miniseries)

text: Crime reporter Camille Preaker, suffering from alcoholism and recently discharged from a psychiatric hospital after years of self-harming, returns to her hometown of Wind Gap, Missouri, to investigate the murders of two young girls. Upon arriving at her childhood home, she finds herself once again under the critical eye of her mother, Adora, a small-town socialite, which forces Camille to confront her personal demons.


title: Sharp Objects (miniseries)

text: In 2008, it was reported that Gillian Flynn's novel "Sharp Objects" was in development by French production company Pathé with Andrea Arnold set to direct. By 2012, it was reported that the novel had been optioned by Alliance Films with Jason Blum expected to serve as a producer. Subsequently, Marti Noxon approached Blum with her vision for an eight episode television series.


title: Sharp Objects (miniseries)

text: On July 8, 2014, it was announced that Blumhouse Productions and Entertainment One would be developing and producing a drama based on the debut novel from Gillian Flynn. Marti Noxon would serve as the showrunner, writer and executive producer, while Jean-Marc Vallée would serve as the director and executive producer.


title: Sharp Objects (miniseries)

text: On April 1, 2016, it was announced that HBO had given the production an eight episode straight-to-series order. On May 15, 2018, it was announced that the series would premiere on July 8, 2018. On July 25, 2018, HBO president of programming, Casey Bloys, confirmed that, unlike another HBO series, "Big Little Lies", which was originally ordered as a limited series before being renewed for a second season, "Sharp Objects" will not return for more episodes following its limited run.


title: Sharp Objects (miniseries)

text: On February 19, 2016, "Variety" reported that Amy Adams had joined the project as its lead. In March 2017, it was announced that Patricia Clarkson, Eliza Scanlen, Elizabeth Perkins, Madison Davenport, Chris Messina, Matt Craven, and Taylor John Smith had been cast in series regular roles. It was also announced that Will Chase, Jackson Hurst, and Jennifer Aspen had joined the cast in a recurring capacity. On May 22, 2017, it was announced that David Sullivan, Reagan Pasternak, Sydney Sweeney, Hilary Ward, and Sophia Lillis had been cast in recurring roles.


title: Sharp Objects (miniseries)

text: Principal photography for the series commenced on March 6, 2017. Filming locations included Barnesville, Georgia; Los Angeles, California; Redwood Valley, California; Santa Clarita, California; and Mendocino, California.


title: Sharp Objects (miniseries)

text: It was reported that there was a fair amount of turmoil on the set of the series. Showrunner Noxon described the alleged "toe-to-toe screaming matches" she and the other producers would get into with director Vallée over his refusal to adhere closely to the series' scripts. Noxon has described Vallée as "much more interested in imagery and telling stories through pictures, and he's brilliant at that...but I love language...I studied theatre at Wesleyan before I became a writer, and the beauty of language, particularly in the Southern Gothic tradition, is so important to me." Noxon together with Gillian Flynn, Jessica Rhoades, Amy Adams, and another (male) producer would reportedly have to pressure Vallée to include the dialogue of the script in his scenes, to his displeasure.


title: Sharp Objects (miniseries)

text: Each episode features a title sequence with a different interpretation of the song "Dance and Angela" by Franz Waxman from the score of the 1951 film "A Place in the Sun". An electronic treatment of the song, by Jeffrey Brodsky, was used for the second episode. All music featured in the series is diegetic, coming from a source (a stereo, headphones, etc.) within the scene. The series secured the rights to four songs by Led Zeppelin, a band which is notoriously hard to get the rights for. Music supervisor Susan Jacobs stated, "We were trying to explain the importance of what music really does and how it plays a really pivotal role in this girl's life" and "also the escapism idea of music." The band liked the idea and approved the usage of their music.


title: Sharp Objects (miniseries)

text: On April 22, 2018, a teaser trailer for the series was released. On June 5, 2018, the official trailer was released.