title: RBMK

text: The fuel channels consist of welded zircaloy pressure tubes 8cm in inner diameter with 4mm thick walls, led through the channels in the center of the graphite moderator blocks. The top and bottom parts of the tubes are made of stainless steel, and joined with the central zircaloy segment with zirconium-steel alloy couplings. The pressure tube is held in the graphite stack channels with two alternating types of 20mm high split graphite rings; one is in direct contact with the tube and has 1.5mm clearance to the graphite stack, the other one is directly touching the graphite stack and has 1.3mm clearance to the tube; this assembly reduces transfer of mechanical loads caused by neutron-induced swelling, thermal expansion of the blocks, and other factors to the pressure tube, while facilitating heat transfer from the graphite blocks. The pressure tubes are welded to the top and bottom plates of the reactor vessel.


title: RBMK

text: While most of the heat energy from the fission process is generated in the fuel rods, approximately 5.5% is deposited in the graphite blocks as they moderate the fast neutrons formed from fission. This energy must be removed to avoid overheating the graphite. About 80–85% of the energy deposited in the graphite is removed by the fuel rod coolant channels, using conduction via the graphite rings. The rest of the graphite heat is removed from the control rod channels by forced gas circulation through the gas circuit.


title: RBMK

text: There are 1693 fuel channels and 170 control rod channels in the first generation RBMK reactor cores. Second generation reactor cores (such as Kursk and Chernobyl 3/4) have 1661 fuel channels and 211 control rod channels.


title: RBMK

text: The fuel assembly is suspended in the fuel channel on a bracket, with a seal plug. The seal plug has a simple design, to facilitate its removal and installation by the remotely controlled online refueling machine.


title: RBMK

text: The fuel channels may, instead of fuel, contain fixed neutron absorbers, or be filled completely with cooling water. They may also contain silicon-filled tubes in place of a fuel assembly, for the purpose of doping for semiconductors. These channels could be identified by their corresponding servo readers, which would be blocked and replaced with the atomic symbol for silicon.


title: RBMK

text: The small clearance between the pressure channel and the graphite block makes the graphite core susceptible to damage. If a pressure channel deforms, e.g. by too high an internal pressure, the deformation can cause significant pressure loads on the graphite blocks and lead to damage.


title: RBMK

text: The fuel pellets are made of uranium dioxide powder, sintered with a suitable binder into pellets 11.5mm in diameter and 15mm long. The material may contain added europium oxide as a burnable nuclear poison to lower the reactivity differences between a new and partially spent fuel assembly. To reduce thermal expansion issues and interaction with the cladding, the pellets have hemispherical indentations. A 2mm hole through the axis of the pellet serves to reduce the temperature in the center of the pellet and facilitates removal of gaseous fission products. The enrichment level in 1980 was 2% (0.4% for the end pellets of the assemblies). Maximum allowable temperature of the fuel pellet is 2100°C.


title: RBMK

text: The fuel rods are zircaloy (1% niobium) tubes 13.6mm in outer diameter, 0.825mm thick. The rods are filled with helium at 0.5 MPa and hermetically sealed. Retaining rings help to seat the pellets in the center of the tube and facilitate heat transfer from the pellet to the tube. The pellets are axially held in place by a spring. Each rod contains 3.5kg of fuel pellets. The fuel rods are 3.64m long, with 3.4m of that being the active length. The maximum allowed temperature of a fuel rod is 600°C.


title: RBMK

text: The fuel assemblies consist of two sets ("sub-assemblies") with 18 fuel rods and 1 carrier rod. The fuel rods are arranged along the central carrier rod, which has an outer diameter of 1.3cm. All rods of a fuel assembly are held in place with 10 stainless steel spacers separated by 360mm distance. The two sub-assemblies are joined with a cylinder at the center of the assembly; during the operation of the reactor, this dead space without fuel lowers the neutron flux in the central plane of the reactor. The total mass of uranium in the fuel assembly is 114.7kg. The fuel burnup is 20 MW·d/kg. The total length of the fuel assembly is 10.025m, with 6.862m of the active region.


title: RBMK

text: In addition to the regular fuel assemblies, there are instrumented ones, containing neutron flux detectors in the central carrier. In this case, the rod is replaced with a tube with wall thickness of 2.5mm; and outer diameter of 15mm.


title: RBMK

text: Unlike the rectangular PWR/BWR fuel assemblies or hexagonal VVER fuel assemblies, the RBMK fuel assembly is cylindrical to fit the round pressure channels.


title: RBMK

text: The refueling machine is mounted on a gantry crane and remotely controlled. The fuel assemblies can be replaced without shutting down the reactor, a factor significant for production of weapon-grade plutonium and, in a civilian context, for better reactor uptime. When a fuel assembly has to be replaced, the machine is positioned above the fuel channel: then it mates to the latter, equalizes pressure within, pulls the rod, and inserts a fresh one. The spent rod is then placed in a cooling pond. The capacity of the refueling machine with the reactor at nominal power level is two fuel assemblies per day, with peak capacity of five per day.


title: RBMK

text: The total amount of fuel under stationary conditions is 192 tons. The RBMK core has a relatively low power density at least partly due to the 25 cm spacing between channels and thus fuel assemblies.


title: RBMK

text: Most of the reactor control rods are inserted from above; 24 shortened rods are inserted from below and are used to augment the axial power distribution control of the core. With the exception of 12 automatic rods, the control rods have a long graphite section at the end, separated by a long telescope (which creates a water-filled space between the graphite and the absorber), and a boron carbide neutron absorber section. The role of the graphite section, known as "displacer", is to enhance the difference between the neutron flux attenuation levels of inserted and retracted rods, as the graphite displaces water that would otherwise act as a neutron absorber, although much weaker than boron carbide; a control rod channel filled with graphite absorbs fewer neutrons than when filled with water, so the difference between inserted and retracted control rod is increased. When the control rod is fully retracted, the graphite displacer is located in the middle of the core height, with 1.25 m of water at each of its ends. The displacement of water in the lower 1.25 m of the core as the rod moves down could cause a local increase of reactivity in the bottom of the core as the graphite part of the control rod passes that section. This "positive scram" effect was discovered in 1983 at the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant. The control rod channels are cooled by an independent water circuit and kept at . The narrow space between the rod and its channel hinders water flow around the rods during their movement and acts as a fluid damper, which is the primary cause of their slow insertion time (nominally 18–21 seconds for the reactor control and protection system rods, or about 0.4 m/s). After the Chernobyl disaster, the control rod servos on other RBMK reactors were exchanged to allow faster rod movements, and even faster movement was achieved by cooling of the control rod channels by a thin layer of water between an inner jacket and the Zircaloy tube of the channel while letting the rods themselves move in gas.


title: RBMK

text: The division of the control rods between manual and emergency protection groups was arbitrary; the rods could be reassigned from one system to another during reactor operation without technical or organizational problems.


title: RBMK

text: Additional static boron-based absorbers are inserted into the core when it is loaded with fresh fuel. About 240 absorbers are added during initial core loading. These absorbers are gradually removed with increasing burnup. The reactor's void coefficient depends on the core content; it ranges from negative with all the initial absorbers to positive when they are all removed.


title: RBMK

text: The reactor operates in a helium–nitrogen atmosphere (70–90% He, 10–30% N by volume). The gas circuit is composed of a compressor, aerosol and iodine filters, adsorber for carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and ammonia, a holding tank for allowing the gaseous radioactive products to decay before being discharged, an aerosol filter to remove solid decay products, and a ventilator stack, the iconic chimney above the space between reactors in second generation RBMKs such as Kursk and Chernobyl 3/4 or some distance away from the reactors in first generation RBMKs such as Kursk and Chernobyl 1/2. The gas is injected to the core stack from the bottom in a low flow rate, and exits from the standpipe of each channel via an individual pipe. The moisture and temperature of the outlet gas is monitored; an increase of them is an indicator of a coolant leak. A single gas circuit serves two RBMK-1000 reactors or a single RBMK-1500; RBMK reactors were always built in pairs. The gas circuit is housed between two reactors in second generation RBMKs such as Chernobyl 3/4, Kursk 3/4 and Smolensk 1-4.


title: RBMK

text: The reactor has two independent cooling circuits, each having four main circulating pumps (three operating, one standby) that service one half of the reactor. The cooling water is fed to the reactor through lower water lines to a common pressure header (one for each cooling circuit), which is split to 22 group distribution headers, each feeding 38–41 pressure channels through the core, where the coolant boils. The mixture of steam and water is led by the upper steam lines, one for each pressure channel, from the reactor top to the steam separators, pairs of thick horizontal drums located in side compartments above the reactor top; each has diameter, length, wall thickness of , and weighs . Steam, with steam quality of about 15%, is taken from the top of the separators by two steam collectors per separator, combined, and led to two turbogenerators in the turbine hall, then to condensers, reheated to , and pumped by the condensate pumps to deaerators, where remains of gaseous phase and corrosion-inducing gases are removed. The resulting feedwater is led to the steam separators by feedwater pumps and mixed with water from them at their outlets. From the bottom of the steam separators, the feedwater is led by 12 downpipes (from each separator) to the suction headers of the main circulation pumps, and back into the reactor. There is an ion exchange system included in the loop to remove impurities from the feedwater.


title: RBMK

text: The turbine consists of one high-pressure rotor (cylinder) and four low-pressure ones. Five low-pressure separators-preheaters are used to heat steam with fresh steam before being fed to the next stage of the turbine. The uncondensed steam is fed into a condenser, mixed with condensate from the separators, fed by the first-stage condensate pump to a chemical (ion-exchange) purifier, then by a second-stage condensate pump to four deaerators where dissolved and entrained gases are removed; deaerators also serve as storage tanks for feedwater. From the deaerators, the water is pumped through filters and into the bottom parts of the steam separator drums.


title: RBMK

text: The main circulating pumps have the capacity of 5,500–12,000 m/h and are powered by 6 kV electric motors. The normal coolant flow is 8000 m/h per pump; this is throttled down by control valves to 6000–7000 m/h when the reactor power is below 500 MWt. Each pump has a flow control valve and a backflow preventing check valve on the outlet, and shutoff valves on both inlet and outlet. Each of the pressure channels in the core has its own flow control valve so that the temperature distribution in the reactor core can be optimized. Each channel has a ball type flow meter.


title: RBMK

text: The nominal coolant flow through the reactor is 46,000–48,000 m/h. The steam flow at full power is /h.


title: RBMK

text: The nominal temperature of the coolant at the inlet of the reactor is about and the outlet temperature , at pressure in the drum separator and reactor of . The pressure and the inlet temperature determine the height at which the boiling begins in the reactor; if the coolant temperature is not sufficiently below its boiling point at the system pressure, the boiling starts at the very bottom part of the reactor instead of its higher parts. With few absorbers in the reactor core, such as during the Chernobyl accident, the positive void coefficient of the reactor makes the reactor very sensitive to the feedwater temperature. Bubbles of boiling water lead to increased power, which in turn increases the formation of bubbles.


title: RBMK

text: If the coolant temperature is too close to its boiling point, cavitation can occur in the pumps and their operation can become erratic or even stop entirely. The feedwater temperature is dependent on the steam production; the steam phase portion is led to the turbines and condensers and returns significantly cooler () than the water returning directly from the steam separator (284 °C). At low reactor power, therefore, the inlet temperature may become dangerously high. The water is kept below the saturation temperature to prevent film boiling and the associated drop in heat transfer rate.


title: RBMK

text: The reactor is tripped in cases of high or low water level in the steam separators (with two selectable low-level thresholds); high steam pressure; low feedwater flow; loss of two main coolant pumps on either side. These trips can be manually disabled.


title: RBMK

text: The level of water in the steam separators, the percentage of steam in the reactor pressure tubes, the level at which the water begins to boil in the reactor core, the neutron flux and power distribution in the reactor, and the feedwater flow through the core have to be carefully controlled. The level of water in the steam separator is mainly controlled by the feedwater supply, with the deaerator tanks serving as a water reservoir.


title: RBMK

text: The maximum allowed heat-up rate of the reactor and the coolant is /h; the maximum cool-down rate is /h.


title: RBMK

text: The reactor is equipped with an emergency core cooling system (ECCS), consisting of dedicated water reserve tank, hydraulic accumulators, and pumps. ECCS piping is integrated with the normal reactor cooling system. The ECCS has three systems, connected to the coolant system headers. In case of damage, the first ECCS subsystem provides cooling for up to 100 seconds to the damaged half of the coolant circuit (the other half is cooled by the main circulation pumps), and the other two subsystems then handle long-term cooling of the reactor.


title: RBMK

text: The short-term ECCS subsystem consists of two groups of six accumulator tanks, containing water blanketed with nitrogen under pressure of , connected by fast-acting valves to the reactor. Each group can supply 50% of the maximum coolant flow to the damaged half of the reactor. The third group is a set of electrical pumps drawing water from the deaerators. The short-term pumps can be powered by the spindown of the main turbogenerators.


title: RBMK

text: ECCS for long-term cooling of the damaged circuit consists of three pairs of electrical pumps, drawing water from the pressure suppression pools; the water is cooled by the plant service water by means of heat exchangers in the suction lines. Each pair is able to supply half of the maximum coolant flow. ECCS for long-term cooling of the intact circuit consists of three separate pumps drawing water from the condensate storage tanks, each able to supply half of the maximum flow. The ECCS pumps are powered from the essential internal 6 kV lines, backed up by diesel generators. Some valves that require uninterrupted power are also backed up by batteries.


title: RBMK

text: The distribution of power density in the reactor is measured by ionization chambers located inside and outside the core. The physical power density distribution control system (PPDDCS) has sensors inside the core; the reactor control and protection system (RCPS) uses sensors in the core and in the lateral biological shield tank. The external sensors in the tank are located around the reactor middle plane, therefore do not indicate axial power distribution nor information about the power in the central part of the core. There are over 100 radial and 12 axial power distribution monitors, employing self-powered detectors. Reactivity meters and removable startup chambers are used for monitoring of reactor startup. Total reactor power is recorded as the sum of the currents of the lateral ionization chambers. The moisture and temperature of the gas circulating in the channels is monitored by the pressure tube integrity monitoring system.


title: RBMK

text: The PPDDCS and RCPS are supposed to complement each other. The RCPS system consists of 211 movable control rods. Both systems, however, have deficiencies, most noticeably at low reactor power levels. The PPDDCS is designed to maintain reactor power density distribution between 10 and 120% of nominal levels and to control the total reactor power between 5 and 120% of nominal levels. The LAC-LAP (local automatic control and local automatic protection) RPCS subsystems rely on ionization chambers inside the reactor and are active at power levels above 10%. Below those levels, the automatic systems are disabled and the in-core sensors are not accessible. Without the automatic systems and relying only on the lateral ionization chambers, control of the reactor becomes very difficult; the operators do not have sufficient data to control the reactor reliably and have to rely on their intuition. During startup of a reactor with a poison-free core this lack of information can be manageable because the reactor behaves predictably, but a non-uniformly poisoned core can cause large nonhomogenities of power distribution, with potentially catastrophic results.


title: RBMK

text: The reactor emergency protection system (EPS) was designed to shut down the reactor when its operational parameters are exceeded. The design accounted for steam collapse in the core when the fuel element temperature falls below 265 °C, coolant vaporization in fuel channels in cold reactor state, and sticking of some emergency protection rods. However, the slow insertion speed of the control rods, together with their design causing localized positive reactivity as the displacer moves through the lower part of the core, created a number of possible situations where initiation of the EPS could itself cause or aggravate a reactor runaway.


title: RBMK

text: The SKALA or SCALA computer system for calculation of the reactivity margin was collecting data from about 4,000 sources. Its purpose was to assist the operator with steady-state control of the reactor. Ten to fifteen minutes were required to cycle through all the measurements and calculate the results. SKALA could not control the reactor, instead it only made recommendations to the operators, and it used 1960s computer technology.


title: RBMK

text: The operators could disable some safety systems, reset or suppress some alarm signals, and bypass automatic scram, by attaching patch cables to accessible terminals. This practice was allowed under some circumstances.


title: RBMK

text: The reactor is equipped with a fuel rod leak detector. A scintillation counter detector, sensitive to energies of short-lived fission products, is mounted on a special dolly and moved over the outlets of the fuel channels, issuing an alert if increased radioactivity is detected in the steam-water flow.


title: RBMK

text: In RBMK control rooms there are two large panels or mimic displays representing a top view of the reactor. One display is made up mostly or completely (in first generation RBMKs) of colored dials or rod position indicators: these dials represent the position of the control rods inside the reactor and the color of the housing of the dials matches that of the control rods, whose colors correspond to their function, for example, red for automatic control rods. The other display is a core map or core channel cartogram and is circular, is made of tiles, and represents every channel on the reactor. Each tile is made of a single light cover with a channel number and an incandescent light bulb, and each light bulb illuminates to represent out-of-spec (higher or lower than normal) channel parameters. Operators have to type in the number of the affected channel(s) and then view the instruments to find exactly what parameters are out of spec. The core map represented information from the SKALA computer. Each unit had its own computer housed in a separate room. The control room also has chart or trend recorders. Some RBMK control rooms have


title: RBMK

text: been upgraded with video walls that replace the mimic displays and most chart recorders and eliminate the need to type in channel numbers and instead operators lay a cursor over a (now representative) tile to reveal its parameters that are shown on the lower side of the video wall. The control room is located below the floor of the deaerator room, and both rooms are in the space between the reactor and turbine buildings.


title: RBMK

text: The RBMK design was built primarily to be powerful, quick to build and easy to maintain. Full physical containment structures for each reactor would have more than doubled the cost and construction time of each plant, and since the design had been certified by the Soviet nuclear science ministry as inherently safe when operated within established parameters, the Soviet authorities assumed proper adherence to doctrine by workers would make any accident impossible. Additionally, RBMK reactors were designed to allow fuel rods to be changed at full power without shutting down (as in the pressurized heavy water CANDU reactor), both for refueling and for plutonium production (for nuclear weapons). This required large cranes above the core. As the RBMK reactor core is very tall (about ), the cost and difficulty of building a heavy containment structure prevented the building of additional emergency containment structures for pipes on top of the reactor core. In the Chernobyl accident, the pressure rose to levels high enough to blow the top off the reactor, breaking open the fuel channels in the process and starting a massive fire when air contacted the superheated graphite core. After the Chernobyl accident, some RBMK reactors were retrofitted with a partial containment structure (in lieu of a full containment building), which surround the fuel channels with water jackets in order to capture any radioactive particles released.


title: RBMK

text: The bottom part of the reactor is enclosed in a watertight compartment. There is a space between the reactor bottom and the floor. The reactor cavity overpressure protection system consists of steam relief assemblies embedded in the floor and leading to Steam Distributor Headers covered with rupture discs and opening into the Steam Distribution Corridor below the reactor, on level +6. The floor of the corridor contains entrances of a large number of vertical pipes, leading to the bottoms of the Pressure Suppression Pools ("bubbler" pools) located on levels +3 and +0. In the event of an accident, which was predicted to be at most a rupture of one or two pressure channels, the steam was to be bubbled through the water and condensed there, reducing the overpressure in the leaktight compartment. The flow capacity of the pipes to the pools limited the protection capacity to simultaneous rupture of two pressure channels; a higher number of failures would cause pressure buildup sufficient to lift the cover plate ("Structure E", after the explosion nicknamed "Elena", not to be confused with the Russian ELENA reactor), sever the rest of the fuel channels, destroy the control rod insertion system, and potentially also withdraw control rods from the core. The containment was designed to handle failures of the downcomers, pumps, and distribution and inlet of the feedwater. The leaktight compartments around the pumps can withstand overpressure of . The distribution headers and inlets enclosures can handle and are vented via check valves to the leaktight compartment. The reactor cavity can handle overpressure of and is vented via check valves to the leaktight compartment. The pressure suppression system can handle a failure of one reactor channel, a pump pressure header, or a distribution header. Leaks in the steam piping and separators are not handled, except for maintaining slightly lower pressure in the riser pipe gallery and the steam drum compartment than in the reactor hall. These spaces are also not designed to withstand overpressure. The steam distribution corridor contains surface condensers. The fire sprinkler systems, operating during both accident and normal operation, are fed from the pressure suppression pools through heat exchangers cooled by the plant service water, and cool the air above the pools. Jet coolers are located in the topmost parts of the compartments; their role is to cool the air and remove the steam and radioactive aerosol particles.


title: RBMK

text: Hydrogen removal from the leaktight compartment is performed by removal of /hour of air, its filtration, and discharge into the atmosphere. The air removal is stopped automatically in case of a coolant leak and has to be reinstated manually. Hydrogen is present during normal operation due to leaks of coolant (assumed to be up to per hour).


title: RBMK

text: The power plant is connected to the 330 kV and 750 kV electrical grid. The block has two electrical generators connected to the 750 kV grid by a single generator transformer. The generators are connected to their common transformer by two switches in series. Between them, the unit transformers are connected to supply power to the power plant's own systems; each generator can therefore be connected to the unit transformer to power the plant, or to the unit transformer and the generator transformer to also feed power to the grid. The 330 kV line is normally not used, and serves as an external power supply, connected by a station transformer to the power plant's electrical systems. The plant can be powered by its own generators, or get power from the 750 kV grid through the generator transformer, or from the 330 kV grid via the station transformer, or from the other power plant block via two reserve busbars. In case of total external power loss, the essential systems can be powered by diesel generators. Each unit transformer is connected to two 6 kV main power boards, A and B (e.g. 7A, 7B, 8A, 8B for generators 7 and 8), powering principal non-essential drivers and connected to transformers for the 4 kV main power and the 4 kV reserve busbar. The 7A, 7B, and 8B boards are also connected to the three essential power lines (namely for the coolant pumps), each also having its own diesel generator. In case of a coolant circuit failure with simultaneous loss of external power, the essential power can be supplied by the spinning down turbogenerators for about 45–50 seconds, during which time the diesel generators should start up. The generators are started automatically within 15 seconds at loss of off-site power.


title: RBMK

text: The electrical energy is generated by a pair of 500 MW hydrogen-cooled turbogenerators. These are located in the -long machine hall, adjacent to the reactor building. The turbines, the venerable five-cylinder K-500-65/3000, are supplied by the Kharkiv turbine plant; the electrical generators are the TVV-500. The turbine and the generator rotors are mounted on the same shaft; the combined weight of the rotors is almost and their nominal rotational speed is 3000 rpm. The turbogenerator is long and its total weight is . The coolant flow for each turbine is /h. The generator produces 20 kV 50 Hz AC power. The generator's stator is cooled by water while its rotor is cooled by hydrogen. The hydrogen for the generators is manufactured on-site by electrolysis. The design and reliability of the turbines earned them the State Prize of Ukraine for 1979.


title: RBMK

text: The Kharkiv turbine plant (now Turboatom) later developed a new version of the turbine, K-500-65/3000-2, in an attempt to reduce use of valuable metal. The Chernobyl plant was equipped with both types of turbines; Block 4 had the newer ones.


title: RBMK

text: The primary difference between RBMK-1000 and RBMK-1500 reactors is that the RBMK-1500 is cooled with less water, which adopts a helical laminar flow instead of a purely laminar flow through the channels. The RBMK-1500 also uses less uranium. The helical flow is created by turbulators in the fuel assembly and increases heat removal. Because of the RBMK's positive void coefficient, the reduced cooling water volume causes a higher power output. As the name suggests, it was designed for an electrical power output of 1500 MW. The only reactors of this type and power output are the ones at Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant.


title: RBMK

text: The RBMK-2000 and RBMK-3600 were designed to produce 2000 and 3600 MW of electrical power respectively. The RBMK-2000 would have had an increased channel diameter and number of fuel rods per fuel assembly while maintaining the same dimensions of the reactor core as the RBMK-1000 and RBMK-1500. The RBMK-3600 presumably similarly to the RBMK-1500 would have added turbulators to the RBMK-2000 design to increase heat removal.


title: RBMK

text: The RBMKP-2400 is rectangular instead of cylindrical, and it was a modular, theoretically infinitely longitudinally expandable design with vertical steam separators, intended to be made in sections at a factory for assembly in situ. It was designed to have a power output of 2400 MWe, and a higher thermal efficiency due to steam superheating directly in the reactor core in special fuel channels with fuel rods with stainless steel cladding instead of the more common Zircaloy cladding, for a steam outlet temperature of 450°C. No reactor with this power output has ever been built, with the most powerful one currently being as of 2018 the 1750 MWe EPR. The development of this design was cancelled in the aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster. An RBMKP-4800 would have had an increased number of evaporating and superheating channels thus increasing power output. Two RBMK-2400s were planned for the .


title: RBMK

text: As an early Generation II reactor based on 1950s Soviet technology, the RBMK design was optimized for speed of production over redundancy. It was designed and constructed with several design characteristics that proved dangerously unstable when operated outside their design specifications. The decision to use a graphite core with natural uranium fuel allowed for massive power generation at only a quarter of the expense of heavy water reactors, which were more maintenance-intensive and required large volumes of expensive heavy water for startup. However, it also had unexpected negative consequences that would not reveal themselves fully until the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.


title: RBMK

text: Light water (ordinary HO) is both a neutron moderator and a neutron absorber. This means that not only can it slow down neutrons to velocities in equilibrium with surrounding molecules ("thermalize" them and turn them into low-energy neutrons, known as thermal neutrons, that are far more likely to interact with the uranium-235 nuclei than the fast neutrons produced by fission initially), but it also absorbs some of them.


title: RBMK

text: In the RBMK series of reactors, light water functions as a coolant, while moderation is mainly carried out by graphite. As graphite already moderates neutrons, light water has a lesser effect in slowing them down, but could still absorb them. This means that the reactor's reactivity (adjustable by appropriate neutron-absorbing rods) must take into account the neutrons absorbed by light water.


title: RBMK

text: In the case of vaporisation of water to steam, the place occupied by water would be occupied by water vapor, which has a density vastly lower than that of liquid water (the exact number depends on pressure and temperature; at standard conditions, steam is about as dense as liquid water). Because of this lower density (of mass, and consequently of atom nuclei able to absorb neutrons), light water's neutron-absorption capability practically disappears when it boils. This allows more neutrons to fission more U-235 nuclei and thereby increase the reactor power, which leads to higher temperatures that boil even more water, creating a thermal feedback loop.


title: RBMK

text: In RBMK reactors, generation of steam in the coolant water would then in practice create a void: a bubble that does not absorb neutrons. The reduction in moderation by light water is irrelevant, as graphite still moderates the neutrons. However, the loss of absorption dramatically alters the balance of neutron production, causing a runaway condition in which more and more neutrons are produced, and their density grows exponentially. Such a condition is called a "positive void coefficient", and the RBMK reactor series has the highest positive void coefficient of any commercial reactor ever designed.


title: RBMK

text: A high void coefficient does not necessarily make a reactor inherently unsafe, as some of the fission neutrons are emitted with a delay of seconds or even minutes (post-fission neutron emission from daughter nuclei), and therefore steps can be taken to reduce the fission rate before it becomes too high. This situation, however, does make it considerably harder to control the reactor, especially at low power. Thus, control systems must be very reliable and control-room personnel must be rigorously trained in the peculiarities and limits of the system. Neither of these requirements were in place at Chernobyl: since the reactor's actual design bore the approval stamp of the Kurchatov Institute and was considered a state secret, discussion of the reactor's flaws was forbidden, even among the actual personnel operating the plant. Some later RBMK designs did include control rods on electromagnetic grapples, thus controlling the reaction speed and, if necessary, stopping the reaction completely. The RBMK reactor at Chernobyl, however, had manual clutch control rods.


title: RBMK

text: All RBMK reactors underwent significant changes following the Chernobyl disaster. The positive void coefficient was reduced from +4.5 β to +0.7 β, decreasing the likelihood of further reactivity accidents, at the cost of higher enrichment requirements of the uranium fuel.


title: RBMK

text: In his posthumously published memoirs, Valery Legasov, the First Deputy Director of the Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy, revealed that the Institute's scientists had long known that the RBMK had significant design flaws. Legasov's suicide in 1988, following frustrated attempts to promote nuclear and industrial safety reform, caused shockwaves throughout the scientific community. The RBMK's design problems were discussed increasingly openly.


title: RBMK

text: Following the accident at Chernobyl, all remaining RBMK reactors were retrofitted with a number of updates for safety. The largest of these updates fixed the RBMK control rod design. The control rods have graphite displacers, which prevent coolant water from entering the space vacated as the rods are withdrawn. In the original design, those displacers, being shorter than the height of the core, left columns of water at the bottom (and at the top) when the rods were fully extracted. During insertion, the graphite would first displace that lower water, locally increasing reactivity. Also, when the rods were in their uppermost position, the absorber ends were outside the core, requiring a relatively large displacement before achieving a significant reduction in reactivity. These design flaws were likely the final trigger of the first explosion of the Chernobyl accident, causing the lower part of the core to become prompt critical when the operators tried to shut down the highly destabilized reactor by reinserting the rods. The updates are:


title: RBMK

text: In addition, RELAP5-3D models of RBMK-1500 reactors were developed for use in integrated thermal-hydraulics-neutronics calculations for the analysis of specific transients in which the neutronic response of the core is important.


title: RBMK

text: <nowiki>*</nowiki>BAZ button is intended as a preemptive measure to bring down reactivity before AZ-5 is activated, to enable the safe and stable emergency shutdown of a RBMK.


title: RBMK

text: From May 2012 to December 2013, Leningrad-1 was offline while repairs were made related to deformed graphite moderator blocks. The 18-month project included research and the development of maintenance machines and monitoring systems. Similar work will be applied to the remaining operational RBMKs. Graphite moderator blocks in the RBMK can be repaired and replaced in situ, unlike in the other current large graphite moderated reactor, the advanced gas-cooled reactor.


title: RBMK

text: Longitudinal cutting in some of the graphite columns during lifetime extension refurbishment work can return the graphite stack to its initial design geometry.


title: RBMK

text: A post-Soviet redesign of the RBMK is the MKER (Russian: "МКЭР", "Многопетлевой Канальный Энергетический Реактор" [Mnogopetlevoy Kanalniy Energeticheskiy Reaktor], which means "Multi-loop pressure tube power reactor"), with improved safety and a containment building. The physical prototype of the MKER-1000 is the 5th unit of the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant. The construction of Kursk 5 was cancelled in 2012. A MKER-800, MKER-1000 and MKER-1500 were planned for the Leningrad nuclear power plant.


title: RBMK

text: Of the 17 RBMKs built (Unit 5 was still under construction at the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant), all three surviving reactors at the Chernobyl plant have now been closed. Unit 1 was closed in 1996, Unit 3 in 2000, (Unit 4 having been destroyed in the accident, and Unit 2 disabled after a hydrogen explosion in 1991). Chernobyl 5 and 6 were under construction at the time of the accident at Chernobyl, but further construction was stopped due to the high level of contamination at the site limiting its longer term future. Both reactors at Ignalina in Lithuania were also shut down. Russia is the only country to still operate reactors of this design: Leningrad (2 RBMK-1000), Smolensk (3 RBMK-1000) and Kursk (3 RBMK-1000), Kursk Unit 1 was shutdown via its BSM key at 00:24, December 19th, 2021, bringing an end to the last time the plant would run all four of its units side by side. There are currently no further RBMK Reactors under construction in Russia. The last RBMK Reactor in Russia is expected to shut down in 2034 at Smolensk-3.


title: RBMK

text: A graphite-moderated Magnox reactor exists in North Korea at the Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Center. It is important to keep in mind that while the gas cooled Magnox, AGR and pebble bed reactors (Such as the Dragon reactor at Winfrith) use graphite as moderators their use of gases (carbon dioxide for Magnox and AGR, while helium for Dragon) as heat transfer fluids causes them to have no void coefficient.


title: Danneel Ackles

text: Danneel Ackles ( Elta Danneel Graul; March 18, 1979), credited professionally before 2012 as Danneel Harris, is an American actress and model. She played the role of Shannon McBain on the American daytime soap opera "One Life to Live" and Rachel Gatina on the WB/CW television drama series "One Tree Hill".


title: Danneel Ackles

text: Elta Danneel Graul was born in Lafayette, Louisiana and raised in nearby Eunice, a small town in St. Landry Parish. Her father Edward E. Graul Jr. is a practicing ophthalmologist and her mother Deborah Graul works as an interior designer. She was named after her great-grandmother. Her first name is Elta, but she goes by her middle name, Danneel, professionally. The name "Danneel" was inspired by Danneel Street in New Orleans. She moved to Los Angeles to pursue a modeling career.


title: Danneel Ackles

text: Before she landed her first acting role, Harris worked as a model with such companies as Big Sexy Hair and Juicy Jeans. She first appeared in a television commercial. In 2003, Harris landed her first role on the American Broadcasting Company Soap Opera television series "One Life to Live" as Shannon McBain, a student attending the fictional Llanview University. Harris relocated to New York for the role, and left the series in December 2004. Harris has since gone on to appear in shows such as "JAG", "Charmed", "", "What I Like About You", "NCIS", and "Joey". Harris's first film role was in the short film "The Plight of Clownana".


title: Danneel Ackles

text: In 2005, Harris was announced to have a major recurring role in the third season of The CW television drama series "One Tree Hill". Harris portrayed the role of Rachel Gatina, a bad girl who creates havoc for the residents of Tree Hill and returned to her role as a series regular for the show's fourth season. However, in season five Harris only reprises the role of Rachel in two episodes due to the seasons format change. In June 2009, Harris was confirmed to reprise the role of Rachel in the series seventh season over the course of seven episodes. Harris was in-talks to return for the series eighth season, but, due to scheduling conflicts, these plans never materialized.


title: Danneel Ackles

text: In January 2007, Harris was cast as the female lead in the New Line Cinema Comedy film "Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay", the sequel to the 2004 film "Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle". Filming took place in Shreveport, Louisiana, that same month. The film was released in April 2008 to mostly negative reviews (with aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes giving it an average of 53%), despite the film grossing over $43,439,123 worldwide. Harris reprises the role of Vanessa Fanning in the third and final installment of the trilogy, "A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas", which was released in November 2011. In both 2009 and 2010, Harris had small supporting roles in the films "Fired Up!" and "The Back-up Plan".


title: Danneel Ackles

text: In May 2009, Harris was announced to have been cast in the Screen Gems Thriller film "The Roommate". The film, also starring Leighton Meester and Cam Gigandet, centers on a college freshman whose roommate has a violent obsession with her. Harris portrays Irene Crew, a high-profile fashion designer. The film was shot on location at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, and suffered numerous push-backs for unknown reasons. The film was eventually released in February 2011 to a $15.6 million opening weekend despite negative reviews from critics and went on to gross over $40 million worldwide.


title: Danneel Ackles

text: In September 2009, Harris appeared in the sitcom television series pilot "Friends with Benefits", which was picked up by NBC. It was originally set to air as a midseason replacement during the 2010–11 television season, but was delayed until August 2011. Harris took on the role of Sara Maxwell, a doctor desperate to find the right guy. The series premiered to a low 2.34 million viewers and to mixed reviews from critics. The rest of the season's inability to retain viewers guaranteed that the series was not renewed.


title: Danneel Ackles

text: In June 2012, Harris, now going by the professional name Danneel Ackles, was brought in for a recurring role in the second season of the TV Land series "Retired at 35". In December 2017 it was announced that Ackles had been cast in the recurring role of Sister Jo in thirteenth season of The CW television series "Supernatural". She appeared in a Lifetime television film, "The Christmas Contract" (2018), alongside former "One Tree Hill" co-stars Hilarie Burton, Robert Buckley, Tyler Hilton and Antwon Tanner. More recently, Jensen and Danneel Ackles formed Chaos Machine Productions with a deal at Warner Bros. Television.


title: Danneel Ackles

text: Harris became engaged to "Supernatural" actor Jensen Ackles in November 2009 and the couple married on May 15, 2010, in Dallas, Texas. It was announced on January 7, 2013, that the couple were expecting their first child together. Their daughter was born in May 2013. On August 10, 2016, the couple announced that they were expecting twins together, later in the year. Their twins, a son and a daughter, were born in December 2016.


title: Peter Paul Rubens

text: Sir Peter Paul Rubens (; ; 28 June 1577 – 30 May 1640) was a Flemish artist and diplomat from the Duchy of Brabant in the Southern Netherlands (modern-day Belgium). He is considered the most influential artist of the Flemish Baroque tradition. Rubens's highly charged compositions reference erudite aspects of classical and Christian history. His unique and immensely popular Baroque style emphasized movement, colour, and sensuality, which followed the immediate, dramatic artistic style promoted in the Counter-Reformation. Rubens was a painter producing altarpieces, portraits, landscapes, and history paintings of mythological and allegorical subjects. He was also a prolific designer of cartoons for the Flemish tapestry workshops and of frontispieces for the publishers in Antwerp.


title: Peter Paul Rubens

text: In addition to running a large workshop in Antwerp that produced paintings popular with nobility and art collectors throughout Europe, Rubens was a classically educated humanist scholar and diplomat who was knighted by both Philip IV of Spain and Charles I of England. Rubens was a prolific artist. The catalogue of his works by Michael Jaffé lists 1,403 pieces, excluding numerous copies made in his workshop.


title: Peter Paul Rubens

text: His commissioned works were mostly history paintings, which included religious and mythological subjects, and hunt scenes. He painted portraits, especially of friends, and self-portraits, and in later life painted several landscapes. Rubens designed tapestries and prints, as well as his own house. He also oversaw the ephemeral decorations of the royal entry into Antwerp by the Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand of Austria in 1635. He wrote a book with illustrations of the palaces in Genoa, which was published in 1622 as "Palazzi di Genova". The book was influential in spreading the Genoese palace style in Northern Europe. Rubens was an avid art collector and had one of the largest collections of art and books in Antwerp. He was also an art dealer and is known to have sold an important number of art objects to George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham.


title: Peter Paul Rubens

text: He was one of the last major artists to make consistent use of wooden panels as a support medium, even for very large works, but he used canvas as well, especially when the work needed to be sent a long distance. For altarpieces he sometimes painted on slate to reduce reflection problems.


title: Peter Paul Rubens

text: Rubens was born in Siegen to Jan Rubens and Maria Pypelincks. His father, a Calvinist, and mother fled Antwerp for Cologne in 1568, after increased religious turmoil and persecution of Protestants during the rule of the Habsburg Netherlands by the Duke of Alba. Rubens was baptised in Cologne at St Peter's Church.


title: Peter Paul Rubens

text: Jan Rubens became the legal adviser (and lover) of Anna of Saxony, the second wife of William I of Orange, and settled at her court in Siegen in 1570, fathering her daughter Christine who was born in 1571. Following Jan Rubens's imprisonment for the affair, Peter Paul Rubens was born in 1577. The family returned to Cologne the next year. In 1589, two years after his father's death, Rubens moved with his mother Maria Pypelincks to Antwerp, where he was raised as a Catholic.


title: Peter Paul Rubens

text: Religion figured prominently in much of his work, and Rubens later became one of the leading voices of the Catholic Counter-Reformation style of painting (he had said "My passion comes from the heavens, not from earthly musings").


title: Peter Paul Rubens

text: In Antwerp, Rubens received a Renaissance humanist education, studying Latin and classical literature. By fourteen he began his artistic apprenticeship with Tobias Verhaeght. Subsequently, he studied under two of the city's leading painters of the time, the late Mannerist artists Adam van Noort and Otto van Veen. Much of his earliest training involved copying earlier artists' works, such as woodcuts by Hans Holbein the Younger and Marcantonio Raimondi's engravings after Raphael. Rubens completed his education in 1598, at which time he entered the Guild of St. Luke as an independent master.


title: Peter Paul Rubens

text: In 1600 Rubens traveled to Italy. He stopped first in Venice, where he saw paintings by Titian, Veronese, and Tintoretto, before settling in Mantua at the court of Duke Vincenzo I Gonzaga. The colouring and compositions of Veronese and Tintoretto had an immediate effect on Rubens's painting, and his later, mature style was profoundly influenced by Titian. With financial support from the Duke, Rubens travelled to Rome by way of Florence in 1601. There, he studied classical Greek and Roman art and copied works of the Italian masters. The Hellenistic sculpture "Laocoön and His Sons" was especially influential on him, as was the art of Michelangelo, Raphael, and Leonardo da Vinci. He was also influenced by the recent, highly naturalistic paintings by Caravaggio.


title: Peter Paul Rubens

text: Rubens later made a copy of Caravaggio's "Entombment of Christ" and recommended his patron, the Duke of Mantua, to purchase "The Death of the Virgin" (Louvre). After his return to Antwerp he was instrumental in the acquisition of "The Madonna of the Rosary" (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna) for the St. Paul's Church in Antwerp. During this first stay in Rome, Rubens completed his first altarpiece commission, "St. Helena with the True Cross" for the Roman church of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme.


title: Peter Paul Rubens

text: Rubens travelled to Spain on a diplomatic mission in 1603, delivering gifts from the Gonzagas to the court of Philip III. While there, he studied the extensive collections of Raphael and Titian that had been collected by Philip II. He also painted an equestrian portrait of the Duke of Lerma during his stay (Prado, Madrid) that demonstrates the influence of works like Titian's "" (1548; Prado, Madrid). This journey marked the first of many during his career that combined art and diplomacy.


title: Peter Paul Rubens

text: He returned to Italy in 1604, where he remained for the next four years, first in Mantua and then in Genoa and Rome. In Genoa, Rubens painted numerous portraits, such as the "" (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.), and the portrait of Maria di Antonio Serra Pallavicini, in a style that influenced later paintings by Anthony van Dyck, Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough.


title: Peter Paul Rubens

text: He illustrated books, which was published in 1622 as "Palazzi di Genova". From 1606 to 1608, he was mostly in Rome when he received, with the assistance of Cardinal Jacopo Serra (the brother of Maria Pallavicini), his most important commission to date for the High Altar of the city's most fashionable new church, Santa Maria in Vallicella also known as the Chiesa Nuova.


title: Peter Paul Rubens

text: The subject was to be St. Gregory the Great and important local saints adoring an icon of the Virgin and Child. The first version, a single canvas (now at the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Grenoble), was immediately replaced by a second version on three slate panels that permits the actual miraculous holy image of the "Santa Maria in Vallicella" to be revealed on important feast days by a removable copper cover, also painted by the artist.


title: Peter Paul Rubens

text: Rubens's experiences in Italy continued to influence his work. He continued to write many of his letters and correspondences in Italian, signed his name as "Pietro Paolo Rubens", and spoke longingly of returning to the peninsula—a hope that never materialized.


title: Peter Paul Rubens

text: Upon hearing of his mother's illness in 1608, Rubens planned his departure from Italy for Antwerp. However, she died before he arrived home. His return coincided with a period of renewed prosperity in the city with the signing of the Treaty of Antwerp in April 1609, which initiated the Twelve Years' Truce. In September 1609 Rubens was appointed as court painter by Albert VII, Archduke of Austria, and Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia of Spain, sovereigns of the Low Countries.


title: Peter Paul Rubens

text: He received special permission to base his studio in Antwerp instead of at their court in Brussels, and to also work for other clients. He remained close to the Archduchess Isabella until her death in 1633, and was called upon not only as a painter but also as an ambassador and diplomat. Rubens further cemented his ties to the city when, on 3 October 1609, he married Isabella Brant, the daughter of a leading Antwerp citizen and humanist, Jan Brant.


title: Peter Paul Rubens

text: In 1610 Rubens moved into a new house and studio that he designed. Now the Rubenshuis Museum, the Italian-influenced villa in the centre of Antwerp accommodated his workshop, where he and his apprentices made most of the paintings, and his personal art collection and library, both among the most extensive in Antwerp. During this time he built up a studio with numerous students and assistants. His most famous pupil was the young Anthony van Dyck, who soon became the leading Flemish portraitist and collaborated frequently with Rubens. He also often collaborated with the many specialists active in the city, including the animal painter Frans Snyders, who contributed the eagle to "Prometheus Bound" (c. 1611–12, completed by 1618), and his good friend the flower-painter Jan Brueghel the Elder.


title: Peter Paul Rubens

text: Another house was built by Rubens to the north of Antwerp in the polder village of Doel, "Hooghuis" (1613/1643), perhaps as an investment. The "High House" was built next to the village church.


title: Peter Paul Rubens

text: Altarpieces such as "The Raising of the Cross" (1610) and "The Descent from the Cross" (1611–1614) for the Cathedral of Our Lady were particularly important in establishing Rubens as Flanders' leading painter shortly after his return. "The Raising of the Cross", for example, demonstrates the artist's synthesis of for the Scuola Grande di San Rocco in Venice, Michelangelo's dynamic figures, and Rubens's own personal style. This painting has been held as a prime example of Baroque religious art.


title: Peter Paul Rubens

text: Rubens used the production of prints and book title-pages, especially for his friend Balthasar Moretus, the owner of the large Plantin-Moretus publishing house, to extend his fame throughout Europe during this part of his career. In 1618, Rubens embarked upon a printmaking enterprise by soliciting an unusual triple privilege (an early form of copyright) to protect his designs in France, the Southern Netherlands, and United Provinces. He enlisted Lucas Vorsterman to engrave a number of his notable religious and mythological paintings, to which Rubens appended personal and professional dedications to noteworthy individuals in the Southern Netherlands, United Provinces, England, France, and Spain. With the exception of a few etchings, Rubens left the printmaking to specialists, who included Lucas Vorsterman, Paulus Pontius and Willem Panneels. He recruited a number of engravers trained by Christoffel Jegher, whom he carefully schooled in the more vigorous style he wanted. Rubens also designed the last significant woodcuts before the 19th-century revival in the technique.


title: Peter Paul Rubens

text: In 1621, the Queen Mother of France, Marie de' Medici, commissioned Rubens to paint two large allegorical cycles celebrating her life and the life of her late husband, Henry IV, for the Luxembourg Palace in Paris. The Marie de' Medici cycle (now in the Louvre) was installed in 1625, and although he began work on the second series it was never completed. Marie was exiled from France in 1630 by her son, Louis XIII, and died in 1642 in the same house in Cologne where Rubens had lived as a child.


title: Peter Paul Rubens

text: After the end of the Twelve Years' Truce in 1621, the Spanish Habsburg rulers entrusted Rubens with a number of diplomatic missions. While in Paris in 1622 to discuss the Marie de' Medici cycle, Rubens engaged in clandestine information gathering activities, which at the time was an important task of diplomats. He relied on his friendship with Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc to get information on political developments in France. Between 1627 and 1630, Rubens's diplomatic career was particularly active, and he moved between the courts of Spain and England in an attempt to bring peace between the Spanish Netherlands and the United Provinces. He also made several trips to the northern Netherlands as both an artist and a diplomat.


title: Peter Paul Rubens

text: At the courts he sometimes encountered the attitude that courtiers should not use their hands in any art or trade, but he was also received as a gentleman by many. Rubens was raised by Philip IV of Spain to the nobility in 1624 and knighted by Charles I of England in 1630. Philip IV confirmed Rubens's status as a knight a few months later. Rubens was awarded an honorary Master of Arts degree from Cambridge University in 1629.


title: Peter Paul Rubens

text: Rubens was in Madrid for eight months in 1628–1629. In addition to diplomatic negotiations, he executed several important works for Philip IV and private patrons. He also began a renewed study of Titian's paintings, copying numerous works including the Madrid "Fall of Man" (1628–29). During this stay, he befriended the court painter Diego Velázquez and the two planned to travel to Italy together the following year. Rubens, however, returned to Antwerp and Velázquez made the journey without him.


title: Peter Paul Rubens

text: His stay in Antwerp was brief, and he soon travelled on to London where he remained until April 1630. An important work from this period is the "Allegory of Peace and War" (1629; National Gallery, London). It illustrates the artist's lively concern for peace, and was given to Charles I as a gift.


title: Peter Paul Rubens

text: While Rubens's international reputation with collectors and nobility abroad continued to grow during this decade, he and his workshop also continued to paint monumental paintings for local patrons in Antwerp. The "Assumption of the Virgin Mary" (1625–6) for the Cathedral of Antwerp is one prominent example.


title: Peter Paul Rubens

text: Rubens's last decade was spent in and around Antwerp. Major works for foreign patrons still occupied him, such as the ceiling paintings for the Banqueting House at Inigo Jones's Palace of Whitehall, but he also explored more personal artistic directions.


title: Peter Paul Rubens

text: In 1630, four years after the death of his first wife Isabella, the 53-year-old painter married his first wife's niece, the 16-year-old Hélène Fourment. Hélène inspired the voluptuous figures in many of his paintings from the 1630s, including "" (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna), "" and "The Judgement of Paris" (both Prado, Madrid). In the latter painting, which was made for the Spanish court, the artist's young wife was recognized by viewers in the figure of Venus. In an intimate portrait of her, "Hélène Fourment in a Fur Wrap", also known as "Het Pelsken", Rubens's wife is even partially modelled after classical sculptures of the Venus Pudica, such as the Medici Venus.


title: Peter Paul Rubens

text: In 1635, Rubens bought an estate outside Antwerp, the Steen, where he spent much of his time. Landscapes, such as his "Château de Steen with Hunter" (National Gallery, London) and "" (Pitti Gallery, Florence), reflect the more personal nature of many of his later works. He also drew upon the Netherlandish traditions of Pieter Bruegel the Elder for inspiration in later works like "" (c. 1630; Louvre, Paris).


title: Peter Paul Rubens

text: Rubens died from heart failure as a result of his chronic gout on 30 May 1640. He was interred in the Saint James' Church in Antwerp. A burial chapel for the artist and his family was built in the church. Construction on the chapel started in 1642 and was completed in 1650 when Cornelis van Mildert (the son of Rubens's friend, the sculptor Johannes van Mildert) delivered the altarstone. The chapel is a marble altar portico with two columns framing the altarpiece of the "Virgin and child with saints" painted by Rubens himself. The painting expresses the basic tenets of the Counter Reformation through the figures of the Virgin and saints. In the upper niche of the retable is a marble statue depicting the Virgin as the Mater Dolorosa whose heart is pierced by a sword, which was likely sculpted by Lucas Faydherbe, a pupil of Rubens. The remains of Rubens's second wife Helena Fourment and two of her children (one of which fathered by Rubens) were later also laid to rest in the chapel. Over the coming centuries about 80 descendants from the Rubens family were interred in the chapel.


title: Peter Paul Rubens

text: At the request of canon van Parijs, Rubens's epitaph, written in Latin by his friend Gaspar Gevartius, was chiselled on the chapel floor. In the tradition of the Renaissance, Rubens is compared in the epitaph to Apelles, the most famous painter of Greek Antiquity.


title: Peter Paul Rubens

text: His biblical and mythological nudes are especially well-known. Painted in the Baroque tradition of depicting women as soft-bodied, passive, and to the modern eye highly sexualized beings, his nudes emphasize the concepts of fertility, desire, physical beauty, temptation, and virtue. Skillfully rendered, these paintings of nude women are thought by feminists to have been created to sexually appeal to his largely male audience of patrons, although the female nude as an example of beauty has been a traditional motif in European art for centuries. Additionally, Rubens was quite fond of painting full-figured women, giving rise to terms like 'Rubensian' or 'Rubenesque' (sometimes 'Rubensesque'). His large-scale cycle representing Marie de Medicis focuses on several classic female archetypes like the virgin, consort, wife, widow, and diplomatic regent. The inclusion of this iconography in his female portraits, along with his art depicting noblewomen of the day, serve to elevate his female portrait sitters to the status and importance of his male portrait sitters.


title: Peter Paul Rubens

text: Rubens's depiction of males is equally stylized, replete with meaning, and quite the opposite of his female subjects. His male nudes represent highly athletic and large mythical or biblical men. Unlike his female nudes, most of his male nudes are depicted partially nude, with sashes, armour, or shadows shielding them from being completely unclothed. These men are twisting, reaching, bending, and grasping: all of which portrays his male subjects engaged in a great deal of physical, sometimes aggressive, action. The concepts Rubens artistically represents illustrate the male as powerful, capable, forceful and compelling. The allegorical and symbolic subjects he painted reference the classic masculine tropes of athleticism, high achievement, valour in war, and civil authority. Male archetypes readily found in Rubens's paintings include the hero, husband, father, civic leader, king, and the battle weary.


title: Peter Paul Rubens

text: Rubens was a great admirer of Leonardo da Vinci's work. Using an engraving done 50 years after Leonardo started his project on the Battle of Anghiari, Rubens did a masterly drawing of the Battle which is now in the Louvre in Paris. "The idea that an ancient copy of a lost artwork can be as important as the original is familiar to scholars," says Salvatore Settis, archaeologist and art historian.


title: Peter Paul Rubens

text: Paintings from Rubens's workshop can be divided into three categories: those he painted by himself, those he painted in part (mainly hands and faces), and copies supervised from his drawings or oil sketches. He had, as was usual at the time, a large workshop with many apprentices and students. It has not always been possible to identify who were Rubens's pupils and assistants since as a court painter Rubens was not required to register his pupils with the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke. About 20 pupils or assistants of Rubens have been identified, with various levels of evidence to include them as such. It is also not clear from surviving records whether a particular person was a pupil or assistant in Rubens's workshop or was an artist who was an independent master collaborating on specific works with Rubens. The unknown Jacob Moerman was registered as his pupil while Willem Panneels and Justus van Egmont were registered in the Guild's records as Rubens's assistants. Anthony van Dyck worked in Rubens's workshop after training with Hendrick van Balen in Antwerp. Other artists linked to the Rubens's workshop as pupils, assistants or collaborators are Abraham van Diepenbeeck, Lucas Faydherbe, Lucas Franchoys the Younger, Nicolaas van der Horst, Frans Luycx, Peter van Mol, Deodat del Monte, Cornelis Schut, Erasmus Quellinus the Younger, Pieter Soutman, David Teniers the Elder, Frans Wouters, Jan Thomas van Ieperen, Theodoor van Thulden and Victor Wolfvoet (II).


title: Peter Paul Rubens

text: He also often sub-contracted elements such as animals, landscapes or still-lifes in large compositions to specialists such as animal painters Frans Snyders and Paul de Vos, or other artists such as Jacob Jordaens. One of his most frequent collaborators was Jan Brueghel the Younger.


title: Peter Paul Rubens

text: At a Sotheby's auction on 10 July 2002, Rubens's painting "Massacre of the Innocents", rediscovered not long before, sold for £49.5 million (US$76.2 million) to Lord Thomson. At the end of 2013 this remained the record auction price for an Old Master painting. At a Christie's auction in 2012, "Portrait of a Commander" sold for £9.1 million (US$13.5 million) despite a dispute over the authenticity so that Sotheby's refused to auction it as a Rubens.


title: Hugh Grosvenor, 7th Duke of Westminster

text: Hugh Richard Louis Grosvenor, 7th Duke of Westminster (born 29 January 1991), styled as Earl Grosvenor until August 2016, is a British aristocrat, billionaire, businessman, and owner of Grosvenor Group. He became Duke of Westminster on 9 August 2016, on the death of his father Gerald, 6th Duke of Westminster.


title: Hugh Grosvenor, 7th Duke of Westminster

text: As of 2021, the Duke and his family were 12th on the "Sunday Times Rich List" with an estimated net worth of £10 billion. He was the world's richest person aged under 30.


title: Hugh Grosvenor, 7th Duke of Westminster

text: Hugh Richard Louis Grosvenor is the third child and only son of Gerald Grosvenor, 6th Duke of Westminster, and his wife Natalia ("née" Phillips). He was baptised into the Church of England on 23 June 1991.


title: Hugh Grosvenor, 7th Duke of Westminster

text: Through his mother, he is descended from the Romanov imperial family of Russia and maternally descends from Nicholas I of Russia, the Russian writer Alexander Pushkin and his wife Natalia Nikolayevna Goncharova, as well as from Pushkin's great-grandfather—African freed slave turned Russian nobleman Abram Petrovich Hannibal. Hugh Richard Louis Grosvenor is also a descendant of the Hetman of Zaporizhian Host Petro Doroshenko through Natalia Nikolayevna Goncharova. She is the great-great-granddaughter of the famous Ukrainian Hetman.


title: Hugh Grosvenor, 7th Duke of Westminster

text: His elder sisters are Lady Tamara Katherine Grosvenor (married Edward van Cutsem, son of Hugh van Cutsem) and Lady Edwina Louise Grosvenor (married TV historian Dan Snow). The latter is a prison reformer and philanthropist, who co-founded The Clink Restaurants. The youngest sister is Lady Viola Georgina Grosvenor.


title: Hugh Grosvenor, 7th Duke of Westminster

text: The letters patent that created the dukedom provide that the title go to the eldest male heir. As a duke, he ranks highly in the order of precedence in England and Wales.


title: Hugh Grosvenor, 7th Duke of Westminster

text: All the siblings were educated at a local state primary school, followed by a small private day school, Mostyn House School, near the family home of Eaton Hall, Cheshire. He then attended Ellesmere College in Shropshire, from 2000 to 2009.


title: Hugh Grosvenor, 7th Duke of Westminster

text: From 2010 to 2013, he studied countryside management at Newcastle University, graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree with upper second-class honours.


title: Hugh Grosvenor, 7th Duke of Westminster

text: After university, the then Earl Grosvenor, as he was at the time, worked in estate management at Wheatsheaf Investment from 2013 to 2014, and the Grosvenor Group from 2014 to 2015, before becoming Accounts Manager at Bio-bean, an energy company, in January 2016.


title: Hugh Grosvenor, 7th Duke of Westminster

text: Upon his father's death, in August 2016, as well as the peerages, he inherited a wealth then estimated at £9 billion, with considerable trust funds for his sisters. This wealth is held in a trust, of which the 7th Duke of Westminster, as he became, is a beneficial owner but not the legal owner—an arrangement that received considerable press attention, owing to the inheritance tax exemption it confers.


title: Hugh Grosvenor, 7th Duke of Westminster

text: Little is publicly known about the duke's personal life. However, in October 2013, he was named a godfather to Prince George.


title: Hugh Grosvenor, 7th Duke of Westminster

text: In April 2020, the duke donated several million pounds in support of the British government response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the National Health Service (NHS).


title: The Hating Game

text: The Hating Game is a 2021 American romantic comedy film directed by Peter Hutchings. It is based on the novel of the same name by Sally Thorne, and stars Lucy Hale and Austin Stowell in the lead roles. It was released in theaters and video on demand on December 10, 2021, by Vertical Entertainment. The film received generally positive reviews from critics.


title: The Hating Game

text: Lucy and Josh are forced to work together after their respective publishing companies are merged. Complete opposites in every way possible, they despise each other. Their rivalry comes to a head when they go face-to-face for the same promotion. Realizing nobody wants to work under the other, they make a bet: whoever does not get the job has to quit.


title: The Hating Game

text: However, both become increasingly attracted to each other and share a passionate kiss in the elevator before Lucy goes on a date with a co-worker, Danny. At a company paintball event a few days later, Lucy collapses due to a fever and is brought home by Josh, who has her checked by his brother Pat, a physician. Lucy overhears that Josh needs a +1 for his brother‘s wedding and offers to accompany him to get even. After they kiss again, Josh asks her to sort out things with Danny first, as he does not want to be just a fling for her. Later that evening, Josh invites Lucy to his apartment and reveals that he has a strained relationship with his father because he dropped out of med school, while his brother was always the favorite. They become closer, but Josh refuses to have sex with Lucy, angering her.


title: The Hating Game

text: During his brother‘s wedding weekend, Lucy and Josh finally have sex. After she finds out that Pat‘s wife is Josh‘s ex-girlfriend, she is initially angry until Josh explains to her that he is over her. She witnesses Josh‘s father belittle him and stands up for him, impressing Josh. Back at home, Josh offers Lucy to start a real relationship and forget about their bet.


title: The Hating Game

text: The next day, Lucy overhears and misinterprets a conversation between Josh and their boss, concluding that Josh has been using their romance to distract her from the promotion. Enraged, she vows to beat Josh for the job. At the day of the promotion competition, Lucy gets the job as it turns out Josh had already quit to join another company. Both kiss and become a couple.


title: The Hating Game

text: The film was announced in May 2019, with Lucy Hale and Robbie Amell cast as the lead roles. On November 10, 2020, Austin Stowell was cast, as Amell dropped out due to a scheduling conflict. The film began filming on November 21, in New York City, and concluded on December 23, 2020.


title: The Hating Game

text: "The Hating Game" had a limited theatrical release on December 10, 2021. It was also available to stream on various VOD platforms. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported on late February 2022 that 71% out of 21 professional critics gave the film a positive review, with a rating average of 6.60/10. Multiple articles praised the chemistry of the two leads.


title: Jihad

text: Jihad (; ) is an Arabic word which literally means "striving" or "struggling", especially with a praiseworthy aim. In an Islamic context, it can refer to almost any effort to make personal and social life conform with God's guidance, such as struggle against one's evil inclinations, proselytizing, or efforts toward the moral betterment of the Muslim community ("Ummah"), though it is most frequently associated with war. In classical Islamic law ("sharia"), the term refers to armed struggle against unbelievers, while modernist Islamic scholars generally equate military "jihad" with defensive warfare. In Sufi circles, spiritual and moral jihad has been traditionally emphasized under the name of "greater jihad". The term has gained additional attention in recent decades through its use by various insurgent Islamic extremist, militant Islamist, and terrorist individuals and organizations whose ideology is based on the Islamic notion of "jihad".


title: Jihad

text: The word "jihad" appears frequently in the Qur'an with and without military connotations, often in the idiomatic expression "striving in the path of God "(al-jihad fi sabil Allah)"", conveying a sense of self-exertion. They developed an elaborate set of rules pertaining to "jihad", including prohibitions on harming those who are not engaged in combat.


title: Jihad

text: In the modern era, the notion of "jihad" has lost its jurisprudential relevance and instead given rise to an ideological and political discourse. While modernist Islamic scholars have emphasized the defensive and non-military aspects of "jihad", some Islamists have advanced aggressive interpretations that go beyond the classical theory.


title: Jihad

text: Jihad is classified into inner ("greater") "jihad", which involves a struggle against one's own base impulses, and external ("lesser") "jihad", which is further subdivided into "jihad of the pen/tongue" (debate or persuasion) and "jihad of the sword". Most Western writers consider external "jihad" to have primacy over inner "jihad" in the Islamic tradition, while much of contemporary Muslim opinion favors the opposite view. Gallup analysis of a large survey reveals considerable nuance in the conceptions of "jihad" held by Muslims around the world.


title: Jihad

text: The sense of jihad as armed resistance was first used in the context of persecution faced by Muslims, as when Muhammad was at Mecca, when the community had two choices: emigration (hijra) or jihad. In Twelver Shi'a Islam, "jihad" is one of the ten Practices of the Religion. A person engaged in "jihad" is called a "mujahid" (plural: "mujahideen"). The term "jihad" is often rendered in English as "Holy War", although this translation is controversial. Today, the word "jihad" is often used without religious connotations, like the English "crusade".


title: Jihad

text: The term "jihad" is derived from the Arabic root "jahada", meaning "to exert strength and effort, to use all means in order to accomplish a task". In its expanded sense, it can be fighting the enemies of Islam, as well as adhering to religious teachings, enjoining good and forbidding evil. The peaceful sense of "efforts towards the moral uplift of society or towards the spread of Islam" can be known as ""jihad" of the tongue" or ""jihad" of the pen", as opposed to ""jihad" of the sword". It is used as a term in "fiqh" (Islamic jurisprudence) mostly in the latter sense, while in Sufism mostly in the sense of fighting the "nafs al-ammara", which is the psychological state of being consumed by your own desires. Spiritual and moral "jihad" is generally emphasized in pious and mystical circles.


title: Jihad

text: The Hans Wehr "Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic" defines the term as "fight, battle; jihad, holy war (against the infidels, as a religious duty)". However, given the range of meanings, it is incorrect to equate it simply with "holy war". The notion of "jihad" has its origins in the Islamic idea that the whole humankind will embrace Islam. In the Qur'an and in later Muslim usage, jihad is commonly followed by the expression "fi sabil illah", "in the path of God." Muhammad Abdel-Haleem states that it indicates "the way of truth and justice, including all the teachings it gives on the justifications and the conditions for the conduct of war and peace."


title: Jihad

text: In Modern Standard Arabic, the term "jihad" is used for a struggle for causes, both religious and secular.


title: Jihad

text: It is sometimes used without religious connotation, with a meaning similar to the English word "crusade" (as in "a crusade against drugs"). "Jihad" is also used quite commonly in Arabic countries, in the neutral sense of "a struggle for a noble cause", as a unisex name given to children. Nonetheless, "jihad" is usually used in the religious sense and its beginnings are traced back to the Qur'an and the words and actions of Muhammad.


title: Jihad

text: "Jihad" is mentioned in four places in the Qur'an as a noun, while its derived verb is used in twenty-four places. "Mujahid", the active participle meaning "jihadist", is mentioned in two verses. In some of these mentions (see At-Tawbah 9/41, 44, 81, 86), it is understood that the word "jihad" directly refers to war, and in others, "jihad" is used in the sense of "the effort to live in accordance with Allah's will". Quranic exhortions to jihad have been interpreted by Islamic scholars both in the combative and non-combative sense. Ahmed al-Dawoody writes that there seventeen references to or derivatices of "jihad" occur altogether forty-one times in eleven Meccan texts and thirty Medinan ones, with 28 mentions related to religious belief or spiritual struggle and 13 mentions related to warfare or physical struggle.


title: Jihad

text: There are also many hadiths (records of the teachings, deeds and sayings of the Islamic prophet Muhammad) about "jihad", typically under the headings of "kitab al-jihad" (book of jihad) or "faza'il al-jihad" (virtues of jihad) in hadith collections or as the subject of independent works. Of the 199 hadith references to jihad in the Bukhari collection of hadith, all assume that jihad means warfare.


title: Jihad

text: Ibn Nuhaas also cited a hadith from Musnad Ahmad ibn Hanbal, where Muhammad states that the highest kind of jihad is "The person who is killed whilst spilling the last of his blood" (Ahmed 4/144).


title: Jihad

text: According to another hadith, supporting one's parents is also an example of jihad. It has also been reported that Muhammad considered performing hajj well to be the best jihad for Muslim women.


title: Jihad

text: The hadith emphasize jihad as one of the means to Paradise. All sins (except debt) would be forgiven for the one dies in it. Participation in jihad had to be voluntary and intention must be pure, for jihad is only waged for the sake of God not for material wealth. On the contrary, jihad required man to put both his life and wealth at risk. Jihad is ranked as one of the highest good deeds; according to one hadith it is the third best deed after prayer and being good to one's parents. One hadith exempts military jihad on men whose parents are alive, as serving one's parents is considered a superior jihad.


title: Jihad

text: Jihad has traditionally been divided into "greater jihad" (inner struggle against sinful behavior) and "lesser jihad" (military sense). Early Islamic thought considered non-violent interpretations of jihad, especially for those Muslims who could not partake in warfare in distant lands. Most classical writings use the term jihad in the military sense. The tradition differentiating between the “greater and lesser jihad” is not included in any of the authoritative compilations of Hadith. In consequence, some Islamists dismiss it as not authentic.


title: Jihad

text: A number of fighters came to Muhammad and he said "You have come from the 'lesser jihad' to the 'greater jihad'." The fighters asked "what is the greater jihad?" Muhammad replied, "It is the struggle against one's passions."


title: Jihad

text: This was also cited in "The History of Baghdad" by Al-Khatib al-Baghdadi, an 11th-century Islamic scholar. This reference gave rise to the distinguishing of two forms of jihad: "greater" and "lesser". Some Islamic scholars, such as Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani, consider the hadith to have a weak chain of transmission.


title: Jihad

text: A related hadith tradition that has "found its way into popular Muslim literature", and which has been said to "embody the Muslim mindset" of the Islamic Golden Age (the period from the mid-8th century to mid-13th century following the relocation of the Abbasid capital from Damascus to Baghdad), is:


title: Jihad

text: The belief in the veracity of this hadith was a contributing factor in the efforts by successive caliphs to subsidize translations of "Greek, Hebrew and Syriac science and philosophy texts", and the saying continues to be heavily emphasised to this day in certain Islamic traditions advocating intellectualism over violence, for example in Timbuktu, where it is central to one of two key lessons in the work "Tuhfat al-fudala" by the 16th-century Berber scholar Ahmed Baba. In general, however, fewer people today are aware of the hadith, which suffers from "a general lack of knowledge", according to Akbar Ahmed.


title: Jihad

text: According to classical Islamic scholars like Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, Jihad is against four types of enemies: the lower self ("nafs"), Satan, the unbelievers, and the hypocrites. The first two types of Jihad are purely peaceful spiritual struggles. According to Ibn Qayyim "Jihad against the lower self precedes jihad against external enemies". Confirming the central importance of the spiritual aspect of Jihad, Ibn Taymiyyah writes:


title: Jihad

text: Engaging in the greater jihad did not preclude engaging in the lesser jihad. Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani recommended his followers to pursue both the greater and the lesser jihads.


title: Jihad

text: At least one important contemporary Twelver Shia figure, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the Iranian Revolution and the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, wrote a treatise on the "Greater Jihad" (i.e., internal/personal struggle against sin).


title: Jihad

text: Classical scholars discussed justifications for jihad, including waging it defensively vs offensively. However, classical jurists paid more attention to conduct of war "jus in bello" (see next section) than justification of war "jus ad bellum". The decision of when to wage war was often viewed as a political decision best left to political authorities.


title: Jihad

text: Two justifications for jihad were given: defensive war against external aggression, or an offensive or preemptive attack against an enemy state. According to the majority of jurists, the "casus belli" (justifications for war) are restricted to aggression against Muslims, and "fitna"—persecution of Muslims because of their religious belief. They hold that unbelief in itself is not a justification for war. These jurists therefore maintain that only combatants are to be fought; noncombatants such as women, children, clergy, the aged, the insane, farmers, serfs, the blind, and so on are not to be killed in war. Thus, the Hanafī Ibn Najīm states: "the reason for jihād in our [the Hanafīs] view is "kawnuhum harbā ‛alaynā" [literally, their being at war against us]." The Hanafī jurists al-Shaybānī state that "although kufr [unbelief in God] is one of the greatest sins, it is between the individual and his God the Almighty and the punishment for this sin is to be postponed to the "dār al-jazā’", (the abode of reckoning, the Hereafter)," and al-Sarakhsī says something similar. Offensive jihad involved forays into enemy territory either for conquest, and thus enlarging the Muslim political order, or to dissuade the enemy from attacking Muslim lands.


title: Jihad

text: Shia and Sunni theories of jihad are similar, except that Shias consider offensive jihad to be valid only under the leadership of the Mahdi, who is currently believed to be in occultation but will return at some point in the future. However, defensive jihad is permissible in Shia Islam before the Mahdi's return. In fact, Shia scholars emphasized it was a religious duty for Shia to defend all Muslims (including Sunni Muslims) from outside invaders.


title: Jihad

text: Rules prohibit attacking or molesting non-combatants, which include women, children under the age of Puberty, elderly men, people with disabilities and those who are sick. Diplomats, merchants and peasants are similarly immune from being attacked. Monks are presumed to be non-combatants and thus have immunity too; similarly places of worship should not be attacked. Even if the enemy disregarded the immunity of noncombatants, Muslims could not respond in kind. However, these categories lose their immunity if they participate in fighting, planning or supplying the enemy. Some jurists argued that immunity was more related to noncombatant status than being in a certain demographic class. For example, Muhaqqiq al-Hilli opined that only old men are only immune from being killed if they neither fight, nor take a role in military decision making.


title: Jihad

text: Up until the Crusades, Muslim jurists disallowed the use of mangonels because the weapon killed indiscriminately with the potential of harming noncombatants. But during Crusades this ruling was reversed out of military need. Jurists also grappled with the question of attacking an enemy that used women, children or Muslims as human shields. Most jurists held that it was permissible to attack the enemy in cases of military necessity, but steps should be taken to direct at the attack towards the combatants and avoiding the human shield. Abu Hanifa argued that if Muslims stopped combat for fear of killing noncombatants, then such a rule would make fighting impossible, as every city had civilians. Mutilating the dead bodies of the enemy is prohibited.


title: Jihad

text: There are two conflicting rulings on destruction of enemy property. In one military battle, Prophet Muhammad ordered the destruction of an enemy's palm trees as a means of ending a siege without bloodshed. By contrast, Abu Bakr prohibited destruction of trees, buildings and livestock. Most jurists did not allow unnecessary destruction of enemy property, but allowed it in cases of military necessity, such as destroying buildings in which the enemy is taking shelter. Some jurists also allowed destruction if it would weaken the enemy or win the war. Many jurists cautioned against "unnecessary devastation", not just out of humanitarian concerns, but practical ones: it is more useful to capture an enemy's property than to destroy it. Islamic scholars prohibited killing animals, unless due to military necessity (such as killing horses in battle). This is because, unlike other enemy property, animals are capable of feeling pain.


title: Jihad

text: In pre-Islamic Arabia, Bedouins conducted raids against enemy tribes and settlements to collect spoils. According to some scholars (such as James Turner Johnson), while Islamic leaders "instilled into the hearts of the warriors the belief" in jihad "holy war" and "ghaza" (raids), the "fundamental structure" of this bedouin warfare "remained, ... raiding to collect booty".


title: Jihad

text: According to Jonathan Berkey, the Quran's statements in support of jihad may have originally been directed against Muhammad's local enemies, the pagans of Mecca or the Jews of Medina, but these same statements could be redirected once new enemies appeared.


title: Jihad

text: According to another scholar (Majid Khadduri), it was the shift in focus to the conquest and spoils collecting of non-Bedouin unbelievers and away from traditional inter-bedouin tribal raids, that may have made it possible for Islam not only to expand but to avoid self-destruction.


title: Jihad

text: The primary aim of jihad as warfare is not the conversion of non-Muslims to Islam by force, but rather the expansion and defense of the Islamic state. In theory, jihad was to continue until "all mankind either embraced Islam or submitted to the authority of the Muslim state." There could be truces before this was achieved, but no permanent peace. One who died "on the path of God" was a martyr ("shahid"), whose sins were remitted and who was secured "immediate entry to paradise".


title: Jihad

text: According with Bernard Lewis, "from an early date Muslim law laid down" jihad in the military sense as "one of the principal obligations" of both "the head of the Muslim state", who declared the jihad, and the Muslim community. According to legal historian Sadakat Kadri, Islamic jurists first developed classical doctrine of jihad "towards the end of the eighth century", using the doctrine of "naskh" (that God gradually improved His revelations over the course of Muhammed's mission) they subordinated verses in the Quran emphasizing harmony to more the more "confrontational" verses of Muhammad's later years and linked verses on exertion ("jihad") to those of fighting ("qital"). Muslims jurists of the eighth century developed a paradigm of international relations that divides the world into three conceptual divisions, dar al-Islam/dar al-‛adl/dar al-salam (house of Islam/house of justice/house of peace), dar al-harb/dar al-jawr (house of war/house of injustice, oppression), and dar al-sulh/dar al-‛ahd/dār al-muwada‛ah (house of peace/house of covenant/house of reconciliation). The second/eighth century jurist Sufyan al-Thawri (d. 161/778) headed what Khadduri calls a pacifist school, which maintained that jihad was only a defensive war. He also states that the jurists who held this position, among whom he refers to Hanafi jurists al-Awza‛i (d. 157/774) and Malik ibn Anas (d. 179/795), and other early jurists, "stressed that tolerance should be shown unbelievers, especially scripturaries and advised the Imam to prosecute war only when the inhabitants of the dar al-harb came into conflict with Islam." The duty of Jihad was a collective one ("fard al-kifaya"). It was to be directed only by the caliph who might delayed it when convenient, negotiating truces for up to ten years at a time. Within classical Islamic jurisprudence—the development of which is to be dated into—the first few centuries after the prophet's death—jihad consisted of wars against unbelievers, apostates, and was the only form of warfare permissible. (Another source—Bernard Lewis—states that fighting rebels and bandits was legitimate though not a form of jihad, and that while the classical perception and presentation of the jihad was warfare in the field against a foreign enemy, internal jihad "against an infidel renegade, or otherwise illegitimate regime was not unknown.")


title: Jihad

text: However, some argue martyrdom is never automatic because it is within God's exclusive province to judge who is worthy of that designation.


title: Jihad

text: Classical manuals of Islamic jurisprudence often contained a section called "Book of Jihad", with rules governing the conduct of war covered at great length. Such rules include treatment of nonbelligerents, women, children (also cultivated or residential areas), and division of spoils. Such rules offered protection for civilians. Spoils include "Ghanimah" (spoils obtained by actual fighting), and "fai" (obtained without fighting i.e. when the enemy surrenders or flees).


title: Jihad

text: The first documentation of the law of jihad was written by 'Abd al-Rahman al-Awza'i and Muhammad ibn al-Hasan al-Shaybani. (It grew out of debates that surfaced following Muhammad's death.)


title: Jihad

text: Although some Islamic scholars have differed on the implementation of Jihad, there is consensus amongst them that the concept of jihad will always include armed struggle against persecution and oppression.


title: Jihad

text: Both Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Qayyim asserted that Muhammad never initiated any hostilities and that all the wars he engaged in were primarily defensive. He never forced non-Muslims to Islam and upheld the truces with non-Muslims so long as they didn't violate them. Ibn Taymiyya's views on Jihad are explained in his treatise titled "Qāʿidah mukhtaṣarah fī qitāl al-kuffār wa muhādanatuhum wa taḥrīm qatlahum li mujarrad kufrihim". (An abridged rule on fighting the unbelievers and making truces with them, and the prohibition of killing them merely because of their unbelief) According to Ibn Taymiyya, every human blood is inviolable by default, except "by right of justice". Although Ibn Taymiyya authorised offensive Jihad ( "Jihad al-Talab") against enemies who threaten Muslims or obstruct their citizens from freely accepting Islam, unbelief ("Kufr") by itself is not a justification for violence, whether against individuals or states. According to Ibn Taymīyah, jihad is a legitimate reaction to military aggression by unbelievers and not merely due to religious differences. Ibn Taymiyya writes:"As for the transgressor who does not fight, there are no texts in which Allah commands him to be fought. Rather, the unbelievers are only fought on the condition that they wage war, as is practiced by the majority of scholars and is evident in the Book and Sunnah."


title: Jihad

text: As important as jihad was, it has not been considered one of the "pillars of Islam". According to one scholar (Majid Khadduri, this is because the five pillars are individual obligations, but jihad is a "collective obligation" of the whole Muslim community meant to be carried out by the Islamic state. This was the belief of "all jurists, with almost no exception", but did not apply to "defense" of the Muslim community from a sudden attack, in which case jihad was and "individual obligation" of all believers, including women and children.


title: Jihad

text: Scholars had previously assumed it was the responsibility of a centralized government to organize jihad. But this changed as the authority of the Abbasid caliph weakened. Al-Mawardi allowed local governors to wage jihad on the caliph's behalf. This decentralization of jihad became especially pressing after the Crusades. Ali ibn Tahir al-Sulami argued that all Muslims were responsible for waging wars of self-defense. Al-Sulami encouraged Muslim rulers from distant lands to assist those Muslims being invaded.


title: Jihad

text: Classical Shia doctrine maintained defensive jihad was always permissible, but offensive jihad required the presence of the Imam. An exception to this, during medieval times, was when the first Fatimid caliph Abdallah al-Mahdi Billah claimed to be the representative of the Imam and claimed the right to launch offensive jihad.


title: Jihad

text: After the Mongol invasions, Shia scholar Muhaqqiq al-Hilli made defensive war not just permissible but praiseworthy, even obligatory. If a Muslim could not take part in the defense then he should, at least, send material support. This remained the case even if the Muslims were ruled by an unjust ruler.


title: Jihad

text: In the early era that inspired classical Islam (Rashidun Caliphate) and lasted less than a century, jihad spread the realm of Islam to include millions of subjects, and an area extending "from the borders of India and China to the Pyrenees and the Atlantic". The role of religion in these early conquests is debated. Medieval Arabic authors believed the conquests were commanded by God, and presented them as orderly and disciplined, under the command of the caliph. Many modern historians question whether hunger and desertification, rather than jihad, was a motivating force in the conquests. The famous historian William Montgomery Watt argued that "Most of the participants in the [early Islamic] expeditions probably thought of nothing more than booty ... There was no thought of spreading the religion of Islam." Similarly, Edward J. Jurji argues that the motivations of the Arab conquests were certainly not "for the propagation of Islam ... Military advantage, economic desires, [and] the attempt to strengthen the hand of the state and enhance its sovereignty ... are some of the determining factors." Some recent explanations cite both material and religious causes in the conquests.


title: Jihad

text: According to some authors, the more spiritual definitions of jihad developed sometime after the 150 years of jihad wars and Muslim territorial expansion, and particularly after the Mongol invaders sacked Baghdad and overthrew the Abbasid Caliphate. The historian Hamilton Gibb states that "in the historic [Muslim] Community the concept of jihad had gradually weakened and at length it had been largely reinterpreted in terms of Sufi ethics." Johnson notes that "despite the theoretical importance of the idea of jihad in classical Islamic juristic thought", by the time of the Abbasids, the concept was no longer central to statecraft.