Definitions and usage.

'(, plural') is an Arabic word that means  Its religious definition can be: Islam Web gives two slightly different definitions: It was first used with the meaning of "law" in the Syro-Roman law book before it became widely used in Islamic jurisprudence.

Sunnah and hadith.

Sunnah and hadith (the words, actions or approval that are narrated about Muhammad and which are believed to document Sunnah) are sometimes used synonymously, but not always.

"Sunnah Salat".

In addition to being "the way" of Islam or the traditional social and legal custom and practice of the Islamic community, sunnah is often used as a synonym for "mustahabb" (encouraged) rather than "wajib"/"fard" (obligatory), regarding some commendable action (usually the saying of a prayer).

Ahl as-Sunnah.

Sunni Muslims are also referred to as "Ahl as-Sunnah wa'l-Jamā'ah" ("people of the tradition and the community (of Muhammad)") or "Ahl as-Sunnah" for short. Some early Sunnî Muslim scholars (such as Abu Hanifa, al-Humaydî, Ibn Abî `Âsim, Abû Dâwûd, and Abû Nasr al-Marwazî) reportedly used the term "the sunnah" narrowly to refer to Sunni Doctrine as opposed to the creeds of Shia and other non-Sunni sects. Sunnah literally means face, nature, lifestyle, etc. In the time of prophet Muhammad's companion, newly converted muslims accepted and rejected some set of creed by using reason. So many early muslim scholars started writing books on creed entitled as'sunnah'.

In the Quran.

The word “Sunna” appears several times in the Qur’an, but there is no specific mention of sunnah of the messenger or prophet ("sunnat al-rasool", "sunnat al-nabi" or "sunna al-nabawiyyah"), i.e. the way/practice of Prophet Muhammad. (There "are" several verses calling on Muslims to obey Muhammad—see below.) Four verses (8.38, 15.13, 18.55) use the expression “"sunnat al-awwalin"”, which is thought to mean “the way or practice of the ancients.” It is described as something "that has passed away" or prevented unbelievers from accepting God. “"Sunnat Allah"” (the “way of God”) appears eight times in five verses. In addition, verse 17.77 talks of both the way of other, earlier Muslim messengers (Ibrahim, Musa, etc.), and of "our way", i.e. God's way. [This is] the way ("sunna") of those whom we sent [as messengers] before you, and you will not find any change in Our way ("sunnatuna").  This indicates to some scholars (such as Javed Ahmad Ghamidi) that sunnah predates both the Quran and Muhammad, and is actually the tradition of the prophets of God, specifically the tradition of Abraham. Christians, Jews and the Arab descendants of Ishmael, the Arabized Arabs or Ishmaelites, when Muhammad reinstituted this practice as an integral part of Islam.

History/etymology.

According to historians (particularly Daniel W. Brown), the classical Islamic definition of Sunnah as the customs and practices of Muhammad (only) was not the original one.  Prior to the "golden age of classical Islamic jurisprudence" (according to Mahmoud El-Gamal) -- when the Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i, Hanbali, etc. schools of fiqh were created in the second century of Islam, the "ancient schools" of law prevailed. These "regional" schools of law, located in several major cities of the new Arab empire of Islam -- Mecca, Kufa, Basra, Syria, etc. -- had a more flexible definition of sunnah than was used later. This was "acceptable norms" or "custom", not limited to “traditions traced back to the Prophet Muhammad himself” ("sunna al-nabawiyyah"). It included examples of the Prophet's Companions, the rulings of the Caliphs, and practices that “had gained general acceptance among the jurists of that school”.  Examples of the use of non-Muhammadan sunnahs at this time is found in a (non-Muhammadan) tradition/hadith comment  In al-Ṭabarī's history of early Islam, the term "Sunnah of the Prophet" is not only used "surprisingly infrequently", but used to refer to "political oaths or slogans used by rebels", or "a general standard of justice and right conduct", and not "to specific precedents set by Muhammad", let alone hadith. An early theological writing by Hasan al-Basri ("Risala fi'l Qadar") also is "empty of references to specific cases" when mentioning Sunnah of the Prophet.

First century of Islam.

Daniel Brown states that the first extant writings of Islamic legal reasoning were "virtually hadith-free" and argues that other examples of a lack of connection between sunnah and hadith" can be found in:  According to one source (Ahmad Kazemi Moussavi and Karim Douglas Crow), early Sunni scholars often considered "sunnah" equivalent to the biography of Muhammed ("sira"). As the "hadith" came to be better documented and the scholars who validated them gained prestige, the "sunnah" came often to be known mostly through the "hadith", especially as variant or fictional biographies of Muhammad spread.

al-Shafi'i.

Abū ʿAbdullāh Muhammad ibn Idrīs al-Shāfiʿī (150-204 AH), known as al-Shafi'i, argued against flexible sunnah and the use of precedents from multiple sources, emphasizing the final authority of a hadith of Muhammad, so that even the Qur'an was "to be interpreted in the light of traditions (i.e. hadith), and not vice versa." While the sunnah has often been called "second to the Quran", hadith has also been said to "rule over and interpret the Quran". Al-Shafiʿi "forcefully argued" that the sunnah stands "on equal footing with the Quran", (according to scholar Daniel Brown) both being divine revelation. As Al-Shafi'i put it, “the command of the Prophet is the command of God.” (Notwithstanding the triumph of this theory, in practice the schools of fiqh resisted the thorough application of hadith and fiqh was little changed from the days before Al-Shafi'i.)  Sunnah of Muhammad outranked all other, and "broad agreement" developed that "hadith must be the basis for authentication of any Sunnah," (according to M.O. Farooq). Al-Shafiʿi's success was such that later writers “hardly ever thought of sunnah as comprising anything but that of the Prophet”, and sunnah was often considered synonymous with hadith.

Systemization of hadith.

While the earliest Muslim lawyers "felt no obligation" to provide documentation of hadith when arguing their case, and the Sunnah was not recorded and written during the Prophet's lifetime, (according to scholar Khaled Abou El Fadl), all this changed with the triumph of Al-Shafi‘i and a "broad agreement" that Hadith should be used to authenticate Sunnah, (according to M.O. Farooq), over the course of the second century, when legal works began incorporated Prophetic hadith.  Hadith was now systematically collected and documented, but several generations having passed since the time of its occurrence meant that "many of the reports attributed to the Prophet are apocryphal or at least are of dubious historical authenticity," (according to Abou El Fadl). "In fact, one of the most complex disciplines in Islamic jurisprudence is one which attempts to differentiate between authentic and inauthentic traditions."

Classical Islam.

Islam jurists divide sunnah into that which has no legal consequences --"al-sunna al-ʿādīyah" -- (the "personal habits and preferences" of Muhammad); and that which is binding on Muslims -- "al-sunna al-hudā". The literalist Zāhirī school disagrees holding that there was no sunnah whose fulfillment is not rewarded or neglect punished, while classical Islam holds that following non-binding "al-sunna al-ʿādīyah" is meritorious but not obligatory.  Sufis see the "division between binding and non-binding" sunnah as "meaningless". Muhammad is "al-insān al-kāmil", the perfect man, "labib-Allah" beloved of God, an intercessor, a "channel of divine light". Imitating his every action is "the ultimate expression" of piety. or in the words of Al-Ghazālī: Know that the key to joy is following the sunnah and imitating the Prophet in all his comings and goings, words and deeds, extending to his manner of eating, rising, sleeping and speaking. I do not say this only in relation to requirements of religion ["ʿibādāt"], for there is no escaping these; rather, this includes every area of behavior ["ʿādāt"].

Modernist Islam.

In the 19th century, "social and political turmoil" starting with the decline of the Moghal empire, caused some Muslims to seek a more humanized figure of Muhammad. The miracle-performing "larger than life" prophetic figure was de-emphasized in favor of "a practical model for restoration of the Muslim community," a virtuous, progressive social reformer. Nasserist Egypt, for example, celebrated the "imam of socialism" rather than the cosmic "perfect man". One who argued against the idea of sunnah as divine revelation, and for the idea that Muhammad's mission was simply to transmit the Quran was Ghulam Ahmed Perwez (1903–1985). He quoted the Quranic verse "The messenger has no duty except to proclaim [the message]," (Q.5:99) and pointed out several other verses where God corrects something Muhammad has done or said (8:67),(9:43), (66:1), thus demonstrating Muhammad's lack of supernatural knowledge.  This era of rapid social and technological change, decline of Muslim power, and replacement of classical madhhab by Western-inspired legal codes in Muslim lands, also suggested a turn away from the "detailed precedents in civil and political affairs," called for by traditional Hadith, "for if worldly matters require detailed prophetic guidance, then every age will require a new prophet to accommodate changing circumstances".

Alternatives: Sunnah without hadith.

Although "most writers agree", including skeptics, that "sunnah and hadith must stand or fall together", some (Fazlur Rahman Malik, Javed Ahmad Ghamidi) have attempted to "establish a basis for sunnah independent of hadith", working around problem of hadith authenticity raised by modernist and Western critics, while reaching back to pre-al-Shafiʿi meaning of Sunnah.  In the 1960s, Fazlur Rahman Malik, an Islamic modernist and former head of Pakistan's Central Institute for Islamic Research, advanced another idea for how the (Prophetic) sunnah -- the normative example of the Prophet -- should be understood: as "a general umbrella concept" but not one "filled with absolutely specific content", or that was static over the centuries. He argued that Muhammad had come as a "moral reformer" and not a "pan-legit", and that the specifics of the sunnah would be agreed upon community of his followers, evolving with changing times as a "living and on-going process". He accepted the criticism of Western and Muslim scholars that the content of many hadith and isnad (chain of transmitters) had been tampered with by Muslims trying to prove the Muhammad had made a specific statement -- but this did not make them fraudulent or forgeries, because if "Hadith verbally speaking does not go back to the Prophet, its spirit certainly does". Instead these collections of ahadith of al-Bukhari and al-Muslim's were "ijma" (consensus or agreement of the Muslim scholars -- which is another classical source of Islamic law). Doing so they follow the spirit of the Prophet's mission, and "resurrect" the legal methodology of the pre-Shafi'i "Ancient schools". But just as second and third century Muslims could re-formulate hadith and law around a prophetic spirit, so could modern Muslims -- redefining "riba" and eliminating medieval laws against bank interest, while protecting the poor in other ways.  Some of the most basic and important features of the sunnah — worship rituals like "salat" (ritual prayer), "zakat" (ritual tithing), "hajj" (pilgrimage to Mecca), "sawm" (dawn to dusk fasting during Ramadan) — are known to Muslim from being passed down `from the many to the many` (according to scholars of fiqh such as Al-Shafi'i), bypassing books of hadith, (which were more often consulted for answers to details not agreed upon or not frequently practiced) and issues of authenticity.  Modernist Rashid Rida thought this "the only source of sunnah that is beyond dispute". S.M. Yusuf argued "practice is best transmitted through practice", and a more reliable way to establish Sunnah than hadith. He also believed that the passing down of practice from generation to generation independent of hadith explained why early schools of law did not differentiate between sunnah of the caliphate and sunnah of the prophet. According to Javed Ahmad Ghamidi, another Modernist, this passing down by continuous practice of the Muslim community (which also indicates consensus, "ijma") was similar to how the Qur’ān has been "received by the "ummah"" (Muslim community) through the consensus of the Prophet's Companions and through their perpetual recitation. Consequently, Ghamidi sees this more limited Sunnah of continuous practice as the true sunnah — equally authentic to the Quran, but shedding orthodox sunnah and avoiding problematic basis of the hadith.  Sufi thinkers "emphasized personal spirituality and piety rather than the details of fiqh". According to the view of some Sufi Muslims who incorporate both the outer and inner reality of Muhammad, the deeper and true sunnah are the noble characteristics and inner state of Muhammad -- "Khuluqin Azim" or 'Exalted Character'. To them Muhammad's attitude, his piety, the quality of his character constitute the truer and deeper aspect of what it means by sunnah in Islam, rather than the external aspects alone. They argue that the external customs of Muhammad loses its meaning without the inner attitude and also many hadiths are simply custom of the Arabs, not something that is unique to Muhammad.

Basis of importance.

The Qur'an contains numerous commands to follow the Prophet. Among the Quranic verses quoted as demonstrating the importance of hadith/sunnah to Muslims are Say: Obey Allah and obey the Messenger,  Which appears in several verses:,,,  Your companion [Muhammad] has not strayed, nor has he erred, Nor does he speak from [his own] inclination or desire.  "A similar (favour have ye already received) in that We have sent among you a Messenger of your own, rehearsing to you Our Signs, and sanctifying you, and instructing you in Scripture and Wisdom, and in new knowledge.  "Ye have indeed in the Messenger of Allah a beautiful pattern (of conduct) for any one whose hope is in Allah and the Final Day, and who engages much in the Praise of Allah."  The teachings of "wisdom" ("hikma") have been declared to be a function of Muhammad along with the teachings of the scripture. Several Quranic verses mention "wisdom" ("hikmah") coupled with "scripture" or "the book" (i.e. the Quran) -- "al-kitāb wa al-ḥikma". Mainstream scholars starting with al-Shafi'i believe "hikma" refers to the Sunnah, and this connection between Sunnah and the Quran is evidence of the Sunnah's divinity and authority.  Therefore, along with the Quran, the "sunnah" was revealed. Modern Sunni scholars have examined both the "sira" and the "hadith" in order to justify modifications to jurisprudence ("fiqh"). Hense, the imitation of Muhammad helps Muslims to know and be loved by God.  Another piece of evidence for the divinity of the Sunnah -- according to its supporters -- are verses in the Quran that refer to revelations not found "in" the Quran. For example, there is no verse mentioning the original direction of prayer (the "qibla") in the Quran, but God in the Quran does say He appointed the original qibla (). Other events mentioned in the Quran that already happened without Quranic command or description include a dream in which Muhammad would enter Mecca (); Muhammad's marriage to Zayd's ex-wife (); and the dispute over the division of spoils after the Battle of Badr (); all "definitive proof that besides the Quran other commands came to the Prophet by the agency of waḥy," according to revivalist Abul A'la Maududi.

Alternative view.

The minority argument against the Sunnah of the prophet being divine revelation ("waḥy") goes back to the "ahl al-Kalam" who al-Shāfiʿī argued against in the second century of Islam. Their modern "Quranists", the modern successors of the "ahl al-Kalam", argue that the sunnah falls short of the standard of the Quran in divinity. Specifically because

Providing examples.

According to John Burton, paraphrasing Al-Shafi'i, "it must be remembered that the Quran text are couched in very general terms which it is the function of the sunnah to expand and elucidate, to make God's meaning absolutely clear." There are a number of verses in the Quran where "to understand the context, as well as the meaning", Muslims need to refer to the record of the life and example of the Prophet.  It is thought that verses 16:44 and 64 indicate that Muhammed's mission "is not merely that of a deliveryman who simply delivers the revelation from Allah to us, rather, he has been entrusted with the most important task of explaining and illustrating" the Quran. And We have also sent down unto you (O Muhammad) the reminder and the advice (the Quran), that you may explain clearly to men what is sent down to them, and that they may give thought.  And We have not sent down the Book (the Quran) to you (O Muhammad), except that you may explain clearly unto them those things in which they differ, and (as) a guidance and a mercy for a folk who believe. [Quran 16:64]  For example, while the Quran presents the general principles of praying, fasting, paying zakat, or making pilgrimage, they are presented "without the illustration found in Hadith, for these acts of worship remain as abstract imperatives in the Qur’an".

Types of sunnah.

Sunnah upon which "fiqh" is based may be divided into:  It may be also divided into sunnah that is binding for Muslims and that which is not. Ibn Qutaybah (213-276 AH) distinguished between: In the terminology of "fiqh" (Islamic jurisprudence), sunnah denotes whatever though not obligatory, is "firmly established ("thabata") as called for ("matlub")" in Islam "on the basis of a legal proof ("dalîl shar`î").

Sciences of Sunnah.

According to scholar Gibril Fouad Haddad, the "sciences of the Sunnah" ("`ulûm as-Sunna") refer to: the biography of the Prophet ("as-sîra"), the chronicle of his battles ("al-maghâzî"), his everyday sayings and acts or "ways" ("sunan"), his personal and moral qualities ("ash-shamâ'il"), and the host of the ancillary hadîth sciences such as the circumstances of occurrence ("asbâb al-wurûd"), knowledge of the abrogating and abrogated hadîth, difficult words ("gharîb al-hadîth"), narrator criticism ("al-jarh wat-ta`dîl"), narrator biographies ("al-rijâl"), etc., as discussed in great detail in the authoritative books of al-Khatîb al-Baghdâdî.

Sunnah in Shia Islam.

Shia Islam does not use the "Kutub al-Sittah" (six major "hadith" collections) followed by Sunni Islam, therefore the Sunnah of Shia Islam and the Sunnah of Sunni Islam refer to different collections of religious canonical literature.  The primary collections of Sunnah of Shia Islam were written by three authors known as the 'Three Muhammads', and they are:  Unlike Akhbari Twelver Shiites, Usuli Twelver Shiite scholars do not believe that everything in the four major books of the Sunnah of Shia Islam is authentic.  In Shia "hadees" one often finds sermons attributed to Ali in The Four Books or in the Nahj al-Balagha.

Sunnah (,, plural ), also sunna or sunnat, is the Arabic word for traditional customs and practices; in the Islamic community it refers to the traditions and practices of the Prophet Muhammad, that constitute a model for Muslims to follow. According to classical Islamic theories of Sunnah they are documented by "hadith" (the verbally transmitted record of the teachings, deeds and sayings, silent permissions or disapprovals of Muhammad), and along with the Quran (the holy book of Islam), are the divine revelation ("Wahy") delivered through the Prophet that make up the primary sources of Islamic law and belief/theology. Differing from Sunni classical Islamic theories are those of Shia Muslims, who hold that the Twelve Imams interpret the sunnah, and Sufi who hold that Muhammad transmitted the values of Sunnah "through a series of Sufi teachers."

Sunna nebo také suna ( ) znamená doslovně „cesta“ nebo „zvyk“ a tvoří jeden z pramenů islámského práva. Je to soubor výroků a činů Mohameda od té doby, kdy se ve svých čtyřiceti letech stal prorokem.


Definitions and etymology.

The word "poverty" comes from the old (Norman) French word "poverté" (Modern French: "pauvreté)," from Latin "paupertās" from "pauper" (poor).  There are several definitions of poverty depending on the context of the situation it is placed in, and the views of the person giving the definition.  United Nations: Fundamentally, poverty is the inability of having choices and opportunities, a violation of human dignity. It means lack of basic capacity to participate effectively in society. It means not having enough to feed and clothe a

Classifications of poverty.

Absolute poverty.

Absolute poverty refers to a set standard which is consistent over time and between countries. First introduced in 1990, the dollar a day poverty line measured absolute poverty by the standards of the world's poorest countries. The World Bank defined the new international poverty line as $1.25 a day in 2008 for 2005 (equivalent to $1.00 a day in 1996 US prices). In October 2015, they reset it to $1.90 a day.  Absolute poverty, extreme poverty, or abject poverty is "a condition characterized by severe deprivation of basic human needs, including food, safe drinking water, sanitation facilities, health, shelter, education and information. It depends not only on income but also on access to services." The term 'absolute poverty', when used in this fashion, is usually synonymous with 'extreme poverty': Robert McNamara, the former

Relative poverty.

Relative poverty views poverty as socially defined and dependent on social context, hence relative poverty is a measure of income inequality. Usually, relative poverty is measured as the percentage of the population with income less than some fixed proportion of median income. There are several other different income inequality metrics, for example, the Gini coefficient or the Theil Index.  Relative poverty is the "most useful measure for ascertaining poverty rates in wealthy developed nations". Relative poverty measure is used by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and Canadian poverty researchers. In the European Union,

Secondary poverty.

Secondary poverty refers to those that earn enough income to not be impoverished, but who spend their income on unnecessary pleasures, such as alcoholic

Other aspects.

Economic aspects of poverty focus on material needs, typically including the necessities of daily living, such as food, clothing, shelter, or safe drinking water. Poverty in this sense may be understood as a condition in which a person or community is lacking in the basic needs for a minimum standard of well-being and life, particularly as a result of a persistent lack of income. The increase in poverty runs parallel sides with unemployment, hunger, and higher crime rate.  Analysis of social aspects of poverty links conditions of scarcity to aspects of the distribution of resources and power in a society and recognizes that poverty may be a function of the diminished "capability" of people to live the kinds of lives they value. The social aspects of poverty may include lack of access to

Global prevalence.

The share of the world's population living in absolute poverty fell from 43% in 1981 to 14% in 2011. The absolute number of people in poverty fell from 1.95 billion in 1981 to 1.01 billion in 2011. The economist Max Roser estimates that the number of people in poverty is therefore roughly the same as 200 years ago. This is the case since the world population was just little more than 1 billion in 1820 and the majority (84% to 94%) of the world population was living poverty. The proportion of the developing world's population living in extreme economic poverty fell from 28 percent in 1990 to 21 percent in 2001. Most of this improvement has occurred in East and South Asia. In East Asia the World Bank reported that "The poverty headcount rate at the $2-a-day level is estimated to have fallen to about 27 percent [in 2007], down from 29.5 percent in 2006 and 69 percent in 1990." In Sub-Saharan Africa extreme poverty went up from 41 percent in 1981 to

Characteristics.

The effects of poverty may also be causes as listed above, thus creating a "poverty cycle" operating across multiple levels, individual, local, national and global.

Impact on health and mortality.

One third of deaths around the world – some 18 million people a year or 50,000 per day – are due to poverty-related causes. People living in developing nations, among them women and children, are over represented among the global poor and these effects of severe poverty. Those living in poverty suffer disproportionately from hunger or even starvation and disease, as well as lower life expectancy. According to the World Health Organization, hunger and malnutrition are the single gravest threats to the world's public health and malnutrition is by far the biggest contributor to child mortality, present in half of all cases.  Almost 90% of maternal deaths during childbirth occur in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, compared to less than 1% in the developed world. Those who live in poverty have also been shown to have a far greater likelihood of having or incurring a disability within their lifetime. Infectious diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis can perpetuate poverty by diverting health and economic resources from investment and productivity; malaria decreases GDP growth by up to 1.3% in some developing nations and AIDS decreases African growth by 0.3–1.5% annually.  Poverty has been shown to impede

Hunger.

Rises in the costs of living make poor people less able to afford items. Poor people spend a greater portion of their budgets on food than wealthy people. As a result, poor households and those near the poverty threshold can be particularly vulnerable to increases in food prices. For example, in late 2007 increases in the price of grains led to food riots in some countries. The World Bank warned that 100 million people were at risk of sinking deeper into poverty. Threats to the supply of food may also be caused by drought and

Efforts to end hunger and undernutrition.

As part of the Sustainable Development Goals the global community has made the elimination of hunger and undernutrition a priority for the coming years. While the Goal 2 of the SDGs aims to reach this goal by 2030 a number of initiatives aim to achieve the goal 5 years earlier, by 2025:

Education.

Research has found that there is a high risk of educational underachievement for children who are from low-income housing circumstances. This is often a process that begins in primary school for some less fortunate children. Instruction in the US educational system, as well as in most other countries, tends to be geared towards those students who come from more advantaged backgrounds. As a result, children in poverty are at a higher risk than advantaged children for retention in their grade, special deleterious placements during the school's hours and even not completing their high school education. Advantage breeds advantage. There are indeed many explanations for why students tend to drop out of school. One is the conditions of which they attend school. Schools in poverty-stricken areas have conditions that hinder children from learning in a safe environment. Researchers have developed a name for areas like this: an urban war zone is a poor, crime-laden district in which deteriorated, violent, even war-like conditions and underfunded, largely ineffective schools promote inferior academic performance, including irregular attendance and disruptive or non-compliant classroom behavior. Because of poverty, "Students from low-income families are 2.4 times more likely to drop out than middle-income kids, and over 10 times more likely than high-income peers to drop out"  For children with low resources, the risk factors are similar to others

Shelter.

Poverty increases the risk of homelessness. Slum-dwellers, who make up a third of the world's urban population, live in a poverty no better, if not worse, than rural people, who are the traditional focus of the poverty in the developing world, according to a report by the United Nations.  There are over 100 million street children worldwide. Most of the children living in

Utilities.

Water and sanitation.

As of 2012, 2.5 billion people lack access to sanitation services and 15% practice open defecation. The most noteworthy example is Bangladesh, which has half the GDP per capita of India but has a lower mortality from diarrhea than India or the world average, with diarrhea deaths declining by 90% since the 1990s. Even while providing latrines is a challenge, people still do not use them even when available. By strategically providing pit latrines to the poorest, charities in Bangladesh sparked a cultural change as those better off perceived it as an issue of status to not use one. The vast majority of the latrines built were

Electricity.

Similarly, the poorest fifth receive 0.1% of the world's lighting but pay a fifth of total spending on light, accounting for 25 to 30 percent of their income. Indoor air pollution from burning fuels kills 2 million, with almost half the deaths from pneumonia in children under 5. Fuel from Bamboo burns more cleanly and also matures much faster than wood, thus also reducing deforestation. Additionally, using solar panels is promoted as being cheaper over the products' lifetime even if upfront costs are higher. Thus, payment schemes such as lend-to-own programs are promoted and up to 14% of Kenyan households use solar as their primary energy source.

Violence.

According to experts, many women become victims of trafficking, the most common form of which is prostitution, as a means of survival and economic desperation. Deterioration of living conditions can often compel children to abandon school to contribute to the family income, putting them at risk of being exploited. For example, in Zimbabwe, a number of girls are

Personality.

Max Weber and some schools of modernization theory suggest that cultural values could affect economic success. However, researchers have gathered evidence that suggest that values are not as deeply ingrained and that changing economic opportunities explain most of the movement into and out of poverty, as opposed to shifts in values. Studies have shown that poverty changes the personalities of children who live in it. The Great Smoky Mountains Study was a ten-year study that was able to demonstrate this. During the study, about one-quarter of the families saw a dramatic and unexpected increase in income. The study showed that among these children, instances of behavioral and emotional disorders decreased, and conscientiousness and agreeableness increased.  One 2012 paper, based on a sampling of 9,646 U.S, adults, claimed that poverty tends to correlate with laziness and other such traits. A 2018 report on poverty in the United States by UN special rapporteur

Discrimination.

Cultural factors, such as discrimination of various kinds, can negatively affect productivity such as age discrimination, stereotyping, discrimination against people with physical disability, gender discrimination, racial discrimination, and caste discrimination. Women are the group suffering from the highest rate of poverty after children; 14.5% of women and 22% of children are poor in the United States. In addition, the fact that women are more likely to be caregivers, regardless of income

Causes of poverty.

Causes of poverty is a highly ideologically charged subject, as different causes point to different remedies. Very broadly speaking, the socialist tradition locates the roots of poverty in problems of distribution and the use of the means of production as capital benefiting individuals,

Poverty reduction.

Various poverty reduction strategies are broadly categorized based on whether they make more of the basic human needs available or whether they increase the disposable income needed to purchase those needs. Some strategies such as building roads can both bring access to various basic needs, such as fertilizer or healthcare from urban areas, as well as increase incomes, by bringing better access to urban markets. Statistics of 2018 shows population living in extreme conditions has declined by more than 1 billion in the last 25 years. As per the report published by the world bank on 19 September 2018 world poverty falls below 750 million.

Increasing the supply of basic needs.

Food and other goods.

Agricultural technologies such as nitrogen fertilizers, pesticides, new seed varieties and new irrigation methods have dramatically reduced food shortages in modern times by boosting yields past previous constraints.  Before the Industrial Revolution, poverty had been mostly accepted as inevitable as economies produced little, making wealth scarce. Geoffrey Parker wrote that "In Antwerp and Lyon, two of the largest cities in western Europe, by 1600 three-quarters of the total population were too poor to pay taxes, and therefore likely to need relief in times of crisis." The initial industrial revolution led to high economic growth and eliminated mass absolute poverty in

Health care and education.

Nations do not necessarily need wealth to gain health. For example, Sri Lanka had a maternal mortality rate of 2% in the 1930s, higher than any nation today. It reduced it to 0.5–0.6% in the 1950s and to 0.6% today while spending less each year on maternal health because it learned what worked and what did not. Knowledge on the cost effectiveness of healthcare interventions can be elusive and educational measures have been made to disseminate what works, such as the Copenhagen Consensus. Cheap water filters and promoting hand washing are some of the most cost effective health interventions and can cut deaths from diarrhea and pneumonia.  Strategies to provide education cost effectively include deworming children, which costs about 50 cents per child per year and reduces non-attendance from anemia,

Removing constraints on government services.

Government revenue can be diverted away from basic services by corruption. Funds from aid and natural resources are often sent by government individuals for money laundering to overseas banks which insist on bank secrecy, instead of spending on the poor. A Global Witness report asked for more action from Western banks as they have proved capable of stanching the flow of funds linked to terrorism.  Illicit capital flight from the developing world is estimated at ten times the size of aid it receives and twice the debt

Reversing brain drain.

The loss of basic needs providers emigrating from impoverished countries has a damaging effect. As of 2004, there were more Ethiopia-trained doctors living in Chicago than in Ethiopia. Proposals to mitigate the problem include compulsory government service for graduates of public medical and nursing

Controlling overpopulation.

Some argue that overpopulation and lack of access to birth control can lead to population increase to exceed food production and other resources. Better education for both men and women, and more control of their lives, reduces population growth due to family planning. According to United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), by giving better education to men and women, they can earn money for their lives and can help them to strengthen economic security.

Increasing personal income.

The following are strategies used or proposed to increase personal incomes among the poor. Raising farm incomes is described as the core of the antipoverty effort as three-quarters of the poor today are farmers. Estimates show that growth in the agricultural productivity of small farmers is, on average, at least twice as effective in benefiting the poorest half of a country's population as growth generated in nonagricultural sectors.

Income grants.

A guaranteed minimum income ensures that every citizen will be able to purchase a desired level of basic needs. A basic income (or negative income tax) is a system of social security, that periodically provides each citizen, rich or poor, with a sum of money that is sufficient to live on. Studies of large cash-transfer programs in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Malawi show that the programs can be effective in increasing consumption, schooling, and nutrition, whether they are tied to such conditions or not. Proponents argue that a basic income is more economically efficient than a minimum wage and unemployment benefits, as the minimum wage effectively imposes a high marginal tax on employers, causing losses in efficiency. In 1968, Paul Samuelson, John Kenneth Galbraith and another 1,200 economists signed a document calling for the US Congress to introduce a system of income guarantees. Winners of the Nobel Prize in Economics,

Economic freedoms.

Corruption often leads to many civil services being treated by governments as employment agencies to loyal supporters and so it could mean going through 20 procedures, paying $2,696 in fees, and waiting 82 business days to start a business in Bolivia, while in Canada it takes two days, two registration procedures, and $280 to do the same. Such costly barriers favor big firms at the expense of small enterprises, where most jobs are created. Often, businesses have to bribe government officials even for routine activities, which is, in effect, a tax on business. Noted reductions in poverty in recent decades has occurred in China and India

Financial services.

Microloans, made famous by the Grameen Bank, is where small amounts of money are loaned to farmers or villages, mostly women, who can then obtain physical capital to increase their economic rewards. However, microlending has been criticized for making hyperprofits off the poor even from its founder, Muhammad Yunus, and in India, Arundhati Roy asserts that some 250,000 debt-ridden farmers have been driven to suicide.  There has been significant rise of agriculture and small business that started booming up after the introduction of Grameen Banking especially in the rural areas. While making the foundation of this loan,

Financial services in US.

In USA there are abundance of payday loan companies that strive to serve those people whose credit scores are much below the standard credit

Wealth concentration.

Poverty can also be reduced as an improved economic policy is developed by the governing authorities to facilitate a more equitable distribution of the nation's wealth. Oxfam has called for an international movement to end extreme wealth concentration as a significant step towards ameliorating global poverty. The group stated that the $240 billion added to the fortunes of the world's richest billionaires in 2012 was enough to end extreme poverty four times over. Oxfam argues that the "concentration of resources in the hands of the top 1% depresses economic activity and makes life harder for everyone else – particularly those at the bottom of the economic ladder." It has been reported that only 1% of the world population controls 50% of the wealth today, and the other 99% is having access to the remaining 50% only, and the gap has sharply increased in the recent past. In 2018, Oxfam reported that the gains of the world's billionaires in 2017, which amounted to $762 billion, was enough to end extreme global poverty seven times over. José Antonio Ocampo, professor at Columbia University and former finance

Business solutions to poverty.

Serving the poor market.

The concept of business serving the world's poorest four billion or so people has been popular since CK Prahalad introduced the idea through his book "Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits" in 2004, among many business corporations and business schools. Kash Rangan, John Quelch, and other faculty members at the Global Poverty Project at Harvard Business School "believe that in pursuing its own self-interest in opening and expanding the BoP market, business can make a profit while serving the poorest of consumers and contributing to development." According to Rangan "For business, the bulk of emerging markets worldwide is at the bottom of the pyramid so it makes good business

Creating entrepreneurs.

Rather than encouraging multinational businesses to meet the needs of the poor, some organizations such as iDE, the World Resources Institute, and the United Nations Development Programme began to focus on working directly with helping bottom-of-the-pyramid populations become local, small-scale entrepreneurs. Since so much of this population is engaged in agriculture, these NGOs have addressed market gaps that enable small-scale (i.e., plots less than 2 hectares) farmers to increase their

Criticisms of this approach.

Milton Friedman argues that "the social responsibility of business is to increase its profits" only, thus, it needs to be examined whether business in BoP markets is capable of achieving the dual objective of "making a profit while serving the poorest of consumers and contributing to development"? Erik Simanis has reported that the model has a fatal flaw. According to Erik "Despite achieving healthy penetration rates of 5% to 10% in four test markets, for instance, Procter & Gamble couldn't generate a competitive return on its Pur water-purification powder after launching the product on a large scale in 2001...DuPont ran into similar problems with a venture piloted from 2006 to 2008 in Andhra Pradesh,

Environmental issues.

A report published in 2013 by the World Bank, with support from the Climate & Development Knowledge Network, found that climate change was likely to hinder future attempts to reduce poverty. The report presented the likely impacts of present day, 2 °C and 4 °C warming on agricultural production, water resources, coastal ecosystems and cities across Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and South East Asia. The impacts of a temperature rise of 2 °C included: regular food shortages in Sub-Saharan Africa; shifting rain patterns in South Asia leaving some parts under water and others without enough water for power generation, irrigation or

Voluntary poverty.

Among some individuals, poverty is considered a necessary or desirable condition, which must be embraced to reach certain spiritual, moral, or intellectual states. Poverty is often understood to be an essential element of renunciation in religions such as Buddhism, Hinduism (only for monks, not for lay persons) and Jainism, whilst in Roman Catholicism it is one of the evangelical counsels. The main aim of giving up things of the materialistic world is to withdraw oneself from sensual pleasures (as they are considered illusionary and only temporary in some religions – such as the concept of dunya in Islam). This self-invited poverty (or giving up pleasures) is different from the one caused by economic imbalance.  Some Christian communities, such as the Simple Way, the Bruderhof, and the Amish value voluntary poverty; some even take a vow of poverty, similar to that of the traditional Catholic orders, in order to live a more complete life of discipleship.  Benedict XVI distinguished "poverty "chosen"" (the poverty of spirit proposed by Jesus), and "poverty "to be fought"" (unjust and imposed poverty). He considered that the moderation implied in the former favors solidarity, and is a necessary condition so as to fight effectively to eradicate the abuse of the latter.  As it was indicated above the reduction of poverty results from religion, but also can result from solidarity.

Poverty is not having enough material possessions or income for a person's needs. Poverty may include social, economic, and political elements.

Chudoba označuje sociální status člověka vyznačující se hmotným nedostatkem. V dnešní době se díky medializaci pojem chudoba spojuje zejména s životními poměry lidí v rozvojových zemích a používá se pro stav, který nezajišťuje člověku základní podmínky pro důstojný život a uspokojení nejzákladnějších lidských potřeb. Je spojen se značnou hmotnou nouzí, nedostatkem potravin, nezávadné pitné vody, ošacení, špatné situace s bydlením, nedostatečným či žádným přístupem k základní zdravotní péči, vzdělání, ap. Důsledkem chudoby bývá chronický hlad, podvýživa, nedostatečná imunita nebo nevzdělanost, náchylnost k nemocem, deprese, vysoká dětská úmrtnost, nebo nízká střední délka života. Je stavem kdy jsou životní podmínky člověka v rozporu se základními lidskými právy. Z hlediska sociální politiky představuje chudoba jeden z nejobtížněji řešitelných problémů. Zároveň chudoba představuje jeden z nejvýraznějších motivačních prvků, kdy je motorem vzdělání, migrace obyvatelstva atp.


History.

Towards the end of the 3rd millennium BC, Proto-Indo-European speaking Battle-Axe peoples migrated to Norway bringing domesticated horses, agriculture, cattle and wheel technology to the region.  During the Viking Age, Harald Fairhair unified the Norse petty kingdoms after being victorious at the Battle of Hafrsfjord in the 880s. Two centuries of Viking expansion tapered off following the decline of Norse paganism with the adoption of Christianity in the 11th century. During The Black Death, approximately 60% of the population died and in 1397 Norway entered a union with Denmark.  In 1814, following Denmark-Norway's defeat in the Napoleonic Wars, Norway entered a union with Sweden and adopted a new constitution. Rising nationalism throughout the 19th century led to a 1905 referendum granting Norway independence. Although Norway remained officially neutral in World War I, the country was unofficially allied with the Entente powers. In World War II Norway proclaimed its neutrality, but was nonetheless occupied for five years by Nazi Germany (1940–45). In 1949, neutrality was abandoned and Norway became a member of NATO. Discovery of oil and gas in adjacent waters in the late 1960s boosted Norway's economic fortunes but in referendums held in 1972 and 1994, Norway rejected joining the EU. Key domestic issues include integration of a fast growing immigrant population, maintaining the country's generous social safety net with an aging population, and preserving economic competitiveness.

Geographic distribution.

As with many of the people from European countries, Norwegians are spread throughout the world. There are more than 100,000 Norwegian citizens living abroad permanently, mostly in the U.S. and other Scandinavian countries.

Viking Age.

Norwegian or Norse Vikings travelled north and west and founded vibrant communities in the Faroe Islands, Shetland, Orkney, Iceland, Ireland, Scotland, and northern England. They conducted extensive raids in Ireland and founded the cities of Cork, Dublin, and Limerick. In 947, a new wave of Norwegian Vikings appeared in England when Erik Bloodaxe captured York. In the 8th century and onwards, Norwegian and Danish Vikings also settled in Normandy, most famously those led by Rollo, and thus began the tradition of the Normans (also meaning'men from the north'), who expanded to England, Sicily, and other Mediterranean islands.  Apart from Britain and Ireland, Norwegian Vikings established settlements in largely uninhabited regions. The first known permanent Norwegian settler in Iceland was Ingólfur Arnarson. In the year 874 he settled in Reykjavík.  After his expulsion from Iceland Erik the Red discovered Greenland, a name he chose in hope of attracting Icelandic settlers. Viking settlements were established in the sheltered fjords of the southern and western coast. Erik's relative Leif Eriksson later discovered North America.

Netherlands.

During the 17th and 18th centuries, many Norwegians emigrated to the Netherlands, particularly Amsterdam. The Netherlands was the second most popular destination for Norwegian emigrants after Denmark.  Loosely estimated, some 10% of the population may have emigrated, in a period when the entire Norwegian population consisted of some 800,000 people.  The Norwegians left with the Dutch trade ships that when in Norway traded for timber, hides, herring and stockfish (dried codfish). Young women took employment as maids in Amsterdam. Young men took employment as sailors. Large parts of the Dutch merchant fleet and navy came to consist of Norwegians and Danes. They took Dutch names, so no trace of Norwegian names can be found in the Dutch population of today. One well-known illustration is that of Admiral Kruys. He was hired in Amsterdam by Peter I to develop the Russian navy, but was originally from Stavanger, Norway (Kruys means "cross", and the Russian maritime flag is today also a blue cross on white background).  The emigration to the Netherlands was so devastating to the homelands that the Danish-Norwegian king issued penalties of death for emigration, but repeatedly had to issue amnesties for those willing to return, announced by posters in the streets of Amsterdam. Increasingly, Dutchmen who search their genealogical roots turn to Norway. Many Norwegians who emigrated to the Netherlands, and often were employed in the Dutch merchant fleet, emigrated further to the many Dutch colonies such as New Amsterdam (New York).

North America.

United States.

Many Norwegians emigrated to the U.S. between the 1850s and the 1920s. Today, the descendants of these people are known as Norwegian Americans. According to the 2000 U.S. Census, three million Americans consider Norwegian to be their sole or primary ancestry. It is estimated that as many as a further 1.5 million more are of partial Norwegian ancestry. Travelling to and through Canada and Canadian ports were of choice for Norwegian settlers immigrating to the United States. In 1850, the year after Great Britain repealed its restrictive Navigation Acts in Canada, more and more emigrating Norwegians sailed the shorter route to the Ville de Québec (Quebec City) in Canada, to make their way to US cities like Chicago, Milwaukee, and Green Bay by steamer. For example, in the 1850s, 28,640 arrived at Quebec, Canada, en route to the US, and 8,351 at New York directly.  Norwegian Americans represent 2–3% of the non-Hispanic Euro-American population in the U.S. They mostly live in both the Upper Midwest and Pacific Northwest.

Canada.

As early as 1814, a party of Norwegians was brought to Canada to build a winter road from York Factory on Hudson Bay to the infant Red River settlement at the site of present-day Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Norway House is one of the oldest trading posts and Native-Canadian missions in the Canadian West. Willard Ferdinand Wentzel served the North West Company of Canada in the Athabasca and Mackenzie regions and accompanied Sir John Franklin on his overland expedition in 1819–20 to the Canadian Arctic.  Norwegians immigrated to Canada in search of the Canadian Dream. This immigration lasted from the mid-1880s until 1930, although Norwegians were already working in Canada as early as 1814. It can be divided into three periods of roughly fifteen years each. In the first, to about 1900, thousands of Norwegians homesteaded on the Canadian prairies. In the second, from 1900 to 1914, there was a further heavy influx of Norwegians immigrating to Canada from the United States because of poor economic conditions in the US, and 18,790 from Norway. In the third, from 1919 to 1930, 21,874 people came directly from Norway, with the peak year in 1927, when 5,103 Norwegians arrived, spurred by severe depression at home. They came with limited means, many leaving dole queues.  From 1825 to 1900 some 500,000 Norwegians landed at Ville du Quebec in Canada (and other Canadian ports) for travelling through Canada was the shortest corridor to the United States' central states. In spite of efforts by the Government of Canada to retain these immigrants for Canada, very few remained because of Canada's somewhat restrictive land policies at that time and negative stories being told about Canada from U.S. land agents deterring Norwegians from going to Canada. Not until the 1880s did Norwegians accept Canada as a land of opportunity. This was also true of the many Americans of Norwegian heritage who immigrated to Canada from the US with "Canada Fever" seeking homesteads and new economic opportunities. By 1921 one-third of all Norwegians in Canada had been born in the US.  These new Canadians became British subjects in Canada, and part of the British Empire. Canadian citizenship, as a status distinct from that of a British subject, was created on 1 January 1947, with Canada being the first Commonwealth country to create their own citizenship. Prior to that date, Canadians were British subjects and Canada's nationality law closely mirrored that of the United Kingdom. On 1 January 1947, Canadian citizenship was conferred on most British subjects connected with Canada. Unlike the US, Canada was part of the British Empire and most Norwegians would have become Canadians and British subjects at the same time.  According to the 2011 Census, 452,705 Canadians reported Norwegian ancestry (Norwegian-Canadians). Norwegians make up 2% of the White Canadian population. However, the actual figure may be higher. It is important to note that because so many Norwegian women married men of other nationalities, and thus by census rules are not counted as having children of this ethnic origin, this tends to reduce the number in the statistics.

Australia.

As of 2011, there were 3,710 Norwegian-born Australians, and 23,037 Norwegians of Australian descent.

Russia.

In the 19th century a community known as the Kola Norwegians settled in the environs of the Russian city of Murmansk. They have suffered persecution under Joseph Stalin and after 1992 were offered a chance to get back to Norway. There are very few of them left there today.

Genetics.

According to recent genetic analysis, both mtDNA (mitochondrial DNA) and Y chromosome polymorphisms showed a noticeable genetic affinity between the Norwegian population and other ethnic groups in Northern and Central Europe, particularly with the Germans. This is due to a history of at least a thousand years of large-scale migration both in and out of Norway.  The Norwegian population is typical of the Northern European population with Haplogroup I1 being most common. Norwegians also show the characteristic R1a genes of the paternal ancestorship at 17.9% to 30.8%. Such large frequencies of R1a have been found only in East Europe and India. R1b gene showing paternal descent is also widespread at 25.9% to 30.8%.  Norwegian genetic ancestry also exists in many locations where Norwegians immigrated. In particular, several northern states in the United States (Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Montana) show Scandinavian (which includes Norwegian) ancestry proportions among European descent (white) persons of 10 to 20%. Similarly, Norwegian ancestry has been found to account for about 25% of ancestry of the population of the Shetland Islands and Danish-Norwegian ancestry has been found to account for about 25% of ancestry of the population of Greenland.

Language.

Norwegian is a North Germanic language with approximately 5 million speakers, of whom most are located in Norway. There are also some speakers of Norwegian in Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Britain, Spain, Canada, and the United States, where the largest community of speakers exists, with 55,311 speakers as of 2000; approximately half of the speakers live in Minnesota (8,060), California (5,865), Washington (5,460), New York (4,200), and Wisconsin (3,520).  As of 2006, in Canada, there are 7,710 Norwegian speakers, of whom 3,420 reside in British Columbia, 1,360 in Alberta, and 1,145 in Ontario.

Culture.

Norwegian culture is closely linked to the country's history and geography. The unique Norwegian farm culture, sustained to this day, has resulted not only from scarce resources and a harsh climate but also from ancient property laws. In the 18th century, it brought about a strong romantic nationalistic movement, which is still visible in the Norwegian language and. In the 19th century, Norwegian culture blossomed as efforts continued to achieve an independent identity in the areas of literature, art and music.

Cuisine.

Norway's culinary traditions show the influence of long seafaring and farming traditions with salmon (fresh and cured), herring (pickled or marinated), trout, codfish and other seafood balanced by cheeses, dairy products and excellent breads (predominantly dark/darker). Lefse is a common Norwegian potato flatbread, common around Christmas. For renowned Norwegian dishes, see lutefisk, smalahove, pinnekjøtt, Krotekake and fårikål.

Music.

Along with the classical music of romantic composer Edvard Grieg and the modern music of Arne Nordheim, Norwegian black metal has become something of an export article in recent years.  Norway's classical performers include Leif Ove Andsnes, one of the world's more famous pianists, and Truls Mørk, an outstanding cellist.  The jazz scene in Norway is also thriving. Jan Garbarek, Mari Boine, Arild Andersen, and Bugge Wesseltoft are internationally recognised while Paal Nilssen-Love, Supersilent, Jaga Jazzist and Wibutee are becoming world-class artists of the younger generation.  Norway has a strong folk music tradition which remains popular to this day. Among the most prominent folk musicians are Hardanger fiddlers Andrea Een, Olav Jørgen Hegge, Vidar Lande and Annbjørg Lien, violinist Susanne Lundeng, and vocalists Agnes Buen Garnås, Kirsten Bråten Berg and Odd Nordstoga.

Celebrations.

Norwegians celebrate their national day on May 17, dedicated to the Constitution of Norway. Many people wear "bunad" (traditional costumes) and most participate in or watch the Norwegian Constitution Day parade that day, consisting mostly of children, through the cities and towns. The national romanticist author Henrik Wergeland was the founder of the 17 May parade. Common Christian holidays are also celebrated, the most important being Christmas (called "Jul" in Norway after the pagan and early Viking winter solstice) and Easter (Påske). In Norway, the Santa (called Nissen) comes at Christmas Eve, the 24 December, with the presents, not the morning after as in many English speaking countries. He usually comes late in the evening, after the Christmas dinner many children consider long, boring and unnecessary.  "Jonsok" (St. John's Passing), or "St. Hans" (St. John's Day), i.e. 24 June, is also a commonly revered holiday. It marks midsummer and the beginning of summer vacation, and is often celebrated by lighting bonfires the evening before. In Northern areas of Norway, this day has 24 hours of light, while southern areas have only 17.5 hours.

Religion.

The conversion of Norway to Christianity from Norse paganism began in 1000. By the middle of the 11th century, Christianity had become well-established in Norway and had become dominant by the middle of the 12th century. The Norwegians were Catholics until the Danish king Christian III of Denmark forced them to convert to Lutheranism and established a state-governed church. The church undertook a program to convert the Sámi in the 16th and 17th century, with the program being largely successful.  In the 19th century, emigration from Norway for political and religious motives began and Lutheranism spread to the United States. As a result of this, many of the Norwegians remaining in Norway were religiously moderate; subsequently, church attendance declined throughout the 20th century, as reflected by 78% of the population stating that religion is unimportant in a Gallup poll and low weekly church attendance, at 2%, particularly when compared to that of North Dakota, the state in which Norwegians constitute approximately 30.4% of the population. Of all U.S. states, North Dakota has the lowest percentage of non-religious people and the largest number of churches per capita. It weekly church attendance is at 43%.  In Norway the Church of Norway and state are not entirely separated. An act approved in 2016 created the Church of Norway as an independent legal entity, effective from 1 January 2017. The Church of Norway was previously the country's official religion, and its central administrative functions were carried out by the Royal Ministry of Government Administration, Reform and Church Affairs until 2017. The Evangelical Lutheran Church is still mentioned in the constitution, for example, the King is still required to profess an evangelical Lutheran faith. When baptised, children are registered in the Church of Norway's member register, leading to a large membership, although many people do not remain observant as adults. A majority of both ethnic Norwegians and Sámi are nominally Christian, but not necessarily observant. In Norway as of 2018, 70% of the population are members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, though only 47.1% answered "Yes" to the question "Do you believe in God?" in a 2018 European Values Study.

Other terms used.

The Norwegians are and have been referred to by other terms as well.  Some of them include:

Norwegians () are a North Germanic ethnic group native to Norway. They share a common culture and speak the Norwegian language. Norwegian people and their descendants are found in migrant communities worldwide, notably in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.

Norové jsou etnická skupina žijící v Norsku a okolních státech, velká část norského etnika a jejich potomků žije ve Spojených státech amerických a Kanadě. Norové jako příslušníci etnické skupiny jsou skandinávští Germáni, mají počátek své etnogeneze již před počátkem našeho letopočtu, kdy území současného Norska začaly osídlovat ugrofinské kmeny Sámů a následně germánské kmeny.


Origins.

Thinking in abstractions is considered by anthropologists, archaeologists, and sociologists to be one of the key traits in modern human behaviour, which is believed to have developed between 50,000 and 100,000 years ago. Its development is likely to have been closely connected with the development of human language, which (whether spoken or written) appears to both involve and facilitate abstract thinking.

History.

"Abstraction" involves induction of ideas or the synthesis of particular facts into one general theory about something. It is the opposite of "specification", which is the analysis or breaking-down of a general idea or abstraction into concrete facts. Abstraction can be illustrated with Francis Bacon's "Novum Organum" (1620), a book of modern scientific philosophy written in the late Jacobean era of England to encourage modern thinkers to collect specific facts before making any generalizations.  Bacon used and promoted induction as an abstraction tool, and it countered the ancient deductive-thinking approach that had dominated the intellectual world since the times of Greek philosophers like Thales, Anaximander, and Aristotle. Thales (c. 624–546 BCE) believed that everything in the universe comes from one main substance, water. He deduced or specified from a general idea, "everything is water", to the specific forms of water such as ice, snow, fog, and rivers.  Modern scientists can also use the opposite approach of abstraction, or going from particular facts collected into one general idea, such as the motion of the planets (Newton (1642–1727)). When determining that the sun is the center of our solar system (Copernicus (1473–1543)), scientists had to utilize thousands of measurements to finally conclude that Mars moves in an elliptical orbit about the sun (Kepler (1571–1630)), or to assemble multiple specific facts into the law of falling bodies (Galileo (1564–1642)).

Themes.

Compression.

An abstraction can be seen as a compression process, mapping multiple different pieces of constituent data to a single piece of abstract data; based on similarities in the constituent data, for example, many different physical cats map to the abstraction "CAT". This conceptual scheme emphasizes the inherent equality of both constituent and abstract data, thus avoiding problems arising from the distinction between "abstract" and "concrete". In this sense the process of abstraction entails the identification of similarities between objects, and the process of associating these objects with an abstraction (which is itself an object). Chains of abstractions can be construed, moving from neural impulses arising from sensory perception to basic abstractions such as color or shape, to experiential abstractions such as a specific cat, to semantic abstractions such as the "idea" of a CAT, to classes of objects such as "mammals" and even categories such as "object" as opposed to "action".

Instantiation.

Non-existent things in any particular place and time are often seen as abstract. By contrast, instances, or members, of such an abstract thing might exist in many different places and times.  Those abstract things are then said to be "multiply instantiated", in the sense of "picture 1", "picture 2", etc., shown below. It is not sufficient, however, to define "abstract" ideas as those that can be instantiated and to define "abstraction" as the movement in the opposite direction to instantiation. Doing so would make the concepts "cat" and "telephone" abstract ideas since despite their varying appearances, a particular cat or a particular telephone is an instance of the concept "cat" or the concept "telephone". Although the concepts "cat" and "telephone" are "abstractions", they are not "abstract" in the sense of the objects in "graph 1" below. We might look at other graphs, in a progression from "cat" to "mammal" to "animal", and see that "animal" is more abstract than "mammal"; but on the other hand "mammal" is a harder idea to express, certainly in relation to "marsupial" or "monotreme".  Perhaps confusingly, some philosophies refer to "tropes" (instances of properties) as "abstract particulars"—e.g., the particular redness of a particular apple is an "abstract particular". This is similar to qualia and sumbebekos.

Material process.

Still retaining the primary meaning of 'abstrere' or 'to draw away from', the abstraction of money, for example, works by drawing away from the particular value of things allowing completely incommensurate objects to be compared (see the section on 'Physicality' below). Karl Marx's writing on the commodity abstraction recognizes a parallel process.  The state (polity) as both concept and material practice exemplifies the two sides of this process of abstraction. Conceptually, 'the current concept of the state is an abstraction from the much more concrete early-modern use as the standing or status of the prince, his visible estates'. At the same time, materially, the 'practice of statehood is now constitutively and materially more abstract than at the time when princes ruled as the embodiment of extended power'.

Ontological status.

The way that physical objects, like rocks and trees, have being differs from the way that properties of abstract concepts or relations have being, for example the way the concrete, particular, individuals pictured in "picture 1" exist differs from the way the concepts illustrated in "graph 1" exist. That difference accounts for the ontological usefulness of the word "abstract". The word applies to properties and relations to mark the fact that, if they exist, they do not exist in space or time, but that instances of them can exist, potentially in many different places and times.

Physicality.

A physical object (a possible referent of a concept or word) is considered "concrete" (not abstract) if it is a "particular individual" that occupies a particular place and time. However, in the secondary sense of the term 'abstraction', this physical object can carry materially abstracting processes. For example, record-keeping aids throughout the Fertile Crescent included calculi (clay spheres, cones, etc.) which represented counts of items, probably livestock or grains, sealed in containers. According to, these clay containers contained tokens, the total of which were the count of objects being transferred. The containers thus served as something of a bill of lading or an accounts book. In order to avoid breaking open the containers for the count, marks were placed on the outside of the containers. These physical marks, in other words, acted as material abstractions of a materially abstract process of accounting, using conceptual abstractions (numbers) to communicate its meaning.  Abstract things are sometimes defined as those things that do not exist in reality or exist only as sensory experiences, like the color red. That definition, however, suffers from the difficulty of deciding which things are real (i.e. which things exist in reality). For example, it is difficult to agree to whether concepts like "God", "the number three", and "goodness" are real, abstract, or both.  An approach to resolving such difficulty is to use "predicates" as a general term for whether things are variously real, abstract, concrete, or of a particular property (e.g., "good"). Questions about the properties of things are then propositions about predicates, which propositions remain to be evaluated by the investigator. In the "graph 1" below, the graphical relationships like the arrows joining boxes and ellipses might denote predicates.

Referencing and referring.

Abstractions sometimes have ambiguous referents; for example, "happiness" (when used as an abstraction) can refer to as many things as there are people and events or states of being which make them happy. Likewise, "architecture" refers not only to the design of safe, functional buildings, but also to elements of creation and innovation which aim at elegant solutions to construction problems, to the use of space, and to the attempt to evoke an emotional response in the builders, owners, viewers and users of the building.

Simplification and ordering.

Abstraction uses a strategy of simplification, wherein formerly concrete details are left ambiguous, vague, or undefined; thus effective communication about things in the abstract requires an intuitive or common experience between the communicator and the communication recipient. This is true for all verbal/abstract communication. For example, many different things can be red. Likewise, many things sit on surfaces (as in "picture 1", to the right). The property of "redness" and the relation "sitting-on" are therefore abstractions of those objects. Specifically, the conceptual diagram "graph 1" identifies only three boxes, two ellipses, and four arrows (and their five labels), whereas the "picture 1" shows much more pictorial detail, with the scores of implied relationships as implicit in the picture rather than with the nine explicit details in the graph.  "Graph 1" details some explicit relationships between the objects of the diagram. For example, the arrow between the "agent" and "CAT:Elsie" depicts an example of an "is-a" relationship, as does the arrow between the "location" and the "MAT". The arrows between the gerund/present participle "SITTING" and the nouns "agent" and "location" express the diagram's basic relationship; ""agent is SITTING on location""; "Elsie" is an instance of "CAT".  Although the description "sitting-on" (graph 1) is more abstract than the graphic image of a cat sitting on a mat (picture 1), the delineation of abstract things from concrete things is somewhat ambiguous; this ambiguity or vagueness is characteristic of abstraction. Thus something as simple as a newspaper might be specified to six levels, as in Douglas Hofstadter's illustration of that ambiguity, with a progression from abstract to concrete in "Gödel, Escher, Bach" (1979):  An abstraction can thus encapsulate each of these levels of detail with no loss of generality. But perhaps a detective or philosopher/scientist/engineer might seek to learn about something, at progressively deeper levels of detail, to solve a crime or a puzzle.

Thought processes.

In philosophical terminology, "abstraction" is the thought process wherein ideas are distanced from objects.

As used in different disciplines.

In art.

Typically, "abstraction" is used in the arts as a synonym for abstract art in general. Strictly speaking, it refers to art unconcerned with the literal depiction of things from the visible world—it can, however, refer to an object or image which has been distilled from the real world, or indeed, another work of art. Artwork that reshapes the natural world for expressive purposes is called abstract; that which derives from, but does not imitate a recognizable subject is called nonobjective abstraction. In the 20th century the trend toward abstraction coincided with advances in science, technology, and changes in urban life, eventually reflecting an interest in psychoanalytic theory. Later still, abstraction was manifest in more purely formal terms, such as color, freedom from objective context, and a reduction of form to basic geometric designs.

In computer science.

Computer scientists use abstraction to make models that can be used and re-used without having to re-write all the program code for each new application on every different type of computer. They communicate their solutions with the computer by writing source code in some particular computer language which can be translated into machine code for different types of computers to execute. Abstraction allows program designers to separate a framework (categorical concepts related to computing problems) from specific instances which implement details. This means that the program code can be written so that code doesn't have to depend on the specific details of supporting applications, operating system software, or hardware, but on a categorical concept of the solution. A solution to the problem can then be integrated into the system framework with minimal additional work. This allows programmers to take advantage of another programmer's work, while requiring only an abstract understanding of the implementation of another's work, apart from the problem that it solves.

In general semantics.

Abstractions and levels of abstraction play an important role in the theory of general semantics originated by Alfred Korzybski. Anatol Rapoport wrote: "Abstracting is a mechanism by which an infinite variety of experiences can be mapped on short noises (words)."

In history.

Francis Fukuyama defines history as "a deliberate attempt of abstraction in which we separate out important from unimportant events".

In linguistics.

Researchers in linguistics frequently apply abstraction so as to allow analysis of the phenomena of language at the desired level of detail. A commonly used abstraction, the "phoneme", abstracts speech sounds in such a way as to neglect details that cannot serve to differentiate meaning. Other analogous kinds of abstractions (sometimes called "emic units") considered by linguists include morphemes, graphemes, and lexemes.  Abstraction also arises in the relation between syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. Pragmatics involves considerations that make reference to the user of the language; semantics considers expressions and what they denote (the designata) abstracted from the language user; and syntax considers only the expressions themselves, abstracted from the designata.

In mathematics.

Abstraction in mathematics is the process of extracting the underlying structures, patterns or properties of a mathematical concept or object, removing any dependence on real world objects with which it might originally have been connected, and generalizing it so that it has wider applications or matching among other abstract descriptions of equivalent phenomena.  The advantages of abstraction in mathematics are:  The main disadvantage of abstraction is that highly abstract concepts are more difficult to learn, and might require a degree of mathematical maturity and experience before they can be assimilated.

In music.

In music, the term "abstraction" can be used to describe improvisatory approaches to interpretation, and may sometimes indicate abandonment of tonality. Atonal music has no key signature, and is characterized by the exploration of internal numeric relationships.

In neurology.

A recent meta-analysis suggests that the verbal system has greater engagement for abstract concepts when the perceptual system is more engaged for processing of concrete concepts. This is because abstract concepts elicit greater brain activity in the inferior frontal gyrus and middle temporal gyrus compared to concrete concepts which elicit greater activity in the posterior cingulate, precuneus, fusiform gyrus, and parahippocampal gyrus. Other research into the human brain suggests that the left and right hemispheres differ in their handling of abstraction. For example, one meta-analysis reviewing human brain lesions has shown a left hemisphere bias during tool usage.

In philosophy.

Abstraction in philosophy is the process (or, to some, the alleged process) in concept formation of recognizing some set of common features in individuals, and on that basis forming a concept of that feature. The notion of abstraction is important to understanding some philosophical controversies surrounding empiricism and the problem of universals. It has also recently become popular in formal logic under predicate abstraction. Another philosophical tool for discussion of abstraction is thought space.  John Locke defined abstraction in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding:  'So words are used to stand as outward marks of our internal ideas, which are taken from particular things; but if every particular idea that we take in had its own special name, there would be no end to names. To prevent this, the mind makes particular ideas received from particular things become general; which it does by considering them as they are in the mind—mental appearances—separate from all other existences, and from the circumstances of real existence, such as time, place, and so on. This procedure is called abstraction. In it, an idea taken from a particular thing becomes a general representative of all of the same kind, and its name becomes a general name that is applicable to any existing thing that fits that abstract idea.' 2.11.9

In psychology.

Carl Jung's definition of abstraction broadened its scope beyond the thinking process to include exactly four mutually exclusive, different complementary psychological functions: sensation, intuition, feeling, and thinking. Together they form a structural totality of the differentiating abstraction process. Abstraction operates in one of these functions when it excludes the simultaneous influence of the other functions and other irrelevancies, such as emotion. Abstraction requires selective use of this structural split of abilities in the psyche. The opposite of abstraction is concretism. "Abstraction" is one of Jung's 57 definitions in Chapter XI of "Psychological Types".  There is an abstract "thinking", just as there is abstract "feeling", "sensation" and "intuition". Abstract thinking singles out the rational, logical qualities... Abstract feeling does the same with... its feeling-values.... I put abstract feelings on the same level as abstract thoughts.... Abstract sensation would be aesthetic as opposed to sensuous "sensation" and abstract intuition would be symbolic as opposed to fantastic "intuition". (Jung, [1921] (1971): par. 678).

In social theory.

In social theory, abstraction is used as both an ideational and material process. Alfred Sohn-Rethel, asked "Can there be abstraction other than by thought?" He used the example of commodity abstraction to show that abstraction occurs in practice as people create systems of abstract exchange that extend beyond the immediate physicality of the object and yet have real and immediate consequences. This work was extended through the 'Constitutive Abstraction' approach of writers associated with the Journal "Arena". Two books that have taken this theme of the abstraction of social relations as an organizing process in human history are (1996) and the second volume of Towards a Theory of Abstract Community, published in 2006: These books argue that the nation is an abstract community bringing together strangers who will never meet as such; thus constituting materially real and substantial, but abstracted and mediated relations. The books suggest that contemporary processes of globalization and mediatization have contributed to materially abstracting relations between people, with major consequences for how we live our lives.  It can be easily argued that abstraction is an elementary methodological tool in several disciplines of social science. These disciplines have definite and different man concepts that highlight those aspects of man and his behaviour by idealization that are relevant for the given human science. For example, is the man as sociology abstracts and idealizes it, depicting man as a social being. Moreover, we could talk about (the man who can extend his biologically determined intelligence thanks to new technologies), or (who is simply creative).  Abstraction (combined with Weberian idealization) plays a crucial role in economics. Breaking away from directly experienced reality was a common trend in 19th century sciences (especially physics), and this was the effort which was fundamentally determined the way economics tried and still tries to approach the economic aspects of social life. It is abstraction we meet in the case of both Newton's physics and the neoclassical theory, since the goal was to grasp the unchangeable and timeless essence of phenomena. For example, Newton created the concept of the material point by following the abstraction method so that he abstracted from the dimension and shape of any perceptible object, preserving only inertial and translational motion. Material point is the ultimate and common feature of all bodies. Neoclassical economists created the indefinitely abstract notion of homo economicus by following the same procedure. Economists abstract from all individual and personal qualities in order to get to those characteristics that embody the essence of economic activity. Eventually, it is the substance of the economic man that they try to grasp. Any characteristic beyond it only disturbs the functioning of this essential core.

Abstraction in its main sense is a conceptual process where general rules and concepts are derived from the usage and classification of specific examples, literal ("real" or "concrete") signifiers, first principles, or other methods.

Abstrakce (z lat. "abs-trahere", odtáhnout, odvléci, oddělit) ve filozofii označuje buď důležitý moment procesu poznání při přechodu od smyslového k racionálnímu poznání, nebo jako hotový výsledek tohoto procesu. Proces abstrakce spočívá obecně v tom, že existuje řada analytických aktů myšlení, jimiž je zpracováván konkrétní smyslový materiál a při nichž se odhlíží od určitých znaků, vlastností a vztahů daného předmětu. Jiné znaky, vlastnosti a vztahy jsou naopak vyčleňovány jako podstatné a současně nabývají variabilní charakter prostřednictvím znaků nepodstatných.


Mythology.

Stheneboea took a fancy to Bellerophon but was repulsed. As in the Biblical account of Potiphar's wife, she testified falsely against Bellerophon, accusing him of advances and even attempted rape to her husband, who sent him on a deadly mission to Iobates. Bellerophon later returned to Tiryns and punished Stheneboea. Some say that Bellerophon took her for a ride on Pegasus and threw her to the ground but others maintain that this was unworthy of a hero so Bellerophon would not have done such a deed. Others assert that Bellerophon married Stheneboea's sister and consequently it was inevitable that the allegations would be exposed as false so this resulted in Stheneboea's suicide since she feared exposure and public denouncement.  Divine judgement was added to this tragic end, since Stheneboea's three daughters were overcome with madness, inflicted by either Hera or Dionysus, and took to ranging over the mountains as maenads, assaulting travellers.

Anteia and Potiphar's wife.

Robert Graves observes that Anteia's attempted seduction of Bellerophon has several Greek parallels and draws attention to Biadice's love for Phrixus, which "recalls Potiphar's wife's love for Joseph, a companion myth from Canaan" as well as Cretheis and Peleus, Phaedra and Hippolytus or Philonome and Tenes. Graves also notes the parallel in the Egyptian "Tale of the Two Brothers", from about the end of the second millennium BC. "Such poisonous triangular relationships," Jeffrey A White has observed in this context, "with negligible variations of detail and conclusion (the common ingredients being a failed seductress, an innocent youth and a deceived father-figure), can be multiplied easily from Greek myth, as from Hebrew. That the Bellerophon-Proetus-Anteia relationship recalls quite vividly the Joseph-Potiphar-Potiphar's wife episode in Gen. 39, is well known."

Stheneboea, "cattle queen".

Stheneboea is one of a number of female figures named for their role as "cattle queens"; they include Phereboia ("bringing in cattle"), and Polyboia ("worth much cattle"). In archaic Greece cattle were a source of wealth and a demonstration of social pre-eminence; they also signified the numinous presence of Hera. Cattle-queens, betokening the command of a large bride-price, are as familiar in Gaelic mythology as they are in Greek myth.

In Greek mythology, Stheneboea (; Ancient Greek: Σθενέβοια "Sthenéboia"; the "strong cow" or "strong through cattle") was the daughter of Iobates, king in Lycia. She was the consort of Proetus, joint-king in the Argolid with Acrisius, having his seat at Tiryns. According to early sources, Stheneboea was the daughter of Aphidas and brother of Aleus. Homer and other early writers gave the name of the consort of Proetus as Antea, Antaea, or Anteia.

Antea (latinsky "Antea") byla v řecké mytologii dcera kárského krále Íobata a manželka zakladatele Tírynthu Proita. Antea, též Anteia, je v řecké mytologii také často uváděna pod jménem "Stheneboia". Její manžel Proitos byl synem argejského krále Abanta. Jeho bratr Akrisios ho po otcově smrti vyhnal z Argu a Proitos odešel do nedalekého Tírynthu a s pomocí Kyklopů, jednookých obrů, postavili pevný mohutný hrad. Tam potom vládl jako první tírynthský král.


History.

Modern Pompei was founded in 1891 after the building of the Shrine of Our Lady of Pompei by the lawyer Bartolo Longo.

Geography.

The town of Pompei is located at the eastern borders of its province, and its urban area is contiguous with Scafati, in the Province of Salerno. It borders also with Torre Annunziata, Castellammare di Stabia, Boscoreale, Santa Maria la Carità and Sant'Antonio Abate.

Main attractions.

The ancient city of Pompeii.

The city is mainly famous for the ruins of the ancient city of Pompeii, located in the zone of Pompei Scavi. The vast archeological area is under the Unesco Patronage and attracts tourists from all around the world.

The Shrine of Our Lady of Pompei.

The Shrine of Our Lady of Pompei, dedicated to Our Lady of the Rosary, has become a site for Catholic pilgrimages in recent years. It houses a canvas by Luca Giordano. It was founded by a convert who reportedly experienced a miracle from the Virgin Mary; miracles have been reported since its foundation. The ex-votos that cover the walls of the church are a testimonial of the miracles granted by the Virgin Mary since the church was consecrated in 1891. Many churches, chapels, and shrines around the world are dedicated to Our Lady of Pompei.

The Bell Tower.

The bell tower was built between 1912 and 1925. Designed by Aristide Leonori and his brother Pio Leonori, the bell tower is 80 metres high (260 ft). The top of the bell tower, which can be reached by taking a lift, allows visitors to enjoy a splendid view of the modern city, Mount Vesuvius and part of the ancient city of Pompeii.

Transportation.

Road.

Pompei is served by the motorway A3 at the exits of Pompei-Scafati, Pompei Ovest (close to the ruins of Villa of the Mysteries) and also Castellammare di Stabia. It is crossed by the national roads SS 18 and SS 145.

Railways.

On the Naples-Salerno line, owned by FS, is situated the main railway station and a little stop named Pompei Scavi (ruins of P.), closed in the 1970s. Onto two lines owned by the SFSM - Circumvesuviana, Pompei counts a total of 4 station. Pompei Santuario (P. Sanctuary, in the middle of the town) and Pompei Valle (close to Pompeii) lies on the Torre Annunziata-Pompei-Poggiomarino line. Pompei Scavi-Villa dei Misteri (serving the Villa of the Mysteries) and Moregine lie on the Naples-Torre Annunziata-Castellammare-Sorrento line.

Airports.

The nearest airports are:

Football.

Pompei's main football team has been the A.S.D. Città di Pompei. The team no longer exists today.

Pompei (; ) is a city and "comune" in the Metropolitan City of Naples in Italy, home of the ancient Roman ruins part of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

Pompei je italské město v oblasti Kampánie. Leží u slavných ruin antických Pompejí, které se italsky také nazývají Pompei a latinsky Pompeii. V roce 2010 mělo město 25 671 obyvatel.


The bells.

In Giotto's campanile there are seven bells:

History.

On the death in 1302 of Arnolfo di Cambio, the first Master of the Works of the Cathedral, and after an interruption of more than thirty years, the celebrated painter Giotto di Bondone was nominated as his successor in 1334. At that time he was 67 years old. Giotto concentrated his energy on the design and construction of a campanile (bell tower) for the cathedral. He had become an eminent architect, thanks to the growing autonomy of the architect-designer in relation to the craftsmen since the first half of the 13th century. The first stone was laid on 19 July 1334. His design was in harmony with the polychromy of the cathedral, as applied by Arnolfo di Cambio, giving the tower a view as if it were painted. In his design, he also applied "chiaroscuro" and some form of perspective instead of a strict linear drawing of the campanile. And instead of a filigree skeleton of a gothic building, he applied a surface of coloured marble in geometric patterns.  When he died in 1337, he had only finished the lower floor with its marble external revetment: geometric patterns of white marble from Carrara, green marble from Prato and red marble from Siena. This lower floor is decorated on three sides with bas-reliefs in hexagonal panels, seven on each side. When the entrance door was enlarged in 1348, two panels were moved to the empty northern side and only much later, five more panels were commissioned from Luca della Robbia in 1437. The number "seven" has a special meaning in Biblical sense: it symbolizes human perfectibility.  It is difficult to attribute artistic paternity to these panels. Some may be by Giotto himself, the others by Andrea Pisano (or their workshops).  Through this work, Giotto has become, together with Brunelleschi (dome of the cathedral of Florence) and Alberti (with his treatise "De re aedificatoria", 1450), one of the founding fathers of Italian Renaissance architecture.  Giotto was succeeded as Master of the Works in 1343 by Andrea Pisano, famous already for the South Doors of the Baptistery. He continued the construction of the bell tower, scrupulously following Giotto's design. He added, above the lower level of Giotto, a second fascia, this time decorated with lozenge-shaped panels (1347–1341). He built two more levels, with four niches on each side and each level, but the second row of niches are empty. Construction came to a halt in 1348, year of the disastrous Black Death.  Pisano was replaced in his turn by Francesco Talenti who built the top three levels, with the large windows, completing the bell tower in 1359. He did not build the spire designed by Giotto, thus lowering the designed height of 122 metres (400 ft) to 84.7 metres (277.9 ft). The top, with its scenic panorama of Florence and the surrounding hills, can be reached by climbing 414 steps.

Works of art.

All the present works of art in the campanile are copies. The originals were removed between 1965 and 1967 and are now on display in the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, behind the cathedral.

The hexagonal panels.

The hexagonal panels on the lower level depict the history of mankind, inspired by Genesis, starting with on the west side: The Genesis panels are attributed to Andrea Pisano, except "Jubal" to Nino Pisano and "Tubalcain" to an assistant of Andrea Pisano.  The seven hexagonal panels on the south side show us Gionitus (Astronomy), the Art of Building, Medicine, Hunting, Wool-working, Phoroneus (Legislation), Daedalus (flight). They are again attributed to Andrea Pisano, except Gionitus and the Art of Building to his workshop, and Medicine and Phoroneus to Nino Pisano.  The east side only contains five panels, because of the entrance door. They depict the 'liberal arts': Navigation, Social Justice, Agriculture, Art of festivals and Euclid (architecture). The first three panels are attributed to Andrea Pisano, while the last two to Nino Pisano. "The Madonna and Child" in the lunette and the "Two Prophets and the Redeemer" on top of the gable above the entrance door, are both attributed to Andrea Pisano.  The north side hexagonal panels depict: Sculpture, Phidias (both moved to this side from the east side in 1347–1348), Painting, Harmony, Grammar, Logic and Dialectic (represented by Plato and Aristotle), Music and Poetry (represented by Orpheus), Geometry and Arithmetic (represented by Euclid and Pythagoras). The first panel is attributed to Andrea Pisano, the second to Nino Pisano, the others to Luca della Robbia. The last five panels were added after removal of the raised passageway between the campanile and the cathedral.

The lozenges.

The lozenges, on the next level, already show a different style: the marble figures stand out on a background of blue majolica. These allegorical representations are almost all attributed to Andrea Pisano or his school:

The statues in the niches.

On the next level on each side there are four statues in niches. They have been sculpted in different periods:

The three top levels.

These levels were built by Francesco Talenti, Master of the Works from 1348 to 1359. Each level is larger than the lower one and extends beyond it in every dimension such that their difference in size exactly counters the effect of perspective. As a result, the top three levels of the tower, when seen from below, look exactly equal in size. The vertical windows open up the walls, a motif borrowed from the Siena campanile. Instead of a spire, Talenti built a large projecting terrace.  The reliefs, statues and decoration make a coherent whole when interpreted in terms of medieval scholastic philosophy.

Giotto's Campanile (,, ) is a free-standing campanile that is part of the complex of buildings that make up Florence Cathedral on the Piazza del Duomo in Florence, Italy.

Giottova zvonice (it. Campanile di Giotto) nacházející se v historické metropoli Toskánska Florencii, je jednou ze tří slavných italských zvonic. Tento umělecký skvost byl postaven v letech 1334–1359 jako součást katedrály Santa Maria del Fiore. Historické centrum Florencie, včetně Giottovy zvonice, bylo roku 1982 zapsáno na Seznam světového dědictví UNESCO.