text:
Brunflo
Jämtland
Uppsala
Bishop
Diocese of Härnösand
Diocese of Västerås
Uppsala University
Palmqvist, P O Arne
Vem är det

categories: 2003 deaths,1921 births,Bishops of Härnösand,Bishops of Västerås,Swedish theologians

paragraph: Arne Palmqvist

paragraph: Per Olof "Arne" Palmqvist, born 28 May 1921 in Brunflo, Jämtland, died 15 January 2003 in Uppsala. Swedish theologian. Bishop of the Diocese of Härnösand 1967–1975 and of the Diocese of Västerås 1975–1988.

paragraph: After studies at Uppsala University Palmqvist became Licentiate of Divinity in 1950, Doctor of Divinity in 1955 and docent of ecclesiastical history in 1955. He was ordained as priest in the Church of Sweden 1956 in Uppsala. From 1959 teacher at the Stockholm Institute of Theology where he was prorector from 1965. Elected as bishop of the Diocese of Härnösand in 1967. He left this position after being elected as bishop of the Diocese of Västerås in 1975. Palmqvist stayed as bishop of the Diocese of Västerås until his retirement in 1988.

paragraph: From the late 1950s to the early 1990s Palmquist was a strong advocate of keeping the ties between government and church in Sweden. He was entrusted several assignments as an expert in preparing governmental reports. He also held a number assignments in committees and boards of the Church of Sweden.

paragraph: Palmqvist married 15 May 1948 Elsa Marianne Persson, who was born 16 November 1920 in Uppsala.

paragraph: Section::::References.

paragraph: BULLET::::- Palmqvist, P O Arne, Vem är det, page 870, 1993

description: Swedish theologian and bishop

wikidata_label: Arne Palmqvist

wikipedia_title: Arne Palmqvist


text: Galitzine

text: string quartets

text: Ludwig van Beethoven

text: late string quartets

text: Boris Andreevich Golitsyn

text: Ana

text: Tatiana Potemkina

text: cello

text: string quintet

text: Saint Petersburg

text: ducat

text: Op. 95

text: Ninth Symphony

text: Schuppanzigh Quartet

text: Missa solemnis

text: The Consecration of the House

categories: Russian patrons of music,Russian people of Georgian descent,1866 deaths,19th-century Russian people,Golitsyn family,1794 births

paragraph: Nikolai Borisovich Galitzine

paragraph: Prince Nikolai Borisovich Galitzine (, alternatively spelled Golitsyn; 8 December/19 December 1794 – 22 October/3 November 1866) was a Russian aristocrat, of the Galitzine family. He was an amateur musician, and is known particularly for his commissioning three string quartets — opp. 127, 130 and 132 — from Ludwig van Beethoven, which are among the composer's group of late string quartets.

paragraph: Section::::Family.

paragraph: His parents were Boris Andreevich Golitsyn and his wife Ana, and one of his sisters was the philanthropist Tatiana Potemkina.

paragraph: His son (1823–1872) was a composer and conductor.

paragraph: Section::::Beethoven's commission.

paragraph: The prince had lived for a while in Vienna and knew the music of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. He played the cello; his wife was an accomplished pianist. He arranged piano works of Beethoven for string quartet and string quintet.

paragraph: In November 1822 he commissioned Beethoven to write string quartets. He wrote in French from Saint Petersburg to the composer:

paragraph: Being as passionate an amateur as an admirer of your talent, I am taking the liberty of writing to you to ask you if you would be willing to compose one, two or three new quartets. I shall be delighted to pay you for the trouble whatever amount you would deem adequate.

paragraph: Beethoven agreed to this, requesting 50 ducats for each quartet.

paragraph: He had not written a string quartet since his Op. 95 in 1810. In 1823 he was occupied with writing his Ninth Symphony, and he began serious work on the quartets in 1824. The first of these, the String Quartet No. 12 in E flat major, Op. 127, was given its first performance by the Schuppanzigh Quartet in March 1825. The quartet later performed the other two works commissioned, the String Quartet No. 13 in B flat major, Op. 130 and String Quartet No. 15 in A minor, Op. 132.

paragraph: Beethoven received the fee for the first quartet; although the prince acknowledged his debt for the other quartets, it was not paid in the composer's lifetime, the matter being finally settled with Beethoven's heirs in 1852.

paragraph: Section::::Beethoven's commission.:Other associations with Beethoven.

paragraph: The prince was an intermediary in the sale of a copy of Beethoven's choral work "Missa solemnis" to the Russian court; it was through him that the first performance of the work took place in St Petersburg in April 1824.

paragraph: Beethoven's overture "The Consecration of the House", published in 1825, was dedicated to the prince.

description: Russian aristocrat, amateur musician, patron of music.

wikidata_label: Nikolay Borisovich Galitzin

wikipedia_title: Nikolai Borisovich Galitzine


text:
American football
nose tackle
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
National Football League
Philadelphia Eagles
2014 NFL Draft
college football
Wisconsin
2014 NFL Draft
Philadelphia Eagles
Cleveland Browns
fullback
Super Bowl LII
New England Patriots
Tampa Bay Buccaneers

categories: Sportspeople from the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area,Philadelphia Eagles players,Tampa Bay Buccaneers players,Super Bowl champions,American football defensive tackles,People from Minnetonka, Minnesota,1991 births,Living people,Players of American football from Minnesota

paragraph: Beau Allen

paragraph: Beau Christian Allen (born November 14, 1991) is an American football nose tackle for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers of the National Football League (NFL). He was drafted by the Philadelphia Eagles in the seventh round of the 2014 NFL Draft. He played college football at Wisconsin.

paragraph: Section::::High school career.

paragraph: Beau attended Minnetonka High School, graduating in 2010. He was the only Minnetonka student in history to start all 4 years under coach Dave Nelson. He was ranked 5th in the state by the website Rivals. He was recruited by Notre Dame, Stanford, Michigan, UCLA, amongst others. He ultimately chose Wisconsin as that is the alma mater of his parents.

paragraph: Section::::College career.

paragraph: In his last three years at Wisconsin, Allen had eight sacks and 15 tackles for loss.

paragraph: Section::::Professional career.

paragraph: Section::::Professional career.:Philadelphia Eagles.

paragraph: Allen was drafted in the seventh round (224th overall) of the 2014 NFL Draft by the Philadelphia Eagles. On May 15, 2014, he signed a four-year deal with the Eagles. As a rookie in 2014, Allen played all 16 games with 10 tackles and half a sack. In 2015, he played 16 games with 2 starts, finishing the year with 28 tackles and 2 passes defended.

paragraph: On September 11, 2016, Allen entered a game against the Cleveland Browns on offense, lining up as the team's fullback. The Eagles were able to score a touchdown behind Allen's blocking. Beau finished the 2016 year with 29 tackles and 0.5 sacks.

paragraph: On April 8, 2017, it was reported that Allen had suffered a pectoral injury that required 4-6 weeks to recover. Allen had 20 tackles and 1 sack for his 2017 season. Allen recorded 2 tackles in Super Bowl LII and beat the New England Patriots 41-33.

paragraph: Section::::Professional career.:Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

paragraph: On March 15, 2018, Allen signed a three-year contract worth an estimated $15 millionwith the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

description: American football player

wikidata_label: Beau Allen

wikipedia_title: Beau Allen


text:
Vancouver
British Columbia
electro-industrial
Front Line Assembly
Kelowna
British Columbia
Calgary
Alberta
CHR
Barenaked Ladies
Abbotsford, British Columbia
nu metal
Jeremy Inkel
trip hop
Artificial Soldier
Improvised Electronic Device
AirMech
Echogenetic
Artificial Soldier
Fallout
Fighting for Voltage
Improvised Electronic Device
Music Box Opera
AirMech Soundtrack
Valve
Steamworks
Echogenetic
The Glass Ghost
Rarities & B-Sides
Mythologie
Mindless Self Indulgence
Front Line Assembly Official Website
Front Line Assembly
Front Line Assembly

categories: Musicians from Kelowna,Canadian guitarists,21st-century Canadian keyboardists,1984 births,21st-century Canadian multi-instrumentalists,Metropolis Records artists,Canadian industrial musicians,Canadian punk rock musicians,Canadian electronic musicians,Front Line Assembly members,Musicians from Vancouver,Living people,21st-century Canadian guitarists

paragraph: Jared Slingerland

paragraph: Jared Slingerland (born January 16, 1984) is a Canadian guitarist and electronic musician based in Vancouver, British Columbia. He is best known as a member of the electro-industrial band Front Line Assembly (FLA).

paragraph: Section::::History.

paragraph: Section::::History.:Early life.

paragraph: Slingerland was born in Kelowna, British Columbia, where his father (Glen Slingerland) was a local radio announcer on CKIQ. The family relocated to Calgary, Alberta shortly after his birth, when his father secured an on-air position at CHR radio station (AM106). During his childhood in Calgary, Slingerland attended his first music concert, featuring Canadian band Barenaked Ladies.

paragraph: Section::::History.:Music career.

paragraph: After eleven years in Calgary, the family relocated to Abbotsford, British Columbia. Slingerland began playing various instruments in his early teen years, ultimately excelling with the guitar. In his late teenage years, Slingerland formed a goth nu metal project, called Ms. Anne Thropy. Producer Jeremy Inkel later joined the project and the two worked together in his home studio. Shortly thereafter, Ms. Anne Thropy disbanded. Inkel and Slingerland continued to write music together for various projects (including a trip hop project).

paragraph: In early 2004, Left Spine Down asked Slingerland to join the fold. In late 2005, he began working with Front Line Assembly in the studio and was eventually asked to tour with the band in support of the "Artificial Soldier" album. After leaving Left Spine Down in 2008, Slingerland continues to tour North America and Europe extensively as well as contributing writing/production for such albums as "Improvised Electronic Device", "AirMech", "Echogenetic" and more.

paragraph: Section::::Discography.

paragraph: Section::::Discography.:Albums.

paragraph: BULLET::::- Front Line Assembly - "Artificial Soldier" (2006, Metropolis)

paragraph: BULLET::::- Front Line Assembly - "Fallout" (2007, Metropolis)

paragraph: BULLET::::- Left Spine Down - "Fighting for Voltage" (2008, Synthetic Sounds)

paragraph: BULLET::::- Front Line Assembly - "Improvised Electronic Device" (2010, Dependent Records / Metropolis)

paragraph: BULLET::::- Delerium - "Music Box Opera" (2012, Nettwerk)

paragraph: BULLET::::- Front Line Assembly - "AirMech Soundtrack" (2012, Valve / Steamworks)

paragraph: BULLET::::- Front Line Assembly - "Echogenetic" (2013, Dependent Records / Metropolis)

paragraph: BULLET::::- Phildel - "The Glass Ghost" (2014, Decca Records)

paragraph: BULLET::::- Delerium - "Rarities & B-Sides" (2015, Nettwerk)

paragraph: BULLET::::- Delerium - "Mythologie" (2016, Metropolis)

paragraph: Section::::Discography.:Remix releases.

paragraph: BULLET::::- Mindless Self Indulgence - "Straight to Video: The Remixes" (2006, Metropolis)

paragraph: Section::::External links.

paragraph: BULLET::::- Front Line Assembly Official Website

paragraph: BULLET::::- Front Line Assembly on Myspace

paragraph: BULLET::::- Front Line Assembly on Facebook

description: musician

wikidata_label: Jared Slingerland

wikipedia_title: Jared Slingerland


text:
Charles Lamb
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Robert Southey
William Wordsworth
Dorothy Wordsworth
Thomas de Quincey
Charles Lloyd
Quaker
Anna Braithwaite
Robert Southey
Ovid
"Metamorphoses"
The Retreat
Vittorio Alfieri
blank verse
Edgar Alfred Bowring

wikipedia_title:
Charles Lamb
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Robert Southey
William Wordsworth
Dorothy Wordsworth
Thomas De Quincey
Charles Lloyd (philanthropist)
Quakers
Anna Braithwaite
Robert Southey
Ovid
Metamorphoses
The Retreat
Vittorio Alfieri
Blank verse
Edgar Alfred Bowring

categories: Samuel Taylor Coleridge,Writers from Birmingham, West Midlands,1839 deaths,1775 births,English people of Welsh descent,English male poets,Romantic poets

paragraph: Charles Lloyd (poet)

paragraph: Charles Lloyd II (12 February 1775 – 16 January 1839), poet, was a friend of Charles Lamb, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Robert Southey, William Wordsworth, Dorothy Wordsworth and Thomas de Quincey. His best-known poem is "Desultory Thoughts in London".

paragraph: Section::::Early life.

paragraph: Born in Birmingham, Charles Lloyd II was the eldest son of Charles Lloyd (1748–1828), the Quaker banker and philanthropist. His sister Priscilla married Christopher Wordsworth (brother of the poet) and another sister Anna Braithwaite was a Quaker preacher who toured Britain, Ireland and the United States several times. He was educated by a private tutor with the idea that he would work at his father's bank, but finance bored him. Instead he turned to poetry, his first publication appearing in 1795. Soon after he met Samuel Taylor Coleridge and moved in with him, Coleridge agreeing to instruct him in return for £80 a year. Coleridge's "To a Friend" and "To a Young Man of Fortune" are probably addressed to Lloyd. Coleridge introduced him to Charles Lamb, and the two supplied introductory and concluding verses to his next volume of poetry. A new edition of Coleridge's poetry included poems by Lamb and Lloyd, and referred to the friendship of the authors. Soon after, however, in November 1797, an author signing himself Nehemiah Higginbotham parodied the three of them (and perhap Robert Southey) in the "Monthly Magazine"; this author turned out to be Coleridge himself. A break followed, but Lloyd still referred to Coleridge as a friend in the preface to his novel "Edmund Oliver", published in 1798. The work was, however, taken as parodic of Coleridge and their friendship ended, temporarily also causing a rift between Lamb and Coleridge. That same year he published a volume of blank verse in collaboration with Charles Lamb.

paragraph: Section::::Marriage and children.

paragraph: In 1799 Lloyd married Sophia Pemberton; according to De Quincey they eloped by proxy, with the poet Robert Southey standing in for Lloyd. The marriage seems to have been successful; they had nine children and De Quincey, who met them in 1807, described Sophia "as a wife and mother unsurpassed by anybody I have known in either of those characters." During these years he worked on translating Ovid’s "Metamorphoses".

paragraph: Section::::Illness.

paragraph: Around 1811 Charles Lloyd started suffering from auditory hallucinations and "fits of aberration" that resulted in his being confined to an asylum; first at The Retreat, followed by a private asylum at Gretford in Lincolnshire. From 1813 to 1815 he translated nineteen tragedies of Vittorio Alfieri into blank verse (revised and augmented to twenty-two in 1876 by Edgar Alfred Bowring). In 1818 he escaped and turned up at De Quincey's cottage, claiming to be the devil, but managed to reason himself out of that conviction. Soon after he recovered, temporarily, and rejoined his wife in London. A flurry of literary activity followed with the publication of "Nugae Canorae" (1819), "Desultory Thoughts in London, Titus and Gisippus, and Other Poems" (1821), and "Poetical Essays on the Character of Pope" (1822). A small volume of poems in 1823 ended this burst of creativity, and from that time almost nothing is known of him. He died near Versailles in 1839.

paragraph: Section::::External links.

paragraph: BULLET::::- Charles Lloyd (1775-1839)

description: English poet

wikidata_label: Charles Lloyd

wikipedia_title: Charles Lloyd (poet)


text:
Argentine
poet
San Justo
Buenos Aires
Europe
Chacabuco
Domingo Faustino Sarmiento
La Plata
Trenque Lauquen
La Plata
Province of Buenos Aires
Almafuerte

wikipedia_title:
Argentina
Poet
San Justo, Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Europe
Chacabuco, Buenos Aires
Domingo Faustino Sarmiento
La Plata
Trenque Lauquen
La Plata
Buenos Aires Province
Almafuerte (film)

categories: 19th-century Argentine poets,Argentine people of Italian descent,1854 births,Argentine journalists,Argentine librarians,Argentine male poets,1917 deaths,People from La Matanza Partido,20th-century Argentine male writers,Argentine people of Spanish descent,20th-century Argentine poets

paragraph: Pedro Bonifacio Palacios

paragraph: Pedro Bonifacio Palacios (May 13, 1854February 28, 1917), better known by his sobriquet, Almafuerte, was an Argentine poet.

paragraph: Section::::Biography.

paragraph: Palacios was born in San Justo, a western suburb of Buenos Aires, into a humble family. As a boy he lost his mother and was abandoned by his father, and because of this was raised by his relatives.

paragraph: His first career was as a painter, but, because the government denied him a grant to travel to Europe, he changed direction and dedicated himself to writing and teaching. At 16 years of age, he was appointed director of a school in then-rural Chacabuco.

paragraph: After meeting former President Domingo Faustino Sarmiento in 1884, he was dismissed as school director for not possessing a teaching degree, though this was arguably because his poems were highly critical of the government. He was, however, elected to the Buenos Aires Province Chamber of Deputies, and later worked as a librarian and translator for the Provincial Statistical Bureau. In 1887, he moved to La Plata and was taken in as a journalist at the newspaper "El Pueblo".

paragraph: In 1894 he renewed his teaching activities at a school near Trenque Lauquen, but two years later was once again withdrawn for political reasons.

paragraph: At the start of the 20th century, he began participating briefly in active politics, but because of his unstable economic situation and his refusal to accept a political position, he did not do it with much enthusiasm.

paragraph: At the end of his life, the Argentine National Congress granted him a pension so he could dedicate himself in full to his poetry. However, his health had deteriorated, and he died on February 28, 1917, in La Plata, capital of the Province of Buenos Aires, at the age of 63.

paragraph: Section::::Literary work.

paragraph: Palacios published some works under various pseudonyms, the most well known of which was "Almafuerte".

paragraph: BULLET::::- "Evangélicas" (1915)

paragraph: BULLET::::- "Lamentaciones" (1906)

paragraph: BULLET::::- "Poesías" (1917)

paragraph: BULLET::::- "Nuevas Poesías" (1918)

paragraph: BULLET::::- "Milongas clásicas, sonetos medicinales y Dios te salve. Discursos" (1919)

paragraph: BULLET::::- "La inmortal"

paragraph: BULLET::::- "El misionero"

paragraph: BULLET::::- "Trémolo"

paragraph: BULLET::::- "Cantar de los cantares"

paragraph: BULLET::::- "La sombra de la patria"

paragraph: Section::::See also.

paragraph: BULLET::::- "Almafuerte", a 1949 Argentine film dramatized the life of Palacios

description: Argentine writer

wikidata_label: Pedro Bonifacio Palacios

wikipedia_title: Pedro Bonifacio Palacios


text: Watch Mr. Wizard

text: Mr. Wizard's World

text: Bill Nye

text: Sputnik

text: Waconia, Minnesota

text: English

text: University of Wisconsin–La Crosse

text: World War II

text: United States Army

text: Private

text: United States Army Air Forces

text: Fifteenth Air Force

text: Captain

text: Distinguished Flying Cross

text: Air Medal

text: oak leaf cluster

text: Chicago

text: It's Your Life

text: NBC

text: WNBQ

text: Watch Mr. Wizard

text: live television show

text: Peabody Award

text: CJOH-TV

text: Ottawa

text: CBC Television

text: Michael Faraday

text: Arthur Good

text: NOVA

text: Discovery Channel

text: Lynn Poole

text: Adventure

text: Zoo Parade

text: Science in Action

text: General Electric Theater

text: Ronald Reagan

text: General Electric

text: Wellesley, Massachusetts

text: Mr. Wizard's World

text: Nickelodeon

text: rerun

text: National Science Foundation

text: Late Night with David Letterman

text: Beakman's World

text: multiple myeloma

text: Bell Canyon, California

text: Bill Nye the Science Guy

text: Jamie Hyneman

text: Adam Savage

text: MythBusters

text: Special Super-sized Myths

text: Peabody Award

text: Robert A. Millikan Medal

text: American Chemical Society

text: Restoration Hardware

text: Mr. Wizard Studios

text: It's Your Life

text: The WNYC Archives

text: The Sound of Young America

categories: People from Chicago,People from Waconia, Minnesota,People from Bell Canyon, California,United States Army Air Forces pilots of World War II,Recipients of the Air Medal,Deaths from multiple myeloma,People from La Crosse, Wisconsin,1917 births,Nickelodeon people,2007 deaths,American television personalities,University of Wisconsin–La Crosse alumni,Recipients of the Distinguished Flying Cross (United States),United States Army Air Forces officers,American science journalists,Deaths from cancer in California,American male journalists

paragraph: Don Herbert

paragraph: Donald Jeffry Herbert (born Donald Herbert Kemske and better known as Mr. Wizard, July 10, 1917 – June 12, 2007) was the creator and host of "Watch Mr. Wizard" (1951–65, 1971–72) and "Mr. Wizard's World" (1983–90), which were educational television programs for children devoted to science and technology. He also produced many short video programs about science and authored several popular books about science for children. It was said that no fictional hero was able to rival the popularity and longevity of "the friendly, neighborly scientist". In Herbert's obituary, Bill Nye wrote, "Herbert's techniques and performances helped create the United States' first generation of homegrown rocket scientists just in time to respond to Sputnik. He sent us to the moon. He changed the world." Herbert is credited with turning "a generation of youth" in the 1950s and early 1960s onto "the promise and perils of science".

paragraph: Section::::Early life.

paragraph: Born in Waconia, Minnesota, Herbert was a general science and English major at the University of Wisconsin–La Crosse (then called La Crosse State Teachers College) who was interested in drama. His career as an actor was interrupted by World War II when he enlisted in the United States Army as a Private. Herbert later joined the United States Army Air Forces, took pilot training, and became a B-24 bomber pilot who flew 56 combat missions from Italy with the 767th Bomb Squadron, 461st Bomb Group of the Fifteenth Air Force. When Herbert was discharged in 1945 he was a Captain and had earned the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal with three oak leaf clusters.

paragraph: Section::::"Watch Mr. Wizard".

paragraph: After the war Herbert worked at a radio station in Chicago where he acted in children's programs such as the documentary health series "It's Your Life" (1949). It was during this time that Herbert formulated the idea of Mr. Wizard and a general science experiments show that used the new medium of television. Herbert's idea was accepted by Chicago NBC station WNBQ and the series "Watch Mr. Wizard" premiered on March 3, 1951. The weekly half-hour live television show, co-produced by Jules Power, featured Herbert as Mr. Wizard and either a boy or a girl with whom Herbert performed interesting science experiments. The experiments, many of which seemed impossible at first glance, were usually simple enough to be re-created by viewers.

paragraph: The show was very successful with 547 live episodes created before it was canceled in 1965. The program won a Peabody Award in 1953. Marcel LaFollette notes that, "At its peak, "Watch Mr. Wizard" drew about eight hundred thousand viewers per episode, but it had an even wider impact. By 1956 over five thousand "Mr. Wizard Science Clubs" had been established, with total membership over a hundred thousand. Teachers incorporated program themes into their classes, and "Mr. Wizard" science kits, books, and other product tie-ins filled the holiday gift lists of countless children." The show was briefly revived for one season in 1971-72 as "Mr. Wizard", produced in Canada by CJOH-TV in Ottawa; this series was seen on NBC as well as CBC Television in Canada.

paragraph: Cory Buxton and Eugene Provenzo place "Mr. Wizard" in a 19th-century tradition of "hands-on kitchen science" associated with Michael Faraday's popular science lectures and Arthur Good's collection of experiments for children, "La Science Amusante" (1893). In turn, LaFollette has written on the legacy of Herbert and other early innovators of science television, "Production approaches that are now standard practice on "NOVA" and the Discovery Channel derive, in fact, from experimentation by television pioneers like Lynn Poole and Don Herbert and such programs as "Adventure", "Zoo Parade", "Science in Action", and the Bell Telephone System's science specials. These early efforts were also influenced by television's love of the dramatic, refined during its first decade and continuing to shape news and public affairs programming, as well as fiction and fantasy, today."

paragraph: Section::::Subsequent career.

paragraph: In the mid-1950s, Herbert also appeared on the General Electric Theater as the "General Electric Progress Reporter" and would introduce spokesman Ronald Reagan and his family to the viewing audience. In some episodes, he would appear alongside Reagan and demonstrate to the audience how General Electric was helping people to "Live better electrically."

paragraph: After "Watch Mr. Wizard" was cancelled in 1965, Herbert produced eight films in a series titled "Experiment: The Story of a Scientific Search"; these aired on public television in 1966. In the same year, Herbert produced the "Science 20" series, which were 20-minute films of experiments that were designed for classroom use; a student would record and analyze data based on the film. In 1977, he began producing a series of "How About" episodes about scientific topics. These were 90-second films that could be used in news programs; by 1986, he produced 536 films.

paragraph: In 1969, Herbert opened a Mr. Wizard Science Center in Wellesley, Massachusetts; the center no longer exists.

paragraph: Section::::"Mr. Wizard's World".

paragraph: In 1983, Herbert developed "Mr. Wizard's World", a faster-paced version of his show that aired three times per week on the cable channel Nickelodeon. The show ran until 1990 and reruns were shown until 2000.

paragraph: In 1994, Herbert developed another new series of 15-minute spots called "Teacher to Teacher with Mr. Wizard". The spots highlighted individual elementary science teachers and their projects. The series was sponsored by the National Science Foundation and was shown on Nickelodeon.

paragraph: In 1982, Herbert was a guest on the first episode of "Late Night with David Letterman".

paragraph: In 1993 children's science show "Beakman's World" paid homage to Herbert by naming its two penguin puppet characters "Don" and "Herb" after him.

paragraph: Section::::Death.

paragraph: Herbert died on June 12, 2007 of multiple myeloma at his home in Bell Canyon, California. In Herbert's obituary, Bill Nye wrote, "If any of you reading now have been surprised and happy to learn a few things about science watching "Bill Nye the Science Guy," keep in mind, it all started with Don Herbert." Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage, principals of the television program "MythBusters" (2002–2016), have been described as being "reverent" of Herbert's work as Mr. Wizard. Five months after Herbert died, "MythBusters" aired a two-hour episode entitled "Special Super-sized Myths" "Dedicated to Mr. Wizard".

paragraph: Section::::In popular culture.

paragraph: BULLET::::- See Watch_Mr._Wizard#In_popular_culture

paragraph: Section::::Awards.

paragraph: BULLET::::- (1953) "Watch Mr. Wizard" won a Peabody Award.

paragraph: BULLET::::- Three Thomas Alva Edison National Mass Media Awards.

paragraph: BULLET::::- (1991) Herbert received the annual Robert A. Millikan Medal from the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) for his "notable and creative contributions to the teaching of physics;" he presented an address "Behind the Scenes of "Mr. Wizard"".

paragraph: BULLET::::- (1994) Herbert won the annual James T. Grady-James H. Stack Award for Interpreting Chemistry from the American Chemical Society.

paragraph: BULLET::::- (2007) Resolution 485 of the US House of Representatives honored Herbert shortly after his death.

paragraph: Section::::Further reading.

paragraph: BULLET::::- In 1999, Stephen Gordon, founder of the furniture company Restoration Hardware, teamed up with Renee Whitney, general manager of a toy company called Wild Goose, to recreate the chemistry kits marketed by "Mr. Wizard" in the past. However, they found that most of the items in the original kits are now illegal to sell, and the resulting product they ended up marketing contained just five chemicals ("including laundry starch, which was tagged with an ominous warning: HANDLE CAREFULLY. NOT EXPECTED TO BE A HEALTH HAZARD").

paragraph: Section::::External links.

paragraph: BULLET::::- Mr. Wizard Studios, official Mr. Wizard website

paragraph: BULLET::::- It's Your Life at The WNYC Archives

paragraph: BULLET::::- with Herbert on the public radio program "The Sound of Young America"

description: American television host

wikidata_label: Don Herbert

wikipedia_title: Don Herbert


text:
regnal name
Abbasid caliph
Harun al-Rashid
Turkish
ghilmān
al-Ma'mun
Byzantine Empire
al-Abbas
Tahirids
Khurasan
Baghdad
qādī
Ahmad ibn Abi Duwad
Mu'tazilism
miḥna
Samarra
Ashinas
Wasif
Itakh
Bugha
Ushrusana
al-Afshin
Anarchy at Samarra
Khurramite
Babak Khorramdin
Adharbayjan
Mazyar
Tabaristan
defeated
Theophilos
sacked
Amorium
Khuld ("Eternity") Palace
Baghdad
al-Tabari
Sha'ban
AH
Abbasid caliph
Harun al-Rashid
Kufa
Iraq
Soghdia
Turkic
golden age
Abbasid Caliphate
Barmakid
halcyon days
Central Asia
Sind
Maghreb
Tang China
Indian Ocean
huge expeditions
Byzantine Empire
Charlemagne
Muslim holy cities
Mecca
Medina
religious scholars
Thousand and One Nights
kunya
Hugh Kennedy
vicious civil war
al-Amin
al-Ma'mun
abnāʾ al-dawla
long siege
Khurasan
Ibrahim
Hajj
Hamdawayh ibn Ali ibn Isa ibn Mahan
Yemen
Alid
al-Hasan ibn Sahl
Itakh
Samanid
Muslim conquests
new men
Tahirids
Abdallah ibn Tahir
Mashriq
Levant
al-Abbas
mamlūk
mawālī
ghilmān
manumit
al-Afshin
Usrushana
shākiriyya
Kharijite
Mahdi ibn Alwan al-Haruri
Buzurj-Sabur
al-Tabari
Ashinas
Egypt
Syria
Khurasan
Jazira
thughūr
Umayr ibn al-Walid
Nile Delta
Fustat
Theophilos
Khurramite
Babak Khorramdin
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categories: 796 births,Harun al-Rashid,842 deaths,City founders,9th-century Abbasid caliphs,Abbasid people of the Arab–Byzantine wars,People from Baghdad

paragraph: Al-Mu'tasim

paragraph: Abū Isḥāq Muḥammad ibn Hārūn al-Rashīd (; October 796 – 5 January 842), better known by his regnal name al-Muʿtaṣim biʾllāh (, "he who seeks refuge in God"), was the eighth Abbasid caliph, ruling from 833 until his death in 842. A younger son of Caliph Harun al-Rashid, he rose to prominence through his formation of a private army composed predominantly of Turkish slave-soldiers ("ghilmān"). This proved useful to his half-brother, Caliph al-Ma'mun, who employed al-Mu'tasim and his Turkish guard to counterbalance other powerful interest groups in the state, as well as employing them in campaigns against rebels and the Byzantine Empire. When al-Ma'mun died unexpectedly on campaign in August 833, al-Mu'tasim was thus well placed to succeed him, overriding the claims of al-Ma'mun's son al-Abbas.

paragraph: Al-Mu'tasim continued many of his brother's policies, such as the partnership with the Tahirids, who ruled Khurasan and Baghdad on behalf of the Abbasids. With the support of the powerful chief "qādī", Ahmad ibn Abi Duwad, he continued to implement the rationalist Islamic doctrine of Mu'tazilism and the persecution of its opponents through the inquisition ("miḥna"). Although not personally interested in literary pursuits, al-Mu'tasim also nurtured the scientific renaissance begun under al-Ma'mun. In other ways, his reign marks a departure and a watershed moment in Islamic history, with the creation of a new regime centred on the military, and particularly his Turkish guard. In 836, a new capital was established at Samarra to symbolize this new regime and remove it from the restive populace of Baghdad. The power of the caliphal government was increased by centralizing measures that reduced the power of provincial governors in favour of a small group of senior civil and military officials in Samarra, and the fiscal apparatus of the state was more and more dedicated to the maintenance of the professional army, which was dominated by Turks. The Arab and Iranian elites that had played a major role in the early period of the Abbasid state were increasingly marginalized, and an abortive conspiracy against al-Mu'tasim in favour of al-Abbas in 838 resulted in a widespread purge of their ranks. This strengthened the position of the Turks and their principal leaders, Ashinas, Wasif, Itakh, and Bugha. Another prominent member of al-Mu'tasim's inner circle, the prince of Ushrusana, al-Afshin, fell afoul of his enemies at court and was overthrown and killed in 840/1. The rise of the Turks would eventually result in the troubles of the "Anarchy at Samarra" and lead to the collapse of Abbasid power in the mid-10th century, but the "ghulām"-based system inaugurated by al-Mu'tasim would be widely adopted throughout the Muslim world.

paragraph: Al-Mu'tasim's reign was marked by continuous warfare. The two major internal campaigns of the reign were against the long-running Khurramite uprising of Babak Khorramdin in Adharbayjan, which was suppressed by al-Afshin in 835–837, and against Mazyar, the autonomous ruler of Tabaristan, who had clashed with the Tahirids and risen up in revolt. While his generals led the fight against internal rebellions, al-Mu'tasim himself led the sole major external campaign of the period, in 838 against the Byzantine Empire. His armies defeated Emperor Theophilos and sacked the city of Amorium. The Amorium campaign was widely celebrated, and became a cornerstone of caliphal propaganda, cementing al-Mu'tasim's reputation as a warrior-caliph.

paragraph: Section::::Early life.

paragraph: Muhammad, the future al-Mu'tasim, was born in the Khuld ("Eternity") Palace in Baghdad, but the exact date is unclear: according to the historian al-Tabari (839–923), his birth was placed by authorities either in Sha'ban AH 180, (i.e. October 796), or in AH 179 (i.e. spring 796 or earlier). His parents were the fifth Abbasid caliph, Harun al-Rashid (), and Marida bint Shabib, a slave concubine. Otherwise unknown, Marida was born in Kufa in Iraq, but her family hailed from Soghdia, and she is usually considered to have been of Turkic origin.

paragraph: The young prince's early life coincided with what, in the judgment of posterity, was the golden age of the Abbasid Caliphate. The abrupt downfall of the powerful Barmakid family, which had dominated government during the previous decades, in 803 hinted at political instability at the highest levels of the court, while provincial rebellions that were suppressed with difficulty provided warning signals about the dynasty's hold over the empire. Nevertheless, compared to the strife and division that followed in the decades after Harun's death, the Abbasid empire was living through its halcyon days. Harun still ruled directly over the bulk of the Islamic world of his time, from Central Asia and Sind in the east to the Maghreb in the west. Lively trade networks linking Tang China and the Indian Ocean with Europe and Africa passed through the caliphate, with Baghdad at their nexus, bringing immense prosperity. The revenues of the provinces kept the treasury full, allowing Harun to launch huge expeditions against the Byzantine Empire and engage in vigorous diplomacy, his envoys arriving even at the distant court of Charlemagne. This wealth also allowed considerable patronage: charitable endowments to the Muslim holy cities of Mecca and Medina and the welcoming of religious scholars and ascetics at court secured the benevolence of the religious classes towards the dynasty, while the funds lavished on poets guaranteed its lasting fame; the splendour of the caliphal court provided the inspiration for some of the earliest stories of the "Thousand and One Nights".

paragraph: Section::::Career under al-Ma'mun.

paragraph: As an adult, Muhammad was commonly called by his "kunya", Abu Ishaq. Al-Tabari describes the adult Abu Ishaq as "fair-complexioned, with a black beard the hair tips of which were red and the end of which was square and streaked with red, and with handsome eyes". Other authors stress his physical strength and his love for physical activity—an anecdote recalls how during the Amorium campaign he went ahead of the army riding on a mule and searched in person for a ford across a river—in stark contrast to his more sedentary predecessors and successors. Later authors write that he was almost illiterate, but as the historian Hugh Kennedy comments, this "would have been most improbable for an Abbasid prince", and most likely reflects his lack of interest in intellectual pursuits.

paragraph: Section::::Career under al-Ma'mun.:Activity during the civil war.

paragraph: As one of Harun's younger sons, Abu Ishaq was initially of little consequence, and did not figure in the line of succession. Soon after Harun died in 809, a vicious civil war broke out between his elder half-brothers al-Amin () and al-Ma'mun (). Al-Amin enjoyed the backing of the traditional Abbasid elites in Baghdad (the "abnāʾ al-dawla"), while al-Ma'mun was supported by other sections of the "abnāʾ". Al-Ma'mun emerged victorious in 813 with the surrender of Baghdad after a long siege and the death of al-Amin. Choosing to remain in his stronghold in Khurasan, on the northeastern periphery of the Islamic world, al-Ma'mun allowed his main lieutenants to rule in his stead in Iraq. This resulted in a wave of antipathy towards al-Ma'mun and his "Persian" lieutenants, both among the Abbasid elites in Baghdad and generally in the western regions of the Caliphate, culminating in the nomination of Harun al-Rashid's younger brother Ibrahim as anti-caliph at Baghdad in 817. This event made al-Ma'mun realise his inability to rule from afar; bowing to popular reaction, he dismissed or executed his closest lieutenants, and returned in person to Baghdad in 819 to begin the difficult task of rebuilding the state.

paragraph: Throughout the conflict and its aftermath, Abu Ishaq remained in Baghdad. Al-Tabari records that Abu Ishaq led the Hajj pilgrimage in 816, accompanied by many troops and officials, among whom was Hamdawayh ibn Ali ibn Isa ibn Mahan, who had just been appointed to the governorship of the Yemen and was on his way there. During his stay in Mecca, his troops defeated and captured a pro-Alid leader who had raided the pilgrim caravans. He also led the pilgrimage the following year, but no details are known. It appears that at least during this time, Abu Ishaq was loyal to al-Ma'mun and his viceroy in Iraq, al-Hasan ibn Sahl, but, like most members of the dynasty and the "abnāʾ" of Baghdad, he supported his half-uncle Ibrahim against al-Ma'mun in 817–819.

paragraph: Section::::Career under al-Ma'mun.:Formation of the Turkish guard.

paragraph: From , Abu Ishaq began forming his corps of Turkish troops. The first members of the corps were domestic slaves he bought in Baghdad (the distinguished general Itakh was originally a cook) whom he trained in the art of war, but they were soon complemented by Turkish slaves sent directly from the fringes of the Muslim world in Central Asia, under an agreement with the local Samanid rulers. This private force was small—it probably numbered between three and four thousand at the time of his accession to the throne—but it was highly trained and disciplined, and made Abu Ishaq a man of power in his own right, as al-Ma'mun increasingly turned to him for assistance.

paragraph: The long civil war shattered the social and political order of the early Abbasid state; the "abnāʾ al-dawla", the main political and military pillar of the early Abbasid state, had been much reduced by the civil war. Along with the "abnāʾ", the old Arab families settled in the provinces since the time of the Muslim conquests, and the members of the extended Abbasid dynasty formed the core of the traditional elites and largely supported al-Amin. During the remainder of al-Ma'mun's reign they lost their positions in the administrative and military machinery, and with them their influence and power. Furthermore, as the civil war raged in the eastern half of the caliphate and in Iraq, the western provinces slipped from Baghdad's control in a series of rebellions that saw local strongmen claiming various degrees of autonomy or even trying to secede from the caliphate altogether. Although he had overthrown the old elites, al-Ma'mun lacked a large and loyal power base and army, so he turned to "new men" who commanded their own military retinues. These included the Tahirids, led by Abdallah ibn Tahir, and his own brother Abu Ishaq. Abu Ishaq's Turkish corps was politically useful to al-Ma'mun, who tried to lessen his own dependence on the mostly eastern Iranian leaders, such as the Tahirids, who had supported him in the civil war, and who now occupied the senior positions in the new regime. In an effort to counterbalance their influence, al-Ma'mun granted formal recognition to his brother and his Turkish corps. For the same reason he placed the Arab tribal levies of the Mashriq (the region of the Levant and Iraq) in the hands of his son, al-Abbas.

paragraph: The nature and identity of the "Turkish slave soldiers", as they are commonly described, is a controversial subject; both the ethnic label and the slave status of its members are disputed. Although the bulk of the corps were clearly of servile origin, being either captured in war or purchased as slaves, in the Arabic historical sources they are never referred to as slaves ("mamlūk" or "ʿabid"), but rather as "mawālī" ("clients" or "freedmen") or "ghilmān" ("pages"), implying that they were manumitted, a view reinforced by the fact that they were paid cash salaries. Although members of the corps are collectively called simply "Turks", "atrāk", in the sources, prominent early members were neither Turks nor slaves, but rather Iranian vassal princes from Central Asia like al-Afshin, prince of Usrushana, who were followed by their personal retinues (Persian "chakar", Arabic "shākiriyya"). Likewise, the motives behind the formation of the Turkish guard action are unclear, as are the financial means available to Abu Ishaq for the purpose, particularly given his young age. The Turks were closely associated with Abu Ishaq, and are usually interpreted as a private military retinue, something not uncommon in the Islamic world of the time. As the historian Matthew Gordon points out, the sources provide some indications that the original recruitment of Turks may have been begun or encouraged by al-Ma'mun, as part of the latter's general policy of recruiting Central Asian princes—and their own military retinues—to his court. It is therefore possible that the guard was originally formed on Abu Ishaq's initiative, but that it quickly received caliphal sanction and support, in exchange for being placed under al-Ma'mun's service.

paragraph: Section::::Career under al-Ma'mun.:Service under al-Ma'mun.

paragraph: In 819 Abu Ishaq, accompanied by his Turkish guard and other commanders, was sent to suppress a Kharijite uprising under Mahdi ibn Alwan al-Haruri around Buzurj-Sabur, north of Baghdad. According to a most likely fanciful story provided by the 10th-century chronicler al-Tabari, Ashinas, in later years one of the chief Turkish leaders, received his name when he placed himself between a Kharijite lancer about to attack the future caliph, shouting, "Recognize me!" (in Persian ""ashinas ma-ra"").

paragraph: In 828, al-Ma'mun appointed Abu Ishaq as governor of Egypt and Syria in place of Abdallah ibn Tahir, who departed to assume the governorship of Khurasan, while the Jazira and the frontier zone ("thughūr") with the Byzantine Empire passed to al-Abbas. Ibn Tahir had just brought Egypt back under caliphal authority and pacified it after the tumult of the civil war, but the situation remained volatile. When Abu Ishaq's deputy in Egypt, Umayr ibn al-Walid, tried to raise taxes, the Nile Delta and Hawf regions revolted. In 830, Umayr tried to forcibly subdue the rebels, but was ambushed and killed along with many of his troops. With the government troops confined to the capital, Fustat, Abu Ishaq intervened in person, at the head of his 4,000 Turks. The rebels were soundly defeated and their leaders executed.

paragraph: In July–September 830, al-Ma'mun, encouraged by perceived Byzantine weakness and suspicious of collusion between Emperor Theophilos () and the Khurramite rebels of Babak Khorramdin, launched the first large-scale invasion of Byzantine territory since the start of the Abbasid civil war, and sacked several Byzantine border fortresses. Following his return from Egypt, Abu Ishaq joined al-Ma'mun in his 831 campaign against the Byzantines. After rebuffing Theophilos' offers of peace, the Abbasid army passed through the Cilician Gates and divided into three columns, with the Caliph, his son al-Abbas, and Abu Ishaq at their head. The Abbasids seized and destroyed several minor forts as well as the town of Tyana, while al-Abbas won a minor skirmish against a Byzantine army led by Theophilos in person, before withdrawing to Syria in September.

paragraph: Soon after Abu Ishaq's departure from Egypt, the revolt flared up again, this time encompassing both the Arab settlers and the native Christian Copts under the leadership of Ibn Ubaydus, a descendant of one of the original Arab conquerors of the country. The rebels were confronted by the Turks, led by al-Afshin. Al-Afshin conducted a systematic campaign, winning a string of victories and engaging in large-scale executions: many male Copts were executed and their women and children sold into slavery, while the old Arab elites who had ruled the country since the Muslim conquest of Egypt in the 640s were practically annihilated. In early 832, al-Ma'mun came to Egypt, and soon after the last elements of resistance, the Copts of the coastal marshes of the Nile Delta, were subdued.

paragraph: Later in the same year, al-Ma'mun repeated his invasion of the Byzantine borderlands, capturing the strategically important fortress of Loulon, a success that consolidated Abbasid control of both exits of the Cilician Gates. So encouraged was al-Ma'mun by this victory that he repeatedly rejected Theophilos' ever more generous offers for peace, and publicly announced that he intended to capture Constantinople itself. Consequently, al-Abbas was dispatched in May to convert the deserted town of Tyana into a military colony and prepare the ground for the westward advance. Al-Ma'mun followed in July, but he suddenly fell ill and died on 7 August 833.

paragraph: Section::::Caliphate.

paragraph: Al-Ma'mun had made no official provisions for his succession. His son, al-Abbas, was old enough to rule and had acquired experience of command in the border wars with the Byzantines, but had not been named heir. According to the account of al-Tabari, on his deathbed al-Ma'mun dictated a letter nominating his brother, rather than al-Abbas, as his successor, and Abu Ishaq was acclaimed as caliph on 9August, with the regnal name of al-Mu'tasim (in full "al-Muʿtaṣim bi’llāh", "he who seeks refuge in God"). It is impossible to know whether this reflects actual events, or whether the letter was an invention and Abu Ishaq merely took advantage of his proximity to his dying brother, and al-Abbas's absence elsewhere, to propel himself to the throne. As Abu Ishaq was the forefather of all subsequent Abbasid caliphs, later historians had little desire to question the legitimacy of his accession, but it is clear that his position was far from secure: a large part of the army favoured al-Abbas, and a delegation of soldiers even went to him and tried to proclaim him as the new Caliph. Only when al-Abbas refused them, whether out of weakness or out of a desire to avoid a civil war, and himself took the oath of allegiance to his uncle, did the soldiers acquiesce in al-Mu'tasim's succession. The precariousness of his position is further evidenced by the fact that al-Mu'tasim immediately called off the expedition, abandoned the Tyana project and returned with his army to Baghdad, which he reached on 20September.

paragraph: Section::::Caliphate.:New elites and administration.

paragraph: Whatever the true background of his accession, al-Mu'tasim owed his rise to the throne not only to his strong personality and leadership skills, but principally to the fact that he was the only Abbasid prince to control independent military power, in the form of his Turkish corps. Unlike his brother, who tried to use the tribal Arabs and the Turks to balance out the Iranian troops, al-Mu'tasim relied almost exclusively on his Turks; the historian Tayeb El-Hibri describes al-Mu'tasim's regime as "militaristic and centred on the Turkish corps". The rise of al-Mu'tasim to the caliphate thus heralded a radical change in the nature of Abbasid administration, and the most profound shift the Islamic world had experienced since the dynasty had come to power in the Abbasid Revolution. While the latter had been backed by a mass popular movement seeking to enact social reforms, al-Mu'tasim's revolution was essentially the project of a small ruling elite aiming to secure its own power.

paragraph: Already under al-Ma'mun, old-established Arab families such as the Muhallabids disappeared from the court, and minor members of the Abbasid family ceased to be appointed to governorships or senior military positions. The reforms of al-Mu'tasim completed this process, resulting in the eclipse of the previous Arab and Iranian elites, both in Baghdad and the provinces, in favour of the Turkish military, and an increasing centralization of administration around the caliphal court. A characteristic example is Egypt, where the Arab settler families still nominally formed the country's garrison ("jund") and thus continued to receive a salary from the local revenues. Al-Mu'tasim discontinued the practice, removing the Arab families from the army registers ("diwān") and ordering that the revenues of Egypt be sent to the central government, which would then pay a cash salary ("ʿaṭāʾ") only to the Turkish troops stationed in the province. Another departure from previous practice was al-Mu'tasim's appointment of his senior lieutenants, such as Ashinas and Itakh, as nominal super-governors over several provinces. This measure was probably intended to allow his chief followers immediate access to funds with which to pay their troops, but also, according to Kennedy, "represented a further centralizing of power, for the under-governors of the provinces seldom appeared at court and played little part in the making of political decisions". Indeed, al-Mu'tasim's caliphate marks the apogee of the central government's authority, in particular as expressed in its right and power to extract taxes from the provinces, an issue that had been controversial and had faced much local opposition since the early days of the Islamic state.

paragraph: The one major exception to this process were the Tahirids, who remained in place as autonomous governors of their Khurasani super-province, encompassing most of the eastern Caliphate. The Tahirids provided the governor of Baghdad, and helped to keep the city, a focus of opposition under al-Ma'mun, quiescent. The post was held throughout al-Mu'tasim's reign by Abdallah ibn Tahir's cousin Ishaq ibn Ibrahim ibn Mus'ab, who, according to the Orientalist C. E. Bosworth, was "always one of al-Mu'tasim's closest advisers and confidants". Apart from the Turkish military and the Tahirids, al-Mu'tasim's administration depended on the central fiscal bureaucracy. As the main source of revenue were the rich lands of southern Iraq (the Sawad) and neighbouring areas, the administration was staffed mostly with men drawn from these regions. The new caliphal bureaucratic class that emerged under al-Mu'tasim were thus mostly Persian or Aramean in origin, with a large proportion of newly converted Muslims and even a few Nestorian Christians, who came from landowner or merchant families.

paragraph: On his accession, al-Mu'tasim appointed as his chief minister or vizier his old personal secretary, al-Fadl ibn Marwan. A man trained in the traditions of the Abbasid bureaucracy, he was distinguished for his caution and frugality, and tried to shore up the finances of the state. These traits eventually caused his downfall, when he refused to authorize the Caliph's gifts to his courtiers on the grounds that the treasury could not afford it. He was dismissed in 836, and was lucky not to suffer any punishment more severe than being sent into exile to the village of al-Sinn. His replacement, Muhammad ibn al-Zayyat, was of a completely different character: a rich merchant, he is described by Kennedy as "a competent financial expert but a callous and brutal man who made many enemies", even among his fellow members of the administration. Nevertheless, and even though his political authority never extended beyond the fiscal domain, he managed to maintain his office to the end of the reign, and under al-Mu'tasim's successor, al-Wathiq, () as well.

paragraph: Section::::Caliphate.:Rise of the Turks.

paragraph: Al-Mu'tasim's reliance on his Turkish "ghilmān" grew over time, especially in the aftermath of an abortive plot against him discovered in 838, during the Amorium campaign. Headed by Ujayf ibn Anbasa, a long-serving Khurasani who had followed al-Ma'mun since the civil war against al-Amin, the conspiracy rallied the traditional Abbasid elites, dissatisfied with al-Mu'tasim's policies and especially his favouritism towards to the Turks. Discontent with the latter grew due to their servile origin, which offended the Abbasid aristocracy. The plotters aimed to kill the Caliph and raise al-Ma'mun's son al-Abbas in his stead. According to al-Tabari, al-Abbas, although privy to these designs, rejected Ujayf's urgent suggestions to kill al-Mu'tasim during the initial stages of the campaign for fear of appearing to undermine the jihad. In the event, Ashinas grew suspicious of al-Farhgani and Ibn Hisham, and the plot was soon uncovered. Al-Abbas was imprisoned, and the Turkish leaders Ashinas, Itakh, and Bugha the Elder undertook to discover and arrest the other conspirators. The affair was the signal for a large-scale purge of the army that Kennedy describes as "of almost Stalinesque ruthlessness". Al-Abbas was forced to die of thirst, while his male offspring were arrested, and likely executed, by Itakh. The other leaders of the conspiracy were likewise executed in ingeniously cruel ways, which were widely publicized as a deterrent to others. According to the "Kitab al-'Uyun", about seventy commanders and soldiers were executed, including some Turks.

paragraph: As the historian Matthew Gordon points out, these events are probably connected to the disappearance of the "abnāʾ" from the historical record. Correspondingly they must have increased the standing of the Turks and their chief commanders, particularly Ashinas: in 839, his daughter, Utranja, married the son of al-Afshin, and in 840, al-Mu'tasim appointed him as his deputy during his absence from Samarra. When he returned, al-Mu'tasim publicly placed him on a throne and awarded him with a ceremonial crown. In the same year, Ashinas was appointed to a super-governorate over the provinces of Egypt, Syria and the Jazira. Ashinas did not govern these directly, but appointed deputies as governors, while he remained in Samarra. When Ashinas participated in the Hajj of 841, he received honours on every stop of the route. In 840, it was the turn of al-Afshin to fall victim to the Caliph's suspicions. Despite his distinguished service as a general, he was very much the "odd man out" in the Samarran elite; the relations of the Iranian prince with the low-born Turkish generals were marked by mutual antipathy. Furthermore, he alienated the Tahirids, who might under other circumstances have been his natural allies, by interfering in Tabaristan, where he allegedly encouraged the local autonomous ruler, Mazyar, to reject Tahirid control (see below). Al-Tabari reports other allegations against al-Afshin: that he was plotting to poison al-Mu'tasim; or that he was planning to escape to his native Ushrusana with vast sums of money. According to Kennedy, the very variety of allegations against al-Afshin is grounds for skepticism about their truthfulness, and it is likely that he was framed by his enemies at court. Whatever the truth, these allegations discredited al-Afshin in the eyes of al-Mu'tasim. He was dismissed from his position in the caliphal bodyguard ("al-ḥaras"), and a show trial was held at the palace, where he was confronted with several witnesses, including Mazyar. Al-Afshin was accused, among other things, of being a false Muslim, and of being accorded divine status by his subjects in Ushrusana. Despite putting up an able and eloquent defence, al-Afshin was found guilty and thrown into prison. He died soon after, either of starvation or of poison. His body was publicly gibbeted in front of the palace gates, burned, and thrown in the Tigris. Once more, the affair enhanced the standing of the Turkish leadership, and particularly Wasif, who now received al-Afshin's revenues and possessions.

paragraph: Nevertheless, it seems that al-Mu'tasim was not entirely satisfied with the men he had raised to power. An anecdote dating from his last years, relayed by Ishaq ibn Ibrahim ibn Mus'ab, recalls how the Caliph, in an intimate exchange with Ishaq, lamented that he had made poor choices in this regard: while his brother al-Ma'mun had nurtured four excellent servants from the Tahirids, he had raised al-Afshin, who was dead; Ashinas, "a feeble heart and a coward"; Itakh, "who is totally insignificant"; and Wasif, "an unprofitable servant". Ishaq himself then suggested that this was because, while al-Ma'mun had used men with local connections and influence, al-Mu'tasim had used men with no roots in the Muslim community, to which the Caliph sadly assented.

paragraph: Section::::Caliphate.:Foundation of Samarra.

paragraph: The Turkish army was at first quartered in Baghdad, but quickly came into conflict with the remnants of the old Abbasid establishment in the city and the city's populace. The latter resented their loss of influence and career opportunities to the foreign troops, who were furthermore often undisciplined and violent, spoke no Arabic, and were either recent converts to Islam or still pagans. Violent episodes between the populace and the Turks thus became common.

paragraph: This was a major factor in al-Mu'tasim's decision in 836 to found a new capital at Samarra, some north of Baghdad, but there were other considerations in play. Founding a new capital was a public statement of the establishment of a new regime. According to Tayeb El-Hibri it allowed the court to exist "at a distance from the populace of Baghdad and protected by a new guard of foreign troops, and amid a new royal culture revolving around sprawling palatial grounds, public spectacle and a seemingly ceaseless quest for leisurely indulgence", an arrangement compared by Oleg Grabar to the relationship between Paris and Versailles after Louis XIV. By creating a new city in a previously uninhabited area, al-Mu'tasim could reward his followers with land and commercial opportunities without cost to himself and free from any constraints, unlike Baghdad with its established interest groups and high property prices. In fact, the sale of land seems to have produced considerable profit for the treasury—in the words of Kennedy, "a sort of gigantic property speculation in which both government and its followers could expect to benefit".

paragraph: Space and life in the new capital were strictly regimented: residential areas were separated from the markets, and the military was given its own cantonments, separated from the ordinary populace and each the home of a specific ethnic contingent of the army (such as the Turks or the Maghariba regiment). The city was dominated by its mosques (most famous among which is the Great Mosque of Samarra built by Caliph al-Mutawakkil in 848–852) and palaces, built in grand style by both the caliphs and their senior commanders, who were given extensive properties to develop. Unlike Baghdad, the new capital was an entirely artificial creation. Poorly sited in terms of water supply and river communications, its existence was determined solely by the presence of the caliphal court, and when the capital returned to Baghdad, sixty years later, Samarra was rapidly abandoned. Due to this, the ruins of the Abbasid capital are still extant, and the city can be mapped with great accuracy by modern archaeologists.

paragraph: Section::::Caliphate.:Science and learning.

paragraph: As a military man, al-Mu'tasim's outlook was utilitarian, and his intellectual pursuits could not be compared with those of al-Ma'mun or his successor al-Wathiq, but he continued his brother's policy of promoting writers and scholars. Baghdad remained a major centre of learning throughout his reign. Among the notable scholars active during his reign were the astronomers Habash al-Hasib al-Marwazi and Ahmad al-Farghani, the polymath al-Jahiz, and the distinguished Arab mathematician and philosopher al-Kindi, who dedicated his work "On First Philosophy" to his patron al-Mu'tasim. The Nestorian physician Salmawayh ibn Bunan, a patron of the fellow Nestorian physician and translator Hunayn ibn Ishaq, became court physician to al-Mu'tasim, while another prominent Nestorian physician, Salmawayh's rival Ibn Masawayh, received apes for dissection from the Caliph.

paragraph: Section::::Caliphate.:Mu'tazilism and the "miḥna".

paragraph: Ideologically, al-Mu'tasim followed the footsteps of al-Ma'mun, continuing his predecessor's support for Mu'tazilism, a theological doctrine that attempted to tread a middle way between secular monarchy and the theocratic approach espoused by the Alids and the various sects of Shi'ism. Mu'tazilis espoused the view that the Quran was created and hence fell within the authority of a God-guided "imām" to interpret according to the changing circumstances. While revering Ali, they avoided taking a position on the righteousness of the opposing sides in the conflict between Ali and his opponents. Mu'tazilism was officially adopted by al-Ma'mun in 827, and in 833, shortly before his death, al-Ma'mun made its doctrines compulsory, with the establishment of an inquisition, the "miḥna". During his brother's reign, al-Mu'tasim played an active role in the enforcement of the "miḥna" in the western provinces; this continued after his accession. The chief advocate of Mu'tazilism, the head "qādī" Ahmad ibn Abi Duwad, was perhaps the dominant influence at the caliphal court throughout al-Mu'tasim's reign.

paragraph: Thus Mu'tazilism became closely identified with the new regime of al-Mu'tasim. Adherence to Mu'tazilism was transformed into an intensely political issue, since to question it was to oppose the authority of the Caliph as the God-sanctioned "imām". While Mu'tazilism found broad support, it was also passionately opposed by traditionalists, who held that the Quran's authority was absolute and unalterable as the literal word of God. Opposition to Mu'tazilism also provided a vehicle for criticism by those who disliked the new regime and its elites. In the event, the active repression of the traditionalists was unsuccessful, and even proved counterproductive: the beating and imprisonment of one of the most resolute opponents of Mu'tazilism, Ahmad ibn Hanbal, in 834, only helped to spread his fame. By the time al-Mutawakkil abandoned Mu'tazilism and returned to traditional orthodoxy in 848, the strict and conservative Hanbali school had emerged as the leading school of jurisprudence ("fiqh") in Sunni Islam.

paragraph: Section::::Caliphate.:Domestic campaigns.

paragraph: Although al-Mu'tasim's reign was a time of peace in the Caliphate's heartland territories, al-Mu'tasim himself was an energetic campaigner, and according to Kennedy "acquired the reputation of being one of the warrior-caliphs of Islam". With the exception of the Amorium campaign, most of the military expeditions of al-Mu'tasim's reign were domestic, directed against rebels in areas that, although nominally part of the Caliphate, had remained outside effective Muslim rule and where native peoples and princes retained "de facto" autonomy. The three great campaigns of the reign—Amorium, the expedition against the Khurramite rebellion, and that against Mazyar, ruler of Tabaristan—were in part also conscious propaganda exercises, in which al-Mu'tasim could solidify his regime's legitimacy in the eyes of the populace by leading wars against infidels.

paragraph: An Alid revolt led by Muhammad ibn Qasim broke out in Khurasan in early 834, but was swiftly defeated and Muhammad brought as a prisoner to the Caliph's court. He managed to escape during the night of 8/9October 834, taking advantage of the Eid al-Fitr festivities, and was never heard of again. In June/July of the same year, Ujayf ibn 'Anbasa was sent to subdue the Zutt. These were people who had been brought from India by the Sassanid emperors and settled in the Mesopotamian Marshes. The Zutt had been in rebellion against caliphal authority since , and had frequently raided the environs of Basra and Wasit. After a seven-month campaign, Ujayf was successful in encircling the Zutt and forcing them to surrender. He made a triumphal entry into Baghdad in January 835 with numerous captives. Many of the Zutt were then sent to Ayn Zarba on the Byzantine frontier, to fight against the Byzantines.

paragraph: The first major campaign of the new reign was directed against the Khurramites in Adharbayjan and Arran. The Khurramite revolt had been active since 816/7, aided by the inaccessible mountains of the province and the absence of large Arab Muslim population centres, except for a few cities in the lowlands. Al-Ma'mun had left the local Muslims largely to their own devices. A succession of military commanders attempted to subdue the rebellion on their own initiative, and thus gain control of the country's newly discovered mineral resources, only to be defeated by the Khurramites under the capable leadership of Babak. Immediately after his accession, al-Mu'tasim sent the Tahirid "ṣāḥib al-shurṭa" of Baghdad and Samarra, Ishaq ibn Ibrahim ibn Mus'ab, to deal with an expansion of the Khurramite rebellion from Jibal into Hamadan. Ishaq swiftly achieved success, and by December 833 had suppressed the rebellion, forcing many Khurramites to seek refuge in the Byzantine Empire. In 835 al-Mu'tasim took action against Babak, assigning his trusted and capable lieutenant, al-Afshin, to command the campaign. After three years of cautious and methodical campaigning, al-Afshin was able to capture Babak at his capital of Budhdh on 26August 837, extinguishing the rebellion. Babak was brought captive to Samarra, where, on3 January 838, he was paraded before the people seated on an elephant, and then publicly executed.

paragraph: Shortly after, Minkajur al-Ushrusani, whom al-Afshin had appointed as governor of Adharbayjan after the defeat of the Khurramites, rose in revolt, either because he had been involved in financial irregularities, or because he had been a co-conspirator of al-Afshin's. Bugha the Elder marched against him, forcing him to capitulate and receive a safe-passage to Samarra in 840.

paragraph: The second major domestic campaign of the reign began in 838, against Mazyar, the autonomous Qarinid ruler of Tabaristan. Tabaristan had been subjected to Abbasid authority in 760, but Muslim presence was limited to the coastal lowlands of the Caspian Sea and their cities. The mountainous areas remained under native rulers—chief among whom were the Bavandids in the eastern and the Qarinids in the central and western mountain ranges—who retained their autonomy in exchange for paying a tribute to the Caliphate. With the support of al-Ma'mun, Mazyar had established himself as the "de facto" ruler of all Tabaristan, even capturing the Muslim city of Amul and imprisoning the local Abbasid governor. Al-Mu'tasim confirmed him in his post on his accession, but trouble soon began when Mazyar refused to accept his subordination to the Tahirid viceroy of the east, Abdallah ibn Tahir, instead insisting on paying the taxes of his region directly to al-Mu'tasim's agent. According to al-Tabari, the Qarinid's intransigence had been secretly encouraged by al-Afshin, who hoped to discredit the Tahirids and assume their vast governorship in the east himself.

paragraph: Tension mounted as the Tahirids encouraged the local Muslims to resist Mazyar, forcing the latter to adopt an increasingly confrontational stance against the Muslim settlers and turn for support on the native Iranian, and mostly Zoroastrian, peasantry, whom he encouraged to attack the Muslim landowners. Open conflict erupted in 838, when his troops seized the cities of Amul and Sari, took the Muslim settlers prisoner, and executed many of them. In return, the Tahirids under al-Hasan ibn al-Husayn ibn Mus'ab and Muhammad ibn Ibrahim ibn Mus'ab invaded Tabaristan. Mazyar was betrayed by his brother Quhyar, who also revealed to the Tahirids the correspondence between Mazyar and al-Afshin. Quhyar then succeeded his brother as a Tahirid appointee, while Mazyar was taken captive to Samarra. Like Babak, he was paraded before the populace, and then flogged to death, on 6September 840. While the autonomy of the local dynasties was maintained in the aftermath of the revolt, the event marked the onset of the country's rapid Islamization, including among the native dynasties.

paragraph: Near the end of al-Mu'tasim's life there were a series of uprisings in the Syrian provinces, including the revolt by Abu Harb, known as al-Mubarqa or "the Veiled One", which brought to the fore the lingering pro-Umayyad sentiment of several Syrian Arabs.

paragraph: Section::::Caliphate.:Confrontation with Byzantium.

paragraph: Taking advantage of the Abbasids' preoccupation with the suppression of the Khurramite rebellion, the Byzantine emperor Theophilos had launched attacks on the Muslim frontier zone in the early 830s, and scored several successes. His forces were bolstered by some 14,000 Khurramites who fled into the Empire, became baptized and enrolled in the Byzantine army under the command of their leader Nasr, better known by his Christian name Theophobos. In 837, Theophilos, urged by the increasingly hard-pressed Babak, launched a major campaign into the Muslim frontier lands. He led a large army, reportedly numbering over 70,000 men, in an almost unopposed invasion of the region around the upper Euphrates. The Byzantines took the towns of Zibatra (Sozopetra) and Arsamosata, ravaged and plundered the countryside, extracted ransom from Malatya and other cities in exchange for not attacking them, and defeated several smaller Arab forces. As refugees began arriving at Samarra, the caliphal court was outraged by the brutality and brazenness of the raids; not only had the Byzantines acted in open collusion with the Khurramites, but during the sack of Zibatra all male prisoners were executed and the rest of the population sold into slavery, and some captive women were raped by Theophilos' Khurramites.

paragraph: The Caliph took personal charge of preparations for a retaliatory expedition, as the campaigns against Byzantium were customarily the only ones in which caliphs participated in person. Al-Mu'tasim assembled a huge force—80,000 men with 30,000 servants and camp followers according to Michael the Syrian, or even larger according to other writers—at Tarsus. He declared his target to be Amorium, the birthplace of the reigning Byzantine dynasty. The Caliph reportedly had the name painted on the shields and banners of his army. The campaign began in June, with a smaller force under al-Afshin attacking through the Pass of Hadath in the east, while the Caliph with the main army crossed the Cilician Gates on 19–21June. Theophilos, who had been caught unaware by the two-pronged Abbasid attack, tried to confront al-Afshin's smaller force first, but suffered a major defeat at the Battle of Dazimon on 22July, barely escaping with his life. Unable to offer any effective resistance to the Abbasid advance, the Emperor returned to Constantinople. A week later, al-Afshin and the main caliphal army joined forces before Ancyra, which had been left defenceless and was plundered.

paragraph: From Ancyra, the Abbasid army turned to Amorium, to which they laid siege on 1August. Al-Afshin, Itakh, and Ashinas all took turns assaulting the city with their troops, but the siege was fiercely contested, even after the Abbasids, informed by a defector, effected a breach in a weak spot of the wall. After two weeks, taking advantage of a short truce for negotiations requested by one of the Byzantine commanders of the breach, the Abbasid army successfully stormed the city. It was thoroughly plundered and its walls razed, while the populace, numbering into the tens of thousands, was carried off to be sold into slavery. According to al-Tabari, al-Mu'tasim was now considering extending his campaign to attack Constantinople, when the conspiracy headed by his nephew, al-Abbas, was uncovered. Al-Mu'tasim was forced to cut short his campaign and return quickly to his realm, without bothering with Theophilos and his forces, stationed in nearby Dorylaion. Taking the direct route from Amorium to the Cilician Gates, both the Caliph's army and its prisoners suffered during the march through the arid countryside of central Anatolia. Some captives were so exhausted that they could not move and were executed, while others found in the turmoil the opportunity to escape. In retaliation, al-Mu'tasim, after separating the most prominent among them, executed the rest, some 6,000.

paragraph: The sack of Amorium brought al-Mu'tasim much acclaim as a warrior-caliph and "ghāzī" (warrior for the faith), and was celebrated by contemporaries, most notably in a famous ode by the court poet Abu Tammam. The Abbasids did not follow up on their success. Warfare continued between the two empires with raids and counter-raids along the border, but after a few Byzantine successes a truce was agreed in 841. At the time of his death in 842, al-Mu'tasim was preparing yet another large-scale invasion, but the great fleet he had prepared to assault Constantinople was destroyed in a storm off Cape Chelidonia a few months later. Following al-Mu'tasim's death, warfare gradually died down, and the Battle of Mauropotamos in 844 was the last major Arab–Byzantine engagement for a decade.

paragraph: Section::::Death and legacy.

paragraph: Al-Tabari states that al-Mu'tasim fell ill on 21October 841. His regular physician, Salmawayh ibn Bunan, whom the Caliph had trusted implicitly, had died the previous year. His new physician, Yahya ibn Masawayh, did not follow the normal treatment of cupping and purging. According to Hunayn ibn Ishaq this worsened the caliph's illness and brought about his death on 5January 842, after a reign of eight years, eight months and two days according to the Islamic calendar. He was buried in the Jawsaq al-Khaqani palace in Samarra. The succession of his son, al-Wathiq, was unopposed. Al-Wathiq's reign, through unremarkable, was essentially a continuation of al-Mu'tasim's own, as the government continued to be led by the men al-Mu'tasim had raised to power: the Turks Itakh, Wasif, and Ashinas; the vizier Ibn al-Zayyat; and the chief "qādī" Ahmad ibn Abi Duwad.

paragraph: Al-Tabari describes al-Mu'tasim as having a relatively easygoing nature, being kind, agreeable and charitable. According to C. E. Bosworth the sources reveal little about al-Mu'tasim's character, other than his lack of sophistication compared with his half-brother. Nevertheless, Bosworth concludes, he was a proficient military commander who secured the caliphate both politically and militarily.

paragraph: Al-Mu'tasim's reign represents a watershed moment in the history of the Abbasid state, and had long-lasting repercussions in Islamic history. While the early Abbasid regime already relied heavily on non-Arab elements—the Khurasanis who had formed the bulk of the Abbasid Revolutions' military forces, and the Persian and Syriac secretarial class that had emerged in Baghdad and Iraq to staff the Abbasid administration—al-Mu'tasim's military reforms are truly "the moment when the Arabs lost control of the empire they created", according to Kennedy, while according to David Ayalon, the institution of military slavery introduced by al-Mu'tasim became "one of the most important and most enduring socio-political institutions that Islam has known". With his Turkish guard, al-Mu'tasim set a pattern that would be widely imitated: not only did the military acquire a predominant position in the state, but it also increasingly became the preserve of minority groups from the peoples living on the margins of the Islamic world. Thus it formed an exclusive ruling caste, separated from the Arab-Iranian mainstream of society by ethnic origin, language, and sometimes even religion. This dichotomy would become, according to Hugh Kennedy, a "distinctive feature" of many Islamic polities, and would reach its apogee in the Mamluk dynasties that ruled Egypt and Syria in the late Middle Ages.

paragraph: More immediately, although al-Mu'tasim's new professional army proved militarily highly effective, it also posed a potential danger to the stability of the Abbasid regime, as the army's separation from mainstream society meant that the soldiers were entirely reliant on the "ʿaṭāʾ" for survival. Consequently, any failure to provide their pay, or policies that threatened their position, were likely to cause a violent reaction. This became evident less than a generation later, during the "Anarchy at Samarra" (861–870), where the Turks played the main role. The need to cover military spending would henceforth be a fixture of caliphal government. This was at a time when government income began to decline rapidly—partly through the rise of autonomous dynasties in the provinces and partly through the decline in productivity of the lowlands of Iraq that had traditionally provided the bulk of tax revenue. Less than a century after al-Mu'tasim's death, this process would lead to the bankruptcy of the Abbasid government and the eclipse of the caliphs' political power with the rise of the Khazar officer Ibn Ra'iq to the position of "amīr al-umarāʾ".

paragraph: Section::::Al-Mu'tasim in literature.

paragraph: Al-Mu'tasim is featured in the medieval Arabic and Turkish epic "Delhemma", which features heavily fictionalized versions of events from the Arab–Byzantine wars. In it, al-Mu'tasim helps the heroes pursue the traitor and apostate Uqba across several countries "from Spain to Yemen", before having him crucified before Constantinople. On its return, the Muslim army is ambushed in a defile by the Byzantines, and only 400 men, including the Caliph and most of the heroes, manage to escape. In retaliation, al-Mu'tasim's successor al-Wathiq launches a campaign against Constantinople, where he installs a Muslim governor.

paragraph: The name al-Mu'tasim is used for a fictional character in the story "The Approach to al-Mu'tasim", written in 1936 by Argentine author Jorge Luis Borges, which appears in his anthology "Ficciones". The al-Mu'tasim referenced there is not the Abbasid caliph, though Borges does state, regarding the original, non-fictional al-Mu'tasim from whom the name is taken: "the name of that eighth Abbasid caliph who was victorious in eight battles, fathered eight sons and eight daughters, left eight thousand slaves, and ruled for a period of eight years, eight moons, and eight days".

paragraph: While not strictly accurate, Borges' quote paraphrases al-Tabari, who notes that he was "born in the eighth month, was the eighth caliph, in the eighth generation from al-‘Abbas, his lifespan was eight and forty years, that he died leaving eight sons and eight daughters, and that he reigned for eight years and eight months", and reflects the widespread reference to al-Mu'tasim in Arabic sources as "al-Muthamman" ("the man of eight").

alias: Abu Ishaq 'Abbas al-Mu'tasim ibn Harun al-Rashid

description: the eighth Abbasid Caliph

wikidata_label: Al-Mu'tasim

wikipedia_title: Al-Mu'tasim