-
quotation mark (punctuation)
...the first time the view that clarification of syntax is the main object of punctuation. By the end of the 17th century the various marks had received their modern names, and the exclamation mark, quotation marks, and the dash had been added to the system....
-
Quotations from Chairman Mao (edition by Lin Biao)
Lin Biao developed a simplified and dogmatized version of Mao’s thought—eventually published in the form of the “Little Red Book,” Quotations from Chairman Mao—to popularize Maoist ideology among the relatively uneducated military recruits. As the military forces under Lin increasingly showed that they could combine ideological purity wit...
-
Quotidien, Le (Senegalese newspaper)
...In June President Wade announced that, effective in 2005, he would introduce legislation to provide public funding of political parties. On July 9 Madiambal Diagne, editor of the newspaper Le Quotidien, was arrested after having published an article about government corruption. In protest, on July 12 all of Senegal’s privately owned newspapers ceased publication, and private radio...
-
quotient (mathematics)
...antecedents. This characteristic changes drastically, however, as soon as division is introduced. Performing division (its symbol ÷, read “divided by”) leads to results, called quotients or fractions, which surprisingly include numbers of a new kind—namely, rationals—that are not integers. These, though arising from the combination of integers, patently......
-
quotient rule (mathematics)
...antecedents. This characteristic changes drastically, however, as soon as division is introduced. Performing division (its symbol ÷, read “divided by”) leads to results, called quotients or fractions, which surprisingly include numbers of a new kind—namely, rationals—that are not integers. These, though arising from the combination of integers, patently.........
-
qupuz (musical instrument)
...Turkic-speaking countries of Central Asia. Kyrgyz folk singers still recite the lengthy verse epic Manas and other heroic and lyric poetry, often to the accompaniment of the three-stringed komuz, which is plucked like a lute....
-
Qŭqon (Uzbekistan)
city, eastern Uzbekistan. It lies in the western Fergana Valley, at road and rail junctions from Tashkent to the valley....
-
Quran (sacred text)
the sacred scripture of Islam and, for all Muslims, the very word of God, revealed through the agency of the archangel Gabriel to the Prophet Muhammad. Although most modern Muslims know it as the Holy Qurʾān, many of them still refer to it as al-Qurʾān al-karīm or ...
-
Qurʾān (sacred text)
the sacred scripture of Islam and, for all Muslims, the very word of God, revealed through the agency of the archangel Gabriel to the Prophet Muhammad. Although most modern Muslims know it as the Holy Qurʾān, many of them still refer to it as al-Qurʾān al-karīm or ...
-
Qurʾān Commentary (work by aṭ-Ṭabarī)
His life’s labour began with the Qurʾān Commentary and was followed by the History of Prophets and Kings. Aṭ-Ṭabarī’s History became so popular that the Sāmānid prince Manṣūr ibn Nūḥ had it translated into Persian (c. 963)....
-
Qurʾānic school (history of education)
...Africa in the 9th and 10th centuries and western Africa in the 11th. It introduced the Arabic script, and, because knowledge of the Qurʾān became an important religious requirement, Qurʾānic schools developed. These schools concentrated on the teaching and memorization of the Qurʾān; some were little more than gathering places beneath a tree where......
-
Quraysh (people)
the ruling tribe of Mecca at the time of the birth of the Prophet Muḥammad. There were 10 main clans, the names of some of which gained great lustre through their members’ status in early Islām. These included Hāshim, the clan of the Prophet himself (see Hāshimite); Zuhra, that of his mother; and Taim and ʿAdī, the clans of...
-
Qurayyāt, Al- (province, Saudi Arabia)
minṭaqah (province), western Al-Shamālīyah (Northern) region, northwestern Saudi Arabia. It is bordered by the provinces of Al-Hudūd al-Shamālīyah to the northeast, Al-Jawf to the east, Tabūk to the south, and Jordan to the north. Al-Qurayyāt fronts the Gulf of Aqaba to the west. The province is mostly u...
-
Qurayẓah, Banū (Medinese tribe)
When it was discovered that members of the Jewish tribe Qurayẓah had been complicit with the enemy during the Battle of the Ditch, Muhammad turned against them. The Qurayẓah men were separated from the tribe’s women and children and ordered by the Muslim general Saʿd ibn Muʿādh to be put to death; the women and children were to be enslaved. This tragic epi...
-
qurb (Ṣūfism)
...of murāqabah (“watching”) fills the Ṣūfī with either fear or joy according to the aspect of God revealed to him. (2) The ḥāl of qurb (“nearness”) is a state that enables the Ṣūfī to become unconscious of his own acts and to see God’s acts and bounties toward him. (3) The......
-
qurban (type of marriage)
Descent is reckoned patrilineally, and married couples usually reside near the husband’s home. The Amhara practice three types of marriage: kal kidan, qurban, and damoz. Kal kidan (also called serat or semanya [“eighty”]) is marriage by civil contract. It is by far the most common form, though a great percentage of such unions end in.....
-
Qureshi, Moeen (prime minister of Pakistan)
...and the prime minister’s office vacant, it was the army that ensured a smooth transition to still another caretaker government. Senate chairman Wasim Sajjad assumed the office of president, and Moeen Qureshi, a former World Bank official living in New York City, agreed to act as interim prime minister....
-
Qŭrghonteppa (Tajikistan)
city, southwestern Tajikistan. It lies in the Vakhsh River valley, 62 miles (100 km) south of Dushanbe. Kurgan-Tyube has existed since the 17th century. It is on the railway line between Dushanbe and Kulyab....
-
qurrāʾ (Qurʾānic reciter)
ʾ, professional class of reciters of the text of the Muslim sacred scripture, the Qurʾān. In the early Islāmic community, Muḥammad’s divine revelations had often been memorized by his Companions (disciples), a practice derived from the pre-Islāmic tradition of preserving poetry orally. It became common for pious Muslims to memorize the Qurʾ...
-
Qurtabah (Spain)
city, capital of Córdoba provincia (province), in the north-central section of the comunidad autónoma (autonomous community) of Andalusia in southern Spain. It lies at the southern foot of the Morena Mountains and on the right (north) bank of the ...
-
Quṣayr ʿAmra (palace, Jordan)
...celestial map, which furnishes a remarkable connecting link between the classical representation of the constellations and the later Islāmic forms, is painted in the dome of a bath house at Quṣayr ʿAmra, an Arab palace built in Jordan around ad 715. The surviving fragments of the fresco show parts of 37 constellations and about 400 stars....
-
Quṣayy ibn Kilāb (Arab leader)
...hands of Jurhum, a people living on the central west coast recorded in Greco-Latin sources as Gorrhamites. But sometime about ad 500 (“five generations before the Prophet Muhammad”) Quṣayy ibn Kilāb, called al-Mujammiʿ (“The Unifier”), is credited with having brought together scattered groups of Bedouin and installed them in Mecca. ...
-
Qushayrī (Muslim author)
...language (thereby contributing to the profundity of Arabic vocabulary), and the handbooks of religious teaching produced in eastern Arab and Persian areas (Sarrāj, Kalābādhī, Qushayrī, and, in Muslim India, al-Hujwīrī) are generally superior to those produced in western Muslim countries. Yet the greatest Islāmic theosophist of all, Ibn......
-
quṣṣā (Muslim storyteller)
...sermons, which were delivered by governors of the provinces. In these khuṭbahs, however, political considerations frequently overshadow the religious and literary aspects. The quṣṣāṣ (storytellers), who interpreted verses from the Qurʾān, attracted large audiences and may be regarded as the inventors of a popular religious......
-
quṣūr (village)
...barley, vegetables, and other crops are grown in the date-palm understory. Much settlement in this region is in highly distinctive, fortified adobe villages known as ksour (Arabic: quṣūr, “castles”). Nomadic camel herding was once an important economic activity in the Saharan zone, but......
-
Qutaybah ibn Muslim (Arab general)
Arab general under the caliphs ʿAbd al-Malik and ʿAbd al-Walīd I whose conquests in Afghanistan and Central Asia helped bring the Umayyad caliphate to the height of its power....
-
Qutb, Ibrahim Husayn Shadhili Sayyid (Egyptian scholar and social reformer)
...the Jamāʿat-i Islāmī, opposed both secular and religious nationalism and argued for the Islāmization of society and an Islāmic alternative to nationalism. In Egypt, Sayyid Quṭb and Ḥasan al-Bannāʾ, who were the mentors of the Muslim Brotherhood, fought for the educational, moral, and social reform of an Islāmic Egypt a...
-
Quṭb Mīnār (tower, Delhi, India)
...was built in front to give the building an Islāmic aspect, but its rich floral decoration and corbelled (supported by brackets projecting from the wall) arches are Indian in character. The Quṭb Mīnār, a tall (288 feet high), fluted tower provided with balconies, stood outside this mosque. The Aṛhāi-dīn-kā-jhompṛā mosque......
-
Quṭb, Sayyid (Egyptian scholar and social reformer)
...the Jamāʿat-i Islāmī, opposed both secular and religious nationalism and argued for the Islāmization of society and an Islāmic alternative to nationalism. In Egypt, Sayyid Quṭb and Ḥasan al-Bannāʾ, who were the mentors of the Muslim Brotherhood, fought for the educational, moral, and social reform of an Islāmic Egypt a...
-
Quṭb Shāhī dynasty (Indian dynasty)
(1518–1687), Muslim rulers of the kingdom of Golconda in the southeastern Deccan of India, one of the five successor states of the Bahmanī kingdom. The founder was Qulī Quṭb Shāh, a Turkish governor of the Bahmanī eastern region, which largely coincided with the preceding Hindu state of Warangal. Quṭb Shāh declared his independence in 1518 a...
-
Quṭb-ud-Dīn Aybak (Muslim ruler of India)
a founder of Muslim rule in India and an able general of Muʿizz-ud-Dīn Muḥammad of Ghūr....
-
Quṭbzādeh, Ṣādiq (Iranian politician)
Iranian politician who helped establish Iran as an Islamic republic and was foreign minister of the country from 1979 to 1980....
-
Quthing (Lesotho)
...and goats), which produce wool and mohair for export. A large portion of the adult male population may be absent from the region at any given time, working in the mines and farms of South Africa. Quthing village has a hospital and is connected by road to Maseru, the national capital, 80 miles (130 km) north. Pop. (1986) village, 1,992....
-
Quthing (administrative district, Lesotho)
village, southern Lesotho. The surrounding area, which borders South Africa (southeast and west) and the Orange River (north), is predominantly agricultural (with subsistence farming of wheat, corn [maize], and sorghum) and pastoral. The area’s main cash income comes from livestock (sheep, cattle, and goats), which produce wool and mohair for export. A large portion of the adult male popul...
-
Qutlugh Inanj (Eldeguzid ruler)
...their territories in Iran as far south as Isfahan and northward in the Caucasus to the borders of Shīrvān and Georgia. In 1191 the Seljuq sultan Toghrïl III defeated and subjugated Qutlugh Inanj (reigned 1191–95), the fourth Eldegüzid ruler. Qutlugh had to retreat to Azerbaijan, where the Eldegüzids held their position until 1225, when the......
-
Qutub Minar (building, New Delhi, India)
...their territories in Iran as far south as Isfahan and northward in the Caucasus to the borders of Shīrvān and Georgia. In 1191 the Seljuq sultan Toghrïl III defeated and subjugated Qutlugh Inanj (reigned 1191–95), the fourth Eldegüzid ruler. Qutlugh had to retreat to Azerbaijan, where the Eldegüzids held their position until 1225, when the.........
-
Quṭuz, al-Muẓaffar Sayf al-Dīn (Mamlūk sultan)
Having angered the first Mamlūk sultan, Aybak, Baybars fled with other Mamlūk leaders to Syria and stayed there until 1260, when they were welcomed back to Egypt by the third sultan, al-Muẓaffar Sayf al-Dīn Quṭuz. He restored them to their place in the army and conferred a village upon Baybars....
-
Qūwat-ul-Islām mosque (mosque, Delhi, India)
...of Islāmic architecture to survive in the subcontinent date from the closing years of the 12th century; they are located at Delhi, the main seat of Muslim power throughout the centuries. The Qūwat-ul-Islām mosque (completed 1196), consisting of cloisters around a courtyard with the sanctuary to the west, was built from the remains of demolished temples. In 1198 an arched......
-
Quwatli, Shukri al- (president of Syria)
statesman who led the anticolonialist movement in Syria and became the nation’s first president....
-
quwwas (Islamic official)
...ceased to exist, especially since the passing of the Ottoman Empire, although in the latter part of the 20th century many embassies in the Arab world still employed an interpreter-courier known as a kavass (Turkish kavas; Arabic qawwās), used largely for ceremonial purposes....
-
Quxian (China)
city, western Zhejiang sheng (province), China. Quzhou has been a natural transportation centre since ancient times, being situated on the upper stream of the Fuchun River—there known as the Changshan River—at its confluence with the Wuxi River. Natural routes lead westward into Jiangxi p...
-
quxiang (musical instrument)
The direct ancestor of the contemporary pipa is the quxiang (“curved-neck”) pipa, which traveled from Persia by way of the Silk Road and reached western China in the 4th century ad. It had a pear-shaped wooden body with two crescent-shaped sound holes, a curved neck, four strings, and four frets. In performa...
-
quxiang pipa (musical instrument)
The direct ancestor of the contemporary pipa is the quxiang (“curved-neck”) pipa, which traveled from Persia by way of the Silk Road and reached western China in the 4th century ad. It had a pear-shaped wooden body with two crescent-shaped sound holes, a curved neck, four strings, and four frets. In performa...
-
Quyunjik (acropolis, Iraq)
...British Museum and discovered the site of the palace of Ashurnasirpal II. In 1931–32, together with M.E.L. (later Sir Max) Mallowan, Thompson for the first time dug a shaft from the top of the Quyunjik (Acropolis), 90 feet (30 metres) above the level of the plain, down through strata of accumulated debris of earlier cultures to virgin soil. It was then proved that more than four-fifths o...
-
Quzhou (China)
city, western Zhejiang sheng (province), China. Quzhou has been a natural transportation centre since ancient times, being situated on the upper stream of the Fuchun River—there known as the Changshan River—at its confluence with the Wuxi River. Natural routes lead westward into Jiangxi p...
-
Qwaqwa (region, South Africa)
former nonindependent Bantustan, Orange Free State, South Africa, designated for the southern Sotho (often called Basuto) people. Located in a section of the Drakensberg, Qwaqwa was a glen among mountains at elevations from 5,500 feet to more than 10,000 feet (1,675 m to more than 3,050 m). It was a headwaters area for several streams, including the upper Elan...
-
Qyrghyz Range (mountains, Asia)
...Valley on the west by the Fergana Range, running southeast to northwest, which merges into the Chatkal Range. The Chatkal Range is linked to the Ysyk-Köl region by a final enclosing range, the Kyrgyz. The only other important lowlands in the country are the Chu and Talas river valleys in the north, with the capital, Bishkek, located in the Chu. The country’s lowland areas, though ...
-
Qyzylorda (Kazakstan)
city, south-central Kazakhstan, on the Syr Darya (river). Originally founded in the early 19th century as the Kokand fort of Ak-Mechet, it was renamed Perovsk after its capture by the Russians in 1853. After the Russian Revolution of 1917 the name of Ak-Mechet was restored, but in 1925 the city was renamed Kzyl-Orda, when it became the capital of the Kazakh A.S.S.R., a status that it lost to Alma-...
-
Qyzylorda (oblast, Kazakstan)
...industrialized areas, such as Qaraghandy province, because Soviet authorities never seriously made environmental protection a high priority. In the vicinity of the Aral Sea, and especially in Qyzylorda (Kzyl-Orda) and Aqtöbe provinces, Kazakhs suffer from the pollution and salinization of the sea. Its waters are contaminated with pesticides, especially DDT, and with chemical......
-
Qyzylqum (desert, Central Asia)
desert in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. It has an area of about 115,000 square miles (about 300,000 square km) and lies between the Syr Darya and the Amu Darya (rivers), southeast of the Aral Sea. It consists of a plain sloping down toward the northwest, with a number of isolated bare mountains rising to 3,025 feet (922 m) and several large enclosed basins. Precipitation, 4–8 inches (100...
We welcome your comments. Any revisions or updates suggested for this article will be reviewed by our editorial staff. Contact us here.
Regular users of Britannica may notice that this comments feature is less robust than in the past. This is only temporary, while we make the transition to a dramatically new and richer site. The functionality of the system will be restored soon.