Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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Aguarico River ... Ahmadiyah

Aguarico River: river, northeastern Ecuador, rising south of Tulcan, in the Andes mountains near the Ecuador-Colombia border, and flowing east-southeast for approximately 230 miles (370 km) to its juncture with the Rio Napo at Pantoja. It is navigable for smaller boats. The ...
Aguascalientes: city, capital of Aguascalientes state, central Mexico. It stands on the central plateau at 6,194 ft (1,888 m) above sea level, on the left bank of the Rio de Aguascalientes. Founded as a mining settlement in 1575 and designated a ...
Aguascalientes: state, central Mexico. One of the country's smallest states (2,112 square miles [5,471 square km]), it occupies part of the central plateau between 3,300 and 10,000 feet (1,000 and 3,000 metres) above sea level, extending from two spurs of the ...
Aguesseau, Henri-Francois d': jurist who, as chancellor of France during most of the period from 1717 to 1750, made important reforms in his country's legal system.
Aguilar, Grace: poet, novelist, and writer on Jewish history and religion, best known for her numerous sentimental novels of domestic life, especially for Home Influence (1847) and The Mother's Recompense (1851).
Aguinaldo, Emilio: Filipino leader who fought first against Spain and later against the United States for the independence of the Philippines.
Aguirre, Lope de: Spanish adventurer who is known chiefly for his role in the murders of the explorers Pedro de Ursua and Fernando de Guzman.
Agulhas Current: surface oceanic current that is part of the westward-flowing South Equatorial Current, which turns southward along the east coast of Africa and then eastward to join the flow from Africa to Australia. A small part of Agulhas water may, however, ...
Agulhas, Cape: cape that is the southernmost point of the African continent, located 109 miles (176 km) southeast of Cape Town, S.Af. Its name, Portuguese for "needles," refers to the rocks and reefs that have wrecked many ships. A lighthouse was established ...
agunah: in Orthodox and Conservative Judaism, a woman who is presumed to be widowed but who cannot remarry because evidence of her husband's death does not satisfy legal requirements. The plight of the agunah has generated voluminous and complex treatment in ...
Agung: third sultan of the Mataram dynasty of central Java who brought his domain to its greatest territorial and military power.
Agung, Abulfatah: ruler of the powerful Javanese sultanate of Bantam from 1651 to 1683.
Agung, Mount: volcano, northeastern Bali, Indonesia. The highest point in Bali and the object of traditional veneration, it rises to a height of 9,888 feet (3,014 m). In 1963 it erupted after being dormant for 120 years; some 1,600 people were killed ...
Agusan River: longest river in Mindanao, Philippines. It rises in the southeast and flows northward for 240 miles (390 km) to enter Butuan Bay of the Bohol Sea. The river forms a fertile valley 40 to 50 miles (65-80 km) wide between ...
Agustin, Jose: Mexican novelist whose prolific writings, reflecting an urban sensibility and the modern culture of youth, highlight urban violence and decay.
Agustini, Delmira: one of the most important poets of South America.
Ah Kin: (Mayan: "He of the Sun"), the regular clergy of the Yucatec Maya in pre-Columbian times. The Ah Kin are best known historically for their performance in the ritual sacrifice of victims, whose hearts were offered to the Mayan gods. The ...
Aha Of Shabha: prominent Babylonian Talmudist who is the first rabbinical writer known to history after the close of the Talmud.
Ahab: seventh king of the northern kingdom of Israel (reigned c. 874-c. 853 BC), according to the Old Testament, and son of King Omri.
Ahad Ha'am: Zionist leader whose concepts of Hebrew culture had a definitive influence on the objectives of the early Jewish settlement in Palestine.
Ahaggar: large plateau in the north centre of the Sahara, on the Tropic of Cancer, North Africa. Its height is above 3,000 feet (900 m), culminating in Mount Tahat (9,573 feet [2,918 m]) in southeastern Algeria. The plateau, about 965 miles ...
ahankara: ("I-saying," or "I-making"), in the dualist and evolutionist Samkhya school of Hindu philosophy, the second stage of development of the prakriti, the original stuff of material nature, which evolves into the manifest world.
Ahaz: king of Judah (c. 735-720 BC) who became an Assyrian vassal (2 Kings 16; Isaiah 7-8).
Ahenobarbus, Gnaeus Domitius: Roman general who became one of the chief partisans of Mark Antony after Antony defeated the assassins of Julius Caesar.
Ahenobarbus, Lucius Domitius: a leader of the Optimates (conservative senatorial aristocracy) in the last years of the Roman Republic.
Ahern, Bertie: prime minister (taoiseach) of Ireland from June 1997.
Ahhiyawa: ancient kingdom lying to the west of the Hittite empire. The exact location of Ahhiyawa is not definitely known but may have been western Anatolia or one of the islands in the Aegean Sea. The most commonly held theory is ...
Ahidjo, Ahmadou: first president of the United Republic of Cameroon, who served from 1960 to 1982. He presided over one of the few successful attempts at supraterritorial African unity: the joining of the southern half of the former British Cameroons with the ...
Ahikar, The Story of: folktale of Babylonian or Persian origin, about a wise and moral man who supposedly served as one of the chief counselors of Sennacherib, king of Assyria (704-681 BC). Like the biblical Job, Ahikar was a prototype of the just man ...
ahimsa: ("noninjury"), the fundamental ethical virtue of the Jains of India, highly respected throughout the centuries by Hindus and Buddhists as well. In modern times, Mahatma Gandhi, the famous spiritual and political leader, developed his theory of passive resistance as a ...
Ahir: cattle-tending caste widespread in northern and central India. Considerable historical interest attaches to this caste, because its members are thought to be identical with the Abhiras of Sanskrit literature, who are mentioned repeatedly in the great epic the Mahabharata. Some ...
Ahithophel: in the Old Testament, one of King David's most trusted advisers. He took a leading part in the revolt of David's son Absalom, and Ahithophel's defection was a severe blow to David. Having consulted Ahithophel about his plans to proceed ...
Ahl al-Bayt: designation in Islam for the holy family of the Prophet Muhammad, particularly his daughter Fatimah, her husband 'Ali (who was also Muhammad's cousin), and their descendants.
Ahl al-Kitab: (Arabic: "People of the Book"), in Islamic thought, those religionists such as Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians who are possessors of divine books (i.e., the Torah, the Gospel, and the Avesta), as distinguished from those whose religions are not based on ...
Ahl-e Haqq: (Arabic: "People of Truth," or "People of God"), a secret, syncretistic religion, derived largely from Islam, whose adherents are found in western Iran, with enclaves in Iraq. They retain the 12 imams of the Ithna 'Ashariyah sect and such aspects ...
Ahlfors, Lars Valerian: Finnish mathematician who was awarded one of the first two Fields Medals in 1936 for his work with Riemann surfaces. He also won the Wolf Prize in 1981.
Ahlin, Lars: influential Swedish novelist of the mid-20th century.
Ahmad: 10th ruler of the Husaynid dynasty of Tunisia.
Ahmad al-Mansur: sixth ruler of the Sa'di dynasty, which he raised to its zenith of power by his policy of centralization and astute diplomacy. Al-Mansur resisted the demands of his nominal suzerain, the Ottoman sultan, by playing off the European powers, namely, ...
Ahmad Baba: jurist, writer, and a cultural leader of the western Sudan.
Ahmad Gran: leader of a Muslim movement that all but subjugated Ethiopia. At the height of his conquest, he held more than three-quarters of the kingdom, and, according to the chronicles, the majority of men in these conquered areas had converted to ...
Ahmad ibn Hanbal: Muslim theologian, jurist, and martyr for his faith. He was the compiler of the Traditions of the Prophet Muhammad (Musnad) and formulator of the Hanbali, the most strictly traditionalist of the four orthodox Islamic schools of law. His doctrine influenced ...
Ahmad ibn Tulun: the founder of the Tulunid dynasty in Egypt, and the first Muslim governor of Egypt to annex Syria.
Ahmad ibn Tulun, Mosque of: huge and majestic red brick building complex built in 876 by the Turkish governor of Egypt and Syria. It was built on the site of present-day Cairo and includes a mosque surrounded by three outer ziyadahs, or courtyards. Much of ...
Ahmad Khan, Sir Sayyid: Muslim educator, jurist, and author, founder of the Anglo-Mohammedan Oriental College at Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, India, and the principal motivating force behind the revival of Indian Islam in the late 19th century. His works, in Urdu, include Essays on the ...
Ahmad Musa: painter active at the court of the Il Khans at Tabriz. He is said to have learned painting from his father and to have "drawn the veil from the face of painting and invented the art of the Persian miniature." ...
Ahmad Shah: ineffectual Mughal emperor of India from 1748 to 1754, who has been characterized as a "good-natured imbecile," without personality, training, or qualities of leadership. He was entirely dominated by others, including the queen mother, Udham Bai, and the eunuch superintendent ...
Ahmad Shah Durrani: founder of the state of Afghanistan and ruler of an empire that extended from the Amu Darya to the Indian Ocean and from Khorasan into Kashmir, the Punjab, and Sind. Head of the central government, with full control of all ...
Ahmad Sirhindi, Shaykh: Indian mystic and theologian who was largely responsible for the reassertion and revival in India of orthodox Sunnite Islam as a reaction against the syncretistic religious tendencies prevalent during the reign of the Mughal emperor Akbar.
Ahmadi, Al-: town, southern Kuwait. The oasis town was built after 1946 with the development of the oil field in which it is located. Al-Ahmadi is the headquarters of the Kuwait Oil Company. Pipelines link it with Mina' (port) al-Ahmadi, on the ...
Ahmadiyah: a modern Islamic sect and the generic name for various Sufi (Muslim mystic) orders. The sect was founded in Qadian, the Punjab, India, in 1889 by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (c. 1839-1908), who claimed to be the mahdi (a figure expected ...