text:
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Persiana Jones

Persiana Jones

 * Delete. Non-Wikified six word dictdef. KeyStroke 11:57, 2004 Oct 15 (UTC)
 * Delete unless usefully expanded. If this rock band has any notability, we should at least be given the name of their record label and albums. Average Earthman 12:16, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete. They seem to have some albums and Google finds them, but it's hard to evaluate their notability because nearly all material seems to be in Italian. I'm willing to change my vote, if this gets expanded into a proper article before VfD expires and some proof of notability can be found. If it stays as a six word substub, it can go. jni 12:24, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete. roozbeh 13:18, Oct 15, 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete - this could probably go as a speedy, couldn't it? Barneyboo 13:26, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Weak keep. Actually seems to be a fairly popular, long-running (since 1988) band . However, the current substub is useless.   — Gwalla | Talk 20:54, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Useless substub. Delete without prejudice unless expanded. anthony (see warning) 16:48, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete --ScottyBoy900Q ∞ 19:54, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete Sjc 11:48, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)


text:
St Ninian's High School, Giffnock

St Ninian's High School is a six-year co-educational Roman Catholic state high school in Giffnock, East Renfrewshire, Scotland. The school, which opened in 1984, serves Giffnock, Clarkston, Thornliebank, Newton Mearns, Eaglesham, Netherlee, Waterfoot, Netherplace, Millhall and Busby in East Renfrewshire. The school roll was 1,714 as of September 2005, and the head teacher is Gerry O’Neil. The school's motto is "Floreat Iuventus" which translates as "Let youth flourish".

History
Between 2000 and 2002, a multi-million pound extension was built for the school (which was originally designed to hold only 700 pupils). The extension had been scheduled for years earlier (and completion by 1999 at the latest) however problems with the PFI tender for another local school project caused years of delay. Another extension was completed in 2009.

In 2008, the school was given the best inspection report which at that time had been given to a Scottish secondary school, seven "excellents" and 10 "very goods".

The school was the first public-sector organisation to win the 'Quality Scotland' business excellence award;

It was the first state-funded school in Scotland to abandon the Standard Grade examination system in favour of the Higher Still system, using Access 3, Intermediate 1 and Intermediate 2 for pupils in third and fourth year, while maintaining "Highers" in fifth year and Advanced Highers in S6.

Notable alumni

 * Kenny Boyle, actor, playwright, and author
 * Andrew Robertson, footballer currently playing for Premier League club Liverpool and captain of the Scotland national team
 * John Spencer, retired footballer who played for Chelsea, Rangers and Motherwell
 * James McArdle, actor
 * Aiden McGeady, footballer currently playing for Ayr United and the Republic of Ireland
 * Calum Gallagher, footballer currently playing for Airdrieonians
 * Liam Lindsay, footballer currently playing for Preston North End
 * Lewis Smith, footballer currently playing for Hamilton Academical

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: St Ninian's High School, Giffnock


text:
Fair Warning (Van Halen album)

Fair Warning is the fourth studio album by American rock band Van Halen. Released on April 29, 1981, by Warner Bros. Records, the album peaked at number 5 on the Billboard 200, while the single "So This Is Love?" failed to reach Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number 110 on the Bubbling-Under list. The album sold more than two million copies in the United States, but was still the band's slowest-selling album of the David Lee Roth era. Despite the album's commercially disappointing sales, Fair Warning was met with mostly positive reviews from critics. It was listed by Esquire as one of the "75 Albums Every Man Should Own".

Packaging
The album's cover artwork features a detail from The Maze, a painting by Canadian artist William Kurelek, which depicts his tortured youth.

The album's cover artwork is accompanied by an insert of a black-and-white portrait of the members of the band, in addition to another black-and-white photo of an exterior wall featuring cracked windows and a lyric from the album's opening song "Mean Street" in handwritten graffiti. This second photo was taken by famed rock photographer Neil Zlozower.

Critical reception
The Village Voice's Robert Christgau rated Fair Warning a B−, signifying "a competent or mildly interesting record usually featuring at least three worthwhile cuts." It featured "not just Eddie's latest sound effects, but a few good jokes along with the mean ones and a rhythm section that can handle punk speed emotionally and technically." He also explained "at times Eddie could even be said to play an expressive – lyrical? – role. Of course, what he's expressing is hard to say. Technocracy putting a patina on cynicism".

A retrospective review by AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine found the album fairly positive. In the review, he initially stated "it's a dark, strange beast, partially because it lacks any song as purely fun as the hits from the first three records" and "whatever the reason, Fair Warning winds up as a dark, dirty, nasty piece of work [...] Dull it is not and Fair Warning contains some of the fiercest, hardest music Van Halen ever made. There's little question Eddie Van Halen won whatever internal skirmishes they had, [...] even with the lack of a single dedicated instrumental showcase."

The Rolling Stone Album Guide, however, gave the album two-and-a-half stars out of five, stating that "the most significant musical development is the synthesizer introduced at the end of Fair Warning, which would be exploited to greater effect on later albums."

Van Halen

 * David Lee Roth – lead vocals
 * Eddie Van Halen – guitar, synthesizers, backing vocals
 * Michael Anthony – bass guitar, backing vocals
 * Alex Van Halen – drums

Production

 * Pete Angelus – cover design
 * Chris Bellman – remastering
 * Gregg Geller – remastering
 * Greg Gorman – photography, inlay photos
 * William Kurelek – cover artwork, from The Maze
 * Donn Landee – engineer
 * Gene Meros – engineer
 * Jo Motta – project coordinator
 * Richard Seireeni – art direction
 * Ted Templeman – producer
 * Neil Zlozower – photography

title: Fair Warning (Van Halen album)


text:
Talk:St Ninian's High School, Giffnock

Untitled
from VfD:

Non-notable school. Dunc|☺ 12:00, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete. Non-notable. jni 12:12, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Extremely weak keep. Slight notability. jni 05:32, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep. The school is notable within Scotland for the following achievements:
 * First public sector organisation to receive the 'Quality Scotland' business excellence award
 * First state-funded school to abandon the Standard Grade examination system
 * First state-funded school to use the electronic version of the UCAS application system

These were not in the original article but have now been added Cynical 12:13, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)

 * Very, very weak keep. Other high schools should still be deleted. Wyllium 12:43, 2004 Oct 15 (UTC)
 * Keep - seems to be slightly more notable than most school articles. Barneyboo 13:03, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Weak keep: it is properly named and outlines (slight) notability. Geogre 14:18, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Weak keep. While I hate to suggest that a stub on VfD should be shortened, the paragraph that points out that it has classrooms and a cafeteria probably obscures why the school is notable.  I did add a see also for Saint Ninian, to answer one obvious question.  Smerdis of Tlön 14:26, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * K I would remove the electronic UCAS bit, and restructure the details of the extension (it doesn't need more height than the achievements). PFI is highly controversial, and it's not currently common amongst school improvement programmes.  It still needs expansion though.  They abandoned the Standards, but what did they pick up in their place? Chris 15:30, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Access 3, Intermediate 1 and Intermediate 2 (all part of the new Higher Still system)--Cynical 16:11, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep. Schools are notable. anthony (see warning) 16:49, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

 * Keep. Mark Richards 18:00, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

end moved discussion

title: Talk:St Ninian's High School, Giffnock


text:
User talk:Agoago

Your question about an old account
If you can remember one of the articles that you edited, your username should be on the history. The logon page has a button for recovering your password (assuming that your email has stayed the same). You should be able to get any edits done under this account attributed to the old one. [[User:Noisy|Noisy | Talk]] 12:01, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)

title: User talk:Agoago


text:
Talk:Lithium, Missouri

Untitled
How is it possible for this "place" to have 0 people and 0 km2 area???

i know this town and it is true there is no mistake. it is small and run down and I don't think anyone lives in town because you could kick a stone from one end of town to the other. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.43.141.203 (talk) 01:48, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I've heard this can happen when a location becomes strictly a commercial site where no one lives. It can also happen because of a Census mistake. Perhaps the Census Bureau has discretion if it anticipates a place may repopulate. The zero area leads me to believe it may be a mistake. Catbar (Brian Rock) 23:43, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)

 * I visited this village 12 March 2024 and there was a town park with playground equipment and a recently dated shelter. This was surrounded by occupied houses and a group of 8 house trailers.  Farmed fields with occupied farm houses were seen up to the edges of the former village center.  I could not accurately assess the population. Juhlemann (talk) 19:41, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

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Hanif

In Islam, a  (حنيف; plural: حنفاء, ), meaning "renunciate", is someone who maintains the pure monotheism of the patriarch Abraham. More specifically, in Islamic thought, renunciates were the people who, during the pre-Islamic period or, were seen to have renounced idolatry and retained some or all of the tenets of the religion of Abraham (إبراهيم, ), which was submission to God in its purest form. The word is found twelve times in the Quran (ten times in its singular form and twice in the plural form) and Islamic tradition tells of a number of individuals who were. According to Muslim tradition, Muhammad himself was a and a descendant of Ishmael, son of Abraham.

Etymology and history of the term
The term comes from the Arabic root  meaning "to incline, to decline" or "to turn or bend sideways" from the Syriac root of the different meaning “to deceive, to turn pagan, to lead into paganism”. The Syriac word refers to pagans and deceivers. The Arabic is defined as "true believer, orthodox; one who scorns the false creeds surrounding him/her and profess the true religion" by The Arabic-English Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic.

According to Francis Edward Peters, in verse of the Quran it has been translated as "upright person" and outside the Quran as "to incline towards a right state or tendency". According to W. Montgomery Watt, it appears to have been used earlier by Jews and Christians in reference to "pagans" and applied to followers of an old Hellenized Syrian and Arabian religion and used to taunt early Muslims.

Michael Cook states "its exact sense is obscure" but the Quran "uses it in contexts suggestive of a pristine monotheism, which it tends to contrast with (latter-day) Judaism and Christianity". In the Quran is associated "strongly with Abraham, but never with Moses or Jesus". The unique association of ḥanīf with Abraham underscores his foundational role in the development of monotheistic faith and his exemplary status in the Islamic tradition.

Oxford Islamic Studies online defines as "one who is utterly upright in all of his or her affairs, as exemplified by the model of Abraham"; and that prior to the arrival of Islam "the term was used [...] to designate pious people who accepted monotheism but did not join the Jewish or Christian communities."

Others translate  as the law of Ibrahim; the verb  as "to turn away from [idolatry]". Others maintain that the followed the "religion of Ibrahim, the, the Muslim[.]" It has been theorized by Watt that the verbal term Islam, arising from the participle form of Muslim (meaning "surrendered to God"), may have only arisen as an identifying descriptor for the religion in the late Medinan period.

List of
According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, "some of Muḥammad's relatives, contemporaries, and early supporters were called " – examples including Waraqah ibn Nawfal, "a cousin of the Prophet’s first wife, Khadija bint Khuwaylid, and Umayyah ibn Abī aṣ-Ṣalt, "an early 7th-century Arab poet".

According to the website "In the Name of Allah", the term is used "twelve times in the Quran", but Abraham/Ibrahim is "the only person to have been explicitly identified with the term." He is mentioned "in reference to" eight times in the Quran.

Among those who, pre traditional Islamic belief, are thought to be are:

 * All the prophets and messengers after Abraham according to Islamic tradition
 * Old Najranites
 * Seven Sleepers
 * Sa'id bin Zayd
 * Khaled bin Sinan
 * Hashim ibn Abd Manaf

The four friends in Mecca from ibn Ishaq's account:

 * Zayd ibn Amr: rejected both Judaism and Christianity
 * Waraqah ibn Nawfal: was an Nestorian priest and patrilineal third cousin to Muhammad. He died before Muhammad declared his Prophethood.
 * Uthman ibn al-Huwayrith: travelled to the Byzantine Empire and converted to Christianity
 * Ubayd-Allah ibn Jahsh: early Muslim convert who emigrated to the Kingdom of Aksum.

opponents of Islam from Ibn Isḥāq's account:

 * Abū 'Amar 'Abd Amr ibn Sayfī: a leader of the tribe of Banu Aws at Medina and builder of the "Mosque of the Schism" mentioned in the Quranic verse and later allied with the Quraysh then moved to Ta'if and onto Syria after subsequent early Muslim conquests.
 * Abu Qays ibn al-Aslaṭ

Historicity
According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, "there is no evidence that a true cult existed in pre-Islāmic Arabia".

A Greek source from the fifth century CE, The Ecclesiastical History of Sozomen, speaks of how "Abraham had bequeathed a monotheist religion" to Arabs, that the Arabs descended "from Ishmael and Hagar" and followed Jewish practices such as not eating pork. No archaeological evidence has been found to support the idea that Abraham was a real person, and most scholars do not consider the Book of Genesis to be an accurate history.

Sozomen was a historian of the Christian Church who is thought to have been a native of Gaza whose native tongue was Arabic and who lived from about 400-450 CE. Thus according to Ibn Rawandi, he provides a "reliable source" that Arabs – at least in northwest Arabia – were familiar with the idea there were pre-Islamic "Abrahamic monotheists [...] whether this was true of Arabs throughout the [Arabian] peninsula it is impossible to say".

title: Hanif


text:
Shaki, Azerbaijan

Shaki (Şəki, ) is a city in northwestern Azerbaijan, surrounded by the district of the same name. It is located in the southern part of the Greater Caucasus mountain range, 240 km from Baku. As of 2020, it has a population of 68,400. The center of the city and the Palace of Shaki Khans were inscribed in the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2019 because of their unique architecture and history as an important trading center along the Silk Road.

Etymology
According to the Azerbaijani historians, the name of the town goes back to the ethnonym of the Sakas, who reached the territory of modern-day Azerbaijan in the 7th century B.C. and populated it for several centuries. In the medieval sources, the name of the town is found in various forms such as Sheke, Sheki, Shaka, Shakki, Shakne, Shaken, Shakkan, Shekin.

The city was known as Nukha (Nuxa; Нуха) until 1968.

Antiquity
There are traces of large-scale settlements in Shaki dating back to more than 2700 years ago. The Sakas were an Iranian people that wandered from the north side of the Black Sea through Derbend passage and to the South Caucasus and from there to Asia Minor in the 7th century B.C. They occupied a good deal of the fertile lands in South Caucasus in an area called Sakasena. The city of Shaki was one of the areas occupied by the Sakas. The original settlement dates back to the late Bronze Age.

Shaki was founded in the 8th century B.C. Shaki was one of the biggest cities of the Caucasian Albanian states in the 1st century. The kingdom of Shaki was divided into 11 administrative provinces. The main temple of the ancient Albanians was located there. The Albanians adopted Christianity early from the Armenians, and Armenian cultural and religious influence became strong in Shaki.

As a result of archaeological excavations conducted in 1902 in the village of Boyuk-Dakhna in the Shaki region, various ceramic products and a stone tombstone dating back to the 2nd century AD and containing inscriptions in Greek were discovered.

Shaki was one of the important political and economic cities before the Arab invasion. But as a result of the invasion in 654, Shaki was annexed to the third emirate of Arminiya. At the turn of the 9th century, when the Arab caliphate was weak, Shaki joined with Cambysene and was ruled by the Armenian Smbatean princes as part of the independent principality of Shaki or Hereti, a vassal of the Armenian Bagratid kingdom. The population was mostly of Armenian origin and Armenian-speaking. The first Armenian prince of Shaki was Sahl Smbatean, who ruled with relative autonomy from the Abbasid Caliphate. By the 10th century, the Arab geographer, Ibn Haukal mentions that Shaki was ruled by the Armenian prince Prince Ishkhanik. From 1038 to 1105, the Armenian Kiurikian dynasty ruled Shaki as part of the Kingdom of Kakheti-Hereti. In 1117, the region was captured by the army of the Georgian king David IV.

The city was also ruled by the Atabegs of Azerbaijan and the Khwarazmian Empire, before the Mongol invasion.

Feudal era
In the 13th and 14th centuries, the territory of the present Shaki district was a part of the state of Shirvanshahs. Management of Shaki was entrusted to the son of Rashid al-Din Hamadani – Jalat In the 30s of the 14th century, the local Oirat tribe took power. After the collapse of the Hulagu Khan's rule in the first half of the 14th century, Shaki gained independence under the rule of Sidi Ahmed Orlat. In 1392, Emir Timur captured Shaki, and the ruler of Shaki, Seyid Ali, was killed. Seyid Ali's son, Seyid Ahmed, who came to power, along with Shirvanshah Ibrahim I Derbendi, accompanied Timur on his third campaign against Azerbaijan in 1399. In 1444, Shaki, then known as Nukhi, was ruled by a Muslim family of Armenian origin whose reign lasted till 1551. In the early 1500s, Safavid king Ismail I (r. 1501–1524) conquered the area, but the town continued to be governed by its hereditary rulers, under Safavid suzerainty.

Ismail's son and successor Shah Tahmasp (r. 1524–1576) put an end to this, and in 1551, he appointed the first Qizilbash governor to rule the town. The territory was annexed to the Safavid dynasty as the independent Sheki beylerbey reigned by Toygun-bey Qajar. Safavid rule was twice briefly interrupted by the Ottomans between 1578 and 1603 and 1724–1735. In 1734-1735, there was a revolt of poor people against the policy of Nadir Shah in the village of Bilecik (Shaki)

In 1741, there was another uprising against the local ruler, Melik Najaf. Appointed by Nadir Shah, Haji Chelebi, who claimed descent from the hereditary Muslim-Armenian rulers of the province, announced the formation of an independent Sheki khanate in 1743. Upon learning of this, Nadir Shah Afshar sent his army to Shaki. Haji Chelebi took refuge in the fortress of Gelesen-Geresen. In 1746, Haji Celebi was forced to recognize the authority of Nadir Shah. However, new uprisings and the death of Nadir Shah allowed Haji Chelebi to re-declare himself Khan During the existence of Shaki khanate, the local population of the city was engaged in silkworm breeding, craft and trade. As a result of a flood in the river Kish, the city of Shaki was partially ruined and the population was resettled in the present day city.

In alliance with the Shamakhi Khan, in 1748 Haji Chelebi attempted to besiege the Bayat fortress. The defeat in the battle of Bayat, which lasted for a month, had been a serious setback for allies.

The Jaro-Balakan Jamaat, Qabala and Ares sultanates were dependent on the Shaki khanate

In 1751, Haji Chelebi defeated the army of the Kakheti king Heraclius II. At the initiative of Heraclius II, a political conspiracy of the Kakheti Kingdom, the Karabakh, Ganja, Irevan, Nakhichevan, and Karadag khanates against the Shaki khan was arranged. In 1752, in the area of Kyzylgaya, Georgian troops unexpectedly attacked the khans: they were captured. Haji Celebi himself defeated the Georgians in the battle near Ganja and came to the aid of the khans. The army of Shaki khan captured Gazakh and Borchali.

In 1767, the Western part of the Shamakhi khanate was annexed to the Shaki khanate.

In 1785, the Shaki khanate became dependent on the Guba khanate. However, this did not last long: after the death of Fatali khan of Guba, the Shaki khanate regained its independence.

During the reign of Selim khan, the territory of the khanate was conditionally divided into 8 magals, which were ruled by naibs directly appointed by the khan himself.

On May 21, 1805, the treaty of Kyurekchay was signed between Russia and the Shaki khanate, the main condition of which was the annexation of the Shaki khanate to Russia. In 1806, the Russian army moved to Shaki. Selim khan was removed from positions of power. A temporary Board of Pro-Russian beks was created.

Modern era
The area was fully annexed by Russia by the Treaty of Gulistan in 1813 and the khanate was abolished in 1819 and the Shaki province was established in its place. Shaki province was merged with provinces of Shemakha, Baku, Susha, Lankaran, Derbent and Kuban in 1840 and Caspian Oblast was created. At the same time Shaki was renamed as Nuha. The oblast was dissolved in 1846 and it was raion center of Shemakha Governorate. After the earthquake in Shemakha in 1859, the governorate was renamed as Baku Governorate. On 19 February 1868, raion of Nukha was passed to the newly created Elizavetpol Governorate as the Nukha uezd. After founding of USSR, it was the center of Nukha raion. Its one was abolished on 4 January 1963 and was bounded to one of Vartashen. Nukha one was founded again in 1965 and finally, city and raion regained traditional name in 1968.

During its history, the town saw devastation many times and because of that, the oldest historic and architectural monuments currently preserved are dated to only the 16th–19th centuries. For many centuries, Shaki had a large Armenian community and has been famous for being the center of silkworm-breeding and local silk production. Originally located on the left bank of the river Kish, the town sat lower down the hill, however Shaki was moved to its present location after a devastating flood in 1772 and became the capital of Shaki Khanate. As the new location was near the village of Nukha, the city also became known as Nukha, until 1968 when it reverted to the name Shaki.

In 1829, the Khanabad factory was opened in Shaki. The products of the Nukha silk-winding factory, which opened in 1861, were awarded a medal in London in 1862. The Shaki uprising of 1838 had an impact on the administrative, judicial, and agrarian reforms of the 1840s.

In 1917, Soviets of Workers' deputies were formed in a number of cities of Azerbaijan, including Shaki.

In May 1920, Soviet power was established in Shaki, as well as in other cities of Azerbaijan.

In 1930, an uprising against the policy of collectivization in the Azerbaijan SSR broke out in the village of Bash Goynyuk in the Shaki district. The Soviet regime was abolished. Soon, Red Army units moved into the city. The rebels were subject to execution.

Republic era
A letter from the Chairman of the Kyoto City Council, Daisaku Kadokawa, on 8 December 2008, said that Sheki was a member of the World Historical Cities League. Sheki became a member after the meeting of the Board of the World Cities League in October 2008.

Works to be done in the field of renovation and construction in 2012 were identified: Together with Sheki City Executive Authority and Architectural Urbanization Committee, Shaki City General Plan was prepared. According to the General Plan, it was planned to implement a number of infrastructure projects, as well as the expansion of the city to the west, inclusion of city of Oxud, İncə, Shaki, Kish, and Qoxmuq villages to Shaki.

Geography
Shaki is surrounded by snowy peaks of the Greater Caucasus, which in some places reaches 3000–3600 m. Shaki's climate includes a range of cyclones and anticyclones, air masses and local winds. The average annual temperature in Shaki is 12 °C. In June and August, the average temperature varies between 20 and 25 °C.

The mountain forests around the area prevent the city from floods and overheating of the area during summer. The main rivers of the city are the Kish and Gurjhana. During the Soviet rule of Azerbaijan, many ascended to Shaki to bathe in its prestigious mineral springs.

Climate
Shaki's climate is humid temperate, classified as Cfa in Köppen climate classification and Do in Trewartha climate classification.

Demographics
According to the 1917 publication of the Caucasian Calendar, Shaki, then known as Nukha, had a population of 52,243 in 1916, including 33,813 Sunni Muslims (64.7%), 9,588 Shia Muslims (18.4%), and 8,009 Armenians (15.3%).

The number of Shaki population is 174.1 thousand people. Including, the rural population is 105.7 thousand people, while the urban population is 66.9 thousand people. Population density is 72 people per 1 square kilometer. Of the total population, 86.4 thousand or 49.6% of men, 87.7 thousand or 50.4% are women. 38.4 percent of the population lives in the city and 61.6 percent lives in the village.

Religion
A home to ancient Caucasian Albanian churches, religion is highly important to the people of Shaki due to its historical religious diversity. There are many churches and mosques in the city. Some churches such as the Church of Kish in the vicinity of Shaki are thought to be approximately 1,500 years old. The Khan's Mosque, Omar Efendi Mosque and Gileili Minaret are considered important places of worship in the city.

Economy
During 1850–70, Shaki became international silk production centre. More than 200 European companies opened offices in the city, while silkworms to the tune of 3 million roubles were sold to them in a year.

Shaki possesses a small silk industry and relies on its agricultural sector, which produces tobacco, grapes, cattle, nuts, cereals and milk. The main production facilities of Shaki are the silk factory, gas-power plant, brick factory, wine factory, sausage factory, conserve factory, and a dairy plant with its integrated big scale Pedigree Dairy Farm.

Tourism and shopping
In 2010, Shaki was visited by 15,000 foreign tourists from all around the world.

Culture
Shaki has one of the greatest density of cultural resources and monuments that include 2700 years of Azerbaijani history. The city boasts a lot of houses with red roofs. In pop culture, probably the most famous feature of Shakinians are their nice sense of humor and comic tales. Shaki's comic tales hero Hacı dayı (Uncle Haji) is the subject of nearly all jokes in the area.

Shaki has always played a central role in Azerbaijani art and more generally in the art and architecture of Azerbaijan. Under the name of Nukha, the city is the scene of much of the action in Brecht's play The Caucasian Chalk Circle.

In the second half of the 19th century. Nukha was ranked second in terms of trade and industry development. New types of city and county schools were created.

According to the Resolution of the Council of Ministers of the Azerbaijani SSR No. 97 of March 6, 1968, the "Yukhary Bash" area in Nukha was declared an architectural reserve.

In 1975, the construction of the drama theater building was completed in Shaki.

In 1983, the Shaki craft Museum opened.

Architecture

Architecture in Shaki has largely been shaped by Shaki's history. It goes back to a time, when it was a market center on the Silk Road, linking Dagestan, Russia to the northern trade routes through the Caucasus.

The city's central and main open city squares are dominated by two Soviet towers. Many public places and private houses in Shaki are decorated with shebeke, a wooden lattice of pieces of coloured glass, held together without glue or a single nail. The technique is complex and known only to a few artisans who pass their meticulous craft from generation to generation.

The Palace of Shaki Khans which was a summer residence of Shaki Khans, still remains one of the most visible landmarks of Shaki. Constructed in 1762 without a single nail is one of the most marvelous monuments of its epoch. Displayed within the palace are Azerbaijani Khanate-era artifacts, as well as displays of the art scene, considered to be among the finest in the world. Historic Centre of Sheki with the Khan's Palace was added to UNESCO's World Heritage List during the 43rd session of the World Heritage Committee held in July 2019.

The Shaki Castle which was built by the founder of the Shaki Khanate Haji Chelebi Khan (1743–1755), near the village of Nukha on the southern foothills of the Caucasus. The fortress walls are close to a thousand and two hundred meters long and over two meters thick. Protected by numerous bastions, the fortress is entered by two main gates from the north and south. At the height of the khanate, the fortress contained a gated palatial complex and public and commercial structures of the city, while the residential quarter was situated outside its walls. It was restored extensively between 1958 and 1963. Many years Shaki fortress safeguarded approaches to the city, the acts of bravery by its defendants of fight with foreign oppressors had been written in many history books. In Leo Tolstoy's well-known Hadji Murat novel, Shaki fortress had selected as place of events.

Sightseeing places

 * 1) The fortress (19th century);
 * 2) Shaki Khan's mosque (18th century);
 * 3) Upper caravanserai (18th century);
 * 4) Lower caravanserai (17th century);
 * 5) The house of Shaki khans (18th century);
 * 6) The minaret of the Gileyli mosque (18th century)
 * 7) Godak minaret mosque; (19th century);
 * 8) Juma mosque (19th century);
 * 9) Mosque of Omar Efendi (19th century);
 * 10) Mosque "Kyshlak" (19th century);
 * 11) Underground bath (19th century);
 * 12) "Aguanlar" bath (19th century);
 * 13) "Kyshlak" bath (19th century);
 * 14) Dara Bathhouse(19th century);
 * 15) The round temple (19th century);
 * 16) The bridge on the Gurjanachai river (18th—19th centuries);
 * 17) The remains of the Gelesan-Goresen fortress
 * 18) The house-museum of Mirza Fatali Akhundov;
 * 19) The house-museum of Rashid Bey Efendiyev;
 * 20) The house-Museum of Sabit Rahman.

Cuisine
Perhaps the best-known aspect of Shaki cooking is its rich sweet dishes. Shaki is traditionally held as the home of special type of baklava, called Shaki Halva. Others include nabat boiled sugar and sweet pesheveng.

Shaki also has some famous dishes, including girmabadam, zilviya, piti, a stew created with meat and potatoes and prepared in a terracotta pot.

Language
The city of Shaki has developed its own dialect of Azerbaijani language, which is mainly spoken in the city, and the region of Shaki District. Residents of city are known for their cheerful intonation of the words.

Museums
Shaki hosts a wealth of historical museums and some of the most important in the country. The Shaki History Museum is one of the main museums, considered one of the most important for artifacts of the Khanate period.

As of the 18th century, five big Caravanserais (Isfahan, Tabriz, Lezgi, Ermeni and Taze) were active in Shaki but only two of them have survived. The upper and lower Caravanserais were built in the 18th century and used by merchants to store their goods in cellars, who traded on the first floor, and lived on the second. Both Caravanserais includes view of all convenience and safety of merchants and their goods.

Music and media
The city is home of the annual Mugham Festival and Silk Road International Music Festival.

The regional channel Kanal-S, newspapers Shaki and Shakinin Sasi are headquartered in the city.

Transport
There is a daily overnight train to and from Baku on the Baku–Balakan route.

Education
Shaki branch of the Azerbaijan Pedagogical University, Sheki Regional College, 84 general and vocational schools operate in Shaki.

Notable residents
The city's notable residents include: Fatali Khan Khoyski, prime minister of Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, Ahmadiyya Jabrayilov, an activist of the French Resistance, poet Bakhtiyar Vahabzadeh, composer Jovdat Hajiyev, film director Rasim Ojagov, actor Lutfali Abdullayev, religious leader Mahammad Hasan Movlazadeh Shakavi, and others.

Twin towns – sister cities
Shaki is twinned with:

 * 🇧🇬 Gabrovo, Bulgaria
 * 🇹🇷 Giresun, Turkey
 * 🇹🇷 Göynük, Turkey
 * 🇹🇷 Lapseki, Turkey
 * 🇹🇷 Meram, Turkey
 * 🇧🇾 Slutsk, Belarus
 * Telavi, Georgia

title: Shaki, Azerbaijan


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Hemshin people

The Hemshin people (Համշենցիներ, Hamshentsiner; Hemşinliler), also known as Hemshinli or Hamshenis or Homshetsi, are a bilingual small group of Armenians who practice Sunni Islam after they had been converted from Christianity in the beginning of the 18th century and are affiliated with the Hemşin and Çamlıhemşin districts in the province of Rize, Turkey. They are Armenian in origin, and were originally Christian members of the Armenian Apostolic Church, but over the centuries evolved into a distinct community and converted to Sunni Islam after the conquest of the region by the Ottomans during the second half of the 15th century.

For centuries, the ongoing migration from the geographically isolated highlands to lowlands made Hemshin people settle in the areas near Trabzon, Artvin and in the Western part of the Black Sea coast. Thus, is a significant Hamsheni population were formed in Trabzon, Artvin and Western part of the Black Sea coast.

Genetic Origin
The origins of the Hemshin people has remained a subject of debate among scholars. The main three purported homelands of the Hemshin have been Eastern Armenia, Western Armenia, or Central Asia. However, the results of a 2011 genetic survey based on the Y-chromosomal markers of the Hemshin indicated the central part of the historical Armenian highlands as a plausible place of origin for the Hamsheni population.

History until the Ottoman conquest
The region of Hemshin is located on the coast of the Black sea, in the highlands of Rize Province. According to historical accounts, Armenians first settled in the that region in the end of 8th century when escaping the Arab persecutions about 12.000 Armenians led by Prince Shapuh Amatuni and his son Hamam moved to Pontos, ruled by Byzantine Empire. Robert H. Hewsen shows the region where today's Hemşin is located to be populated by a people with different designations throughout the ancient and early medieval history. He indicates thereby that some designations may have alternative forms and partially presents the names used with question marks. In summary from 13th century to 6th century BC Colchians, 550 to 330 BC Colchians and Macrones, 180 BC to 14 AD Lazoi (Chani/Tzan tribes), in the Arsacid Period (63–298 AD) Heniochi, Machelones, Heptakometians, Mossynoeci as well as Sanni, Drilae and Macrones are mentioned.

The Hemşin region is shown as part of Colchis (299–387), Tzanica (387–591) and Chaldia (654–750). The specific location of Hemşin is indicated as Tambur/Hamamašen as a fort and town for the first time in the map covering the period 654–750.

Those two names (Tambur and Hamamašen) are included in the History of Taron by John Mamikonean in a short passage about a war between the ruler of Tambur, Hamam, and his maternal uncle the Georgian Prince, which resulted in the destruction of the town to be rebuilt by Hamam and be named after him, namely Hamamshen."As soon as [Tiran] read the letter, another letter arrived the same day from Vashdean's sister's son, Hamam, acquainting [Tiran] with the treachery before him from the troops who had come from Iran. He immediately wrote a letter to Vashdean reprimanding him for his plot. Vashdean grew angry and had Hamam's feet and hands lopped off. Then, taking the Iranians, [Vashdean] crossed the Chorox river and went to Hamam's city, named Tambur, which he attacked with fire and sword and enslaved. Now the blessed bishop of the city, Manknos, severely cursed the prince. [Vashdean] ordered the Iranians to kill the priests in the church named Holy Zion. The bishop had silently prayed to God to ask only that the city be turned into a desert and a ruin and that for all eternity no one reside there. He threw himself on the altar and [the Iranians] sacrificed him on Pentecost before mass was offered to Christ. On the next day there was a cloudburst and [Vashdean] was consumed by fire as he sat by the city gates of Tambur. Hamam subsequently [re]built this [city] calling it after himself, Hamamashen. And Mangnos' prayer was realized. In one night 3,000 men died, others fled, and the city remained a ruin."

This event is declared by Mamikonian to have taken place in early seventh century. Hamamashen became Hamshen over time. Simonian who conveys this story reports also that the date given by the author may be wrong.

Two other Armenian chronicles Ghewond and Stepanos Asoghik of Taron, report in short passages in their histories about a migration from Armenia/Oshakan led by prince Shapuh Amatuni and his son Hamam. Ghewond conveys this immigration to be to avoid heavy taxes imposed on Armenians by the Arab rulers. The Amatuni lords are offered fertile land to settle down by the Byzantine Emperor, after they crossed the Çoruh. This migration is dated to be after 789 by Ghewond and as 750 by Stephen Asoghik of Taron.

Benninghaus specifies "Tambur" as the destination of the migration led by Hamam and his father Shapuh Amaduni and says that they have seemingly met people there who were already Christians, possibly Greeks. Redgate informs about possible symbolism used in the Ghewond's history and possible garbling in Mamikonian's history, and cautions not to take everything at face value. Hachikian states "There is no clue as to where Tambur, the legendary capital of Hamshen, was located. The only certain thing about it is that it clearly belonged to a much earlier time - if it existed at all". He also mentions in the footnote the name similarity between Tambur and a yayla known as Tahpur or Tagpur, in the heights of Kaptanpasa. Simonian states that Tambur is probably in the vicinity of Varoşkale (altitude 1800 m).

A description of "Haynsen" in the Kingdom of Georgia, its inhabitants and history is contained in La Fleur des histoires de la terre d'Orient by Hayton of Corycus, written around 1307, translated into English in 1520, and later reproduced in the travellers' tales of Samuel Purchas published in 1614. Purchas uses the term "Hamsem" to designate the region and concludes that this is the place of the original Cimmerian gloom of Homer's Odyssey. The translation of He'tum's related passage to modern English uses the term Hamshen. Hayton describes the region to be "miraculous and strange place" unbelievable unless seen by one's own eyes, dark and without roads. Signs of human settlement are that "People in those parts say that one frequently hears the sounds of men bellowing, of cocks crowing, of horses neighing in the forest," Those people are described by Hayton, leaning upon Georgian and Armenian Histories, to be the descendants of the men of the "wicked" Iranian Emperor Shaworeos who had chased and harassed Christian people. The referenced translation suggests this Emperor could be Shapur II (309–379 AD).

Simonian considers the so described difficulty in access not to imply total isolation. On the contrary, he reports, Hamshen served sometimes as a transit route between the coastal regions and the Armenian Highlands.

In his analysis of the literary and non-literary sources from the 8th through the 19th centuries, combined with excursions into Hamšēn during the 1980s to identify the surviving Armenian architecture, Dr. Robert W. Edwards has defined the geographical perimeters of that region and assessed the historical impact of its extreme isolation.

Sources of the ruling powers in the region, (Byzantine, Trapezuntine, Georgian, Armenian and Turkish) are silent about Hemshin; until the conquest by the Ottomans. It is deduced that Hemşin has been governed by local lords under the umbrella of the greater regional powers changing by the time namely the Bagratid Armenian kingdom, the Byzantine Empire, its successor the Empire of Trebizond, the Kingdom of Georgia, the Kara Koyunlu and Ak Koyunlu Turkmen Confederations until it was annexed by the Ottoman Empire which collapsed as a result of the World War I and gave birth to the Republic of Turkey.

The Ottoman conquest of Hemshin occurred sometime in the 1480s: an Ottoman register dated around 1486 calls it Hemshin and mentions it as being an Ottoman possession.

Turkish dominance and division
Turkish influence was firmly established in the region after the Battle of Manzikert in 1071, after which the Seljuk Turks and other Turkish tribes gained a strong foothold in Central Anatolia and Western Armenian Highlands, often referred to as Eastern Anatolia, bringing the local population in contact with the religion of Islam. In the 15th century, the region of Hamshen was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire. During the Turkish rule, two most important developments are human migrations and conversions. Most sources agree that prior to Ottoman era majority of the residents of Hemshin were Christian and members of the Armenian Apostolic Church. The details and the accompanying circumstances for the migrations and the conversions during the Ottoman era are not clearly known or documented.

As a result of those developments, distinctive communities with the same generic name have also appeared in the vicinity of Hopa, Turkey as well as in the Caucasus. Those three communities are almost oblivious to one another's existence.
 * The Hemshinli of Hemshin proper (also designated occasionally as western Hemshinli in publications) are Turkish-speaking Sunni Muslims who mostly live in the counties (ilçe) of Çamlıhemşin, Çayeli, İkizdere, Pazar and Hemşin in Turkey's Rize Province.
 * The Hopa Hemshinli (also designated occasionally as eastern Hemshinli in publications) are Sunni Muslims and mostly live in the Hopa and Borçka counties of Turkey's Artvin Province. In addition to Turkish, they also speak a dialect of western Armenian they call "Homshetsma" or "Hemşince" in Turkish.
 * Homshentsik (also designated occasionally as Northern Homshentsik in publications) are Christians who live in Autonomous Republic of Abkhazia and in Russia's Krasnodar Krai. They speak Homshetsma as well. There are also some Muslim Hamshentsi living in Georgia and Krasnodar and some Hamshentsi elements amongst the Meskhetian Turks.

Demographics
Two major developments in the Hemshin region during the Ottoman era: Islamization and population movements. Islam may have begun to spread prior to the Ottoman rule, but it did not become the general religion before the end of the 16th century. A number of population movements (both into and out of the region) also happened during the Ottoman era. Even though detailed information regarding the nature of these movements is missing, in summary:
 * some Hemshinli who were members of the Armenian Orthodox Church emigrated to other countries on the eastern Black Sea during the early centuries of Ottoman rule;
 * some Muslim Hemshinli migrated to western Anatolia and the Caucasus as a result of the Turco-Russian wars and related hardships during the 19th century;
 * some immigration into the area have occurred during Ottoman rule.

The present community of Hemshinli is exclusively Muslim and Turkish speaking. This goes for the people living in Hemshin or people maintaining links to the area and living elsewhere in Turkey.

A distinct community settled about 50 km east of Hemşin in villages around Hopa and Borçka also call themselves "Hemşinli". They are often referred to as the "Hopa Hemşinli". Professor of Linguistics Bert Vaux at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee refers to this group as the "Eastern Hamshenis". Hemşinli and Hopa Hemşinli are separated not only by geography but also by language and some features of culture. The two groups are almost oblivious to one another's existence. Simonian reports various theories regarding the appearance of the Hopa Hemshinli group. Those theories relate to whether the groups migrated from Hemshin or they were settled by the Ottoman authorities, whether the migration/settlement was in the early 16th or late 17th centuries, and whether the migration took place in one step or two waves. The Hopa Hemşinli are exclusively Muslim as well. Simonian reports that there is a controversy regarding whether they arrived in the Hopa region as Muslims or converted to Islam after arrival.

The Hopa Hemşinli speak a language called "Hemşince" or ("Homşetsi" and/or Homshetsma in some sources) as well as Turkish. Recent studies by Hovann Simonian (Author: The Hemshin: A Handbook (Caucasus World)) suggest that this language is an archaic dialect of Armenian subject to influence from Turkish and Laz. Vaux also reports that "Hemşince" has been subject to influence from Turkish to a much greater extent than other Armenian dialects. Hemşince and Armenian are largely mutually unintelligible.

In addition to these two groups there are people speaking Hemşince / Homshetsma in the countries of the former USSR whose ancestors probably originated from Hemşin and/or Hopa Hemşin in course of the various population movements to the Caucasus. Many of the Muslim Hemşince speakers in the former USSR were deported from the Adjara area of Georgia during the Stalin era to Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Since 1989, a considerable number of these deportees have moved to Krasnodar Krai since 1989, along with the Meskhetian Turks.

Culture
Hemshin peoples are well known for their baking, tea growing, and the clever jokes, riddles, and stories that they tell. Some of the anecdotes that the Muslim Hemshinli tell are actually based on older Armenian ones. They accompany dances with their own brand of music using the tulum (the Pontic bagpipe) (for the Western group), the şimşir kaval (flute made of buxus) (for the Eastern group) or the Hamshna-Zurna (Hamsheni zurna) (for the Northern group). The traditional occupations of the Turkish Hemshinli are cultivating tea and maize, breeding livestock, and beekeeping. The Northern Hamshenis of Russia and Georgia, meanwhile, are primarily known as citrus, corn, tobacco and tea growers as well as fishermen.

The people of Hemshin are known for their traditional dress. Women often choose to wrap their head with a "pushi" or long piece of cloth donned with beads, while men often choose to wear hats and vests made of wool or cotton.

The Hemshin people and their mansions were featured in issue 12 of Cornucopia magazine.

Hemşinli in Turkey
The "Turkey for the Turks" ideology, writes Neal Ascherson, "offered no security for minorities" with "the tiny Hemşinli group having especially compelling reasons to keep its head down" because "its members are the descendants of Armenians." Beginning in the 1930s, a number of Turkish historians attempted to ascribe an entirely Turkish origin to the Hemshinli, the most prominent of them being M. Fahrettin Kırzıoğlu, whose theories have since gained wide currency among the community. His theories on the Hemshinli, however, have come under close scrutiny and have been roundly criticized. The German scholars Wolfgang Feurstein and Tucha Berdsena describe Kırzıoğlu's methodology as so:

"At first Kırzıoğlu assaults the reader with a flow of historical peoples; he then searches for some kind of phonetic correspondence or similarity with an old Turkish tribe, flavors this alleged historical outpouring with a pinch of 'Islam,' and presents himself as a competent researcher of Turkishness. Probably never before has a single person in Turkey falsified history so massively!"

The filmmaker Özcan Alper, an eastern Hemshinli, made the first motion picture in Homshetsi, Momi ("Grandma"), released in 2000. As a result, Alper was accused in the Court for State Security of producing material intended to destroy the unity of the state, under article 8 of Turkey's anti-terror law. This law was repealed in 2003 after EU pressure, and Alper's trial did not go ahead. Hamsheni singer Gökhan Birben (from the Western group) and Laz singer Kâzım Koyuncu had also sung in Homshetsi. In 2005, the first music album exclusively of anonymous Hamshen folk songs and sung mostly in Homshetsi, Vova - Hamşetsu Ğhağ was released.

Older generations of Turkish Hemshinli see the reference "Ermeni" (often used by their Laz neighbours) as an insult.

Mesut Yılmaz, a former Prime Minister of Turkey, was born in Istanbul to a family with partial Hamsheni (Western group) origins. Ahmet Tevfik İleri (who was born in Yaltkaya (Gomno) village of Hemşin), a Deputy Prime Minister and before that, a Minister of Education in Turkey within successive Adnan Menderes governments between 1950 and 1960, as well as Damat Mehmet Ali Pasha, the Ottoman Grand Vizier on the eve of the Crimean War in 1853 were also of Hamsheni descent. The community issued other important names in Turkish history and society such as Murat Karayalçın, a former Deputy Prime Minister and mayor of Ankara who is from Şenyuva (Çinçiva) village of Çamlıhemşin.

There are two ongoing projects involving Turkish NGOs and EuropeAid, European Commission's external aid instrument, that touch their issues. The more recently (2007) launched "Ecodialogue Project" has set itself as goal raising environment consciousness of the region's enterprises and improving the poor levels and quality of the information relayed by local guides, many of whom are self-styled and unlicensed. The other project, started 2004 and involving also the World Conservation Union, aims to raise the profile and awareness of the grouse, particularly black grouse, who visit the region, also with focus on enterprises and guides.

Hamshenis in Russia and the former Soviet Union
Interest in Hamshen heritage is rising among Christian Hamshenis in the former Soviet Union. In 2006, the first music album in Homshetsma by the Ensemble Caravan was released in Krasnodar. Hamshen Scientific, Information and Cultural Centre began to work on exclusive projects in order to recover the cultural heritage of the Hamshenis living in the region. The Armenian newspaper published in Sukhumi carries the name Hamshen.

During the Mikhail Gorbachev period of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s, the Hamshenis of Kazakhstan began petitioning for the government to move them to the Armenian SSR. However, this move was denied by Moscow because of fears that the Muslim Hamshenis might spark ethnic conflicts with their Christian Armenian brothers.

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, most Hamshenis lived relatively undisturbed. However, those in the Abkhazia region of Georgia had trouble coping with day-to-day life during the Georgian Civil War.

Since 2000, several hundred of the Muslim Hamshenis in Russia who have resettled from Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan to Krasnodar Krai (about 1000 total) have repeatedly attempted to formally receive registration from the local authorities. This is similar and related to the problem of the Meskhetians. These actions have been made difficult by the attitude of the Krasnodar officials. In defiance of the authorities an organisation of their co-ethnics in Armenia have appealed to the Russian ambassador in Yerevan to get Moscow to intervene in this case and overrule the regional officials who seem intent on preventing Hamshenis from gaining a status of permanent residency. In the 2002 Russian Federation census, 1,542 people identified themselves as Hamshenis, two-thirds of whom were living in Krasnodar Krai.

Recognition by the Armenian mainstream
From October 13 to 15, 2005, a Hamsheni international scientific convention was held in Sochi. The conference was organized under the Institute of History of the Academy of Sciences of Armenia, Russian-Armenian Commonwealth Organization of Moscow (commissioned by the Armenian Revolutionary Federation) with help from the Armenian Scientific Informational and Cultural Center, "Hamshen" (Krasnodar, Russia) and Russian Armenian newspaper Yerkramas. It involved scholars from Armenia, Russia, the United States, Germany, and Iran to discuss the past of the Hamshenis.

Politicians in Turkey
Ministers

Other
 * Murat Karayalçın (b. 1943) – politician who served as minister of foreign affairs, deputy prime minister, mayor of Ankara and the founder of the SHP.
 * Tevfik İleri (1911–1961) – statesman who served as deputy prime minister, minister of national education, minister of public works and minister of transport.
 * Mesut Yılmaz (1947–2020) – politician who has held ministerial positions such as minister of culture and tourism, minister of state and deputy prime minister, including prime ministry also chairman of Motherland Party.

 * Alper Taş (b. 1967) – socialist politician and leader of Left Party
 * Cihan Alptekin (1947–1972) – political activist, revolutionary and militant who was leader of left-wing organisations such as People's Liberation Army of Turkey and Revolutionary Youth Federation of Turkey.

Popular culture

 * Behçet Gülas (b. 1977) – singer and musician
 * Gökhan Birben
 * Aydoğan Topal (b. 1982) – singer who is half Hamsheni

Tulum artists

 * Yaşar Çorbacıoğlu (b. 1939)
 * Remzi Bekar (b. 1937)
 * Dindar Güner (1942–2021)
 * Emin Yağcı (b. 1965)
 * Mahmut Turan (b. 1958)

Other

 * Özcan Alper (b. 1975) – director and screenwriter
 * Cemil Aksu (b. 1977) – political and social activist, journalist and ecologist

title: Hemshin people


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Robert Fleming (financier)

Robert Melvin Fleming (17 March 1845 – 31 July 1933) was a Scottish financier and philanthropist. He was the founder of merchant bank Robert Fleming & Co.

Early life
Robert Fleming was born in 1845 in Dundee. His father was an overseer in a jute mill.

Career
Fleming got his start at the age of 13 working for local textile firm, Messrs Edward Baxter and Son. By 21, he was Edward Baxter's private clerk. In time, Fleming had learned enough about investment procedures from Baxter to oversee the firm's American holdings.

Fleming launched the Scottish American Investment Company in 1873, the first of the Scottish investment trusts. He went on to become an international financier in London, establishing the investment bank that bore his name for more than a century and out of which the Fleming Collection of Scottish art and the Fleming Collection Gallery was born.

A contemporary of J. P. Morgan and a close business associate and friend of Jacob Schiff of Kuhn, Loeb & Co., Fleming was widely known and respected in financial circles on both sides of the Atlantic. He was one of the shrewdest investors of his generation and an acknowledged expert in the financing of American railroads. One of his less successful ventures was the 1908 takeover of the bankrupt works of Algoma Steel in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, but he had the foresight to associate with the project James Hamet Dunn, who would come to control the works from 1935.

Fleming bought Joyce Grove in Nettlebed, Oxfordshire in 1903, along with its 2000 acre estate. He commissioned a new house from the architect C.E. Mallows in 1908.

Fleming became one of the wealthiest men in Europe, with Robert Fleming & Co. remaining one of the few independent British investment houses in London by the turn of the century.

Philanthropy
Fleming made many generous bequests to the city and the new University College. The Fleming Gymnasium (opened in 1905 and now housing Forensic Medicine) still bears his name.

The Fleming Gardens Estate in Dundee was erected as a result of a gift of £155,000 that Fleming made to improve worker's housing. His gift is commemorated in a plaque and balustraded viewpoint at the junction of Clepington Road and Hindmarsh Avenue.

Personal life
He was the father of Valentine Fleming and Philip Fleming. He was the grandfather of novelist Ian Fleming, who wrote the James Bond novels, and writer Peter Fleming. Sir John Fleming, onetime Lord Provost of Aberdeen and later a local MP, was a younger brother.

Death
Fleming died in 1933 and is buried in St. Bartholomew's Church in Nettlebed. His will was proven on 8 September, with his estate amounting to about £2,174,803 (calculated to be equivalent to £0 in ).

title: Robert Fleming (financier)


text:
Members of the Australian House of Representatives, 1998–2001

This is a list of members of the Australian House of Representatives from 1998 to 2001, as elected at the 1998 election.

 * The Labor member for Holt (VIC), Gareth Evans, resigned on 30 September 1999; Labor candidate Anthony Byrne won the resulting by-election on 6 November.
 * The Labor member for Isaacs (VIC), Greg Wilton, died on 14 June 2000; Labor candidate Ann Corcoran won the resulting by-election on 12 August.
 * Andrew Theophanous, the member for Calwell (VIC), resigned from the Labor party on 18 October 2000, serving for the remainder of his term as an independent.
 * Liberal member John Moore, member for the western Brisbane seat of Ryan, resigned on 5 February 2001; Labor candidate Leonie Short won the resulting by-election on 17 March.
 * Liberal member Peter Nugent, member for Aston (VIC), died on 24 April 2001; Liberal candidate Chris Pearce won the resulting by-election on 14 July.


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Fitna (word)

Fitna (or fitnah, pl. fitan; فتنة, فتن: "temptation, trial; sedition, civil strife, conflict" ) is an Arabic word with extensive connotations of trial, affliction, or distress. Although it is a word with important historical implications, it is also widely used in modern Arabic without the underlying historical connotations.

One might distinguish between the meanings of fitna as used in Classical Arabic and the meanings of fitna as used in Modern Standard Arabic and various colloquial dialects. Due to the conceptual importance of fitna in the Qur'an, its use in that work may need to be considered separately from, though in addition to, the word's general lexical meaning in Classical Arabic.

In Islamic historical writing fitna is a term for civil war within a Muslim state, especially the five civil wars of the Islamic Caliphate during the 7th to 9th centuries AD.

Root and forms
Arabic, in common with other Semitic languages like Hebrew, employs a system of root letters combined with vowel patterns to constitute its whole range of vocabulary. As such, identification of the root letters of any word might bring a better understanding the word's full semantic range.

Fitna has the triliteral root fā'-tā'-nūn (ف ت ن). In addition to the feminine noun fitna, fitan, this root forms, in particular, a Form I active verb fatana, yaftinu (فتن ، يفتن), a Form I passive verb futina, yuftanu (فتن ، يفتن), a Form I maṣdar futūn (فتون), a Form I active participle fātin (فاتن), a Form I passive participle maftūn (مفتون), and so on.

Classical Arabic
Edward William Lane, in his Arabic-English Lexicon compiled from various traditional Arabic lexicographical sources available in Cairo in the mid-19th-century, reported that "to burn" is the "primary signification" of the verb. The verb then came to be applied to the smelting of gold and silver. It was extended to mean causing one to enter into fire and into a state of punishment or affliction. Thus, one says that something caused one to enter al-fitna, i.e. trial, affliction, etc., or more generally, an affliction whereby some good or evil quality is put to the test. Lane glosses the noun fitna as meaning a trial, a probation, affliction, distress or hardship, and says that "the sum total of its meaning in the language of the Arabs" is an affliction whereby one is tried, proved or tested.

The definitions offered by Lane match those suggested by Badawi and Haleem in their dictionary of Qur'anic usage. They gloss the triliteral root as having the following meanings: "to purify gold and silver by smelting them; to burn; to put to the test, to afflict (in particular as a means of testing someone's endurance); to disrupt the peace of a community; to tempt, to seduce, to allure, to infatuate."

Modern Standard Arabic
The meanings of fitna as found in Classical Arabic largely carry over into Modern Standard Arabic, as evidenced by the recitation of the same set of meanings in Hans Wehr's Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic. In addition, Wehr glosses the noun fitna as also meaning "charm, charmingness, attractiveness; enchantment, captivation, fascination, enticement, temptation; infatuation, intrigue; sedition, riot, discord, dissension, civil strife."

Buckwalter & Parkinson, in their frequency dictionary of Arabic, list the noun fitna as the 1,560th most frequent word in their corpus of over 30 million words from Modern Standard Arabic and colloquial Arabic dialects. They gloss fitna as meaning "charm, allure, enchantment; unrest; riot, rebellion."

Nakhla Raid (first mention of fitna in Quran)
The first Quran verse about fitna was supposedly revealed during the Nakhla Raid. After his return from the first Badr encounter (Battle of Safwan), Muhammad sent Abdullah ibn Jahsh in Rajab with 12 men on a fact-finding operation. Abdullah ibn Jahsh was a maternal cousin of Muhammad. He took along with him Abu Haudhayfa, Abdullah ibn Jahsh, Ukkash ibn Mihsan, Utba b. Ghazwan, Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas, Amir ibn Rabia, Waqid ibn Abdullah and Khalid ibn al-Bukayr. Muhammad gave Abdullah ibn Jahsh a letter, but not to be read until he had traveled for two days and then to do what he was instructed to do in the letter without putting pressure on his companions. Abdullah proceeded for two days, then he opened the letter; it told him to proceed until he reached Nakhla, between Mecca and Taif, to lie in wait for the Quraysh, and to observe what they were doing.

While the Quraysh were busy preparing food, the Muslims attacked. In the short battle that took place, Waqid ibn Abdullah killed Amr ibn Hadrami, the leader of the Quraysh caravan, with an arrow. The Muslims captured two Quraysh tribe members. Nawfal ibn Abdullah managed to escape. The Muslims took Uthman ibn Abdullah and al-Hakam ibn Kaysan as captives. Abdullah ibn Jahsh returned to Medina with the booty and with the two captured Quraysh tribe members. The followers planned to give one-fifth of the booty to Muhammad.

Mention in the Quran
Muhammad initially disapproved of that act and suspended any action as regards the camels and the two captives on account of the prohibited months. The Arab pagans exploited this opportunity to accuse the Muslims of violating what is divinely inviolable (fighting in the months considered sacred to the Arab pagans ). This idle talk brought about a painful headache for Muhammad's companions, until at last they were relieved when Muhammad revealed a verse regarding fighting in the sacred months "They ask you ˹O Prophet˺ about fighting in the sacred months (i.e. 1st, 7th, 11th and 12th months of the Islamic calendar). Say, “Fighting during these months is a great sin. But hindering ˹others˺ from the Path of Allah, rejecting Him, and expelling the worshippers from the Sacred Mosque (at Makkah) is ˹a˺ greater ˹sin˺ in the sight of Allah. For persecution (Al-Fitnah) is far worse than killing. And they will not stop fighting you until they turn you away from your faith—if they can. And whoever among you renounces their own faith and dies a disbeliever, their deeds will become void in this life and in the Hereafter. It is they who will be the residents of the Fire. They will be there forever."

According to Ibn Qayyim, "most of the scholars have explained the word Fitnah here as meaning Shirk"

The Muslim Mufassir Ibn Kathir's commentary on this verse in his book Tafsir ibn Kathir is as follows: means, trying to force the Muslims to revert from their religion and re-embrace Kufr after they had believed, is worse with Allah than killing.' Allah said:

"They ask you concerning fighting in the Sacred Months. Say, 'Fighting therein is a great (transgression) but a greater (transgression) with Allah is to prevent mankind from following the way of Allah, to disbelieve in Him, to prevent access to Al-Masjid Al-Haram (at Makkah), and to drive out its inhabitants, and Al-Fitnah is worse than killing.

This Ayah means, `If you had killed during the Sacred Month, they (disbelievers of Quraysh) have hindered you from the path of Allah and disbelieved in it. They also prevented you from entering the Sacred Mosque, and expelled you from it, while you are its people,

(...a greater (transgression) with Allah) than killing whom you killed among them. Also:

(...and Al-Fitnah is worse than killing.) This means that trying to force Muslims to revert from their religion and re-embrace Kufr after they had believed is worse than killing, says Allah.' Allah said:

(And they will never cease fighting you until they turn you back from your religion (Islamic Monotheism) if they can.)

So, they will go on fighting you with unrelenting viciousness.

Ibn Ishaq went on: When the Qur'an touched this subject and Allah brought relief to the Muslims instead of the sadness that had befallen them, Allah's Messenger took possession of the caravan and the two prisoners. The Quraysh offered to ransom the two prisoners, `Uthman bin `Abdullah and Hakam bin Kaysan. Allah's Messenger said:

(We will not accept your ransom until our two companions return safely. ) meaning Sa`d bin Abu Waqqas and `Utbah bin Ghazwan, 'For we fear for their safety with you. If you kill them, we will kill your people.'"

Statistics
Badawi & Haleem note that the triliteral root fā'-tā'-nūn (ف ت ن) occurs in 6 different forms a total of 60 times in the Qur'an. In particular, it appears 34 times as a noun and 26 times in various verbal forms. Bakhtiar's concordance of the Qur'an confirms Badawi & Haleem's numbers, although Bakhtiar further breaks down the appearance of each verbal form by distinguishing active and passive verbs by tense as well. The following table sets out the details; note that since the root only appears as a verb in Form I forms, that is assumed.

Semantics
The triliteral root fā'-tā'-nūn (ف ت ن), as noted above, bears a range of significations, even in the Qur'an itself. The Qur'anic appearances of the root are explored below (in no particular order).

Persecution
Fitna as persecution appears in several of the verses commanding Muslims to fight the unbelievers (specifically referring to the Meccan polytheists who had persecuted Muhammad and his early followers, thus leading to the hijra). For example, in Qur'an, the command to fight is justified on the grounds that "persecution (al-fitnatu) is worse than slaying." Similarly, in Qur'an, Muslims are forbidden from fighting unbelievers around the Holy Mosque in Mecca unless the unbelievers attack first, in which case Muslims are to fight "until there is no persecution (fitnatun) and the religion is God's." The hijra is mentioned in Qur'an as having occurred because of the persecution believers had suffered in Mecca. Other examples are Qur'an, which promises the chastisement of Hell for those who have persecuted Muslims, and Qur'an , which provides that one's daily required prayer may be shortened if, when on a journey, one fears that the unbelievers may attack if one remains in a place long enough to complete the full prayer.

Dissension/sedition
In Qur'an, the Qur'an itself is described as having "clear revelations – they are the substance of the Book – and others (which are) allegorical," and then the Qur'an characterizes those who are unsteady and who do not have firm faith as desiring dissension in the community through their pursuit of interpretations of the "allegorical" verses of the Qur'an. A set of occurrences of the root related to dissension or sedition occurs in Quran, where those who say they are believers, but show themselves reluctant to follow certain of God's commands, are described as seeking "sedition" among the community.

Trial
Many instances of the root as "trial" appear throughout the Qur'an. This sense of the root bears the further sense of a "tribulation" or "difficulty" in such verses as, for example: Qur'an, where Moses, after killing a man in Egypt, was "tried with a heavy trial" by being forced to flee and to live among the Midians for many years; and Qur'an , where some believers are characterized as worshipping God "upon a narrow marge," since they are happy so long as their life is relatively secure and easy, but as soon as they experience a trial, they turn away from God.

However, the root in other verses carries a sense of "trial" as simply a kind of test of a person's commitment to their faith (without necessarily implying that the testing results from something bad happening, as the sense of trial as "tribulation" might bear). For example, Qur'an says, in part, "And even so do We try some of them by others." Things widely recognized as good things in life may serve as trials, as Qur'an and  make clear by describing one's own wealth and children as trials. Qur'an also carries this sense of trial by something good; there, God's own "boon" (or "blessing") is described as a trial for certain people. Again, in Qur'an, God will give those idolaters who decide to "tread the right path" an abundance of good "that We may test them thereby," to see whether they will turn away from God once they have obtained his favor or whether they will be steadfast in faith.

Trials may also result from things revealed by God that some may find difficult to accept. For example, Qur'an describes the revelation of the "Cursed Tree" as "an ordeal for mankind." Another example of this sense is Qur'an, where the number of the angels who guard the Fire has been "made a stumbling-block for those who disbelieve ... and that those in whose hearts there is disease, and disbelievers, may say: What meaneth Allah by this similitude?"

Temptation
The root also bears the sense of "temptation," as in Qur'an, where those who were hypocritical in their faith will be turned away and told by the steadfast believers, from whom they are separated, "ye tempted one another, and hesitated, and doubted, and vain desires beguiled you till the ordinance of Allah came to pass; and the deceiver deceived you concerning Allah." In Qur'an, Aaron is said to have warned the Israelites, when Moses had left them to meet with God for forty days, that the Golden Calf was only something they were being tempted by (or, in Pickthall's translation, "seduced with"). Harut and Marut warn the people of Babylon, in Qur'an, "We are only a temptation, therefore disbelieve not," although the warning proved to be ineffective for some.

Historical usage
Aside from its use in the Qur'an, fitna came to have a primary sense of "'revolt', 'disturbances', 'civil war', but a civil war that breeds schism and in which the believers' purity of faith is in grave danger." This was especially so as it came, in the term First Fitna, to refer to the first major civil war of the Islamic Caliphate, which lasted from 656 to 661. "On account of the struggles that marked Mu'āwiya's advent, the term fitna was later applied to any period of disturbances inspired by schools or sects that broke away from the majority of believers." The term thus appears the descriptions of other major conflicts such as the Second Fitna (680–92), the Third Fitna (744–47), the Fourth Fitna (809–27), and the Fitna of al-Andalus (1009–1031).

title: Fitna (word)


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Competitive Enterprise Institute

The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) is a non-profit libertarian think tank founded by the political writer Fred L. Smith Jr. on March 9, 1984, in Washington, D.C., to advance principles of limited government, free enterprise, and individual liberty. CEI focuses on a number of regulatory policy issues, including business and finance, labor, technology and telecommunications, transportation, food and drug regulation, and energy and environment in which they have promoted climate change denial. Kent Lassman is the current President and CEO.

According to the 2017 Global Go To Think Tank Index Report (Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program, University of Pennsylvania), CEI was number 59 (of 90) in the "Top Think Tanks in the United States".

Energy and environment
Academic research has identified CEI as one of the think tanks funded to overturn the environmentalism of the 1960s, central to promoting climate change denial. It was involved in assisting the anti-environmental climate change policy of the George W. Bush administration. CEI promotes environmental policies based on limited government regulation and property rights, rejects what it calls "global warming alarmism", and denies the science of climate change.

CEI is an opponent of government action by the Environmental Protection Agency that would require limits on greenhouse gas emissions. It favors free-market environmentalism and supports the idea that market institutions are more effective in protecting the environment than is government. In 2016, CEI President Kent Lassman wrote on the organization's blog that, "there is no debate about whether the Earth's climate is warming", that "human activities very likely contribute to that warming", and that "this has long been the CEI's position". In March 1992, CEI's founder Fred Smith said of global warming: "Most of the indications right now are it looks pretty good. Warmer winters, warmer nights, no effects during the day because of clouding, sounds to me like we're moving to a more benign planet, more rain, richer, easier productivity to agriculture."

In May 2006, CEI's global warming policy activities attracted attention as it embarked upon an ad campaign with two television commercials. These ads promote carbon dioxide as a positive factor in the environment and argue that global warming is not a concern. One ad focuses on the message that CO2 is misrepresented as a pollutant, stating that "it's essential to life. We breathe it out. Plants breathe it in... They call it pollution. We call it life." The other states that the world's glaciers are "growing, not melting... getting thicker, not thinner." It cites Science articles to support its claims. However, the editor of Science stated that the ad "misrepresents the conclusions of the two cited Science papers... by selective referencing". The author of the articles, Curt Davis, director of the Center for Geospatial Intelligence at the University of Missouri, said CEI was misrepresenting his previous research to inflate their claims. "These television ads are a deliberate effort to confuse and mislead the public about the global warming debate," Davis said.

In 2009, CEI's director of energy and global warming policy told The Washington Post, "The only thing that's been demonstrated to reduce emissions is economic collapse". In 2014, CEI sued the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy over a video that linked the polar vortex to climate change.

Regulatory reform
CEI advocates for regulatory reform on a range of policy issues, including energy, environment, business and finance, labor, technology and telecommunications, transportation, and food and drug regulation.

Its annual survey of the federal regulatory state "Ten Thousand Commandments: An Annual Snapshot of the Federal Regulatory State," documents the size, scope, and cost of federal regulations, and how the U.S. regulatory burden affects American consumers, businesses, and the economy. CEI's Clyde Wayne Crews Jr. coined the phrase "regulatory dark matter," referencing astrophysics to distinguish between ordinary government regulations or "visible matter," and "regulatory dark matter," which consists of "thousands of executive branch and federal agency proclamations and issuances, including memos, guidance documents, bulletins, circulars and announcements with practical regulatory effect."

Technology and telecommunications
In 2015, CEI filed an amicus brief in support of the petitioners in U.S. Telecom v. FCC. The brief argued that "Congress did not authorize the FCC to regulate the Internet when it enacted Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act [of 1996] and, in fact, placed it outside the scope of the FCC's rulemaking authority."

CEI has argued against using antitrust regulation to break up big technology companies such as Facebook and Google.

Capitalism
CEI has a longstanding project to recapture what they term "the moral legitimacy of capitalism" through research, writing, events, and other outreach activities. In 2019, CEI's vice president for Strategy Iain Murray argued, in an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal, that advocates of capitalism and free markets had taken the support of social conservatives for granted.

Project 2025
CEI is a member of the advisory board of Project 2025, a collection of conservative and right-wing policy proposals from the Heritage Foundation to reshape the United States federal government and consolidate executive power should the Republican nominee win the 2024 presidential election.

Legal advocacy
The Competitive Enterprise Institute "is one of a small number of think tanks that have a litigation arm to their organization, according to an editorial in the Wall Street Journal."

Center for Class Action Fairness (former project)
From 2015 to 2019, the Center for Class Action Fairness (CCAF) was part of CEI. It has since spun off as part of the new Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute, a free-market nonprofit public-interest law founded by former CEI attorneys Ted Frank and Melissa Holyoak. CCAF represents class members against what it calls, "unfair class action procedures and settlements."

CEI and Frank argued Frank v. Gaos before the U.S. Supreme Court on October 31, 2018, opposing a proposed class action settlement involving Google, who paid out an $8.5 million settlement including $6 million in cy-près funds and more than $2 million for class-action lawyers. Class members were not awarded any part of the settlement.

In 2015, CEI and Frank successfully appealed a class action settlement in a case about the length of Subway's "footlong" sandwiches. CEI argued that the proposed settlement benefited only nine people in the class but awarded more than half a million dollars to the class attorneys. Judge Diane Sykes’s ruling rejected the settlement in the Subway case that would have paid plaintiffs' attorneys $525,000 and left the class with nothing. The court's decision included the statement that "[a] class settlement that results in fees for class counsel but yields no meaningful relief for the class is no better than a racket."

Challenges to the Affordable Care Act
CEI funded and coordinated King v. Burwell and Halbig v. Burwell, two lawsuits that challenged the Internal Revenue Service's implementation of the Affordable Care Act. The strategy of bringing such lawsuits was pioneered by Michael S. Greve, former chairman of CEI's board of directors, who stated: "This bastard [the act] has to be killed as a matter of political hygiene.  I do not care how this is done, whether it's dismembered, whether we drive a stake through its heart, whether we tar and feather it, and drive it out of town, whether we strangle it." The King v. Burwell suit alleged that the IRS's implementation violated the statute and sought to block "a major portion of Obamacare: the subsidies that more than 6 million middle-income people, across more than 30 states, now receive to buy health insurance." CEI general counsel Sam Kazman argued in a USA Today op-ed that the disputed IRS rule "raises a basic issue that goes far beyond Obamacare: Do agencies have to follow the laws enacted by Congress, or can they rewrite them?" The case made its way to the Supreme Court, which is a 6–3 decision rejected the challenge and upheld the ACA subsidies.

Challenges to the Dodd-Frank Act and financial regulation
In 2012, the CEI, along with the conservative activist group 60 Plus Association, filed a lawsuit against the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). The CEI's suit alleges that the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act's creation of the CFPB violates the constitutional separation of powers. The CEI also contends that President Obama's recess appointment of Richard Cordray as CFPB director was unconstitutional and that the powers of the Financial Stability Oversight Council, created by Dodd-Frank, are unconstitutional. In 2016, a federal judge rejected the challenge to Cordray's appointment. The CEI's challenge to the constitutionality of CFPB remains pending in the federal courts.

CEI events
Every year CEI hosts an annual dinner gala and presents the Julian L. Simon Memorial Award. The Simon award honors the work of the late economist, winner of the Simon–Ehrlich wager. Award winners have included:

Warren T. Brookes Journalism Fellowship
In 1991, CEI established the Warren T. Brookes Journalism Fellowship to identify and train journalists who wish to improve their knowledge of environmental issues and free-market economics. In this manner, the program seeks to perpetuate the legacy of Warren Brookes, who was a longtime journalist with the Boston Herald and the Detroit News and a nationally syndicated columnist. Former and current fellows include:

Bureaucrash
Bureaucrash was a special outreach and activist project of CEI described as an international network of pro-freedom activists working to promote a political ideology based on personal and economic freedom. It conducted political activism using new media, creative marketing, and education campaigns. The project maintained a website (bureaucrash.com), which as of November 2023 is now only a web redirect to CEI's main website.

Funding
CEI is funded by donations from individuals, foundations and corporations. Donors to CEI include a number of companies in the energy, technology, automotive, and alcohol and tobacco industries.

CEI's revenues for the fiscal year ending on September 30, 2015, were $7.5 million against expenses of $7.4 million. ExxonMobil Corporation was a donor to CEI, giving the group about $2 million over seven years. In 2006, the company announced that it had ended its funding for the group.

title: Competitive Enterprise Institute


text:
Diver Down

Diver Down is the fifth studio album by American rock band Van Halen, released on April 14, 1982. It spent 65 weeks on the album chart in the United States and had, by 1998, sold four million copies in the United States.

Cover art
The album cover artwork displays the "diver down" flag used in many US (and Canadian) jurisdictions to indicate a SCUBA diver is currently submerged in the area. David Lee Roth said it was meant to imply that "there was something going on that's not apparent to your eyes. You put up the red flag with the white slash. Well, a lot of people approach Van Halen as sort of the abyss. It means, it's not immediately apparent to your eyes what is going on underneath the surface." While impressed by Roth's creative marketing spin, manager Noel Monk also explained the sexual double-entendre "dive her down" in his 2017 band memoir Running with the Devil. The back cover of the album features a photo by Richard Aaron of Van Halen on stage at the Tangerine Bowl in Orlando, Florida, that was taken on October 24, 1981, as they concluded a set opening for The Rolling Stones.

Background and recording
Five of the twelve songs on the album are covers, the most popular being the cover of "(Oh) Pretty Woman", a Roy Orbison song. Eddie Van Halen recalled how the album came about: "When we came off the Fair Warning tour last year [1981], we were going to take a break and spend a lot of time writing this and that. Dave [Lee Roth] came up with the idea of, 'Hey, why don't we start off the new year with just putting out a single?' He wanted to do 'Dancing in the Streets.' He gave me the original Martha Reeves & the Vandellas tape, and I listened to it and said, 'I can't get a handle on anything out of this song.' I couldn't figure out a riff, and you know the way I like to play: I always like to do a riff, as opposed to just hitting barre chords and strumming. So I said, 'Look, if you want to do a cover tune, why don't we do 'Pretty Woman'? It took one day. We went to Sunset Sound in L.A., recorded it, and it came out right after the first of the year. It started climbing the charts, so all of a sudden Warner Bros. is going, 'You got a hit single on your hands. We gotta have that record.' We said, 'Wait a minute, we just did that to keep us out there, so that people know we're still alive.' But they just kept pressuring, so we jumped right back in without any rest or time to recuperate from the tour, and started recording. We spent 12 days making the album... it was a lot of fun."

Three of the original songs were around long before the album was made. "Hang 'Em High" can trace its roots back to 1976 as "Last Night", which had the same music but different lyrics. "The Full Bug" borrows heavily from a demo track called "The Bottom Line" (not the track of the same name released on Roth's 1988 album Skyscraper) that leaked in 2023 and "Cathedral" was played in its final form throughout 1981 with earlier versions going back to 1980. Additionally, "Happy Trails" had been recorded for their 1977 demos.

"Where Have All the Good Times Gone" is a cover of a song by The Kinks. During the band's bar-playing days, vocalist David Lee Roth bought a budget label Kinks double album, and Van Halen learned all of the songs on one side to use as staples of their set. Eddie Van Halen created the effects in the guitar solo by running the edge of his pick up and down the strings and using an Echoplex.

"Cathedral" was so named because the band members thought it sounded like a Catholic church organ.

The lyrics to "Secrets" were inspired by greeting cards which Roth bought in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on the preceding tour. Eddie Van Halen used a Gibson doubleneck 12-string for the song, played with a flatpick. The solo was done in one take.

The track "Intruder", which precedes "(Oh) Pretty Woman", was written by Roth specifically to cover the length of the promotional video for the "(Oh) Pretty Woman" single. Roth recalled that the video "was about three minutes too long. So, I said, we won't cut any of it; we'll write soundtrack music for the beginning. So we went into the studio and I played the synthesizer and I wrote it. It took about an hour to put that together." The "(Oh) Pretty Woman" music video was one of the first banned by MTV, although VH1 Classic (now MTV Classic) has continuously aired it. Roth explained the ban as the result of complaints that it made fun of "an almost theological figure", the Samurai warrior (played by bassist Michael Anthony), and also because two little people appeared to molest a woman (actually a Los Angeles area transvestite performer). The video, directed by Roth and Pete Angelus, was, he said: "rather like a surrealistic art project ... where they paint the picture and come back three days later and try to figure out what they meant."

"Little Guitars" was inspired by the flamenco guitar playing of Carlos Montoya. Eddie Van Halen found he was unable to imitate Montoya's finger picking, so he used a pick as an assist. Roth, who thought the music Eddie Van Halen came up with sounded Mexican (Montoya was actually Spanish), wrote lyrics intended to evoke that nation. The guitar used on the recording (and subsequent tour) was a miniature Les Paul, built by Nashville luthier David Petschulat and sold to Eddie on the earlier Fair Warning Tour.

Covering "Big Bad Bill (Is Sweet William Now)" was Roth's idea, as was having Eddie and Alex Van Halen's father Jan play clarinet on the track.

Of "The Full Bug", Roth said 'PRFCs' were "great shoes for when the cockroach moves into the corner and you can't get at it with your foot or the broom anymore. You just jam your toe into the corner and hit as hard as you can. And if you did it right you got the full bug. So this slang means — bammm! — you have to give it everything you've got. Make the maximum effort, do everything possible, get the full bug."

Reception
In a retrospective review, Stephen Thomas Erlewine of Allmusic called Diver Down "one of Van Halen's best records, one that's just pure joy to hear", saying it hearkens back to the exuberance and lightheartedness of their early albums while retaining the tightly knit and practiced playing honed over the length of their career. He also found it effectively showcased all four individual members, and said the cover songs were thoroughly revamped to make them distinctly Van Halen works.

In 2022, Diver Down was named #3 of 'The 25 greatest rock guitar albums of 1982' list in Guitar World.

Personnel
Van Halen
 * David Lee Roth – lead vocals, synthesizer on "Intruder", acoustic guitar and harmonica on "The Full Bug"
 * Eddie Van Halen – electric and acoustic guitars, backing vocals, synthesizer on "Dancing in the Street"
 * Michael Anthony – bass guitar, backing vocals
 * Alex Van Halen – drums, backing vocals on “Happy Trails”

Additional personnel
 * Jan Van Halen – clarinet on "Big Bad Bill"

Production

 * Richard Aaron – photography
 * Pete Angelus – art direction
 * Ken Deane – engineer
 * Donn Landee – engineer
 * Jo Motta – project coordinator
 * Richard Seireeni – art direction
 * Ted Templeman – producer
 * Neil Zlozower – photography

title: Diver Down