1802

1802

In 1802, Von Hammer-Pugstall, a Viennese scholar, introduced European readers to the Arabian epic, The Romance of Antar, a story about a fabled Black Knight, and, in the process, revived European interest in the Antar notion of chivalry. 

Archaeologists have long known that African people were the first people to occupy the Arabian Peninsula, and there has always been a substantial population in Arabia of people of African descent.  From these African Arabs came Antara ibn Shaddad al-‘Absi (c.525-615), probably the most illustrious single figure in pre-Islamic Arabia.  Called Antara the Lion, Antara had an Arab father and an Ethiopian (Abyssinian) mother.  Over time Antara became Arabia’s national hero.  Indeed, it was reputed that there was no individual equal in valor or strength to Antara.  In Europe, Antara was often compared to King Arthur but the difference was that Antara was a more historical personality.

The name of Antara ibn Shaddad has lived through the ages as the epitome of heroism and chivalry.  Knight, poet, warrior and lover, Antara exemplified in his life those qualities greatly cherished by the sons of the desert.  His acts of gallantry, as well as his love episodes with his lady, Abla, whose name he immortalized in his famous Mu‘allaqat, have become a part of the literary legacy of the Arabic speaking world. 

Romances and stories of a biographical character were very popular among the Arabs.  The story of Antar the Lion was the story of the life of one of the most renowned poets of those crowned at the contests at Okad, which in the earlier days were more greatly attended than those of Thebes. 

Antara was born in Laiwa (now Liwa in the Rub’ al Khali desert in the United Arab Emirates).  He was the son of Shaddad, a well respected member of the tribe of ‘Abs, and of Zabaibah, an African slave.  At first, the tribe neglected Antara because he was a COTW, a slave, and black.  Nevertheless, Antara soon claimed attentiong and respect for himself by his remarkable personal qualities and courage in battle, excelling as an accomplished poet and as a mighty warrior.  When the tribe needed his assistance to fend off another tribe in battle, Shaddad acknowledged Antara as his son, and granted him freedom.

Antara fell in love with his cousin Abla, and sought to marry her despite his status as a slave.  To secure allowance to marry, Antara had to face some challenges including getting a special kind of camel from the northern Arabian kingdom.  Antara took part in the great war between the related tribes of Abs and Dhubyan, which began over a contest of horses and was named after them.  He died in a fight against the tribe of Tai.

Antara’s poetry was well preserved, and often talks of chivalry; courage and heroism in battle; as well as Antara’s love for Abla.  His poetry was immortalized when one of his poems was included in the Hanged Poems.  The poetry’s historical and cultural importance stems from its detailed description of battles, armor, weapons, horses, desert and other themes from his time.

Amongst the Arabs, Antara became the father of knighthood.  He was the champion of the weak and oppressed and the protector of women.  He was the impassioned lover and poet, and the irresistible and gallant knight.  Antara’s magnificent deeds spread across the Arabian Peninsula and, with the spread of Islam, throughout the world.  In time these deeds, like the legends of Homer, were compiled in literary form.  These compilations are known today as The Romance of Antar. 

It must be understood that The Romance of Antar is a national classic.  It is the Arabian Iliad.  In its original form it is of great length being often thirty or forty manuscript volumes.  The original classic was a story often told throughout the Arab world.  Every wild Bedouin knew much of the tale by heart and listened to its periods and poems with quivering interest.  Every coffee house in Aleppo, Baghdad and Istanbul had a narrator who nightly recited it to rapt audiences.  The united sentiment of the east was that The Romance of Antar is a work that reached the highest summit of literature.  Some commentators have said that while The Arabian Nights, is for the amusement of women and children, The Romance of Antar, is for the education of men.  From The Romance of Antar, men learn eloquence, magnanimity, generosity, statecraft and bravery.  Even Muhammad, generally a foe to the ancient gatherings that fostered poetry, instructed his disciples to relate the traditions of Antar to their children. 

When the Crusaders invaded the Muslim lands in the twelfth century of the Christian calendar, they encountered the story of Antar and Antar’s notions of chivalry.  Indeed, many historians assert that it was from the tales of Antar that Europe received inspiration for romantic chivalry.

In 1802, Von Hammer-Pugstall, a Viennese scholar, introduced Antar to European readers and revived European interest in the Antar notion of chivalry.  Terrick Hamilton, a servant of the East India Company and later Oriental Secretary to the British Embassy in Istanbul, published a partial translation into English in 1819 and 1820.  A series of articles between 1833 and 1847 in Journal Asiatique recounted episodes from Antar’s vaunted career.  

The renewed European interest in Antar perhaps reached a peak in 1868 when Les Aventures d’Antar was published in Paris and when the Russian composer Rimsky Korsakov composed his Symphony No. 2 based on the legend of Antar.  The rediscovery of Antar in 1802 came at just the right time. For Antar, the Black Knight, is a truly romantic figure well suited for an age of Romance.

{1216/1217 A.H. - MAY 4}

1802 C.C.

MUSLIM HISTORY

             ASIA

      The Ottoman Empire

An Ottoman-French peace was negotiated (June 25). 

There was an earthquake in Istanbul (October 26).

Western Asia

The Wahhabis captured the Shi‘a pilgrimage sites of Najaf and Karbala.  The Wahhabis also initiated raids on Iraq.

After the fall of Karbala, Wahhabi armies mounted persistent attacks in Mesopotamia.  Most were made on undefended villages.  Effective defense was compromised after the death of Buyuk Sulaiman, pasha of Baghdad.

The Talysh khanate became a Russian protectorate.

The Talysh khanate was a principality established by Sayyid Abbas in the mid-18^th century on the southwest coast of the Caspian Sea.  The capital was the town of Lenkoran. 

The khanate became a protectorate in 1802, and was finally annexed by Russia in 1828 under the terms of the Treaty of Turkmanchai.

       Southeastern Asia

A new colonial charter was drafted for Dutch Indonesia.

Pursuant to the Treaty of Amiens, British occupied Melaka, West Sumatra, and some Dutch possessions in Maluku, were restored to Dutch rule. {See 1800.}

            AFRICA

North Africa, Egypt and Sudan

Khusrau Pasha, the Ottoman appointee as governor of Egypt, was challenged by Muhammad Bey al-Alfi on behalf of the Mamelukes.

There was fighting between Mameluke and Ottoman forces in Egypt.  There was a massacre of Mamelukes by the Ottomans after the battle at the Aboukir.  The British rescued the Mameluke survivors of the battle.

The Treaty of Amiens restored Ottoman control of Egypt (June 25).

Great Britain invaded Egypt and launched a naval attack on Istanbul.

Ahmad ibn Abi Diyaf (1802-1874), the author of Ithaf ahl al-zaman bi akhbar muluk tunis wa ‘ahd al-aman, an important chronicle of Tunisian history, was born.

Ithaf ahl al-zaman bi akhbar muluk tunis wa ‘ahd al-aman opens with the Arab conquest and continues into the reign of Muhammad al-Sadiq Bey, but concentrates on the latter part of the eighteenth century of the Christian calendar and the first half of the nineteenth.  This was an era about which Bin Diyaf (as his name appears in colloquial Tunisian Arabic) had an abundance of accurate personal information.  For more than 30 years, beginning in 1827, he acted as private secretary to each successive bey.  Bin Diyaf’s inclusion in the chronicle of an extensive biographical dictionary of major personages makes the work a key reference source for the period.

        Western Africa

There was a renewed Temne and Bulom attack on Freetown, Sierra Leone (April 11).  The attack was unsuccessful.

Yunfa, a pupil of Uthman dan Fodio, became Sarkin of Gobir.

Yunfa (d. 1808) was ruler of the Hausa kingdom of Gobir (r. c.1801-c.1808).  Tradition says that, in his youth, Yunfa was tutored by ‘Uthman, then a resident of Gobir.  When Yunfa’s father, the ruler of Gobir died, ‘Uthman rallied support for Yunfa against his cousins.  Yunfa soon came to fear ‘Uthman because of his immense popularity and the Muslim threat to traditional authority, and Yunfa may have attempted to assassinate him.  He banished the Fula leader to Gudu, in a distant part of the kingdom.  ‘Uthman attracted a large following which further frightened Yunfa, who attacked ‘Uthman in 1804.  The war continued until the final Muslim victory at Alkalawa in 1808, when Yunfa was killed.  The battles marked the beginning of ‘Uthman’s jihad (holy war) which swept through the Hausa states.

        Eastern Africa

From 1802 to 1867, Kimweri the Great reigned as the Sultan of Vuga.

Kimweri ye Nyumbai (d. 1868) was ruler of the Kilindi empire (of Tanzania) and one of the most powerful nineteenth century east Africans.  Kimweri came to power very early in the nineteenth century.  Kimweri was the fifth member of the Kilindi clan to rule Usambara in northeastern Tanzania.  The Kilindi clan was founded by Mbega in the 1700s.  During his reign of approximately 60 years, Kimweri extended Kilindi rule from his capital at Vuga over the Swahili and Arab towns on the coast.  Little is known about Kimweri before 1848.  However, in 1848, Kimweri was visited by a literate European and his history began to be known.  During the early 1850s, Kimweri clashed with the Zanzibari ruler Sayyid Said over control of the coastal towns but in 1853 an accommodation was worked out by which a sort of condominium administration was established along the coast.  Kimweri oversaw an extensive trade in ivory, and some slaves, to the coast.  During this period, Kimweri took the title Sultan.  Thereafter his successors were also known as Sultan.  After his death in 1868, Usambara fell into a civil war, which ended only when the Germans occupied the country in 1890.

            EUROPE

      Southeastern Europe

Ali Pasha Tepedeleni became the first governor of Rumelia (April).  Ali Pasha Tepedeleni would later become the governor of Janina and Tirhala.

Rumelia was a European division of the Ottoman Empire.  Rumelia was of indefinite boundaries but encompassed areas of Albania, Macedonia, and Thrace.

1802 to 1803 was a period of the kurdzhaliyas.

A kurdzhaliya is a member of one of the many large armed gangs which roamed through Bulgaria and Serbia and looted villages and small towns at the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth century.  These gangs were, in fact, remnants of the Ottoman army, which after being defeated by the Austrians in the 1789-1792 war, had been engaged by local feudal lords who opposed Ottoman central power.  Most of the kurdzhaliyas were of Muslim Turkish or Albanian origin, but there were also Bulgarian kurdzhaliyas. In 1793, the Ottoman authorities officially allowed the Christian population to arm themselves and resist the kurdzhaliyas.  They were finally eliminated in the second decade of the nineteenth century.

The “time of the kurdzhaliyas” is considered to be the nadir of the history of Ottoman rule in the Balkans.  Their appearance caused a massive migration of Bulgarians from villages to the less vulnerable towns.  As a result of looting, thousands of Bulgarians – and Gagauz – left the Ottoman Empire and settled in southern Russia.  Their descendants are known as the Bessarabian Bulgarians.  The largely negative image the Bulgarians created for themselves of Ottoman rule – and which is still generally accepted – was based mainly on the chaotic situation in the Bulgarian lands at the time of the kurdzhaliyas.

Notable Births

Paul-Emile Botta (1802-1870): French archaeologist whose discovery of the palace of the Assyrian king Sargon I in 1843 sparked other excavations in Mesopotamia, was born in Turin, Italy (December 6).

Al-Mansur Muhammad bin Abdallah (December 16, 1802 - February 8, 1890), an imam of the Zaydiyya sect in Yemen who claimed the imam title in the period 1853-1890, and ruled briefly in the capital San'a in 1853, was born.

Muhammad bin Abdallah al-Wazir was a Sayyid of the Al Wazir lineage from Wadi'l-Sirr. He was a 23rd-generation descendant of the imam ad-Da'i Yusuf (d. 1012). His career coincides with a period of great disorder in the Zaidi state in Yemen which was founded in 1597. The realm of the imam was confined to part of the highlands while the lowlands were ruled by the Ottoman Turks. The imam al-Hadi Ghalib was deposed in 1852 by the population of San'a, who appointed a governor called Ahmad al-Haymi. In the next year 1853, the ulema and notables acknowledged Muhammad as their new imam. As such, he adopted the title al-Mansur Muhammad. He conducted a military campaign to disperse the Arhab tribesmen who had occupied Haima. However, the expedition proved fruitless. Al-Mansur Muhammad himself was expelled from San'a after a very short tenure. When he left the city he cursed the inhabitants. And actually a series of calamities befell the urban population, since cattle and grapes were struck by disease, and the plague ravaged the region in the following year. Al-Mansur Muhammad returned to Wadi'l-Sirr where he continued to pose as imam until 1890, handling disputes among the people which were voluntarily brought forward to him. However, he only wielded local importance, and the political initiative went over to other claimants to the Yemeni imamate, in particular al-Mutawakkil al-Muhsin.

Persondata
Name	Warsita, Rangga
Alternative names
Short description	Indonesian poet
Date of birth	14 March 1802
Place of birth
Date of death	24 December 1873
Place of death

Raden Ngabei Ronggowarsito (1802-1873), a court poet of Surakarta (Indonesia) and author of the Paramayoga and the Pustakaraja Purwa which describe a mythical history of Java from the time of Adam to the year 730 AJ, was born.  He is generally regarded as the last of the great Javanese court poets.

Raden Ngabehi Rangga Warsita (March 14, 1802, Surakarta - December 24, 1873, Idem) was a Javanese poet. He was born into a famous literary family in Surakarta, in Central Java, the Yasadipura family. People regarded him as the last Javanese poet.

His real name was Bagus Burham. He was the son of Mas Pajangswara and grandson of Yasadipura II, famous poet of Kasunanan Surakarta (Kingdom of Surakarta). His father was an offspring of Kesultanan Pajang, whereas his mother was an offspring of Kesultanan Demak. Bagus Burham had a loyal nanny named Ki Tanujoyo.

Persondata
Name	Warsita, Rangga
Alternative names
Short description	Indonesian poet
Date of birth	14 March 1802
Place of birth
Date of death	24 December 1873
Place of death

“AJ” stands for anno Javanicae.  Numerous traditional calendars have been employed in the archipelago at various times. The Muslim calendar is lunar, with a year of 354 or 355 days divided into 12 months.  The counting of years commenced in 622 C.C. with Muhammad’s flight (hijra) to Medina and Muslim dates are commonly denoted in English by AH (anno hijrae), in Indonesian by H (years according to the Christian calendar being marked with M for Masehi).  The year 1410 AH commenced on August 3, 1989, of the Christian calendar.

The Javanese calendar, also lunar with 354-355 days per year, was adopted by Sultan Agung of Mataram, using much Muslim terminology, but with a somewhat different division of months and arrangement of leap years and a base year of 78 C.C., the putative start of the Hindu-Javanese era.  Years are now commonly denoted with the initials AJ (anno Javanicae).  For agricultural purposes, the Javanese also used sun-years (mangsa), but these were not counted.  The year 1922 AJ commenced on August 3, 1989. 

During the Japanese occupation, the traditional Japanese system of counting years from the founding of the imperial dynasty was used.  Thus, 1942 became 2602.

Notable Deaths