These quizzes are nice!
I think I'll move things to a different region of the world...

1. What father-mother-son trio are identified as the "founders" of the Arab people?
2. What is the object (now in Mecca) did the "founder" son receive and from whom did he receive it?
3. To where did Muhammad go in order to prepare to retake Mecca?
4. What was the cause of the Shi'ite/Sunni division in Islam?
5. What family was installed by the British as monarchs in Jordan and Iraq in 1921?
6. What Ottoman viceroy gained control of Egpyt in the first half of the nineteenth century?
7. The funding of what construction project provided the pretext for the Suez Crisis?
8. What countries border Iraq? How many of them share a body of water?
9. Who fired the first shot in the Six Day War?
10. What Arab states united to form the short lived United Arab Republic?

1) From the Book of Nations? Can't remember the names though, so no idea.
2) The kaabah? From the archangel Gabriel?
3) Medinah.
4) Argument over who's the rightful successor to Muhammad, centering around Ali I think one of the early caliphs.
5) The Hashemites.
6) Pasha Muhammad?
7) The Suez Canal?
8) Kuwait, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey, Jordan. Kuwait, Iran and Saudi Arabia shared the Persian Gulf with Iraq.
9) The Egyptians?
10) Syria, Jordan and Egypt?

SKM, you've got about 5 of them...with a couple being half right, and depending on whether "Pasha Muhammad" is alternate name for the guy. I think Pasha was his title, but he has something else after "Muhammad". :)

Edit: Quick grammar fix. :)

1. Isaac/Rebecka/Essau
4. the disputed succesion was between the companions of Mohamed (Sunni sect) & the descendants of Mohamed (****e sect)
6. Mehemet Ali
7. Nassar nationalized the Suez canal in order to uses the proceeds to pay for the Aswan dam.
9. Israel lauched a premtive Air strike.
10. Syria & Egypt

SKM and Lefty together have all but #1 and #8...
As for #1, your answer is close Lefty, but that's the Hebrew line and one generation later.
SKM is close on #8, except Saudi Arabia doesn't directly share the Gulf - despite Saddam's wishes - and there are 2 bodies of water you probably know but forgot to mention. :p

Nice job!

8) Lake Van? Shared betw Turkey, Iran and Iraq?

1) I think it might be related to the jewish founders... Maybe Avraham...
8) The Persian gulf, shared by Iran, Kuwait and Saudi?

I think it is Abraham
his egyptian slave and
their son Ismael.

That's it...Abraham, Hagar, and Ishmael.

Also, as for #8...the bodies of water: Turkey and Iraq share the Tigris River, and Syria and Iraq share the Euphrates River!

Nice job!

But I don't think rivers qualify as 'bodies of water'. I'm no geographer but when I think about bodies of water, I always think of open spaces filled by water i.e. sea, lakes, straits etc.

Anyway, to turn this into a cumulative quiz (as a way to learn more about Arab and Islamic history - very important nowadays considering what's happening in Afghanistan) : -

When the Abbasids overthrew the Umayyad Caliphate, one of the scions managed to escape and set up a new caliphate. In which country was this caliphate located?

Originally posted by SKM
But I don't think rivers qualify as 'bodies of water'. I'm no geographer but when I think about bodies of water, I always think of open spaces filled by water i.e. sea, lakes, straits etc.


Oh well...I tend to think of them as bodies of water, considering their strategic importance. Good enough. ;)


Anyway, to turn this into a cumulative quiz (as a way to learn more about Arab and Islamic history - very important nowadays considering what's happening in Afghanistan) : -

When the Abbasids overthrew the Umayyad Caliphate, one of the scions managed to escape and set up a new caliphate. In which country was this caliphate located?

Spain.

That's a quick one. Of coz, you got it right. Next question's on you so you so choose. :goodjob:

I guess it can be quick if we're both reading the boards at the same time. :lol:

Hmm...let's see...multipart question:

In 1975, Saddam Hussein predicted that the bipolar order of the Soviet Union and United States would fall. However, instead of the Soviet Union falling, he predicted that a French-led Europe, China, and newly militant Japan would rise to challenge the bipolar order.

1. How long did Saddam believe it would take for the bipolar order to be replaced by one with multiple centers of power?
2. [Interpretation Question - so no "truly correct" answer] Why is Saddam's incorrect prediction important?

Jumbo, are you doing some kind of heavy studies in Middle-Eastern history and politics? I'll give it a try.

1) Really clueless. 10-20 years?
2) It led him to believe he could play off one great power against another. So far, he had the Americans backing him up against the Iranians. If there're more great powers, he could get more support (and could more easily manipulate the powers-that-be too). Led him into invading Iran eventually.

Excuse me
my english sucks
and i tend to write those names in the spanish way
I am from Argentina.
Do you know someone here who speaks spanish?

No problem, Kublai. I knew what you were saying. :)

SKM, yeah, my fall seminar this year is on Arab politics/foreign policy. It's the tradeoff of studying Political Science as opposed to History - more depth in those topics that I do study (Western and Southern Europe, Japan, the Middle East, and the US) but I know very little about most everywhere else (Africa, South America, continental Asia). Also, most of the focus is on modern, post-Thirty Years War history.

Anyway, I asked a bad question. I was trying to think of something relevant to current events, and it was the best I could come up with quickly.

The answer to part 1 is twenty years.

The answer to part 2 is that Saddam believed (correctly) that the rise of the multipolar order would give Iraq (and the Arab states in general) greater flexibility. in 1990, with the collapse of the Soviet bloc a near-inevitability, Saddam realized that his prediction had failed. Publicly (and everything Saddam says publicly must be taken with a rock of salt) Saddam still held to his twenty year (i.e., 1995) prediction for the multipolar order. However, Saddam viewed the next 5 years as extremely dangerous - a unipolar US would seek to dominate the Gulf region, and by controlling the world's energy resources, would be able to efficiently maintain its dominance.

(Here's where the interpretation comes in.) In 1990, Saddam used an oil price crisis with Kuwait and the UAE as a pretext for invading Kuwait. The conclusion is that Saddam viewed that a preemptive action was necessary to achieve dominance in the Arab world, before the US could move in. He gambled that the US would not expend resources and lives to fight Iraq - and he lost. In effect, his preemptive action brought the very situation he hoped to avoid: heavy US presence in the Gulf. By following the chain of events further, it is possible to argue that Saddam's personal ambition was a primary cause of the terrorist attacks on 9/11.

Anyway, a more factual question:
Who were the five members of the Baghdad Pact? (1955)
Hint: The Baghdad pact included non-Arab states.

Wow, you actually study this stuff. :eek: Where I come from, the emphasis is on studying 'useful' degree courses - engineering, computer science, business, accountancy etc. Those who studied the arts or pure sciences were usually rejects who got the places cos no one else wanted those places, generally speaking. Makes us kinda shallow when it comes to political debate and philosophy. :(

Back to your question, obviously Iraq will be a part of it. And I think Jordan, Britain, France and the US?

2 out of the 5 are right...and, of course, one of those is Iraq.

Hints regarding the other four:
One is a European nation
Two border Iraq
One does not border Iraq, but is predominantly Muslim.

Second hint: The US was not a member of the Pact, but strongly supported it.

Hmmmm, Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Britain and Pakistan.

Close enough. Replace Syria with Iran, and you've got it. The idea was that by creating this kind of alliance, the West could create a "line" of states that acted as a buffer against communism. After the Iraqi revolution a few years later, the organization was renamed the Central Treaty Organization and moved to Ankara. I'm not certain about its future from that point on, but I imagine that the Iranian Revolution would have been a serious threat to its existence.

I thought it was something along this line - remembered Iraq was a monarch set up by Britain for the Hashemites. I was quite hesitant about Syria since it was a French-mandated territory so shldn't be in a British coalition of any kind. Shld have remembered that the Shah was also a close ally of the Brits. Pakistan was a former British colonial territory and was then an American ally. So was Turkey cos of the Soviets who bordered them to the north.

Next question's on me. :crazyeyes Here goes : -

What was the last Moorish stronghold to fall to the Christian kingdoms in Iberia?

Originally posted by SKM
I thought it was something along this line - remembered Iraq was a monarch set up by Britain for the Hashemites. I was quite hesitant about Syria since it was a French-mandated territory so shldn't be in a British coalition of any kind. Shld have remembered that the Shah was also a close ally of the Brits. Pakistan was a former British colonial territory and was then an American ally. So was Turkey cos of the Soviets who bordered them to the north.

Next question's on me. :crazyeyes Here goes : -

What was the last Moorish stronghold to fall to the Christian kingdoms in Iberia?

Granada

if that is the answer it was aneasy one.
Confirm
so i can ask something....;)

Originally posted by SKM
I thought it was something along this line - remembered Iraq was a monarch set up by Britain for the Hashemites. I was quite hesitant about Syria since it was a French-mandated territory so shldn't be in a British coalition of any kind. Shld have remembered that the Shah was also a close ally of the Brits. Pakistan was a former British colonial territory and was then an American ally. So was Turkey cos of the Soviets who bordered them to the north.

Next question's on me. :crazyeyes Here goes : -

What was the last Moorish stronghold to fall to the Christian kingdoms in Iberia?

Granada

if that is the answer it was an easy one.
Confirm
so i can ask something....;)

Kublai, of coz it's easy for you cos you're Spanish! May not be that easy for all the rest of them non-Spaniards. Yep you got it right. Next question's on you so you so choose.

You had posted the same thing twice. Server problem again?

Originally posted by SKM
Kublai, of coz it's easy for you cos you're Spanish! May not be that easy for all the rest of them non-Spaniards. Yep you got it right. Next question's on you so you so choose.

You had posted the same thing twice. Server problem again?
I really don´t know what happened,
it wasn´t my intention to post that twice.
And i am not spanish,
i am just a 17 years old
Argentine.

The mighty Argentine civilization
:rolleyes: :crazyeyes

But it helps cuz we were a spanish colony once.
So i have to study spanish history in secundary shcool.

My question is

Which mythical being revealed the truth of god to Mohammed?
And in what year of the Christian era, and why
the Hegira started?

Camon people,
you just have to answer 1 of the three question.

I think it's the Archangel Gabriel?
In the yr 622 AD? I remember this yr being very important for Islam but not sure why.....
The Hegira began counting fr the year of Muhammad's flight to Medinah whose people was more sympathetic to the religion he's trying to found. In fact, there were Muslims there already. So Muhammad commemerated that yr as yr 1 of the Hegira in remembrance of his new start.
BTW, you don't need to be anxious. Sometimes these things take awhile. Took 4-5 days before someone would even want to attempt my Mongol quiz. ;)

YOU WIN!!!



wow, i didn´t realized that there was a mongol quiz
i will
check it

:)

you are cool

Guess next question's on me. :)

What lands did the Arabs grab fr the Byzantines following the rise of Islam?

Originally posted by SKM
Guess next question's on me. :)

What lands did the Arabs grab fr the Byzantines following the rise of Islam?

They conquered the whole Byzantine empire,
but the first land that they grabbed
was
Syria
i believe.

The Arabs didn't conquer the Byzantines although they managed to beseige Constantinople once. Later the Byzantines recovered sufficiently to throw the Arabs out of Anatolia and held on for 5-6 more centuries.
It was the Seljuks who later blunted their power and the Ottomans who destroyed their empire after conquering Constantinople in 1453.
My question is to list all the lands they took over fr the Byzantines more or less permanently.

Syria, Cyprus, mesopotamia, the Levant, Egypt, and all points westward fell to the sword of Islam, n'est-ce pas?

Originally posted by Sodak
Syria, Cyprus, mesopotamia, the Levant, Egypt, and all points westward fell to the sword of Islam, n'est-ce pas? I think Cyrus wasn't really conquered permanently by the Arabs. Seem to remember the Byzantines getting it back cos of Greek fire. Also Mesopotamia belonged mostly to the Sassanid Persians. Otherwise you are correct. The Arabs took Egypt, Palestine, Syria, North Africa and Sicily fr the Byzantines.
Next question's on you so you so choose.

Originally posted by SKM
I think Cyrus wasn't really conquered permanently by the Arabs. Seem to remember the Byzantines getting it back cos of Greek fire. Also Mesopotamia belonged mostly to the Sassanid Persians. Otherwise you are correct. The Arabs took Egypt, Palestine, Syria, North Africa and Sicily fr the Byzantines.
Next question's on you so you so choose.

Yeah
you are right
Cyprus remained in christian power almost always
until the Ottomans.
the same with Sicily
it was under the arab control temporally
I think that less than 150 years.
The normands conquered Sicily in 1072,
and 100 years later the arabs were expelled from Sicily.

Yes, the Normans took Sicily and southern Italy - including my great(x30)-grandfather! Alas, his wealth did not filter down thru the ages... :(

Arab history is not my strong point, I'm not sure what to ask...

Who was the arab world's equivalent to the west's Marco Polo? (hint: 14th century Moroccan traveller)

Ibn Battuta? (not sure about the spelling ...) He sure travelled far for his day.

Yes, Abu Abdullah ibn Battuta of Tangiers is the man. He wrote some long tales about his hajj and other travels. It's interesting reading!

An easy one - what's the court and administrative language of the Islamic Arab Caliphates? Hint - it's not Arabic. :lol:

Originally posted by SKM
An easy one - what's the court and administrative language of the Islamic Arab Caliphates? Hint - it's not Arabic. :lol:

Persian?

In fact I....don't know. :lol:

I really can't think of any good possibilities. Do you mean the original caliphates? Persian sounds like as good a guess as any, to me...

Persian it is. Cos half of the Arab conquests consisted of lands formerly making up the Persian Sassanid empire. Had the Byzantines and Persians not fought so many wars and wearied themselves over the 2-3 preceding centuries, the Arabs would probably not be so successful. The illiterate Arabs weren't administrators so they got their Persian subjects to do all the bureaucratic work, so eventually Persian came to such importance.

Anyone's welcomed to the next question......:)

I guess I'll jump back into the question asking thing...and, as I tend to do, I'm going to make things "modern" and multipart again:

In the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, an American "backstabbed" Israel. Who was this American, what did he do, why did he do it, and what did Israel threaten to do?

What´s the meaning of backstabbed?

:D

Hehe, ok Kublai. :D

It means to cheat someone for your advantage.

Hmm...I think the best way to explain is an example from Civ!

Say you are the Romans, and the Greeks ask you to attack the English. You agree to attack the English, and then the Greeks sneak attack you! In this case, the Greeks "backstabbed" you.

It is my pleasure to join and I look forward to benefit from this club. Thank you.

ljalbout, wellcome here. Have a lot of fun. However this topic is 5 years without new posts. Please open a new thread and do not revive these old zombies. Let them buried at peace. Please read the rules of this forum before posting.
Nevertheless be wellcome.
To the next mod reading this, please close this thread.

Adler

Ancient thread closed.

Always amusing to read my own ancient posts. :ack: