A View from Afar

The Ottoman Empire: The Rise of the Ottomans

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 19 Dec 2005 21:18:00 +0000

The Ottoman Empire:

The Rise of the Ottomans

The Ottoman Empire is considered to be the last Islamic caliphate. It was an empire that lasted for about 7 centuries, from the 13^th century until 1923. At its height, the empire stretched from Algeria in the west to Basra, Iraq in the east; and from Vienna in the north to western Yemen in the south. I will briefly explain the events that lead to the height of the Ottoman Empire.

In 1291, the Ilkhans, the successors of the Mongol ruler Genghis Khan, began to crumble when disputes concerning succession to the throne arose. During this time, rebellions arose throughout much of the Ilkhanate territory, and men began to declare independence from their former rulers and attempted to establish their own rule. In the Asian Minor, one of those newly found states is worthy of note. That state later became known as the Ottoman Empire.

During this time, the area in which this newborn nation emerged was probably the last place anybody would expect a mighty empire, which would soon stretch from Algeria to Iraq, to emerge. At that time, the new state was surrounded by nations that could have possibly eliminated them off the map. Christian governments that were hostile to Muslims controlled much of the northern shores of the Mediterranean Sea. To the south were the Mamluk Egyptians who had disputes with other Muslim factions. For the new state of the Ottomans, the gravest threats mostly came from the east and the northwest, the Mongols and the Byzantines (respectively).

However, the Ottoman Empire became a (if not the) superpower of its time. Whether the growth of this young tiny state occurred because the Byzantines underestimated these warriors, because the Byzantines had other (possibly more important) issues to deal with, or, as Jason Goodwin put it in his Lords of the Horizons, because they were “helped into being by powers not quite human – diabolical or divine,”[1] the Ottomans expanded their land from being a territory that probably seemed to the powerful civilizations of that time as nothing more than a tiny island in the path of hurricanes, to an empire that would remain next to such powerful names as Rome and Greece throughout history.

It was during the rule of the first sultan, Osman the first, that the Ottomans began their series of victorious conquests. As was expected, the first people who would taste the rush of the Ottoman expansion were the Byzantines. In quite a short period of time, the Ottoman Empire established itself between Eskisehir and Brusa, two cities that were once Byzantine territory. In an unsuccessful attempt to avenge the Ottomans, the Byzantines sent an army towards the Ottomans. Those forces were defeated by Osman at Baphaeum. The Ottomans then attacked a strategic target. Osman quickly captured the city of Melangeia, cutting off Byzantine communication between Bursa and Nicaea.

In another attempt to defeat the Ottomans, the Emperor Andronicus II offered his sister in marriage to the Persian Ilkhanate if they accepted a military alliance against the Ottomans. Acting quickly, the Ilkhans attacked the Ottoman city district of Eskisehir. Osman’s son, and future successor, Orkhan defeated them in battle, catalyzing the collapse of the already declining Ilkhanate.

After Osman’s death in 1326, his son, Orkhan, became the sultan. During Orkhan’s reign, the growth rate of the size of the Ottoman state grew rapidly. Brusa was captured and became the Ottoman capital shortly after he began rule. Nicaea was conquered in 1331, Nicomedia was conquered 6 years later, and the province of Karasi was added to the Empire in 1345.

Civil war broke out in the Byzantine Empire in 1342. John Cantacuzenus, the leader of the rebels who fought against Emperor John Palaeologus asked the Ottomans for support. A few years later, with the help of 6000 Ottoman soldiers, Cantacuzenus managed to take over the thrown. However, there was still some resistance. Palaeologus attempted to take revenge in 1352. Ottoman troops were called to duty on the Byzantine front once more. Orkhan appointed his son Suleiman as the general of the army that marched as far as Adrianople. Disputes arose between Cantacuzenus and the Ottomans when Suleiman established a military post at Gallipoli. A deal was about to take place until an earthquake damaged nearby towns and destroyed their walls. The Ottomans seized the opportunity and quickly captured those towns. Now the Byzantines were surrounded from the west and the southeast by the Ottomans.

When Orkhan died in 1359, his only heir was his grandson Murad I. (Suleiman had died 2 years earlier when he fell off of his horse.) Murad’s reign lasted for 30 years. Within two years, Murad managed to conquer a Byzantine city, Adrianople, and moved the capital there. He then surrounded the Byzantine capital, Constantinople. With no other option in front of him, the Byzantine emperor signed a peace treaty with Murad. According to Stephen Turnbull, although the emperor was guaranteed safety, the treaty “made the emperor into practically an Ottoman vassal.”

Now that the Byzantines no longer posed as a threat to the Ottomans, Murad was now able to focus on the expansion into Europe. News, however, had reached the Balkans concerning this new power, and they were undergoing their own preparations for war. Even though the Balkan states prepared for battle, Philippopolis was still conquered by the mighty Ottoman army in 1363. A group of European nations then decided to unite to attempt to stop the Ottoman expansion. Under the control of the Hungarian Louis the Great, troops from Serbia, Bosnia, and Walachia marched at Edirne, but were defeated by the Ottomans due to the lack of energy on the side of the Christians that resulted from a speedy march. The Ottoman capital moved once again, yet this time closer to the border shared between them and their enemies.

Things began to collapse during the reign of Murad’s successor Bayezid. He did attain victories during the beginning of his reign, yet it was the ending that caused trouble and turmoil when the Mongolian Timur Lenk unexpectedly attacked the Ottomans from the east. His forces reached an area northeast of Ankara. It was after a battle there that Bayezid’s reign ended. With only 300 men remaining on his side during the battle, Bayezid unsuccessfully attempted to flee, was captured, and killed by the Mongols. With little power and land, and with three potential successors to the thrown, the Ottoman Empire weakened for its fist time.

In 1411, the conflict concerning the succession ended when Mohamed I rose to power. The Ottoman Empire began to build itself up again.

In 1422, Sultan Murad II, Mohamed I’s son, laid siege on Constantinople. The siege stopped a year later, and another peace treaty with the Byzantines was signed. After quelling a few pockets of rebellion, Murad then focused his attention on Europe. A campaign for Hungary took place between 1439 and 1443. Murad’s men lost the war and then signed a 10-year peace treaty with the Hungarians which was broken by the Hungarians themselves a year later. It was then that the Ottomans and the Hungarians faced each other again at Varna. The Hungarians were outnumbered by a ratio of 4 to 1. Although the Hungarians and their allies were winning in the beginning of the battle, the Hungarian king, Wladislaw III was killed in action. It was then that the crusaders began to lose and victory was on the side of the Ottomans.

Another attempt by the Hungarians followed in 1445. John Hunyadi, a Hungarian commander, lead a crusade expedition to the Danube River. Ottoman soldiers followed the Hungarians from the opposite side of the river and pressured the Hungarians to finally withdraw in October. Sultan Murad did not stop there. To avenge for the breaking of the peace treaty, Murad II attacked the Greeks at the Peloponnese in 1446 and conquered it. Hunyadi, in an attempt to meet up with his Albanian allies, attacked the Ottomans at Serbia in 1448. The Hungarians were defeated again.

In 1453, Sultan Mohamed II, Murad II’s successor, attacked the city that had been for years surrounded by Ottoman land, Constantinople. This attack had been planned for possibly before the start of the youth’s reign in 1451. Two forts were built on opposite sides of the Bosphorus Strait to keep off any reinforcements from coming in for the support of the Byzantines. Mohamed II then bombarded the wall of Constantinople for 55 days. Then, on Tuesday, May 29^th, 1453, Mohamed II successfully attacked Constantinople and decisively won the battle, eliminating the once-powerful Byzantine Empire. That is how Mohamed II became known as Mohamed the Conqueror.

Mohamed’s second objective became Wallachia in the Balkans Peninsula. This objective Mohamed accomplished in 1476 in a battle against their prince Vlad Dracula. After Wallachia, Mohamed ordered two unsuccessful attacks on Moldavia, one in 1475 and the other in 1476. In 1480, another attack resulted in defeat when the Ottomans attempted to conquer Rhodes. The last attack of Mohamed’s career proved to be somewhat successful. His army conquered a small eastern tip of Itally at the town of Ontranto. Mohamed died in 1481.

Another period of dispute concerning succession arose, and in 1495, Bayezid II became the next sultan of the Ottoman Empire. Bayezid failed in attempting to capture Moldivia. His successor, Suleiman, became one of the greatest sultans of the Ottomans. He led a successful conquest on Belgrade in 1521. A year later, Rhodes also fell and became Ottoman territory. On August 8^th, 1526, Illok was swiftly captured from the Hungarians. In that same year, a battle took place between the Ottomans and the Hungarians on a battlefield south of present-day Mohacs, Hungary. The Ottomans strategically and decisively defeated the Hungarian army. 3 years later, Suleiman attempted to capture Vienna, yet his army was defeated, and many were killed as they retreated. Suleiman did not give up that easily, however, and made a second attempt at conquering Vienna 3 years later. This attempt also proved to be a failure, and towards the end, it seemed that Suleiman gained only portions of Hungary on the European front.

In 1566, Selim II, Suleiman’s son, succeeded his father. A peace treaty was signed with Hungary in 1568. With his mind free from the Hungarian problem, Selim focused on his main objective, the island of Cyprus. 350 Ottoman ships set sail for the island on June 27^th, 1570. After 45 attempts to assault the wall, Selim finally achieved his goal on September 9^th of the following year. The Venetians signed a treaty with the Ottomans 2 years later.

In 1593, a long struggle began between the Ottomans and the Europeans. Before this year, many European nations had begun to build forts and stronger armies in preparation for a great war against the Ottoman Empire. This war began between the Ottomans and the Austrians when the Ottomans attacked the Austrian border. The Ottomans failed and the Thirteen Years War began. It was then that three areas had their leaders changed: Wallachia, Transylvania, and Moldavia. These Ottoman territories came under the control of their rebel princes, and, as expected, the Ottomans responded with one of the largest army they ever sent into battle. In 1593 and 1594, the Ottomans recovered some of their lost territory from those rebels.

From then on, the Ottomans experienced their last centuries of decline. Other battles were fought, but little was conquered, and by 1923, the once powerful and seemingly undefeatable Islamic Ottoman Empire lost to a secular rebel general named Mustafa Kemal and then became the Republic of Turkey. The Empire that had posed a threat to Europe and lasted for about 620 years finally came to an end.

Sources:

§ Turnbull, Stephen, The Ottoman Empire: 1326-1699. Osceola, WI: Osprey Publishing Limited, 2003

§Goodwin, Jason. Lords of the Horizons: A History of the Ottoman Empire. New York, NY: Henry Holt and Company LLC, 1998

§“Ottoman Empire – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.” 6 June 2005. 14 June 2005.

[1] The context of this portion of text goes as follows, “The empire in those years was Islamic, martial, civilised and tolerant…To its own subject people…it…was such a prodigy of pep, so vigorous and so well-ordered, such a miracle of human ingenuity, that contemporaries felt it was helped by powers not quite human – diabolical or divine, depending on their point of view.”

Islam: The Basics

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 17 Dec 2005 00:01:00 +0000

Islam: The Basic Beliefs

Introduction

Islam is one of the fastest growing religions on Earth. With 1.2 billion followers, Islam has become the second largest religion (the first being Christianity.) It preaches pure monotheism, and shares few similar beliefs with Judaism and Christianity. In this research paper, I will describe the main beliefs of this over-1400-year-old religion.
The Meaning of Islam
“Islam” has many meanings. Five of the main meanings of Islam are:

To surrender to the Will of God

To submit to His commands

To obey Him and His Messenger (Muhammad)

To be sincere and pure in your intention

To have peace in this life, and in the Hereafter.

Islam is derived from the Arabic word “salam”, which means to surrender. The Arabic word for peace, “salaam” also comes from the same word.

God
Muslims believe in only One God. All other beings (creatures, materials, etc.) are not to be worshipped at all. God is Unique, Incomparable, One, and has no relatives or partners. None has the right to be worshipped besides Him. In the Qur’an, Chapter 112, it states:
Say: He is Allah, the One! Allah, the eternally Besought of all! He begetteth not nor was begotten. And there is none comparable unto Him.
Muslims believe that God has many Attributes, 99 of which He has informed us of in the Qur’an. Some of them are:
The Beneficent, The Merciful, The Holy, The Mighty, The Creator, The Evolver, The Fashioner, The Forgiver, The All-Knowing, The All-Hearing, The All-Seeing, The Just, The Grateful, The Wise, The First, The Last, The Acceptor of Repentance, The Self-Sufficient …
Muslims do not believe in any form of a trinity of God. The Qur’an states in Chapter 5, Verses 73-74
They surely disbelieve who say: Lo! Allah is the third of three; when there is no Allah save the One Allah. …. Will they not rather turn unto Allah and seek forgiveness of Him? For Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.
Muslims believe that God has never rested, nor does He need rest. The Qur’an states:
2:255:
Allah! There is no deity save Him, the Alive, the Eternal. Neither slumber nor sleep overtaketh Him. . .

Allah (اللهِ) is the name of God in Arabic. Islam is not the only religion that calls Him by that name. Even the Arabic translations of the Bible us this name.
(Examples can be found in the first verse of Genesis 1 from BibleGateway.com]:
Arabic: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=genesis%201;&version=28;
English: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=genesis%201;&version=9
BibleGateway.com is © Copyright 1995-2005 Gospel Communications International)
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The Prophets

Muslims believe that God sent many Messengers and Prophets to many groups of people from amongst their midst. Muslims believe that all of the Prophets and Messengers were only pious God-fearing men and had no characteristics of God, and none of them was God. Some of the Prophets and Messengers are told to us in the Qur'an, while others are not. Among those Prophets that we know of, there are those that are also mentioned in the Bible, amongst whom are Jesus, Moses, Abraham, Isaac, Ishmael, Lot, Noah, Solomon, and David (Peace Be Upon Them). There were other Prophets sent to other groups of people. Some examples are:

Salih to the people of Thamud (Peace Be Upon Him)

Hud to the people of A'ad (Peace Be Upon Him)

Shu'eyb to the people of Midian (Peace Be Upon Him)

These Prophets did not preach separate religions, but preached the same faith, being Islam. Many of the people these Prophets were sent to disbelieved their words and later changed their teachings.
Some of those Messengers were sent with them Books; Abraham came with the Suhuf (Scriptures or Scrolls), David came with the Zabur (the Psalms), Jesus came with the Injeel (the Gospel), and Moses came with the Tawrat (the Torah).
Towards the 6th century C.E., the last of those Messengers and Prophets would be born to the people of Arabia, and his teachings would be kept unchanged for thousands of years. Muhammad came with the Qur'an and was sent as the last Prophet and Messenger to all of mankind.

The Six Pillars of Faith
The six pillars of Faith are six are six things a Muslim is obligated to believe in. These are:

Allah, His Names and His Attributes

His Angels

His Books (The Holy Books sent to mankind; Suhuf, Zabur, Tawrat, Injeel, Qur’an)

His Messengers

The Last Day (The Day of Judgment)

The Predestination, its good and its bad.

The first of these is the belief in Allah (God) and His Names and Attributes (addressed in the beginning of this research).
The second of these beliefs is the belief in His Angels. The Angels are created from light and are not of a feminine gender.
And they make the angels, who are the slaves of the Beneficent, females. Did they witness their creation? ... (Qur’an 43:19)
They were created so that they have no other choice but to obey God’s commands. They do not have the ability to sin. Each angel was created for a certain task. (One example is Jibreel [Gabriel], who was created as a messenger-angel between God and His Prophets.)

The third is the belief in the Books God sent to mankind. The Books that were sent were:

The Suhuf (Scriptures) of Abraham,

The Zabuur (Psalms) of David,

The Tawrat (Torah) of Moses,

The Injeel (Gospel) of Jesus,

The Qur’an of Muhammad.

Muslims believe that the first four were changed, added to, and altered, and for that reason, only abide by the Qur’an, which was kept unchanged for over 1400 years.
The fourth of these beliefs is the belief in the Messengers whom God had sent to mankind (Addressed in the second section of this research.)
The fifth belief is the belief in the Last Day. The Last Day (also called the Day of Judgment and the Day of Resurrection) is the Day when all of mankind will be brought back to life, and each person will be judged according to his/her deeds and beliefs.
The last of these beliefs is the belief in the Predestination. Muslims believe that since God knows all things, He also knows what the future holds for each person. They also believe that everything that has happened, is happening, and will happen, is recorded with God. Also, whatever He doesn’t will, will not happen, and whatever He wills, will happen. (Muslims, however, believe that although it is whatever God wills to happen will happen, people have a free choice (and not will).)
The Five Pillars of Islam
The "5 Pillars of Islam" are 5 obligatory acts of worship, without any a man is not a true Muslim. These "Pillars" are:

The Testimony of Faith (to say "I bare witness that there is no god except Allah, and I bare witness that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah."),

The 5 obligatory Prayers,

The Zakat (the Poors' Due),

The Fasting in the month of Ramadan from dawn to sunset,

The Pilgrimage to Makkah.

The Testimony of Faith is the words that make a person a Muslim. It is composed of two parts:
"I bare witness that there is no god except Allah"
In this part, one testifies that the only thing worthy of worship in the Heavens and on the Earth is the One and Only True God, Allah. One clears his/herself from 'kufr' (disbelief)
"And I bare witness that Muhammad is His Messenger."
Upon this part, one testifies that Muhammad was the Seal of the Prophet and Messengers to mankind, and that it is through Muhammad's teachings that we learn Islam.

The 5 Obligatory Prayers are the "direct link[s] between the worshipper and God." --A Brief Illustrated Guide to Understanding Islam

Each prayer has its time. The first prayer, Fajr, is prayed at dawn. The second prayer, Dhuhr, comes at noon; Asr is to be prayed in the afternoon, Maghrib at sunset, and 'Isha at nightfall. When a prayer is prayed in congregation, the leader is a learned man of the Qur'an, and is chosen by the congregation, but is in no way, shape, or form an intermediary between man and God.

The Zakat is a certain percentage of one's wealth that is to be given in charity to “the poor and the needy, and those who collect them [the Zakat], and those whose hearts are to be reconciled [those who are close to converting to Islam], and to free the captives and the debtors, and for the cause of Allah, and (for) the wayfarer.” (Qur'an 9:60)
The fasting in the month of Ramadan is an obligatory fast made during the 8th lunar month of the Islamic calendar. A Muslim is to fast from dawn to sunset from all food drink, and sexual intercourse. There are exceptions to the elderly, the sick, the traveler, the pregnant, and the children who have not reached the age of puberty. They (except for the children) are to make up for the days they missed by fasting the same number of days after Ramadan if they later attain the health to do so. If their health does not permit, they are to feed a needy person for every day missed.
The Pilgrimage (Hajj) to Makkah is obligatory on each Muslim who is financially and physically able to complete it once in a lifetime. The Hajj takes place in the last month of the Islamic lunar calendar, Dhul Hijjah. Hundreds of thousands of Muslims from around the globe, from different ethnicities, cultures, races, classes, nations, and tribes come to Makkah to perform the Hajj, each wearing the same type of garments as the other. The Ka'ba, the cube that was before surrounded by barely anything except desert, was built by Abraham and his firstborn Ishmael. There are many rites and rituals that are done in this area. Among them is the circling around the Ka’ba seven times.

The Qur’an
The Qur’an is the Holy Book sent from God to mankind. In it are commands, prohibitions, stories, and parables. It is a very unique book. Among one of the most interesting facts about it is that it has stayed unchanged for over 1400 years. The Qur’an is organized in 114 Surahs (or Chapters) of varying sizes (the shortest taking less than a third of a page, and the longest being 48 pages.) The Qur’an is also split into 30 Ajza_a (parts), each being 21 pages.
In An Introduction to the Qur’an, Abdul A’la Mawdudi states, “The reader must bear in mind before he begins the study that this [Qur’an] is a unique book … It is unlike conventional books in that it does not contain information, ideas, and arguments about specific themes arranged in a particular literary order … Subjects are repeated in different ways, and one topic follows another without any apparent connection … The Qur’an follows its own method of solving cultural, political, social, and economic problems.”

In an interview with Father Sidney Griffith, when asked “What would be the hardest for a Christian to understand about the Koran?” he said, “First of all, a Christian, or any other reader unfamiliar with the biography of Mohammed and the early history of the Muslim community, is normally first struck by what he considers to be the disorder of the text. It seems on a first reading, while being formally highly structured, to lack any topical system of narrative presentation. In fact, the Muslim reader brings with him to the text in his Islamic consciousness the paradigms which enable him immediately to attune himself to the messages of the verses …”
-http://www.catholic.org/featured/headline.php?ID=1187

(Muslims also base their beliefs on another source, being the Sunnah, or the sayings and practices of Prophet Muhammad [Peace Be Upon Him])

Conclusion
Islam, the world’s second largest religion, is a pure monotheistic faith that preaches the worship of and belief in the One True God. The basics of its beliefs are the “Six Pillars of Faith”, being the belief in God, His angles, His Books, His Messengers, the Last Day, and the Predestination. There are five acts of worship a Muslim has to do; The Testimony, The Five Obligatory Prayers, The Fasting in the Month of Ramadan, and the Pilgrimage to Makkah. Muslims base their beliefs and actions on two sources: The Qur’an and the Sunnah.
Bibliography

Ibrahim, I. A. A Brief Illustrated Guide to Understanding Islam. 2nd ed. Houston: Darussalam, 1997.

Sakr, Ph.D, Ahmad H. Pillars of Islam. Lombard, Illinois: Foundation for Islamic Knowledge, 2002

Translation of the Qur’aan. Mt. Holly, NJ: Islamic Educational Services, n.d.

©Catholic Online 2004. “A Look Inside the Koran and the Bible (Part 1)” Catholic Online. 7/27/2004 - 6:00 AM PST. 4/18/05 – 11:52 AM EST. <http://www.catholic.org/featured/headline.php?ID=1187>

Karl Marx's Theories

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 16 Dec 2005 23:55:00 +0000

Karl Marx’s Theories
Introduction
     Karl Marx, who lived from 1818 to 1883, came about with revolutionary ideas, economic and social concepts that have changed the world. His theories and beliefs, called Marxism, are still being practiced in some countries such as China and Cuba. In this essay, I will give a brief summary about Karl Marx’s theories and ideas.

Karl Marx’s Theories
     Karl Marx, one of the main founders of Marxism, was influenced by the works of Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and other socialists. In 1847, he joined the Communist League, and wrote the Communist Manifesto a year later. In the Communist Manifest, Marx explained his beliefs and the beliefs of the league concerning society, economy, and morals. The Manifesto was organized into four sections: Bourgeoisies and Proletarians, Proletarians and Communists, Socialist and Communist Literature, and Positions of the Communists in Relation to the Various Existing Opposition Parties. In the first section, Marx and Fredrick Engels state that throughout history, there was always one group of oppressors, and another group of the oppressed. Marx states, “Freeman and slave, patrician and plebian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.”  He also stated that in the capitalist system, the bourgeois, or the capitalist (or a property-owner), took up the position of the master, and the working class took the position of a slave, being exploited by the bourgeois.

     In the second part, Proletarians and Communists, Marx explains the relation between the proletarians (working class) and the communists. He states that communists “are on the one hand practically, the most advanced and resolute section of the working-class parties of every country.” He suggests that communists are working-class people who show the common people the “common interests of the entire proletariat, independently of all nationality.” Both the proletarians and the communists, he suggests, share the following interests: “Formation of the proletariat into a class, overthrow of the bourgeois supremacy, conquest of political power by the proletariat.”

     The third section deals with the socialist parties of his time. These parties are divided into three groups: Reactionary Socialism, Conservative or Bourgeois Socialism, and Critical-Utopian Socialism or Communism. The first group was further divided into three smaller groups: Feudal Socialism, Petty-Bourgeois Socialism, and German or "True" Socialism. In the fourth section, Marx states which parties of which countries do communists support (during his time).

     Karl Marx believed that the means of production (natural resources, technology, labor, land, etc.) and social relations of production (social relations that occur as people acquire and use the means of production) influence and affect the mode of production (“the method of producing the necessities of life”). Marx also believed that in each society, the mode of production changes. He believed that in Europe, societies gradually changed from a feudal to a capitalist mode of production. According to Marx, each society has had struggles with inequality. Throughout history, those who owned land (bourgeoisie) were always in a higher rank than those who didn’t (proletariat). He based his theories on his analysis of history and changes in societies.

Conclusion
     Karl Marx’s theories focused mainly on the economic and social problems that took place during his time. He believed that there was always a large difference between social classes, and that there was always an oppressor and the oppressed throughout history. He also believed that the mode of production always changes, such as from one that is feudal to one that is capitalist. The mode of production is, according to Marx, influenced by the means of production and the social relations of production.

Sources:

Karl Marx – Wikipedia, the free encyclopediahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Marx#Biography

Synopsis of the Communist Manifesto – An Analysis of the Communist Manifestohttp://www.indepthinfo.com/communist-manifesto/synopsis.shtml

Karl Marx. The Communist Manifesto. http://www.indepthinfo.com/communist-manifesto/manifest.txt

The Magna Carta and American Judicial Documents

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 16 Dec 2005 23:52:00 +0000

The Magna Carta and American Judicial Documents
Introduction:
     The Magna Carta was an English charter (it means "Great Charter") written in June 15, 1215 and "sealed" by King John of England. It stopped the king from taking total control, because many of his earlier rights were forsaken under the codes of this document. Many constitutions and judicial documents that were written after 1215 were influenced by the ideas found in the Magna Carta.

The Writing of the Magna Carta:
     The writing he Magna Carta was an English charter (it means "Great Charter") written in June 15, 1215 and "sealed" by King John of England. It stopped the king from taking absolute rule, because many of his earlier rights were forsaken under the codes of this document. Many constitutions and judicial documents that were written after 1215 were influenced by the ideas found in the Magna Carta.

Important Parts of the Magna Carta:
     The Magna Carta is made up of 63 clauses and starts off with the following:
" John, by the grace of God, king of England, lord of Ireland, duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, and count of Anjou, to the archbishop, bishops, abbots, earls, barons, justiciaries, foresters, sheriffs, stewards, servants, and to all his bailiffs and liege subjects, greetings. Know that, having regard to God and for the salvation of our soul, and those of all our ancestors and heirs, and unto the honor of God and the advancement of his holy Church and for the rectifying of our realm, we have granted as underwritten by advice of our venerable fathers, Stephen, archbishop of Canterbury, primate of all England and cardinal of the holy Roman Church,...." **
The first clause restates a clause he had signed at an earlier time that granted liberties to the Church.
"...that the English Church shall be free, and shall have her rights entire, and her liberties inviolate; and we will that it be thus observed; ..."
Clauses 39 and 40, along with other clauses, deal with justice and fairness to those upon which the document is implemented upon
" 39. No freemen shall be taken or imprisoned or disseised or exiled or in any way destroyed, nor will we go upon him nor send upon him, except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.
40. To no one will we sell, to no one will we refuse or delay, right or justice.
Clause 63 reinforced all of the preceded clauses." **
“ 63. Wherefore we will and firmly order that the English Church be free, and that the men in our kingdom have and hold all the aforesaid liberties, rights, and concessions, well and peaceably, freely and quietly, fully and wholly, for themselves and their heirs, of us and our heirs, in all respects and in all places forever, as is aforesaid. "  **

The Magna Carta's Influence on American Judicial Documents:
     Many documents that were written after the Magna Carta were influenced by its ideas. The examples I will state are from the Bill of Rights.
In the Fifth Amendment of the Bill of Rights, it is stated that:
"No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury..." (
This amendment echoes Clause 39 of the Magna Carta that states: "No freemen shall be taken or imprisoned or disseised or exiled or in any way destroyed, nor will we go upon him nor send upon him, except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land."((
Amendment 6 of the Bill of Rights, which states that:
"...the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial..." (
is somewhat similar Clause 40 of the Magna Carta:
"To no one will we sell, to no one will we refuse or delay, right or justice.” **

Conclusion:
     The Magna Carta stayed as the law of England during King John’s reign for only a short period of time, yet it has had a lasting affect on history. Its judicial ideas are reflected in many political documents that proceeded it. It gave way to a new concept to that time: the limitation of power by a written document, or constitution. It still stands as a symbol of justice specified by constitutions, implemented by governments, and agreed upon by the people.


Bibliography:

“The Bill of Rights” NARA The National Archives Experience

http://www.archives.gov/national_archives_experience/charters/bill_of_rights_transcript.html

“The Magna Carta”

http://www.cs.indiana.edu/statecraft/magna-carta.html

"Magna Carta," Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2004

“Magna Carta” Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_Carta

“Featured Document: The Magna Carta” National Archives and Records Administration

http://www.archives.gov/exhibit_hall/featured_documents/magna_carta/index.html