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Arte Povera

(Encyclopedia)Arte Povera [Ital.,=poor art], influential art movement that arose in Italy in the late 1960s. It was championed by the Italian art critic Germano Celant, who also named (1967) the movement. It was ch...

Wad Madani

(Encyclopedia)Wad Madani wäd mädäˈnē [key], city (1993 pop. 211,362), SE cental Sudan, on the Blue Nile River. It is linked by rail with Khartoum and is the chief center of the Al Gezira agricultural region. C...

Abbasid

(Encyclopedia)Abbasid –sīd, –sĭd [key], Arab family descended from Abbas, the uncle of Muhammad. The Abbasids held the caliphate from 749 to 1258, but they were recognized neither in Spain nor (after 787) W o...

Jidda

(Encyclopedia)Jidda jĕ– [key], city (1993 est. pop. 2,058,000), Hejaz, W Saudi Arabia, on the Red Sea. Jidda is the port of Mecca (c.45 mi/72 km to the east) and annually receives a huge influx of pilgrims, main...

Ba'ath party

(Encyclopedia)Ba'ath party bäˈäth [key], Arab political party, in Syria and in Iraq. Founded in Damascus in 1941 with an ideology of secularism, socialism, and pan-Arab unionism, it was reformed with the name Ba...

Abdül Aziz

(Encyclopedia)Abdül Aziz. For Ottoman sultans thus named, use Abd al-Aziz.

Abdül Hamid

(Encyclopedia)Abdül Hamid. For Ottoman sultans thus named, use Abd al-Hamid.

Hariri

(Encyclopedia)Hariri (Abu Muhammad al-Kasim al-Hariri) härēˈrē [key], 1054–1122, Arab writer of Basra. His principal work is one of the most popular of Arabic books. It is called Makamat [literary assemblies]...

Moors

(Encyclopedia)Moors, nomadic people of the northern shores of Africa, originally the inhabitants of Mauretania. They were chiefly of Berber and Arab stock. In the 8th cent. the Moors were converted to Islam and bec...

Chamberlain, John

(Encyclopedia)Chamberlain, John, 1927–2011, American sculptor, b. Rochester, Ind. In the late 1950s, Chamberlain became known for his welded abstract assemblages of smashed automobile parts and colored scrap meta...