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  • jāgīrdār system (Indian tax system)
    (Persian jāgīr: “holding land”; and dār: “official”), form of land tenancy developed in India during the time of Muslim rule (beginning in the early 13th century) in which the collection of the revenues of an estate and the power of governing it were made over to an official of the state. The bestowal of a jāgīr o...
  • Jagoda, Genrikh Grigoryevich (Soviet official)
    head of the Soviet secret police under Stalin from 1934 to 1936 and a central figure in the purge trials....
  • Jagow, Gottlieb von (German politician)
    After a career in the consular service, Zimmermann won transfer to the diplomatic branch in 1901. Because of the retiring nature of Gottlieb von Jagow, who became foreign secretary in 1913, Zimmermann conducted a large share of the relations with foreign envoys. As acting secretary in Jagow’s absence, he participated, with Emperor William (Wilhelm) II and Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann......
  • jāgrat (waking state)
    ...aspects of the mind are part of the psychology of the mystics and one of the oldest traditions of mankind. The old Indian psychology divided consciousness into three provinces: waking state (jāgrat), dream state (svapna), and sleep state (suṣupti), and added a fourth (turīya), which is the consciousness of man’s pure self-existence or bein...
  • Jagua Nana (work by Ekwensi)
    ...in the 1950s and ’60s. The most intense activity was in Nigeria, the Igbo proving particularly prolific. Cyprian Ekwensi, who began as an Onitsha pamphleteer, enjoyed great popularity with Jagua Nana (1961), the story of a prostitute. Onuora Nzekwu explored the relationship of the educated Igbo to his traditional culture in Wand of Noble Wood (1961), Blade...
  • Jaguar (automobile)
    ...the 1950s and ’60s the Ford Motor Company began limited diversification, but by the 1990s it had refocused attention on its automotive concerns and financial services. In 1989–90 Ford acquired Jaguar, a British manufacturer of luxury cars. Aston Martin became a wholly owned subsidiary in 1993. Later acquisitions included the rental car company Hertz Corporation in 1994, the automo...
  • jaguar (cat)
    largest New World member of the cat family (Felidae), once found from the U.S.-Mexican border southward to Patagonia, Argentina. Its preferred habitats are usually swamps and wooded regions, but jaguars also live in scrublands and deserts. The jaguar is virtually extinct in the northern part of its original range and survives in reduced numbers only in remote areas of Central an...
  • jaguar cult (Mesoamerican culture)
    The central theme of the Olmec religion was a pantheon of deities each of which usually was a hybrid between jaguar and human infant, often crying or snarling with open mouth. This “were-jaguar” is the hallmark of Olmec art, and it was the unity of objects in this style that first suggested to scholars that they were dealing with a new and previously unknown civilization. There is......
  • Jaguaribe River (river, Brazil)
    river, Ceará estado (“state”), northeastern Brazil. It is formed by the junction of the Carapateiro and Trici rivers (originating in the Serra Grande) and flows northeastward for approximately 350 miles (560 km) to enter the Atlantic Ocean east of Maceió Point. Upstream from Limoeiro do Norte the river branches, converging again about 30 miles (48 km) from its m...
  • jaguarondi (mammal)
    (Felis yagouaroundi), small, unspotted New World cat (family Felidae), also known as the otter-cat because of its otterlike appearance and swimming ability. The jaguarundi is native to forested and brushy regions, especially those near water, from South America to the southwestern United States; it is, however, very rare north of Mexico....
  • jaguarundi (mammal)
    (Felis yagouaroundi), small, unspotted New World cat (family Felidae), also known as the otter-cat because of its otterlike appearance and swimming ability. The jaguarundi is native to forested and brushy regions, especially those near water, from South America to the southwestern United States; it is, however, very rare north of Mexico....
  • Jahaic languages
    a subbranch of the Aslian branch of the Mon-Khmer family, itself a part of the Austroasiatic stock. The group includes Bateg, Che’ Wong, Jahai, Kensiw, Kenta’, and Menriq....
  • Jahān, Shāh (Mughal emperor)
    Mughal emperor of India (1628–58) and builder of the Tāj Mahal....
  • Jahān, Shāh (Qutlugh ruler)
    ...of Fārs and Yazd by Abū Saʿīd, the Il-Khanid ruler. After Abū Saʿīd’s death, Moḥammad expanded his possessions. In 1340 he married the only daughter of Shāh Jahān, the last ruler of the Qutlugh dynasty in Kermān, thus gaining possession of that region. By 1356, after a series of campaigns, Moḥammad had be...
  • Jahān Shāh (Turkmen leader)
    (reigned c. 1438–67), leader of the Turkmen Kara Koyunlu (Black Sheep) in Azerbaijan....
  • Jahāndār Shāh (Mughal emperor)
    Jahāndār Shah (ruled 1712–13) was a weak and degenerate prince, and Ẓulfiqār Khan assumed the executive direction of the empire with power unprecedented for a vizier. Ẓulfiqār believed that it was necessary to establish friendly relations with the Rajputs and the Marathas and to conciliate the Hindu chieftains in general in order to save the empire....
  • Jahāngīr (emperor of India)
    Mughal emperor of India from 1605 to 1627....
  • Jahannam (Islam)
    Islāmic hell, described somewhat ambiguously in the Qurʾān and by Muḥammad. In one version, hell seems to be a fantastic monster that God can summon at will; in another description, it is a crater of concentric circles on the underside of the world that all souls must cross in order to enter paradise by way of a bridge, narrow as a razor’s edg...
  • Jahānpanāh (India)
    city and national capital territory, north-central India. Popularly known as Old Delhi, it is the country’s second largest city, surpassed in population only by Greater Mumbai (Bombay). New Delhi, the capital of India, lies immediately to the south. Besides being at the political centre of the country, Delhi is also a focal point in India’s transportation network....
  • jāhilīyah (Islam)
    in Islām, the period preceding the revelation of the Qurʾān to the Prophet Muḥammad. In Arabic the word means “ignorance,” or “barbarism,” and indicates a negative Muslim evaluation of pre-Islāmic life and culture in Arabia as compared to the teachings and practices of Islām. The term has a positive connotation only in literatu...
  • Jāḥiẓ, al- (Muslim theologian and scholar)
    Islamic theologian, intellectual, and litterateur known for his individual and masterful Arabic prose....
  • Jahl, Evelin (East German athlete)
    East German athlete who won an upset victory in the discus throw at the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal. She went on to set world records in the discus and won a second Olympic gold medal at the 1980 Games in Moscow....
  • Jahm ibn Ṣafwān (Islamic theologian)
    ...themselves ahl al-waʿd (the adherents of promise). To them external actions and utterances did not necessarily reflect an individual’s inner beliefs. Some of their extremists, such as Jahm ibn Ṣafwān (d. ad 746), regarded faith as purely an inward conviction, thus allowing a Muslim outwardly to profess other religions and remain a Muslim, since o...
  • Jahn, Friedrich Ludwig (German educator)
    the German “father of gymnastics” who founded the turnverein (gymnastics club) movement in Germany. He was a fervent patriot who believed that physical education was the cornerstone of national health and strength and important in strengthening character and national identity....
  • Jahn, Helmut (German architect)
    German-born American architect known for his postmodern steel-and-glass structures....
  • Jahn, Otto (German philologist)
    ...Critica ad G. Hermannum had emphasized the diversity of transmissional situations and the difficulty or actual impossibility of classifying the manuscripts in all cases. In 1843 Lachmann’s pupil O. Jahn, in his edition of Persius, had repudiated the strict application of the genealogical method as unsuitable to the tradition of that poet. The most extreme position was taken by E. ...
  • Jahn-Teller theorem (chemistry)
    According to the Jahn-Teller theorem, any molecule or complex ion in an electronically degenerate state will be unstable relative to a configuration of lower symmetry in which the degeneracy is absent. The chief applications of this theorem in transition-metal chemistry are in connection with octahedrally coordinated metal ions with high-spin d4, low-spin d7,......
  • Jahnulales (order of fungi)
    ...placed in any subclass)Parasitic and saprobic; flask-shaped (perithecium-like) fruiting bodies; example genus is Patellaria.Order Jahnulales (incertae sedis; not placed in any subclass)Found in freshwater environments; ascospores covered with...
  • Jahra, al- (Kuwait)
    town and muḥāfaẓah (governorate) in central Kuwait. Located about 30 mi (50 km) west of Kuwait city, the oasis town is the capital of the muḥāfaẓah. It is the centre of the country’s principal agricultural region, producing primarily fruits and vegetables. Al-Jahra muḥāfaẓ...
  • Jahra, al- (governorate, Kuwait)
    ...oasis town is the capital of the muḥāfaẓah. It is the centre of the country’s principal agricultural region, producing primarily fruits and vegetables. Al-Jahra muḥāfaẓah is 4,315 sq mi (11,176 sq km) in area. Although it comprises about two-thirds of the area of Kuwait, most of the......
  • Jahrbuch für Philosophie und phänomenologische Forschung (philosophical literature)
    ...psychologism and discovered powerful support in Husserl. The Phenomenological movement, which then began to take shape, found its most tangible expression in the publication of the Jahrbuch für Philosophie und phänomenologische Forschung (1913–30), a Phenomenological yearbook with Husserl as its main editor, the preface of which defined Phenomenology in......
  • “Jahrestage: aus dem Leben von Gesine Cresspahl” (work by Johnson)
    From 1966 to 1968, Johnson lived in New York. There he began his masterwork, the tetralogy Jahrestage: aus dem Leben von Gesine Cresspahl (1970–73, 1983; Anniversaries: From the Life of Gesine Cresspahl). In it he used a montage technique, combining newspaper clippings, notes, and diary entries—as well as the presence of a writer named Uwe Johnson—to....
  • “Jahreszeiten, Die” (work by Haydn)
    ...Amadeus Mozart’s operas, fusing these epic and dramatic elements with Haydn’s own mature mastery of symphonic style to make the work a masterpiece. Haydn called Die Jahreszeiten (1801; The Seasons) an oratorio, though its content is secular and its form a loosely articulated series of evocative pieces. Ludwig van Beethoven’s single oratorio, Christus am......
  • jahrzeit (Judaism)
    in Judaism, the anniversary of the death of a parent or close relative, most commonly observed by burning a candle for an entire day. On the anniversary, a male (or female, in Reform and Conservative congregations) usually recites the Qaddish (doxology) in the synagogue at all three services, and males may be called up (aliyah) for the public reading of the Torah. If the anniversary falls o...
  • Jahwarid dynasty (Islamic dynasty)
    Muslim Arab dynasty that ruled Córdoba, Spain, after the dissolution of the Umayyad caliphate of Córdoba (1031), one of the party kingdoms (ṭāʾifahs). Years of civil war following the breakdown of central caliphal authority in 1008 prompted the Cordoban council of notables, led by a prominent aristocrat, A...
  • jai alai (sport)
    ball game of Basque origin played in a three-walled court with a hard rubber ball that is caught and thrown with a cesta, a long, curved wicker scoop strapped to one arm. Called pelota vasca in Spain, the Western Hemisphere name jai alai (Basque “merry festival”) was given to the game when it was imported to Cuba in 1900....
  • Jai Samand (lake, India)
    large reservoir lake, in the southeastern Arāvalli Range, south-central Rājasthān state, northwestern India. The lake, approximately 20 square miles (50 square km) in area when full, was originally named Jai Samand and was formed by a marble dam built across the Gomati River in the late 17th century. Canals carry water from the lake to villages in the western area. Small wood...
  • Jai Singh, Mīrza Raja (Indian general)
    Aurangzeb could hardly ignore so flaunting a challenge and sent out his most prominent general, Mīrza Raja Jai Singh, at the head of an army said to number some 100,000 men. The pressure that was exerted by this vast force, combined with the drive and tenacity of Jai Singh, soon compelled Śivājī to sue for peace and to undertake that he and his son would attend......
  • Jai Singh Sawāi (ruler of Jaipur)
    ...Mughal politics by such members of the clan as Raja Man Singh thus paid dividends, and the chiefs were permitted to maintain a large cavalry and infantry force. In the early 18th century the ruler Jai Singh Sawai took steps to increase his power manyfold. This was done by arranging to have his jāgīr assignment in the vicinity of his home......
  • jail fever (pathology)
    Epidemic typhus has also been called camp fever, jail fever, and war fever, names that suggest overcrowding, underwashing, and lowered standards of living. It is caused by the bacterium Rickettsia prowazekii and is conveyed from person to person by the body louse, Pediculus humanus humanus. The louse is infected by feeding with its......
  • Jailolo (island, Indonesia)
    largest island of the Moluccas (Maluku), Indonesia; administratively it is part of Maluku Utara (Northern Moluccas) provinsi (province). The island, located between the Molucca Sea (west) and the Pacific Ocean (east), consists of four peninsulas enclosing three great bays (teluk): Kau in the northeast, Buli in the east, and Weda in the southeast. Halma...
  • Jaimal Singh (Indian religious leader)
    ...of Siva Dayal Saheb, the Rādhā Soāmi sect split into two factions. The main group remained at Āgra. The other branch was started by a Sikh disciple of Siva Dayal Saheb named Jaimal Singh. Members of this latter group are known as the Rādhā Soāmis of Beās, because they have their headquarters on the bank of the Beās River, near Amrit...
  • Jaime el Conquistador (king of Aragon)
    the most renowned of the medieval kings of Aragon (1213–76), who added the Balearic Islands and Valencia to his realm and thus initiated the Catalan-Aragonese expansion in the Mediterranean that was to reach its zenith in the last decades of the 14th century....
  • Jaime el Justo (king of Aragon and Sicily)
    king of Aragon from 1295 to 1327 and king of Sicily (as James I) from 1285 to 1295....
  • Jaimini (Indian philosopher)
    ...mental–psychological–physical meditation system) made room for God not on theoretical grounds but only on practical considerations. The Pūrva-Mīmāṃsā of Jaimini, the greatest philosopher of the Mīmāṃsā school, posits various deities to account for the significance of Vedic rituals but ignores, without denying, the ques...
  • Jain, Chandra Mohan (Indian spiritual leader)
    Indian spiritual leader who preached an eclectic doctrine of Eastern mysticism, individual devotion, and sexual freedom, while amassing vast personal wealth....
  • Jain vrata (Jainism)
    in Jainism, a religion of India, any of the vows (vratas) that govern the activities of both monks and laymen. The mahavratas, or five “great vows,” are undertaken for life only by ascetics and include vows of noninjury, abstention from lying and stealing, chastity, and renunciation of all possessions....
  • Jaina (archaeological site, Mexico)
    Just off the coast of Campeche is the island cemetery of Jaina, from which have come magnificently modelled figurines that are certainly among the finest clay works of antiquity. These sacrificial burial figures, replicas of Mayan personages in ceremonial finery, provide a remarkable insight into the customs, lifestyles, and costumes of the Classic Mayan people....
  • Jaina canon (religious texts)
    the sacred texts of Jainism, a religion of India, whose authenticity is disputed between sects. The Svetambara canon consists principally of 45 works divided as follows: (1) 11 Aṅgas, the main texts—a 12th has been lost for at least 14 centuries; (2) 12 Upāṅgas, or subsidiary texts; (3) 10 Prakīrṇakas, or assorted texts; (4) 6 Cheda-sutras on the rules of...
  • Jaina painting (Indian art)
    a highly conservative style of Indian miniature painting largely devoted to the illustration of Jaina religious texts of the 12th–16th century. Though examples of the school are most numerous from Gujarāt state, paintings in Western Indian style have also been found in Uttar Pradesh and central India. In Orissa on the east coast, the style has persisted almost to the present....
  • Jainism (religion)
    a religion of India that teaches a path to spiritual purity and enlightenment through a disciplined mode of life founded upon the tradition of ahimsa, nonviolence to all living creatures. Beginning in the 7th–5th century bce, Jainism evolved into a cultural system that has made significant contributions to Indian philosophy an...
  • Jaintia (historical state, India)
    in Indian history, a state in Assam, in northeastern India, stretching from what is now the northern frontier between Bangladesh and India over the Jaintia Hills to the Kalong River in the Assam plain. The people were of Khāsi origin....
  • Jaintia (language)
    ...to these groups. The Khāsis are the only people in India speaking a Mon-Khmer language, more commonly found in Southeast Asia. Khāsi and Gāro are the main languages and along with Jaintia and English are the state’s official languages; others include Pnar-Synteng, Nepālī, and Haijong, as well as the plains languages of Bengali, Assamese, and Hindi....
  • Jaintia Hills (region, India)
    physical region, eastern Meghālaya state, northeastern India. The sparsely populated mountainous region (part of the Meghālaya plateau) has an average elevation of more than 3,000 feet (900 m). It receives generally heavy rainfall and is densely forested. Fine woods are produced, but there is little industry. The Kopili River, which is the largest stream in the region, is rocky and ...
  • Jaintias (people)
    The inhabitants of the Jaintia Hills are primarily tribal Jaintias, who, like the Khāsis to the west, are thought to be descendants of the first Mongolian migration to India. Until the 19th century, these people had a three-tiered system of administration. Under British rule, however, this system was broken down, and after independence it was replaced by a district council for tribal......
  • Jaipāl (ruler of Punjab)
    His chief antagonist in northern India was Jaipāl, the ruler of the Punjab. When, in 1001, Maḥmūd marched on India at the head of 15,000 horse troops, Jaipāl met him with 12,000 horse troops, 30,000 foot soldiers, and 300 elephants. In a battle near Peshāwar the Indians, though superior in numbers and equipment, fell back under the onslaught of the Muslim horse,....
  • Jaipur (racehorse)
    ...the fondness for horses that was a family trait, Widener began to raise Thoroughbreds at Erdenheim Farm in Pennsylvania and also at Old Kenny Farm near Lexington, Ky. Among his best-known horses was Jaipur, who won the Travers Stakes and the Belmont Stakes in 1962. Other outstanding horses were Eight Thirty, Jamestown, What a Treat, and Bold Hour. Until his death at 82, Widener served as......
  • Jaipur (India)
    city, capital of Rājasthān state, northwestern India. A walled town surrounded (except to the south) by hills, Jaipur was founded in 1727 by Maharaja Sawai Jai Singh to replace Amber as the capital of the princely state of Jaipur (founded by the Rājputs in the 12th century ad). Known for its beauty, the city is unique in its straight-line planning; its buildings...
  • Jaipur (historical state, India)
    ...undermined (e.g., the case of Mysore, below) and others in which the logic of consolidation and decline appears not to have concerned the British. In the latter category can be placed the case of Jaipur (earlier Amber) in eastern Rajasthan, a Rajput principality controlled by the Kachwaha clan. From the 16th century the Kachwahas had been subordinate to the Mughals and had, as a consequence,......
  • Jaipur school (painting style)
    The rulers of the state were closely allied to the Mughal dynasty, but paintings of the late 16th and early 17th centuries possessed all of the elements of the Rajasthani style. Little is known about the school until the opening years of the 18th century, when stiff, formal examples appear in the reign of Savāī Jai Singh. The finest works, dating from the reign of Pratāp......
  • Jaipurī language (Rasjasthani dialect)
    ...from Ḍiṅgal, a tongue in which bards once sang of the glories of their masters. The four main dialects are Māṛwāṛī (in western Rājasthān), Jaipurī or Ḍhundhārī (in the east and southeast), Mālvī (Mālwī; in the southeast), and, in Alwar, Mewātī, which shades off in...
  • Jaisalmer (India)
    city, western Rājasthān state, northwestern India. Connected by road with Jodhpur, Barmer, and Phalodi, the city is a major caravan centre, trading in wool, hides, salt, fuller’s earth, camels, and sheep. Jaisalmer, noted for its buildings of yellowish-brown stone, was founded in 1156 by Rāwal Jaisal, a chief of the Rājputs (the warrior rulers of the historic re...
  • Jaisohn, Philip (Korean politician)
    A popular movement for the restoration of Korean sovereignty arose under the leadership of such figures as Sŏ Chae-p’il (Philip Jaisohn). Returning from many years of exile, Sŏ organized in 1896 a political organization called the Independence Club (Tongnip Hyŏphoe). He also published a daily newspaper named Tongnip sinmun (“The Independent”) as a m...
  • Jaja (Ibo ruler)
    ...mouth of the Imo (Opobo) River. Situated at a break in the mangrove swamps and rain forest of the eastern Niger River delta, it served in the 19th century as a collecting point for slaves. In 1870 Jubo Jubogha, a former Igbo (Ibo) slave and ruler of the Anna Pepple house of Bonny (28 miles [45 km] west-southwest), came to Ikot Abasi and founded the kingdom of Opobo, which he named for Opobo......
  • Jājau, Battle of (Mughal war)
    (June 12, 1707), decisive engagement over succession to the Mughal throne of India, following the death of the emperor Aurangzeb, and fought at Jājau, a few miles south of Āgra on the Yamuna River. The crown passed to Aurangzeb’s eldest surviving son, Bahādur Shāh....
  • Jajce (Bosnia and Herzegovina)
    town in Bosnia and Herzegovina, 29 miles (47 km) south of Banja Luka, on the Vrbas River. The ancient capital of the Bosnian kings, it fell to the Turks in 1461, when the last king was executed. It was taken again, by Hungary, and was the centre of the banat of Jajce in 1463–1528. The Turks returned in 1528 and remained for 350 years. Austrian occupation began in 1878, an...
  • jajmani system (Indian culture)
    reciprocal social and economic arrangements between families of different castes within a village community in India, by which one family exclusively performs certain services for the other, such as ministering to the ritual or providing agricultural labour, in return for pay, protection, and employment security. These relations are supposed to continue from one generation to the next, and payment...
  • Jājrūd Dam (dam, Iran)
    ...the fast-growing Tehrān. Spectacular dams have been built. These include the Safīd Rūd Dam, used for the irrigation of the Safīd Rūd Delta; the Karaj Dam and the Jājrūd Dam, used mainly for supplying water to Tehrān and partly for irrigation; and a series of dams on other rivers of the Māzandarān ostān (province...
  • Jak (British cartoonist)
    British political cartoonist whose irreverent Evening Standard drawings entertained Londoners for some 30 years; he claimed he was the first to produce a caricature of Queen Elizabeth II, and one of his cartoons nearly caused the paper’s pressmen to walk out (b. March 11, 1927--d. July 27, 1997)....
  • Jaka Dolog (Indonesian statue)
    ...Buddha Avalokiteśvara) was erected in the area (Jambi) in 1286, an indication that his influence had reached Sumatra. He also conquered Bali in 1284. A statue of a meditative Buddha, known as Jaka Dolog, discovered in Surabaja (eastern Java), was also erected by Kertanagara. According to its inscription, the statue was erected for the benefit of the king, the royal family, and the unity....
  • Jakab, Zsuzsanna (Hungarian epidemiologist)
    Hungarian epidemiologist Zsuzsanna Jakab assumed leadership of the newly formed European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) in 2005, taking on the task of defending the European Union against infectious diseases. Working out of ECDC headquarters in Stockholm, Jakab began to develop a surveillance network that could collect health data from, and coordinate disease prevention among, th...
  • Jakarta (Indonesia)
    largest city and capital of Indonesia. Coextensive with the metropolitan district of Jakarta Raya, it lies at the mouth of the Ciliwung (Liwung River) on the northwest coast of Java....
  • Jakarta Arts Building (arts centre, Jakarta, Indonesia)
    ...theatrical works that typically fuse Indonesian and international idioms. In 1987 the Indonesian government completed the renovation of colonial Schouwburg Weltevreden (1821) theatre to become the Jakarta Arts Building (Gedung Kesenian Jakarta); this institution also hosts major musical and theatrical productions from across the globe. Both institutions sponsor an array of international......
  • Jakarta Zoological Gardens (zoo, Jakarta, Indonesia)
    zoo in Jakarta, Indon., that is one of the world’s notable collections of Southeast Asian flora and fauna. More than 3,500 specimens of approximately 450 animal species are exhibited on the 200-hectare (494-acre) park grounds. Among these are the orangutan, Sumatran serow, and various other rare animals of Indonesia. The zoo was founded in 1864 on a 4-hectare (11-acre) site and was moved to...
  • Jake and the Kid (work by Mitchell)
    ...for his first novel, Who Has Seen the Wind? (1947), a sensitive picture of a grim prairie town seen from the point of view of a small boy. Mitchell’s Jake and the Kid (1961) was later developed into a popular, long-running radio and television series. His novel The Kite (1962) is about a newsman’s interview...
  • jakfruit (plant)
    (species Artocarpus heterophyllus), tree native to tropical Asia and widely grown throughout the wetland tropics for its large fruits and durable wood. Like its relative the breadfruit, it belongs to the mulberry family (Moraceae). The jackfruit is 15 to 20 m (50 to 70 feet) tall at maturity, has large stiff, glossy green leaves 15 to 20 cm (6 to 8 inches) long, and fruit up to 60 cm (abou...
  • Jakob, Alfons M. (German physician)
    The disease was first described in the 1920s by the German neurologists Hans Gerhard Creutzfeldt and Alfons Maria Jakob. Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is similar to other neurodegenerative diseases such as kuru, a human disorder, and scrapie, which occurs in sheep and goats. All three diseases are types of transmissible spongiform encephalopathies, so called because of the characteristic......
  • Jakob II, Philipp (artist)
    early Romantic painter, illustrator, printmaker, and scenographer, especially known for his paintings of landscapes and battles and for his innovative scenery designs and special effects for the theatre....
  • Jakobovits of Regents Park in Greater London, Immanuel Jakobovits, Baron (British rabbi)
    German-born cleric who was the outspoken, conservative chief rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the British Commonwealth (1967–91), a position usually deemed the chief spokesman for British Orthodox Jews; he had previously held assignments as the chief rabbi of Ireland (1949–58) and rabbi of the Fifth Avenue Synagogue in New York City (1958–67). Jakobovits was made a ...
  • “Jakobowsky and the Colonel” (work by Werfel)
    When the Nazis incorporated Austria in 1938, Werfel, a Jew, settled in an old mill in southern France. With the fall of France in 1940 (reflected in his play Jakobowsky und der Oberst, written in 1944 and successfully produced in New York City that year as Jakobowsky and the Colonel), he fled to the United States. In the course of his journey,......
  • Jakobowsky und der Oberst (work by Werfel)
    When the Nazis incorporated Austria in 1938, Werfel, a Jew, settled in an old mill in southern France. With the fall of France in 1940 (reflected in his play Jakobowsky und der Oberst, written in 1944 and successfully produced in New York City that year as Jakobowsky and the Colonel), he fled to the United States. In the course of his journey,......
  • Jakobshavn (Greenland)
    town on the west coast of Greenland, near the mouth of Jakobshavn Fjord on Qeqertarsuup (Disko) Bay. The Greenlandic name of the town means “icebergs.” The town’s first permanent houses were built by Danes in 1741 on the site of a Greenlandic (Eskimo) settlement. It was named in honour of Jakob Severin, who, in a 1739 naval battle, defeated four Dutch vessel...
  • Jakobshavn Glacier (glacier, Greenland)
    ...four-fifths of Greenland’s total land area. Layers of snow falling on its barren, windswept surface become compressed into ice layers, which constantly move outward to the peripheral glaciers; the Jakobshavn Glacier, often moving 100 feet (30 metres) a day, is among the world’s fastest glaciers. The remaining ice-free land area occupies the country’s coastal areas and consi...
  • Jakobson, Roman (American linguist)
    Russian born American linguist and Slavic-language scholar, a principal founder of the European movement in structural linguistics known as the Prague school. Jakobson extended the theoretical and practical concerns of the school into new areas of study....
  • Jakobson, Roman Osipovich (American linguist)
    Russian born American linguist and Slavic-language scholar, a principal founder of the European movement in structural linguistics known as the Prague school. Jakobson extended the theoretical and practical concerns of the school into new areas of study....
  • Jakobstad (Finland)
    town, western Finland, northeast of the city of Vaasa. Pietarsaari, which was formerly mainly Swedish-speaking, was founded in 1652; it became an important commercial centre because of its location on the Gulf of Bothnia. The poet Johan Ludvig Runeberg (who wrote in Swedish but is Finland’s national poet) was born there in 1804. Notable buildings includ...
  • Jakoubek of Stříbro (Bohemian religious leader)
    ...stake. After his death in 1415 many Bohemian knights and nobles published a formal protest and offered protection to those who were persecuted for their faith. The movement’s chief supporters were Jakoubek of Stříbro (died 1429), Hus’s successor as preacher at the Bethlehem chapel in Prague; Václav Koranda, leader of the Taborites (extreme Hussites named for T...
  • Jakpa, Sumalia Ndewura (West African king)
    African king who founded a dynasty in Gonja, in what is now northern Ghana, in the early 17th century....
  • Jakubisko, Juraj (Slovak film director)
    ...and Elmar Klos. It received an Academy Award (for best foreign-language film), the first ever awarded to a Czechoslovakian production. Among internationally recognized Slovak film directors is Juraj Jakubisko, who first gained acclaim during the late 1960s as part of the Czech New Wave. His strongly visual, metaphorical films include It’s Better to Be Healthy and Wealth...
  • Jakun (people)
    any member of an aboriginal people found in the interior eastern portions of the Malay Peninsula. The major Jakun subgroups include the Biduanda, Mantera, Orang Laut, Orang Kanak, and Orang Ulu. The combined population was about 20,000 in the late 20th century. Later invaders from the highly developed states of Sumatra occupied the coasts of Malaya and often amalgamated with the Jakun. Those nativ...
  • JAL (Japanese airline)
    Japanese airline that is one of the largest air carriers in the world. The airline was founded in 1951. It was originally a private company but was reorganized in 1953 as a semigovernmental public corporation. The airline was again privatized in 1987. It is headquartered in Tokyo....
  • Jalāl ad-Dawlah (Būyid ruler)
    ...the ruler of Kerman, to the west. By 1028 Abū Kālījār was victorious and added Kerman to his domains. In the meantime (1027) he had attacked the Iraqi lands of another uncle, Jalāl ad-Dawlah, and had precipitated a civil war between the Iraqi and the Iranian branches of the Būyid family that lasted until 1037, when the two made peace. With the death of....
  • Jalāl al-Dīn Abū al-Faḍl ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī Bakr al-Suyūṭī (Egyptian author)
    Egyptian writer and teacher whose works deal with a wide variety of subjects, the Islamic religious sciences predominating....
  • Jalāl al-Dīn Aḥsan Shah (Tughluq general)
    Maʿbar, the first among the rebel states to emerge in south India, was founded at Madurai by the erstwhile Tughluq general Jalāl al-Dīn Aḥsan Shah in 1335. Lasting only 43 years, with seven rulers in quick succession, Maʿbar covered the mainly Tamil region between Nellore and Quilon and contributed to the commercial importance of south India by encouraging Muslim...
  • Jalāl al-Dīn Mingburnu (Khwārezm-Shāh ruler)
    ...Herāt, Ṭūs, and Neyshābūr were razed, and the whole populations were slaughtered. The Khwārezm-Shah fled, to die on an island off the Caspian coast. His son Jalāl al-Dīn survived until murdered in Kurdistan in 1231. He had eluded Genghis Khan on the Indus River, across which his horse swam, enabling him to escape to India. He returned to.....
  • Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī (Sufi mystic and poet)
    the greatest Sufi mystic and poet in the Persian language, famous for his lyrics and for his didactic epic Mas̄navī-yi Maʿnavī (“Spiritual Couplets”), which widely influenced Muslim mystical thought and literature. Rūmī’s influence on Turkish cultural life can scarcely ...
  • Jalāl, Muḥammad ʿUthmān (Egyptian dramatist and author)
    ...who encouraged Ṣannūʿ to produce more—until, that is, he discovered that he himself was the butt of some of the humour. Alongside such popular fare, the translator Muḥammad ʿUthmān Jalāl “Egyptianized” several plays by Molière, including, most famously, a version of Tartuffe, ......
  • Jalāl od-Dīn Shāh Shojāʿ (Moẓaffarid ruler)
    ...he attacked and captured Tabrīz, but he was unable to hold it. In 1358 he was deposed by his two sons, Qoṭb od-Dīn Shāh Maḥmūd (reigned 1358–75) and Jalāl od-Dīn Shāh Shojāʿ (reigned 1358–84), who divided the Moẓaffarid territories between them....
  • Jalal-Abad (Kyrgyzstan)
    city, western Kyrgyzstan. Though made a city in 1877, it remained essentially a large village. Given city status again in 1927, it now is a regional centre for food processing and other light industries and has a theatre and a museum. Pop. (1999) 74,401....
  • Jalālābād (Afghanistan)
    town, eastern Afghanistan, on the Kābul River, at an altitude of 1,940 ft (590 m). It lies on the route from Kābul, the Afghan capital (110 mi [177 km] north-northwest), via the Khyber Pass to Peshāwar, Pakistan, and handles much of Afghanistan’s trade with Pakistan and India. The town stands at an important strategic position, commanding the entrance...
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