Qass
In early Islam, a qāṣṣ (plural quṣṣāṣ) was a preacher or "sermoniser" who told stories ostensibly to edify the faithful. The term comes from the Arabic verb qaṣṣa, meaning "to recount". The qāṣṣ was essentially a popular storyteller and the reputation among Islamic scholars of the early quṣṣāṣ has generally been that of "second-rate religious figures lingering on the fringes of Islamic orthodoxy and even, at times, contributing directly to the corruption of the faith". In actuality, the quṣṣāṣ varied on a spectrum from serious Qurʾānic exegetes to outright charlatans.
According to al-Maqrīzī, writing in the fifteenth century, there was a distinction between the private qāṣṣ and the official qāṣṣ. The office was instituted by the Caliph Muʿāwiya I. So far the only traces found of these official quṣṣāṣ come from Egypt. There the office was typically held by a qāḍī (judge). His job was to denounce the enemies of Islam after the morning prayer each day and to explain the Qurʾān after the khuṭba on Fridays. The official qāṣṣ was replaced in the tenth century by the wāʿiẓ and the mudhakkir.
According to al-Maqrīzī, writing in the fifteenth century, there was a distinction between the private qāṣṣ and the official qāṣṣ. The office was instituted by the Caliph Muʿāwiya I. So far the only traces found of these official quṣṣāṣ come from Egypt. There the office was typically held by a qāḍī (judge). His job was to denounce the enemies of Islam after the morning prayer each day and to explain the Qurʾān after the khuṭba on Fridays. The official qāṣṣ was replaced in the tenth century by the wāʿiẓ and the mudhakkir.
Map - Qass
Map
Country - Azerbaijan
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The Azerbaijan Democratic Republic proclaimed its independence from the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic in 1918 and became the first secular democratic Muslim-majority state. In 1920, the country was incorporated into the Soviet Union as the Azerbaijan SSR. The modern Republic of Azerbaijan proclaimed its independence on 30 August 1991, shortly before the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the same year. In September 1991, the ethnic Armenian majority of the Nagorno-Karabakh region formed the self-proclaimed Republic of Artsakh. The region and seven surrounding districts are internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan pending a solution to the status of the Nagorno-Karabakh through negotiations facilitated by the OSCE, although became de facto independent with the end of the First Nagorno-Karabakh War in 1994. Following the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War in 2020, the seven districts and parts of Nagorno-Karabakh were returned to Azerbaijani control.
Currency / Language
| ISO | Currency | Symbol | Significant figures |
|---|---|---|---|
| AZN | Azerbaijani manat | ₼ | 2 |
| ISO | Language |
|---|---|
| HY | Armenian language |
| AZ | Azerbaijani language |
| RU | Russian language |