Look up ID, Id, or id in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

ID, I.D. or id may refer to:

• The id, ego, and super-ego comprise the psychic apparatus defined in Sigmund Freud's structural model of the psyche

Abbreviations[link]

• Id., Latin, short for "idem", "the same", used in legal citations for the previously cited source
• Identification (disambiguation)
  • Identity document, any document used to verify personal identity
  • Dog tag, military and civilian neck-ID tags
  • Identifier, name that identifies a unique object
• Independent Democrats, a political party in South Africa
• Industrial design
• Information design
• Interior design
• Infectious disease
• Infectious dose
• Instructional design, the study of creating better online instructional experiences.
• Intellectual disability
• Intelligent design, a modern form of the teleological argument for the existence of a god
• International dollar, common name for the Geary–Khamis dollar, a hypothetical unit of currency

Codes[link]

• ID, postal abbreviation for Idaho, a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the U.S.
  • Id., an older postal abbreviation for Idaho
• Indonesia, ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code "ID"
  • .id, Internet Top Level Domain code for Indonesia
  • Indonesian language, ISO 639 alpha-2 code id
• Interlink Airlines, IATA airline code

Computer science[link]

• Identifier that uniquely identifies an object or record
• Id (programming language) is a parallel functional programming language
• iD (video game), is a 1980s video game by Mel Croucher
• id Software, the computer game software developer behind the Quake and Doom series, among others
• Internet Draft, a working document of the IETF
• id, the generic object datatype in the Objective-C programming language

Places[link]

• İd, town in Turkey

Popular culture[link]

• Id (Siddharta album), the 1999 debut album of Slovenian rock band Siddharta
• Id (comics), a manhwa by Kim Daewoo, art by A. T. Kenny
• I.D. (film), the 1995 British film, directed by Philip Davis
• "I.D." (Law & Order), an episode of Law & Order
• I.D. (magazine), American magazine focusing on Architecture, Graphic and Industrial Design
• I.D. (play), 2003 British play by Anthony Sher
• id (Veil of Maya album)
• Id (Xenogears), a character in the video game
• i-D, a British fashion magazine
• iD Two, RTÉ television programme
• I.D. & Urgent Calls, an audio drama based on Dr. Who
• Identically Different (I.D.), a former Canadian boyband
• Investigation Discovery, an American cable channel
• ID, an album by Anna Maria Jopek
• Id, a monster In the classic 1956 movie Forbidden Planet
• id Software, the computer game software developer behind the Quake and Doom series, among others
• The Wizard of Id, an American comic strip, and its fictional kingdom

Mathematics[link]

• Influence diagram, a graphical and mathematical representation of a decision situation
• Inside diameter, also 'inner diameter'; a dimension commonly used to specify the size of tubing or pipe
• An identity function, a function that always returns the same value that was used as its argument

Miscellanea[link]

• The Citroën ID, a variant of the Citroën DS
• The Muslim religious festival of Id-ul-Fitr
• Another spelling of Ide (fish)
• A non-standard Roman numeral form for the number 499
• One of the parts of the psychic apparatus in socionics

See also[link]

• Ides (disambiguation)

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (October 2011)

Dawud Wharnsby (born David Howard Wharnsby on June 27, 1972) is a Canadian singer-songwriter, poet, performer, educator and television personality. A multi-instrumentalist, he is best known for his work in the musical/poetic genre of English Language nasheed and spoken word.

Early artistic career[link]

Born in Kitchener, Ontario in 1972, David Wharnsby became active in local theatrical productions during his early teens, first performing on a world-class theater stage at the age of 18 in a production of "Jesus Christ Superstar" (Annas).^[2] Other stage work of his late teens included roles in "You're A Good Man Charlie Brown" (Schroeder (Peanuts)) ^[3] and "Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead".^{[citation needed]}

At the age of 19 Wharnsby began performing throughout Southern Ontario as a solo musical artist and as a member of various musical groups. His first professional work as a musician was with folk quartet Crakenthorpe's Teapot, hired to perform on street corners of their hometown.^[4][5] Wharnsby traveled extensively throughout Ontario, England and Scotland during 1993 and 1994 as a solo busker - singing informally on street corners and in parks to market and share his music. In 1993 he started his own independent recording entity, Three Keyed Maple Seeds, which in 1996 was renamed Enter Into Peace and registered with SOCAN as a music publishing entity.^[6]

During the early 1990s Wharnsby worked as a professional actor and puppeteer for two different educational theater troupes, touring public schools and folk festivals throughout Ontario. At the age of 20 he played lead in a short educational film "To Catch A Thief", distributed nationally in Canada to schools as part of the John Howard Society's anti-shoplifting program.^[7]

Music[link]

Wharnsby's first musical recording to see independent distribution, was a collection of cover songs entitled Three O'Clock Tea, recorded live in 1991 with the folk quartet Crackenthorpe's Teapot (Wharnsby / Corey Schmidt / Heather Chappell / Bill Kocher).

In 1993, Dawud (David) Wharnsby and fellow Crackenthorpe's Teapot vocalist Heather Chappell began touring and performing as a duo, releasing an independent album (Off To Reap The Corn) containing renditions of traditional Canadian and Irish folk music. The recording also featured Wharnsby's original lyrical adaptation of the traditional song "The Black Velvet Band". His comical version "The Black Velvet Band as Never Before" is still sung in folk music circles.^[8]

In 1994 the duo of Wharnsby and Chappell released a second independent recording through the Three Keyed Maple Seeds entity, entitled Fine Flowers in the Valley.

Dawud has released several internationally distributed albums since 1995, including Blue Walls And The Big Sky,^[9] Vacuous Waxing (with Canadian writer Bill Kocher) and A Different Drum (with The Fletcher Valve Drummers). In May 2007 his 2005 album "Vacuous Waxing" was re-issued internationally with an amended track-listing under the title "The Poets and The Prophet".

September 3, 2007 Dawud released "Out Seeing the Fields" composed of 12 tracks, co-produced with LA based pianist Idris Phillips.^[10] The 11th track of the album named "Rachel" is a tribute to Rachel Corrie who was killed by an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Caterpillar D9R armored bulldozer, during an ISM protest against the destruction of Palestinian homes by the IDF in the Gaza Strip.^[11]

In the mid-1990s Dawud began to work in the genre of English language nasheed (spiritual hymns of a folk/world-beat style, drawn from Qur'anic tradition). He has released over 10 popular albums of spiritual nasheed since 1996, including A Whisper of Peace (1996), Colors of Islam (1998), Road to Madinah (1999) and The Prophet's Hands (2002), all released through US based media company Sound Vision.Com.

During his career Dawud has collaborated with Stephen Fearing, Irshad Khan, Danny Thompson, Yusuf Islam (aka Cat Stevens), Chris McKhool, Sami Yusuf and Zain Bhikha. On the 2007 album Man Ana? by French singer/songwriter Khalid Belrhouzi, Dawud Wharnsby was featured as a lyricist and guest vocalist on the title track.

Wharnsby's songs have also found their way onto the recordings of notable artists. His popular children's songs "Sing, Children of The World!" and "Al Khaliq" were both covered by Yusuf Islam & Friends on the 2004 CD I Look I See and his song "A Whisper of Peace" was included by Canadian children's performer Chris McKhool on the CD "Celebrate!".

Dawud has also frequently collaborated with South African artist Zain Bhikha on recordings, music videos, live performances and television appearances. Wharnsby appeared on Bhikha's album "Faith" in 2001, then again in 2006 on the album Allah Knows, performing a cover version of "Flowers Are Red" by Harry Chapin.

Good Morning Sunday, a 2008 compilation recording presented by popular singer and radio personality Aled Jones, features Wharnsby's song "The Truth That Lies Inside" (from "Out Seeing the Fields") alongside songs by notable performers such as Elvis Presley, Beth Neilsen Chapman, Alison Krauss, Kate Rusby, Julie Fowlis, Eric Bibb, Sarah McLachlan, Eva Cassidy, Louis Armstrong, and The Staple Singers. The album was released by Warner Music UK in spring of 2008, featuring material regularly played on the BBC Radio 2 program (also called "Good Morning Sunday") and hosted by Jones.^{[citation needed]}

Television, video and radio production[link]

As a television personality, Dawud has hosted programs produced in conjunction with Canada's Vision TV, the National Film Board of Canada,^[12] Al Huda TV (Saudi Arabia) and BBC Scotland.

Most notably, the internationally distributed documentary series A New Life in a New Land: The Muslim Experience in Canada (produced in Canada) and the educational children's program "Watch Celebrations: Ramadan" (produced by BBC Scotland) often air on television stations in their respective countries - both programs hosted, and partially scored, by Wharnsby.^{[citation needed]}

Since the mid-1990s, Dawud Wharnsby has been a regular free-lance writer, actor, assistant puppeteer and musical soundtrack producer for video products produced by Chicago based educational media entity Sound Vision.Com (primarily, the globally popular children's video series "Adam's World").^{[citation needed]}

Dawud has also hosted community talk radio programs in both Canada and the US. In 2004/2005 he was a music director, pre-recorded segment producer/narrator, guest and occasional on-air host with the daily talk-radio program Radioislam, 1450 AM, in Chicago, Illinois.^{[citation needed]}

Educational efforts[link]

Due to the popularity of Dawud's educational recordings for children, he frequently visits schools worldwide between his larger concert tours. Through music and unique discussion, Dawud's primary and high school level presentations promote tolerance, diversity and social cohesion. Wharnsby has performed at schools in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Egypt, Pakistan, Malaysia and South Africa.^{[citation needed]}

As a social activist, Dawud Wharnsby also lectures internationally at community events and universities, speaking on topics related to social justice, disability awareness, music, spirituality or Qur'anic philosophy, tradition and ideology.^{[citation needed]}

Royalties from many of Dawud's musical recordings feed a private family trust supporting the Al-Imtiaz Foundation and Al-Imtiaz Academy, located in Abbottabad Pakistan.^{[citation needed]}

In honor of author, screenwriter and lecturer Rod Serling, Wharnsby (inspired as a child by Serlings' work) is also a supporter of the Rod Serling Memorial Foundation and contributor to The Foundation's scholarship fund.^[13] The fund is awarded annually to a student of Binghamton High School (in Binghamton, NY) who possesses skills in creative writing.

As a result of his global efforts promoting artistic expression as a tool for positive social change, Simple Living, environmental preservation and community bridge-building Dawud Wharnsby was declared an Ambassador of Scouting by the Scout Association in the UK as of June 2010.^[14]

Personal life[link]

In 1993, David Howard Wharnsby embraced the teachings of the Qur'an ^[6][15] changing his name to "Dawud" (Arabic: داوود‎) - the Arabic form of "David" - and added the name "Ali" (Arabic: علي‎) ‎to his surname. The name "Ali" was dropped from professional use in 2003, but remains a part of his legal name. Wharnsby is a proponent of Perennial philosophy, has identified himself as a Muslim since 1993 and also adheres to the principals of Unitarian Universalism.^[15][16]

Married in 2003, Dawud Wharnsby, his wife and their two children reside seasonally in Colorado United States, Abbottabad Pakistan and in Waterloo Ontario Canada,^[17] Wharnsby's base for his music publishing entity Enter Into Peace. The couple have also lived in, Damascus, Syria (2005) and Cairo, Egypt (2006).

Though family ties do exist, Dawud Wharnsby is not to be confused with film editor David Wharnsby, also a native of the Kitchener-Waterloo area.^[18] Other notable Canadian talents linked to Dawud Wharnsby are sports writer Tim Wharnsby and former Canadian hockey player, sports announcer and member of parliament Howie Meeker.

Dawud Wharnsby's support of humanitarian efforts worldwide sees him working regularly with diverse institutions rooted in various traditions and faith communities. In the past, Wharnsby has been affiliated with, or assisted in fund raising efforts for, Red Cross/Red Crescent (Qatar/Pakistan), Islamic Relief (U.S./UK), Habitat For Humanity and the Mennonite Central Committee (Canada). Supporting efforts to fight domestic violence and better the circumstances of women and children, on July 16, 2008 Dawud Wharnsby and fellow musician Idris Phillips performed at and inaugurated the Anderton Park Children's Center in Birmingham, United Kingdom.^{[citation needed]}

In the media[link]

Dawud Wharnsby was named in a November 21, 2008 article by The Sun,^[19] as being a primary influence in an alleged conversion to the religion of Islam by pop star Michael Jackson. The article stated that Wharnsby and fellow musician Idris Phillips were "pals" of Michael Jackson and had talked to him "about their beliefs, and how they thought they had become better people after they converted.". The article was subsequently run by major print and television media worldwide.^[20][21][22]

Following the Death of Michael Jackson on June 25, 2009 the original Sun article resurfaced, intensifying rumors surrounding Jackson’s religious affiliation and his alleged "conversion" to the religion of Islam through the counsel of Dawud Wharnsby and Idris Phillips. A June 26, 2009 public statement by Wharnsby, initially presented on his official website^[23] stated:

"For the record: Though our professional circles did cross-over slightly... I never had the honour or pleasure of meeting Michael Jackson personally, nor did we ever correspond on matters of our professions, personal lives or faiths."

On the topic of conversion, Wharnsby also stated:

"My approach to faith does not include concepts of "conversion/reversion" or "propagation", so the very idea that I would have even tried to "convert" Mr. Jackson (or anyone else for that matter) to my spiritual perspective, is silly."

In November 2009 Dawud Wharnsby's name was included in the category of "Entertainment and The Arts" on a list of the 500 Most Influential Muslims, compiled by The Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Center (Jordon),^[24] and published with support of Georgetown University’s Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding.^[25] Wharnsby was also included on the follow up lists of 2010 and 2011.^[26]

Discography[link]

Solo Work[link]

CD Singles and EP Releases[link]

Selected Collaborations[link]

Narrative work[link]

Music videos[link]

Published work[link]

• Nasheed Artist (Books 4 Schools, UK, 2005, ISBN 0-9543652-6-7) (author/co-illustrator)
• For Whom The Troubadour Sings (Kube Publishing Ltd, UK, 2009, ISBN 978-1-84774-011-3) (author)
• A Picnic of Poems in Allah's Green Garden (Kube Publishing Ltd, UK, 2011, ISBN 978-0-86037-444-2) (author)

Television and video appearances[link]

• As Salamu Alaikum! (Sound Vision, 2005) (Soundtrack and actor/puppeteer)
• A New Life In A New Land (Milo Productions/University of Saskatoon/NFB, 2004) (Soundtrack and host)^[27]
• BBC Schools - Watch Celebrations: Ramadan And Eid (BBC Scotland, 2003) (Host)
• Sing, Children of The World (Sound Vision, 2002) (Host)
• Stories Behind The Songs (Sound Vision, 2002) (Host)
• Rhythm of Islam (Sound Vision, 2002) (Host)
• Alif Is For Allah (Sound Vision, 2000) (Soundtrack and actor/puppeteer)
• The Humble Muslim (Sound Vision, 1999) (Soundtrack and actor/puppeteer)
• Ramadan Mubarak (Sound Vision, 1998) (Soundtrack and actor/puppeteer)
• To Catch A Thief (John Howard Society of Canada, 1990) (Actor)

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website
• Official My Space
• Dawud Wharnsby Nasheeds | His poetry, works and songs
• Dawud Wharnsby Ali feat Atif Aslam Hum Mustafavi Hain

Rudyard Kipling
Rudyard Kipling by E.O. Hoppé (1912)
Born	Joseph Rudyard Kipling (1865-12-30)30 December 1865 Bombay, Bombay Presidency, British India
Died	18 January 1936(1936-01-18) (aged 70) Middlesex Hospital, London, England
Occupation	Short story writer, novelist, poet, journalist
Nationality	British
Genres	Short story, novel, children's literature, poetry, travel literature, science fiction
Notable work(s)	The Jungle Book Just So Stories Kim If— Gunga Din
Notable award(s)	Nobel Prize in Literature 1907
Influenced Robert A. Heinlein, John W. Campbell, Roald Dahl, Poul Anderson

Joseph Rudyard Kipling ( /ˈrʌdjəd ˈkɪplɪŋ/ RUD-yəd KIP-ling; 30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936)^[1] was an English poet, short-story writer, and novelist chiefly remembered for his tales and poems of British soldiers in India, and his tales for children. Kipling received the 1907 Nobel Prize for Literature. He was born in Bombay, in the Bombay Presidency of British India, and was taken by his family to England when he was five years old.^[2] Kipling is best known for his works of fiction, including The Jungle Book (a collection of stories which includes "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi"), Just So Stories (1902) (1894), Kim (1901) (a tale of adventure), many short stories, including "The Man Who Would Be King" (1888);^[3][4] and his poems, including Mandalay (1890), Gunga Din (1890), The White Man's Burden (1899) and If— (1910). He is regarded as a major "innovator in the art of the short story";^[5] his children's books are enduring classics of children's literature; and his best works are said to exhibit "a versatile and luminous narrative gift".^[6][7]

Kipling was one of the most popular writers in England, in both prose and verse, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.^[5] Henry James said: "Kipling strikes me personally as the most complete man of genius (as distinct from fine intelligence) that I have ever known."^[5] In 1907 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, making him the first English-language writer to receive the prize, and to date he remains its youngest recipient.^[8] Among other honours, he was sounded out for the British Poet Laureateship and on several occasions for a knighthood, all of which he declined.^[9]

Kipling's subsequent reputation has changed according to the political and social climate of the age^[10][11] and the resulting contrasting views about him continued for much of the 20th century.^[12][13] George Orwell called him a "prophet of British imperialism".^[14] Literary critic Douglas Kerr wrote: "He [Kipling] is still an author who can inspire passionate disagreement and his place in literary and cultural history is far from settled. But as the age of the European empires recedes, he is recognised as an incomparable, if controversial, interpreter of how empire was experienced. That, and an increasing recognition of his extraordinary narrative gifts, make him a force to be reckoned with."^[15]

Childhood and early life[link]

Malabar Point, Bombay, 1865

Rudyard Kipling was born on 30 December 1865 in Bombay, in the Bombay Presidency of British India to Alice Kipling (née MacDonald) and (John) Lockwood Kipling.^[16] Alice (one of four remarkable Victorian sisters)^[17] was a vivacious woman^[18] about whom a future Viceroy of India would say, "Dullness and Mrs. Kipling cannot exist in the same room."^[5] Lockwood Kipling, a sculptor and pottery designer, was the Principal and Professor of Architectural Sculpture at the newly founded Sir Jamsetjee Jeejebhoy School of Art in Bombay.^[18]

John Lockwood and Alice had met in 1863 and courted at Rudyard Lake in Rudyard, Staffordshire, England. They married, and moved to India in 1865. They had been so moved by the beauty of the Rudyard Lake area that when their first child was born, they included a reference to the lake in naming him. Alice's sister Georgiana was married to painter Edward Burne-Jones, and her sister Agnes was married to painter Edward Poynter. Kipling's most famous relative was his first cousin, Stanley Baldwin, who was Conservative Prime Minister of the UK three times in the 1920s and 1930s.^[19] Kipling's birth home still stands on the campus of the J J School of Art in Mumbai and for many years was used as the Dean's residence. Mumbai historian Foy Nissen points out, however, that although the cottage bears a plaque stating that this is the site where Kipling was born, the original cottage was torn down decades ago and a new one was built in its place. The wooden bungalow has been empty and locked up for years.^[20]

Kipling's India: map of British India

Of Bombay, Kipling was to write:^[21]

<poem>Mother of Cities to me, For I was born in her gate, Between the palms and the sea, Where the world-end steamers wait.</poem>

According to Bernice M. Murphy, "Kipling’s parents considered themselves 'Anglo-Indians' (a term used in the 19th century for people of British origin living in India) and so too would their son, though he spent the bulk of his life elsewhere. Complex issues of identity and national allegiance would become prominent features in his fiction."^[22] Kipling referred to such conflicts; for example: "In the afternoon heats before we took our sleep, she (the Portuguese ayah, or nanny) or Meeta (the Hindu bearer, or male attendant) would tell us stories and Indian nursery songs all unforgotten, and we were sent into the dining-room after we had been dressed, with the caution 'Speak English now to Papa and Mamma.' So one spoke 'English', haltingly translated out of the vernacular idiom that one thought and dreamed in".^[23]

Kipling's days of "strong light and darkness" in Bombay ended when he was five years old.^[23] As was the custom in British India, he and his three-year-old sister, Alice ("Trix"), were taken to England—in their case to Southsea (Portsmouth), to live with a couple who boarded children of British nationals who were serving in India. For the next six years, from October 1871 to April 1877, the two children lived with the couple, Captain Pryse Agar Holloway, once an officer in the merchant navy, and Mrs Sarah Holloway, at their house, Lorne Lodge at 4 Campbell Road, Southsea.^[24] In his autobiography, published some 65 years later, Kipling recalled the stay with horror, and wondered ironically if the combination of cruelty and neglect which he experienced there at the hands of Mrs. Holloway might not have hastened the onset of his literary life: "If you cross-examine a child of seven or eight on his day’s doings (specially when he wants to go to sleep) he will contradict himself very satisfactorily. If each contradiction be set down as a lie and retailed at breakfast, life is not easy. I have known a certain amount of bullying, but this was calculated torture — religious as well as scientific. Yet it made me give attention to the lies I soon found it necessary to tell: and this, I presume, is the foundation of literary effort".^[23]

Trix fared better at Lorne Lodge; Mrs. Holloway apparently hoped that Trix would eventually marry the Holloway son.^[25] The two Kipling children, however, did have relatives in England whom they could visit. They spent a month each Christmas with their maternal aunt Georgiana ("Georgy"), and her husband at their house, "The Grange" in Fulham, London, which Kipling was to call "a paradise which I verily believe saved me."^[23] In the spring of 1877, Alice returned from India and removed the children from Lorne Lodge. Kipling remembers, "Often and often afterwards, the beloved Aunt would ask me why I had never told any one how I was being treated. Children tell little more than animals, for what comes to them they accept as eternally established. Also, badly-treated children have a clear notion of what they are likely to get if they betray the secrets of a prison-house before they are clear of it".^[23]

In January 1878 Kipling was admitted to the United Services College, at Westward Ho!, Devon, a school founded a few years earlier to prepare boys for the British Army. The school proved rough going for him at first, but later led to firm friendships, and provided the setting for his schoolboy stories Stalky & Co. (1899).^[25] During his time there, Kipling also met and fell in love with Florence Garrard, who was boarding with Trix at Southsea (to which Trix had returned). Florence was to become the model for Maisie in Kipling's first novel, The Light that Failed (1891).^[25]

Near the end of his stay at the school, it was decided that he lacked the academic ability to get into Oxford University on a scholarship^[25] and his parents lacked the wherewithal to finance him,^[18] so Lockwood obtained a job for his son in Lahore, Punjab (now in Pakistan), where Lockwood was now Principal of the Mayo College of Art and Curator of the Lahore Museum. Kipling was to be assistant editor of a small local newspaper, the Civil & Military Gazette.

He sailed for India on 20 September 1882 and arrived in Bombay on 18 October. He described this moment years later: "So, at sixteen years and nine months, but looking four or five years older, and adorned with real whiskers which the scandalised Mother abolished within one hour of beholding, I found myself at Bombay where I was born, moving among sights and smells that made me deliver in the vernacular sentences whose meaning I knew not. Other Indian-born boys have told me how the same thing happened to them."^[23] This arrival changed Kipling, as he explains, "There were yet three or four days’ rail to Lahore, where my people lived. After these, my English years fell away, nor ever, I think, came back in full strength".^[23]

Early travels[link]

The Civil and Military Gazette in Lahore, the newspaper which Kipling was to call "mistress and most true love,"^[23] appeared six days a week throughout the year except for a one-day break each for Christmas and Easter. Kipling was worked hard by editor Stephen Wheeler, but Kipling's need to write was unstoppable. In 1886 he published his first collection of verse, Departmental Ditties. That year also brought a change of editors at the newspaper; Kay Robinson, the new editor, allowed more creative freedom and Kipling was asked to contribute short stories to the newspaper.^[6] In an article printed in the Chums boys' annual (No. 256, Vol. V, 4th August 1897, page 798) an ex-colleague of Kipling's stated that ..."he never knew such a fellow for ink - he simply revelled in it, filling up his pen viciously, and then throwing the contents all over the office, so that it was almost dangerous to approach him.". The anecdote continues: "In the hot weather, when he (Kipling) wore only white trousers and a thin vest, he is said to have resembled a Dalmatian dog more than a human being, for he was spotted all over with ink in every direction."

Lahore Railway Station

During the summer of 1883, Kipling visited Shimla (then known as Simla), a well-known hill station and summer capital of British India. By then it was established practice for the Viceroy of India and the government to move to Simla for six months and the town became a "centre of power as well as pleasure."^[6] Kipling's family became yearly visitors to Simla and Lockwood Kipling was asked to serve in the Christ Church there. Rudyard Kipling returned to Simla for his annual leave each year from 1885 to 1888, and the town figured prominently in many of the stories that he wrote for the Gazette.^[6] He describes this time: "My month’s leave at Simla, or whatever Hill Station my people went to, was pure joy—every golden hour counted. It began in heat and discomfort, by rail and road. It ended in the cool evening, with a wood fire in one’s bedroom, and next morn—thirty more of them ahead!—the early cup of tea, the Mother who brought it in, and the long talks of us all together again. One had leisure to work, too, at whatever play-work was in one’s head, and that was usually full."^[23] Back in Lahore, some thirty-nine stories appeared in the Gazette between November 1886 and June 1887. Most of these stories were included in Plain Tales from the Hills, Kipling's first prose collection, which was published in Calcutta in January 1888, a month after his 22nd birthday. Kipling's time in Lahore, however, had come to an end. In November 1887 he was transferred to the Gazette's much larger sister newspaper, The Pioneer, in Allahabad in the United Provinces.

Kipling's writing continued at a frenetic pace; in 1888 he published six collections of short stories: Soldiers Three, The Story of the Gadsbys, In Black and White, Under the Deodars, The Phantom Rickshaw, and Wee Willie Winkie, containing a total of 41 stories, some quite long. In addition, as The Pioneer's special correspondent in western region of Rajputana, he wrote many sketches that were later collected in Letters of Marque and published in From Sea to Sea and Other Sketches, Letters of Travel.^[6]

Kipling was discharged from The Pioneer in early 1889, after a dispute. By this time he had been increasingly thinking about the future. He sold the rights to his six volumes of stories for £200 and a small royalty, and the Plain Tales for £50; in addition, from The Pioneer, he received six-months' salary in lieu of notice.^[23] He decided to use this money to make his way to London, the literary centre of the British Empire. On 9 March 1889, Kipling left India, travelling first to San Francisco via Rangoon, Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan. He then travelled through the United States, writing articles for The Pioneer that were later published in From Sea to Sea and Other Sketches, Letters of Travel. Starting his American travels in San Francisco, Kipling journeyed north to Portland, Oregon; to Seattle, Washington; up into Canada, to Victoria and Vancouver, British Columbia; back into the U.S. to Yellowstone National Park; down to Salt Lake City; then east to Omaha, Nebraska, and on to Chicago, Illinois; then to Beaver, Pennsylvania on the Ohio River to visit the Hill family; from there he went to Chautauqua with Professor Hill, and later to Niagara Falls, Toronto, Washington, D.C., New York and Boston.^[26] In the course of this journey he met Mark Twain in Elmira, New York, and was deeply impressed. He then crossed the Atlantic, and reached Liverpool in October 1889. He soon made his début in the London literary world to great acclaim.^[5]

Career as a writer[link]

London[link]

In London Kipling had several stories accepted by various magazine editors. He also found a place to live for the next two years:

Meantime, I had found me quarters in Villiers Street, Strand, which forty-six years ago was primitive and passionate in its habits and population. My rooms were small, not over-clean or well-kept, but from my desk I could look out of my window through the fanlight of Gatti’s Music-Hall entrance, across the street, almost on to its stage. The Charing Cross trains rumbled through my dreams on one side, the boom of the Strand on the other, while, before my windows, Father Thames under the Shot Tower walked up and down with his traffic.^[27]

Kipling photographed by Bourne & Shepherd, ca. 1892

In the next two years he published a novel, The Light that Failed, had a nervous breakdown, and met an American writer and publishing agent, Wolcott Balestier, with whom he collaborated on a novel, The Naulahka (a title which he uncharacteristically misspelt; see below).^[18] In 1891, on the advice of his doctors, Kipling embarked on another sea voyage visiting South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and once again India. However, he cut short his plans for spending Christmas with his family in India when he heard of Balestier's sudden death from typhoid fever, and immediately decided to return to London. Before his return, he had used the telegram to propose to and be accepted by Wolcott's sister Caroline Starr Balestier (1862–1939), called “Carrie”, whom he had met a year earlier, and with whom he had apparently been having an intermittent romance.^[18] Meanwhile, late in 1891, his collection of short stories of the British in India, Life's Handicap, was published in London.^{[citation needed]}

On 18 January 1892, Carrie Balestier (aged 29) and Rudyard Kipling (aged 26) were married in London, in the "thick of an influenza epidemic, when the undertakers had run out of black horses and the dead had to be content with brown ones."^[23] The wedding was held at All Souls Church, Langham Place. Henry James gave the bride away.

United States[link]

Rudyard Kipling's America 1892–1896, 1899

The couple settled upon a honeymoon that would take them first to the United States (including a stop at the Balestier family estate near Brattleboro, Vermont) and then on to Japan.^[18] However, when they arrived in Yokohama, Japan, they discovered that their bank, The New Oriental Banking Corporation, had failed. Taking this loss in their stride, they returned to the U.S., back to Vermont—Carrie by this time was pregnant with their first child—and rented a small cottage on a farm near Brattleboro for ten dollars a month. According to Kipling, "We furnished it with a simplicity that fore-ran the hire-purchase system. We bought, second or third hand, a huge, hot-air stove which we installed in the cellar. We cut generous holes in our thin floors for its eight-inch [20 cm] tin pipes (why we were not burned in our beds each week of the winter I never can understand) and we were extraordinarily and self-centredly content."^[23]

In this house, which they called Bliss Cottage, their first child, Josephine, was born "in three foot of snow on the night of 29 December 1892. Her Mother’s birthday being the 31st and mine the 30th of the same month, we congratulated her on her sense of the fitness of things ..."^[23]

It was also in this cottage that the first dawnings of the Jungle Books came to Kipling: " . . workroom in the Bliss Cottage was seven feet by eight, and from December to April the snow lay level with its window-sill. It chanced that I had written a tale about Indian Forestry work which included a boy who had been brought up by wolves. In the stillness, and suspense, of the winter of ’92 some memory of the Masonic Lions of my childhood’s magazine, and a phrase in Haggard’s Nada the Lily, combined with the echo of this tale. After blocking out the main idea in my head, the pen took charge, and I watched it begin to write stories about Mowgli and animals, which later grew into the two Jungle Books ".^[23] With Josephine's arrival, Bliss Cottage was felt to be congested, so eventually the couple bought land—10 acres (40,000 m²) on a rocky hillside overlooking the Connecticut River—from Carrie's brother Beatty Balestier, and built their own house.

Kipling named the house "Naulakha" in honour of Wolcott and of their collaboration, and this time the name was spelled correctly.^[18] From his early years in Lahore (1882–87), Kipling had become enthused by the Mughal architecture,^[28] especially the Naulakha pavilion situated in Lahore Fort, which eventually became an inspiration for the title of his novel as well as the house.^[29] The house still stands on Kipling Road, three miles (5 km) north of Brattleboro in Dummerston, Vermont: a big, secluded, dark-green house, with shingled roof and sides, which Kipling called his "ship", and which brought him "sunshine and a mind at ease."^[18] His seclusion in Vermont, combined with his healthy "sane clean life", made Kipling both inventive and prolific.

Gilt title of the 1890 first American edition of Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads, which contained Mandalay and Gunga Din

In the short span of four years, he produced, in addition to the Jungle Books, a collection of short stories (The Day's Work), a novel (Captains Courageous), and a profusion of poetry, including the volume The Seven Seas. The collection of Barrack-Room Ballads, first published individually for the most part in 1890, which contains his poems "Mandalay" and "Gunga Din" was issued in March 1892. He especially enjoyed writing the Jungle Books—both masterpieces of imaginative writing—and enjoyed, too, corresponding with the many children who wrote to him about them.^[18]

The writing life in Naulakha was occasionally interrupted by visitors, including his father, who visited soon after his retirement in 1893,^[18] and British author Arthur Conan Doyle, who brought his golf-clubs, stayed for two days, and gave Kipling an extended golf lesson.^[30][31] Kipling seemed to take to golf, occasionally practising with the local Congregational minister, and even playing with red-painted balls when the ground was covered in snow.^[16][31] However, wintertime golf was "not altogether a success because there were no limits to a drive; the ball might skid two miles (3 km) down the long slope to Connecticut river."^[16]

From all accounts, Kipling loved the outdoors,^[18] not least of whose marvels in Vermont was the turning of the leaves each fall. He described this moment in a letter: "A little maple began it, flaming blood-red of a sudden where he stood against the dark green of a pine-belt. Next morning there was an answering signal from the swamp where the sumacs grow. Three days later, the hill-sides as fast as the eye could range were afire, and the roads paved, with crimson and gold. Then a wet wind blew, and ruined all the uniforms of that gorgeous army; and the oaks, who had held themselves in reserve, buckled on their dull and bronzed cuirasses and stood it out stiffly to the last blown leaf, till nothing remained but pencil-shadings of bare boughs, and one could see into the most private heart of the woods."^[32]

In February 1896 Elsie Kipling, the couple's second daughter, was born. By this time, according to several biographers, their marital relationship was no longer light-hearted and spontaneous.^[33] Although they would always remain loyal to each other, they seemed now to have fallen into set roles.^[18] In a letter to a friend who had become engaged around this time, the 30 year old Kipling offered this sombre counsel: marriage principally taught "the tougher virtues—such as humility, restraint, order, and forethought."^[34]

The Kiplings loved life in Vermont and might have lived out their lives there, were it not for two incidents—one of global politics, the other of family discord—that hastily ended their time there. By the early 1890s the United Kingdom and Venezuela were in a border dispute involving British Guiana. The U.S. had made several offers to arbitrate, but in 1895 the new American Secretary of State Richard Olney upped the ante by arguing for the American "right" to arbitrate on grounds of sovereignty on the continent (see the Olney interpretation as an extension of the Monroe Doctrine).^[18] This raised hackles in the UK and the situation grew into a major Anglo-American crisis, with talk of war on both sides.

Kipling in the United States (date unknown).

Although the crisis led to greater U.S.-British cooperation, at the time Kipling was bewildered by what he felt was persistent anti-British sentiment in the U.S., especially in the press.^[18] He wrote in a letter that it felt like being "aimed at with a decanter across a friendly dinner table."^[34] By January 1896 he had decided^[16] to end his family's "good wholesome life" in the U.S. and seek their fortunes elsewhere.

A family dispute became the final straw. For some time, relations between Carrie and her brother Beatty Balestier had been strained owing to his drinking and insolvency. In May 1896 an inebriated Beatty encountered Kipling on the street and threatened him with physical harm.^[18] The incident led to Beatty's eventual arrest, but in the subsequent hearing, and the resulting publicity, Kipling's privacy was destroyed, and he was left feeling miserable and exhausted. In July 1896, a week before the hearing was to resume, the Kiplings hurriedly packed their belongings and left the United States.^[16]

Devon[link]

By September 1896 the Kiplings were in Torquay on the coast of Devon, in a hillside home overlooking the sea. Although Kipling did not much care for his new house, whose design, he claimed, left its occupants feeling dispirited and gloomy, he managed to remain productive and socially active.^[18] Kipling was now a famous man, and in the previous two or three years, had increasingly been making political pronouncements in his writings. The Kiplings had welcomed their first son, John, in August 1896. Kipling had begun work on two poems, "Recessional" (1897) and "The White Man's Burden" (1899) which were to create controversy when published. Regarded by some as anthems for enlightened and duty-bound empire-building (that captured the mood of the Victorian age), the poems equally were regarded by others as propaganda for brazenfaced imperialism and its attendant racial attitudes; still others saw irony in the poems and warnings of the perils of empire.^[18]

<poem>Take up the White Man's burden— Send forth the best ye breed— Go, bind your sons to exile To serve your captives' need; To wait, in heavy harness, On fluttered folk and wild— Your new-caught sullen peoples, Half devil and half child. —The White Man's Burden^[35] </poem>

There was also foreboding in the poems, a sense that all could yet come to naught.^[36]

<poem>Far-called, our navies melt away; On dune and headland sinks the fire: Lo, all our pomp of yesterday Is one with Nineveh and Tyre! Judge of the Nations, spare us yet. Lest we forget – lest we forget! —Recessional^[37]</poem>

A prolific writer during his time in Torquay, he also wrote Stalky & Co., a collection of school stories (born of his experience at the United Services College in Westward Ho!) whose juvenile protagonists displayed a know-it-all, cynical outlook on patriotism and authority. According to his family, Kipling enjoyed reading aloud stories from Stalky & Co. to them, and often went into spasms of laughter over his own jokes.^[18]

South Africa[link]

Kipling in South Africa

In early 1898 the Kiplings travelled to South Africa for their winter holiday, thus beginning an annual tradition which (excepting the following year) was to last until 1908. They always stayed in "The Woolsack", a house on Cecil Rhodes' estate at Groote Schuur; it was within walking distance of Rhodes' mansion.^[38] With his new reputation as Poet of the Empire, Kipling was warmly received by some of the most influential politicians of the Cape Colony, including Rhodes, Sir Alfred Milner, and Leander Starr Jameson. Kipling cultivated their friendship and came to admire the men and their politics. The period 1898–1910 was crucial in the history of South Africa and included the Second Boer War (1899–1902), the ensuing peace treaty, and the 1910 formation of the Union of South Africa. Back in England, Kipling wrote poetry in support of the British cause in the Boer War and on his next visit to South Africa in early 1900, he helped start a newspaper, The Friend, for Lord Roberts for the British troops in Bloemfontein, the newly captured capital of the Orange Free State. Although his journalistic stint was to last only two weeks, it was Kipling's first work on a newspaper staff since he left The Pioneer in Allahabad more than ten years earlier.^[18] At The Friend he made lifelong friendships with Perceval Landon, H. A. Gwynne and others.^[39] He also wrote articles published more widely expressing his views on the conflict.^[40] Kipling penned an inscription for the Honoured Dead Memorial (Siege memorial) in Kimberley.

Sussex[link]

In 1897, Kipling moved from Torquay to Rottingdean, East Sussex; first to North End House and later to The Elms. ^[41] In 1902 Kipling bought Batemans, a house built in 1634 and located in rural Burwash, East Sussex, England. The house, along with the surrounding buildings, the mill and 33 acres (130,000 m²) was purchased for £9,300. It had no bathroom, no running water upstairs and no electricity, but Kipling loved it: "Behold us, lawful owners of a grey stone lichened house—A.D. 1634 over the door—beamed, panelled, with old oak staircase, and all untouched and unfaked. It is a good and peaceable place. We have loved it ever since our first sight of it." (from a November 1902 letter).^[42][43]

Other writing[link]

Kipling began collecting material for another of his children's classics, Just So Stories for Little Children. That work was published in 1902, the year after Kim was first issued.

On a visit to the United States in 1899, Kipling and Josephine developed pneumonia, from which she eventually died. During the First World War, he wrote a booklet The Fringes of the Fleet^[44] containing essays and poems on various nautical subjects of the war. Some of the poems were set to music by English composer Edward Elgar.

Kipling wrote two science fiction short stories, With the Night Mail (1905) and As Easy As A. B. C (1912), both set in the 21st century in Kipling's Aerial Board of Control universe. These read like modern hard science fiction.^[45]

In 1934 he published a short story in Strand Magazine, "Proofs of Holy Writ", which postulated that William Shakespeare had helped to polish the prose of the King James Bible.^[46] In the non-fiction realm he also became involved in the debate over the British response to the rise in German naval power, publishing a series of articles in 1898 which were collected as A Fleet in Being.

Peak of his career[link]

The first decade of the 20th century saw Kipling at the height of his popularity. In 1906 he wrote the song "Land of our Birth, We Pledge to Thee". In 1907 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. The prize citation said: "In consideration of the power of observation, originality of imagination, virility of ideas and remarkable talent for narration which characterize the creations of this world-famous author." Nobel prizes had been established in 1901 and Kipling was the first English-language recipient. At the award ceremony in Stockholm on 10 December 1907, the Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy, Carl David af Wirsén, praised both Kipling and three centuries of English literature:^[47]

The Swedish Academy, in awarding the Nobel Prize in Literature this year to Rudyard Kipling, desires to pay a tribute of homage to the literature of England, so rich in manifold glories, and to the greatest genius in the realm of narrative that that country has produced in our times.

"Book-ending" this achievement was the publication of two connected poetry and story collections: Puck of Pook's Hill (1906), and Rewards and Fairies (1910). The latter contained the poem "If—". In a 1995 BBC opinion poll, it was voted the UK's favourite poem. This exhortation to self-control and stoicism is arguably Kipling's most famous poem.

Kipling sympathised with the anti-Home Rule stance of Irish Unionists. He was friends with Edward Carson, the Dublin-born leader of Ulster Unionism, who raised the Ulster Volunteers to oppose "Home Rule" in Ireland. Kipling wrote the poem "Ulster" in 1912 reflecting this. Kipling was a staunch opponent of Bolshevism, a position which he shared with his friend Henry Rider Haggard. The two had bonded upon Kipling's arrival in London in 1889 largely on the strength of their shared opinions, and they remained lifelong friends.

Many have wondered why he was never made Poet Laureate. Some claim that he was offered the post during the interregnum of 1892–96 and turned it down.

At the beginning of World War I, like many other writers, Kipling wrote pamphlets which enthusiastically supported the UK's war aims.

Freemasonry[link]

According to the English magazine Masonic Illustrated, Kipling became a Freemason in about 1885, prior to the usual minimum age of 21.^[48] He was initiated into Hope and Perseverance Lodge No. 782 in Lahore. He later wrote to The Times, "I was Secretary for some years of the Lodge . . . , which included Brethren of at least four creeds. I was entered [as an Apprentice] by a member from Brahmo Somaj, a Hindu, passed [to the degree of Fellow Craft] by a Mohammedan, and raised [to the degree of Master Mason] by an Englishman. Our Tyler was an Indian Jew." Kipling received not only the three degrees of Craft Masonry, but also the side degrees of Mark Master Mason and Royal Ark Mariner.^[49] Kipling so loved his masonic experience that he memorialised its ideals in his famous poem, "The Mother Lodge".^[50]

Son's death in First World War[link]

Kipling had scorn for those men who shirked duty in the First World War. In "The New Army in Training" published by Macmillan and Co., Limited, in London, 1915, Kipling concluded the piece by saying:

This much we can realise, even though we are so close to it, the old safe instinct saves us from triumph and exultation But what will be the position in years to come of the young man who has deliberately elected to outcaste himself from this all-embracing brotherhood? What of his family, and, above all, what of his descendants, when the books have been closed and the last balance struck of sacrifice and sorrow in every hamlet, village, parish, suburb, city, shire, district, province, and Dominion throughout the Empire ?

Exultation and triumph was what Kipling had in mind as he actively encouraged his young son to go to war. Kipling's son John died in World War I, at the Battle of Loos in September 1915, at age 18. John had initially wanted to join the Royal Navy, but having had his application turned down after a failed medical examination due to poor eyesight, he opted to apply for military service as an officer. But again, his eyesight was an issue during the medical examination. In fact, he tried twice to enlist, but was rejected. His father had been life-long friends with Lord Roberts, commander-in-chief of the British Army, and colonel of the Irish Guards, and at Rudyard's request, John was accepted into the Irish Guards. He was sent to Loos two days into the battle in a reinforcement contingent. He was last seen stumbling through the mud blindly, screaming in agony after an exploding shell ripped his face apart. A body identified as his was not found until 1992, although that identification has been challenged.^[51][52]

After his son's death, Kipling wrote, "If any question why we died/ Tell them, because our fathers lied." It is speculated that these words may reveal his feelings of guilt at his role in getting John a commission in the Irish Guards.^[53] John's death has been linked to Kipling's 1916 poem "My Boy Jack", notably in the play My Boy Jack and its subsequent television adaptation, along with the documentary Rudyard Kipling: A Remembrance Tale. However, the poem was originally published at the head of a story about the Battle of Jutland and appears to refer to a death at sea; the 'Jack' referred to is probably a generic 'Jack Tar'.^[54] Kipling was said to help assuage his grief over the death of his son through reading the novels of Jane Austen aloud to his wife and daughter.^[55]

Partly in response to John's death, Kipling joined Sir Fabian Ware's Imperial War Graves Commission (now the Commonwealth War Graves Commission), the group responsible for the garden-like British war graves that can be found to this day dotted along the former Western Front and all the other locations around the world where troops of the British Empire lie buried. His most significant contribution to the project was his selection of the biblical phrase "Their Name Liveth For Evermore" (Ecclesiasticus 44.14, KJV) found on the Stones of Remembrance in larger war graves and his suggestion of the phrase "Known unto God" for the gravestones of unidentified servicemen. He chose the inscription "The Glorious Dead" on the Cenotaph, Whitehall, London. He also wrote a two-volume history of the Irish Guards, his son's regiment, that was published in 1923 and is considered to be one of the finest examples of regimental history.^[56] Kipling's moving short story, "The Gardener", depicts visits to the war cemeteries, and the poem "The King's Pilgrimage" (1922) depicts a journey which King George V made, touring the cemeteries and memorials under construction by the Imperial War Graves Commission. With the increasing popularity of the automobile, Kipling became a motoring correspondent for the British press, and wrote enthusiastically of his trips around England and abroad, even though he was usually driven by a chauffeur.

Kipling became friends with a French soldier whose life had been saved in the First World War when his copy of Kim, which he had in his left breast pocket, stopped a bullet. The soldier presented Kipling with the book (with bullet still embedded) and his Croix de Guerre as a token of gratitude. They continued to correspond, and when the soldier, Maurice Hammoneau, had a son, Kipling insisted on returning the book and medal.^[57]

In 1922 Kipling, who had made reference to the work of engineers in some of his poems and writings, was asked by a University of Toronto civil engineering professor for his assistance in developing a dignified obligation and ceremony for graduating engineering students. Kipling was enthusiastic in his response and shortly produced both, formally entitled "The Ritual of the Calling of an Engineer". Today, engineering graduates all across Canada are presented with an iron ring at the ceremony as a reminder of their obligation to society.^[58] In 1922 Kipling also became Lord Rector of St Andrews University in Scotland, a three-year position.

Death and legacy[link]

Kipling kept writing until the early 1930s, but at a slower pace and with much less success than before. He died of a perforated duodenal ulcer on 18 January 1936 at the age of 70,^[59] two days before the death of George V. (His death had in fact previously been incorrectly announced in a magazine, to which he wrote, "I've just read that I am dead. Don't forget to delete me from your list of subscribers.")

Rudyard Kipling was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium and his ashes were buried in Poets' Corner, part of the South Transept of Westminster Abbey, where many distinguished literary people are buried or commemorated.

In 2010 the International Astronomical Union approved that a crater on the planet Mercury would be named after Kipling – one of ten newly discovered impact craters observed by the MESSENGER spacecraft in 2008-9.^[60] In 2012, an extinct species of crocodile, Goniopholis kiplingi, was named in his honour, "in recognition for his enthusiasm for natural sciences".^[61]

Posthumous reputation[link]

Various writers, most notably Edmund Candler, were strongly influenced by Kipling's writing. T. S. Eliot, a very different poet, edited A Choice of Kipling's Verse (1943), although in doing so he commented that "[Kipling] could write great poetry on occasions—even if only by accident." Kipling's stories for adults also remain in print and have garnered high praise from writers as different as Poul Anderson, Jorge Luis Borges, George Orwell, and Randall Jarrell who wrote that, "After you have read Kipling's fifty or seventy-five best stories you realize that few men have written this many stories of this much merit, and that very few have written more and better stories."^[62]

His children's stories remain popular; and his Jungle Books have been made into several movies. The first was made by producer Alexander Korda, and other films have been produced by the Walt Disney Company. A number of his poems were set to music by Percy Grainger. A series of short films based on some of his stories was broadcast by the BBC in 1964.^[63] Kipling's work is still popular today.

Kipling is often quoted in discussions of contemporary political and social issues. Political singer-songwriter Billy Bragg, who attempts to reclaim English nationalism from the right-wing, has reclaimed Kipling for an inclusive sense of Englishness.^[64] Kipling's enduring relevance has been noted in the United States as it has become involved in Afghanistan and other areas about which he wrote.^[65][66][67]

Links with Scouting[link]

Kipling's links with the Scouting movements were strong. Baden-Powell, the founder of Scouting, used many themes from The Jungle Book stories and Kim in setting up his junior movement, the Wolf Cubs. These connections still exist today. The movement is named after Mowgli's adopted wolf family, and the adult helpers of Wolf Cub Packs adopt names taken from The Jungle Book, especially the adult leader who is called Akela after the leader of the Seeonee wolf pack.^[68]

Kipling's home at Burwash[link]

After the death of Kipling's wife in 1939, his house, "Bateman's" in Burwash, East Sussex was bequeathed to the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty and is now a public museum dedicated to the author. Elsie, his only child who lived to maturity, died childless in 1976, and bequeathed her copyrights to the National Trust. There is a thriving Kipling Society in the United Kingdom and also one in Australia.

Novelist and poet Sir Kingsley Amis wrote a poem, 'Kipling at Bateman's', after visiting Kipling's Burwash home (Amis' father had lived in Burwash briefly in the 1960s). Amis and a BBC television crew went to make a short film in a series of films about writers and their houses. According to Zachary Leader's 'The Life of Kingsley Amis':

'Bateman's made a strong negative impression on the whole crew, and Amis decided that he would dislike spending even twenty-four hours there. The visit is recounted in Rudyard Kipling and his World (1975), a short study of Kipling's Life and Writings. Amis's view of Kipling's career is like his view of Chesterton's: the writing that mattered was early, in Kipling's case from the period 1885–1902. After 1902, the year of the move to Bateman's, not only did the work decline but Kipling found himself increasingly at odds with the world, changes Amis attributes in part to the depressing atmosphere of the house.^[69]

Reputation in India[link]

In modern-day India, whence he drew much of his material, Kipling's reputation remains controversial, especially amongst modern nationalists and some post-colonial critics. Other contemporary Indian intellectuals such as Ashis Nandy have taken a more nuanced view of his work. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, first Prime Minister of India, always described Kipling's novel Kim as his favourite book.^[70][71]

G V Desani, a canonical Indian writer of fiction, had a condescending opinion of Kipling. He alluded to Kipling in his novel, All About H. Hatterr (1948), thus:

I happen to pick up R. Kipling's autobiographical "Kim". Therein, this self-appointed whiteman's burden-bearing sherpa feller's stated how, in the Orient, blokes hit the road and think nothing of walking a thousand miles in search of something.

Well-known Indian historian and writer Khushwant Singh wrote in 2001 that he considers Kipling's If— "the essence of the message of The Gita in English".^[72] The text Singh refers to is the Bhagavad Gita, an ancient Indian scripture.

In November 2007 it was announced that Kipling's birth home in the campus of the J J School of Art in Mumbai would be turned into a museum celebrating the author and his works.^[73]

Swastika in old editions[link]

A left-facing swastika

Many older editions of Rudyard Kipling's books have a swastika printed on their covers associated with a picture of an elephant carrying a lotus flower. Since the 1930s this has raised the suspicion of Kipling being a Nazi-sympathiser, though the Nazi party did not adopt the swastika until 1920. Kipling used the swastika as it was an Indian sun symbol conferring good luck and well-being. He used the swastika symbol in both right- and left-facing orientations, and it was in general use at the time.^[74][75] Even before the Nazis came to power, Kipling ordered the engraver to remove it from the printing block so that he should not be thought of as supporting them. As an indication of his views of the Nazis, less than one year before his death Kipling gave a speech (titled "An Undefended Island") to The Royal Society of St George on 6 May 1935 warning of the danger which Nazi Germany posed to Britain.^[76]

Bibliography[link]

• The Story of the Gadsbys (1888)
• Plain Tales from the Hills (1888)
• The Phantom Rickshaw and other Eerie Tales (1888)
• The Light that Failed (1890)
• Many Inventions (1893) (short stories)
• The Jungle Book (1894) (short stories)
• The Second Jungle Book (1895) (short stories)
• The Seven Seas (1896)
• Captains Courageous (1897)
• Recessional (1897)
• The Day's Work (1898)
• Stalky & Co. (1899)
• The White Man's Burden (1899)
• Kim (1901)
• Just So Stories (1902)
• Puck of Pook's Hill (1906)
• Rewards and Fairies (1910)
• Life's Handicap (1915) (short stories)
• A Book Of Words (1928)
• Limits and Renewals (1932)

Biography and criticism[link]

• Allen, Charles (2007) Kipling Sahib: India and the Making of Rudyard Kipling, Abacus, 2007. ISBN 978-0-349-11685-3
• David, C. (2007). Rudyard Kipling: a critical study, New Delhi, Anmol, 2007. ISBN 81-261-3101-2
• Gilbert, Elliot L. ed., (1965) Kipling and the Critics (New York: New York University Press)
• Gilmour, David. (2003) The Long Recessional: The Imperial Life of Rudyard Kipling New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 0-374-52896-9
• Green, Roger Lancelyn, ed., (1971) Kipling: the Critical Heritage (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul).
• Gross, John, ed. (1972) Rudyard Kipling: the Man, his Work and his World (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson)
• Kemp, Sandra. (1988) Kipling's Hidden Narratives Oxford: Blackwell* Lycett, Andrew (1999). Rudyard Kipling. London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 0-297-81907-0
• Lycett, Andrew (ed.) (2010). Kipling Abroad, I. B. Tauris. ISBN 978-1-84885-072-9
• Narita, Tatsushi. T. S. Eliot and his Youth as 'A Literary Columbus'. Nagoya: Kougaku Shuppan, 2011.
• Ricketts, Harry. (2001) Rudyard Kipling: A Life New York: Da Capo Press ISBN 0-7867-0830-1
• Rooney, Caroline, and Kaori Nagai, eds. Kipling and Beyond: Patriotism, Globalisation, and Postcolonialism (Palgrave Macmillan; 2011) 214 pages; scholarly essays on Kipling's "boy heroes of empire," Kipling and C.L.R. James, and Kipling and the new American empire, etc.
• Rutherford, Andrew, ed. (1964) Kipling's Mind and Art (Edinburgh and London: Oliver and Boyd)
• Shippey, Tom, "Rudyard Kipling," in: Cahier Calin: Makers of the Middle Ages. Essays in Honor of William Calin, ed. Richard Utz and Elizabeth Emery (Kalamazoo, MI: Studies in Medievalism, 2011), pp. 21–23.
• Tompkins, J. M. S. (1959) The Art of Rudyard Kipling (London : Methuen) online edition
• Wilson, Angus The Strange Ride of Rudyard Kipling: His Life and Works New York: The Viking Press, 1978. ISBN 0-670-67701-9

See also[link]

Poetry portal

• The Mother Hive
• List of Nobel laureates in Literature
• HMS Birkenhead (1845)

References[link]

External links[link]

Find more about Rudyard Kipling on Wikipedia's sister projects:
	Images and media from Commons
	Quotations from Wikiquote
	Source texts from Wikisource

Works

• The Works of Rudyard Kipling at The University of Adelaide
• Works by Rudyard Kipling at Project Gutenberg, HTML online, text download.
• Works by Rudyard Kipling at Archive.org, scanned books viewable online or PDF download.
• Works by or about Rudyard Kipling in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• 450 Poems by Rudyard Kipling HTML format, indexed
• Works by Rudyard Kipling, HTML online.
• Works by Rudyard Kipling (not public domain in USA, so not available on Wikisource)
• Rudyard Kipling at University of Toronto Libraries

Resources

• Kipling reads 7 lines from his poem France (audio).
• The Kipling Society website
• Rudyard Kipling at Project Gutenberg, by John Palmer, 1915 biography
• The Rudyard Kipling Collection maintained by Marlboro College.
• Rudyard Kipling: The Books I Leave Behind exhibition, related podcast, and digital images maintained by the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University
• Rudyard Kipling at Naulakha, by Charles Warren Stoddard, National Magazine, June 1905, with photos
• The Works Of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition , PDFbooks, PDF version and mobile PDF version
• [6] Landmark Trust USA: Naulakha
• Rudyard Kipling at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database

James Fenimore Cooper
Portrait by John Wesley Jarvis
Born	(1789-09-15)September 15, 1789 Burlington, New Jersey
Died	September 14, 1851(1851-09-14) (aged 61) Cooperstown, New York
Occupation	Novelist
Genres	Historical fiction
Literary movement	Colonial Realism
Notable work(s)	The Last of the Mohicans

James Fenimore Cooper (September 15, 1789 – September 14, 1851) was a prolific and popular American writer of the early 19th century. He is best remembered as a novelist who wrote numerous sea-stories and the historical novels known as the Leatherstocking Tales, featuring frontiersman Natty Bumppo. Among his most famous works is the Romantic novel The Last of the Mohicans, often regarded as his masterpiece.

Biography[link]

Early life[link]

James Fenimore Cooper was born in Burlington, New Jersey, the son of William and Elizabeth (Fenimore) Cooper. His father was a United States Congressman. Shortly after his first birthday, his family moved to Cooperstown, New York, a community founded by his father.

At the age of 13, Cooper was enrolled at Yale, but he did not obtain a degree, due to his expulsion, apparently for a dangerous prank that involved blowing up another student's door.^[1] Another less dangerous prank consisted of training a donkey to sit in a professor's chair.^[2] He obtained work as a sailor on a merchant vessel, and at 18, joined the United States Navy. He obtained the rank of midshipman before leaving in 1811.

At age 21, he married Susan DeLancey. They had seven children, five of whom lived to adulthood. His daughter, Susan Fenimore Cooper, was a writer on nature, female suffrage, and other topics. She and her father often edited each other’s work.^[3] The writer Paul Fenimore Cooper was a great-grandson of James Cooper.

Writings[link]

He anonymously published his first book, Precaution (1820). He soon issued several others. In 1823, he published The Pioneers; this was the first of the Leatherstocking series, featuring Natty Bumppo, the resourceful American woodsman at home with the Delaware Indians and especially their chief Chingachgook. Cooper's most famous novel, The Last of the Mohicans (1826), became one of the most widely read American novels of the 19th century. The book was written in New York City, where Cooper and his family lived from 1822 to 1826.

In 1826 Cooper moved his family to Europe, where he sought to gain more income from his books as well as provide better education for his children. While overseas, he continued to write. His books published in Paris include The Red Rover and The Water Witch—two of his many sea stories. During his time in Paris, the Cooper family was seen as the center of the small American expatriate community. During this time he developed a friendship with the painter Samuel Morse and French General and American Revolutionary War hero, marquis de Lafayette. ^[4]

In 1832 he entered the lists as a political writer; in a series of letters to the National, a Parisian journal, he defended the United States against a string of charges brought against them by the Revue Britannique. For the rest of his life, he continued skirmishing in print, sometimes for the national interest, sometimes for that of the individual, and not infrequently for both at once.

Otsego Hall, Cooper's ancestral home

This opportunity to make a political confession of faith reflected the political turn he already had taken in his fiction, having attacked European anti-republicanism in The Bravo (1831). Cooper continued this political course in The Heidenmauer (1832) and The Headsman: or the Abbaye of Vigneron (1833). The Bravo depicted Venice as a place where a ruthless oligarchy lurks behind the mask of the "serene republic". All were widely read on both sides of the Atlantic, though The Bravo was a critical failure in the United States.^[5]

In 1833 Cooper returned to the United States and immediately published A Letter to My Countrymen, in which he gave his own version of the controversy and sharply censured his compatriots for their share in it. He followed up with novels and several sets of notes on his travels and experiences in Europe. His Homeward Bound and Home as Found are notable for containing a highly idealized self portrait.

In June 1834, Cooper decided to reopen his ancestral mansion, Otsego Hall, at Cooperstown. It had long been closed and falling into decay; he had been absent from the mansion nearly 16 years. Repairs were begun, and the house was speedily put in order. At first, he wintered in New York City and summered in Cooperstown, but eventually he made Otsego Hall his permanent home.^[6]

Reaction[link]

Photograph by Mathew Brady c. 1850

His books related to current politics and Cooper's self promotion increased the ill feeling between author and public. The Whig press was virulent in its comments about him, and Cooper filed legal actions for libel, winning all his lawsuits.

After concluding his last case in court, Cooper returned to writing with more energy and success than he had had for several years. He wrote a history of the US Navy, and returned to the Leatherstocking series with The Pathfinder, or The Inland Sea (1840) and The Deerslayer (1841) and other novels. He wrote again on maritime themes, including Ned Myers, or A Life Before the Mast, which is of particular interest to naval historians.

Later life[link]

He turned again from pure fiction to the combination of art and controversy in which he had achieved distinction with the Littlepage Manuscripts (1845–1846). His next novel was The Crater, or Vulcan's Peak (1847), in which he attempted to introduce supernatural machinery. Jack Tier (1848) was a remaking of The Red Rover, and The Ways of the Hour was his last completed novel.

Cooper spent the last years of his life back in Cooperstown. He died of dropsy on September 14, 1851, the day before his 62nd birthday. His interment was in Christ Episcopal Churchyard, where his father, William Cooper, was buried. Several well-known writers, politicians, and other public figures honored Cooper's memory with a dinner in February 1852; Washington Irving served as a co-chairman for the event, alongside William Cullen Bryant and Daniel Webster.^[7]

Legacy and criticism[link]

Cooper was honored on a U.S. commemorative stamp, issued in 1940

A stamp of the Soviet Union commemorating Cooper's bicentennial in 1989

Cooper was one of the most popular 19th-century American authors, and his work was admired greatly throughout the world. While on his death bed, the Austrian composer Franz Schubert wanted most to read more of Cooper's novels.^[8] Honoré de Balzac, the French novelist and playwright, admired him greatly^{[citation needed]}. Cooper's stories have been translated into nearly all the languages of Europe and into some of those of Asia.

Cooper's work is read carefully by law and literature scholars such as Nan Goodman, who argues that several of Cooper's novels, particularly The Pioneers and The Pilot, demonstrate an early 19th century American preoccupation with prudence and negligence in a country where property rights were often still in dispute.^[9] However, despite his close association with the period, he also innovated in several ways. Amongst these, Cooper was the first major American Novelist to include African and African American characters. Though these black characters often fell into stereotypical roles, he still used slaves, free Negroes and mulattoes throughout his books.^[10]

Statue in Cooperstown, New York

Furthermore, Cooper was innovative in his use and portrayal of Native Americans, who play central roles in his Leatherstocking tales. However, his treatment of this group is a complex and highlights the tenuous relationship between frontier settlers and Indians.^{[citation needed]} Often, he gives contrasting views of Native characters to emphasize their potential for good, or conversely, their potential for mayhem.^{[citation needed]} In Last of the Mohicans, the stereotypical, nineteenth century view of the native is seen in the character of Magua, who is devoid of almost any redeeming qualities. In comparison, Chingachgook, the last chief of the Mohicans, is portrayed as noble, courageous, and heroic.

Though some scholars may dispute Cooper being classified as a Romantic, Victor Hugo pronounced him greater than the great master of modern romance^{[citation needed]}, and this verdict was echoed by a multitude of less famous readers^[who?], who were satisfied with no title for their favorite less than that of the "American Scott.”^{[citation needed]} The Deerslayer and The Pathfinder were criticized by Mark Twain in a satirical but vicious essay, "Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses" (1895),^[11] which has often been criticized as unfair and distorted.^[12] As scholars Schachterle and Ljungquist write, "Twain's deliberate misreading of Cooper has been devastating....Twain valued economy of style (a possible but not necessary criterion), but such concision simply was not a characteristic of many early nineteenth-century novelists' work. Writing with the expectation that their readers would often read their works aloud, Scott, Dickens, Thackeray, Cooper, and Melville favored a full, sometimes rotund, style that Twain and his fellow Realists a generation later spurned."^[13]

His reputation today rests upon the five Leatherstocking tales and some of the maritime stories. Literary scholar Leslie Fiedler, however, noted that Cooper's "collected works are monumental in their cumulative dullness."^[14]

Cooper was also criticized heavily for his depiction of women characters in his work. James Russell Lowell, Cooper's contemporary and a critic, referred to it poetically in A Fable for Critics, writing, ". . . the women he draws from one model don't vary / All sappy as maples and flat as a prairie."^[15]

Three dining halls at the State University of New York at Oswego are named in Cooper's remembrance (Cooper Hall, The Pathfinder, and Littlepage) because of his temporary residence in Oswego and for setting some of his works there.^[16] The gilded and red tole chandelier hanging in the library of the White House in Washington DC is from the home of James Fenimore Cooper. It was brought there through the efforts of First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy in her great White House restoration.^{[citation needed]} The James Fenimore Cooper Memorial Prize at New York University is awarded annually to an outstanding undergraduate student of journalism. ^[17]

Bibliography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: James Fenimore Cooper

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: James Fenimore Cooper

Wikisource has original works written by or about: James Fenimore Cooper

• Works by or about James Fenimore Cooper at Internet Archive (scanned books original editions color illustrated)
• Works by James Fenimore Cooper at Project Gutenberg (multiple formats)
• Works by or about James Fenimore Cooper in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• James Fenimore Cooper at Open Library
• James Fenimore Cooper Society Homepage
• James Fenimore Cooper at the Internet Movie Database
•  Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Cooper, James Fenimore". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 
• The Cambridge History of American Literature, Book II, Chapter VI, Fiction I: Brown, Cooper
• "James Fenimore Cooper". Find a Grave. http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=228. Retrieved 2008-03-31. 
• James Fenimore Cooper Society Website
• Essay on Fenimore Cooper: Works in biographical/historical context
• Thomas R. Lounsbury: James Fenimore Cooper. 6th Edition. Boston, Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1886 (American Men of Letters). PDF from the Arno Schmidt Reference Library
• James Fenimore Cooper at C-SPAN's American Writers: A Journey Through History

Nabi Musa, 2008

Nabi Musa

Location within the modern Palestinian Territories

Nabi Musa (Arabic: نبي موسى‎, meaning the "Prophet Moses",^[1] also transliterated Nebi Musa) is the name of a site in the Judean desert that popular Palestinian folklore associates with Moses. It is also the name of a seven-day long religious festival that was celebrated annually by Palestinian Muslims, beginning on the Friday before Good Friday in the old Orthodox Greek calendar.^[2] Considered "the most important Muslim pilgrimage in Palestine,"^[3] the festival centered around a collective pilgrimage from Jerusalem to what was understood to be the Tomb of Moses, near Jericho.

History[link]

The Jerusalem-Jericho road was one of the primary routes used by Mediterranean Arabs to make a pilgrimage to Mecca. The great, many-domed building which marks the Mausoleum of Moses was located at what would be have marked the end of the first day's march in that direction. Originally, it was simply a point from which pilgrims could look across the Jordan Valley and catch a glimpse of Mount Nebo where the tomb of Moses was thought to be located.^[4] It appears to have become a fixed point in the local Muslim calendar from the time of Saladin.^[5] In 1269 the Mamluk sultan Baibars al-Bunduqdari built a small shrine here, as part of a general policy he adopted after conquering towns and rural areas from Lebanon down to Hebron from the Crusaders. The shrines were mostly dedicated to biblical prophets and the companions of Mohammed, and their maintenance was funded by an awqaf, an endowment from properties that formerly belonged to the Latin Church. In the case of Nabi Musa, the waqf fund was secured from ecclesiastical assets expropriated in nearby Jericho.^[6]

Baibars al-Bunduqdari's constructive piety set a precedent for others. Over the late medieval period, hostels for travellers were built on adjacent to the shrine, and the hospice in its present form was completed in the decade between 1470 and 1480. Gradually, the lookout point for Moses' distant gravesite beyond the Jordan was confused with Moses' tomb itself, laying the ground for the cultic importance Nabi Musa was to acquire in the Palestinian worship of saints (walis).

Ottoman Turks, around 1820, restored the buildings, which had, over the previous centuries, fallen into a state of dilapidated disrepair. In addition, they promoted a festive pilgrimage to the shrine, coinciding with the Christian celebration of Easter. This 'invention of tradition', as such imaginative constructs are called,^[7] made the pageantry of the Nabi Musa pilgrimage a potent symbol of both political and religious identity among Muslims from the outset of the modern period. Over the nineteenth century, thousands of Muslims would assemble in Jerusalem, trek to Nabi Musa, and pass three days in feasting, prayer, games and visits to the large tomb two kilometres south, identified as that of Moses' shepherd, Hasan er-Rai, They were then entertained, as guests of the waqf, before returning on the seventh day triumphantly back to Jerusalem.^[8]

In the late nineteenth century, the Ottomans appointed the al-Husayni clan as official custodians of the shrine and hosts of the festival, though their connection with the cult may date back to the previous century. According to Yehoshua Ben-Aryeh, the governor of Jerusalem Rauf Pasha (1876–1888), was the first to attempt to exploit the festival to incite Muslims against Christians. Ilan Pappé offers a different view:

'It is more likely, however, that the governor and his government were rather apprehensive of such an anti-Christian uprising as it could stir instability and disorder at a time when the central government was trying to pacify the Empire. This had been indeed the impression of the engineer (seconded to the Palestine Exploration Fund) Claude Conder. The Hebrew paper, Ha-havazelet, at the time blessed the Ottoman government for imposing law and order in the Nabi Musa affair. The travelogues of Francis Newton testify as well to a peaceful execution of the ceremonies. Indeed, the Turkish government must have acted here against popular feelings, shared by the Husaynis as the masters of the ceremony that Nabi Musa was celebrated in the most unfavourable conditions for the Muslims. It was the iron fist imposed by the Turks that prevented the situation from deteriorating into an all out riot.'^[9]

Ottoman flags fly over the Nabi Musa for the last time, in 1917.

The procession moved off from Jerusalem under a distinctive Nabi Musa banner which the Husaynis conserved for the annual occasion in their Dar al-Kabira. On arriving at the shrine, the al-Husaynis and another rising Jerusalem family of notables (A'ayan), the Yunis clan, were required to provide two meals a day over the week for all worshippers.^[10] Once their vows were taken, or vows previously taken were renewed, they were offered to the festival. The priestly family conducting events would provide about twelve lambs, together with rice, bread, and Arab butter, for a communal meal every day.^[2]

Writing in the early twentieth century, Samuel Curtiss recorded that an estimated 15,000^[11] people from all over the country attended the Nabi Musa festival every year.^[12] For some years from 1919, pilgrims made their trek back from Jericho to Jerusalem to the sound of English military music.^[13] The festival was suppressed when Jordan assumed administration over the West Bank in the aftermath of 1948 Arab-Israeli war, because of its symbolic value as a vehicle for potential expressions of political protest. Since 1995, control over the tomb of Nabi Musa has been allocated to the Palestinian National Authority.^[14]

Descriptions[link]

Nabi Musa festival, Jerusalem, 1920.

The journalist Philip Perceval Graves, the brother of the poet and mythographer Robert Graves, who had achieved recent fame for his exposure of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion as a forgery (1921) within a year of its English-language publication, gave a vivid description of the colorful re-entry of worshipers back from the countryside into Jerusalem as they passed through the Jaffa gates:

As they entered the old city, the enthusiasm of the crowds reached its highest intensity. Men with the set blank stare of extreme excitement danced round and round, bareheaded, their long locks flying wildly as they revolved. . . Last came the green banner of Hebron surrounded by a guard of ten wiry swordsmen. Proudly they walked with their flag, till they came to where the narrow Street of David plunges down into the labyrinth of the old city. For the last time they whirled their bright blades above their heads and disappeared into the shadows of the streets.^[15]

A photo of one stage of the procession may be seen in George Aaron Barton's A Year's Wandering in Bible Lands, Ferris & Leach, 1904 p. 200

In Letters from Jerusalem: During the Palestine Mandate, Eunice Holliday describes the procession to the Tomb of Moses in a letter to her mother as follows:

"The procession was the queerest thing I have ever seen, a more disorganised affair you could not imagine, but then that is typical of the country. The people came along in batches, just a crowd with banner of silk, of all colours, then a crowd dancing - Arabic dancing is a joke - then a crowd singing and waving swords or sticks and, interspersed, groups of mounted police and soldiers to see there was no fighting. Quite the nicest part of the day was to see all the fellaheen (peasants from the villages) in their new clothes. The colours were wonderful, bright pink, purple or blue velvet coats, yellow dresses with embroideries in red and green et cetera, and all wore a white veil. It was a gorgeous site [...]"^[16]

Moses rocks[link]

Negev Bedouin tribes produced oil from the bituminous shale rocks found in the area around the shrine to Moses which they called "Moses rocks" (Arabic: احجار موسى‎, ihjar Mousa). The Bedouin not only shared in the belief surrounding the sanctity of the site, but further believed that God had blessed this place where Moses was buried with 'fire rocks' and water wells. Tawfiq Canaan, in his work Mohammedan Saints and Sanctuaries (1927), noted that the black rocks around the shrine would burn when placed in fire and were also used as amulets after being cut into square and triangular forms and inscribed with protective talismans.^[17]

See also[link]

• Nabi Rubin

References[link]

A detailed account of the Nabi Musa festival is to be found, in Arabic, in Kamil al-‘Asali's Mawsim al-Nabi Musa fi Filastin: Tarikh al-mawsim wal-maqam (The Nabi Musa Festival in Palestine: The history of the festival and the shrine) Amman, Dar al-Karmil, 1990.

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Nabi Musa

• Nabi Musa photographic gallery

Coordinates: 31°47′11″N 35°25′54″E / 31.786389°N 35.431667°E / 31.786389; 35.431667