Wikipedia:Main Page history/2017 March 23

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The Oran fatwa was an Islamic legal opinion issued in 1504 to address the forced conversion to Christianity of Muslims in the Crown of Castile in Iberia in 1500–1502. The fatwa sets out detailed relaxations of the sharia (Islamic law) requirements, allowing the Muslims to conform outwardly to Christianity and perform acts that are ordinarily forbidden in Islamic law, when necessary to survive. It includes relaxed instructions to fulfill the ritual prayers, charity and purification, and recommendations for how to handle obligations that violated Islamic law, such as worshipping as Christians, performing blasphemy, and consuming pork and wine. The fatwa enjoyed wide currency in Spain among Muslims and Moriscos – Muslims nominally converted to Christianity and their descendants – from the time of the first forced conversions up to the expulsion of the Moriscos (1609–1614). The author of the fatwa was Ahmad ibn Abi Jum'ah, a North African Islamic law scholar (mufti) of the Maliki school. (Full article...)

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Mariah Carey

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... that John Blair, who served four times as acting governor of the Colony of Virginia, resigned his life appointment in 1770 so he would not be acting governor a fifth time?
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In the news

The Palace of Westminster

A terrorist attack at the Palace of Westminster (pictured), London, results in four people dead and more than forty injured.
American guitarist, singer, and rock and roll pioneer Chuck Berry dies at the age of 90.
An airstrike on a mosque in the rebel-held al-Jinah village near Aleppo kills at least forty-two people and injures more than one hundred others.
The VVD, led by incumbent Prime Minister Mark Rutte, wins the most seats in the Dutch general election, but the governing coalition loses its majority.

On this day...

March 23: Pakistan Day (1956)

Mirza Ghulam Ahmad

1400 – After 175 years of rule, the Trần dynasty of Vietnam was deposed by Hồ Quý Ly, a court official.
1889 – Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (pictured) founded the Ahmadiyya Islamic religious movement in British India.
1905 – About 1,500 Cretans, led by Eleftherios Venizelos, met at the village of Theriso to call for the island's unification with Greece, beginning the Theriso revolt.
1989 – Two researchers announced the discovery of cold fusion, a claim which was later discredited.
2007 – Iranian military personnel seized 15 British Royal Navy personnel, claiming that they had entered Iranian waters.

Henry of Grosmont (d. 1361) · Emmy Noether (b. 1882) · Mo Farah (b. 1983)

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The Gilt-bronze Maitreya in Meditation is a gilt-bronze statue of Maitreya seated in meditation. It measures 83.2 centimetres (32.8 in) in height and probably dates to the middle or late 6th century. One of the best known and regarded Korean Buddhist sculptures, it was designated as the 78th national treasure of Korea in 1962.

Photograph: National Museum of Korea

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