title: Brainiac (character)

text: Although they managed to defeat him, the alien sentience had already miniaturized and bottled the city of Metropolis and took it to his ship in space. Superman travels to the ship to find many alien bottled cities, Kandor included. The alien identifies himself as a being from the planet Colu where he was known as C.O.M.P.U.T.O and on Krypton he was called Brainiac 1.0. He claims that, without Superman and the ship that brought him to Earth, his Kryptonian collection is incomplete. The alien intelligence demands Superman make a choice: the intelligence will disable life support in both the Kandor and Metropolis bottles, and Superman must choose which city to save using indestructible Kryptonian armor found on the ship.


title: Brainiac (character)

text: Superman decides on neither and wears the armor (which changes instantly into the current Superman costume design). Brainiac sends Metallo to attack Superman, but due to Superman reasoning with him over his feelings for Lois Lane, he breaks free of Brainiac's control and joins Superman in his attack. Superman then uses his rocket from Krypton that had also been miniaturized with Metropolis to attack Brainiac's mind, which the rocket was able to do since its primary mission was to protect Kal-El. In doing so, Metropolis was returned to Earth and Superman took possession of Brainiac's ship and made it his new super citadel.


title: Brainiac (character)

text: Notably, the ship Clark was placed into as a child was described as having "Brainiac AI", leaving the identity of the Collector of Worlds in doubt. The Colony of the Collector of Worlds told Superman that its AI technology went by different names, beginning on Yod-Colu as C.O.M.P.U.T.O. On Noma, he was called Pneumenoid; on Bryak it was Mind2; on Krypton he was called Brainiac 1.0; and, finally on Earth, he is the Internet.


title: Brainiac (character)

text: After this defeat, Brainiac retreated to deeper parts of the cosmos, and eventually came across the planet Tolerance, the setting of a bounty hunting glimmernet game show called "The Hunted". Striking a deal with Lady Styx, overlord of the Tenebrian Dominion, he bottles a portion of the Sh'diki Borough of Tolerance to add to his collection. He encounters Jediah Caul, a former member of the Green Lantern Corps, who combats and infects Brainiac's ship. Ultimately, Brainiac abandons his plans with the Sh'diki Borough and ejects Caul and the bottled city before leaving for parts unknown.


title: Brainiac (character)

text: Back on Earth, during an investigation of 20 kidnapped people who developed metahuman powers after being kidnapped by Brainiac, one of these 20 infects Lois Lane, thereby giving Brainiac control over a close ally of Superman. Brainiac plots his return to Earth, using Lane to infiltrate Earth's defense systems to allow an easier path for his physical return. and even upgrading her body to contain his 12th level intelligence. His minion Cyborg-Superman (a reconstructed Zor-El, father of Supergirl) constructs a portal to allow Brainiac's command ship and "daughter ships" to travel to Earth from throughout the galaxy.


title: Brainiac (character)

text: Superman, whom Brainiac had conspired to 'infect' with the monster Doomsday to drive him away from Earth, uses his augmented power to attack Brainiac's gigantic mothership and break through to its core and, finally, Vril Dox himself. The Coluan appears still-humanoid, and explains his reasoning for stealing minds from throughout the universe: he has concluded that if he can 'unite' the minds of a certain critical number of people, he will be able to change reality itself. His motivation for this appears a desire to right the wrongs he feels responsible for: the loss of his wife and child back on Colu. His plan is undone when Superman drags him, mothership and all, into a black hole. But then, Vril Dox is snatched away to safety, it seems, by a being who appears to be the true Brainiac: an immensely powerful entity from outside the universe itself.


title: Brainiac (character)

text: This version of Brainiac, a composite of Brainiac from around the Multiverse, is revealed to be the pre-"Flashpoint" era Brainiac who, having found his way into the Source Wall and into the Multiverse, was thrown back in the timestream and mutated by the effects of "crisis" events such as "Crisis on Infinite Earths", "Zero Hour", and "52", creating a godlike being. He then uncovered the location of Vanishing Point from nearly killing New 52 Earth-0's Michelle Carter, from which he could roam the complete history of the Multiverse, collecting doomed cities from defunct timelines, alternative futures, and parallel worlds to add to his collection, in "Convergence", leaving behind an agent, Telos, to rule a planet of the same name containing the cities. Brainiac's attempt to do this to a future timeline of Earth-0 was narrowly averted by the heroes in the story ""; Brainiac was contained in a T-sphere, leaving Telos stranded without his master, prompting the events of "Convergence" in which the planets are bid to fight each other. When the events of "Convergence" nearly end in an irreversible destruction of the Multiverse, the time traveller Waverider, formerly the pre-"Flashpoint" Booster Gold, frees Brainiac, who reveals he is sick from his mutations and only wishes to return to normal, to being Brainiac of Colu. He sends most of the heroes home, and with help from the "Zero Hour" Parallax and the pre-"Flashpoint" Superman, averts the collapse of the Multiverse from "Crisis on Infinite Earths", and is returned to the normal Brainiac. His actions also allow various parallel universes and alternate timelines to exist as the new Multiverse.


title: Brainiac (character)

text: Brainiac's name is first referenced in an issue of "Hal Jordan and the Green Lantern Corps". The entirety of the Green and Yellow Lanterns (including Hal Jordan, Guy Gardner, and John Stewart), along with Starro the Conqueror, are lured into a trap and subsequently hit with a shrink ray while on the planet Xudar, leaving them tiny and helpless. In the next issue, they are trapped in a bottle, and their jailer is revealed to be a robot claiming to run on "Brainiac 2.0" software. The robot heavily resembles both Brainiac's 1983 skeleton-esque incarnation and the robotic drones utilized by the post-2008 version of Brainiac. It has a collection of shrunken bottled planets, and travels in a ship resembling Brainiac's skullship. At the time it was not clear if this was the true Brainiac after "Rebirth" or yet another one of his drones.


title: Brainiac (character)

text: The machine's victory is short-lived, however, as it is revealed that Larfleeze was able to reprogram it to his side using an Orange Lantern ring, having rebooted its life systems after finding it inactive on his homeworld with its ship. Larfleeze is impressed that the machine was able to capture the Green Lanterns and Starro, and even more impressed with the machine's shrinking technology, and plans to hijack its technology to put together his own collection. He takes the ship and collection to his homeworld of Okaara. However, upon being informed that the Yellow and Green Lanterns are still fighting inside the bottle and trying to kill each other, Larfleeze's own greed for having everything gets the best of him and he ends up breaking the container. This frees the Lanterns, and somehow restores them to their normal size and strength, after which they immediately start rampaging inside the ship and trashing Brainiac/Larfleeze's collection. Hal, Kyle, John and Guy go on to lead the attack on the Orange Lantern Corps. With everyone fighting together, the Orange Lantern Corps are quickly overwhelmed. Larfleeze accuses the robot of playing him; when it responds that it simply did what he programmed it to do, Larfleeze destroys it in a rage.


title: Brainiac (character)

text: The Superman storyline "New World" later confirmed via a flashback cameo that the Post-"Crisis", post-2008 version of Brainiac (the tall, muscular, green-skinned cybernetic alien scientist) still exists in the post-"Rebirth" continuity, and has encountered Superman in the past. Thus, the robot that defeated Starro, the Green Lantern Corps, and the Yellow Lantern Corps before subsequently being dispatched by Larfleeze was, in fact, one of his drones.


title: Brainiac (character)

text: Brainiac later arrived on Earth again and battled the Justice League, who proved no match for him and his ship, until Superman arrived. However, he did not come to destroy the Earth, but to deliver a warning: that there is a cosmic-level threat in the universe coming to Earth, one that the heroes of Earth are woefully ill-prepared for. Brainiac thinks he can defeat the threat, but it means teaming up with Superman and the Justice League and combining members of the League with some of the most dangerous supervillains in the DC Universe and sending them into battle against this extinction-level menace. Four teams outfitted with Brainiac's technology are formed (including among other members, Lex Luthor, Batman, Wonder Woman, and Sinestro), with Brainiac himself working directly alongside his nemesis, Superman.


title: Brainiac (character)

text: The "No Justice" miniseries begins with the Omega Titans, the aforementioned threat, attacking Colu, Brainiac's homeworld, which explains Brainiac's kidnapping of Earth's superheroes and supervillains. Brainiac claims to have developed a plan to defeat the Omega Titans and the superheroes only need to follow his orders to win, but Amanda Waller uses the hidden Protocol XI, which involves kidnapping the world's most dangerous psychics, to probe Brainiac's mind and find out what he knows. The strain of the psychic attack causes Brainiac's head to explode, apparently killing him.


title: Brainiac (character)

text: In Scott Snyder's "Justice League" run, to fill in the gap left by Black Manta and the Joker, Lex Luthor sets Professor Ivo to work reconstructing Brainiac, with the intention of him joining the Legion of Doom. Despite teaming up with them, Brainiac does have his own motivations, including planning his revenge against Waller.


title: Brainiac (character)

text: Brainiac's most consistent power (endemic to all versions) is his "twelfth-level intelligence", allowing calculation abilities, enhanced memory, and advanced understanding of mechanical engineering, bioengineering, physics, and as well as other theoretical and applied sciences. For comparison, the population of 20th century Earth constitutes a sixth-level intelligence, while the population of 31st century Earth are a ninth-level intelligence. His Post-"Crisis" incarnation claims that his brain can process and sort knowledge of over four hundred ninety octodecillion beings (4.9 × 10), which is an enormous number, about five billion times the estimated number of atoms on Earth. All the different versions have created devices such as a force field belt capable of withstanding Superman's most powerful blows, and a shrink ray capable of reducing cities.


title: Brainiac (character)

text: Brainiac's advanced mental powers have shown him capable of possessing others, absorbing information from other beings, transferring his consciousness, creating and manipulating computer systems, replicating duplicate bodies for himself, and exerting powers to traverse or control space-time. Among organic beings, Brainiac views only his frequent partner Lex Luthor as a peer intellect. Brainiac is usually depicted with incredibly high levels of strength, durability, and speed; the exact level varies, but usually hovers at around Superman's strength. Brainiac's exact abilities vary drastically throughout his various incarnations.


title: Brainiac (character)

text: Originally, Brainiac was a scientist with no superhuman abilities aside from his intellect. He fought Superman via the use of his advanced technology and cunning, similar to Lex Luthor. Among these were a force field belt that protects him from all harm, a shrink ray to capture and bottle cities (even Metropolis), and a headpiece consisting of a cluster of diode/electrode-like objects. His cybernetic headpiece lets him interface with technology and discharge energy blasts from his head, which were powerful enough to significantly harm Superman. The Man of Steel described these blasts as "blindingly painful... almost unbearable" and a threat to his life. When the Crisis on Infinite Earths struck, Brainiac can detect the lies of others by reading their thoughts. The Pre-"Crisis" Brainiac was referred to by an omniscient narrator as "the super-computer space pirate-- Superman's most powerful nemesis."


title: Brainiac (character)

text: Brainiac, being unpowered and reliant on external weaponry was largely still the case even he is retconned as an android, but in the 1980s, everything changed and he gained the abilities that would stick to all his subsequent incarnations: super physical attributes, intelligence, and technopathy. His technopatic abilities extend to control of his ship, in which he shares a symbiotic relationship. However, he is capable of downloading his consciousness to spare, robotic bodies in this event that the original one was destroyed or damaged. Brainiac could also possess organic beings in certain circumstances, as he did to Luthor during "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?".


title: Brainiac (character)

text: The final body utilized by the Pre-"Crisis" Brainiac (resembling a robotic skeleton) was technopathic, strong and resilient, and knew how to generate the psychokinetic energies and "spin" them into a web-like net which could hold Superman at bay. Among the knowledge he absorbed was extensive information on hand-to-hand techniques, making him a very skilled combatant. Despite this, he saw physical confrontation as beneath him, and preferred to defeat foes with his mind.


title: Brainiac (character)

text: John Byrne's re-imagining of the character has telepathy and telekinesis, as well as extensive knowledge of various alien technologies. He was an artificial intelligence who had inhabited the body of a human psychic and awakened his powers, further enhancing them with an implanted electrode headpiece. His vast psychic powers allowed him to seriously challenge Superman and defeat many members of the New Gods (including Orion) with a single blast, but this body's lack of durability is the major liability and eventually led to it being rendered useless in a gasoline explosion. After the organic body was destroyed, his consciousness built and possessed multiple robotic bodies, and occasionally hijacks other organic bodies (such as Doomsday's). His abilities were dependent on the body he was inhabiting at the time, in which could vary from weak as normal to far stronger than abnormal. His nanoswarm incarnation, known as Brainiac 2.5 for instance, can shapeshift, regenerate, bend technology to his whim, project energy blasts and force fields, and match Superman blow for blow; Superman stated Brainiac to have physical strength on par with Doomsday in this form. His strongest incarnation was Brainiac 13, who, even prior to absorbing Imperiex, was so physically formidable that Superman cannot remotely affect, much less damage him. By contrast, Brainiac could easily kill Superman in a short time, if he have not been devoted to torture the Man of Steel.


title: Brainiac (character)

text: It was later revealed that this version of Brainiac (like the previous ones) is merely a mentally-controlled probe. The real Brainiac, who was a living Coluan, had himself both genetically and cybernetically modified. The true Brainiac lacked psychic powers, but still have abilities identical to his original incarnations. He possesses a level of strength and durability far greater than Superman; capable of easily overpowering the Kryptonian in unarmed combat, and withstanding several consecutive blows to the face from Superman without visible harm. His speed is vastly surpassing, so fast that he once caught a punch thrown by the Man of Steel. At one point, Brainiac 5 warns Superman that he would most likely die against Brainiac in a straight fight.


title: Brainiac (character)

text: Despite his massive biomechanical modifications, Brainiac has a few weaknesses. Like the Pre-"Crisis" Brainiac, he is telepathically linked to his ship in such way that if separation of it without warning can disable him for a short period. But, prolonged periods causes him to physically deteriorate and become less powerful; just as Lex Luthor observed this while studying his unconscious body over course of several days when it was in custody of the U.S. government. Initially, he is only overloaded in particularly dirty environments and human society via mysophobia while landing into the Earth's atmosphere. Though, Brainiac does not seem to have this defect on Earth in his later battles, such as defeating Superboy. Suggesting that he fixed it.


title: Brainiac (character)

text: This Brainiac is an incredibly experienced fighter, but like his Pre-"Crisis" counterpart is most dangerous due to the advanced technology he wields, much of it of his own invention. These include his classic shrink ray and force field belt, and other gadgets such as missiles capable of causing stars to go into a premature supernova state. His force fields are so impregnable that a direct hit from an energy weapon killed several solar-powered Kryptonians as collateral damage and didn't leave so much a single scratch on his ship. Brainiac also possesses an army of at least ten or thousand humanoid robotic "probes". These probes are strong enough to draw more blood from Superman and tough enough to survive some of his powerful blows. During the New Krypton story arc, Brainiac upgraded his drones with red-sun ray guns for the purpose of fighting fully powered Kryptonians. When Brainiac orders them to attack New Krypton, they quickly kill over eleven thousand Kryptonians.


title: Brainiac (character)

text: He is a bionically engineered cyborg who wants to acquire more knowledge and become "better". With his ship, twelfth-level intellect, and powerful technology, Brainiac has captured a thousand cities, absorbed all the information, and destroyed many worlds. Making him into the most feared being in that known universe.


title: Brainiac (character)

text: Brainiac, in "The New 52", seems to have kept most of the powers and equipment of his Post-"Crisis" incarnation (including his shrink ray, force field belt, and robot army), with notable additions. Brainiac's ship has been massively upgraded in this incarnation; it is now larger than the entire planetary system, and carries within a huge invasion fleet of smaller ships in numerous types. He still appears to possess the physical strength, near-invulnerability, and fast speed of his Post-"Crisis" counterpart, as shown when he easily defeats Zor-El. By the "" story arc, Brainiac utilizes his vast intellect to become an enormously powerful psychic, augmented by the alien minds that he had stolen and digitized from across every galaxy. Then, he is capable of taking control of eight billion minds on Earth at the same time. He also demonstrates considerable mental abilities, claiming that their combined brainwaves throughout the universe can allow him to alter reality at will. He plans on using this newfound power to remake it into own his image. However, Brainiac's plan prematurely ended when Superman battles him telepathically and crashes his ship into a black hole.


title: Brainiac (character)

text: Following the "Doomed" story arc, it is further revealed that this Pre-"Crisis" Brainiac somehow escaped and mutated from the Crisis on Infinite Earths itself ever since. Becoming a god-like being, this version of Brainiac is virtually omnipotent with the ability to warp universes and time travel. Using this New 52 incarnation as one of his probes, he either created or interacted with different iterations of himself throughout the whole multiverse. Brainiac has grown so much in power that he can collect cities from other universes at will. At the end of the "Convergence" story arc, he recreates the DC Multiverse.


title: Brainiac (character)

text: The character has been depicted in various out-of-continuity stories. In the Amalgam Comics line, which was a joint venture between DC and Marvel Comics, readers are introduced to Galactiac, a combination of Brainiac and Marvel Comics antagonist Galactus. Brainiac also appears in "", "JLA: Shogun of Steel", and the novel "The Last Days of Krypton" by author Kevin J. Anderson.


title: Brainiac (character)

text: In the "" graphic novel, Brainiac (here depicted as an alien AI) serves as the main antagonist. He first appears working with Luthor in 1978 to undermine Superman, eventually shrinking and bottling the city of Stalingrad. Superman defeats Brainiac soon after, but his inability to restore Stalingrad becomes his one failure and a recurring source of guilt. After his defeat, Superman has Brainiac reprogrammed to serve him and the Earth, and help run Superman's Global Soviet Union, a task he takes to for the next four decades. While serving Superman, Brainiac repeatedly advises him to take more drastic courses of action to resolve his problems, such as suggesting he merely invade Luthor's United States, though Superman always rebuffs his most extreme suggestions.


title: Brainiac (character)

text: At the climax of the story, after Luthor infiltrates his capitol, Superman does decide to invade the United States, defeating a futuristic U.S. Pacific Fleet and an army of superbeings (including Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and Doomsday) along the way. Luthor himself is yanked down deep into the recesses of the Fortress by Brainiac to be converted surgically into a Superman robot. Brainiac and Superman storm the White House after defeating all the U.S.'s defenders. They are greeted by Lois Luthor with the last weapon, a small note written by President Lex Luthor that reads, "Why don't you just put the whole world in a bottle, Superman?". Superman, realizing the error of his ways, is horrified by the revelation that he has essentially become another Brainiac- "an alien bullying a less-developed species." He calls off the invasion, but Brainiac objects; he reveals that his twelfth-level intellect let him easily subvert any attempts at reprogramming him, and that he has never been under Superman's control. He attacks Superman with a kryptonite beam weapon, nearly killing him while boasting about how he will conquer the entire universe after finishing off all his foes on Earth. However, he is finally defeated when Luthor (having escaped surgery through undisclosed means) hacks and shuts off Brainiac from the inside. His body is promptly destroyed by Superman.


title: Brainiac (character)

text: In one last act of spite, Brainiac's death automatically triggers his ship's self-destruct, which, according to Luthor, would eradicate the entire Earth and everything within a 15,000,000 mile radius. As the gravitational singularities powering Brainiac's ship threaten to explode, Superman rockets it into outer space, where it blows up. The Earth is saved, but Superman is thought to have been caught in an explosion and killed. In the epilogue at Lex Luthor's funeral a thousand years in the future, it is revealed that unbeknownst to the rest of the Earth, Superman survived the destruction of Brainiac's ship. He walks quietly away from the ceremony, planning to live among humans rather than ruling over them.


title: Brainiac (character)

text: In the "" one-shot, the Justice League are drawn to the anti-matter universe to defeat the Crime Syndicate of America, their villainous anti-matter counterparts, with Brainiac apparently acting as the robotic servant of Ultraman. However, after the Syndicate travel to the League's universe, it is revealed that the true mastermind of the scheme was Brainiac, who is revealed to be an organic life form trapped in a tank acting as Ultraman's servant, since Ultraman captured Brainiac's HQ "The Flying Fortress" having manipulated both teams into a position where they will be trapped in each other's worlds and thus unable to win, as the god of each world means that 'good' and 'evil' will always win in each world. However, Brainiac is defeated when the League deliberately deserts: so that the Syndicate can return in time to stop him.


title: Brainiac (character)

text: In "", set in a world where heroes have been publicly 'retired' for years as Lex Luthor took over and blackmailed assorted heroes into acting as his discreet 'servants', Brainiac is working with Luthor to keep the city of Kandor contained, the two destroying one Kryptonian family each time Superman defies them. He is eventually loved by Lara, the daughter of Superman and Wonder Woman, who claims to be surrendering to him only to allow the Atom to break the bottle from inside and allow the Kryptonians within to access their powers, decimating Brainiac with their heat vision.


title: Brainiac (character)

text: Bizarro #1 created this doppelganger of Brainiac to live on Bizarro World. Since Brainiac shrunk the city of Kandor, his Bizarro counterpart felt compelled to do the opposite, and expanded a city in Antarctica, creating Big City.


title: Brainiac (character)

text: In the alternate timeline of the "Flashpoint" event, Brainiac is the ruler of 31st century Earth, and has captured Kid Flash, whom he then placed in stasis, but Hot Pursuit managed to rescue the young speedster. Escaping from Brainiac's base, Kid Flash and Hot Pursuit formulate a plan to return to the 21st century. Kid Flash then allows himself to be recaptured by Brainiac and put into stasis. Kid Flash uses his super-speed in the virtual reality access port to shut down the security program and Hot Pursuit then blasts Brainiac from behind. While they used his orb energy to return to the past, Brainiac impaled Hot Pursuit and attacked Kid Flash. Hot Pursuit breaks the orb energy projector to allow Kid Flash's super-speed to return. Kid Flash then returns to the 21st century, promising to rescue Hot Pursuit from Brainiac.


title: Brainiac (character)

text: Brainiac is one of the villains in the "Justice League/Power Rangers" crossover, when the Power Rangers and Lord Zedd accidentally travel to the DC Universe through a teleportation accident, with the Rangers arriving in Gotham City, while Zedd finds himself in one of the trapped cities on Brainiac's ship. Escaping from the bottle, Zedd proposes an alliance with Brainiac in exchange for providing Brainiac with a city from his Earth, Zedd releasing a wave of monsters across the world to distract the Justice League. Using the distraction of Zedd's monsters, Brainiac dispatches his drones to take control of the Rangers' zords, stealing their powers and fleeing back to their world, forcing the Rangers and the Justice League to 'borrow' the Large Hadron Collider to create a temporary dimensional transporter that will allow them all to get back to the Rangers' world. Back in the Rangers' world, Brainiac nearly takes control of Cyborg, but Billy Cranston is able to regain his powers in time to take Cyborg down so that Batman can reboot him. Brainiac has captured Alpha 5, officially to question him as the only other example of independent artificial sentience he has ever met, but Alpha, although speculating that Brainiac abducted him because the villain is lonely, rejects the idea that the two are similar, arguing that Brainiac's actions show a selfishness and an inability to grow where true sentience relies on making oneself open to working with others. After regaining their powers, the Rangers are able to rescue Alpha and force Brainiac into retreat.


title: Brainiac (character)

text: In the "Adventures of Supergirl" comic, which takes place in the universe of the "Supergirl" TV series, a very different version of Vril Dox appears as a recurring villain. In this series, he is a greedy, green-skinned alien hacker from the planet Yod who was hired by an as-yet-unknown individual to frame Supergirl's ally Winn Schott for funding and aiding terrorism. When Supergirl accesses Winn's computer, he presents himself falsely as an A.I. system called V.R.I.L., and pretends to be a creation of Schott's. He figures out Supergirl's real identity and plans to expose her, then he electrocutes her ally James Olsen from through Winn's computer. Eventually, Vril is tracked down by Supergirl with the aid of Winn and an expert hacker he knew, and Supergirl easily defeated him, after which he was arrested.


title: Brainiac (character)

text: Brainiac appears in the second episode of "" (a companion to ""), voiced by Tara Strong. This version is depicted as a contingency plan set by Doctor Sivana to take down Superman. Brainiac is shown to have lost control over his immeasurable psychic powers, creating an energy dome around himself in Metropolis. The effects are shown to take down attack helicopters and send cars flying. As stated by his creator, only a small nuclear warhead could stop him, or Superman. Superman shows up and penetrates the dome, seeing Brainiac for who he is: a crying, blue-skinned child with three diodes on his head, missing his left arm. Despite his attempts to reason with him and talk Brainiac into controlling his powers, Superman reluctantly kills Brainiac with his heat vision, at the boy's behest, to put him out of his misery, much to his regret.


title: Use Your Illusion II

text: Use Your Illusion II is the fourth studio album by the American hard rock band Guns N' Roses. The album was released on September 17, 1991, the same day as its counterpart "Use Your Illusion I". Both albums were released in conjunction with the Use Your Illusion Tour. Bolstered by the lead single "You Could Be Mine", "Use Your Illusion II" was the slightly more popular of the two albums, selling 770,000 copies its first week and debuting at No. 1 on the U.S. charts, ahead of "Use Your Illusion I"'s first-week sales of 685,000. As of 2010, "Use Your Illusion II" has sold 5,587,000 units in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Both albums have since been certified 7× Platinum by the RIAA. It was also No. 1 on the UK Albums Chart for a single week.


title: Use Your Illusion II

text: It is the last Guns N' Roses album to feature rhythm guitarist Izzy Stradlin. It also includes "Civil War", the last track to feature drummer Steven Adler in any capacity. This album, along with the counterpart of the album, was the last Guns N' Roses album to feature original material until 2008's album "Chinese Democracy".


title: Use Your Illusion II

text: The "Use Your Illusion" albums were a stylistic turning point for Guns N' Roses (see "Use Your Illusion I"). In addition, "Use Your Illusion II" is more political than most of their previous work, with songs like "Civil War", a cover of Bob Dylan's "Knockin' on Heaven's Door", and "Get in the Ring" dealing respectively with the topics of violence, law enforcement and media bias. The thematic material deals less with drug use than previous Guns N' Roses albums. "Use Your Illusion I" featured several songs pre-"Appetite for Destruction" while "Use Your Illusion II" featured more tracks written during and after "Appetite For Destruction".


title: Use Your Illusion II

text: The band's cover of "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" had been released almost a year earlier on the "Days of Thunder" soundtrack, while "Civil War" debuted at the 1990 Farm Aid concert. That concert also featured Guns N' Roses playing a cover of the U.K. Subs song "Down on the Farm", a studio version of which would later appear on the band's 1993 release of cover songs, ""The Spaghetti Incident?"". "Civil War" was released as a B-side to "You Could Be Mine". The song had also been released on a charity album called "Nobody's Child," a fund-raising compilation for Romanian orphans.


title: Use Your Illusion II

text: "You Could Be Mine" was released in June 1991 and is featured in the film "". The song was not released on the actual soundtrack. The band also filmed a video featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger in character as the Terminator, with a loose plot featuring Axl Rose as its "target". However, he is saved from termination as he is deemed a "waste of ammo" by the T-800's lock-on system. The original subject matter of the song dealt with Izzy Stradlin's failed relationship with ex-girlfriend Angela Nicoletti.


title: Use Your Illusion II

text: The "Use Your Illusion" albums can be considered a single cohesive work, and certain elements of "Use Your Illusion II" underscore this intent. For instance, both albums have a version of the song "Don't Cry", and both have one cover song; "Live and Let Die" by Paul McCartney ("Use Your Illusion I") and "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" by Bob Dylan ("Use Your Illusion II"). Each also has at least one track sung by other members of the band: lead vocals are performed by bassist Duff McKagan on "So Fine," a song that was dedicated to punk rock musician Johnny Thunders, who died from a drug overdose before the recording of the album.


title: Use Your Illusion II

text: The song "Get in the Ring" finds the band lashing out at a career's worth of critics and enemies. Among those referred to by name are editors of several entertainment magazines. The industrial flavored "My World", the final track, was written and recorded in three hours, with Rose claiming those in the recording room were on mushrooms at the time.


title: Use Your Illusion II

text: The band had some difficulty achieving the final sound, especially during the mixing stages of both albums. According to a 1991 cover story by "Rolling Stone" magazine, after mixing 21 tracks with engineer/producer Bob Clearmountain, the band fired Clearmountain when he tried to replace the real drums with samples. According to Slash's autobiography, "one afternoon we discovered a notepad of his where he'd notated all the drum samples he planned to mix in over Matt's drum tracks" the band decided to scrap the mixes and start from scratch with engineer Bill Price of Sex Pistols fame.


title: Use Your Illusion II

text: Slash has stated that most of the material for the album was written on acoustic guitars in a couple of nights at his house (the Walnut House), after several months of non-productivity. According to Slash "Breakdown" was one of the most complicated songs to record on the album; the banjo, drum, and piano parts were hard to synchronize and drummer Matt Sorum "lost it" a couple of times trying to get the drums just right. The song "Locomotive" was written in a house Slash and Izzy Stradlin rented in the Hollywood Hills following the "Appetite for Destruction" tours. The song shows the group dabbling in funk metal, and is also the only song on either album where the phrase "use your illusion" appears as a lyric.


title: Use Your Illusion II

text: Both albums' covers are the work of Estonian-American artist Mark Kostabi. They consist of detail from Raphael's painting "The School of Athens". The highlighted figure, unlike many of those in the painting, has not been identified with any specific philosopher. The only difference in the artwork between the albums is the color scheme used for each album. "Use Your Illusion II" uses blue and purple. The original painting was titled by Paul Kostabi as "Use Your Illusion" and also became the title of both albums. Both "Use Your Illusion" albums' liner notes include the message "Fuck You, St. Louis!" amongst the thank you notes, a reference to the Riverport Riot near there at the Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre in July 1991 during the Use Your Illusion Tour.


title: Use Your Illusion II

text: "Use Your Illusion II" received positive reviews, though some critics rated it lower than "Use Your Illusion I". AllMusic reviewer Stephen Thomas Erlewine, in a 3 out of 5 review, stated "Use Your Illusion II is more serious and ambitious than I, but it's also considerably more pretentious." Erlewine criticized what he perceived as filler on the album, singling out the songs "So Fine", "Get in the Ring", "Knockin' On Heaven's Door", "My World" and the alternate version of "Don't Cry". "Rolling Stone" stated "the band rewards the loyal legions – with 14 songs, which range from ballad to battle, pretty to vulgar, worldly to incredibly naive." "The Chicago Tribune" (in a dual review with "Use Your Illusion I"), stated the albums "represent a staggering leap in ambition, musicianship, production and songwriting" and "rank with the best hard rock of the last decade." "Rolling Stone" listed the album at number 41 in their list "100 Best Albums of the 90s".


title: Roux

text: Roux () is a mixture of flour and fat cooked together and used to thicken sauces. Roux is typically made from equal parts of flour and fat by weight. The flour is added to the melted fat or oil on the stove top, blended until smooth, and cooked to the desired level of brownness. A roux can be white, blond (darker) or brown. Butter, bacon drippings or lard are commonly used fats. Roux is used as a thickening agent for gravy, sauces, soups and stews. It provides the base for a dish, and other ingredients are added after the roux is complete.


title: Roux

text: The fat is most often butter in French cuisine, but may be lard or vegetable oil in other cuisines. Roux is used in three of the five mother sauces of classic French cooking: béchamel sauce, velouté sauce, and espagnole sauce.


title: Roux

text: In Cajun cuisine, roux is made with lard, oil, or meat, poultry, or bacon drippings instead of butter. It is often cooked to a medium or dark brown color, which lends much richness of flavor, but makes it thinner.


title: Roux

text: Central European cuisine often uses rendered lard or more recently vegetable oil instead of butter for the preparation of roux.


title: Roux

text: Japanese curry is made from a roux made by frying yellow curry powder, butter or oil, and flour together; this is called .


title: Roux

text: The fat is heated in a pot or pan, melting it if necessary. Then the flour is added. The mixture is heated and stirred until the flour is incorporated, and then cooked until at least the point where a raw flour taste is no longer apparent and the desired colour has been reached. The final colour can range from nearly white to nearly black, depending on the length of time it is heated and its intended use. The end result is a thickening and flavoring agent.


title: Roux

text: Roux is most often made with butter as the fat base, but it may be made with any edible fat. For meat gravies, fat rendered from meat is often used. In regional American cuisine, bacon is sometimes rendered to produce fat to use in the roux. If clarified butter is not available, vegetable oil is often used when producing dark roux, since it does not burn at high temperatures, as whole butter would.


title: Roux

text: Although it may seem surprising, roux, whether brown, blond or white, must be very well cooked. The more a roux is cooked, the clearer, smoother and brighter the sauce will be. If time is limited, it is preferable to make a "beurre manié". For rouxes, the proportions are, per litre of liquid: 80g butter, 75g flour. With the reduction, the quantity will be suitable for 8 place settings."


title: Roux

text: Light (or "white") roux provides little flavor other than a characteristic richness to a dish, and is used in French cooking and some gravies or pastries throughout the world.


title: Roux

text: Darker roux is made by browning the flour in oil for a longer time and adds a distinct nutty flavor to a dish. They may be called "blond," "peanut-butter," "brown," or "chocolate" roux depending on their color. The darker the color, the richer the flavor.


title: Roux

text: Swabian (southwest German) cooking uses a darker roux for its "brown broth" (), which, in its simplest form, consists of nothing more than lard, flour, and water, with a bay leaf and salt for seasoning. Dark roux is often made with vegetable oils, which have a higher smoke point than butter, and are used in Cajun and Creole cuisine for gumbos and stews. The darker the roux, the less thickening power it has; a chocolate roux has about one-fourth the thickening power, by weight, of a white roux. A very dark roux, just shy of burning and turning black, has a distinctly reddish color and is sometimes referred to as "brick" roux.


title: Roux

text: In Hungary, roux "(rántás)" is almost always made with paprika and is the basis of several dishes, including főzelék (vegetable stew) and soups. It may also be prepared with onions and garlic.


title: Roux

text: Staka () is a type of roux particular to Cretan cuisine. It is prepared by cooking sheep's milk cream over a low flame with wheat flour or starch: the protein-rich part of the butterfat coagulates with the flour or starch and forms the "staka" proper, which is served hot. It is generally eaten by dipping bread in it, occasionally served over French fries.


title: Roux

text: The fatty part separates to form "stakovoutyro", staka butter, which is kept for later use and has a faint cheesy flavor. Staka butter is used in Cretan pilaf ("piláfi"), commonly served at weddings.


title: StudioCanal

text: StudioCanal S.A.S. (formerly known as Le Studio Canal+, Canal Plus, Canal+ Distribution, Canal+ D.A., Canal+ Production, and Canal+ Image and also known as StudioCanal International) is a French film production and distribution company that owns the third-largest film library in the world. The company is a unit of the Canal+ Group, owned by Vivendi.


title: StudioCanal

text: The company was founded in 1988 by Pierre Lescure as a spin-off of the Canal+ pay-TV network. The original function was to focus on French and European productions, but later made strategic deals with American production companies, such as Carolco Pictures. StudioCanal's most notable productions from its early years include "", "JFK", "Basic Instinct", "Cliffhanger", "Under Siege", "Free Willy", and the original "Stargate" movie. In those days, it was known as either Le Studio Canal+ or simply Canal+.


title: StudioCanal

text: Other films the company financed include "U-571", "Bully", and "Bridget Jones's Diary". StudioCanal also funded the last third of David Lynch's film "Mulholland Drive". StudioCanal also financed French-language films, such as "Brotherhood of the Wolf" (which became the sixth-highest-grossing French-language film of all time in the United States) and "Intimate Strangers" (which is being remade by Hollywood-based Paramount Pictures). The biggest box office hits for StudioCanal have been "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" which grossed US$519 million, "Basic Instinct" which grossed US$352 million and "The Tourist" which grossed US$278 million worldwide.


title: StudioCanal

text: StudioCanal acquired film libraries from studios that either became defunct or had merged with it over the years; as a result, the company's library is one of the largest in the world, with over 6,000 titles.


title: StudioCanal

text: StudioCanal currently owns the rights to over 30 television series, mostly produced by TANDEM Productions and Red Production Company, including "The Avengers", "", "Paranoid", "Public Eye", "Crazyhead", "Take Two", "Wanted Dead or Alive", "The Adventures of Paddington" (2019), and international rights to "The Big Valley".


title: StudioCanal

text: StudioCanal acquired British distributor Optimum Releasing in 2006 as their first expansion into an international market. A year later, Optimum Home Entertainment and Lionsgate UK acquired Elevation Sales, a home entertainment sales and distribution company. In 2008, their third expansion into the international market took place with StudioCanal's acquisition of German distributor Kinowelt, who had distributed their films up to that point. Kinowelt also owned the DVD label Arthaus. Both Optimum and Kinowelt have since been renamed StudioCanal. StudioCanal's acquisition of Australian distributor Hoyts Distribution took place in 2012 and was StudioCanal's fourth expansion.


title: StudioCanal

text: In June 2016, StudioCanal acquired the intellectual rights to the "Paddington Bear" brand, along with the Copyrights Group, the franchise's merchandise licensing agent. StudioCanal then announced that it would be producing three more "Paddington" films, including a show on Nick Jr. in 2020.


title: StudioCanal

text: Outside France, the British Isles, Australia, New Zealand and Central Europe, StudioCanal does not have a formal distribution unit "per se", instead relying on other distribution studios and home video distributors to handle their titles. In North America for example, The Criterion Collection, Rialto Pictures, Lionsgate Home Entertainment, Image Entertainment, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Universal Pictures, Shout! Factory and Kino International distribute StudioCanal's back catalogue on DVD and Blu-ray Disc (in addition, Anchor Bay Entertainment previously owned several of their titles). Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has handled distribution of StudioCanal/Hoyts Distribution films in Australia and New Zealand on DVD and Blu-ray since early 2015.


title: StudioCanal

text: In the 1990s to early 2000s, Warner Home Video formerly handled distribution of StudioCanal titles through the "Canal+ Image" label in the United Kingdom on VHS and DVD until 2006 when StudioCanal opened its own distribution unit in the UK, with titles distributed through Optimum Releasing.


title: StudioCanal

text: StudioCanal had the European home video distribution rights to 550 titles from the Miramax library from 2011 to 2020, when Paramount Pictures bought a minority stake in Miramax.


title: StudioCanal

text: Since January 2021, StudioCanal has been distributing Paramount Home Entertainment's releases and sales in the British Isles (including those of Miramax library) under its Elevation Sales joint-venture with Lionsgate UK, after Paramount's deal with Universal Pictures Home Entertainment ended.


title: StudioCanal

text: On October 13, 2021, StudioCanal announced that its global distribution deal with Universal would expire in January 2022.


title: Marburg virus

text: Marburg virus (MARV) is a hemorrhagic fever virus of the "Filoviridae" family of viruses and a member of the species "Marburg marburgvirus", genus "Marburgvirus". It causes Marburg virus disease in primates, a form of viral hemorrhagic fever. The virus is considered to be extremely dangerous. The World Health Organization (WHO) rates it as a Risk Group 4 Pathogen (requiring biosafety level 4-equivalent containment). In the United States, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases ranks it as a Category A Priority Pathogen and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lists it as a Category A Bioterrorism Agent. It is also listed as a biological agent for export control by the Australia Group.


title: Marburg virus

text: The virus can be transmitted by exposure to one species of fruit bats or it can be transmitted between people via body fluids through unprotected sex and broken skin. The disease can cause haemorrhage, fever, and other symptoms similar to Ebola, which belongs to the same family of viruses. According to the WHO, there are no approved vaccines or antiviral treatment for Marburg, but early, professional treatment of symptoms like dehydration considerably increases survival chances.


title: Marburg virus

text: Marburg virus was first described in 1967. It was discovered that year during a set of outbreaks of Marburg virus disease in the German cities of Marburg and Frankfurt and the Yugoslav capital Belgrade. Laboratory workers were exposed to tissues of infected grivet monkeys (the African green monkey, "Chlorocebus aethiops") at the , a major industrial plant in Marburg which was then part of Hoechst, and later part of CSL Behring. During the outbreaks, thirty-one people became infected and seven of them died.


title: Marburg virus

text: The virus is one of two members of the species "Marburg marburgvirus", which is included in the genus "Marburgvirus", family "Filoviridae", and order "Mononegavirales". The name Marburg virus is derived from Marburg (the city in Hesse, Germany, where the virus was first discovered) and the taxonomic suffix "virus".


title: Marburg virus

text: Marburg virus was first introduced under this name in 1967. The virus name was changed to Lake Victoria marburgvirus in 2005, confusingly making the only difference in distinguishing between a Marburg virus organism and its species as a whole italicization, as in "Lake Victoria marburgvirus". Still, most scientific articles continued to use the name Marburg virus. Consequently, in 2010, the name Marburg virus was reinstated and the species name changed.


title: Marburg virus

text: Like all mononegaviruses, marburgvirions contain non-infectious, linear nonsegmented, single-stranded RNA genomes of negative polarity that possess inverse-complementary 3' and 5' termini, do not possess a 5' cap, are not polyadenylated, and are not covalently linked to a protein. Marburgvirus genomes are approximately 19 kbp long and contain seven genes in the order 3'-UTR-"NP"-"VP35"-"VP40"-"GP"-"VP30"-"VP24"-"L"-5'-UTR.


title: Marburg virus

text: Like all filoviruses, marburgvirions are filamentous particles that may appear in the shape of a shepherd's crook or in the shape of a "U" or a "6", and they may be coiled, toroid, or branched. Marburgvirions are generally 80 nm in width, but vary somewhat in length. In general, the median particle length of marburgviruses ranges from 795 to 828 nm (in contrast to ebolavirions, whose median particle length was measured to be 974–1,086 nm ), but particles as long as 14,000 nm have been detected in tissue culture.


title: Marburg virus

text: Marburgvirions consist of seven structural proteins. At the center is the helical ribonucleocapsid, which consists of the genomic RNA wrapped around a polymer of nucleoproteins (NP). Associated with the ribonucleoprotein is the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (L) with the polymerase cofactor (VP35) and a transcription activator (VP30). The ribonucleoprotein is embedded in a matrix, formed by the major (VP40) and minor (VP24) matrix proteins. These particles are surrounded by a lipid membrane derived from the host cell membrane. The membrane anchors a glycoprotein (GP) that projects 7 to 10 nm spikes away from its surface. While nearly identical to ebolavirions in structure, marburgvirions are antigenically distinct.


title: Marburg virus

text: Niemann–Pick C1 (NPC1) cholesterol transporter protein appears to be essential for infection with both Ebola and Marburg virus. Two independent studies reported in the same issue of "Nature" showed that Ebola virus cell entry and replication requires NPC1. When cells from patients lacking NPC1 were exposed to Ebola virus in the laboratory, the cells survived and appeared immune to the virus, further indicating that Ebola relies on NPC1 to enter cells. This might imply that genetic mutations in the NPC1 gene in humans could make some people resistant to one of the deadliest known viruses affecting humans. The same studies described similar results with Marburg virus, showing that it also needs NPC1 to enter cells. Furthermore, NPC1 was shown to be critical to filovirus entry because it mediates infection by binding directly to the viral envelope glycoprotein and that the second lysosomal domain of NPC1 mediates this binding.


title: Marburg virus

text: In one of the original studies, a small molecule was shown to inhibit Ebola virus infection by preventing the virus glycoprotein from binding to NPC1. In the other study, mice that were heterozygous for NPC1 were shown to be protected from lethal challenge with mouse-adapted Ebola virus.


title: Marburg virus

text: The Marburg virus life cycle begins with virion attachment to specific cell-surface receptors, followed by fusion of the virion envelope with cellular membranes and the concomitant release of the virus nucleocapsid into the cytosol.


title: Marburg virus

text: The virus RdRp partially uncoats the nucleocapsid and transcribes the genes into positive-stranded mRNAs, which are then translated into structural and nonstructural proteins. Marburgvirus L binds to a single promoter located at the 3' end of the genome. Transcription either terminates after a gene or continues to the next gene downstream. This means that genes close to the 3' end of the genome are transcribed in the greatest abundance, whereas those toward the 5' end are least likely to be transcribed. The gene order is therefore a simple but effective form of transcriptional regulation.


title: Marburg virus

text: The most abundant protein produced is the nucleoprotein, whose concentration in the cell determines when L switches from gene transcription to genome replication. Replication results in full-length, positive-stranded antigenomes that are in turn transcribed into negative-stranded virus progeny genome copies. Newly synthesized structural proteins and genomes self-assemble and accumulate near the inside of the cell membrane. Virions bud off from the cell, gaining their envelopes from the cellular membrane they bud from. The mature progeny particles then infect other cells to repeat the cycle.


title: Marburg virus

text: In 2009, the successful isolation of infectious MARV was reported from caught healthy Egyptian fruit bats ("Rousettus aegyptiacus"). This isolation, together with the isolation of infectious RAVV, strongly suggests that Old World fruit bats are involved in the natural maintenance of marburgviruses. Further studies are necessary to establish whether Egyptian rousettes are the actual hosts of MARV and RAVV or whether they get infected via contact with another animal and therefore serve only as intermediate hosts. In 2012 the first experimental infection study of "Rousettus aegyptiacus" with MARV provided further insight into the possible involvement of these bats in MARV ecology. Experimentally infected bats developed relatively low viremia lasting at least 5 days, but remained healthy and did not develop any notable gross pathology. The virus also replicated to high titers in major organs (liver and spleen), and organs that might possibly be involved in virus transmission (lung, intestine, reproductive organs, salivary gland, kidney, bladder, and mammary gland). The relatively long period of viremia noted in this experiment could possibly also facilitate mechanical transmission by blood sucking arthropods in addition to infection of susceptible vertebrate hosts by direct contact with infected blood.


title: Marburg virus

text: The viral strains fall into two clades: Ravn virus and Marburg virus. The Marburg strains can be divided into two: A and B. The A strains were isolated from Uganda (five from 1967), Kenya (1980) and Angola (2004–2005) while the B strains were from the Democratic Republic of the Congo epidemic (1999–2000) and a group of Ugandan isolates isolated in 2007–2009.


title: Marburg virus

text: The mean evolutionary rate of the whole genome was 3.3 × 10 substitutions/site/year (credibility interval 2.0–4.8). The Marburg strains had a mean root time of the most recent common ancestor of 177.9 years ago (95% highest posterior density 87–284) suggesting an origin in the mid 19th century. In contrast, the Ravn strains origin dated back to a mean 33.8 years ago (the early 1980s). The most probable location of the Marburg virus ancestor was Uganda whereas that of the RAVV ancestor was Kenya.


title: Marburg virus

text: MARV is one of two Marburg viruses that causes Marburg virus disease (MVD) in humans (in the literature also often referred to as Marburg hemorrhagic fever, MHF). The other one is Ravn virus (RAVV). Both viruses fulfill the criteria for being a member of the species "Marburg marburgvirus" because their genomes diverge from the prototype Marburg marburgvirus or the Marburg virus variant Musoke (MARV/Mus) by <10% at the nucleotide level.


title: Marburg virus

text: The first clinical study testing the efficacy of a Marburg virus vaccine was conducted in 2014. The study tested a DNA vaccine and concluded that individuals inoculated with the vaccine exhibited some level of antibodies. However, these vaccines were not expected to provide definitive immunity. Several animal models have shown to be effective in the research of Marburg virus, such as hamsters, mice, and non-human primates (NHPs). Mice are useful in the initial phases of vaccine development as they are ample models for mammalian disease, but their immune systems are still different enough from humans to warrant trials with other mammals. Of these models, the infection in macaques seems to be the most similar to the effects in humans. A variety of other vaccines have been considered. Virus replicon particles (VRPs) were shown to be effective in guinea pigs, but lost efficacy once tested on NHPs. Additionally, an inactivated virus vaccine proved ineffective. DNA vaccines showed some efficacy in NHPs, but all inoculated individuals showed signs of infection.


title: Marburg virus

text: Because Marburg virus and Ebola virus belong to the same family, Filoviridae, some scientists have attempted to create a single-injection vaccine for both viruses. This would both make the vaccine more practical and lower the cost for developing countries. Using a single-injection vaccine has shown to not cause any adverse reactogenicity, which the possible immune response to vaccination, in comparison to two separate vaccinations.


title: Marburg virus

text: As of June 23, 2022, researchers working with the Public Health Agency of Canada conducted a study which showed promising results of a recombinant vesicular stomatitis virus (rVSV) vaccine in guinea pigs, entitled PHV01. According to the study, inoculation with the vaccine approximately one month prior to infection with the virus provided a high level of protection.


title: Marburg virus

text: Even though there is much experimental research on Marburg virus, there is still no prominent vaccine. Human vaccination trials are either ultimately unsuccessful or are missing data specifically regarding Marburg virus. Due to the cost needed to handle Marburg virus at qualified facilities, the relatively few number of fatalities, and lack of commercial interest, the possibility of a vaccine has simply not come to fruition.


title: Marburg virus

text: The Soviet Union had an extensive offensive and defensive biological weapons program that included MARV. At least three Soviet research institutes had MARV research programs during the Cold War: the Virology Center of the Scientific-Research Institute for Microbiology in Zagorsk (today Sergiev Posad), the Scientific-Production Association "Vektor" (today the State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology "Vektor") in Koltsovo, and the Irkutsk Scientific-Research Anti-Plague Institute of Siberia and the Far East in Irkutsk. As most performed research was highly classified, it remains unclear how successful the MARV program was. However, Soviet defector Ken Alibek claimed that a weapon filled with MARV was tested at the Stepnogorsk Scientific Experimental and Production Base in Stepnogorsk, Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic (today Kazakhstan), suggesting that the development of a MARV biological weapon had reached advanced stages. Independent confirmation for this claim is lacking. At least one laboratory accident with MARV, resulting in the death of Koltsovo researcher Nikolai Ustinov, occurred during the Cold War in the Soviet Union and was first described in detail by Alibek.


title: G-string

text: A G-string is a type of thong, a narrow piece of fabric, leather, or satin that covers or holds the genitals, passes between the buttocks, and is attached to a waistband around the hips. A G-string can be worn both by men and by women. It may also be worn in swimwear, where it may serve as a bikini bottom, but may be worn alone as a monokini or topless swimsuit. G-strings may also be worn by exotic or go-go dancers. As underwear, a G-string may be worn in preference to panties to avoid creation of a visible panty line, or to briefs in order to enhance sex-appeal.


title: G-string

text: The two terms "G-string" and "thong" are sometimes used interchangeably; however, technically they refer to different pieces of clothing.


title: G-string

text: Since the 19th century, the term "geestring" referred to the string which held the loincloth of Native Americans and later referred to the narrow loincloth itself. William Safire in his "Ode on a G-String" quoted the usage of the word "G-string" for loincloth in "New York Times".


title: G-string

text: Safire also mentions the opinion of linguist Robert Hendrickson that G (or gee) stands for groin, which was a taboo word at the time.


title: G-string

text: Cecil Adams, author of the blog The Straight Dope, has proposed an origin from "girdle-string", which is attested as early as 1846.


title: G-string

text: The G-string first appeared in costumes worn by showgirls in the United States in Earl Carroll's productions during the 1920s, a period known as the Jazz Age or the Roaring Twenties. According to the book "Striptease" by Rachel Shteir, the first performers to wear a G-string were Latina stripper Chiquita Garcia in 1934, and "Princess Whitewing", a Native American stripper near the end of the decade. Linguist Robert Hendrickson believes that the "G" stands for "groin". During the Depression, a "G-string" was known as "the gadget", a double-entendre that referred to a handyman's "contrivance", an all-purpose word for the thing that might "fix" things. During the 1930s, the "Chicago G-string" gained prominence when worn by performers like Margie Hart. The Chicago area was the home of some of the largest manufacturers of G-strings and it also became the center of the burlesque shows in the United States.


title: G-string

text: The term "G-string" started to appear in "Variety" magazine during the 1930s. In New York City, G-strings were worn by female dancers at risqué Broadway theatre shows during the Jazz Age. During the 1930s and 1940s, the New York striptease shows in which G-strings were worn were described as "strong". In shows referred to as "weak" or "sweet" the stripper wore "net panties" instead. "Strong" shows usually took place only when the police were not present, and they became rarer after 1936 when Fiorello H. La Guardia, the Mayor of New York City, organised a series of police raids on burlesque shows.


title: G-string

text: The American burlesque entertainer Gypsy Rose Lee is popularly associated with the G-string. She was the purported author of the best-selling 1941 detective novel "The G-String Murders" in which strippers are found strangled with their own G-strings. Her striptease performances often included the wearing of a G-string; in a memoir written by her son Erik Lee Preminger she is described as gluing on a black lace G-string with spirit gum in preparation for a performance.


title: G-string

text: In the Tarzan novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tarzan is described as wearing a G-string made of doe or leopard skin.


title: Islamic holy books

text: Islamic holy books are the texts which Muslims believe were authored by Allah through various prophets throughout humanity's history. All these books, in Muslim belief, promulgated the code and laws that God ordained for people.


title: Islamic holy books

text: Muslims believe the Quran to be the final revelation of God to mankind, and a completion and confirmation of previous scriptures. Despite the primacy that Muslims place upon the Quran as God's final word, Islam speaks of respecting all the previous revelations and scriptures, and belief in all the revealed books is an article of faith in Islam.


title: Islamic holy books

text: Among the books considered to be revealed before the Quran, the three mentioned by name in the Quran are the "Tawrat" (Torah), the "Zabur" (Psalms) revealed to Dawud (David) and the "Injil" (the Gospel) revealed to Isa (Jesus). The Quran also mentions God revealing the scrolls of Abraham and the scrolls of Moses.


title: Islamic holy books

text: The Quran is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims believe to be a revelation from God (, "Allah"). The Quran is divided into chapters ("surah"), which are then divided into verses ("ayah"). Muslims believe the Quran was verbally revealed by Allah to Muhammad through the angel Gabriel ("Jibril"), gradually over a period of approximately 23 years, when Muhammad was 40, and concluding in 63, the year of his death. Muslims regard the Quran as the most important miracle of Muhammad, a proof of his prophethood, and the culmination of a series of divine messages that started with the messages revealed to Adam and ended with Muhammad. It is widely regarded as the finest work in classical Arabic literature.


title: Islamic holy books

text: The "Tawrat" (also Tawrah or Taurat; ) is the Arabic name for the Torah within its context as an Islamic holy book believed by Muslims to have been given by God to the prophets and messengers amongst the Children of Israel. When referring to traditions from the "Tawrat", Muslims have not only identified it with the "Pentateuch", but also with the other books of the Hebrew Bible as well as with Talmudic and Midrashim writings.


title: Islamic holy books

text: The Quran mentions the Zabur, interpreted as being the Book of Psalms, as being the holy scripture revealed to King David ("Dawud"). Scholars have often understood the Psalms to have been holy songs of praise, and not a book administering law. The current Psalms are still praised by many Muslim scholars. and are direct counterparts.


title: Islamic holy books

text: The Injil was the holy book revealed to Jesus ("Isa"), according to the Quran. Although some lay Muslims believe the Injil refers to the entire New Testament, most scholars and Muslims believe that it refers not to the New Testament but to an original Gospel, given to Jesus as the word of Allah. Therefore, according to Muslim belief, the Gospel was the message that Jesus, being divinely inspired, preached to the Children of Israel. The current canonical Gospels, in the belief of Muslim scholars, are not divinely revealed but rather are documents of the life of Jesus, as written by various contemporaries, disciples and companions. These Gospels, in Muslim belief, contain portions of the teachings of Jesus, but neither represent nor contain the original Gospel from Allah, which has been corrupted and/or lost.


title: Islamic holy books

text: The Scrolls of Abraham (Arabic: صحف إبراهيم, "Ṣuḥuf ʾIbrāhīm") are believed to have been one of the earliest bodies of scripture, which were given to Abraham ("Ibrāhīm"), and later used by Ishmael ("Ismā‘īl") and Isaac ("Isḥāq"). Although usually referred to as "scrolls", many translators have translated the Arabic "suhuf" as "books". The verse mentioning the "Scriptures" is in where they are referred to, alongside the Scrolls of Moses, to have been "Books of Earlier Revelation".


title: Islamic holy books

text: The Scrolls of Moses (, "Ṣuḥuf Mūsā"), containing some of the revelation of Moses, are understood by some Muslims to refer not to the Torah but to revelations aside from the Torah. Some scholars have stated that they could possibly refer to the Book of the Wars of the Lord, a lost text spoken of in the Old Testament or Tanakh in the Book of Numbers. The verse mentioning the "Scriptures" is in Quran 87:18-19 where they are referred to, alongside the Scrolls of Abraham, to have been "Books of Earlier Revelation".


title: S.W.A.T. (2017 TV series, season 5)

text: The fifth season of the American police procedural television series "S.W.A.T." premiered on October 1, 2021, on CBS, for the 2021–22 television season, and ended on May 22, 2022. The season contained 22 episodes and the series 100th episode.


title: S.W.A.T. (2017 TV series, season 5)

text: "S.W.A.T." follows an elite Special Weapons and Tactics unit of the Los Angeles Police Department. The first half of the season aired on Fridays at 8:00 p.m., then later moved to Sundays at 10:00 p.m.


title: S.W.A.T. (2017 TV series, season 5)

text: The number in the "No. overall" column refers to the episode's number within the overall series, whereas the number in the "No. in season" column refers to the episode's number within this particular season. "Production code" refers to the order in which the episodes were produced while "U.S. viewers (millions)" refers to the number of viewers in the U.S. in millions who watched the episode as it was aired.


title: S.W.A.T. (2017 TV series, season 5)

text: On May 19, 2021, it was announced that the series would move to Fridays at the 8:00 PM ET timeslot. The series leads into "Magnum P.I.". On July 12, 2021, it was revealed that the season would premiere on October 1, 2021. After airing the first eight episodes, the series moved to Sundays at 10:00 p.m. after "".


title: Lynda Lopez

text: Lynda Lopez (born June 14, 1971) is an American journalist and author based in New York City. She is also a co-founder of Nuyorican Productions, an American production company founded in 2001 with Benny Medina which became active in 2006 with the release of "South Beach." Lopez has anchored numerous media platforms. In 2020, Lopez authored the book "AOC: The Fearless Rise and Powerful Resonance of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez", published by St. Martin's Press.


title: Lynda Lopez

text: Lopez was born in the South Bronx and raised in the Castle Hill neighborhood of the Bronx borough within New York City, to Puerto Rican parents Guadalupe Rodríguez, a kindergarten teacher, and David López, a computer specialist. She has two older sisters, American pop star and movie actress Jennifer and Leslie Ann. Lopez received her primary and secondary education while growing up in the Bronx. After graduating from Preston High School in 1989, she enrolled at the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University, where she majored in broadcasting and communications.


title: Lynda Lopez

text: Lopez started her radio broadcasting career at WBAB and WLIR on Long Island. She later went to work for WXXP-FM, also on Long Island, as both Assistant Program Director and Music Director. She later worked as a DJ for WKTU in the 10PM-2AM timeslot. After working for five years in radio, she landed a position as entertainment correspondent for WPIX's morning show.


title: Lynda Lopez

text: Lopez was employed by WCBS Radio in Manhattan until August 2013 as a news anchor. She left to work for her sister Jennifer Lopez in Los Angeles. After this one-year hiatus, Lopez returned to the station in the summer of 2014.


title: Lynda Lopez

text: During the late 1990s and early 2000s, she worked as a VH1 VJ for a short time with Kane and Rebecca Rankin. In 2000, she hosted a special in which she interviewed her sister, Jennifer, in which the two discussed their childhood as well as "J-Lo"'s rising music career. Some of J-Lo's music videos were played and her then-newest video, "Feelin' So Good," made its VH1 premiere during this special. During this time Lopez was also the morning news entertainment reporter for the WB11 in New York City, WPIX.


title: Lynda Lopez

text: In 2002, she became the host of Style Network's "GLOW", a cable TV show dealing with women's beauty issues, while working as an entertainment reporter at the same time. Lopez reported the latest entertainment news and stories on WNBC-TV, cable entertainment TV program "E! News Live", and Spanish-language WNJU.


title: Lynda Lopez

text: In 2003, Lopez became a DJ for WNEW-FM, with her boyfriend at the time, Chris Booker, a New York disc jockey and correspondent for "Entertainment Tonight". In October 2003, she joined WCBS-TV as a part-time correspondent, after their show was canceled at WNEW-FM. In August 2004, Lopez was named anchor of WCBS' weekend morning show, making this her first news-anchor job. For unknown reasons, she had not been presented on-air television since early April 2006, and subsequently she left the employ of WCBS-TV officially in June 2006.


title: Lynda Lopez

text: On July 29, 2006, Lopez debuted as the weekend co-anchor (with Mike Gilliam) on the News Corp-owned WWOR-TV's "My 9 Weekend News at 10". They replaced the team of Cathleen Trigg, who departed the station, and Rolland Smith, who retired. Lopez moved to WNYW-TV's "Good Day New York" in 2007 and anchor of "Fox 5 Live" at 11am. Reid Lamberty joined her as co-anchor for the 5am hour and 11am hour on FOX 5. Lopez was replaced from WNYW-TV's "Good Day New York" by former "CNN Headline News" anchor Christina Park, and after returning to WWOR and her previous role she left television news altogether after the station ended weekend newscasts.


title: Lynda Lopez

text: In 1993, Lopez was named in the "Who's Who Among American Hispanics." She won the 2001 Emmy Award for "Outstanding Morning News Program."


title: Lynda Lopez

text: Lopez has dated radio/television personality Chris Booker. They met in early 2002 at WNEW-FM in New York City, where they worked as co-hosts for the morning show. In early 2005 the couple separated. On August 28, 2008, Lopez and her then-boyfriend Adam Goldfried had a daughter named Lucie Wren Lopez-Goldfried.


title: Fatwa

text: A fatwā ( ; ; plural fatāwā ) is a legal ruling on a point of Islamic law ("sharia") given by a qualified "Faqih" (Islamic jurist) in response to a question posed by a private individual, judge or government. A jurist issuing fatwas is called a "mufti", and the act of issuing fatwas is called iftāʾ. Fatwas have played an important role throughout Islamic history, taking on new forms in the modern era.


title: Fatwa

text: Resembling "jus respondendi" in Roman law and rabbinic "responsa", privately issued fatwas historically served to inform Muslim populations about Islam, advise courts on difficult points of Islamic law, and elaborate substantive law. In later times, public and political fatwas were issued to take a stand on doctrinal controversies, legitimize government policies or articulate grievances of the population. During the era of European colonialism, fatwas played a part in mobilizing resistance to foreign domination.


title: Fatwa

text: Muftis acted as independent scholars in the classical legal system. Over the centuries, Sunni muftis were gradually incorporated into state bureaucracies, while Shia jurists in Iran progressively asserted an autonomous authority starting from the early modern era.


title: Fatwa

text: In the modern era, fatwas have reflected changing economic, social and political circumstances, and addressed concerns arising in varied Muslim communities. The spread of codified state laws and Western-style legal education in the modern Muslim world has displaced muftis from their traditional role of clarifying and elaborating the laws applied in courts. Instead, modern fatwas have increasingly served to advise the general public on other aspects of sharia, particularly questions regarding religious rituals and everyday life. Modern public fatwas have addressed and sometimes sparked controversies in the Muslim world, and some fatwas in recent decades have gained worldwide notoriety. The legal methodology of modern "ifta" often diverges from pre-modern practice, particularly so in the West. Emergence of modern media and universal education has transformed the traditional institution of "ifta" in various ways. While the proliferation of contemporary fatwas attests to the importance of Islamic authenticity to many Muslims, little research has been done to determine how much these fatwas affect the beliefs or behavior of the Muslim public.


title: Fatwa

text: The word "fatwa" comes from the Arabic root "f-t-y", whose meanings include 'youth, newness, clarification, explanation'. A number of terms related to "fatwa" derive from the same root. A jurist issuing fatwas is called a "mufti". The person who asks for a fatwa is known as "mustafti". The act of issuing fatwas is called "iftāʾ". The term "futyā" refers to soliciting and issuing fatwas.


title: Fatwa

text: In older English language works the spelling fetva, from Turkish, is used, relating to the Ottoman Empire.


title: Fatwa

text: The origins of the "fatwa" can be traced back to the Quran. On a number of occasions, the Quranic text instructs the Islamic prophet Muhammad how to respond to questions from his followers regarding religious and social practices. Several of these verses begin with the phrase "When they ask you concerning ..., say ..." In two cases (4:127, 4:176) this is expressed with verbal forms of the root "f-t-y", which signify asking for or giving an authoritative answer. In the hadith literature, this three-way relationship between God, Muhammad, and believers, is typically replaced by a two-way consultation, in which Muhammad replies directly to queries from his Companions ("sahaba").


title: Fatwa

text: According to Islamic doctrine, with Muhammad's death in 632, God ceased to communicate with mankind through revelation and prophets. At that point, the rapidly expanding Muslim community turned to Muhammad's Companions, as the most authoritative voices among them, for religious guidance, and some of them are reported to have issued pronouncements on a wide range of subjects. The generation of Companions was in turn replaced in that role by the generation of Successors ("tabi'un"). The concept of fatwa thus developed in Islamic communities under a question-and-answer format for communicating religious knowledge, and took on its definitive form with development of the classical theory of Islamic law.


title: Fatwa

text: The legal theory of the fatwa was formulated in the classical texts of "usul al-fiqh" (principles of jurisprudence), while more practical guidelines for muftis were found in manuals called "adab al-mufti" or "adab al-fatwa" (etiquette of the mufti/fatwa).


title: Fatwa

text: Fatwas are issued in response to a query. They can range from a simple yes/no answer to a book-length treatise. A short fatwa may state a well-known point of law in response to a question from a lay person, while a "major" fatwa may give a judgment on an unprecedented case, detailing the legal reasoning behind the decision. Queries to muftis were supposed to address real and not hypothetical situations and be formulated in general terms, leaving out names of places and people. Since a mufti was not supposed to inquire into the situation beyond the information included in the query, queries regarding contentious matters were often carefully constructed to elicit the desired response. A mufti's understanding of the query commonly depended on their familiarity with local customs and colloquialisms. In theory, if the query was unclear or not sufficiently detailed for a ruling, the mufti was supposed to state these caveats in their response.


title: Fatwa

text: Fatwas were solicited by men and women from all social classes. A mufti could be an obscure scholar, who occasionally replied to queries from people in his neighborhood, or, at the other extreme, a famous jurist or a powerful state official. The level of technical detail supplied in a fatwa, such as citations of sources or specification of legal methodologies employed, depended on the technical level of the petitioner. In theory, a petitioner was supposed to verify the mufti's scholarly reputation, but mufti manuals ("adab al-mufti") recognized that it would be difficult for a lay person to do so, and advised the petitioner to trust their sense of the mufti's piety and ideally follow the advice of a single scholar known for exemplary morals. The mufti was often a well-known figure in his neighborhood. Some petitioners could choose among several local muftis, while others had to or chose to travel to receive a fatwa. Judges commonly sent letters to solicit fatwas from prominent jurists in another town or even country. Sunni legal theory generally permits the petioner to obtain a fatwa from multiple jurists on the same query, provided that it addresses a real and not hypothetical situation. Some petitioners sought out a second fatwa because they were unsatisfied with the first, and the two sides in a legal dispute generally each sought to obtain a fatwa that would support their position. Muftis often consulted another mufti on difficult cases, though this practice was not foreseen by legal theory, which saw "futya" as a transaction between one qualified jurist and one "unqualified" petitioner.


title: Fatwa

text: In theory, a mufti was expected to issue fatwas free of charge. In practice, muftis commonly received support from the public treasury, public endowments or private donations. Taking of bribes was forbidden. Until the 11th or 12th century, the vast majority of jurists held other jobs to support themselves. These were generally lower- and middle-class professions such as tanning, manuscript copying or small trade.


title: Fatwa

text: In theory, fatwas could be delivered orally or in writing, but it is not clear how common oral fatwas were, aside from those issued by an Ottoman office established specifically for the purpose of issuing oral fatwas. Many routine, written fatwas were delivered directly to the petitioner on the piece of paper containing the query, leaving no documentary trace. However, large collections of ordinary fatwas are preserved in Ottoman and Indian archives. Mufti manuals contained a number of regulations about the standard format of a fatwa, such as avoiding blank space that could be used for a spurious addition and concluding the fatwa with an expression like "allahu a'lam" (God knows best). Nonetheless, fatwas took on a variety of forms depending on the local legal culture.


title: Fatwa

text: The classical institution of fatwa is similar to "jus respondendi" in Roman law and the "responsa" in Jewish law.


title: Fatwa

text: Before the rise of modern education, the study of law was a centerpiece of advanced education in the Islamic world. A relatively small class of legal scholars controlled the interpretation of sharia on a wide range of questions essential to the society, ranging from ritual to finance. It was considered a requirement for qualified jurists to communicate their knowledge through teaching or issuing fatwas. The ideal mufti was conceived as an individual of scholarly accomplishments and exemplary morals, and muftis were generally approached with the respect and deference corresponding to these expectations.


title: Fatwa

text: Judges generally sought an opinion from a mufti with higher scholarly authority than themselves for difficult cases or potentially controversial verdicts. Fatwas were routinely upheld in courts, and if a fatwa was disregarded, it was usually because another fatwa supporting a different position was judged to be more convincing. If a party in a dispute was not able to obtain a fatwa supporting their position, they would be unlikely to pursue their case in court, opting for informal mediation instead, or abandoning their claim altogether. Sometimes muftis could be petitioned for a fatwa relating to a court judgement that has already been passed, acting as an informal appeals process, but the extent of this practice and its mechanism varied across history. While in most of the Islamic world judges were not required to consult muftis by any political authority, in Muslim Spain this practice was mandatory, so that a judicial decision was considered invalid without prior approval by a legal specialist.


title: Fatwa

text: Author-jurists collected fatwas by muftis of high scholarly reputation and abstracted them into concise formulations of legal norms that could be used by judges, giving a summary of jurisprudence for a particular "madhhab" (legal school). Author-jurists sought out fatwas that reflected the social conditions of their time and place, often opting for later legal opinions which were at variance with the doctrine of early authorities. Research by Wael Hallaq and Baber Johansen has shown that fatwa compilations could, and sometimes did, have a significant impact on the development of Islamic law.


title: Fatwa

text: During the early centuries of Islam, the roles of mufti, author-jurist and judge were not mutually exclusive. A jurist could lead a teaching circle, conduct a fatwa session, and adjudicate court cases in a single day, devoting his night hours to writing a legal treatise. Those who were able to act in all four capacities were regarded as the most accomplished jurists.


title: Fatwa

text: From the standpoint of morality and religious obligation, the term "fatwa" has been contrasted with "taqwa" (piety, fear of God), particularly in Sufi literature. Fatwas may allow a choice between lenient and strict interpretation of "sharia" on a certain matter, or they may employ legalistic stratagems ("hiyal") to circumvent a stricter interpretation, while such strategies may not be acceptable from the standpoint of "taqwa".


title: Fatwa

text: The basic prerequisite for issuing fatwas under the classical legal theory was religious knowledge and piety. According to the "adab al-mufti" manuals, a mufti must be an adult, Muslim, trusted and reliable, of good character and sound mind, an alert and rigorous thinker, trained as a jurist, and not a sinner. On a practical level, the stature of muftis derived from their reputation for scholarly expertise and upright character.


title: Fatwa

text: According to legal theory, it was up to each mufti to decide when he was ready to practice. In practice, an aspiring jurist would normally study for several years with one or several recognized scholars, following a curriculum that included Arabic grammar, hadith, law and other religious sciences. The teacher would decide when the student was ready to issue fatwas by giving him a certificate ("ijaza").


title: Fatwa

text: During the first centuries of Islam, it was assumed that a mufti was a "mujtahid", i.e., a jurist who is capable of deriving legal rulings directly from the scriptural sources through independent reasoning ("ijtihad"), evaluating the reliability of hadith and applying or even developing the appropriate legal methodologies. Starting from around 1200 CE, legal theorists began to accept that muftis of their time may not possess the knowledge and legal skill to perform this activity. In addition, it was felt that the major question of jurisprudence had already been addressed by master jurists of earlier times, so that later muftis only had to follow the legal opinions established within their legal school ("taqlid"). At that point, the notions of "mufti" and "mujtahid" became distinguished, and legal theorists classified jurists into three or more levels of competence.


title: Fatwa

text: Among Twelver Shia, the Akhbari school of jurisprudence, which was predominant for a time during the early modern era, hold a different view on "ifta" from the currently predominant Usuli school. According to the Usulis, fatwas can be based on valid conjecture ("zann") arrived through "ijtihad", and every Muslim who is not qualified to be a "mujtahid" should become a follower ("muqallid") of a "mujtahid". In contrast, Akhbaris hold that all Shia Muslims must be "muqallids" of the Twelve Imams, and that fatwas should reflect only knowledge that is certain ("qatʿ") and based on the traditions of the Imams.


title: Fatwa

text: Unlike the post of "qadi", which is reserved for men in the classical sharia system, fatwas could be issued by qualified women as well as men. In practice, the vast majority of jurists who completed the lengthy curriculum in linguistic and religious sciences required to obtain the qualification to issue fatwas were men. Slaves and persons who were blind or mute were likewise theoretically barred from the post of a judge, but not that of mufti.


title: Fatwa

text: The mufti and the judge play different roles in the classical sharia system, with corresponding differences between a fatwa and a "qada" (court decision):


title: Fatwa

text: Before the 11th century CE, anyone who possessed scholarly recognition as an Islamic jurist could issue fatwas. Starting around that time, however, the public office of mufti began to appear alongside the private issuing of fatwas. In Khurasan, the rulers appointed a head of the local ulama, called "shaykh al-Islam", who also functioned as the chief mufti. The Mamluks appointed four muftis, one for each of the four Sunni madhhabs, to appellate courts in provincial capitals. The Ottomans organized muftis into a hierarchical bureaucracy with a chief mufti of the empire called "shaykh al-islam" at the top. The Ottoman "shaykh al-Islam" (Turk. "şeyhülislam"), was among the most powerful state officials. Scribes reviewed queries directed to Ottoman muftis and rewrote them to facilitate issuing of fatwas. In Mughal India and Safavid Iran the chief mufti had the title of "sadr".


title: Fatwa

text: For the first few centuries of Islam, muftis were educated in informal study circles, but beginning in the 11th and 12th centuries, the ruling elites began to establish institutions of higher religious learning known as madrasas in an effort to secure support and cooperation of the "ulema" (religious scholars). Madrasas, which were primarily devoted to the study of law, soon multiplied throughout the Islamic world, helping to spread Islamic learning beyond urban centers and to unite diverse Islamic communities in a shared cultural project.


title: Fatwa

text: In some states, such as Muslim Spain, muftis were assigned to courts in advisory roles. In Muslim Spain jurists also sat on a "shura" (council) advising the ruler. Muftis were additionally appointed to other public functions, such as market inspectors.


title: Fatwa

text: While the office of the mufti was gradually subsumed into the state bureaucracy in much of the Sunni Muslim world, Shia religious establishment followed a different path in Iran starting from the early modern era. During Safavid rule, independent Islamic jurists ("mujtahids") claimed the authority to represent the hidden imam. Under the Usuli doctrine that prevailed among Twelver Shias in the 18th century and under the Qajar dynasty, the "mujtahids" further claimed to act collectively as deputies of the imam. According to this doctrine, every Muslim is supposed to choose and follow a high-ranking living "mujtahid" bearing the title of "marja' al-taqlid", whose fatwas are considered binding, unlike fatwas in Sunni Islam. Thus, in contrast to Sunni muftis, Shia "mujtahids" gradually achieved increasing independence from the state.


title: Fatwa

text: While most fatwas were delivered to an individual or a judge, some fatwas that were public or political in nature played an important role in religious legitimation, doctrinal disputes, political criticism, or political mobilization. As muftis were progressively incorporated into government bureaucracies in the course of Islamic history, they were often expected to support government policies. Ottoman sultans regularly sought fatwas from the chief mufti for administrative and military initiatives, including fatwas sanctioning jihad against Mamluk Egypt and Safavid Iran. Fatwas by the Ottoman chief mufti were also solicited by the rulers to lend religious legitimacy to new social and economic practices, such as financial and penal laws enacted outside of sharia, printing of nonreligious books (1727) and vaccination (1845).


title: Fatwa

text: At other times muftis wielded their influence independently of the ruler, and several sultans in Morocco and the Ottoman Empire were dethroned as a result of fatwas issued by influential jurists. This happened, for example, to the Ottoman sultan Murad V on the grounds of his insanity. Public fatwas were also used to dispute doctrinal matters, and in some case to proclaim that certain groups or individuals who professed to be Muslim were to be excluded from the Islamic community (a practice known as "takfir"). In both political and scholarly sphere, doctrinal controversies between different states, denominations or centers of learning were accompanied by dueling fatwas. Muftis also acted to counteract the influence of judges and secular functionaries. By articulating grievances and legal rights of the population, public fatwas often prompted an otherwise unresponsive court system to provide redress.


title: Fatwa

text: Early in the era of Western colonialism, several fatwas were issued drawing on the classical legal distinction between lands under Islamic rule ("dar al-Islam") and lands of war ("dar al-harb") or unbelief ("dar al-kufr"). These fatwas classified countries under European domination as lands of war or unbelief and invoked the legal theory obliging Muslims to wage war against the rulers of these lands or emigrate. A number of such fatwas were issued during the 19th century, including in 1803 by Shah Abdul Aziz in India and in 1804 by Usman dan Fodio in West Africa. The unrealistic nature of these fatwas was soon recognized and in 1870 the "ulama" of northern India issued fatwas stating that Indian Muslims were not obliged to rebel or emigrate. A similar doctrinal controversy occurred in French-ruled Algeria. The fatwas solicited by the Algerian anti-colonial leader Abd al-Qadir differed in their technical detail, while the French authorities obtained fatwas from local muftis, stating that Muslims living under the rule of unbelievers were not obligated to fight or emigrate as long as they were granted religious freedom by the authorities.


title: Fatwa

text: On many other occasions, fatwas served as an effective tool for influencing the political process. For example, in 1904 a fatwa by Moroccan ulema achieved the dismissal of European experts hired by the Moroccan government, while in 1907 another Moroccan fatwa succeeded in deposing the sultan on accusation that he failed to mount a defense against French aggression. The 1891 tobacco protest fatwa by the Iranian "mujtahid" Mirza Shirazi, which prohibited smoking as long as the British tobacco monopoly was in effect, also achieved its goals.


title: Fatwa

text: Under European colonial rule, the institution of "dar al-ifta" was established in a number of madrasas (law colleges) as a centralized place for issuing of fatwas, and these organizations to a considerable extent replaced independent muftis as religious guides for the general population. Following independence, most Muslim states established national organizations devoted to issuing fatwas. One example is the Egyptian Dar al-Ifta, founded in 1895, which has served to articulate a national vision of Islam through fatwas issued in response to government and private queries. National governments in Muslim-majority countries also instituted councils of senior religious scholars to advise the government on religious matters and issue fatwas. These councils generally form part of the ministry for religious affairs, rather than the justice department, which may have a more assertive attitude toward the executive branch.


title: Fatwa

text: While chief muftis of earlier times oversaw a hierarchy of muftis and judges applying traditional jurisprudence, most modern states have adopted European-influenced legal codes and no longer employ traditional judicial procedures or traditionally trained judges. State muftis generally promote a vision of Islam that is compatible with state law of their country.


title: Fatwa

text: Although some early theorists argued that muftis should not respond to questions on certain subjects, such as theology, muftis have in practice handled queries relating to a wide range of subjects. This trend continued in modern times, and contemporary state-appointed muftis and institutions for "ifta" respond to government and private queries on varied issues, including political conflicts, Islamic finance, and medical ethics, contributing to shaping a national Islamic identity.


title: Fatwa

text: There exists no international Islamic authority to settle differences in interpretation of Islamic law. An International Islamic Fiqh Academy was created by the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, but its legal opinions are not binding.


title: Fatwa

text: Modern fatwas have been marked by an increased reliance on the process of "ijtihad", i.e. deriving legal rulings based on an independent analysis rather than conformity with the opinions of earlier legal authorities ("taqlid"). While in the past muftis were associated with a particular school of law ("madhhab"), in the 20th century many muftis began to assert their independence from traditional schools of jurisprudence.


title: Fatwa

text: The most notorious result of disregarding classical jurisprudence are the fatwas of militant extremists who have interpreted the Quran and hadith as supporting suicide bombings, indiscriminate killing of bystanders, and declaration of self-professed Muslims as unbelievers ("takfir").


title: Fatwa

text: New forms of ijtihad have also given rise to fatwas that support such notions as gender equality and banking interest, which are at variance with classical jurisprudence. This is commonly accomplished by application of various traditional legal doctrines such as the "maqasid" (objectives) of sharia, "maslaha" (public interest) and "darura" (necessity), in place of adhering to the letter of scriptural sources. The main argument for this approach is that Islamic law is meant to serve the interest of Muslims and make their lives easier ("taysīr"). This form of ijtihad is particularly prominent in "fiqh al-aqallīyāt" (minority jurisprudence), a recently developed branch of Islamic jurisprudence that aims to address the needs of Muslims living in countries with a non-Muslim majority. Its opponents object that sharia is supposed to determine the interests of Muslims, and not the other way around.


title: Fatwa

text: On November 14, 1914 the Ottoman sultan proclaimed a jihad to mark the official entry of the Ottoman Empire into World War I. The proclamation was supported by a fatwa issued by the Shaykh al-Islam. Contrary to the German hopes that the proclamation would trigger Muslim revolts in British and French colonies, it was either rejected or quietly ignored by their Muslim authorities. It also quickly gave rise to a heated academic debate in Europe. The controversy was sparked by an 1915 article by the prominent Dutch orientalist C. Snouck Hurgronje, titled "Heilige Oorlog [Holy War] Made in Germany". In it Hurgronje denounced his German colleagues, who he felt instigated the jihad proclamation in an irresponsible appeal to an antiquated concept that threatened the project of modernizing the Muslim world. The article was widely circulated in an English translation and its accuracy continues to be debated by historians, who acknowledge both the German influence and the internal political calculations of the Ottoman government underlying the proclamation.