title: Pete the Cat

text: On December 26, 2017, an animated holiday special, "Pete the Cat: A Groovy New Year", was released on Amazon Prime. Jacob Tremblay starred as the title character, with his parents voiced by Elvis Costello and Diana Krall. Additional voices were provided by Atticus Shaffer, KT Tunstall, and Don Was. It was followed by a "Pete the Cat" series, based on the books and developed by "Phineas and Ferb" co-creator Jeff "Swampy" Marsh, which was released on September 21, 2018. The series also has a Christmas special called "Pete the Cat: A Very Groovy Christmas" which was released on November 20, 2018, guest starring Dave Matthews and Jason Mraz. There are tie-in books based on the TV series. A second season began production as of February 2019. Throughout June–July 2019, clips from then-unreleased episodes from season 1 were uploaded to the Pete the Cat YouTube channel. The clips were later taken down in July 2019, but were reuploaded one month later. The second half of season 1 was released on August 9, 2019. A Valentine's Day special called "Pete the Cat: A Very Groovy Valentine's Day" was released on February 7, 2020. The first part of season 2 premiered on June 26, 2020. For season 2; Jeff "Swampy" Marsh and KT Turnstall replaced Elvis Costello and Diana Krall as Pete's parents. Three days later, the series also released a PSA about hand washing. The second part of season 2 was released on November 13, 2020. A back to school special "Pete the Cat: Back to School Operetta" was released on August 27, 2021. The third part of season 2 was released on November 5, 2021. The fourth and final part of season 2 was released on March 11, 2022.


title: Hudud

text: Hudud (Arabic: "Ḥudūd", also transliterated "hadud", "hudood"; plural of hadd, ) is an Arabic word meaning "borders, boundaries, limits". In the religion of Islam it refers to punishments that under Islamic law (sharīʿah) are mandated and fixed by God as per Islam. These punishments were applied in pre-modern Islam, and their use in some modern states has been a source of controversy.


title: Hudud

text: Traditional Islamic jurisprudence divides crimes into offenses against God and those against man. The former are seen to violate God's "hudud" or "boundaries", and they are associated with punishments specified in the Quran and in some cases inferred from hadith. The offenses incurring "hudud" punishments are "zina" (unlawful sexual intercourse such as fornication), unfounded accusations of "zina", drinking alcohol, highway robbery, and some forms of theft. Jurists have differed as to whether apostasy from Islam and rebellion against a lawful Islamic ruler are "hudud" crimes.


title: Hudud

text: "Hudud" punishments range from public lashing to publicly stoning to death, amputation of hands and crucifixion. "Hudud" crimes cannot be pardoned by the victim or by the state, and the punishments must be carried out in public. These punishments were rarely implemented in practice, however, because the evidentiary standards were often impossibly high. For example, meeting "hudud" requirements for "zina" and theft was virtually impossible without a confession in court, which could be invalidated by a retraction. Based on a hadith, jurists stipulated that "hudud" punishments should be averted by the slightest doubts or ambiguities ("shubuhat", sing. "shubha").


title: Hudud

text: During the 19th century, Sharia-based criminal laws were replaced by statutes inspired by European models in many parts of the Islamic world, although not in particularly conservative regions such as the Arabian peninsula. The Islamic revival of the late 20th century brought along calls by Islamist movements for full implementation of Sharia. Reinstatement of "hudud" punishments has had particular symbolic importance for these groups because of their Quranic origin, and their advocates have often disregarded the stringent traditional restrictions on their application. In practice, in the countries where "hudud" have been incorporated into the legal code under Islamist pressure, they have often been used sparingly or not at all, and their application has varied depending on local political climate. Their use has been a subject of criticism and debate.


title: Hudud

text: "Hudud" is not the only form of punishment under "Sharia". For offenses against man—the other type of crime in Sharia—that involve inflicting bodily harm Islamic law prescribes a retaliatory punishment analogous to the crime ("qisas") or monetary compensation ("diya"); and for other crimes the form of punishment is left to the judge's discretion ("ta'zir"). Criminals who escaped a "hudud" punishment could still receive a "ta'zir" sentence.


title: Hudud

text: In the 21st century"," "hudud", including amputation of limbs, is part of the legal systems of Brunei, Iran, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.


title: Hudud

text: "Hudud" offenses are mentioned in the Quran. The punishments for these offenses are drawn from both the Quran and the Sunnah. The Quran does not define the offenses precisely: their definitions were elaborated in fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence).


title: Hudud

text: The Qur'an describes several "hudud" crimes and in some cases sets out punishments. The "hudud" crime of theft is referred to in :


title: Hudud

text: The crime of "accusation of illicit sex against chaste women without four witnesses" and a "hudud" punishment is based on , , among others Quranic verse.


title: Hudud

text: The "sahih hadiths", a compilation of sayings, practices and traditions of Muhammad as observed by his companions, are considered by Sunni Muslims to be the most trusted source of Islamic law after the Quran. They extensively describe "hudud" crimes and punishments. In some cases Islamic scholars have used hadiths to establish "hudud" punishments, which are not mentioned in the Quran. Thus, stoning as punishment for zina is based on hadiths that narrate episodes where Muhammad and his successors prescribed it. The tendency to use existence of a "shubha" (lit. doubt, uncertainty) to avoid "hudud" punishments is based on a hadith that states "avert "hadd" punishment in case of "shubha"".


title: Hudud

text: There are a number of differences in views between the different "madhhabs" with regard to the punishments appropriate in specific situations and the required process before they are carried out. There are also legal differences ("ikhtilaf") over the term limitation of pronouncing the punishment. Hanafite scholars assert that punishment for hadd crimes other than "qadhf" (false accusation of illegal sex) have to be implemented within a month; except for witnesses with a valid legal justifications for delayed testimony or in cases of self-confession.


title: Hudud

text: Marja' following Shia jurisprudence generally believe that "hudud" punishments can be changed by appropriately qualified jurists.


title: Hudud

text: Murder, injury and property damage are not "hudud" crimes in Islamic criminal jurisprudence, and are subsumed under other categories of Islamic penal law, which are:


title: Hudud

text: Because the stringent traditional restrictions on application of "hudud" punishments, they were rarely applied historically. Criminals who escaped "hudud" punishments could still be sanctioned under the system of "tazir", which gave judges and high officials discretionary sentencing powers to punish crimes that did not fall under the categories of "hudud" and "qisas". In practice, since early on in Islamic history, criminal cases were usually handled by ruler-administered courts or local police using procedures that were only loosely related to Sharia. During the 19th century, Sharia-based criminal laws were replaced by statutes inspired by European models nearly everywhere in the Islamic world, except some particularly conservative regions such as the Arabian peninsula.


title: Hudud

text: Under pressure from Islamist movements, recent decades have witnessed re-introduction of "hudud" punishments and by 2013 about a dozen of the 50 or so Muslim-majority countries had made "hudud" applicable, many countries have disregarded traditional strict requirements. In 1979 Pakistan instituted the Hudood Ordinances. In July 1980 Iran stoned to death four offenders in Kerman. By the late 1980s, Mauritania and Sudan had "enacted laws to grant courts the power to hand down hadd penalties". During the 1990s Somalia, Yemen, Afghanistan, and northern Nigeria followed suit. In 1994 the Iraqi president Saddam Hussein (who had persecuted and executed many Islamists), issued a decree "ordering that robbers and car thieves should lose their hands". Brunei adopted hudud laws in 2014.


title: Hudud

text: Enforcement of "hudud" punishments has varied from country to country. In Pakistan and Libya, "hudud" punishments have not been applied at all because of strict requirements. In Nigeria local courts have passed several stoning sentences for zina, all of which were overturned on appeal and left unenforced because of lack of enough evidence.


title: Hudud

text: During the first two years when Sharia was made state law in Sudan (1983 and 1985), a "hudud" punishment for theft was inflicted on some criminals, and then discontinued though not repealed. Floggings for moral crimes have been carried out since the codification of Islamic law in Sudan in 1991 and continue. In 2012 a Sudanese court sentenced Intisar Sharif Abdallah, a teenager, to death by stoning in the city of Omdurman under article 146 of Sudan's Criminal Act after charging her with "adultery with a married person". She was held in Omdurman prison with her legs shackled, along with her 5-month-old baby. (She was released on July 3, 2012 after an international outcry.)


title: Hudud

text: The "hudud" punishment for "zinā" in cases of consensual sex and the punishment of rape victims who failed to prove the coercion, which has occurred in some countries, have been the subject of a global human rights debate. In Pakistan many rape victims who have failed to prove accusations have been jailed this has been criticized as leading to "hundreds of incidents where a woman subjected to rape, or gang rape, were eventually accused of "zināʾ"" and incarcerated. Kennedy states that majority of cases against women jailed on charges of zina in Pakistan are filed by their family members against disobedient daughters and estranged wives as harassment suits. Hundreds of women in Afghanistan jails are victims of rape or domestic violence, accused of zina under tazir. In Pakistan, over 200,000 "zina" cases against women under the Hudood laws were under way at various levels in Pakistan's legal system in 2005. In addition to thousands of women in prison awaiting trial for "zina"-related charges, rape victims in Pakistan have been reluctant to report rape because they feared being charged with "zina". The resulting controversy prompted the law to be amended in 2006, though the amended version has been criticized for continuing to blur the legal distinction between rape and consensual sex.


title: Hudud

text: Crucifixion in Islam, at least in Saudi Arabia, takes the form of displaying beheaded remains of a perpetrator "for a few hours on top of a pole". They are far fewer in number than executions. One case was that of Muhammad Basheer al-Ranally who was executed and crucified on December 7, 2009 for "spreading disorder in the land" by kidnapping, raping and murdering several young boys. ISIS has also reportedly crucified prisoners.


title: Hudud

text: There are certain standards for proof that must be met in Islamic law for "zina" punishment to apply. In the Shafii, Hanbali, and Hanafi law schools Rajm (public stoning) or lashing is imposed for religiously prohibited sex only if the crime is proven, either by four male adults witnessing at first hand the actual sexual intercourse at the same time or by self-confession. For the establishment of adultery, four male Muslim witnesses must have seen the act in its most intimate details. Shia Islam allows substitution of one male Muslim with two female Muslims, but requires that at least one of the witnesses be a male. The Sunni Maliki school of law consider pregnancy in an unmarried woman as sufficient evidence of "zina", unless there is evidence of rape or compulsion. The punishment can be averted by a number of legal "doubts" ("shubuhat"), however, such as existence of an invalid marriage contract or possibility that the conception predates a divorce. The majority Maliki opinion theoretically allowed for a pregnancy lasting up to seven years, indicating a concern of the jurists to shield women from the charge of "zina" and to protect children from the stigma of illegitimacy. These requirements made zina virtually impossible to prove in practice.


title: Hudud

text: If a person alleges "zina" and fails to provide four consistent Muslim witnesses, or if witnesses provide inconsistent testimonies, they can be sentenced to eighty lashes for unfounded accusation of fornication ("qadhf"), itself a "hadd" crime." Rape was traditionally prosecuted under legal categories requiring less stringent evidentiary rules. In Pakistan, the Hudood Ordinances of 1979 subsumed prosecution of rape under the category of zina, making rape extremely difficult to prove and exposing the victims to jail sentences for admitting illicit intercourse. The resulting controversy prompted the law to be amended in 2006, though the amended version is still criticized by some for blurring the legal distinction between rape and consensual sex.


title: Hudud

text: Malik ibn Anas, the originator of the Maliki judicial school of thought, recorded in The Muwatta of many detailed circumstances under which the punishment of hand cutting should and should not be carried out.


title: Hudud

text: Commenting on the verse in the Quran on theft, Yusuf Ali says that most Islamic jurists believe that "petty thefts are exempt from this punishment" and that "only one hand should be cut off for the first theft." Islamic jurists disagree as to when amputation is mandatory religious punishment. This is a fatwa given by Taqī al-Dīn ʿAlī b. ʿAbd al-Kāfī al-Subkī (d. 756/1356), a senior Shafi scholar and judge from one of the leading scholarly families of Damascus:


title: Hudud

text: The Imam and Shaykh said: It has been agreed upon that the "Hadd" [punishment] is obligatory for one who has committed theft and [for whom the following conditions apply]:


title: Hudud

text: All of this was said by ʿAlī b. Aḥmad b. Saʿīd (probably Ibn Ḥazm, d. 1064). And the Imam and Shaykh added: and it is also on the condition that [the thief's] confession not precede the testimony and then after it he retracts [his confession]. For if the thief does that first and then direct evidence ("bayyina") is provided of his crime and then he retracts his confession, the punishment of amputation is dropped according to the more correct opinion in the Shafi school, because the establishment [of guilt] came by confession not by the direct evidence. So his retraction is accepted.


title: Hudud

text: Those arguing in favor of that the hudud punishment of amputation for theft often describe the visceral horror/fear of losing a hand as providing strong deterrence against theft, while at the same time the numerous requirements for its application make it seldom used and thus more humane than other punishments. Supporters include Abdel-Halim Mahmoud, the rector of Azhar from 1973 to 1978, who stated it was not only ordained by God but when implemented by Ibn Saud in Saudi Arabia brought law and order to his land — though amputation was carried out only seven times.


title: Hudud

text: However, according to historian Jonathan A.C. Brown, at least in the mid-1100s in the Iraqi city of Mosul the Muslim jurists found the punishment less than effective. Faced with a crime wave of theft the ulama "begged their new sultan ... to implement harsh punishments" outside of sharia. The hands of arrested thieves were not being cut off because evidentiary standards were so strict, nor were they deterred by the ten lashes (discretionary punishment or tazir) that Shariah courts were limited to by hadith.


title: Hudud

text: A number of scholars/reformers have suggested that traditional "hudud" penalties "may have been suitable for the age in which Muhammad lived" but are no longer, or that "new expression" for "the underlying religious principles and values" of Hudud should be developed. Tariq Ramadan has called for an international moratorium on the punishments of "hudud" laws until greater scholarly consensus can be reached.


title: Hudud

text: Many contemporary Muslim scholars think that the "hudud" punishments are not absolute obligations as it is an act of "mu'amalah" (non-worship), thus, they think that "hudud" is the maximum punishment.


title: Hudud

text: "Hudud" punishments have been called incompatible with international norms of human rights and sometimes simple justice. At least one observer (Sadakat Kadri) has complained that the inspiration of faith has not been a guarantee of justice, citing as an example the execution of two dissidents for "waging war against God" ("Moharebeh") in the Islamic Republic of Iran—the dissidents waging war by organizing unarmed political protests. The Hudood Ordinance in Pakistan led to the jailing of thousands of women on zina-related charges, were used to file "nuisance or harassment suits against disobedient daughters or estranged wives". The sentencing to death of women in Pakistan, Nigeria, Sudan for zina caused international uproar, being perceived as not only as too harsh, but an "odious" punishment of victims not wrongdoers.


title: Hudud

text: Among the questions critics have raised about the modern application of hudud, include: why, if the seventh-century practice is divine law eternally valid and not to be reformed, have its proponents instituted modern innovations? These include use of general anesthetic for amputation (in Libya, along with instruction to hold off if amputation might "prove dangerous to [the offender's] health"), selective introduction (leaving out crucifixion in Libya and Pakistan), using gunfire to expedite death during stoning (in Pakistan). Another question is why they have been so infrequently applied both historically and recently. There is only one record of a stoning in the entire history of Ottoman Empire, and none at all in Syria during Muslim rule. Modern states that "have so publicly enshrined them over the past few decades have gone to great lengths to avoid their imposition." There was only one amputation apiece in Northern Nigeria and Libya, no stonings in Nigeria. In Pakistan the "country's medical profession collectively refused to supervise amputations throughout the 1980s", and "more than three decades of official Islamization have so far failed to produce a single actual stoning or amputation." (Saudi Arabia is the exception with four stonings and 45 amputations during the 1980s though they were overturned because of lack of required evidence.)


title: Hudud

text: Among two of the leading Islamist movements, the Muslim Brotherhood has taken "a distinctly ambivalent approach" toward "hudud" penalties with "practical plans to put them into effect ... given a very low priority;" and in Pakistan, Munawar Hasan, then "Ameer" (leader) of the Jamaat-e-Islami, has stated that "unless and until we get a just society, the question of punishment is just a footnote."


title: Hudud

text: Supporting "hudud" punishments are Islamic revivalists such as Abul A'la Maududi who writes that in a number of places the Quran "declares that sodomy is such a heinous sin ... that it is the duty of the Islamic State to eradicate this crime and ... punish those who are guilty of it." According to Richard Terrill, "hudud" punishments are considered claims of God, revealed through Muhammad, and as such immutable, unable to be altered or abolished by people, jurists or parliament.


title: Hudud

text: Opposition to hudud (or at least minimizing of hudud) within the framework of Islam comes in more than one form. Some (such as elements of the MB and JI mentioned above) support making its application wait for the creation of a "just society" where people are not "driven to steal in order to survive." Another follows the Modernist approach calling for "hudud" and other parts of Sharia to be re-interpreted from the classical form and follow broad guidelines rather than exact all-encompassing prescriptions. Others consider hudud punishments "essentially deterrent in nature" to be applied very, very infrequently.


title: Hudud

text: Others (particularly Quranists) propose excluding ahadith and using only verses in the Quran in formulating Islamic Law, which would exclude stoning (though not amputation, flogging or execution for some crimes). The vast majority of Muslims and most Islamic scholars, however, consider both Quran and sahih hadiths to be a valid source of Sharia, with Quranic verse 33.21, among others, as justification for this belief.


title: Phill Jupitus

text: Phillip Christopher Jupitus (, "né" Swan; born 25 June 1962) is an English stand-up and improv comedian, actor, performance poet, cartoonist and podcaster. Jupitus was a team captain on all but one BBC Two-broadcast episode of music quiz "Never Mind the Buzzcocks" from its inception in 1996 until 2015, and also appears regularly as a guest on several other panel shows, including "QI" and BBC Radio 4's "I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue".


title: Phill Jupitus

text: Born Phillip Swan in Newport on the Isle of Wight, he took his stepfather Alexander's surname Jupitus (a corruption of the Lithuanian name Šeputis) when he was 16. Jupitus attended a comprehensive school before winning a place at the boys' grammar school Woolverstone Hall School near Ipswich.


title: Phill Jupitus

text: Jupitus worked in Essex at the Manpower Services Commission, part of the Department of Employment, for five years, while he also wrote political poetry and drew cartoons. He resigned from the department in 1984, hoping for a career in the music industry.


title: Phill Jupitus

text: Using the moniker "Porky the Poet", Jupitus became associated with Anti-Fascist Action and the ranting poetry scene, alongside Kool Knotes, Seething Wells, Swift Nick and Attila the Stockbroker. Jupitus approached local bands to offer himself as a support act for their tours: "I thought it looked easy, I was very cheap. If you got another band to support you, there are probably four of them and roadies and managers. But me—I just turned up and read poems." His first vinyl recordings were part of the live Newtown Neurotics album "Kickstarting a Backfiring Nation" as Porky the Poet in 1987.


title: Phill Jupitus

text: Jupitus toured colleges, universities and student unions, supporting bands such as Billy Bragg, the Style Council and The Housemartins. He supported Billy Bragg once more on the Labour Party-sponsored Red Wedge tour in 1985: "In the early '80s, I got involved with Red Wedge, in which Neil Kinnock got various bands to stage concerts for Labour. The reason I got involved was 20% because I believed in the cause, 30% because I loved Billy Bragg, and 50% because I wanted to meet Paul Weller".


title: Phill Jupitus

text: After Red Wedge, he found it difficult to get other bookings, due to the decline of political poetry as a mainstream art. He got a job as a runner for the independent record label Go! Discs, which had signed Billy Bragg and other bands, such as the Housemartins. Bragg said: "We ended up managing to get him a job at Go! Discs, which was brilliant. I was concerned that the cut-throat nature of the record business would make him jaded—underneath that rhino exterior there is quite a sensitive person—but that was before I realised that he was going to come back and do gigs again. Working at Go! Discs got his confidence up."


title: Phill Jupitus

text: His performances of two of his poems, "Beano" and "Nobby", were included in the 1986 album "Not Just Mandela", alongside tracks by Bragg and Attila the Stockbroker, amongst others. Released on Davy Lamp Records, all proceeds of the record were going to the Anti-Apartheid Movement.


title: Phill Jupitus

text: Jupitus became press officer and compère for The Housemartins (appearing in the 1986 music video for "Happy Hour"), using the role to continue being in front of an audience, while also filling support slots for other artists. During this time, he worked as a warm-up act on the Channel 4 TV show "The Show". He quit working for Go! Discs in 1989 and fell back on his poetry and competing to try to gain a foothold on the London comedy circuit.


title: Phill Jupitus

text: He conceived and directed the Brit Awards-nominated music video for Bragg's "Sexuality" in 1991 and wrote a parody version of that song about bestiality. He also appeared alongside R.E.M. in the music video for Bragg's "You Woke Up My Neighbourhood" and performed in "Searchlight" magazine's 2006 "Hope Not Hate" campaign tour with Bragg. He has also appeared numerous times at the Glastonbury Festival as a DJ and a compere in The Left Field tent. Jupitus produced the music video for Kirsty MacColl's 1991 single "All I Ever Wanted" from the album "Electric Landlady". He appeared at her tribute concert in 2002 as compere, and also sang one of her songs, "Fifteen Minutes".


title: Phill Jupitus

text: In 2000, he released the stand-up comedy DVD "Phill Jupitus Live: Quadrophobia". In 2001, he appeared as a sports journalist in the film "".


title: Phill Jupitus

text: Jupitus made a guest appearance on the "Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band" 40th anniversary DVD performing with the band on the tracks "Mr. Apollo" and "Canyons of Your Mind", and has toured with them around the UK. He appears on the Bonzos' 2007 album, "Pour l'Amour des Chiens". Also in 2007, he performed with The Blockheads on their 30th anniversary tour. He continued to perform with them sporadically since Ian Dury's death, also appearing in Dury's place for "Drip Fed Fred" during the Madness concert at Wembley Arena shortly before Dury's death. Jupitus performed at the Reading and Leeds Festivals in 2008.


title: Phill Jupitus

text: On 13–14 February 2009, Jupitus co-hosted the first BadMovieClub on Twitter. At midnight, over 2,000 Twitter users simultaneously pressed 'Play' on the film "The Happening" and continued to tweet whilst watching, creating a collective viewing experience that generated 40,000 tweets in under two hours. The first showing took place at 9:00pm, hosted by Graham Linehan.


title: Phill Jupitus

text: Jupitus was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Essex in South Essex College's congregation ceremony in Southend on 30 September 2010. Jupitus was also awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Kent, Canterbury in 2017, where his daughters had previously attended.


title: Phill Jupitus

text: On 6 October 2010, Jupitus, along with Emma Kennedy, hosted a special comedy evening at the Canterbury Animation Festival 'Anifest'.


title: Phill Jupitus

text: Jupitus attended the "I Do To Equal Marriage" event which celebrated the introduction of same-sex marriage in England and Wales in March 2014.


title: Phill Jupitus

text: Jupitus began hosting his own radio show on BBC GLR in 1995, a regular job that would last until 2000.


title: Phill Jupitus

text: After that, he embarked on his first stand-up comedy tour of the UK, "Jedi, Steady, Go", performing the "Star Wars" story in a comedic fashion.


title: Phill Jupitus

text: In 2002, Phill Jupitus was a stand-in presenter on BBC Radio 2 for Steve Wright while he was away on holiday.


title: Phill Jupitus

text: Jupitus was the breakfast DJ on BBC Radio 6 Music from 2002 until 30 March 2007 (the last song played, by listener request, was "Broadway" by The Clash), and made brief returns to the station during the summer of 2007, sitting in for Stephen Merchant on Sunday afternoon and Liz Kershaw on Saturday mornings. In 2010, he publicly criticised the BBC's announcement that it was to discontinue the station, describing the decision as "not only an act of cultural vandalism, it's also an affront to the memory of John Peel and a slap in the face to thousands of licence-payers." Jupitus has since written a book about his time on 6 Music, entitled "Good Morning Nantwich: Adventures in Breakfast Radio". In February 2010, as part of his research for the book, Jupitus presented the breakfast show for one week on Bournemouth University student radio station, Nerve Radio, produced by Mog McIntyre and co-presented by regular student presenters Guy Larsen and Jess Bracey.


title: Phill Jupitus

text: On 9 September 2009, Jupitus narrated a half-hour documentary on BBC Radio 4 about the comic strip "Calvin and Hobbes" created by Bill Watterson.


title: Phill Jupitus

text: Jupitus has worked on Radio 4 as a regular contributor to "Loose Ends", "The News Quiz" (where his performances are notable for a range of parody voices), "I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue" and "Just a Minute". He also presented "Best Sellers"—a series on the life and work of Peter Sellers—and wrote and presented "Disneyfied", a documentary on the work of Walt Disney. On 7 June 2020 he presented Pick of the Week.


title: Phill Jupitus

text: Jupitus has also appeared in several episodes of the Radio 4 show "The Unbelievable Truth" and is a regular guest with the Comedy Store Players.


title: Phill Jupitus

text: Jupitus was one of the panellists on the first TV episode of the show "Loose Talk", which made a brief transition from radio to television in 1994. In 1996, he joined BBC Two's pop quiz show "Never Mind the Buzzcocks" as a regular team captain – having appeared in every single episode of the original run, except for series 25, episode 6. He is the guest panellist who has made the most appearances on "QI", while his daughter, Emily Jupitus, currently works on the show as a researcher (or 'QI Elf'). He had a history of mimicking the "QI" host, Stephen Fry, while on the show. In December 1999, he had the lead role in "Dark Ages", an ITV sitcom parodying preparations (and fears) for the year 2000, set in Essex in the year 999. Jupitus has played Councillor Cowdrey in CITV children's series "Bottom Knocker Street" since its first series in summer 2013.


title: Phill Jupitus

text: Jupitus has presented several editions of the popular "Top Ten" series for Channel 4, while also joining another comedy panel game—"It's Only TV...but I Like It"—as a team captain, alongside Jonathan Ross and Julian Clary.


title: Phill Jupitus

text: He has made one appearance in an episode of "Holby City" as a patient (in "Men are from Mars"). As a voice actor he has provided the voices for Dandelion in an ITV adaptation of "Watership Down" and also performing a selection of voices for "Rex the Runt" by Aardman Animations.


title: Phill Jupitus

text: Jupitus is a continuity announcer for the UKTV channel Dave during the channel's evening schedule. During 2008, he did the voice over work for the Dave show "Batteries Not Included". He also took part in the Dave show Comedy Exchange, where he went to America, while "Eugene Mirman" came to Britain. Here they each performed different routines in various events. He has appeared in "Argumental" for the same channel, where team captain Marcus Brigstocke made him laugh so hard he fell off his chair and took a long time to recover. Jupitus and Brigstocke were reunited on the Radio 4 show (hosted by Brigstocke) "I've Never Seen Star Wars", in which Jupitus tried out things that he'd never attempted before, such as eating a Findus Crispy Pancake, undergoing a colonic irrigation, and shaving another person's head.


title: Phill Jupitus

text: During the 2008 Major League Baseball season, Jupitus presented a feature during the seventh inning stretch of Channel Five's featured Sunday night game. Each week he would read a section or quote from one of his favourite baseball-related books. He is a fan of the Boston Red Sox and has their logo tattooed on his arm.


title: Phill Jupitus

text: In December 2008, Jupitus took part as a guest presenter on RTÉ's comical topical discussion show "The Panel".


title: Phill Jupitus

text: Jupitus co-wrote and starred in the play "Waiting for Alice" with Andre Vincent which had a run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. The world premiere took place on 16 July 2007 at the St. Ives Theatre in St Ives, Cornwall.


title: Phill Jupitus

text: Jupitus and Marcus Brigstocke appeared together in the UK tour of "Totally Looped", performing at the Theatre Royal, Brighton, the Kings Theatre, Southsea and the Victoria Hall, Stoke-on-Trent in spring 2009.


title: Phill Jupitus

text: In October 2009, Jupitus joined the West End theatre cast of "Hairspray", playing the role of Edna Turnblad at the Shaftesbury Theatre. He joined the 2011 tour of "Spamalot", playing the role of King Arthur.


title: Phill Jupitus

text: On 16 January 2015, Jupitus was confirmed as starring opposite Jason Manford in the 2015 tour of Mel Brooks' musical "The Producers", portraying Franz Liebkind. He has since appeared in "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" also alongside Jason Manford on a tour of the UK.


title: Phill Jupitus

text: From August 2008 he was the host of "The Times" football podcast "The Game", replacing the previous co-hosts Gabriele Marcotti and Guillem Balagué, although Marcotti was still a regular pundit on the show and hosted again on Jupitus' departure.


title: Phill Jupitus

text: Between September 2008 and June 2011, Jupitus produced a podcast along with Phil Wilding, who produced his BBC 6Music show, called "Phill and Phil's Perfect Ten". Initially being released fortnightly, it later became more sporadic due to the pair's work commitments. In April 2009, archive episodes were made available for purchase on Audible and iTunes as audiobook bundles of four with bonus 'perfect ones' attached. Since ending the podcast in June 2011 the pair have indicated that all back-episodes will be released free at some point in the future.


title: Phill Jupitus

text: In 2018 Jupitus was interviewed by Jodie Cook for the Clever Tykes podcast: Creating Useful People. The podcast explores the childhood influences that shape future success. In Jupitus' episode he talked about how he developed his ethos for life and work, as well as his mum's dreams for him as a naval merchant.


title: Phill Jupitus

text: Early in his career Jupitus drew cartoons which appeared in the NME, Time Out, Radio Times and The Guardian"." In 2019 he started studying a degree in fine art at the Duncan of Jordanstone School of Art, Dundee University. He has also curated collections for the Art UK website. He wrote the foreword for the book "Leigh Art" in which he reminisces about childhood visits to Leigh-on-Sea and his enjoyment for the annual Leigh Art Trail.


title: Phill Jupitus

text: Jupitus is married with two children and lives in Fife. His daughter Emily is a QI Elf for the game show QI.


title: Phill Jupitus

text: Jupitus discussed his arachnophobia with the writer and broadcaster Suzy Klein on the BBC Radio 4 programme "I'm Suzy, and I'm a Phobic", which was broadcast in January 2013.


title: Divine Mercy

text: The Divine Mercy is a form of God's compassion, an act of grace based on trust or forgiveness. In Catholicism, it refers specifically to a devotion which had its origin in the apparitions of Jesus Christ reported by Saint Faustina Kowalska.


title: Divine Mercy

text: The term and concept of divine mercy is from the Hebrew word "chesed" (), which in the Bible can be translated as "great mercy", "goodness", "loving-kindness", "steadfast love", "covenant "faithfulness", "favor", "grace" or "love and mercy", and which refers to God's love for the Children of Israel and for all of humankind.


title: Divine Mercy

text: The Hebrew word "rah'amim" () denotes an act of grace based on trust, in a mutual relationship between two people who have obligations to fulfill resulting from their commitments.


title: Divine Mercy

text: In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said of the merciful that they will receive mercy from God and gave examples in the parable of the Good Samaritan and the parable of the Unforgiving Servant.


title: Divine Mercy

text: In Catholicism, Divine Mercy is a devotion to Jesus Christ associated with the reported apparitions of Jesus to Faustina Kowalska. The venerated image under this Christological title refers to what Kowalska's diary describes as "God's loving mercy" towards all people, especially for sinners. Kowalska was granted the title "Secretary of Mercy" by the Holy See in the Jubilee Year of 2000.


title: Divine Mercy

text: In February 1931, in Płock, Kowalska had a vision of Jesus who tasked her with spreading the devotion to His Divine Mercy.


title: Divine Mercy

text: Kowalska reported a number of apparitions during religious ecstasy which she described in her 1934–1938 diary, later published as the book "". The two main themes of the devotion are to trust in Christ's endless goodness, and to show mercy to others acting as a conduit for God's love towards them.


title: Divine Mercy

text: Pope John Paul II, a native of Poland, had great affinity towards this devotion and authorized it in the Liturgical Calendar of the Roman Catholic Church. The liturgical Feast of the Divine Mercy is celebrated on the first Sunday after Easter. Worshippers of the Divine Mercy commemorate the Hour of Mercy (3 p.m.), which according to Kowalska's diary is the time of the death of Jesus. (See Mark 15:34–37 [NRSV], "At three o’clock [τῇ ἐνάτῃ ὥρᾳ, lit. "the ninth hour"] Jesus cried out with a loud voice ... 37 Then Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last.") Another very popular form of the devotion is the Chaplet of the Divine Mercy.


title: Divine Mercy

text: The primary focus of the Divine Mercy devotion is the merciful love of God and the desire to let that love and mercy flow through one's own heart towards those in need of it. As he dedicated the Shrine of the Divine Mercy, Pope John Paul II referred to this when he said: "Apart from the mercy of God there is no other source of hope for humankind".


title: Divine Mercy

text: As in the prayers that form the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, there are three main themes to the Divine Mercy devotion: to ask for and obtain the mercy of God, to trust in Christ's abundant mercy, and finally to show mercy to others and act as a conduit for God's mercy towards them.


title: Divine Mercy

text: The first and second elements relate to the signature "Jesus I trust in You" on the Divine Mercy image and Kowalska stated that on 28 April 1935, the day the first Divine Mercy Sunday was celebrated, Jesus told her: "Every soul believing and trusting in My Mercy will obtain it."


title: Divine Mercy

text: The third component is reflected in the statement "Call upon My mercy on behalf of sinners" attributed to Jesus in Kowalska's diary (Notebook I, items 186–187). This statement is followed in the diary by a specific short prayer: "O Blood and Water, which gushed forth from the Heart of Jesus as a fount of Mercy for us, I trust in You." which Kowalska also recommended for the Hour of Divine Mercy. In her diary (Notebook II, item 742) Kowalska wrote that Jesus told her: "I demand from you deeds of mercy, which are to arise out of love for Me." and that he explained that there are three ways of exercising mercy toward your neighbor: the first-by deed, the second-by word, the third-by prayer.


title: Divine Mercy

text: The Divine Mercy devotion views mercy as the key element in the plan of God for salvation and emphasizes the belief that it was through mercy that God gave his only son for the redemption of humankind, after the fall of Adam. The opening prayer for Divine Mercy Sunday Mass refers to this and begins: "Heavenly Father and God of Mercy, We no longer look for Jesus among the dead, for He is alive and has become the Lord of Life".


title: Divine Mercy

text: In 1959, the Vatican banned the image and devotion to it because of a number of factors. Some Polish bishops questioned Kowalska's claims and were uncomfortable with the image's similarity to the red-and-white Polish flag. Polish priests were reported to be interpreting the rays as a symbol of the flag. The ban on devotion was lifted on 15 April 1978, due to pressure from future Polish pope Karol Wojtyła, who had great interest in Kowalska. In 1987, American filmmaker Hermann D. Tauchert co-wrote, produced, and directed the film "", which depicted the life of Kowalska.


title: Divine Mercy

text: Paint an image according to the pattern you see with the signature: Jesus, I trust in You... I promise that the soul that will venerate this image will not perish.


title: Divine Mercy

text: The chaplet is associated with the paintings of the image as in Kowalska's diary. The most widely used is an image painted by Adolf Hyla. Hyla painted the image in thanksgiving for having survived World War II.


title: Divine Mercy

text: In the image, Jesus stands with one hand outstretched in blessing, the other clutching the side wounded by the spear, from which proceed beams of falling light, coloured red and white. An explanation of these colors was given by Kowalska, which she attributed to Jesus in her diary: "The two rays represent blood and water". These colors of the rays refer to the "blood and water'" of the Gospel of John () which are also mentioned in the optional prayer of the Chaplet. The words "Jesus I Trust in Thee" usually accompany the image ("Jezu Ufam Tobie" in Polish).


title: Divine Mercy

text: The original Divine Mercy image was painted by Eugeniusz Kazimirowski in Vilnius in 1934 under Kowalska's direction. However, according to her diary, she cried upon seeing that the finished picture was not as beautiful as the vision she had received, but Jesus comforted her saying, "Not in the beauty of the colour, nor of the brush is the greatness of this image, but in My grace". The picture was widely used during the early years of the devotion, and is still in circulation within the movement, but the Hyla image remains one of the most reproduced renderings. After the Feast of Divine Mercy Sunday was granted to the Universal Church by Pope John Paul II on 30 April 2000 new versions of the image have emerged from a new generation of Catholic artists.


title: Divine Mercy

text: In her diary Kowalska wrote that Jesus specified 3:00 p.m. each day as the hour at which mercy was best received, and asked her to pray the Chaplet of Mercy and venerate the Divine Mercy image at that hour. On 10 October 1937, in her diary (Notebook V, item 1320) Kowalska attributed the following statement to Jesus:


title: Divine Mercy

text: The time of 3:00 p.m. corresponds to the hour at which Jesus died on the cross. This hour is called the "hour of Divine Mercy" or the "hour of great mercy".


title: Divine Mercy

text: The feast of Divine Mercy Sunday was instituted by Pope John Paul II and is celebrated the Sunday after Easter on the General Roman Calendar, and is associated with specific indulgences.


title: Divine Mercy

text: In an entry in her diary, Kowalska stated that anyone who participates in the Mass and receives the sacraments of Confession and the Eucharist on this day is assured by Jesus of full remission of their sins and punishments.


title: Divine Mercy

text: A number of Marian churches and shrines have been dedicated to Divine Mercy. One of the most important is the Gate of Dawn in Vilnius, when also the Divine Mercy image was exhibited for the first time. The original picture of Divine Mercy is in Vilnius.


title: Divine Mercy

text: The worldwide center of the devotion is Divine Mercy Sanctuary (Kraków), commonly known as Łagiewniki. This is where Kowalska is interred, and it houses the most popular version of the Divine Mercy image (by Adolf Hyła).


title: Divine Mercy

text: The Divine Mercy Sanctuary (Płock) is where Kowalska is said to have had the first vision of the Divine Mercy image. The Divine Mercy Sanctuary (Białystok) has the remains of Michał Sopoćko, the spiritual director of Kowalska and the "Apostle of Divine Mercy". Głogowiec, Łęczyca County as well as nearby Świnice Warckie (central Poland) are the places of birth and childhood as well as baptism and first communion of Kowalska.


title: Divine Mercy

text: The church of Santo Spirito in Sassia is the main center of the Divine Mercy in Rome. The National Shrine of The Divine Mercy in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, is managed by the Marian Fathers.


title: Divine Mercy

text: The National Shrine of The Divine Mercy in Marilao, Bulacan, is the major church dedicated to Divine Mercy in the Philippines. The Divine Mercy Shrine in El Salvador City, Philippines, has a 50-foot (15-meter) statue of Merciful Jesus.


title: Divine Mercy

text: The Archdiocesan Shrine of the Divine Mercy was located in Mandaluyong, Philippines, while the Divine Mercy Chapel was located in Las Piñas, Philippines.


title: Divine Mercy

text: A number of Christian orders and institutions are devoted to the Divine Mercy. The John Paul II Institute of Divine Mercy is managed by the Congregation of Marian Fathers, which takes an active role in promoting the Divine Mercy message.


title: Divine Mercy

text: The Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy, to which Kowalska belonged, and the Congregation of Sisters of Merciful Jesus, established by Michał Sopoćko on the request of Christ reported by Kowalska, also have a very important role in spreading the devotion.


title: Divine Mercy

text: Two new religious communities – the Sisters of Jesus’ Merciful Passion and the Littlest Sons of the Sweetest Heart of Mary – are being raised up in Michigan through the Servants of Jesus of The Divine Mercy, a lay association of the faithful led by Archbishop Allen Vigneron.


title: Divine Mercy

text: The World Apostolic Congress on Mercy takes place every third year in various cities of the world. Continental congresses on Mercy also take place.


title: Christian Zionism

text: Christian Zionism is a belief among some Christians that the return of the Jews to the Holy Land and the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948 were in accordance with Bible prophecy. The term began to be used in the mid-20th century in place of Christian restorationism.


title: Christian Zionism

text: Christian advocacy in support of the restoration of the Jews grew after the Protestant Reformation and has its roots in seventeenth century England. Contemporary Israeli historian Anita Shapira suggests that evangelical Christian Zionists in England of the 1840s "passed this notion on to Jewish circles", while Jewish nationalism in the early 19th century was widely regarded with hostility by British Jews.


title: Christian Zionism

text: Some Christian Zionists believe that the gathering of the Jews in Israel is a prerequisite for the Second Coming of Jesus. The idea has been common in Protestant circles since the Reformation that Christians should actively support a Jewish return to the Land of Israel, along with the parallel idea that the Jews ought to be encouraged to become Christians as a means of fulfilling biblical prophecy. Polling has suggested that Jews distrust Christian Zionist support for Israel and Jews themselves.


title: Christian Zionism

text: Advocacy of the restoration of Palestine as a national homeland for the Jews was first heard among self-identified Christian groups in the 1580s following the Protestant Reformation. The first wave of Protestant leaders, including Martin Luther and John Calvin, did not mention any special eschatological views which included a return of the Jews to Palestine (converted to Christianity or otherwise). More generally, Luther had hoped that the Jews would convert to his brand of Christianity once he had broken with the Catholic Church, but later he harshly denounced Jews. Like the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church, Luther and Calvin saw the Christian Church as being the "spiritual Israel" and since Jesus Christ, the covenant with God as being with faithful Christians exclusively as the "people of God", with no special privileges or role based on ancestral descent (in later times this has been called supersessionism). The Protestant focus on "sola scriptura" and the wider distribution of the Bible across Europe in the vernacular languages, however, allowed various radical protestants to interpret the scriptures in their own ways, in a manner which was not entirely reflective of either medieval Catholic tradition, or, the views of the early Protestant leaders themselves. Coupled with this was a general cultural Hebraising among more radical Protestants, as they saw the veneration of saints as idolatry and placed more focus on the Biblical prophets of the Old Testament, often naming their children Jeremiah, Zachary, Daniel, Sampson and the like.


title: Christian Zionism

text: While Edward VI of England was the Tudor child-monarch of England, a Calvinist-leaning Regency "de facto" ruled. This allowed Continental Protestants such as Martin Bucer and Peter Martyr Vermigli to teach at the prestigious universities of Cambridge and Oxford. These two men forwarded a biblical exegesis which included an important role for the Jews, converted to Christianity, in the end times. Early versions of the Bible endorsed by the English monarchy and the Anglican Church included the "Great Bible" and the "Bishops' Bible". However, a number of English Puritans and Lowland Scots Presbyterians viewed these (along with Episcopalianism and the establishment "Protestantism of the princes"), in general, as too "Romanist." In response, a number of these Puritans and Presbyterians spent some time in Geneva in the 1560s under Calvin's successor Theodore Beza and developed a translation of the Bible called the "Geneva Bible", which contained footnotes in reference to the "Book of Romans", specifically claiming that the Jews would be converted to Christianity in the end times and reorientating attention to Palestine as a central theatre. This view came to be taken up strongly by English Puritans (such as Francis Kett, Edmund Bunny, Thomas Draxe, Thomas Brightman, Joseph Mede, William Perkins, Richard Sibbes, Thomas Goodwin, William Strong, William Bridge, Henry Finch, John Owen and Giles Fletcher), Lowland Scots Presbyterians (such as George Gillespie, Robert Baillie and Samuel Rutherford), and even some Continental Protestants (such as Oliger Paulli, Isaac Vossius, Hugo Grotius, Gerhard Vossius and David Blondel).


title: Christian Zionism

text: During the late Tudor and early Stuart period, these Puritans remained outsiders in England and bitterly opposed the Laudian-dominated Anglican Church (though the Presbyterians, who held very similar views, had established the Church of Scotland as the largest "Kirk" in Scotland). With the English Civil War, the Puritans filled the ranks of the Parliamentarians and the New Model Army. Under the leadership of Oliver Cromwell they were victorious, executed Charles I of England and gained complete state power, establishing the Commonwealth of England between 1649 and 1660. The Philo-Semitic millennialist undercurrent came to have a direct influence on politics. A number of Cromwell's close advisors, such as John Dury, John Sadler and Hugh Peter, came into contact with Dutch-based Jews such as Menasseh ben Israel and advocated Jewish resettlement in England (they had been banned from the country since the 13th century). Sadler, Cromwell's secretary, even argued that the British were one of the Lost Tribes of Israel in his pamphlet "The Rights of the Kingdom" (1649) and thus kindred to the Jews, initiating British Israelism. Other Puritans such as Jeremiah Burroughs, Peter Bulkley, John Fenwicke and John Cotton, some of whom lived in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, saw Jewish re-entry to England as a step on the path to their eventual return to Palestine (all tied up within a millennialist eschatology, which would hasten the Second Coming of Jesus Christ and thus the final judgement). Johanna and Ebenezer Cartwright, two Baptists who had spent time in Amsterdam, held the same view and issued the original petition to Thomas Fairfax’s Council of War in January 1649 for Jewish readmission: the petition hoped, "That this Nation of England, with the inhabitants of the Netherlands, shall be the first and the readiest to transport Israel's sons and daughters on their ships to the land promised to their forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob for an everlasting inheritance." Their "de facto" toleration in England was informally achieved by 1655 to 1656 and was not rolled back after the Restoration.


title: Christian Zionism

text: A prominent French-born figure Isaac La Peyrère, who was nominally a Huguenot Calvinist, but came from a Portuguese New Christian (converted Sephardic Jewish) family was also a significant 17th century progenitor, with influence on both sides of the English Channel. La Peyrère in his millennialist work "Du rappel des juifs" (1643) wrote about a Jewish return to Palestine, predicted the building of the Third Temple and Jerusalem playing the most powerful role in world governance: all working towards the Second Coming. La Peyrère closely followed the developments of Oliver Cromwell's Dissenter regime and dreamed of overthrowing Louis XIV of France and replacing him with the Prince of Condé (who he worked for as a secretary) as part of a millennialist proto-Zionist messianic project. After the publication of La Peyrère's book the Amsterdam-based Menasseh Ben Israel informed his friend, Petrus Serrarius (a close associate of John Dury), about the importance of the theories, showing an early interplay between 17th century Jewish and Protestant proto-Zionism. Other Continental Protestant millennialists enthused by La Peyrère's theories were the Germans Abraham von Franckenberg (a student of the Kabbalah) and Paul Felgenhauer. Menasseh Ben Israel himself would author "The Hope of Israel" in 1652. Serrarius ended up being the main supporter among Protestants in Amsterdam of the message that Sabbatai Zevi was the Messiah, as proclaimed by Nathan of Gaza (his followers, the Sabbateans, were based in the Ottoman Empire but he had significant support throughout the Jewish diaspora).


title: Christian Zionism

text: Although removed from power in England itself, the millennialist Puritans who had moved to North America continued to have a deeper cultural legacy in society. As well as John Cotton, Increase Mather, one of the early Presidents of Harvard University was a strong proponent of the restoration of the Jews to Palestine. An author of numerous works, his most notable in this regard was "The Mystery of Israel's Salvation" (1669). Roger Williams, the Puritan proponent of religious liberty (including for Jews) in the Colony of Rhode Island that he founded has been citied as a proto-Zionist in speeches by later Jewish Zionist leaders such as Stephen S. Wise, due to his comment that "I have longed after some trading with the Jews themselves, for whose hard measure I fear the nations and England have yet a score to pay." Some important 17th-century philosophers who acted a bridge between the millennialist sectarians of their day and the approaching Age of the Enlightenment with its scientific revolution either held views associated with premillennial restorationists, or moved closely in their circles: this applies particularly to Sir Isaac Newton and Baruch Spinoza. Newton especially, who held Radical Reformation views in terms of religion and also dabbled in the occult (including the Kabbalah) predicted a Jewish return to Palestine, with the rebuilding of Jerusalem in the late 19th century and the erection of the Third Temple in the 20th or 21st century, leading to the end of the world no later than 2060. Much of these private writings were embarrassing to his supporters who sought to uphold him as a man of reason and science against Leibniz and while the University of Cambridge inherited his scientific papers, they refused to take these private ones. Many of these, collected by Abraham Yahuda, now rest in the National Library of Israel since 1967. Spinoza for his part, although Jewish himself, moved in circles in the Netherlands which included Petrus Serrarius, Henry Oldenburg and was even directly influenced by La Peyrère.


title: Christian Zionism

text: With the rise of the Hanoverians to power in Britain and the ascent of the Enlightenment, much of the 18th century mainstream elite adopted Philhellenism, looking back to the culture and philosophies of classical world for inspiration for the Georgian age, rather than entertaining millennialist fantasies based on the Hebrew Old Testament (though Jews themselves enjoyed significant toleration in the British Empire). Although marginal at first, a religious underground was slowly growing from the 1730s which would eventually spout a second wave of Protestant Zionism and with it the birth of Evangelical Protestantism. This was precipitated in Germany by Philipp Spener's Pietism, a mystical and often millennialist take on Lutheranism, which prophesied the "conversion of the Jews and the fall of the Papacy as the prelude of the triumph of the Church." One of Spener's followers, Nicolaus Zinzendorf, spread this into the Moravian Church, linking the theory to Palestine, changing the Moravian liturgy to include a prayer "to restore the tribe of Judah in its time and bless its first fruits among us." John and Charles Wesley, early leaders in Methodism; inspired by the Pietists and Zinzendorf's Moravians; also promoted a Jewish return to Palestine with Charles Wesley even authoring a hymn dedicated to it. The Baptist, John Gill, who moved in similar circles to the Wesleys, authored works expressing similar views. By 1771, the Evangelical minister, John Eyre, founder of the "Evangelical Magazine" and among the original members of the "London Missionary Society" was promoting a more developed version of these views with his "Observations upon Prophecies Relating to the Restoration of the Jews".


title: Christian Zionism

text: By the end of the 18th century, in the aftermath of the French Revolution and the National Assembly decreeing in December 1789 that non-Catholics were eligible for all civil and military positions, the Revolutionary government in France made a play for the allegiance of Jews, in competition with Britain. During the Egypt–Syria campaign of the French Revolutionary Wars, Bonaparte invited "all the Jews of Asia and Africa to gather under his flag in order to re-establish the ancient Jerusalem." Although Bonaparte himself was secular and the idea an early example of pragmatic Political Zionism, the Jacobin idea itself may have originated from Thomas Corbet (1773-1804), an Anglo-Irish Protestant émigrée who, as a member of the liberal-republican Society of United Irishmen, was an ally of the Jacobin-government, engaged in revolutionary activities against the British and served in the French Army. In February 1790, he authored a letter to the French Directory, then under the leadership of Napoleon's patron Paul Barras. In the letter he stated "I recommend you, Napoleon, to call on the Jewish people to join your conquest in the East, to your mission to conquer the land of Israel" saying, "Their riches do not console them for their hardships. They await with impatience the epoch of their re-establishment as a nation." Dr. Milka Levy-Rubin, a curator at the National Library of Israel, has attributed Corbet's motivation to a Protestant Zionism based on premillennialist themes.


title: Christian Zionism

text: In British America and then the United States during the 18th century, Ezra Stiles, president of Yale University was a supporter of Jewish restoration and befriended Rabbi Raphael Chaim Yitzchak Karigal of Hebron in 1773 during his visit to the United States. Jonathan Edwards also anticipated a future return of Jews to their homeland. In 1808, Asa McFarland, a Presbyterian, voiced the opinion of many that the fall of the Ottoman Empire was imminent and would bring about Jewish restoration. One David Austin of New Haven spent his fortune building docks and inns from which the Jews could embark to the Holy Land. In 1825, Mordecai Manuel Noah, a Jew who wanted to found a national home for the Jews on Grand Island in New York as a way station on the way to the Holy Land, won widespread Christian backing for his project. Likewise, restorationist theology was among the inspirations for the first American missionary activity in the Middle East and for mapping the Holy Land.


title: Christian Zionism

text: Most early-19th-century British Restorationists, like Charles Simeon, were postmillennial in eschatology. With the rise of James Frere, James Haldane Stewart and Edward Irving a major shift in the 1820s towards premillennialism occurred, with a similar focus on advocacy for the restoration of the Jews to Israel. As the demise of the Ottoman Empire appeared to be approaching, the advocacy of restorationism increased. At the same time, the visit of John Nelson Darby, the founder of a variant of premillennialism called dispensationalism, to the United States catalyzed a new movement. This was expressed at the Niagara Bible Conference in 1878, which issued a 14-point proclamation (relying on Luke 12:35–40, 17:26–30, 18:8 Acts 15:14–17, 2 Thessalonians 2:3–8, 2 Timothy 3:1–5, and Titus 1:11–15), including:


title: Christian Zionism

text: The dispensationalist theology of John Nelson Darby is often claimed to be a significant awakener of American Christian Zionism. He first distinguished the hopes of the Jews and that of the church and gentiles in a series of 11 evening lectures in Geneva in 1840. His lectures were immediately published in French ("L'Attente Actuelle de l'Eglise"), English (1841), German and Dutch (1847) and so his teachings began their global journey. Some dispensationalists, like Arno Gabelein, whilst philo-semitic, opposed Zionism as a movement born in self-confidence and unbelief. While dispensationalism had considerable influence through the Scofield Reference Bible, Christian lobbying for the restoration of the Jews preceded the publication of the Scofield Reference Bible (first published by OUP, 1909) by over a century, and many Christian Zionists and Christian Zionist organizations such as the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem do not subscribe to dispensationalism. Many non-dispensationalist Protestants were also strong advocates of a Jewish return to their homeland, Charles Spurgeon, both Horatius and Andrew Bonar, Robert Murray M'Chyene, and J. C. Ryle were among a number of proponents of both the importance and significance of a Jewish return to Israel. However Spurgeon averred of dispensationalism: "It is a mercy that these absurdities are revealed one at a time, in order that we may be able to endure their stupidity without dying of amazement". In 1864, Spurgeon wrote:


title: Christian Zionism

text: The crumbling of the Ottoman Empire threatened the British route to India via the Suez Canal as well as sundry French, German and American economic interests. In 1831 the Ottomans were driven from Greater Syria (including Palestine) by an expansionist Egypt, in the First Turko-Egyptian War. Although Britain forced Muhammad Ali to withdraw to Egypt, the Levant was left for a brief time without a government. The ongoing weakness of the Ottoman Empire made some in the west consider the potential of a Jewish state in the Holy Land. A number of important figures within the British government advocated such a plan, including Charles Henry Churchill. Again during the lead-up to the Crimean War (1854), there was an opportunity for political rearrangements in the Near East. In July 1853, Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury, who was President of the London Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews, wrote to Prime Minister Aberdeen urging Jewish restoration as a means of stabilizing the region.


title: Christian Zionism

text: Late-19th-century non-messianic restorationism was largely driven by concern over the fate of the Jews of the Russian Empire, beset by poverty and by deadly, government-inspired pogroms. It was widely accepted that western nations did not wish to receive Jewish immigrants. Restorationism was a way for charitable individuals to assist oppressed Jews without actually accepting them as neighbors and fellow-citizens. In this, Restorationism was not unlike the efforts of the American Colonization Society to send blacks to Liberia and the efforts of British abolitionists to create Sierra Leone. Winston Churchill endorsed Restoration because he recognized that Jews fleeing Russian pogroms required a refuge, and preferred Palestine for sentimental reasons.


title: Christian Zionism

text: In 1818, President John Adams wrote, "I really wish the Jews again in Judea an independent nation", and believed that they would gradually become Unitarian Christians.


title: Christian Zionism

text: In 1844, George Bush, a professor of Hebrew at New York University and the cousin of an ancestor of the Presidents Bush, published a book titled "The Valley of Vision; or, The Dry Bones of Israel Revived". In it he denounced "the thralldom and oppression which has so long ground them (the Jews) to the dust," and called for "elevating" the Jews "to a rank of honorable repute among the nations of the earth" by allowing restoring the Jews to the land of Israel where the bulk would be converted to Christianity. This, according to Bush, would benefit not only the Jews, but all of mankind, forming a "link of communication" between humanity and God. "It will blaze in notoriety ...". "It will flash a splendid demonstration upon all kindreds and tongues of the truth."


title: Christian Zionism

text: The tycoon William Eugene Blackstone was inspired by the conference to publish the book "Jesus is Coming", which took up the restorationist cause. His book was translated and published in Yiddish. On November 24–25, 1890, Blackstone organized the Conference on the Past, Present and Future of Israel at the First Methodist Episcopal Church in Chicago where participants included leaders of many Christian communities. Resolutions of sympathy for the oppressed Jews living in Russia were passed, but Blackstone was convinced that such resolutions—even though passed by prominent men—were insufficient. He advocated strongly for the resettlement of Jewish people in Palestine. In 1891 he lobbied President Benjamin Harrison for the restoration of the Jews, in a petition signed by 413 prominent Americans, that became known as the Blackstone Memorial. The names included the US Chief Justice, Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Chair of the House Foreign Relations Committee, and several other congressmen, Rockefeller, Morgan and famous industrialists. It read, in part: "Why shall not the powers which under the treaty of Berlin, in 1878, gave Bulgaria to the Bulgarians and Servia to the Servians now give Palestine back to the Jews? ... These provinces, as well as Romania, Montenegro, and Greece, were wrested from the Turks and given to their natural owners. Does not Palestine as rightfully belong to the Jews?"


title: Christian Zionism

text: Ideas favoring the restoration of the Jews in Palestine or the Land of Israel entered the British public discourse in the 1830s, though British reformationists had written about the restoration of the Jews as early as the 16th century, and the idea had strong support among Puritans. Not all such attitudes were favorable towards the Jews; they were shaped in part by a variety of Protestant beliefs,


title: Christian Zionism

text: At the urging of Lord Shaftesbury, Britain established a consulate in Jerusalem in 1838, the first diplomatic appointment to Palestine.


title: Christian Zionism

text: In 1839, the Church of Scotland sent Andrew Bonar, Robert Murray M'Cheyne, Alexander Black and Alexander Keith on a mission to report on the condition of the Jews in Palestine. Their report was widely published. They traveled through France, Greece, and Egypt, and from Egypt, overland to Gaza. On the way home they visited Syria, the Austrian Empire and some of the German principalities. They sought out Jewish communities and inquired about their readiness to accept Christ, and separately, their preparedness to return to Israel as prophesied in the Bible. Alexander Keith recounted the journey in his 1844 book "The Land of Israel According to the Covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob". It was also in that book that Keith used the slogan that became popular with other Christian Restorationists, a land without a people for a people without a land. In 1844 he revisited Palestine with his son, George Skene Keith (1819–1910), who was the first person to photograph the land.


title: Christian Zionism

text: An important, though often neglected, figure in British support of the restoration of the Jews was William Hechler (1845–1931), an English clergyman of German descent who was Chaplain of the British Embassy in Vienna and became a close friend of Theodor Herzl. Hechler was instrumental in aiding Herzl through his diplomatic activities, and may, in that sense, be called the founder of modern Christian Zionism. When it came to mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of Herzl's death, it was noted by the editors of the English-language memorial volume that William Hechler would prove "not only the first, but the most constant and the most indefatigable of Herzl’s followers".


title: Christian Zionism

text: On 2 November 1917, UK Home Secretary Arthur Balfour sent a letter to Lord Walter Rothschild. This letter, which would come to be known as the Balfour Declaration, famously stated that "His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people." As noted by Philip Alexander, "A crucial ingredient in Balfour's Zionism [may have been] his Christian belief or, to put it a little more subtly, his Christian formation. The most persuasive advocate of this thesis is the Canadian historian Donald Lewis in his 2010 monograph, "The Origins of Christian Zionism", but it has been espoused by a number of other scholars as well."


title: Christian Zionism

text: In the decades leading up to the establishment of Israel in 1948, the most prominent and politically active American Christian supporters of Zionism were liberal and mainline Protestants whose support for the movement was often unrelated to their interpretation of the Bible. These Christian supporters of Zionism viewed Palestine as a needed safe haven for Jews fleeing intensifying persecution in Europe and often understood their support for the movement as part of a broader effort at interfaith rapprochement. The Pro-Palestine Federation, a Christian pro-Zionist organization founded in 1930, called both for the promotion of “goodwill and esteem between Jews and non-Jews” and for the British government to adhere to the terms of its Mandate for Palestine, which pledged support for the establishment of a Jewish national home.


title: Christian Zionism

text: Amidst World War II and growing awareness of the Holocaust, American Jewish Zionists helped coordinate the establishment of two non-Jewish Zionist organizations, the American Palestine Committee and the Christian Council on Palestine, which were later merged into the American Christian Palestine Committee (ACPC). The ACPC, which was composed largely of liberal and mainline Protestants, became the leading American Christian lobby in support of the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine. After the establishment of Israel in 1948, the ACPC continued its lobbying efforts. For instance, it coordinated opposition to the United Nations’ efforts to internationalize the city of Jerusalem, which was divided between Israel and Transjordan in the 1948 War.


title: Christian Zionism

text: During these years, premillennialism (including its dispensationalist variety) did grow in popularity among conservative American Protestants. Many premillennialists viewed the Zionist movement as at least a partial fulfillment of biblical prophecy or a modern fulfillment of God's covenantal promises to the Jewish people. Southern Baptist missionary Jacob Gartenhaus, himself a convert from Judaism, argued in the 1930s that “Zionism is going to win whether anybody likes it or not...To oppose it is to oppose God’s plan.” For the most part, though, such beliefs did not translate into political action on behalf of the movement in this era. One slight exception was J. Frank Norris, a fundamentalist Baptist who split time between pulpits in Fort Worth, Texas, and Detroit, Michigan. While Norris did not organize lobbying efforts in the way that the ACPC did, he did preach to his followers that it was their Christian duty to support the Zionist cause and wrote President Truman in support of Zionist claims to Palestine in 1947 and 1948. Norris also loosely coordinated with the ACPC, at times publishing their materials in his periodical, "The Fundamentalist".


title: Christian Zionism

text: In the decades since the establishment of Israel, and especially since the 1967 Six-Day War, the most prominent American Christian supporters of Israel have come from the evangelical wing of American Protestantism. American evangelicalism itself underwent significant changes in the years surrounding Israel's birth, as a "new" evangelicalism led by figures like Billy Graham emerged from Protestantism and came to cultural prominence. It was among these new evangelicals that the contemporary movement that most commonly associated with the term "Christian Zionism" originated.


title: Christian Zionism

text: Many new evangelicals adhered to dispensationalism or at least held beliefs inspired by it—most especially the dispensationalist understanding that Jews remained in a special covenantal relationship with God. Most important to the development of Christian Zionism as a movement, though, was that American evangelical leaders began building relationships with American and Israeli Jews and building institutional connections with Jewish organizations and the Israeli government itself. Crucial in building these relationships was a motivated coterie of American evangelicals residing in Israel, most especially the founder of the American Institute of Holy Land Studies, G. Douglas Young. Through his institute, Young worked to convince American Christians of their biblical duty to support the Jewish people and the Jewish state. He also worked as a go-between for Jewish organizations and Israeli government agencies looking to build relationships with American evangelicals. Such activism provided the basis for the development of Christian Zionism as a movement.


title: Christian Zionism

text: Such activism, it should be noted, was in many ways distinct from the prophetic speculation about the State of Israel that exploded after the 1967 Six-Day War (even as it had somewhat common theological and hermeneutical antecedents). This includes the wildly popular writings of the American dispensationalist evangelical writer Hal Lindsey, which sought to fit Israel into a dispensationalist end-time narrative. In "The Late Great Planet Earth", for example, Lindsey anticipated that, per , Jews would fight off a "Russian" invasion before realizing their miraculous deliverance and converting to Christianity. Their lives would be spared the great fire that God will put upon Russia and people of the "coastlands." And, per , one third of Jews alive who have converted will be spared. Lindsay has been critiqued for highly specific, failed predictions even by those who share his eschatology, like John MacArthur.


title: Christian Zionism

text: Examples of Protestant leaders combining political conservatism with Christian Zionism are Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, leading figures of the Christian Right in the 1980s and 1990s. Falwell said in 1981: "To stand against Israel is to stand against God. We believe that history and scripture prove that God deals with nations in relation to how they deal with Israel." They cite part of the blessing of Isaac at , "Those who curse you will be cursed, and those who bless you will be blessed." Martin Luther King Jr. has also been cited as a Christian supporter of Israel and Zionism.


title: Christian Zionism

text: The government of Israel has given official encouragement to Christian Zionism, allowing the establishment in 1980 of the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem. The embassy has raised funds to help finance Jewish immigration to Israel from the former Soviet Union, and has assisted Zionist groups in establishing Jewish settlements in the West Bank.


title: Christian Zionism

text: The Third International Christian Zionist Congress, held in Jerusalem in February 1996, issued a proclamation which said:


title: Christian Zionism

text: Popular interest in Christian Zionism was given a boost around the year 2000 in the form of the "Left Behind" series of novels by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins. The novels are built around the prophetic role of Israel in the apocalyptic end times.


title: Christian Zionism

text: For most Christians the City of God () has nothing to do with the Jewish immigration and the ongoing Israeli–Palestinian conflict, but with the sack of Rome (410) and the teaching of Saint Augustine of Hippo, whose rejection of millennialism was adopted by the Council of Ephesus (431). That is why neither Eastern Orthodox Christians nor traditional Catholic Christians did consider Zionism in any political form: "[T]he Eastern Orthodox Church [...] upheld a historic lack of emphasis on pilgrimage, insisting that the land of promise was not Palestine but the Kingdom of God. Thus, Patriarch Ignatius IV, head of the church in the Middle East, reiterated that the people were his concern in Jerusalem, not the stones." Not a worldly kingdom, not an earthly Jerusalem is sought after, but the focus is on the heavenly Jerusalem, the kingdom of the triune God:


title: Christian Zionism

text: The Catholic Church—the largest branch of Christians in the world—does not endorse the theological premises underlying millennialist Protestant Restorationism and has generally inveighed against the prospect of Jewish governance over Holy Places in Palestine which it deems of importance to Christianity. Theodor Herzl, the secular Jewish founder of modern political Zionism, had an audience in the Vatican with Pope Pius X in 1904, arranged by the Austrian Count Berthold Dominik Lippay, seeking out the position of the Catholic Church on Herzl's prospective project for a Jewish state in Palestine. Pope Pius X stated "We cannot prevent the Jews from going to Jerusalem—but we could never sanction it. The soil of Jerusalem, if it was not always sacred, has been sanctified by the life of Jesus Christ. As the head of the Church I cannot tell you anything different. The Jews have not recognized our Lord, therefore we cannot recognize the Jewish people." After Herzl explained that his reasoning behind the project for the creation of a Jewish state was not a religious statement, but interest in secular land for national independence, Pope Pius X replied "Does it have to be "Gerusalemme"?"


title: Christian Zionism

text: While rejecting a theological basis for Zionism outright, a major concern for the Holy See was the Holy Places associated with Jesus Christ falling under the governance of such a state. By the mid-19th century, relations between the Vatican and Istanbul were fairly collegial; the Muslim Ottomans by that time permitted the Vatican to work among the Arab Catholics in Palestine and access the Holy Places quite freely and so the "status quo" was already workable for them. Following the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine, the Vatican advocated Jerusalem being a separate "international city", as laid out in the encyclical "Redemptoris nostri cruciatus". Until the Second Vatican Council, the Catholic Church was forthright in lobbying against Zionism internationally (including the Catholic Church in the United States, as the United States had become Zionism's most powerful endorser). The State of Israel and the Holy See only established full diplomatic relations in 1993 and this was a recognition of political and civic reality, not a theological statement.


title: Christian Zionism

text: Political Zionism, which "came down like the wolf on the fold", has also been anathematized by eminent Protestants:


title: Christian Zionism

text: In the United States, the General Assembly of the National Council of Churches in November 2007 approved a resolution for further study which stated that the "theological stance of Christian Zionism adversely affects:


title: Christian Zionism

text: The Reformed Church in America at its 2004 General Synod found "the ideology of Christian Zionism and the extreme form of dispensationalism that undergirds it to be a distortion of the biblical message noting the impediment it represents to achieving a just peace in Israel/Palestine." The Mennonite Church published an article that described the ongoing seizure of additional Palestinian lands by Israeli militants as illegal, noting that in some churches under the influence of Christian Zionism the "congregations 'adopt' illegal Israeli settlements, sending funds to bolster the defense of these armed colonies." As of September 2007, churches in the USA that have criticized Christian Zionism include the United Methodist Church, the Presbyterian Church (USA), and the United Church of Christ.


title: Christian Zionism

text: The film "With God On Our Side", by Porter Speakman Jr. and Kevin Miller (the latter of whom also co-created the film ""), criticizes both the underlying theology behind Christian Zionism as well as its negative influence on the church.


title: Christian Zionism

text: In the United Kingdom, the Church of Scotland, despite its Restorationist history, has recently been critical of Zionism in general, and in turn has received strong criticism over the perceived injustice of its report, , which resulted in its republication in a briefer form. On 9 July 2012, the Anglican General Synod passed a motion affirming support for the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI). This was criticised by the Board of Deputies claiming the Synod 'has chosen to promote an inflammatory and partisan programme'. The advocated group was simultaneously criticised for its publication of a call for sit-ins at Israeli Embassies, the hacking of government websites to promote its message, and support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel.


title: Christian Zionism

text: Some Christian Zionists interpret the prophetic texts as describing inevitable future events, and these events primarily involve Israel (taken to mean the descendants of the Biblical patriarch Jacob) or Judah (taken to mean the remaining faithful adherents of Judaism). These prophecies are seen as requiring the presence of a Jewish state in the Holy Land, the central part of the lands promised to the Biblical patriarch Abraham in the Covenant of the pieces. This requirement is sometimes interpreted as being fulfilled by the contemporary state of Israel.


title: Christian Zionism

text: Christian schools of doctrine which consider other teachings to counterbalance these doctrines, or which interpret them in terms of distinct eschatological theories, are less conducive to Christian Zionism. Among the many texts which address this subject in counterbalance are the words of Jesus, as for example in Matthew , "the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation producing the fruits of it".


title: Christian Zionism

text: In "Defending Christian Zionism", David Pawson, a Christian Zionist in the United Kingdom, puts forward the case that the return of the Jews to the Holy Land is a fulfilment of scriptural prophecy, and that Christians should support the existence of the Jewish State (although not unconditionally its actions) on theological grounds. He also argues that prophecies spoken about Israel relate specifically to Israel (not to the church, as in "replacement theology"). However, he criticises Dispensationalism, which he says is a largely American movement holding similar views. Pawson was spurred to write this book by the work of Stephen Sizer, an evangelical Christian who rejects Christian Zionism.


title: Christian Zionism

text: A 2017 LifeWay poll conducted in United States found that 80% of evangelical Christians believed that the creation of Israel in 1948 was a fulfillment of biblical prophecy that would bring about Christ's return and more than 50% of Evangelical Christians believed that they support Israel because it is important for fulfilling the prophecy.


title: Christian Zionism

text: According to the Pew Research survey in 2003, more than 60% of the Evangelical Christians and about 50% of Blacks agreed that the existence of Israel fulfilled biblical prophecy. About 55% of poll respondents said that the Bible was the biggest influence for supporting Israel which is 11 times the people who said church was the biggest influence.


title: Soodhu Kavvum

text: Soodhu Kavvum () is a 2013 Indian Tamil-language black comedy crime film written and directed by Nalan Kumarasamy. It features Vijay Sethupathi, Bobby Simha, Ashok Selvan, Ramesh Thilak, Karunakaran and Sanchita Shetty in the lead roles.


title: Soodhu Kavvum

text: The film was released on 1 May 2013. The main concept is about how silly talk has engulfed people's day-to-day life and modern society. "Soodhu Kavvum" received positive reviews from critics and became a big blockbuster. The film was remade in Telugu as "Gaddam Gang" and into an Urdu language Pakistani movie titled as "Chupan Chupai".


title: Soodhu Kavvum

text: Friends Kesavan, Sekar, and Pagalavan meet Das, a middle-age man who does low-profile kidnappings for a living with his imaginary girlfriend Shalu. Since they are broke, the trio decides to become his assistants. Das follows five rules of kidnapping (which he spells and writes as "kednaping"), the first of which is to avoid kidnapping people from political backgrounds.


title: Soodhu Kavvum

text: One day, the Das gang kidnap a boy and successfully obtain ransom money from his father Nambikkai Kannan. Nambikkai's contractor brother has been arrested for attempted bribery by State Minister Gnanodayam, a honest politician. Impressed with Das's kidnapping skills, Nambikkai asks him to kidnap Gnanodayam's son Arumai Pragasam as revenge and offers to pay Das up to 20 million. Das initially hesitates, but eventually agrees after being convinced by Kesavan, Sekar and Pagalavan.


title: Soodhu Kavvum

text: The next day, the Das gang set out to kidnap Arumai but are astonished to see him be kidnapped by another group. They kidnap Arumai from the other kidnappers and discover that the first kidnapping was staged by Arumai himself to extort money from his father. Arumai manages to convince Das and his men to collude with him to obtain ransom money from his father. The group demands 20 million from the minister and receives the money.


title: Soodhu Kavvum

text: An argument over splitting the cash arises between Arumai and the rest during which their van loses control and falls from a bridge. Arumai runs away with all the money. The minister seeks the assistance of encounter specialist Bramma, a ruthless policeman to hunt down the kidnappers. Arumai returns to his house and hides the money in his room. Das devices a plan to kidnap Arumai again to retrieve the money. They accidentally meet Arumai and successfully kidnap him again. Das lets Arumai go free, after making him promise that he should not tell anything about them to the police. Arumai also promises to return their share of the money. Bramma learns that Arumai staged his own kidnapping and uses this information to threaten Arumai into testifying against the Das gang.


title: Soodhu Kavvum

text: Arumai perjures that the Das gang did not kidnap him, leading to their acquittal. Enraged, Bramma takes the gang to a remote location, brutally beats them in a dark room with the aid of NVG, and raises his department gun to kill them. Instead of shooting them with the officially issued gun, he goes out and retrieves from his police jeep an illegal homemade gun that he had seized from a crook. When he inserts it behind his back in his pants, the rusty gun misfires into Bramma's buttocks, allowing the Das gang to escape. Arumai's father breaks in and takes the money bag to the chief minister, who provided the ransom money. When he opens the bag, the minister is shocked to find it filled with newspapers instead of cash. Arumai had transferred the cash to another bag and gives the Das gang their share.


title: Soodhu Kavvum

text: The chief minister calls Arumai to his office and asks him to stand as a candidate in the upcoming general elections in lieu of his father, who never brought much income to the party due to his refusal to be corrupt. The chief minister praises Arumai's shrewdness and believes that he can rake in a substantial income of 3 billion in five years for the party, as a young minister. Arumai wins the elections, becomes MLA, immediately gets a minister post, and appoints Sekar and Kesavan as his personal advisers, while Pagalavan becomes an actor. Das continues his kidnapping business with a new band of young men. They kidnap a woman who looks exactly like Shalu, belatedly realising that she is Shalini Gupta, a minister's daughter. Thus, Das has broken his first rule of kidnapping again.


title: Soodhu Kavvum

text: The soundtrack album and background music was composed by Santhosh Narayanan. The audio rights were purchased by Think Music. Adhi from the Hiphop Tamizha duo wrote the lyrics for the track "Sudden Delight" while the rest of the tracks were written by GKB, Sean Roldan, Muthamil, Nalan Kumaraswamy and Gana Bala. The soundtrack album was released on 27 March 2013 at Sathyam Cinemas, Chennai. Celebrities such as Vaibhav Reddy, Karthik Subbaraj, Nanditha, K. S. Srinivasan, Ravindar Chandrasekaran, were present at the event along with the film's cast and crew.


title: Soodhu Kavvum

text: The album received positive reviews. Behindwoods rated the album 2.5 out of 5, saying it as "Big ideas. Good returns." Indiaglitz rated the album 2.75 out of 5, and stated it as "The best of Santhosh Narayanan". Top10 Cinema gave favourable reviews, stating that "On the whole, the album introduces some new genre of music and Santhosh Narayanan deserves a special pat for this. Much alike his previous album Pizza, the visuals would add more beautifications to his music" and gave a verdict "Buy it for "Come Na Come" & "Sudden Delight""


title: Soodhu Kavvum

text: However, later on, the soundtrack went on to be one of the most respected soundtracks in Tamil cinema. It introduced new genres of music to the Tamil audience. Santhosh Narayanan built his own fanbase for diverging from the mainstream musical ideologies and delivering something new.


title: Soodhu Kavvum

text: The satellite rights of the film were sold to Zee Tamil. "Soodhu Kavvum" was released on 1 May 2013 alongside "Ethir Neechal" and "Moondru Per Moondru Kadhal".


title: Soodhu Kavvum

text: "Soodhu Kavvum" opened to positive reviews. Baradwaj Rangan from "The Hindu" stated "Nalan Kumarasamy's "Soodhu Kavvum" is a demonstration of what's possible when films are made for the sheer joy of making films. There isn't a single calculated moment, something cynically aimed to satisfy this segment of the audience or that one. Everything is organic, the events rooted in a nutty story and sprouting through a brilliant screenplay". S Saraswathi from "Rediff" gave 3.5 stars out of 5 and wrote ""Soodhu Kavvum" is an engaging film, with ingenious characters and entertaining situations" and called it a "must-watch". N Venkateswaran from "The Times of India" gave 4 out of 5 stars and wrote "Nalan Kumarasamy establishes himself as a director to watch out for in this laugh riot of a debut film. Carrying off a dark comedy is no mean task, but Nalan hits the target right in his first attempt. His writing is crisp, the lines are down to earth and funny, the characters well-etched and the screenplay has no dull moments". "Sify" wrote ""Soodhu Kavvum" works big time due to smart writing and perfect characterisation. Final verdict on "Soodhu Kavvum" is that it is a gutsy great film. It is one of the best films to have emerged out of Kollywood in a long, long time". "Cinemalead" wrote "Soodhu Kavvum is definitely a new attempt in Tamil cinema, go for it."


title: Soodhu Kavvum

text: Malini Mannath from "The New Indian Express" wrote "Engaging screenplay, deft narration, well-etched characters and twists and humour generated at unexpected moments, make "Soodhu Kavvum" a wacky jolly fun ride". "Behindwoods" gave 3 stars out of 5 and said ""Soodhu Kavvum"’s scoring area is definitely its characterisations as Nalan Kumarasamy offers each of the central characters a back story that's unique and more importantly contributing to the character's present circumstance". Vivek Ramz from "In" rated the film 3.5 out of 5 and wrote "Soodhu Kavvum is a total laugh riot!


title: Soodhu Kavvum

text: Sudhish Kamath later picked "Soodhu Kavvum" as one of five films that have redefined Tamil cinema in 2013, writing, "This film is a joy to watch, full of laughs and unpredictable situations with great wit, dark humour and satire. Writer-director Nalan Kumarasamy, the winner of the first season of "Nalaya Iyakkunar", is one of the most exciting filmmakers of our times with his ability to turn a cliché on the head".


title: Soodhu Kavvum

text: "Soodhu Kavvum" was featured in Indo-Asian News Service's 10 best southern films of 2013, who called it "unarguably the funniest film of the year". "Sify" and "Rediff" listed it in the year-end top Tamil films lists, too.


title: Soodhu Kavvum

text: "Soodhu Kavvum" was selected for screening in the Zurich Film Festival, being the only Tamil film of 2013 to be screened there.


title: Soodhu Kavvum

text: "Soodhu Kavvum" grossed in Chennai theatres on its first weekend. In its opening weekend it grossed in the US which was a disappointing result. The film had collected in two weeks in Tamil Nadu, according to IANS. In June 2013, IANS reported that it had earned .


title: Soodhu Kavvum

text: PVP Cinema purchased the Telugu remake rights in July 2013. The film has been remade in Telugu as "Gaddam Gang". The Kannada remake rights were bought by Rockline Venkatesh. Director Rohit Shetty had been signed for 250 million to direct the Hindi remake. It was unofficially remade in Pakistan in Urdu language as "Chupan Chupai".


title: Soodhu Kavvum

text: After the success of Soodhu Kavvum, the producer of the movie C.V.Kumar had planned to make a sequel to the movie which was to be titled as "Soodhu Kavvum 2" and the script work was said to have been done by Nalan Kumarasamy himself.


title: New Mexico State University

text: New Mexico State University (NMSU or NM State) is a public land-grant research university based primarily in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Founded in 1888, it is the oldest public institution of higher education in New Mexico and one of the state's two flagship universities, along with the University of New Mexico. NMSU has extension and research centers across the state, including campuses in Alamogordo, Carlsbad, Doña Ana County, and Grants.


title: New Mexico State University

text: Initially established as Las Cruces College, NM State was designated a land-grant college in 1898 and subsequently renamed New Mexico College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts; it received its present name in 1960. NMSU had approximately 21,700 students enrolled as of Fall 2021 and a faculty-to-student ratio of roughly 1 to 16. NMSU offers 28 doctoral degree programs, 58 master's degree programs, and 96 baccalaureate majors. New Mexico State's athletic teams compete at the NCAA Division I level in the Western Athletic Conference except for football.


title: New Mexico State University

text: NMSU is classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activity". The school is particularly noted for its graduate programs in education, engineering, business, and nursing. NMSU is the chief space grant college for New Mexico, leading one of 52 national consortia dedicated to space research.


title: New Mexico State University

text: Hiram Hadley, an Earlham College-educated teacher from Indiana, founded Las Cruces College. Upon its opening on September 17, 1888, it included an elementary school, a university preparatory school, and a business school; Simon F. Kropp wrote in "Arizona and the West" that this institution "was not a college in the contemporary meaning of the word".


title: New Mexico State University

text: One decade later, the Territorial Assembly of New Mexico provided for the establishment of an agricultural college and agricultural experiment station with Bill No. 28, the Rodey Act of 1889. It stated: "Said institution is hereby located at or near the town of Las Cruces in the County of Doña Ana, upon a tract of land of not less than one hundred (100) acres, This land could be contiguous to the main Las Cruces irrigating ditch, south of said town." Designated as the land-grant college for New Mexico under the Morrill Act, it was named the New Mexico College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts.


title: New Mexico State University

text: Las Cruces College merged with the New Mexico College of Agriculture and Mechanical Arts and opened on January 21, 1890. It began with 35 students and six faculty members. The college was supposed to graduate its first student in 1893, but the only senior, named Sam Steel, was murdered before he was able to receive his diploma. Classes met in the two-room adobe building of Las Cruces College until new buildings were erected on the campus three miles (5 km) south of Las Cruces. In February 1891, McFie Hall, popularly known as Old Main, opened its doors. McFie Hall burned down in 1910, but its remains can be seen in the center of Pride Field on the University Horseshoe.


title: New Mexico State University

text: In 1960, in move to better represent its operations, New Mexico A&M was renamed New Mexico State University by a state constitutional amendment.


title: New Mexico State University

text: New Mexico State University now has a campus and enrolls more than 21,000 students from the United States and 71 foreign countries. Full-time faculty members number 694, with a staff of 3,113.