absolution In Christianity, a pronouncement of forgiveness of sins made to a person who has repented. This rite is based on the forgiveness that Jesus extended to sinners during his ministry. In the early church, the priest absolved repentant sinners after they had confessed and performed their penance in public. During the Middle Ages, it became the custom for priests to hear confession and grant absolution privately. In Roman Catholicism penance is a sacrament, and the priest has the power to absolve a contrite sinner who promises to make satisfaction to God. In Protestant churches, the confession of sin is usually made in a formal prayer by the whole congregation, after which the minister announces their absolution.
absolutism Political doctrine and practice of unlimited, centralized authority and absolute sovereignty, especially as vested in a monarch. Its essence is that the ruling power is not subject to regular challenge or check by any judicial, legislative, religious, economic, or electoral agency. Though it has been used throughout history, the form that developed in early modern Europe (16th-18th century) became the prototype; Louis XIV is seen as the epitome of European absolutism. Religious authority was assumed by the monarch, who became the head of the church as well as the state, on the basis that the right to rule came from God (see divine kingship). See also AUTHORITARIANISM, dictatorship, totalitarianism.
absorption Transfer of energy from a wave to the medium through which it passes. The energy of the wave can be reflected, transmitted, or absorbed. If the medium absorbs only a fraction of the energy, it is said to be transparent to that energy. When all energy is absorbed, the medium is opaque. All substances absorb energy to some extent. For instance, the ocean appears transparent to sunlight near the surface, but becomes opaque with depth. Substances absorb specific types of radiation. Rubber is transparent to infrared radiation and X rays, but opaque to visible light.
Green glass is transparent to green light but absorbs red and blue light. Absorption of sound is fundamental to acoustics; a soft material absorbs sound energy as the waves strike it.
abstract art or nonobjective art or nonrepresentational art
Art, including painting, sculpture, and graphic art, that does not represent recognizable objects. In the late 19th century the traditional European conception of art as the imitation of nature was abandoned in favour of the imagination and the unconscious. Abstraction developed in the early 20th century with such movements as Fauvism, Expressionism, Cubism, and Futurism. Vasily Kandinsky is credited as the first modem artist to paint purely abstract pictures, c. 1910. Piet Mondrian’s De Stijl group in The Netherlands widened the spectrum c. 1915-20. Abstraction continued to flourish between the two world wars, and after the 1930s it was the most characteristic feature of Western art. After World War II, Abstract Expres¬ sionism emerged in the U.S. and had a great influence on European and American painting and sculpture. By the turn of the 21st century, artistic output was varied, with abstract art prominent alongside figurative and conceptual work.
Abstract Expressionism Movement in U.S. painting that began in the late 1940s. Its development was influenced by the radical work of Arshile Gorky and Hans Hofmann and by the immigration in the late 1930s and early ’40s of many European avant-garde artists to New York. The Abstract Expressionist movement itself is generally regarded as having begun with the paintings done by Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning in the late 1940s and early ’50s. Other artists who came to be associated with the style include Franz Kune, Mark Rothko, Clyfford Still, Philip Gus- ton, Helen Frankenthaler, Barnett Newman, Adolph Gottlieb, Robert Moth¬ erwell, Lee Krasner, and Ad Reinhardt. The movement comprised many styles but shared several characteristics. The works were usually abstract (i.e., they depicted forms not found in the natural world); they empha¬ sized freedom of emotional expression, technique, and execution; they displayed a single unified, undifferentiated field, network, or other image in unstructured space; and the canvases were large, to enhance the visual effect and project monumentality and power. The movement had a great impact on U.S. and European art in the 1950s; it marked the shift of the creative centre of modem painting from Paris to New York. See also ABSTRACT ART; ACTION PAINTING.
Abu al-Hasan al-Ash'arl See Abu al-Hasan al-AsH c ARi
AbG ‘All Hasan ibn ‘All See Nizam al-Mulk
Abu Bakr \9-,bu-'ba-k3r\ (b. c. 573, Mecca, Hejaz, Arabian Peninsula—d. Aug. 23, 634, Medina) One of the close Companions of the Prophet Muhammad and the first Muslim caliph. Some Muslim traditions say he was the first male convert to Islam after Muhammad. He became caliph after Muhammad’s death in 632, and during his two years in that office he consolidated central Arabia under Muslim control, engaging in the wars of apostasy ( riddah ). He also realized the urgency of expanding the regions under Muslim control in order to maintain peace among Arab tribes.
Abu Dhabi Arabic Abu ZabI City (pop., 1995: 398,695), capital of AbG ZabI emirate and national capital of the United Arab Emirates. It occu¬ pies most of the small island of Abu ZabI, which is connected to the mainland by a bridge. Settled in 1761, it was of little importance until the discovery of oil in 1958. Oil royalties thereafter revolutionized its politi¬ cal and economic position, and it has grown into a modem city.
AbO HanTfah \3- 1 bu-ha- , ne-f3\ (al-Nu'mdn ibn Thabit) (b. 699, Kufah, Iraq—d. 767, Baghdad) Muslim jurist and theologian. The son of a merchant in Kufah, he gained wealth in the silk trade and studied law under the noted jurist Hammad. After Hammad’s death (738), Abu Hanl- fah became his successor. He was the first to develop systematic legal doctrines from the accumulated Islamic legal tradition. Primarily a scholar, he neither accepted a judgeship nor took direct part in court poli¬ tics; he supported the successors of ‘Au over the ruling Umayyad and 'Abbasid dynasties. His doctrinal system became one of four canonical schools of Islamic law (Sharia) and is still widely followed in India, Paki¬ stan, Turkey, Central Asia, and Arab countries.
Abu Muslim Xa-.bu-'mus-limX (d. 755) Leader of a revolutionary move¬ ment in Khorasan whose efforts brought down the Umayyad dynasty. Born into the mawall (non-Arab Muslim) class and of humble origins, he met an agent of the 'Abbasid family while in prison (741). After his arranged release, he was sent to Khorasan (745-746) to instigate a revolt. Recruit-
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8 I Abu Qir ► academy
ing from various discontented groups, he succeeded in overthrowing the last Umayyad caliph, Marwan II (750), and was rewarded with the gov¬ ernorship of Khorasan. His popularity led the second 'Abbasid caliph, al-Mansur, to view him as a threat and have him put to death. See also ‘Abbasid dynasty.
Abu Qir \,a-bu-'ker\ Bay Inlet of the Mediterranean Sea, lying near the Rosetta mouth of the Nile along the coast of Egypt. It was the scene of the Battle of the Nile (1798), in which an English fleet under Horatio Nel¬ son defeated the French fleet of Napoleon I.
Abu Simbel Site of two temples built by Ramses II in the 13th century bc. The area, at the southern frontier of pharaonic Egypt, lies near Egypt’s current border with The Sudan. The temples were unknown to the outside world until their rediscovery in 1813.