Glossary • 473Constitutionalists: Persons who believe that governments should uphold a set of
basic laws limiting the rulers' powers; more specifically, Persian nationalists
around 1906
Copt: Egyptian (or Ethiopian) Monophysite Christian
Cordoba (KOR-do-va): Spanish city, capital of the later Umayyads (756-1030)
Cossack: (1) Horse soldier of southern Russia; (2) member of a Persian brigade
trained and chiefly officered by Russian Cossacks up to 1921
Crane, Charles: American manufacturer and philanthropist; member of the
King-Crane Commission (1919) and adviser to Ibn Sa'ud (1931)
Crimea: Former Turkic, later Russian, now Ukrainian, peninsula north of the
Black Sea
Crimean War: Conflict among powers with imperial interests in the Middle East
(1853-1856), in which Britain, France, and the Ottoman Empire defeated Russia
Cromer, Lord: British consul in Egypt (1883-1907), a financial reformer, who was
resented by Egyptian nationalists
Crusades: European Christian military expeditions against Muslims (and some¬
times Greek Orthodox Christians) between the eleventh and fifteenth centuries
Ctesiphon (TESS-a-fawn): Sasanid capital, south of modern Baghdad
Curzon, Lord: (KER-zen) Britain's main representative at the 1923 Lausanne
Conference
Cyprus: Mediterranean island near Anatolia and Syria
Cyrenaica (sir-e-NAY-ka): Eastern Libya
Damascus: Syria's capital; seat of the early Umayyads (661-750)
Darazi, Shaykh (da-RAH-zee): Syrian founder of the Druze religion
Dardanelles: Straits connecting the Aegean to the Sea of Marmara
Dayan, Moshe (die-YAN, mo-SHEH): Israeli general and political leader (1915-1981)
Dayr Yasin (DARE ya-SEEN): Palestinian village near Jerusalem, where the Irgun
massacred Arab civilians (1948)
Declaration of Principles: Formal name of the statement signed by Palestinian,
Israeli, and US representatives in 1993
Demirel, Suleyman (deh-mir-REL, suh-lay-MAHN): Turkish political leader and
president (1993-2000)
Demokrat Party: Turkish political party in the 1950s
Desert Shield: US name for the multinational military buildup in Saudi Arabia
opposing Iraq's occupation of Kuwait in 1990
Desert Storm: US name for the multinational operation that attacked Iraq and
drove its troops from Kuwait in 1991
devshirme (dev-shir-MEH): Ottoman system of taking Christian boys, convert¬
ing them to Islam, and training them for military or administrative service
Dhahran (dhuh-RAHN): East Arabian city, site of first Saudi oil strike in 1938
diaspora (die-ASS-po-rah): Group of people, usually Jews but sometimes Arme¬
nians or Palestinians, who have been dispersed from their homeland to various
parts of the world