Glossary — H

Glossary terms beginning with H.

Habsburg Empire: Also known as the House of Austria, one of the principal European dynasties between the fifteenth and twentieth centuries. Controlled a variety of separate monarchies, reaching its most powerful stage in the sixteenth century under Emperor Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire (q.v.). After 1867 what remained of the empire was commonly known as Austria-Hungary.
habus: Islamic religious endowment or trust (usually real estate) used to support mosques, schools, and charitable works. Sometimes seen as habous or hubus; occurs as waqf outside the Maghrib (q.v.).
hacendado: Hacendados (owners of haciendas) often acted as intermediaries for gamonales (q.v.) in taking over native American lands and extorting wool merchants.
hadith: Tradition, based on the precedent of the Prophet Muhammad’s nondivinely revealed deeds and words, that serves as one of the sources of Islamic law (sharia--q.v.).; Source: Library of Congress
hafr (pl., hafri): An excavated water reservoir fed by rainfall.
Haganah: Literally, defense. Abbreviation for Irgun HaHaganah, the Jewish defense organization formed in 1919-20 by volunteers in early Jewish communities as home guards for protection against hostile bands. It became the military arm of the Jewish Agency (q.v.) and went underground during the British Palestine Mandate period (1922-48) when it was declared illegal. Along with the Jewish Brigade, which fought with the Allied forces in World War II, it formed the nucleus of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) established in 1948.; Source: Library of Congress
HaHistadrut HaKlalit shel HaOvdim B'Eretz Yisrael (General Federation of Laborers in the Land of Israel): Commonly known as Histadrut. Founded in 1920, this national- level organization was also the nation’s largest single employer after the government. Histadrut performs many economic and welfare services in addition to trade union activities; leadership of Histadrut has generally been drawn from the Labor Party and its predecessors.; Source: Library of Congress
halakah: Either those parts of the Talmud that concern legal matters or an accepted decision in rabbinical law. Sometimes translated as religious law.; Source: Library of Congress
Han: Also Han Chinese. Term used to designate the ethnic majority, which constitutes 93 percent of the population. The fifty-five minority nationalities make up the remainder.
han'gl: The Korean phonetic alphabet developed in fifteenth- century Yi Korea by scholars in the court of King Sejong. This alphabet is used in both North Korea and South Korea; in North Korea it is used exclusively, whereas in South Korea a mixture of the alphabet and Chinese characters is used.
Hanafi: One of four major legal schools in Sunni (q.v.) Islam, the Hanafi school makes substantial use of reason in legal opinions. Named for Ali Numan Abu Hanifa (ca. 700-67), a leading theologian in Iraq.; Source: Library of Congress
haq mehr: Promissory gift from the bride’s in-laws at the time of marriage. A kind of bridewealth based on Islamic traditions stipulated in the marriage contract, to be paid to the wife in the event of divorce or her husband’s early death.
hard currency: National currencies that are freely convertible and traded on international currency markets.
Hare system: Also known as the single transferable vote formula. The Hare system was developed in the nineteenth century by Thomas Hare, a British political reformer, to create constituencies with multiple representatives in electoral systems based on seeking proportional representation. Ballots are used on which a voter may rank his or her choices in order of preference. Any candidate who has received enough first-preference votes to meet a quota wins a seat. Votes above this quota are transferred to the candidates with second- preference votes, and each of those who meet the quota is awarded a seat. The process continues until all seats in a constituency are filled.; Source: Library of Congress
Harijans: Term introduced by Mahatma Gandhi for Untouchables. Literal meaning is children of God. Militant members of this group prefer to be called Dalit (q.v.) in self-recognition of their historical oppression.
hartani (pl., harratin): term referring to freed former slaves. In Arabic, literally ""plowman,"" referring to the low status of harratin.
Hasid (pl., Hasidim): Member of a religious movement, known as Hasidism, founded in the eighteenth century by Israel Ben-Eliezer Baal Shem Tov in Eastern Europe. The movement, still active in the 1980s, stresses the importance of serving God in ecstasy and has strong mystical elements.; Source: Library of Congress
hejab: Modesty in attire; defined by the Shia clergy to mean that women and girls must cover all their hair and flesh except for hands and face when in public. It is not necessary to wear a chador (a cloth serving as a cloak) to conform with hejab, although the two terms often are equated.
Helsinki Accords: Signed in August by all the countries of Europe (except Albania) plus Canada and the United States at the conclusion of the first meeting of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, the Helsinki Accords endorsed general principles of international behavior and measures to enhance security and addressed selected economic, environmental, and humanitarian issues. In essence, the Helsinki Accords confirmed existing, post-World War II national boundaries and obligated signatories to respect basic principles of human rights. Helsinki Watch groups were formed in 1976 to monitor compliance. The term Helsinki Accords is the short form for the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe and is also known as the Final Act.; Source: Library of Congress
Henriques: Militia units named after Henrique Dias, a black Brazilian guerrilla leader who led black troops against the Dutch in Pernambuco in the 1640s.; Source: Library of Congress
Her Majesty's Privy Council: As the final court of appeal for certain Commonwealth (q.v) countries, the Judicial Committee of Her Majesty’s Privy Council includes privy counsellors who hold or have held high judicial offices in Britain and present or former chief justices of Commonwealth countries.
hezbollahi: Literally, a follower of the party of God. Hezbollahis originally were followers of a particular religious figure who eventually came to constitute an unofficial political party. They were not an irregular or paramilitary group.
Highveld: High-altitude grassland, generally between 1,200 meters and 1,800 meters above sea level.
hijra: Literally, to migrate, to sever relations, to leave one’s tribe. Throughout the Muslim world, hijra refers to the migration of the Prophet Muhammad and his followers to Medina. In this sense, the word has come into European languages as hegira. The year of Muhammad’s hijra constitutes the beginning of the Islamic calendar.; Source: Library of Congress
Hmong: Largest Lao Sung (q.v.) ethnic group of northern Laos. This tribal group dwells at higher elevations than other ethnic groups. During the period of the Royal Lao Government (RLG) (q.v.), the Hmong were referred to as Meo.
Ho Chi Minh Trail: An intricate network of jungle trails, paths, and roads leading from the panhandle of northern Vietnam through Laos and Cambodia into the border provinces of southern Vietnam. At the height of the Second Indochina War (q.v.), it was a major resupply artery for Hanoi’s armed forces operating in South Vietnam.
Hoa: Term applied by the Vietnamese to the ethnic Chinese residents of Vietnam.
Hoa Hao: Indigenous Vietnamese religion centered in An Giang Province, southern Vietnam. It was founded in the 1930s by Huynh Phu So, the son of a village elder in Chau Doc Province. Doctrinally, the faith is a variant of Mahayana Buddhism, but allows no intermediary between man and the Supreme Being. Before the fall of Saigon in 1975, the Hoa Hao had more than 1 million adherents.
Hofkriegsrat: Central organ for all military matters in the Habsburg lands.
Holy Roman Empire: Enduring from A.D. 800 to 1806, official successor under papal authority to the Roman Empire. The title king of the Romans, first given to Charlemagne, was borne by a long succession of German kings. Centered in Germany, the empire at its peak (thirteenth century to sixteenth century) extended from the Low Countries to Czechoslovakia and southward into Italy. Weakened by struggles with Roman Catholic Church and the Reformation, then scattered by the results of the Thirty Years’ War (q.v.), 1648.
homeland or reserve: A primarily residential area set aside for a single officially designated black ethnic group during the apartheid era. Some of the ten homelands in the 1980s consisted of more than a dozen discrete segments of land. Homeland boundaries shifted as the government assigned additional groups of people to the often crowded homelands or as neighboring jurisdictions successfully pressed claims to territory within a homeland’s boundary.
Homowo: Ga annual homecoming festival.
horde: A horde (ordo in Mongol) was a force of several tumen (q.v.), roughly equivalent to a modern army corps. See also Golden Horde.
hudood (sing., hadd): The most serious kinds of crime in Islamic law, such as those pertaining to theft and adultery.
hujar (collective pl.): Refers to the agricultural settlements of the Ikhwan (q.v.), which combined features of religious missions, farming communities, and army camps. Word from same root as hijra; has sense of separation from previous affiliation.
Huks, or Huk: Short form of Hukbalahap, itself the abbreviated form of the Tagalog name for the guerrilla force established in 1942, known as the People’s Anti-Japanese Army (Hukbong Bayan Laban sa Hapon). In 1946 renamed the People’s Liberation Army (Hukbong Mapagpalaya ng Bayan).
human development index (HDI): A measurement of human progress introduced by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in its Human Development Report 1990. By combining indicators of real purchasing power, education, and health, the HDI provides a more comprehensive measure of development than does the GNP (q.v.) alone.; Source: Library of Congress
Hundred Flowers Campaign: Also Double Hundred Campaign. Party-sponsored initiative to permit greater intellectual and artistic freedom. Introduced first into drama and other arts in the spring of 1956 under the official slogan ""Let a hundred flowers bloom, let the hundred schools of thought contend."" With Mao’s encouragement in January 1957, the campaign was extended to intellectual expression and, by early May 1957, was being interpreted as permission for intellectuals to criticize political institutions of the regime. The effect was the large-scale exposure and purge of intellectuals critical of party and government policies.
hurals: Assemblies of people’s deputies. Hural is a vernacular term for kuriltai (q.v.).
Hussitism: Teachings of the fifteenth-century Czech religious reformer Jan Hus challenging papal authority and the corruption of the Roman Catholic Church. In asserting national autonomy in ecclesiastical affairs, Hussitism acquired an anti-German reputation and was considered a Czech national movement.