Wiktionary
n. (context Islam English) the five "pillars", requirements or devotional duties of Islam; shada, salat, zakat, sawm and hajj
Wikipedia
Željko Ražnatović (, ; 17 April 1952 – 15 January 2000), better known as Arkan (Аркан), was a Serbian career criminal and commander of a paramilitary force in the Yugoslav Wars, called the Serb Volunteer Guard. He was on Interpol's most wanted list in the 1970s and 1980s for robberies and murders committed in a number of countries across Europe, and was later indicted by the UN for crimes against humanity for his role during the wars. Ražnatović was up until his death the most powerful crime boss in the Balkans. He was assassinated in 2000, before his trial could take place.
Arkan is a popular dance of the Ukrainian Hutsul people (from Hutsulshchyna, southwestern Ukraine).
The Arkan is traditionally performed around a burning bonfire by the men. The word Arkan also refers to the step that the men perform while dancing around the fire. The step begins with the right foot stepping to the side (or double stamping as the dance builds momentum), the left foot crosses behind, the right foot steps to the side again, and the left foot is hopped in front of the dancer with a bent knee. The dance is performed with the men's arms upon one another's shoulders. In professional Ukrainian dances, however, many variations may accompany this root step.
There is also a Romanian dance called Arcan.
British folk-punk band The Ukrainians have a (very fast and furious) track called Arkan on their Respublika album.
Arkan was the nom de guerre of Željko Ražnatović (1952–2000), a Serbian paramilitary leader from Montenegro.
Arkan may also refer to:
- Arkan (dance), dance of the Hutsul people in Ukraine
- Arkan, Iran (disambiguation), several places in Iran
- Arkan al-Islam (Five Pillars of Islam)
People with the given name or family name Arkan include:
- Seyfi Arkan (1903–1966), Turkish architect
- Arkan Simaan (born 1945), Lebanese-born French novelist and historian of science
- Arkan Mubayed (born 1983), Syrian footballer
Usage examples of "arkan".
He says I was dry-eyed, but my small brows knit, as if puzzling over something, though this ended after I picked up my mother's mirror, which being made of Arkan glass threw perfect reflections.
Now, looking in my mother's Arkan mirror, I felt I cut a very fine figure.
I called them all together and pulled them in close in front of my mother's Arkan mirror.
A year before a Yeoli merchant ship carrying weapons had been boarded by Arkans, searched, its captain tortured and its full cargo confiscated, all on suspicion that she intended to sell them to the Srians, with whom Arko was at war.
For the first time I saw Arkans: a clutch of marines, heads high and long golden hair tossing, one with a full steel breastplate lacquered red.
I remember the sea in the first paling of dawn, smooth as an Arkan mirror reflecting the flowering hues of the sky, except where our oar-blades cut through its skin to show the deep turquoise of its flesh hidden underneath.
The highest irony, I think, was Astalaz's Arkan slaves, who all wore their blond hair down to their waists, that being the mark of an Arkan noble, which to a man they were.
As I had asked, there were five copies of his oath of safe-conduct, in Arkan and Enchian.
One hears much of Arkan roads, built smooth and wide from one end of the empire to the other.
ChengV, and a guard I'd only come to know on this journey, lying on the poured stone of the Arkan road, his hand clutched to his sword-side ear and blood pouring from his mouth.
All my training, striving, expectations, I thought, to make me this: a corpse to be sold to Arkans to fatten a Roskati traitor.
The Arkans, once they raked the pit and found no dead Chevenga (let them find their friends instead, and Nikroda get what he deserved), would track me with horses and dogs, like a runaway slave.
Betrayed by Arkans, saved by Roskati, betrayed by Roskati, saved by some dead Arkans skull, only to die of thirst with my hands in clear fresh water, killed and eaten by a cursed plant.
The Arkan wa y of breaking new slaves is very different from the Lakan.
He bound my arms using a pole behind my back, and put me in an Arkan slave-collar, one of those with the screws that can be tightened against the windpipe, the throat-arteries, and the nerves on the side of the neck, whichever the slaver chooses.