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AUDIO GLOSSARY
Glossary for the letter "S":
Click the audio icon to hear pronunciations. View full glossary.
| | Safavid Empire 
Iranian kingdom established by Ismail Safavi, who declared Iran (Persia) a Shi'ite state, 1502 - 1722.
sahel
Arabic word meaning "shore" and referring to the dry area between the Sahara and the forests or grasslands south of it.
Saint Domingue
French Caribbean colony that produced sugar and considerable revenue for France; it later became the independent nation of Haiti.
Samarqand
Trade city along the Silk Road in Central Asia.
Sapa Inka
The sole ruler of the Inka, believed to be a descendant of the sun god and his representative on earth; his cult became the center of the Inkan state religion.
sari
Indian clothing for women consisting of one long piece of cloth wrapped around the body and over the shoulder.
sarong
Clothing for men and women in Southeast Asia consisting of one piece of cloth wrapped around the waist.
Sassanian
Last Persian empire before the expansion of Arab peoples, 224 - 642 CE.
Sassanid
Persian government, 224 - 651 CE.
satyagraha
Political philosophy of Gandhi that stressed nonviolent resistance.
Satyajit Ray
Indian film director.
sedentism
System of settled human groups living in a permanent settlement.
Sejong
Fifteenth-century Korean ruler who ordered the creation of a written script for the Korean language.
shaman
Priest who channels spirits for his or her religious community.
Shang
First Chinese dynasty, eighteenth to eleventh centuries BCE .
shari'a
Muslim law.
shaykh
Title for an Arab tribal leader.
Shi'ite
Muslims who believe that their leader should be a direct descendant of the Prophet Muhammad.
Shi'ite Safavids
The Safavids made Shi'ia the state religion of Persia.
Shinto
Literally "Way of the Gods"; indigenous religion of Japan.
shoen
Manors or estates of nobility during and after Japanese Heian period.
shogun
Japanese military ruler of Japan, circa 1200 - 1868.
shogunate
Government of the shogun.
Siddhartha
The given name of the Buddha.
Silla
State that unified the Korean peninsula for the first time in 668 CE and ruled as the Silla dynasty until the tenth century.
Sima Qian
Chinese historian of the Han dynasty.
Simon Bolivar
Leader of independence movement in South America, 1783 - 1830.
ska
Jamaican music style that influenced reggae.
small metropole
City with less than one million residents.
Song
Chinese dynasty, 960 - 1279 CE.
Songhay
Last of the three great empires in the western Sudan from the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries.
Sotho
Bantu-speaking peoples of southern Africa who fought against European settlement and colonization.
Srivijaya
Empire in Southeast Asia that controlled trade from the fifth to fifteenth century CE.
Sufis
Muslim mystics.
Sufism
Mystical approach to Islam.
Sumer
Ancient city-state in Mesopotamia which saw the invention of cuneiform writing about 3500 BCE.
Sumerian
From Sumer, the earliest Mesopotamian society.
Sunjata
Founder of the Malian empire in the thirteenth century; protagonist of epic tales performed by griots.
Sunni
The Muslim majority who believe that the community should select its own leadership instead of only looking to direct descendants of the Prophet Muhammad.
swadeshi
Term derived from "swadesh," used to name the boycott of foreign-made goods led by Mohandas Gandhi in British-controlled India.
swadesh
Literally "of our own country".
Swahili
East African people who speak Swahili, the Bantu language that draws upon borrowed Arabic words as well as words from other languages spoken by mariners in the Indian Ocean.
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