Masada

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Ma·sa·da

(mə-sä′də, -tsä-dä′)

An ancient mountaintop fortress in southeast Israel on the southwest shore of the Dead Sea. In ad 73, after a two-year siege, members of the Zealot Jewish movement committed mass suicide rather than surrender to the Romans.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Masada

(məˈsɑːdə)

(Placename) an ancient mountaintop fortress in Israel, 400 m (1300 ft) above the W shore of the Dead Sea: the last Jewish stronghold during a revolt in Judaea (66–73 ad). Besieged by the Romans for a year, almost all of the inhabitants killed themselves rather than surrender. The site is an Israeli national monument

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

Ma•sa•da

(məˈsɑ də)

n.

an ancient fortress in Israel on the SW shore of the Dead Sea.

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References in periodicals archive ?

Usama Bin Laden would use his experiences of organizing Sheikh Azzam's offices for Arab jihadists to not only become a major executive of this organization, but also to form his own stand-alone training camps in 1985 called Massadah Al-Ansar (Lion's Den of Companions).

This was a time in which Bin Laden created Massadah Al-Ansar and had 280 fighters under his own command called the khurasa (silent) brigade, his fighters were divided into two groups: an assault group led by Mohammed Islambooli (brother of Anwar Sadat's assassin) and a support group.

Bin Laden licked his wounds, recruited and developed his network of caves at Massadah Al-Ansar in the mountain region of Jaji.

Bin Laden was offered a Sudanese diplomatic passport, and Sudan's policy of requiring no visas for anyone coming from a Muslim country allowed him to bring remnants of his Massadah Al-Ansar group to Sudan.

Book provides additional insight into Bin Laden's past

Usama Bin Laden Yarwi Maarek Massadah Al-Ansar Al-Arab bee Afghanistan (Usama Bin Laden Narrates the Battles of the Arabs of Massadah Al-Ansar in Afghanistan) was published in 1991, by Manar Al-Jadid Press in Cairo.

Interview Between the Author and Bin Laden on Forming Massadah Al-Ansar

According to the book, the formation of Bin Laden's Massadah Al-Ansar (The Lion Den of the Companions) was a gradual process and represents a historic moment in the Arab jihadist movement.