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Abbas ibn Firnas (810–887): An Andalusian scientist, musician and inventor. He developed a clear glass used in drinking vessels, and lenses used for magnification and the improvement of vision. He had a room in his house where the sky was simulated, including the motion of planets, stars and weather complete with clouds, thunder and lightning. He is most well known for reportedly surviving an attempt at controlled flight.

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Abbas I (Abbas the Great 1557-1629): Shah of Persia (1587-1628), of the Safavid dynasty. In 1597 he ended the raids of the Uzbeks, and subsequently (1603-23) he conquered extensive territories from the Turks. He maintained diplomatic contacts with Europe, and with English aid he took (1622) Hormoz from the Portuguese and founded what is now the port of Bandar Abbas. At his capital at Esfahan, he erected many palaces, mosques, and gardens and did much to improve public works in Persia.

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Abbas II (Abbas Hilmi, 1874-1944): Last khedive of Egypt (1892-1914): son and successor of Tewfik Pasha. Nominally, he ruled in subordination to the Ottoman Empire, but in fact Egypt was controlled by the British resident-at first Lord Cromer, and later Lord Kitchener. Although he resisted complete British rule, Abbas met with little success; in 1899 he was forced to admit the British claim to rule jointly with Egypt over Sudan. When Turkey joined the Central Powers in World War I, Britain declared Egypt a British protectorate and deposed Abbas. He lived thereafter in Switzerland, where he died. He wrote The Anglo-Egyptian Settlement (1930).

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Abbas, Mahmud (1935- ): Palestinian politician; prime minister of Palestinian Authority, 2003 — born of middle class parents in Safad, Palestine, he and his family fled to Syria during the 1948-49 Arab Israeli war. Abbas graduated in law at Damascus University and then earned a doctorate in history at the Oriental College, Moscow. On 1965 he was one of the founder members of Fatah. Three years later, he was elected a member of the Palestine National Council.

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Abd Al-Azir ibn Saud (1880-1953): Muhammad ibn Saud, the charismatic founder of the Saudi dynasty (also known as the House of Saud), was born around 1703. After succeeding his father as the ruler of the oasis principality of Diriyyah at the age of forty, he formed an alliance with Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, the renowned Islamic scholar and reformer of Arabia, in 1744 and thereby laid the foundations of the modern Saudi State. The two Muhammads thus joined together to create a formidable politico-religious alliance in Arabia. To further strengthen their relationship, Muhammad ibn Saud married Ibn Abd al-Wahhab’s daughter in 1744. The first Saudi State was established around 1744 and it endured until it was destroyed in 1818 by the forces of Muhammad Ali Pasha, the powerful Ottoman viceroy of Egypt. Modeled on the first Saudi State, another politico-religious order then emerged in Arabia in 1824, but incessant internal strife and political rivalry led to its disintegration in 1891. However, the credit for laying the foundations of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the modern Saudi State, must go to Abd al-Aziz ibn Saud, who was undoubtedly one of the most charismatic and influential Arab leaders of modern times.

Abd al-Aziz ibn Abd al-Rahman ibn Faisal al-Saud, known as Ibn Saud for short, was born in Riyadh, the capital of modern Saudi Arabia, but he spent his early years in Kuwait. Exasperated by his battles with his brothers, Abd al-Rahman ibn Faisal was eventually forced to leave Arabia in 1891 after Riyadh was captured by Muhammad ibn Rashid, the ruler of Najd and a political rival of the al-Sauf family. During his exile in Kuwait, however, he maintained close contact with his supporters back home, hoping one day to return to his native Riyadh in triumph. Ibn Saud received training in all aspects of desert warfare and soon became an expert in launching military raids. His years of training in military strategy and desert warfare equipped him with much-needed skills and experience to organize and launch the military expeditions to reclaim his ancestral homeland from his rivals.

Even after Kuwait became a British protectorate in 1899, they struggled to protect their political and economic interests in the region from German and French encroachment. Following the death of the charismatic Rashidi ruler Muhammad ibn Abdullah in 1897, Riyadh was rocked by both political upheaval and social uprisings. The situation deteriorated further as his successor, Abd al-Aziz ibn Mitaab, ruthlessly suppressed the uprising. Despite the volatile situation at home, the new Rashidi ruler – supported by the Ottomans – launched an unprovoked attack on Kuwait, which was still then a British protectorate, in 1900. But thanks to the British, the Rashidi ruler’s attempt to annex Kuwait failed miserably. Indeed, Ibn Mitaab’s attack on Kuwait backfired in a spectacular fashion, as Shaykh al-Mubarak al-Saba, the ruler of Kuwait, and Abd al-Rahman ibn Faisal, the father of Ibn Saud, now united to fight and drive out the Rashidis from Arabia. Leading a ten thousand strong force, the two men attacked the Rashidi forces with great success. During this period the twenty-two year old Ibn Saud spearheaded the attack on Riyadh, his native city.

In the ensuing battle, the city’s governor was slain by Abdullah ibn Jelawi, Ibn Said’s cousin, and they inflicted a crushing defeat on their enemy. The fall of Riyadh marked the beginning of the end for the Rashidis, as the House of Saud swiftly reasserted its authority across the country under the able stewardship of Ibn Saud and his father. Thereafter, Ibn Saud urged the local clerics and the people of Riyadh to pledge allegiance to his father, Abd al-Rahman ibn Faisal, as their new sovereign; the people responded to his call and pledged their allegiance to him. Later, Ibn Saud’s popularity and standing with the masses prompted his father to abdicate in favor of his son, who accordingly became the King.

With Riyadh now firmly in his grip, Ibn Saud was eager to extend his rule across the rest of Arabia, but he knew that would not be an easy task given that the Rashidis were in full control in Najd. Thus, over the next five decades, he married more than a dozen times, fathering around forty sons and fifty daughters. He knew that forming alliances through multiple marriages not only helped to extend his family ties, it also strengthened his political powerbase. In 1912, he established a special fighting force which came to be known as the Ikhwan (the ‘Brotherhood’). The members of this force were loyal supporters of the House of Saud and strict adherents of Islam as interpreted by Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab.

With the support of the Ikhwan troops, Ibn Saud first conquered the wealthy region of Hasa (situated on the coast of the Persian Gulf) and then went on to smash the Rashidis of Najd in 1921. Five years later, he ousted the Hashimites from the Hijaz, thus extending his rule and authority over the holy cities of Mecca and Medina which brought him much-needed revenue for his fledgling administration from the visiting pilgrims. Not keen on pursuing endless military conquests, Ibn Saud swiftly disbanded the Ikhwan and focused his full attention on improving the economic fortunes of his new kingdom. He established a Council of Ministers to oversee the affairs of the State, and appointed close members of his family to key positions within the Government. Thus his two eldest sons, Saud and Faisal, were offered high-ranking Government posts in the province of Najd and Hijaz. During this period he also enforce the Shari’ah (Islamic law) across the State and in due course this became the supreme law of the land.

Then,in 1930, Ibn Saud established a Ministry of Foreign Affairs and appointed his second son, Faisal, as Foreign Minister and he played a key role in establishing diplomatic relations with some of the world’s leading powers, including the United States of America. Two years later, the formation of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was officially announced. This was followed, in the mid-1930s, by the discovery of the world’s largest oil reserves beneath the barren deserts of Arabia. By the 1940s, Saudi Arabia’s diplomatic relations with the powerful industrial Western nations (especially the United States) was formalized. The special US-Saudi relationship was formalized by Ibn Saud and President Roosevelt during their meeting onboard the US naval ship USS Quincy in 1945. Thanks to the new petrodollars, the once backward and poverty-stricken desert kingdom suddenly became one of the world’s most prosperous countries.

Ibn Saud, the founder of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, eventually died at the age of seventy-three and was buried in his native Riyadh. He was succeeded by his eldest son, Saud, who ruled the kingdom for eleven years before abdicating in favor of his younger brother, Faisal. Like his father, Faisal was a wise and able ruler, but he was assassinated in 1975. Khalid, Ibn Saud’s fourth son, then ascended the Saudi throne and ruled for seven years until his death in 1982. He was succeeded by Fahd who ruled the kingdom until his death in 2005. Abdullah, his half-brother, then succeeded him as King.

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Abd al-Majid or Abdulmecit (1823-1861): Ottoman sultan (1839-1861), son and successor Mahmud II to the throne of the Ottoman Empire. The rebellion of Muhammad Ali was checked by the intervention (1840-41) of England, Russia, and Austria. Abd al-Majid was influenced by the British ambassador, Viscount Stratford de Redcliffe, who helped persuade the sultan to introduce Western reforms. Two decrees (1839, 1856) led to many changes but did not have permanent effect. Confident in British and French support, Abd al-Majid resisted (1853) the Russian claim to act as protector of the Orthodox Christians in the Ottoman Empire. This was a primary cause of the Crimean War. Turkey received no concrete gains at the Congress of Paris (1856; see Paris, Congress of). The sultan was succeeded by his brother, Abd al-Aziz. Ottoman sultan; modernizer of the army through “Tanzimat”.

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Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan (646-705): After Muawiyah’s death in 680, his son, Yazid, ascended the Umayyad throne, but he failed to live up to his father’s expectations. His heavy-handed tactics backfired in a spectacular fashion after the grisly murder of Hussain at the plain of Karbala. After three years of political chaos and mismanagement, Yazid was succeeded by his twenty-one year old son, Muawiyah ibn Yazid, who, unlike his father, was a sickly but peace-loving young man who abdicated within months of his accession. This led to more political chaos and uncertainty, as there was no obvious candidate to succeed him. After much political infighting and wrangling, the veteran politician Marwan ibn Hakam, who served as governor of Medina for a long period, was sworn in as the fourth Caliph of the Umayyad dynasty.

Thus Abdullah ibn Zubair, the son of the renowned Zubair ibn Awwam, assumed control of the entire Hijaz, while Mu’sab ibn Zubair proclaimed himself the administrator of Iraq on behalf of his brother. By contrast, Marwan ibn Hakam, the newly appointed Umayyad Caliph, found himself in charge of only southern Syria. He then proceeded to Egypt and brought this important country under Umayyad control. However, he was succeeded in 685 by his son, Abd al-Malik, who went on to become one of the Umayyad dynasty’s most successful rulers, along with Muawiyah ibn Abi Sufyan.

Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan ibn Hakam was born in Medina during the early years of Caliph Uthman’s reign. His father, Marwan ibn Hakam, was an influential member of the Umayyah clan. When Caliph Uthman was brutally murdered by a group of insurgents in 656, Abd al-Malik was still in his early teens. When the supporters of Abdullah ibn Zubair drove out the Umayyads from Mecca and Medina, Abd al-Malik, who was in his mid-thirties at the time, moved with his entire family to Syria where he became his father’s chief political advisor after the latter’s ascension to the Umayyad throne in 684. A year later, he succeeded his father as the Umayyad Caliph in 685; he was in his early forties at the time.

The Byzantines threatened to invade the Umayyad territories at the same time. In short, Abd al-Malik could not have ascended the Umayyad throne at a more dangerous and challenging time. After signing a peace treaty with the Byzantines and agreeing to pay them an annual tribute, he reorganized and expanded his armed forces in order to crush all political and military opposition against his rule in the Hijaz, Iraq and the neighboring territories. His failure to reassert his authority in Iraq prompted Abd al-Malik to change his political and military strategy, and he decided to consolidate his position in Syria and Egypt, and patiently wait to deal with his opponents at the right moment. For the next five years, he took no action against the rebels in Iraq.

Now there were only two main contenders for the Caliphate, namely Abdullah in Mecca and Abd al-Malik in Damascus. Like Hussain ibn Ali, Abdullah rebelled against the Umayyads soon after the death of Muawiyah in 680, having flatly refused to acknowledge Yazid as Caliph. Although Hussain was brutally murdered by Yazid’s forces at Karbala, Abdullah continued his opposition against Yazid and his successors, and in so doing established his authority across Hijaz and parts of Iraq.

Sensing Abdullah’s vulnerability, Abd al-Malik personally led a military expedition to Iraq and in the ensuing war, he not only defeated his opponents but also reasserted Umayyad authority across that country. He then dispatched a large army to Mecca under the command of the notorious Hajjaj ibn Yusuf in order to bring Abdullah to heel. Following Abdullah’s defeat at the hands of the Umayyad forces in 692, Abd al-Malik reunited the Muslim world under his leadership and restored peace and security throughout his dominion. It is true that two of the most notorious military generals, Ubaydullah ibn Ziyad and Hajjaj ibn Yusuf, thrived during his reign.

After restoring the political unity of the Muslim world, Abd al-Malik authorized fresh military campaigns in different parts of the world. He dispatched a large army under the command of Hassan ibn al-Nu’man which, despite an initial setback, went on to capture Carthage from the Byzantines and establish Islamic rule across North Africa. In addition to this, he instigated a series of campaigns against the Hindu rulers of Kabul.

Abd al-Malik’s influence extended far beyond the political and military spheres. He became a champion of the Arabic language and actively promoted it throughout his dominion. This forced all his foreign officials and civil servants to learn Arabic. Then, between 696 and 698, he abolished and phased out regional coinage, thereby removing the distinction between the Sasanian dirham (silver) and Syriac, Egyptian and Palestinian dinars (gold) and replacing them with a standard Arabic coinage for the first time.

Abd al-Malik planned and constructed the magnificent Qubbat al-Sakhra (or the ‘Dome of the Rock’). Constructed in 692 on the site of the rock (Sakhra) from which the Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven (Miraj), this breathtaking Islamic edifice is today considered to be one of the world’s most famous mosques along with the Masjid al-Haram (the Sacred Mosque) in Mecca and the Masjid al-Nabi (the Prophet’s Mosque) in Medina. The Dome of the Rock is one of the Muslim world’s most spectacular and breathtaking works of architecture.

Caliph Abd al-Malik’s highly productive reign of two decades came to an end at the age of fifty-nine; he was buried in Damascus. He must be considered one of the Muslim world’s most successful rulers. Historians often refer to him as the ‘father of Kings’ because he was succeeded by his four sons, al-Walid, Sulaiman, Yazid II and Hisham.

Abd al-Malik, c.646-705, 5^th Umayyad caliph (685-705); son of Marwan I. At his accession, Islam was torn by dissension and threatened by the Byzantine Empire. With the help of his able general al-Hajjaj, Abd al-Malik overthrew the rival caliphs and united Islam. His battles with Byzantine forces were without final result. A caliph; came to power in 685 ACE and ruled for 20 years (Iraq). Promoted the Arabic language; caused great expansion of the Islamic Empire. Umayyad caliph (685-705) who restored Umayyad power after a period of civil war; the Dome of the Rock was completed under his auspices in 691.

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Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani (1077-1166): The great spiritual leaders were eager to understand the true nature of reality, which would enable them to move closer to Divine proximity – the origin of all that exists. One of the Muslim world’s most influential, and arguably the most revered, Sufi (or spiritual teacher and guide) was Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani.

Sayyid Muhyi al-Din Abu Muhammad Abd al-Qadir Hasani al-Jilani was born in Nif, a district town of Jilan in the province of Tabaristan, located on the coast of the Caspian Sea. His family traced their lineage back to Hasan, the eldest son of Caliph Ali and a grandson of the Prophet. Abd al-Qadir received his early education in Arabic, committed the whole Qur’an to memory and studied aspects of Hadith (Prophetic traditions) at home under the supervision of his mother and maternal grandfather.

In 1095, Abd al-Qadir left his native Jilan and journeyed to Baghdad, which was the capital of the Muslim world at the time. After a long and eventful journey, he finally reached Baghdad. At the time Baghdad was a thriving center of Islamic learning and commercial activity.

Under Shaykh al-Dabbas’s instruction, Abd al-Qadir not only learned the theories and methods of Sufism, but also became exposed to a new universe of meaning, purpose and spiritual fulfillment. Being a Sufi himself, the Hanbali jurist Abu Sa’id also played a decisive role in Abd al-Qadir’s early quest for spirituality and fulfillment.

Abd al-Qadir’s remarkable and unique ability to combine Islamic traditionalism with Islamic spirituality made him a hugely popular figure during his lifetime. Thanks to his intellectual brilliance and unique style of delivery, hundreds of non-Muslims (including Jews and Christians) embraced Islam and thousands of ordinary Muslims began to take their faith seriously. He became one of the first Sufi scholars in the annals of Islam to acquire such a mass following. More than seventy thousand people used to attend his lectures at any one time and around four hundred scribes used to write down his talks for the benefit of posterity. He was one of the most meticulous followers of the Prophetic sunnah.

Thanks to his band of dedicated scribes, Abd al-Qadir’s lectures were preserved in the form of books and manuscripts for the benefit of posterity. In total, more than twenty-four books and manuscripts have been attributed to him. Abd al-Qadir argued that man was a creature of God Who created him only to serve Him. Abd al-Qadir did not consider God to be a theological construct or a logical abstract; rather, he believed, He is One Who resides in our hearts and continues to influence us in every sphere of our lives. Named after him, the Qadiriyyah Sufi Order is today followed by millions of people throughout the Muslim world.

Abd al-Qadir himself once remarked, ‘My foot is on the head of every saint.’ He died at the venerable age of around eighty-nine and was buried in Abbasid Baghdad.

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Abd al-Rahman I (731-788): Or, his full name by patronymic record, Abd al-Rahman ibn Mu’awiya ibn Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan (731-788) was the founder of the Umayyad Emirate of Córdoba (755), a Muslim dynasty that ruled the greater part of Iberia for nearly three centuries (including the succeeding Caliphate of Córdoba). The Muslims called the regions of Iberia under their dominion al-Andalus. Abd al-Rahman’s establishment of a government in al-Andalus represented a branching from the rest of the Islamic Empire, which had been brought under the Abbasid following the overthrow of the Umayyads from Damascus in 750.

He was also known by appellations al-Dakhil (“the Immigrant”), Saqr Quraish (“the Falcon of the Quraysh”) and the “Falcon of Andalus”. Variations of the spelling of his name include Abd ar-Rahman I, Abdul Rahman I and Abderraman I

Flight from Damascus:

Born near Damascus in Syria, Abd al-Rahman, grandson of Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik, was the son of the Umayyad prince Mu’awiyah ibn Hisham and a Berber concubine. He was twenty when his family, the ruling Umayyads, were overthrown by a popular revolt known as the Abbasid Revolution, occurring in the year 750. Abd al-Rahman and a small selection of his family fled Damascus, where the center of Umayyad power had been; people moving with him include his brother Yahiya, his four-year old son Sulayman, and some of his sisters, as well as his former Greek slave (a freedman), Bedr. The family fled from Damascus to the River Euphrates. All along the way the path was filled with danger, as the Abbasids had dispatched horsemen across the region to try to find the Umayyad prince and kill him. The Abbasids were merciless with all Umayyads that they found. Abbasid agents closed in on Abd al-Rahman and his family while they were hiding in a small village. He left his young son with his sisters and fled with Yahiya.

Abd al-Rahman, Yahiya and Bedr quit the village narrowly escaping the Abbasid assassins. Later, on the way south, Abbasid horsemen again caught up with the trio: Abd al-Rahman and his companions then threw themselves into the River Euphrates. While trying to swim across the dangerous Euphrates, Abd al-Rahman is said to have become separated from his brother Yahiya, who began swimming back towards the horsemen, possibly from fear of drowning. The horsemen beseeched the escapees to return, and that no harm would come to them. Yahiya returned to the near shore, and was quickly dispatched by the horsemen. They cut the head off their prize, leaving Yahiya’s body to rot. Al-Maqqari quotes prior Muslim historians as having recorded that Abd al-Rahman said he was so overcome with fear at that moment, that once he made the far shore he ran until exhaustion overcame him. Only he and Bedr were left to face the unknown.

Exile years:

After barely escaping with their lives, Abd al-Rahman and Bedr continued south through Palestine, the Sinai, and then into Egypt. Abd al-Rahman had to keep a low profile as he traveled. It may be assumed that he intended to go at least as far as northwestern Africa (Maghreb), the land of his mother, which had been partly conquered by his Umayyad predecessors. The journey across Egypt would prove perilous. At the time, Abd al-Rahman ibn Habib al-Fihri was the semiautonomous governor of Ifriqiya (roughly, modern Tunisia) and a former Umayyad client. The ambitious Ibn Habib, a member of the illustrious Fihrid family, had long sought to carve out Ifriqiya as a private dominion for himself. Ibn Habib broke openly with the Abbasids and invited the remnants of the Umayyad dynasty to take refuge in his dominions. Abd al-Rahman was only one of several surviving Umayyad family members to make their way to Ifriqiya at this time.

But Ibn Habib soon changed his mind. He feared the presence of prominent Umayyad exiles in Ifriqiya, a family more illustrious than his own, might become a focal point for intrigue among local nobles against his own usurped powers. Around 755, believing he had discovered plots involving some of the more prominent Umayyad exiles in Kairouan, Ibn Habib turned against them. At the time, Abd al-Rahman and Bedr were keeping a low profile, staying in Kabylia, at the camp of a Nafza Berber chieftain friendly to their plight. Ibn Habib dispatched spies to look for the wayward Umayyad prince. When Ibn Habib’s soldiers entered the camp, the Berber chieftain’s wife Tekfah hid Abd al-Rahman under her personal belongings to help him go unnoticed. Once they were gone, Abd a-Rahman and Bedr immediately set off westwards.

In 755, Abd al-Rahman and Bedr reached modern day Morocco near Ceuta. Their next step would be to cross the sea to al-Andalus, where Abd al-Rahman could not have been sure whether or not he would be welcomed. Following the Berber Revolt of the 740s, the province was in a state of confusion, with the Muslim community torn by tribal dissensions among the Arabs and racial tensions between the Arabs and Berbers. At that moment, the nominal ruler of al-Andalus, emir Yusuf ibn ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Fihri (another member of the Fihrid family, and a favorite of the old Arab settlers (Baladiyun), mostly of south Arabian or ‘Yemenite’ tribal stock) was locked in a contest with his vizier (and son-in-law) al-Sumayl ibn Hatim al-Qilabi, the head of the new settlers (Shamiyum, the Syrian Junds or military regiments, mostly of north Arabian Qaysid tribes, which had arrived only in 742).

Among the Syrian Junds were contingents of old Umayyad clients, numbering perhaps 500, and Abd al-Rahman believed he might tug on old loyalties and get them to receive him. Bedr was dispatched across the straits to make contact. Bedr managed to line up three Syrian commanders – Obeid Allah ibn Uthman and Abd Allah ibn Khalid, both originally of Damascus, and Yusuf ibn Bukht of Qinnasrin The trio approached the Syrian arch-commander al-Sumayl (then in Zaragoza) to get his consent, but al-Sumayl refused, fearing Abd al-Rahman would try to make himself emir. As a result, Bedr and the Umayyad clients sent out feelers to their rivals, the Yemenite commanders. Although the Yemenites were not natural allies (the Umayyads are a Qaysid tribe), their interest was piqued.

The emir Yusuf al-Fihri, had proven himself unable to keep the powerful al-Sumayl in check and several Yemenite chieftains felt their future prospects were poor, whether in a Fihrid or Syrian-dominated Spain, that they had a better chance of advancement if they hitched themselves to the glitter of the Umayyad name. Although the Umayyads did not have a historical presence in the region (no member of the Umayyad family was known to have ever set foot in al-Andalus before) and there were grave concerns about young Abd al-Rahman’s inexperience, several of the lower-ranking Yemenite commanders felt they had little to lose and much to gain, and agreed to support the prince. Bedr returned to Africa to tell Abd al-Rahman of the invitation of the Umayyad clients in al-Andulus. Abd al-Rahman landed at Almunecar in al-Andalus, to the east of Malaga in September 755; however, his landing site was unconfirmed.

Fight for power:

Upon landing in al-Andalus, Abd al-Rahman was greeted by clients Abu Uthman and Ibn Khalid and an escort of 300 cavalry. During his brief time in Málaga, he was able to amass local support quickly. Waves of people made their way to Málaga to pay respect to the prince they thought was dead, including many of the aforementioned Syrians. One famous story which persisted through history related to a gift Abd al-Rahman was given while in Málaga. The gift was a beautiful young slave girl, but Abd al-Rahman humbly returned her to her previous master.

News of the prince’s arrival spread like wildfire throughout the peninsula. During this time, emir al-Fihri and the Syrian commander al-Sumayl, pondered what to do about the new threat to their shaky hold on power. They decided to try to marry Abd al-Rahman into their family. If that did not work, then Abd al-Rahman would have to be killed. Abd al-Rahman was apparently sagacious enough to expect such a plot. In order to help speed his ascension to power, he was prepared to take advantage of the feuds and dissensions. However, before anything could be done, trouble broke out in northern al-Andalus. Zaragoza, an important trade city on the Upper March of al-Andalus, made a bid for autonomy.

Al-Fihri and al-Sumayl rode north to squash the rebellion. This might have been fortunate timing for Abd al-Rahman, since he was still getting a solid foothold in al-Andalus. By March 756, Abd al-Rahman and his growing following of Umayyad clients and Yemenite Junds, were able to take Sevilla without violence. After settling his bloody business in Zaragoza, al-Fihri turned his army back south to face the “pretender”. The fight for the right to rule al-Andalus was about to begin. The two contingents met on opposite sides of the River Guadalquivir, just outside the capital of Córdoba on the plains of Musarah.

The river was, for the first time in years, overflowing its banks, heralding the end of a long drought. Nevertheless, food was still scarce, and Abd al-Rahman’s army suffered from hunger. In an attempt to demoralize Abd al-Rahman’s troops, al-Fihri ensured that his troops not only were well fed, but also ate gluttonous amounts of food in full view of the Umayyad lines. An attempt at negotiations soon followed in which it is likely that Abd al-Rahman was offered the hand of al-Fihri’s daughter in marriage and great wealth. Abd ar-Rahman, however, would settle for nothing less than control of the emirate, and an impasse was reached. Even before the fight began, dissension spread through some of Abd al-Rahman’s lines. Specifically, the Yemeni Arabs were unhappy that the prince was mounted on a fine Spanish steed. And the prince’s mettle was untried in battle, after all! The Yemenis observed significantly that such a fine horse would provide an excellent mount to escape from battle.

Being the ever-wary politician, Abd al-Rahman acted quickly to regain Yemeni support, and rode to a Yemeni chief who was mounted on a mule named “Lightning”. Abd al-Rahman averred that his horse proved difficult to ride and was wont to buck him out of the saddle. He offered to exchange his horse for the mule, a deal to which the surprised chief readily agreed. The swap quelled the simmering Yemeni rebellion. Soon both armies were in their lines on the same bank of the Guadalquivir. Abd al-Rahman had no banner, and so one was improvised by unwinding a green turban and binding it round the head of a spear. Subsequently the turban and the spear became the banner and symbol of the Andalusian Umayyads. Abd al-Rahman led the charge toward al-Fihri’s army. Al-Sumayl in turn advanced his cavalry out to meet the Umayyad threat. After a long and difficult fight “Abd ar-Rahman obtained a most complete victory, and the field was strewn with the bodies of the enemy”. Both al-Fihri and al-Sumayl managed to escape the field (probably) with parts of the army too.

Abd al-Rahman triumphantly marched into the capital, Córdoba. Danger was not far behind, as al-Fihri planned a counterattack. He reorganized his forces and set out for the capital Abd al-Rahman had usurped from him. Again Abd al-Rahman met al-Fihri with his army; this time negotiations were successful, although the terms were somewhat changed. In exchange for al-Fihri’s life and wealth, he would be a prisoner and not allowed to leave the city limits of Córdoba. Al-Fihri would have to report once a day to Abd al-Rahman, as well as turn over some of his sons and daughters as hostages. For a while al-Fihri met the obligations of the one-sided truce, but he still had many people loyal to him; people who would have liked to see him back in power.

Al-Fihri eventually did make another bid for power. He quit Córdoba and quickly started gathering supporters. While at large, al-Fihri managed to gather an army allegedly numbering to 20,000. It is doubtful, however, that his troops were “regular” soldiers, but rather a hodge-podge of men from various parts of al-Andalus. Abd ar-Rahman’s appointed governor in Sevilla took up the chase, and after a series of small fights, managed to defeat al-Fihri’s army. Al-Fihri himself managed to escape to the former Visigoth capital of Toledo in central al-Andalus; once there, he was promptly killed. Al-Fihri’s head was sent to Córdoba, where Abd al-Rahman had it nailed to a bridge. With this act, Abd ar-Rahman proclaimed himself the emir of al-Andalus. One final act had to be performed, however: al-Fihri’s general, al-Sumayl, had to be dealt with, and he was garroted in Córdoba’s jail.

Rule:

Indeed, Abd al-Rahman only proclaimed himself as emir, and not as caliph. This was likely because al-Andalus was a land besieged by many different loyalties, and the proclamation of caliph would have likely caused much unrest. Abd al-Rahman’s progeny would, however, take up the title of caliph. In the meantime, a call went out through the Muslim world that al-Andalus was a safe haven for friends of the house of Umayyah, if not for Abd al-Rahman’s scattered family that managed to evade the Abbasids. Abd al-Rahman probably was quite happy to see his call answered by waves of Umayyad faithful and family. He was finally reacquainted with his son Sulayman, whom he last saw weeping on the banks of the Euphrates with his sisters. Abd ar-Rahman’s sisters were unable to make the long voyage to al-Andalus. Abd al-Rahman placed his family members in high offices across the land, as he felt he could trust them more than non-family. The Umayyad family would again grow large and prosperous over successive generations. However, by 763 Abd ar-Rahman had to get back to the business of war. Al-Andalus had been invaded by an Abbasid army.

Far away in Baghdad, the current Abbasid caliph, al-Mansur, had long been planning to depose the Umayyad who dared to call himself emir of al-Andalus. Al-Mansur installed al-Ala ibn-Mugith (also known as al-Ala) as governor of Africa (whose title gave him dominion over the province of al-Andalus). It was al-Ala who headed the Abbasid army that landed in al-Andalus, possibly near Beja (in modern day Portugal). Much of the surrounding area of Beja capitulated to al-Ala, and in fact rallied under the Abbasid banners against Abd al-Rahman. Abd al-Rahman had to act quickly. The Abbasid contingent was vastly superior in size, said to have numbered 7,000 men. The emir quickly made for the redoubt of Carmona with his army. The Abbasid army was fast on his heels, and laid siege to Carmona for approximately two months. Abd al-Rahman must have sensed that time was against him as food and water became scarce, and his troops morale likely came into question. Finally Abd al-Rahman gathered his men as he was “resolved on an audacious sally”. Abd al-Rahman hand-picked 700 fighters from his army and led them to Carmona’s main gate.

There, he started a great fire and threw his scabbard into the flames. Abd al-Rahman told his men that time had come to go down fighting than die of hunger. The gate lifted and Abd al-Rahman’s men fell upon the unsuspecting Abbasids, thoroughly routing them. Most of the Abbasid army was killed. The heads of the main Abbasid leaders were cut off. Their heads were preserved in salt, and identifying tags pinned to their ears. The heads were bundled together in a gruesome package and sent to the Abbasid caliph who was on pilgrimage at Mecca. Upon receiving the evidence of al-Ala’s defeat in al-Andalus, al-Mansur is said to have gasped, “God be praised for placing a sea between us”! Al-Mansur hated, and yet apparently respected Abd al-Rahman to such a degree that he dubbed him the “Hawk of Quraysh” (The Umayyads were from a branch of the Quraysh tribe).

Despite such a tremendous victory, Abd al-Rahman had to continuously put down rebellions in al-Andalus. Various Arab and Berber tribes fought each other for varying degrees of power, some cities tried to break away and form their own state, and even members of Abd al-Rahman’s family tried to wrest power from him. During a large revolt, dissidents marched on Córdoba itself; However, Abd al-Rahman always managed to stay one step ahead, and crushed all opposition; as he always dealt severely with dissidence in al-Andalus. Despite all this turmoil in al-Andalus, Abd al-Rahman wanted to take the fight back east to Baghdad. Revenge for the massacre of his family at the hands of the Abbasids must surely have been the driving factor in Abd al-Rahman’s war plans. However his war against Baghdad was put on hold by more internal problems. The seditious city of Zaragoza on the Upper March revolted in a bid for autonomy. Little could Abd al-Rahman have known that as he set off to settle matters in that northern city, his hopes of warring against Baghdad would be indefinitely put on hold.

Problems in the Upper March:

Zaragoza proved to be a most difficult city to reign over for not only Abd ar-Rahman, but his predecessors as well. In the year 777–778, several notable men including Sulayman ibn Yokdan al-Arabi al-Kelbi, the self-appointed governor of Zaragoza, met with delegates of the leader of the Franks, Charlemagne. “(Charlemagne’s) army was enlisted to help the Muslim governors of Barcelona and Zaragoza against the Umayyad (emir) in Cordoba…” Essentially Charlemagne was being hired as a mercenary, even though he likely had other plans of acquiring the area for his own empire. After Charlemagne’s columns arrived at the gates of Zaragoza, Sulayman got cold feet and refused to let the Franks into the city. It is possible that he realized that Charlemagne would want to usurp power from him. Charlemagne’s force eventually headed back to France via a narrow pass in the Pyrenees, where his rearguard was wiped out by Basque and Gascon rebels (this disaster inspired the epic Chanson de Roland).

Now Abd al-Rahman could deal with Sulayman and the city of Zaragoza without having to fight a massive Christian army. In 779 Abd ar-Rahman offered the job of Zaragoza’s governorship to one of Sulayman’s allies, a man named al-Husayn ibn Yahiya. The temptation was too much for al-Husayn, who murdered his colleague Sulayman. As promised, al-Husayn was awarded Zaragoza with the expectation that he would always be a subordinate of Córdoba. Within two years, however, al-Husayn broke off relations with Abd al-Rahman and announced that Zaragoza would be an independent city-state.

Once again Abd al-Rahman had to be concerned with developments in the Upper March. He was intent on keeping his important northern border city within the Umayyad fold. By 783 Abd al-Rahman’s army advanced on Zaragoza. It appeared as though Abd al-Rahman wanted to make clear to this troublesome city that independence was out of the question. Included in the arsenal of Abd al-Rahman’s army were thirty-six siege engines. Zaragoza’s famous white granite defensive walls were breached under a torrent of ordnance from the Umayyad lines. Abd al-Rahman’s warriors spilled into the city’s streets, quickly thwarting al-Husayn’s desires for independence.

Military and social reforms and constructions works:

After the aforementioned period of conflict, Abd al-Rahman continued in his improvement of al-Andalus’ infrastructure. He ensured roadways were begun, aqueducts were constructed or improved, and that a new mosque was well funded in his capital at Córdoba. Construction on what would in time become the world famous Great Mosque of Córdoba was started circa the year 786. Abd al-Rahman knew that one of his sons would one day inherit the rule of al-Andalus, but that it was a land torn by strife. In order to successfully rule in such a situation, Abd al-Rahman needed to create a reliable civil service and organize a standing army. He felt that he could not always rely on the local populace in providing a loyal army; and therefore bought a massive standing army consisting mainly of Berbers from North Africa as well as slaves from other areas.

The total number of army-men under his command were nearly 40,000. As was common during the years of Islamic expansion from Arabia, religious tolerance was practiced. Abd al-Rahman continued to allow Jews and Christians and other monotheistic religions to retain and practice their faiths. They did, however, have to pay a tribute tax for this privilege. Abd al-Rahman’s policy of taxing non-Muslims, which was often carried out by later rulers, changed the religious dynamic of al-Andalus. Possibly because of excessive tribute taxes “the bulk of the country’s population must have become Muslim”. However, other scholars have argued that though 80% of al-Andalus converted to Islam, it did not truly occur until near the 10th century.

Christians more often converted to Islam than Jews although there were converted Jews among the new followers of Islam. There was a great deal of freedom of interaction between the groups: for example, Sarah, the granddaughter of the Visigoth king Wittiza, married a Muslim man and bore two sons who were later counted among the ranks of the highest Arab nobility.

Conclusion:

The date of Abd al-Rahman’s death is disputed, but is generally accepted to be sometime around 785 through 788. Abd al-Rahman died in his adopted city of Cordoba and was supposedly buried under the site of the Mezquita. Abd al-Rahman’s alleged favorite son was his choice for successor and would later be known as Hisham I. Abd ar-Rahman’s progeny would continue to rule al-Andalus in the name of the house of Umayyah for several generations, with the zenith of their power coming during the reign of Abd al-Rahman III.

Legends:

In his lifetime, Abd al-Rahman was known as al Dakhil (“the immigrant”). But he was also known as Saqr Quraish (“The Falcon of the Quraish”), bestowed on him by one of his great enemies, the Abbasid caliph al-Mansur.

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Abd al-Rahman III (890-961): The Umayyads ruled the Muslim world from 661 to 750, but when the Abbasids came to power they put most of the Umayyad princes to the sword. Only a handful of the Umayyad princes escaped the ensuing massacre. Abd al-Rahman, the grandson of Umayyad ruler Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik, was one of them. He fled Damascus and travelled on foot and by ship for many years before he finally reached North Africa, where he received a warm welcome from the Berber tribe of Banu Nafisa (in present-day Morocco). In 756, he led an army into battle and defeated the governor’s forces before proceeding to Cordova, the capital of al-Andalus, and in so doing inaugurated Umayyad rule in Spain. Abd al-Rahman and his descendants went on to rule Muslim Spain for nearly three centuries. During this period Muslim Spain produced a number of influential rulers, but the most outstanding of them all was Caliph Abd al-Rahman III.

Abd al-Rahman ibn Muhammad, better known as Abd al-Rahman III, was born in Cordova during the reign of his grandfather, Amir Abdullah. Young Abd al-Rahman grew up under the care of his Frankish mother, Muzna, and his grandfather, Amir Abdullah. His mother, Muzna, and grandmother, Iniga, were of European origin. Young Abd al-Rahman was aware of the difficult challenges which confronted his country and contributed as much as he could to alleviating the problems until Amir Abdullah died in 912.

Abd al-Rahman succeeded his grandfather at the age of twenty-two and became the new ruler of Islamic Spain. Immediately after becoming Caliph, his main priority was to restore political stability and civil order across al-Andalus. The Abbasid Caliph in Baghdad, he reminded his people, would not come to their aid should the neighboring Christian powers decide to attack al-Andalus. His message to his people was very loud and clear: unite or you will be consigned to the dustbin of history.

After establishing political and civil order across Cordova and its immediate surroundings, Abd al-Rahman turned his attention to other major cities like Seville and Toledo. But when these self-appointed rulers rejected his conciliatory measures, he launched military actions against them. Since Ordono II, the Christian ruler of Leon, was the chief instigator of these raids, Abd al-Rahman sent an expedition and inflicted a crushing defeat on his forces in 923. After successfully subduing these cities, Abd al-Rahman finally restored peace, order and security across much of al-Andalus. In 929, at the age of thirty-nine, he became the undisputed master of Islamic Spain and adopted the title of al-Khalifah al-Nasir li-din Allah (‘the Caliph, the Defender of the Religion of God’).

Indeed, under Abd al-Rahman’s stewardship, Spain became a beacon of light for the rest of Europe. When there was hardly a college or library worth its name in Europe, al-Andalus boasted some of the finest, and also largest, libraries and educational institutions in the Western world. He transformed the Academy in Cordova into one of the world’s most dazzling centers of higher education and research. The thriving and tolerant civil society, known as the convivencia, fostered by Caliph Abd al-Rahman enabled everyone including Muslims, Jews and Christians to live and work together in peace and tranquility. Renowned Jewish thinkers such as Ibn Gabirol and Judah Halevi also lived and thrived in Islamic Spain.

Then, in 936, Caliph Abd al-Rahman ordered the construction of a new palace city which became known as Madinat al-Zahra (or ‘the dazzling city’). This mammoth project took more than forty years to complete. It was in fact Caliph al-Hakam, his son and successor, who finally achieved this in 976.

For nearly eight centuries, under her Mohammedan rulers, Spain set to all Europe a shining example of a civilized and enlightened State. Mathematics, astronomy and botany, history, philosophy and jurisprudence were to be mastered in Spain, and Spain alone.

His reign of forty-nine years was therefore a truly remarkable period in the history of Islamic Spain and Europe as a whole. Caliph Abd al-Rahman III died in Cordova at the age of seventy-one. Al-Andalus began to decline after his death and the Umayyads of Spain were eventually ousted from power in 1031.

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Abdul Aziz ibn Abdul Rahman al Saud (1879-1953): founder and king of Saudi Arabia. Born in Diraiya, central Arabia, Abdul grew up in Kuwait, where his ruling al Saud family was exiled following its defeat in 1891. In 1902 he regained Diraiya and neighboring Riyadh from the rival Rashid clan, which was allied with the Ottoman empire. Yet it was not until October 1953, a month before his death, that Abdul issued a decree appointing a council of ministers as an advisory body. At age 21 he departed Kuwait to subdue the two holy places: Mecca and Medina.

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Abdul Ghani, Abdul Aziz (1939- ): Yemeni political; North Yemeni prime minister, 1975-80, 1983-90, 1994-97 Born into a Shafii Sunni family in the Hujariya region of North Yemen, Abdul went to a teacher training college in Aden, South Yemen. He supported Salih in the civil war that erupted in May 1994 and was appointed premier after it ended in July. Following the 1997 parliamentary poll, Abdul was replaced as the prime minister by Faraj Said Ghanim.

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Abdul Hamid II (1842-1918): Ottoman sultan (1876-1909). He succeeded his brother Murad V and ruled until his deposition following the 1908 Young Turk revolution. His war with Russia (1877-78) was resolved by the Treaty of San Stefano (1878), subsequently modified by the congress of Berlin (1878).

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Abdul ilah ibn Ali (1912-1958): Iraqi regent, 1939-53; crown prince, 1953-58 Son of Sharif Ali ibn Hussein, King of Hijaz, Abdul moved to Baghdad along with the family when Hijaz fell to Abdul Aziz ibn Abdul Rahman al Saud in 1925. Following the death in 1939 of his cousin and brother in law, King Ghazi of Iraq, he became regent on behalf of four year old King Faisal II. After the seizure of power by anti British officers, led by Rashid Ali Gailani in April 1941, the pro British Abdul and the rest of the royal family fled. But two months later they returned to Baghdad following Gailani’s defeat by the British. When Faisal II came of age in 1953 and ascended the throne, he named Abdul crown prince. By then Abdul was widely regarded in Iraq as an agent of British imperialism. He was assassinated during the antimonarchist coup of 14 July 1958.

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Abdul Majuid, Esmat (1924- ): Egyptian diplomat and politician; secretary general of the Arab league. 1991-2001 Born into a middle class family in Alexandria, Abdul trained as a lawyer at universities in his native city and Paris. He joined the Foreign Service when he was twenty seven. In May 1991, following the expulsion of Iraq from occupied Kuwait, in which Egypt played an important role, Abdul was unanimously elected secretary general of the Arab league, the event signifying the restoration of Egypt as leader of the Arab world after twelve years of ostracization following its unilateral peace treaty with Israel in 1979. In 2001 he was succeeded by Amr Moussa.

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Abdul Rahman, Omar (1938- ): Egyptian Islamist leader Born into a poor peasant family in Gamaliya village, Daqaliya district, in the Nile delta, Abdul went blind in infancy as a result of diabetes. He was educated in local religious schools before joining al Azhar University in 1955. After securing a doctorate in literature in 1965 he became a lecturer in Islamic studies at the al Azhar’s branch at Fatyum in the Nile delta. Following the bombing of the World Trade Center in New York in February 1993 and the aborting of a plan to bomb the United Nations and other targets some weeks later, Abdul was arrested as a suspect, found guilty in October 1995, and sentenced to life imprisonment for seditious conspiracy for a bombing plot. In early 1999, from his high security jail in the US, he endorsed the unilateral cease-fire declared by al Gamaat al Islamiya.

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Abdullah I ibn Hussein al Hashem (1882-1951): Emir of Tran Jordan, 1921-46, King of Jordan 1946-51 Son of Sharif Hussein ibn Ali al Hashem of Hijaz, Abdullah was educated in Istanbul, where his father was kept under surveillance from 1891 until the coup by the Young Turks in 1908. From 1912 to 1914 Abdullah represented Mecca in the Ottoman parliament. He participated in the Arab revolt against the Ottomans that, led by his father, erupted in June 1916. When Sharif Hussein declared himself King of Hijaz in 1917, Abdullah became his foreign minister. Most of them considered Abdullah a traitor, a lackey of the British, who had made underhanded deals with the Zionists at the expense of Arab interests. In July 1951, Shurki Ashu, a young Palestinian, assassinated Abdullah as he entered al Aqsa Mosque in East Jerusalem for Friday prayers. King of Jordan; assassinated in 1951.

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Abdullah al-Ma’mun (786-833): The question of political succession has often been a major stumbling block in Islamic political history. Keen to avoid a similar conflict after his death, the celebrated Abbasid Caliph Harun al-Rashid took the unusual step of nominating his successor during his own lifetime. According to the agreement formulated by Harun, he was to be succeeded by his son, Muhammad, who became known as Caliph al-Amin. It also stated that al-Amin, in turn, was to be succeeded by his brother, Abdullah, who later became known as Caliph al-Ma’mun. Al-Ma’mun denounced his brother as a traitor and this set the two brothers against each other, leading to considerable political infighting and loss of life. Al-Ma’mun not only went on to become one of the Muslim world’s most prominent rulers, but also carved out an important place for himself in the intellectual history of Islam.

Abdullah al-Ma’mun ibn Harun al-Rashid was born in Baghdad after his father’s accession to the Abbasid throne at the age of twenty-two. The Caliph invited the leading scholars to come and teach al-Ma’mun. He thus received a thorough education in Arabic language, literature and aspects of Islamic sciences. Young al-Ma’mun acquired considerable knowledge of Islamic sciences and became thoroughly familiar with the Qur’an.

In 809, Caliph Harun al-Rashid died at the age of forty-three. During his reign of twenty-two years he completely transformed the fortunes of the Abbasid Empire. He restored peace, order and security throughout his vast empire. Under Harun’s patronage, Baghdad became one of the Muslim world’s most famous educational, cultural and architectural centers.

Al-Ma’mun was keen to reward his staff handsomely so as to prevent corruption, bribery and malpractice from rearing their ugly heads within his Government, and in this respect he was very successful. Like his father, al-Ma’mun transformed Baghdad into a thriving city. Under his stewardship, it became the world’s most dazzling capital city, being renowned for its schools, colleges, hospitals, markets, bookshops and libraries. As a generous patron of learning and education, he transformed the bait al-Hikmah (‘the House of Wisdom’), which was originally founded by his father Caliph Harun al-Rashid, into one of the Muslim world’s most famous libraries and research centers. He not only expanded its activities and renamed it as dar al-Hikmah (‘the Abode of Wisdom’), he also went out of his way to recruit some of the Muslim world’s brightest minds.

Al-Ma’mun chose to champion the views of the Mu’tazilites with the result that, during his reign, Mu’tazilism became the official creed of the State. Unlike the Islamic traditionalists, who argued that the Qur’an was the uncreated Word of God, al-Ma’mun – like the Mu’tazilites – considered it to be a created Word of God.

Caliph al-Ma’mun’s reign of two and a half decades came to an end when he was forty-seven. He died in the village of Budandun (in present-day Pozanti) during a military expedition he led against the Byzantines. His body was transferred to Tarsus where he was laid to rest following a simple funeral. His half-brother Abu Ishaq Muhammad Mu’tasim Billah succeeded him as Caliph.

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Abdullah ibn Abdul Aziz al Saud (1923- ): Saudi Arabian crown Prince, 1982, son of Abdul Aziz al Saud and Asi al Shuraim of the Rashid clan, which was defeated by Abdul Aziz in 1921, Abdullah was born and educated in Riyadh. He started his career as governor of Mecca and became deputy defense minister and commander of the national Guard in 1963. When Khalid ibn Abdul Aziz acceded the throne in 1975 he appointed Abdullah as second deputy premier. Washington’s relations with Riyadh soured when it emerged that fifteen of the nineteen hijackers of 9/11 were Saudi nationals. Abdullah I (Abdullah ibn Husayn), 1882-1951, king of Jordan (1946-51), b. Mecca; son of Husayn ibn Ali of the Hashemite family.

During World War I, Abdullah, with British support, led Arab revolts against Turkish rule. After the war, the unsuccessfully fought against Ibn Saud for control of the Hejaz. In 1921, Great Britain made Abdullah the emir of Transjordan as well as placed Abdullah’s brother Faisal as king of Iraq. In World War II, Abdullah strongly opposed the Axis powers. Following the partition of Palestine (May, 1948) he led the troops of his British-trained force, the Arab Legion, against the newly declared state of Israel. Abdullah annexed the portions of Palestine now known as the West Bank. His foreign policy was directed toward creation of an Arab federation, preferably under Hashemite rule. In 1951 he was assassinated in Jerusalem.

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Abdullah, Sheikh Muhammad (1905-1982): Kashmiri Muslim leader. He began his career as an activist in the Kashmir Muslim Conference in the 1930s, agitating against the arbitrary rule of the Hindu Dogra Maharaja of Kashmir. Later, as the leader of the Muslim National Conference, he established close links with the Indian National Congress and Jawaharlal Nehru.

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Abraham: First of the patriarchs of Israel, from whom the Israelites traced their descent. He is revered by Jews, Christians and Muslims. The biblical stories of Abraham are of varying date and origin, and it is uncertain how much historical fact they contain. According to the book of Genesis (the first book of the Old Testament), Abraham lived in the middle of the 2^nd millennium BC at Haran in northern Mesopotamia. He was divinely called to leave his home and family and go to a new land, Canaan. It is recorded that God made a covenant (or agreement) with him, promising him a multitude of descendants to whom he would give Canaan forever, provided that he and all his male descendants were circumcised. Accordingly, Abraham’s wife Sarah, although aged over 90, gave birth to a son, Isaac. God subsequently tested Abraham’s faith by asking him to sacrifice Isaac to him. When Abraham showed his readiness to do this, a ram was substituted for the sacrifice and God confirmed his covenant. Through Ishmael, his son by Hagar, the maidservant of Sarah, he is considered by Muslims an ancestor of the Arabs, and is frequently mentioned (as Ibrahim) in the Koran.

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Abu Al-Abbas Al-Suffah (750-754): Abu al-Abbas as-Saffah, d. 754, 1^st Abbasid caliph (749-54). Abu al Qasim Muhammad: also known as the Hidden Imam. He was the Twelfth Imam of the Shiah, who was said to have gone into hiding in 874 to save his life; in 934 his “Occultation” was declared God it was said had miraculously concealed the Imam and he could make no further direct contact with Shi’as. Shortly before the Last Judgment, he would return as the Mahdi to inaugurate a golden age of justice and peace, having destroyed the enemies of God.

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Abu al Qasim Muhammad: Also known as the Hidden Imam. He was the Twelfth Imam of the Shiah, who was said to have gone into hiding in 874 to save his life; in 934 his “Occultation” was declared God it was said had miraculously concealed the Imam and he could make no further direct contact with Shi’as. Shortly before the Last Judgment, he would return as the Mahdi to inaugurate a golden age of justice and peace, having destroyed the enemies of God.

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Abu Bakr al-Razi (841-925): ‘The greatest clinician of Islam and of the whole Middle Ages. He was the most celebrated and probably the most original of the Arabic writers.’ Some historians have compared him with Hippocrates, the famous Greek physician, while according to others he was one of history’s most pioneering medical practitioners. This remarkable Muslim physician and philosopher was none other than Abu Bakr al-Razi.

Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariyya ibn Yahya al-Razi, known in the West as Rhazes, was born in the Persian city of Rayy (located close to modern Tehran), at the time a thriving center of educational and commercial activity. He became fascinated by music and musical theory, and during this period learned to play the flute with considerable proficiency. Inspired by the works of Jabir ibn Hayyan, the father of Islamic alchemy and chemistry, al-Razi became a widely respected authority on experimental alchemy.

Despite this, his eyesight continued to deteriorate, eventually forcing him to turn his back on alchemy and chemistry for good, and instead he began to study medicine under Abul Hasan Ali ibn Sahl al-Rabbani’s guidance. Al-Razi soon became a respected intellectual and skilled medical practitioner. This prompted al-Mansur ibn Ishaq, the city’s governor, to appoint him director of the local hospital.

In addition to mastering alchemy, medicine and philosophy, al-Razi acquired considerable proficiency in logic, cosmology, theology and aspects of mathematics. Unlike al-Ash’ari and al-Kindi, he espoused a championed a purely rationalistic philosophy. Thus, reason and revelation, he argued, were incompatible and any attempts to reconcile the two were bound to fail.

Al-Razi became a champion of Platonic philosophy. Not surprisingly, his philosophical worldview revolved around the five eternal principles of Creator, Universal Soul, Primeval Matter, Time and Space. Human reason, in his opinion, was far superior to revelation and, as such, he was one of the most rationalistic of all Muslim philosophers. His philosophical thought never took off in the Muslim world.

Although accused of heresy, al-Razi’s unflinching faith in God prevented his most vociferous critics from branding him an unbeliever or atheist. He read extensively and wrote copiously; on one occasion he wrote more than twenty thousand pages in a single year. In old age, when he could no longer read or write due to failing eyesight, he paid people to read books to him so that he could continue to learn.

Along with Ibn Sina and al-Zahrawi, al-Razi must be considered one of the most influential Muslim physicians of all time. He managed two of the leading hospitals of his day; one was based in Rayy and the other was located in Baghdad. His Kitab al-Hawi was arguably the most comprehensive medical work ever produced in Arabic and consisted of twenty-five hefty volumes. The Latin translation of this book was begun in 1280 and completed in 1542. Considered to be one of the masterpieces of medical writing, it was used as a standard textbook on smallpox and measles until the modern period. Al-Razi authored one hundred and eighty-four books and treatises on all branches of learning, including eighty books on philosophical and theological topics alone. But, according to other historians, he wrote more than two hundred and forty books, most of which have, unfortunately, perished.

Hailed as the ‘Arab Galen’ across medieval Europe, al-Razi became blind toward the end of his life, due to excessive reading and writing. He died at the age of about eighty-four and was buried in his native Rayy.

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Abu Bakr al-Siddiq (573-634): If piety, righteousness and love for Islam were the only criteria for selection, then after the Prophet Muhammad, Abu Bakr would certainly have led the way.

Abdullah ibn Abi Quhafah, better known by his patronymic Abu Bakr, was born into the clan of Taym of the noble Quraysh tribe; he was only two years younger than the Prophet himself.

The situation in Mecca had become so degenerate that the Arabs buried their baby girls alive because they were considered to be an economic burden on their families.

After Muhammad received his first revelation (Wahy) from God, through the angel Gabriel, in the year 610 (while he was busy meditating on the Mount of Light (Jabal al-Nur)), he shared the good news with his immediate family before approaching his best friend, Abu Bakr. As soon as the Prophet informed him about his Prophetic mission, Abu Bakr accepted it without any hesitation whatsoever.

For the next twenty-three years, Abu Bakr provided unflinching help and support to the Prophet. In the tenth year of Muhammad’s Prophethood, a momentous event took place. Al-Isra wa’l Miraj (or the Prophet’s miraculous night journey from Mecca to Jerusalem, and ascension to heaven) occurred, and it was on this occasion that the five daily prayers were prescribed. Abu Bakr became known as al-Siddiq or ‘the truthful’ one.

After the Prophet’s migration to Medina in 622, Abu Bakr purchased a plot of land where the foundations of Masjid al-Nabi (or the ‘Prophet’s mosque’) were laid in 623; he also led the first hajj (pilgrimage) to Mecca on behalf of the Prophet. Although the Prophet did not directly nominate a successor before he died, by nominating Abu Bakr to lead the daily prayers he had implicitly pointed the way forward, but the Prophet was keen to give the people a say in the election or selection of their rulers.

After the Prophet passed away in 632, the news of his death spread across Arabia like wildfire; they thought that Islam would fizzle out after the Prophet’s death. After considerable discussion and debate, it was unanimously agreed by the companions of the Prophet to elect Abu Bakr khalifat Rasoul Allah (‘successor to the Messenger of God’). After being elected the first Caliph of Islam, Abu Bakr went straight to the Prophet’s mosque where he delivered his first address to the people. He declared:

‘O people! I have been selected as your trustee although I am no better than anyone of you. If I am right, obey me. If I happen to be wrong, set me right, God willing. I ask you to obey me as long as I obey God and His messenger. If I disobey God and His messenger, you are free to disobey me.’

Caliph Abu Bakr did not decide anything unilaterally. He formed an advisory council consisting of the leading companions of the Prophet and he regularly consulted them before authorizing or undertaking any issues of importance.

In the year 633, Abu Bakr authorized Khalid ibn al-Walid, the great Muslim military commander, to take action against the subversive activities of the Persians. The Muslim army defeated the Persians and brought peace and order to that area. In the following year, elements of the Byzantine army began to instigate military raids and other provocative actions against the Muslim territories. After consulting his advisory council, the Caliph took decisive action against the Byzantines.

In just over two years, Caliph Abu Bakr helped transform the fortunes of Islam. More importantly, encouraged and supported by Umar, he brought together all the parchments (Suhuf) on which the Qur’an was written during the Prophet’s lifetime and compiled them in the form of one book (Mushaf).

Only the love and pleasure of God, the Absolute Reality, mattered to Abu Bakr. This great servant of Islam breathed his last at the age of sixty-one and was buried in Medina next to the Prophet, his mentor and guide. Such was the greatness of Caliph Abu Bakr that the Prophet once stated, ‘Abu Bakr’s name shall be called out from all the gates of Paradise, and he will be the first person of my community to enter it.’

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Abu Dhabi city: capital of United Arab Emirates and Abu Dhabi emirate Pop 520,000. Located on the offshore island of the same name, Abu Dhabi was founded by members of the Aal bu Falah clan of the Bani Yas Tribe in 1761. A quarter of a century later they transferred their base from the al Jiwa oasis to Abu Dhabi. With the formation of a confederation of seven emirates, called the United Arab Emirates in 1971, Abu Dhabi was selected as its interim capital, later confirmed as the capital city.

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Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (1058-1111): Under Abul Hasan al-Ash’ari’s guidance, speculative theology (Ilm al-kalam) became a powerful force within the Islamic intellectual firmament. Prior to that, under Hasan al-Basri’s tutelage, Sufism (or Islamic mysticism) had become a potent force in the Muslim world. These rationalistic, philosophical, theological and mystical trends continued to compete for the hearts and minds of Muslims until the indomitable personality of al-Ghazali emerged in the eleventh century to champion and reassert traditional Islamic thought and practices as never before.

Abu Hamid Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Tusi al-Ghazali, known in the Latin West as Algazel, was born in the historic town of Tus in Khurasan (in present-day Mashhad in Iran). Al-Ghazali attended the class of a local Sufi tutor and attained proficiency in Arabic language, grammar, Qur’an, Hadith, jurisprudence (Fiqh) and aspects of Sufi thought and poetry before he was fifteen.

Al-Ghazali was barely twenty years old when he traveled to Nishapur to pursue advanced instruction in Islamic sciences. It was during this period that he composed his al-Mankhul min Ilm al-Usul (A Summary of the Science of Fundamentals), wherein he elucidated the fundamental principles of Islamic law and legal methodology.

In 1085 al-Juwayni died and al-Ghazali was asked to become professor of Islamic thought at the Nizamiyyah College in Baghdad by none other than Nizam al-Mulk himself, the great Seljuk Prime Minister and founder of the Nizamiyyah College. At the age of thirty-four, he became the youngest professor at Nizamiyyah. This was an extraordinary honor for young al-Ghazali since the Nizamiyyah College of Baghdad was the Oxford or Harvard of its time.

Al-Ghazali was profoundly disturbed by the apparent conflict between the views of the rationalists, who argued that human reason (Aql) was superior to revelation (Wahy), and the traditionalists who considered Divine revelation to be infallible and, therefore, more authoritative in comparison with fallible human reason. The more al-Ghazali questioned the more he doubted the very foundation of knowledge. Thus, for a period, he became a fully-fledged sceptic, living in a state of doubt and depression.

Al-Ghazali began studying and analyzing the works of the philosophers and theologians. He found no common ground on which all theologians could agree. He argued, therefore, that scholastic theology would be of no value to anyone unless they believed in the indispensability of human reason. Astonishingly, al-Ghazali was only thirty-six when he authored his hugely influential Tahafut.

After this, al-Ghazali immersed himself in the ocean of Sufi thought and practices. Following a thorough study of the works of prominent Sufis like Abu Talib Amr al-Makki, Harith al-Muhasibi, Abul Qasim al-Junayd al-Baghdadi, Abu Bakr al-Shibli and Abu Yazid al-Bistami, al-Ghazali realized that ‘empirical’ – as opposed to ‘theoretical’ – knowledge was the foundation of Sufism. He devoted all his time and energy to seeking experiential knowledge in order to move closer to Divine proximity like the Sufis. He found peace of mind and intellectual reassurance in the message of Sufism.

Al-Ghazali’s philosophical and theological views also exerted considerable influence on renowned Jewish and Christian thinkers like St Thomas Aquinas, Ramon Lull, Blaise Pascal and Musa bin Maimon (Moses Maimonides) among others. Al-Ghazali eventually returned to his native Tus in 1110 and, a year later, he died at the age of fifty-three. He was buried in the cemetery close to Sanabad.

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Abu Hanifah (700-767): The principles of Shari’ah (Islamic law) are derived from the Qur’an and the normative practice (sunnah) of the Prophet Muhammad. After the death of the Prophet, his leading companions, such as Abu Bakr al-Siddiq, Umar ibn al-Khattab, Uthman ibn Affan and Ali ibn Abi Talib, assumed the leadership of the Muslim community. The Shari’ah was not codified in a systematic way at the time. At such a critical time in Islamic history, Abu Hanifah emerged to develop one of Islamic history’s most influential legal syntheses.

Numan ibn Thabit ibn Zuta ibn Mah, better known by his patronymic Abu Hanifah, was born in Kufah (in modern Iraq) during the reign of the great Umayyad Caliph Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan. Of Persian origin, Abu Hanifah was brought up in a relatively wealthy Muslim family. He was very fortunate to have met a number of prominent companions, including Anas ibn Malik, Sahl ibn Sa’d, Abu al-Tufayl Amir ibn Watihilah and Jabir ibn Abdullah.

Caliph Sulaiman, al-Walid’s successor, was a relatively benevolent ruler who promoted learning and scholarship. By all accounts, Abu Hanifah was a late starter and most of his peers were way ahead of him when he began his studies, but after he started he was determined to reach the very summit of Islamic learning and scholarship. Abu Hanifah went on to become one of the Muslim world’s greatest intellectuals and jurists.

Abu Hanifah went to Mecca to perform the sacred hajj (pilgrimage) and enrolled at the school of Ata ibn Abu Rabah, who was considered to be one of the giants of Islamic learning and wisdom at the time.

In the year 720, when Abu Hanifah was twenty-one, he left Mecca for Medina where he learned Hadith from Sulaiman and Salim ibn Abdullah. Sulaiman was an aide of ummul Mu’minin (the ‘mother of the believers’) Maymuna, the wife of the Prophet, and Salim was a grandson of Umar, the second Caliph of Islam. Abu Hanifah became a great repository of Islamic knowledge.

The vast corpus of juristic pronouncements (fatawa) developed by Abu Hanifah and his trusted disciples became so large that, over time, a school of Islamic legal thought emerged named after him. Known as the Hanafi Madh’hab, this school of legal thought is most prevalent in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Egypt. Towards the end of his life, Abu Hanifah was imprisoned by the Abbasid Caliph Abu Ja’far al-Mansur for refusing to take of the post of Qadi (Judge) of the Abbasid Empire. Abu Hanifah died in prison at the age of around sixty-seven and was buried in Baghdad.

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Abu Hurairah (601-679): Amongst the companions of the Prophet, one man more than any other, stands out like a shining star for his utter devotion and dedication to preserving the ahadith (or sayings of the Prophet); he was Abu Hurairah.

His pre-Islamic name was Abd ash-Shams but after embracing Islam he changed it to Abd al-Rahman ibn Sakhr, although he became well known by his nickname, ‘Abu Hurairah’ (meaning the ‘father of the kitten’), received due to his love and affection for his pet kitten. Born into the Daws tribe of southern Arabia, Abu Hurairah was about twelve when Muhammad became a Prophet and started preaching Islam in Mecca. Abu Hurairah was still in his teens when the Prophet began to preach the message of Islam to his kith and kin. This was followed by an open call to all the people of Mecca.

After preaching in Mecca for more than a decade, the Prophet left his native city and moved to the nearby oasis of Madinah, where he received a warm welcome. At the time Abu Hurairah was in his early twenties. It was not until seven years after the Prophet’s migration (Hijrah) to Madinah that Abu Hurairah came to hear about the Prophet and his mission. Immediately he set out for Madinah in order to meet the Prophet. He set out for Khaybar – which is located around one hundred and sixty kilometers from Madinah – and after a long and exhausting journey, he formally became a Muslim at the hands of the Prophet. He was about thirty at the time. As a perceptive individual who was blessed with a highly retentive memory, he became one of the most learned among the companions of the Prophet.

Abu Hurairah is a legend in Islamic history for not only narrating a vast quantity of Prophetic traditions, but also for his unique memory power. According to the historian and traditionist Abd al-Rahman ibn Ali ibn al-Jawzi, Abu Hurairah narrated five thousand three hundred and seventy-four Hadith in total, more than any other companion of the Prophet, including the Prophet’s wife, Aishah. Abu Hurairah breathed his last at the age of seventy-eight and was buried in Madinah, the city of the Prophet.

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Abu ‘l-Afia: Tudrus ha-Levi Ben Uyssuf Ben Tudrus: Head of the Jewish community of Castile, who exercised great influence over Alfonso X. He wrote Biblical and Talmudic commentaries with cabbalist tendencies: his Talmudic commentary Osar ha-kabod (Treasury of Glory) contained references to the mystical Zohar (Splendor). He exchanged verses with his contemporary Abraham Bedersi. He is not to be confused with his namesake Tudrus Ben Yuhuda Abu’l-Afia.

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Abu Musa Island: An offshore island on the Gulf on the eve of the independence of the Trucial emirate of Sharjah in 1971, Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlavi of Iran pressed his claim to three islands at the mouth of the Gulf, including Abi Musa. After Iranian troops had landed there, Britain, the erstwhile imperial power in the region, meditated. In 1994 the Gulf Cooperation Council took up the matter and urged Iran to agree to refer the issue of its occupation of Abu Musa and Greater and Lesser Tumb Islands to the International Court of Justice, but to avail. A decade later the matter remained unresolved.

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Abu Muslim (728-755): Persian leader of the Abbasid revolution. By political and religious agitation he raised (747) the black banners of the Abbasids against the ruling Umayyad family. In 749 he established Abu al-Abbas as-Saffah, the head of the Abbasid family, as caliph of Islam. Abu Muslim became governor of Khorasan, but the caliph al-Mansur feared his power and treacherously murdered him.

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Abu Nakr: Father of Aisha, acclaimed first Caliph after the Prophet’s death. Arguably the first adult male convert to Islam, and a close colleague and devout disciple of the Prophet Muhammad. The only man to accompany Muhammad when he escaped from Mecca. He was chosen to head the prayers by the Prophet in the last week of his life, which gave him a critical edge to become his acknowledged successor.

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Abu Sufyan: A Meccan tribal leader who raised an army and attacked Medina. nobleman of Mecca who for ten years commanded the pagan opposition to early Islam after Muhammad’s migration to Medina. After his acceptance of Islam, prepared for by the marriage of his daughter Umm Habiba to Muhammad, he would become a loyal ally of the Prophet. He would serve as a provincial governor in the Yemen for the first two Caliphs and is traditionally considered to have fought at Yarmuk. Legitimate father of Yazid and Muawiya and possibly to others such as Amr and Zayyad. Meccan leader who opposed Muhammad; fought in battles. A Quraysh leader who surrendered Mecca to Muhammad in 629.

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Abu-Simbel: Abu-Simbel or Ipsambul, village, S Egypt, on the Nile River. Its two temples were hewn (1250 BC) our of rock cliffs during the reign of Ramses II. To avoid the rising waters caused by the construction of the Aswan High Dam in the 1960s, the colossal statues of Ramses II and the temples were cut into 950 blocks and reassembled farther inland. The project, sponsored by UNESCO and funded by more than 50 nations, was completed in 1966.

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Abul A’la Mawdudi (1903-1979): If the nineteenth century was the age of European domination of the Muslim world, then the twentieth century must be considered the period when the Muslims finally woke from sleep and began to liberate their lands from foreign occupation. But following the departure of the British, French, Italians and the other European colonial powers from the Muslim world, a powerful and pertinent debate took place in all the Muslim countries concerning their political and constitutional futures. One Islamic scholar and activist contributed more to this debate than probably any other Muslim thinker or reformer of his generation; he was Abul A’la Mawdudi of Pakistan.

Sayyid Abul A’la Mawdudi, better known as Mawlana Mawdudi, was born in the town of Aurangabad in the Indian state of Hyderabad (located in present-day Andhra Pradesh). Born and brought up in a family where learning, personal piety and devotion to Sufism was valued and respected, young Mawdudi received his early education at home from his father. His further education was interrupted at the age of seventeen when his father suddenly died in 1920. Mawdudi was forced to abandon his studies and work to earn a living.

Mawdudi then became editor of the prominent al-Jam’iyat, the official publication of Jam’iat-i Ulama-i Hind, a national Islamic umbrella organization which represented the Indian Muslims at the time.

Following his resignation as editor of al-Jam’iyat in 1928, Mawdudi left Delhi and moved to Hyderabad. As a journalist and editor of al-Jam’iyat, he was clean-shaven and wore Western clothes, but now he grew a beard and adopted a revivalist approach to Islam. He took charge of Tarjuman al-Qur’an (Interpretation of the Qur’an) in 1932. This was a monthly Islamic journal which was originally founded and published by an independent Muslim scholar in Hyderabad. This convinced Mawdudi that his intellectual efforts were having the desired effect and thus he continued to champion the cause of the Indian Muslims and write prolifically.

Mawdudi continued to publish the Tarjuman from Hyderabad until 1937, when Sir Muhammad Iqbal invited him to move to Pathankot (located in East Punjab, India) and help him to establish an Islamic research center there. After his move to Pathankot in 1938, he continued to edit and publish the Tarjuman and also began work on the proposed research center. With the active support of a number of leading Indian Islamic scholars, in 1941 he formally launched the Jama’at-i-Islami (The Islamic Organization), an Islamic political party, in order to reform Indian politics, culture and society in the light of Islam. This situation changed radically following the formation of Pakistan as an independent country in 1947. Along with his close friends and supporters, Mawdudi left India in favor of Pakistan and tried to establish an Islamic political, economic and cultural order there.

It was the formation of Jama’at-i-Islami in 1941 – and his subsequent migration to Pakistan in 1947 – which provided the ideal opportunity for Mawdudi to engage in politics on a full-time basis for the first time. He actively campaigned for an Islamic constitution, as well as the need to implement the Shari’ah (Islamic law) in that country. Mawdudi did not believe in the pursuit of intellectual activity minus socio-political activism. And although his political activism landed him in prison on more than one occasion, he remained as firm and steadfast as ever. He believed there was no room for the depoliticisation of Islam. Accordingly, Mawdudi and his Jama’at-i-Islami fully embraced socio-political activism.

As an Islamic ideologue and author, Mawdudi wrote more than one hundred books and treatises on all aspects of Islam. However, it is his Tafhim al-Qur’an (Towards Understanding the Qur’an), a voluminous Urdu translation and commentary on the Qur’an, which is today considered to be his most influential work. His critics have argued that his books read more like manuals for socio-political action, rather than works of Islamic wisdom and spirituality, but the Jama’at-i-Islami party which he founded and led for more than three decades continues to operate in Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka to this day.

Mawdudi is today considered to be one of the most widely-read Muslim authors of modern times. He died in a hospital in Buffalo (New York) at the age of seventy-five and was buried in front of his house in Lahore. Prior to his death, Mawdudi received the prestigious King Faisal International Award for his services to Islam.

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Abul Hasan al-Ash’ari (873-941): After the death of Caliph Uthman, huge controversy ensued within the Islamic State regarding the question of leadership and political legitimacy. During this period, a number of political factions emerged including the Shi’at Ali, khawarij, Murji’ah and the Mu’tazilah. Of these factions, the most politically neutral were the Mu’tazilah who later acquired a largely philosophical and theological contour under the influence of Wasil ibn Ata. Famous Abbasid rulers like Harun al-Rashid and his son al-Ma’mun became ardent champions of Mu’tazilism. Abul Hasan al-Ash’ari, one of the Muslim world’s most influential theologians (Mutakallimun), emerged to turn the tables on Mu’tazilism.

Abul Hasan Ali ibn Ismail al-Ash’ari was born in Basrah (in modern Iraq) into a distinguished Muslim family which traced its lineage back to Abu Musa al-Ash’ari, who was a prominent companion of the Prophet. Al-Ash’ari mastered Arabic grammar, literature, Islamic sciences and the philosophical and theological doctrines of Mu’tazilism from an early age.

Al-Ash’ari was considered to be far superior to all of them on account of his mastery of the finer points of Mu’tazilite philosophy and theology. According to al-Ash’ari, the Prophet Muhammad appeared to him in a dream and instructed him to champion the cause of Islamic orthodoxy, rather than that of Mu’tazilism. Suddenly, it was as if al-Ash’ari woke up from a deep sleep, only to discover that he had already spent four decades of his life studying and championing the cause of an un-Islamic creed. He went straight to the central mosque in Basrah, which at the time was packed to its maximum capacity. He stepped onto the minbar (pulpit) and delivered a historic announcement. This announcement was to mark the beginning of the end for philosophical rationalism and the resurgence of Islamic traditionalism. ‘Lo! I repent that I have been a Mu’tazilite.’ The Mu’tazilite rationalists lost one of their most formidable champions. Al-Ash’ari now became the Mu’tazilites most formidable intellectual adversary.

Al-Ash’ari’s repudiation of Mu’tazilism was both comprehensive and monumentally effective. He composed more than ninety books and treatises on all aspects of Islamic beliefs (Aqidah) and theology (kalam), in refutation of the Mu’tazilite creed, and aspects of Islamic epistemology and philosophy.

Led by eminent Islamic scholars like Ahmad ibn Hanbal, the traditionalists vehemently opposed the philosophical interpretation of Islamic theological matters. Al-Ash’ari stated that the Qur’an was the uncreated (Ghair Makhluq), eternal Word of God, and that only the ink, paper and individual letters were created. The Mu’tazilite creed was eventually rooted out from the intellectual and cultural lives of Muslims.

Al-Ash’ari was not only an outstanding Islamic intellectual; he was also one of the greatest religious thinkers of all time. He died and was buried in a place close to Bab Al-Basrah (or ‘the Gate of Basrah’); he was sixty-eight at the time. Ash’arism became the most dominant religious theology in the Muslim world.

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Abul Hasan al-Mas’udi (895-957): After the emergence of Islam in seventh century Arabia, the once illiterate and uncivilized Bedouins of the desert burst onto the global stage under the banner of their new faith and transformed the course of human history. The Arabs crushed the mighty Roman and Persian Empires and carved out for themselves one of the greatest empires in history. Muslims prepared the way for the emergence of modern science, culture and civilization. The tenth century was one of the most intellectually productive periods in the history of Islam, for it was during this period that great Muslim thinkers like Ibn Sina, al-Farabi, al-Razi, al-Biruni and Ibn al-Haytham lived and thrived. Al-Mas’udi, the famous Muslim scholar and polymath, also lived during this period and contributed immensely to the development of science, philosophy, Islamic history, geology, geography and natural history.

Abul Hasan Ali ibn Hussain ibn Ali al-Mas’udi was born in Baghdad during the reign of the Abbasid Caliph Mu’tadid. Al-Mas’udi grew up at a time when the influence of Mu’tazilism was still very strong within the intellectual and cultural circles of Baghdad, which at the time was one of the Muslim world’s foremost centers of philosophical and scientific learning. After completing his formal education, he left his native Baghdad and travelled extensively in pursuit of knowledge. Like Ibn Sina, al-Razi and al-Biruni (who were his contemporaries), the incessant pursuit of knowledge and wisdom became his main preoccupation in life.

Everywhere he went al-Mas’udi carefully observed both the geographical and demographical make-up of the place, and took copious notes about the locals, their culture, traditions and social habits. Three centuries before Marco Polo and Ibn Batuttah were born, al-Mas’udi travelled across a significant part of the then-known world on his own. From his native Baghdad, he journeyed across Persia and reached India while he was still in his twenties. From India, he retreated to Kirman in Persia, where he stayed for a period of time before returning again to India. After a short stay in Madagascar, he set out for what is now the Gulf State of Oman, via Basrah. Al-Mas’udi then travelled across the Middle East and Asia in pursuit of knowledge, and in the process he became a pioneering cultural explorer as well as a great geographer.

Prior to al-Mas’udi’s time, some of the Muslim world’s great thinkers and scientists (like al-Khwarizmi, al-Kindi and al-Sarakhsi) had researched and written extensively on these subjects. Indeed, al-Khwarizmi’s celebrated book Kitab Surat al-Ard (Book on the Shape of Earth) was a pioneering work in the field of geography which later inspired other Muslim scientists and geographers to pursue advanced research in this subject.

It was during his stay in Basrah that al-Mas’udi recorded his ideas and thoughts on a wide range of subjects (including history, geology and geography) in the form of a book. He paved the way for other Muslim thinkers, such as Ibn Khaldun, to pursue their sociological analysis of culture and society. The accounts of his journeys were accurate, vivid and comprehensive. Considered to be one of the most comprehensive works ever written on the subject of history, geology and geography, al-Mas’udi completed the first draft of his book in 947. He later revised it in 956 and a French translation was published in Paris between 1861 and 1877 in nine bulky volumes.

In addition to being a pioneering explorer, a gifted geologist and an outstanding geographer, al-Mas’udi was also a historian of the highest caliber. Along with al-Baladhuri, al-Tabari, al-Isfahani, Ibn al-Athir and Ibn Khaldun, he is today considered to be one of the Muslim world’s greatest historians.

Hailed as a masterpiece, al-Mas’udi’s work has recently been published in English in thirty-eight volumes. He did not collect a large quantity of information and compile it in chronological order; instead he adopted a critical approach to writing and interpreting history.

Toward the end of his life, al-Mas’udi left Basrah and moved to Syria for a period. He then went to Cairo where he composed another voluminous work on history. Entitled Akhbar al-Zaman (An Account of Times), this work on history and culture consisted of around thirty volumes.

Al-Mas’udi became known as the ‘Herodotus and Pliny of the Arabs’. He died at the age of sixty-two and was buried in al-Fustat, Egypt.

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Abul Hasan al-Shadhili (1197-1258): According to a famous Prophetic tradition (Hadith), at the turn of every century there will emerge a Mujaddid (or religious regenerator) who will call the Muslims back to the original, pristine message of Islam. Eminent Sufi sages like Hasan al-Basri, Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani, Jalal al-Din Rumi, Khwajah Naqshband, Shihab al-Din Umar Suhrawardi, Mu’in al-Din Chishti and Najm al-Din Kubra (who contributed immensely to the preservation and dissemination of Islam as a religion and a way of life) were not considered to be Mujaddid. Of the numerous Sufi Orders (Tariqah) which emerged in the Muslim world over the last fourteen centuries, the Qadiriyyah, Naqshbandiyyah and the Chishtiyyah are considered to be the most popular and prominent. However, the Sufi Order founded by Abul Hasan al-Shadhili, the great North African Sufi scholar and sage, also played a pivotal role in the preservation of Islamic thought and practices in North Africa, as well as the dissemination of Islam across Europe and America.

Abul Hasan Ali ibn Abdullah al-Shadhili, known as Imam Shadhili for short, was born in the district of Ghumara, located close to modern Ceuta in Morocco. Living during this relatively peaceful rule of the al-Mohads (this dynasty was founded in the middle of the twelfth century by Abu Abdullah Muhammad ibn Abdullah ibn Tumart, a prominent North African Islamic reformer of the time), Shadhili became a devout student of Islam from an early age.

His time with Shaykh Mashish represented a major turning point in Shadhili’s life, for it was during this period that he mastered the rigorous methods of Sufism and began to experience Islamic spirituality in its highest form. After completing his training with Shaykh Mashish, Shadhili left his native Morocco and moved to a town called Shadhila in Tunisia; henceforth he became known as Imam Shadhili. The movement started by him later became known as Tariqah al-Shadhiliyyah (or the Shadhiliyyah Sufi Order). Islamic spirituality – as championed by Shadhili – thus spread across Tunisia, Morocco and many other parts of North Africa during his own lifetime.

In 1244, at the age of forty-seven, Shadhili claimed to have been blessed with another vision wherein he was instructed to leave Tunisia and go to Egypt to propagate Islam there. Accompanied by his family, friends and disciples, he left North Africa and moved to Alexandria where he established a Shadhiliyyah Zawiyyah.

To prove there was no contradiction between the Prophetic way (Minhaj al-sunnah) and the ways of Tasawwuf, Shadhili took part in the Battle of al-Mansura, where the Muslims fought against the Crusaders led by St. Louis of France. He insisted on taking part in the battle, despite being blind, and thereby proved that one does not have to become a hermit to be a Sufi.

The age of Shadhili was indeed one of the most significant periods in the annals of Sufism. These influential Sufis inspired the Muslim masses to reject the forces of materialism and self-indulgence which threatened to overwhelm Islamic societies both in the East and the West. At the same time, the Muslim world faced a serious political and military threat from the Mongol hordes. As it transpired, the Mongols soon overran the fragile defense put up by the Muslims and marched into Baghdad, the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate, in 1258 and reduced the great city to rubble.

Unlike, for example, Jalal al-Din Rumi or Ibn al-Arabi, Shadhili did not write any books or treatises. The main focus of his teachings was the attainment of inner purification and spiritual illumination through the incessant practice of dhikr, or invocation of Divine Names and Attributes (al-asma wa’l Sifat). After Shadhili’s death at the age of sixty-one, collections of his invocations, or litanies (Adkhar), were published by his prominent disciples (such as Abul Abbas al-Mursi) and later became the bedrock of Shadhiliyyah teachings.

Buried in the village of Humaithra on the coast of the Red Sea, Imam Shadhili’s enduring message of Islamic morality, ethics, spirituality and gnosis continues to influence millions of Muslims across North Africa, Egypt, Sudan, Turkey, Iran, parts of East Africa and the Balkans to this day.

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Abul Qasim al-Zahrawi (936-1013): After the Umayyads were ousted from power by the Abbasids in 750, Prince Abd al-Rahman ibn Muawiyah fled Damascus and arrived in North Africa. From there he reached Cordova, the capital of al-Andalus (Muslim Spain) in 756, and swiftly assumed control of that country. By unifying Spain under his able leadership, he also inaugurated one of the most memorable periods in European history. Under the guidance of his descendants such as Abd al-Rahman II and Muhammad I, Spain became one of the most advanced European nations of the time. Caliph Abd al-Rahman III and his successors turned Cordova into a thriving center of intellectual, cultural and literary activities. Al-Zahrawi was one such outstanding scholar and scientist whose contribution and achievement in the field of medicine and surgery was unique and unprecedented.

Abul Qasim Khalaf ibn Abbas al-Zahrawi, known in medieval Europe as Abulcasis, was born in the royal suburb of al-Zahra in Cordova during the glorious reign of Caliph Abd al-Rahman III. After completing his early education in Arabic and aspects of Islamic and physical sciences, al-Zahrawi developed a keen interest in the medical sciences. He went on to serve the Caliph in the capacity of personal physician until the latter died in 961 at the age of seventy-one, having ruled Islamic Spain for no less than half a century. Al-Zahrawi was barely twenty-five when al-Hakam ascended the throne in Cordova and asked him to serve as hi personal physician.

The libraries of Cordova were packed with books and manuscripts on all the sciences of the day. Such was al-Hakam’s enthusiasm for learning and scholarship that the historians have compared him with the Abbasid Caliph Abdullah al-Ma’mun who was also a formidable champion of higher education and learning.

As a pioneer of surgical anatomy, al-Zahrawi performed a large number of operations, ranging from simple Caesarean sections, to more complex and delicate eye operations. He not only invented a large number of surgical tools, but also performed numerous operations using the same tools and equipment. He also trained midwives to carry out emergency Caesarean operations and other clinical procedures on women. As an accomplished dentist, he was thoroughly familiar with all aspects of oral hygiene and dentistry.

After a lifetime devoted to medical research and surgery, al-Zahwari eventually decided to write a book on the subject. Consisting of thirty chapters, this book was in fact a massive encyclopedia on medicine and surgery and soon after its publication it became one of the most sought-after surgical textbooks of its time. This book was rated so highly by the Europeans that it was prescribed to all medical students at Europe’s leading universities until as late as the eighteenth century.

Al-Zahrawi became famous in the West as the ‘father of surgery’. He died at the age of seventy-seven and was buried in his native Cordova.

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Abyssinian Campaigns (1935-1941): Conflicts between Italy, Abyssinia (Ethiopia), and later Britain. War broke out from Italy’s unfulfilled ambition of 1894-96 to link Eritrea with Somalia, and from Mussolini’s aim to provide colonies to absorb Italy’s surplus unemployed population. In 1934 and 1935 incident5s, possibly contrived, took place at Walwal and elsewhere. On 3 October 1935 an Italian army attacked the Ethiopian forces from the north and east. Eventually the Ethiopians mustered 40,000 men, but there were helpless against the highly trained troops and modern weapons of the Italians.

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Aflaq, Michel (1910-1989): Syrian political thinker and politician. Born into a Greek Orthodox family in Damascus Aflaq received his higher education at the University of Sorbonne, Paris, where he came under leftist influence. Back in Damascus in 1934, he taught history at a prestigious secondary school. Together with Salah al Din Bitar a fellow teacher in 1940, he established a study circle called the Movement of Arab Renaissance. They published pamphlets in which they expanded revolutionary, socialist Arab nationalism, committed to achieving Arab unity as the first step. In 1942 Aflaq devoted himself full time to politics. During the Iran-Iraq war Aflaq was the butt of many attacks by Iran, anxious to depict Iraq, guided by a Christian, as a state that had deviated from Islam. Significantly, after his death in 1989 the Iraqi media disclosed that Aflaq had converted to Islam before his demise.

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Aga Khan ( Turkish, aga, ‘master’, khan, ‘ruler’). Title borne by leaders of the Nizari or eastern branch of the Ismaili sect of Shiite Islam. The first Aga Khan, Hassan Ali Shah of Kirman (d. 1881), fled to Afghanistan and Sind after leading an unsuccessful revolt in Iran in 1838. Winning British favor he settled in Bombay, where in 1866 the Arnold judgment gave him control of the affairs of the Indian Khoja community. His grandson, Sultan Muhammad Shah (1877-1957), played an active part in Indian politics, attempting to secure Muslim support for British rule, particularly as President of the All-India Muslim League (1913). He was leader of the Muslim delegation to the Round Table Conference in 1930-32. He was succeeded by his grandson, Prince Karim. A title used by the Ismaili Imams of the Nizari line.

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Ahmad ibn Hanbal (778-855): Islamic history is replete with scholars who distinguished themselves by the breadth of their learning and courage. They also endured considerable personal and financial hardship, and were often made to suffer for their faith and conviction, but they never bowed before a King or Queen. To them, the life of this world was like an illusion; without a reality of its own. Ahmad ibn Hanbal was one such towering scholar and reformer who emerged to defend traditional Islam at a critical time in Islamic history, and thereby left his indelible mark in the annals of Islam.

Abu Abdullah Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Hanbal al-Shaybani was born into the noble Arab tribe of al-Shayban. Ahmad’s grandfather, Hanbal ibn Hilal, occupied a prominent position as governor of the province of Sarakhs under the Umayyads, while his father, Muhammad, was a valiant warrior who participated in a jihad (military expedition) led by the Umayyads and died on the battlefield while he was in his thirties. Ahmad was about two years old when his father died. He attended his local schools and successfully committed the entire Qur’an to memory before he was ten. He thus combined his education in Fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) and Hadith under the guidance of Abu Yusuf Yaqub ibn Ibrahim with his extra-curricula activities.

Ahmad then studied Hadith and Fiqh for another four years under the guidance of Haytham ibn Bishr, who was one of the foremost scholars of Hadith in Baghdad. After completing his studies under the renowned scholars of Baghdad, he travelled to other major centers of Islamic learning (including Basrah, Kufah, Makkah, Madinah, Yemen and Syria) in pursuit of Hadith. Ahmad became widely recognized as an eminent scholar of Hadith, having mastered all the nuances and intricacies of this subject under the tutelage of the Yemeni scholar Abd al-Razzaq ibn Hammam, the author of the highly rated Musannaf.

Since Ahmad’s main preoccupation in life was the pursuit of knowledge, he happily travelled long distances in search of Islamic knowledge and wisdom. His critical examination of Hadith literature enabled him to ascertain their relevance to Islamic law and legal theory. He started teaching Hadith and Fiqh at the age of forty, and soon gathered around him a large following. Unflustered by the mass attention he now received, Ahmad continued to lead a simple and ascetic lifestyle, far removed from the wealth and luxuries of this world.

If any of his well-wishers sent him any money or gifts, Ahmad gave them away to the poor and needy. When he ran out of money, which he did regularly, he used to skip meals. His sincerity, simplicity and profound insight into Islamic teachings made him very popular with the masses in Baghdad.

The Mu’tazilites believed that the Qur’an was created (contrary to the traditional Islamic view, which stated that the Qur’an was the uncreated Word of God). When the Caliph eventually ordered all the defiant scholars to be brought to his palace in chains, they all relented save one. That indomitable scholar was Ahmad ibn Hanbal. Ahmad remained as firm as ever, refusing to bow before the scourge of rationalism, which at the time was threatening to undermine the very foundation of Islam. He continued his struggle against the Mu’tazilites until, in 846, Mutawakkil ala Allah ascended the Abbasid throne and reversed his predecessor’s harsh policies. The new Caliph also freed Ahmad from captivity so he could resume his normal activities. During this period he wrote numerous books on Hadith and Fiqh including his famous al-Musnad, which contains more than thirty thousand ahadith.

Ahmad ibn Hanbal died and was buried in Baghdad at the age of around seventy-seven. After his death, a new school of Islamic legal thought emerged named after him. The Hanbali Madh’hab is today followed mainly in Palestine and Saudi Arabia.

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Ahmad Khan, Sir Sayyid (1817-1898): The Asian subcontinent has produced some of the Muslim world’s most influential rulers, thinkers and reformers. Thus, famous Mughal rulers like Akbar the Great, Shah Jahan and Awrangzeb feature in this book on account of their enduring political and cultural contributions. These remarkable and gifted individuals were pioneers in their chosen fields of endeavor. Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan, an illustrious Indian Muslim educationalist and reformer, also belongs to this select group of inspirational subcontinental Muslims.

Sayyid Ahmad Khan, also known simply as Sir Sayyid, was born in Delhi, the capital of India, during the reign of the Mughal Emperor Akbar Shah II. His ancestors originally hailed from Arabia and settled in Heart before moving to Delhi during the sixteenth century. While Ahmad Khan was a child his devout father, Sayyid Muhammad Muttaqi Khan, embraced Sufism (Islamic mysticism); thus he retreated from worldly affairs and became an ascetic (Zahid). During his early years, Ahmad became very fond of Persian poetry. After the successive deaths of his older brother and father, his whole outlook on life changed. He grew a beard and became a practicing Muslim.

Following the horrific events of 1857 known as the Indian Mutiny, which led to the mass slaughter of Muslims at the hands of the British army as well as the expulsion of the last Mughal ruler, Bahadur Shah Zafar II, from India, more than three centuries of Mughal rule came to an abrupt end. A year later, Queen Victoria was proclaimed Empress of India. Dismayed by the political upheavals of the time, Ahmad initially decided to leave India and settle in Egypt, but soon he changed his mind and instead decided to work with his fellow Muslims to improve their social, political, economic and cultural conditions. He felt opposing the British would be both futile and suicidal for the future of Indian Muslims; thus he decided to cooperate with the British authorities. He therefore declared his loyalty to the Crown and this, of course, endeared him to the ruling British elites.

Many of Ahmad’s recommendations for change were accepted and implemented by the ruling elite, in order to facilitate better communication between the rulers and the ruled. Ahmad became a powerful voice for educational and cultural reform across the country. He argued that there was no contradiction between modern science and Islamic teachings. The Indian Muslims, he felt, had nothing to fear from modern Western science and educational philosophy. In 1864, the British authorities helped him to establish a scientific society in Ghazipur in order to translate high quality, modern Western philosophical and scientific literature into Urdu, so as to make the treasures of modern scientific knowledge and scholarship accessible to the Indian Muslims.

During his stay in England, Ahmad became profoundly impressed by the scientific and technological achievements of the Western world and he hoped that his college would inspire the Indian Muslims to revive the Islamic intellectual and cultural heritage. After his return from England, he enlisted the help of several prominent British officials, including Lord Northbrook and Lord Lytton, and together they laid the foundations of the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College (MAO) in 1877. Now known as Aligarh Muslim University, this famous institution of higher education has produced generations of renowned Indian Muslim scholars, thinkers and leaders, including Mawlvi Abdul Haq, Ziauddin Ahmad, Muhammad Ali Jauhar, Liaquat Ali Khan and Zakir Hussain among others.

Heavily influenced by nineteenth century European philosophical and scientific thought, Ahmad attempted to reconcile religion and science, as if Islam and scientific thought were somehow incompatible. Given his ultra-rationalistic approach to the Qur’an, it is not surprising that the ulama severely criticized him for his neo-Mu’tazilite approach to the Islamic scriptural sources.

In recognition of his outstanding services to his people, Ahmad was knighted by the British Government in 1888. He died at the age of eighty-one and was buried in Aligarh.

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Ahmad ibn Yahya (1895-1962): ruler of North Yemen, 1948-62, Eldest son of Imam Yahya of the Hamid al Din branch of the Rassi dynasty, which for centuries has governed the northern and eastern highlands of Yemen, inhabited by Zaidi tribes and later under the suzerainty of the Ottoman Turks, which ended in 1918. Suffering from ill health, Ahmad passed on much of his authority to his eldest son, Muhammad al Badr before his death in September 1962, which triggered a military coup and ended the 1,064 year rule of the Rassi dynasty.

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Aishah bint Abu Bakr (also Ayisha; 610-677): Women have played a critical role in Islamic history. Of all the illustrious Muslim women who had played an instrumental role in the emergence and development of Islam as a religion, culture and civilization, one stands out over all others. That outstanding woman was Aishah bint Abu Bakr. Her achievements were so varied and startling that no other woman in Islamic history can be compared to her. She is, therefore, the most influential single Muslim woman in history.

Aishah bint Abi Bakr ibn Abi Quhafah was born into the Banu Taym clan of the Quraysh tribe of Makkah. Her father, Abu Bakr al-Siddiq, and her mother, Umm Ruman, became Muslims very early on. She not only possessed a photographic memory; she was also a gentle and cultured lady.

Aishah was married to the Prophet when she was very young, although at the time she had matured both intellectually and physically way beyond her age. After her marriage, Aishah became the youngest wife of the Prophet; she was also much wiser than, and intellectually far superior to, the others. She was the only wife of the Prophet who was a maiden.

When Aishah went to live with the Prophet in the small apartment attached to his mosque in Madinah, she was perhaps around thirteen years old. The Prophet had no possessions other than a straw mat, a thin mattress, a pillow made of dry tree barks and leaves, a leather water container, a small plate and a cup for drinking water. The Prophet not only occupied himself in prayers and meditation, but also reminded his wives, children and followers not to become lured by the wealth, glitter and riches of this world.

Since the Prophet used to visit Abu Bakr frequently, Aishah knew the Prophet very well even before their marriage. No other person claimed to know the Prophet as well as Aishah. Aishah’s enquiring mind and willingness to learn and disseminate knowledge endeared her to the Prophet. That is why Caliphs Abu Bakr al-Siddiq, Umar ibn al-Khattab and Uthman ibn Affan, who were three of the most prominent companions of the Prophet and outstanding jurists in their own right, regularly consulted her before deciding on complex and intractable legal issues during their reigns.

Aishah memorized and related more than two thousand ahadith of the Prophet, and was brave enough to lead an army into the battlefield and wage war. Known reverentially as ummul Mu’minin (the ‘mother of the believers’), Aishah passed away at the age of sixty-seven.

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Akbar the Great (1542–1605): After the death of Amir Timur in 1405, the vast empire he had created began to rapidly disintegrate, thanks to his immediate descendants who fought each other for overall political supremacy: in the process they only succeeded in diving the Timurid Empire into several principalities. From Kabul, Babar launched raids into India and routed his opponents with great skill and determinations before establishing Mughal supremacy in 1526. Babar, the founder of the Mughal Empire, died soon afterward without fully consolidating his new kingdom. Humayun, his son and successor, was too romantic, fun-loving and indecisive to make much of an impact. He also died in his forties without securing Mughal rule. It was left to the genius of Akbar, the greatest of Mughal Emperors and one of the most influential rulers of Muslim India, to fully consolidate Mughal rule throughout the subcontinent.

Abul Fath Jalal al-Din Muhammad was born in Umarkot in the northern Indian province of Sind (in present-day Pakistan). Akbar was born at a time when his father had lost much of his power to his opponents – including his own brothers – before he took military action in order to regain his lost territories. Since he had few supporters in Sind, he proceeded to Persia to ask the reigning Safavid monarch, Shah Tahmasp, for his political and military support. Backed by the Safavids, Humayun spearheaded military action against his rebellious brothers Kamran, Askari and Hindal. During this period of military campaigns, Humayun and his family were forced to move from one place to another, which deprived young Akbar of much in the way of formal education and training. For this reason, he failed to gain proficiency in literacy.

Blessed with a prodigious memory and sharp intellect, Akbar learned and mastered a wide range of subjects including history, philosophy, religion, art and poetry with ease. He was only thirteen when his father suddenly died in 1556 and, as expected, he succeeded him as the ruler of the Mughal Empire. His accession to power was to mark the beginning of a glorious era in the history of Muslim India.

After ascending the Mughal throne, Akbar instigated military action in order to regain the lost territories, and thereby restore political stability, social peace and security across the Mughal dominion. However, as Akbar began to tighten his grip on India, the aged Bairam Khan increasingly became a liability.

Akbar was only eighteen when he became a fully-fledged Mughal ruler and military commander. Keen to expand Mughal rule further, he then took the fight to the rulers of the neighboring territories. Thus, from 1568 to 1569, he conducted military expeditions against the Rajputs of Rajasthan as they began to threaten Mughal interests. He took the capital of Gujarat without encountering much resistance and thus connected his empire to the Arabian Sea, thereby opening up a naval route to the rest of the world. Following this astonishing series of conquests, Akbar managed to establish Mughal power and authority throughout northern India. According to his son Salim (who later became Emperor Jahangir), ‘Although he was illiterate, so much became clear to him through constant intercourse with the learned and the wise in his conversations with them…’

As an intelligent ruler, Akbar knew that brute force only breaks; it does not mend and fix. Since all the previous Indian Muslim dynasties had disintegrated within a few decades of their inception, Akbar was determined not to allow the same to happen to the Mughals. He decided to win the hearts and minds of his people – that is, particularly the Muslims and Hindus. He appointed provincial governors who were responsible for overseeing the affairs of their own provinces and regularly reported directly to him.

As a fiercely monotheistic religion, Islam preaches the absolute Oneness of God (Tawhid), thus negating all forms of associationism (shirk). By contrast, the Hindus believe in multiple gods and goddesses, and also worship statues, idols and various animals. As such, these two religions are more diametrically opposed to each other than probably any of the other major world faiths. Akbar’s approach to inter-faith dialogue proved both inept and foolish. Far from uniting the two rival religious factions, this only served to make matters worse, because both orthodox Muslims and Hindus considered Akbar’s religious eclecticism very offensive.

As a religious freethinker, Akbar was fascinated by religion and philosophy and regularly engaged in religious discussion and debate with the leading Muslim, Hindu and Christian scholars of his time, for he was very keen to discover the truth about religion. He accepted the authority of the Qur’an, but also believed in the spiritual unity of religions (that is to say, he believed that all religions were true and authentic in their essence, only their forms differed). This became the basis of his new religious synthesis, namely din-i-Ilahi (or ‘the Divine Religion’).

Akbar’s long reign of forty-nine years represented one of the most glorious periods in the history of Mughal India. He also built some of India’s most magnificent buildings including the breathtaking Fatehpur Sikri, which is today considered to be one of the most beautiful sites in India along with the immortal Taj Mahal. As a ruler, Akbar was determined and ruthless, but also benevolent; his most famous motto was ‘Servant of all and master of none.’ He died at the age of sixty-three and was buried inside the mausoleum he had prepared for himself at Sikandra, located about five miles west of Agra, India.

The third and greatest of the Moguls, who ruled India from 1555 to 1605. At 13 he inherited a fragile empire, but military conquests brought Rajasthan, Gujarat, Bengal, Kashmir, and the north Deccan under his sway. He introduced a system of civil and military service which ensured loyalty and centralized control, and made modifications to the land revenue system which reduced pressure on peasant cultivators. Akbar created the basis for Mogul control over India until the early 18^th century, and also left a distinctive mark on Muslim-Hindu relations in India. Son of Humayun, who retook Kandahar and Heart in Afghanistan; Akbar claimed the throne at age 13; he moved the capital from Delhi to Agra; died in 1555 after entering Delhi, India.

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Al-Ahmar, Abdullah ibn Hussein (1933-2007): Yemeni political. Son of Shaikh Hussein ibn Nasser al Ahmar, head of the Hashid tribal confederation, who was executed in 1959 for his part in a failed coup against Imam Ahmad ibn Yahya al Ahmar succeeded his father. When civil war erupted in September 1962, soon after Imam Ahmad’s death, al Ahmar sided with the republicans. In the 1994 Yemeni Civil War he actively sided with the government. Following the 1997 general election, in which the Isah secured fifty three seats, he was reelected parliamentary speaker. With the tenure of the parliament extended to six years, al Ahmar’s status remained unchanged until 2003.

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Al-Assad, Hafez (1930-2000): Syrian politician, secretary general of the Ba’athist party and president of Syria from 1971-2000. Assad is one of the longest-serving and most influential leaders of the Middle East; after positions as an air force general and defense minister, he became prime minister after a bloodless coup in 1970, and was elected president the following year. In the effectively one-party state that Assad created, he was re-elected president in 1978, 1985, and 1991. He lost the Golan Heights in the Yom Kippur War against Israel in 1973, but won increasing influence in Lebanon after committing some 50,000 troops to the civil war there (1975 – 1990). president 1971-2000 Born Hafiz Wahhash in the family of a notable in Qurdaha, an Alawi village near Latakia, Assad enrolled at the Homs military academy in 1951 and graduated as an air force pilot four years later. During the last days of his rule was marked by his consistency and tenacity. A distant and authoritarian personality, he combined realism with a cool calculating disposition. He was strongly anti-Zionist and a major supporter of Palestinian guerrilla organizations.

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Al-Assad, Rifaat (1937- ): Syrian politician Born in the family of a rural notable in Qurdaha, an Alawi village near Latakia. Assad joined the Baath party in 1952. He did his military service during the period when Syria was part of the United Arab Republic (1958-61). After the Ba’athist coup of March 1963, Assad was put through a crash course at the Homs military academy. In late 1999 the government closed down a port in Latakia that had been built illegally by Assad, and warned him that he faced prosecution if he returned home. Following Hafiz Assad’s death in 2000, Assad described the accession of Bashar Assad as unconstitutional.

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Al Badr, Muhammad (1926-1996): ruler of North Yemen, 1962 As the eldest son of Imam Ahmad ibn Yahya al Badr assisted his father in administering North Yemen and fulfilling specific assignments. In 1955 when Imam Ahmad faced an armed revolt by two of his brothers, al Badr mobilized the Bakil and Hashid tribal confederations and saved his father’s throne. Al Badr was named crown prince. The resulting civil war lasted until 1970. As the rapprochement between the royalist and republican sides, brokered by Saudi Arabia, was based on acceptance of a republic in North Yemen, al Badr went into self exile in Britain.

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Al Banna, Sabri (1937-2002): Palestinian leader Born into a prosperous, plantation owning family in Jaffa al Banna and his family fled to the al Bureij refugee camp in the Gaza strip after the established of Israel in May 1948. They then moved to the West Bank city of Nablus. In August 2002, the Iraqi government claimed that al Banna had entered the country illegally and that when confronted by a security unit in his Baghdad apartment, he committed suicide. Other reports suggested that al Banna had been killed by the Iraqi security unit in a shoot out.

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Al-Battani (850–922): An astronomer who accurately determined the length of the solar year. He contributed to numeric tables, such as the Tables of Toledo, used by astronomers to predict the movements of the sun, moon and planets across the sky. Some of Battani’s astronomic tables were later used by Copernicus. Battani also developed numeric tables which could be used to find the direction of Mecca from different locations. Knowing the direction of Mecca is important for Muslims, as this is the direction faced during prayer.

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Al Baz, Abdul Aziz ibn Abdullah (1911-1999): Saudi Arabian religious leader Born into a religious family in Riyadh al Baz studied the Quran and Sharia. After going blind at sixteen he became a student of Shaikh Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahhab, the grand lufti, to train as an Islamic judge. The next year he was appointed grand mufti of Saudi Arabia, a job that had been left vacant since 1969, and president of the Supreme Religious Council. Among his several books is Inquiry and clarification of Many Hajj and Umra Issues.

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Al-Beidh, Ali Salim (1939- ): South Yemeni and Temeni political Born into a religious family in the Hadramaut region, al Beidh participated in the armed nationalist struggle of the South Yemen conducted by the National Liberation Front against Britain. In 1996 as leader of the National Opposition Front, al Beidh demanded a referendum in the south to secure better terms for the region. Two years later he was sentenced to death in absentia for his role in the 1994 civil war.

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Al-Biruni, Abu al-Rayān Muhammad ibn Amad (973-1048): (born 5 September 973 in Kath, Khwarezm, died in the year 13 December 1048 in Ghazni), known as Alberonius in Latin and Al-Biruni in English, was a Persian-Chorasmian Muslim scholar and polymath of the 11th century and from an early age, he became interested in mathematics and the physical sciences.

Al-Biruni is regarded as one of the greatest scholars of the medieval Islamic era and was well versed in physics, mathematics, astronomy and natural sciences. He also distinguished himself as a historian, chronologist and linguist. He was conversant in Chorasmian, Persian, Arabic, Sanskrit and Turkic, and also knew Greek, Hebrew and Syriac. He spent a large part of his life in Ghazni in modern-day Afghanistan, capital of the Ghaznavid dynasty which ruled eastern Iranian lands and the northwestern Indian subcontinent.

In 1017 he traveled to the Indian subcontinent and became the most important interpreter of Indian science to the Islamic world. He is given titles such as the “founder of Indology” and the “first anthropologist”. He was an impartial writer on custom and creeds of various nations and was given the title al-Ustdadh (“The Master”) for his remarkable description of early 11th century India. He also made contributions to Earth sciences and is regarded as the “father of geodesy” for his important contributions to that field, along with his significant contributions to geography.

Life:

He was born in the outer district of Kath, the capital of the Afrighid dynasty of Chorasmia. The word Biruni means “outer-district” in Persian and so this became his nisba: “al-Bīrūnī” = “the Birunian”. His first twenty-five years were spent in Chorasmia where he studied Fiqh, theology, grammar, mathematics, astronomy, medics and other sciences.

He was sympathetic to the Afrighids, who were overthrown by the rival dynasty of Ma’munids in 995. Leaving his homeland, he left for Bukhara, then under the Samanid ruler Mansur II the son of Nuh. There he also corresponded with Avicenna.

In 998, he went to the court of the Ziyarid Amir of Tabaristan, Shams al-Mo’ali Abul-Hasan Ghaboos ibn Wushmgir. There he wrote his first important work, al-Athar al-Baqqiya ‘an al-Qorun al-Khaliyya (literally: “The remaining traces of past centuries” and translated as “Chronology of ancient nations” or “Vestiges of the Past”) on historical and scientific chronology, probably around 1000 A.D., though he later made some amendments to the book. Accepting the definite demise of the Afrighids at the hands of the Ma’munids, he made peace with the latter who then ruled Chorasmia. Their court at Gorganj (also in Chorasmia) was gaining fame for its gathering of brilliant scientists.

In 1012, al-Biruni returned to his native Khwarizm where he resumed his studies. In 1017, Mahmud of Ghazni took Rey. Most scholars, including al-Biruni, were taken to Ghazna, the capital of the Ghaznavid dynasty. Biruni was made court astrologer and accompanied Mahmud on his invasions into India, living there for a few years. Biruni became acquainted with all things related to India. He may even have learned some Sanskrit. During this time he wrote the Kitab Ta’rikh al-Hind, finishing it around 1030.

Mathematics and Astronomy:

Ninety-five of 146 books known to have been written by Bīrūnī, about 65 percent, were devoted to astronomy, mathematics and related subjects like mathematical geography. Biruni’s major work on astrology is primarily an astronomical and mathematical text, only the last chapter concerns astrological prognostication. His endorsement of astrology is limited, in so far as he condemns horary astrology as ‘sorcery’.

Biruni wrote an extensive commentary on Indian astronomy in the Kitab Ta’rikh al-Hind, in which he claims to have resolved the matter of Earth’s rotation in a work on astronomy that is no longer extant, his Miftah-ilm-alhai ‘a (Key to Astronomy):

“The rotation of the earth does in no way impair the value of astronomy, as all appearances of an astronomic character can quite as well be explained according to this theory as to the other. There are, however, other reasons which make it impossible.”

Physics:

Al-Biruni contributed to the introduction of the experimental scientific method of mechanics, unified statics and dynamics into the science of mechanics and combined the fields of hydrostatics with dynamics to create hydrodynamics.

Geography:

Biruni also devised his own method of determining the radius of the earth by means of the observation of the height of a mountain and carried it out at Nandana in India.

Pharmacology and Mineralogy:

Due to an apparatus he constructed himself, he succeeded in determining the specific gravity of a certain number of metals and minerals with remarkable precision.

History and Chronology:

Biruni’s main essay on political history, Kitab al-Musāmara fīabār ārazm (Book of conversation concerning the affairs of ārazm) is now known only from quotations in Bayhaqī’s Tarikh-e mas‘ūdī. In addition to this, various discussions of historical events and methodology are found in connection with the lists of kings in his al-Āthār al-Baqqiya and in the Qanun, as well as elsewhere in the Āthār in India and scattered throughout his other works

History of Religions:

Bīrūnī is one of the most important Muslim authorities on the history of religion. Al-Biruni was a pioneer in the study of comparative religion. He studied Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Hinduism, Christianity, Buddhism, Islam and other religions. He treated religions objectively, striving to understand them on their own terms rather than trying to prove them wrong. His underlying concept was that all cultures are at least distant relatives of all other cultures because they are all human constructs.

Al-Biruni divides Hindus into an educated and an uneducated class. He describes the educated as monotheistic, believing that God is one, eternal and omnipotent, eschewing all forms of idol worship. He recognizes that uneducated Hindus worshipped a multiplicity of idols yet points out that even some Muslims (such as the Jabiriyya) have adopted anthropomorphic concepts of God. (Ataman, 2005)

Indology:

Biruni’s fame as an Indologist rests primarily on two texts. Al-Biruni wrote an encyclopedic work on India called “Tarikh Al-Hind” (History of India, also known as “Indica,” or simply “India”) in which he explored nearly every aspect of Indian life, including religion, history, geography, geology, science and mathematics. He explores religion within a rich cultural context. As an example of Al-Biruni’s analysis, is his summary of why many Hindus hate Muslims. He explains that Hinduism and Islam are totally different from each other. Moreover, Hindus in 11^th century India considered all foreigners, not just Muslims, impure and refused to have any connection with them. Furthermore, when the Muslims entered India, the land had already been devastated by two previous invasions by the Sakas and the Hunas. Al-Biruni collected books and studied with Hindu scholars to become fluent in Sanskrit. He translated books both from Sanskrit to Arabic and vice versa.

Works:

Most of the works of Al-Biruni are in Arabic, although he wrote one of his masterpieces, the Kitab al-Tafhim, apparently in both Persian and Arabic, showing his mastery over both languages. Biruni’s catalogue of his own literary production up to his 65th lunar/63rd solar year (the end of 427/1036) lists 103 titles divided into 12 categories: astronomy, mathematical geography, mathematics, astrological aspects and transits, astronomical instruments, chronology, comets, an untitled category, astrology, anecdotes, religion and books of which he no longer possesses copies.

Persian work:

Although he preferred Arabic to Persian in scientific writing, his Persian version of the Al-Tafhim is one of the most important of the early works of science in the Persian language and is a rich source for Persian prose and lexicography. The book covers the Quadrivium in a detailed and skilled fashion.

In 1031, when he was around fifty-eight, al-Biruni left India and returned to Ghazna. He spent the rest of his life in Ghazna and passed away at the age of seventy-eight. In the intellectual history of Islam, the period from 973 to 1051 is known as the ‘Age of al-Biruni’.

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Al-Bukhari (809-870): The life and teachings of the Prophet Muhammad are an important source of inspiration, guidance and instruction for more than a billion Muslims across the globe today. The Arabic word Hadith refers to a ‘saying’ or ‘utterance’ of the Prophet. Muslims scrupulously emulate his deeds and actions (sunnah) in every sphere of their lives. In Islamic history, one man stands over and above all others when it comes to collecting, editing, analyzing and verifying the sayings and utterances of the Prophet. He is none other than Imam al-Bukhari.

Abu Abdullah Muhammad ibn Ismail ibn Ibrahim ibn Mughirah ibn Bardizbah al-Bukhari was born in Bukhara, in Muslim Central Asia. Of Persian origin, al-Bukhari’s ancestors were farmers who were taken captive during the Muslim conquest of that region in the early days of Islam. Muhammad was the younger of two sons, and became well-known as al-Bukhari.

Al-Bukhari was evidently a gifted student who possessed a photographic memory and great analytical skills. After successfully completing his initial education at the age of twelve, al-Bukhari pursued advanced training in Islamic sciences and specialized in Hadith literature. In fact, he was barely twenty when he came to be recognized as one of the foremost scholars of Hadith in his locality.

After completing his higher education in Bukhara, al-Bukhari left his native city and went to Makkah, along with his mother and brother, to perform the sacred hajj (pilgrimage). From Makkah he travelled to other great centers of Islamic learning in Egypt, Syria and Iraq before settling in Basrah where he conducted advanced research in Hadith. During his sojourns he came into contact with some of the foremost Hadith scholars of his time, including Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Abu Bakr ibn Abu Shaiba, Ishaq ibn Rahawaih, Ali ibn al-Madini and Yahya ibn Ma’in.

After rigorous and systematic investigation of the ahadith, the Muhaddithun (or ‘scholars of Hadith’) classified them into different categories such as sound (Sahih), good (hasan), recurrent (Mutawatir), solitary (ahad), weak (daeef), fabricated (maudu) and so on and so forth. Al-Bukhari not only mastered the science of Hadith, but also committed around half a million Hadith to memory. He ate most frugally, and led a very simple and austere lifestyle. After collecting more than half a million Hadith, he systematically investigated and examined them in order to ascertain their veracity.

Al-Bukhari composed his first book on Hadith during his stay in Madinah, when he was only eighteen. He contributed more to Islamic thought and scholarship than any other scholar of his generation. Of all his works, his most seminal contribution was Jami al-Sahih, better known as Sahih al-Bukhari. This anthology is today widely considered to be the most authentic book of Islamic teachings after the Holy Qur’an. Al-Bukhari sifted through more than half a million ahadith and chose only the most authentic ones for inclusion in his Jami al-Sahih, which consisted of a total of seven thousand, two hundred and twenty-two Prophetic narrations.

Al-Bukhari settled in a small town adjacent to his native Bukhara and passed away at the age of approximately sixty-one.

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Al-Farabi (Al-Pharabius 870–950): was a rationalist philosopher, scientist, cosmologist, logician, musician and mathematician of the Islamic world, who attempted to describe, geometrically, the repeating patterns popular in Islamic decorative motifs. His book on the subject is titled Spiritual Crafts and Natural Secrets in the Details of Geometrical Figures.

Biography:

The sources for his life are scant which makes the reconstruction of his biography beyond a mere outline nearly impossible. The earliest and more reliable sources, i.e., those composed before the 6th/12th century. The sources prior to the 6th/12th century consist of: (1) an autobiographical passage by Farabi, preserved by Ibn Abī Uaibi’a. In this passage, Farabi traces the transmission of the instruction of logic and philosophy from antiquity to his days. (2) Reports by Al-Masudi, Ibn al-Nadim and Ibn Hawqal, as well as by Said Al-Andalusi (d. 1070), who devoted a biography to him.

When major Arabic biographers decided to write comprehensive entries on Farabi in the 6th-7th/12th-13th centuries, there was very little specific information on hand; this allowed for their acceptance of invented stories about his life which range from benign extrapolation on the basis of some known details to tendentious reconstructions and legends. The sources from the 6th/12th century and later consist essentially of three biographical entries, all other extant reports on Farabi being either dependent on them or even later fabrications: 1) the Syrian tradition represented by Ibn Abī Uaibi‘a. 2) The Wafayāt al-a‘yān wa-anbā’ abnā’ az-zamān (“Deaths of Eminent Men and History of the Sons of the Epoch”; trans. by Baron de Slane, Ibn Khallikan’s Biographical Dictionary, 1842-74) compiled by Ibn Khallikan. 3) the scanty and legendary Eastern tradition, represented by ahīr-al-Din Bayhaqī.

From incidental accounts it is known that he spent significant time in Baghdad with Christian scholars including the cleric Yuhanna ibn Haylan, Yahya ibn Adi, and Abu Ishaq Ibrahim al-Baghdadi. He later spent time in Damascus, Syria and Egypt before returning to Damascus where he died in 950-1.

Name:

His name was Abu Nasr Muhammad b. Muhammad Farabi, as all sources and especially the earliest and most reliable, Al-Masudi, agree. In modern Turkish scholarship and some other sources, the pronunciation is given as Uzlu rather than Awzala, without any explanation.

Birthplace:

Abu Nasr Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Tarkhan ibn Uzalagh al-Farabi, better known in the Latin West as Alpharabius, was born in Wasij, a small village located close to Farab in the province of Transoxiana in Turkistan. Of Turkish origin, his father initially served as an army captain, and later he became a prominent member of the Persian military service.

Blessed with an unrivalled linguistic ability, al-Farabi continued to develop this ability throughout his life and probably knew more languages and dialects than any other Muslim thinker of his generation. Arabic and Persian aside, he mastered Turkish, Greek, Syriac and Hebrew, not to mention many other local languages and dialects. He went on to receive advanced training in linguistics and Islamic sciences. He became so proficient in Fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) that he was appointed Qadi (judge) while he was still in his twenties.

Origin:

There exists a difference of opinion on the ethnic background of Farabi. According to the Oxford Encyclopedia of African Thought “[…] because the origins of al-Farabi were not recorded during his lifetime or soon after his death in 950 C.E. by anyone with concrete information, accounts of his pedigree and place of birth have been based on hearsay…

Iranian origin theory:

Medieval Arab historian Ibn Abī Uaibi’a (died in 1269) – al-Farabi’s oldest biographer – mentions in his ‘Oyūn that al-Farabi’s father was of Persian descent. Sogdian have been mentioned as his native language and the language of the inhabitants of Farab. Muhammad Javad Mashkoor argues for an Iranian-speaking Central Asian origin.

Turkish origin theory:

The oldest known reference to a possible Turkish origin is given by the medieval historian Ibn Khallikan (died in 1282), who in his work Wafayāt (completed in 669/1271) states that Farabi was born in the small village of Wasij near Farab (in what is today Otrar, Kazakhstan) of Turkish parents. Oxford professor C.E. Bosworth notes that “great figures [such] as al-Farabi, al-Biruni, and ibn Sina have been attached by over enthusiastic Turkish scholars to their race”.

Life and Education:

Al-Farabi spent almost his entire life in Baghdad, capital of Abbasids that ruled the Islamic world. In the auto-biographical passage about the appearance of philosophy preserved by Ibn Abī Uaibi’a, Farabi has stated that he had studied logic with Yūannā b. aylān up to and including Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics. His studies of Aristotelian logic with Yūannā in all probability took place in Baghdad, where Al-Masudi tells us Yūannā died during the caliphate of al-Moqtader (295-320/908-32). He also lived and taught for some time in Aleppo. Later on Farabi visited Egypt; and complete six sections summarizing the book Mabāde’ in Egypt in 337/July 948-June 949. He returned from Egypt to Syria. In Syria, he was supported and glorified by Saif ad-Daula, the Hamdanid ruler of Syria.

Contributions:

Farabi made contributions to the fields of logic, mathematics, music, philosophy, psychology, and education.

Alchemy:

Al-Farabi wrote: The Necessity of the Art of the Elixir.

Logic:

Though he was mainly an Aristotelian logician, he included a number of non-Aristotelian elements in his works. He is also credited for categorizing logic into two separate groups, the first being “idea” and the second being “proof.

Music:

Farabi wrote a book on music titled Kitab al-Musiqa (The Book of Music). He presents philosophical principles about music, its cosmic qualities and its influences. Al-Farabi’s treatise Meanings of the Intellect dealt with music therapy, where he discussed the therapeutic effects of music on the soul.

Philosophy:

As a philosopher, Al-Farabi was a founder of his own school of early Islamic philosophy known as “Farabism” or “Alfarabism”, though it was later overshadowed by Avicennism. Al-Farabi’s school of philosophy “breaks with the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle [… and …] moves from metaphysics to methodology, a move that anticipates modernity”. In his attempt to think through the nature of a First Cause, Al-farabi discovers the limits of human knowledge”.

Al-Farabi had great influence on science and philosophy for several centuries, and was widely regarded to be second only to Aristotle in knowledge (alluded to by his title of “the Second Teacher” in his time. His work, aimed at synthesis of philosophy and Sufism, paved the way for the work of Ibn Sina (Avicenna).

Al-Farabi also wrote a commentary on Aristotle’s work, and one of his most notable works is Al-Madina al-Fadila where he theorized an ideal state as in Plato’s The Republic. Al-Farabi departed from the Platonic view in that he regarded the ideal state to be ruled by the prophet-imam, instead of the philosopher-king envisaged by Plato. Al-Farabi argued that the ideal state was the city-state of Medina when it was governed by the prophet Muhammad as its head of state, as he was in direct communion with Allah whose law was revealed to him.

Physics:

Al-Farabi thought about the nature of the existence of void. He may have carried out the first experiments concerning the existence of vacuum, in which he investigated handheld plungers in water. He concluded that air’s volume can expand to fill available space, and he suggested that the concept of perfect vacuum was incoherent.

Psychology:

In psychology, al-Farabi’s Social Psychology and Model City were the first treatises to deal with social psychology. He stated that “an isolated individual could not achieve all the perfections by himself, without the aid of other individuals.” He wrote that it is the “innate disposition of every man to join another human being or other men in the labor he ought to perform.” He concluded that in order to “achieve what he can of that perfection, every man needs to stay in the neighborhood of others and associate with them.”

His On the Cause of Dreams, which appeared as chapter 24 of his Book of Opinions of the people of the Ideal City, was a treatise on dreams, in which he distinguished between dream interpretation and the nature and causes of dreams.

Philosophical thought:

The main influence on al-Farabi’s philosophy was the neo-Aristotelian tradition of Alexandria. A prolific writer, he is credited with over one hundred works. Some other significant influences on his work were the planetary model of Ptolemy and elements of Neo-Platonism, particularly metaphysics and practical (or political) philosophy (which bears more resemblance to Plato’s Republic than Aristotle’s Politics).

He tried to gather the ideas of Plato and Aristotle in his book “The gathering of the ideas of the two philosophers”. His success should be measured by the honorific title of “the second master” of philosophy (Aristotle being the first), by which he was known.

Metaphysics and cosmology:

In contrast to al-Kindi, who considered the subject of metaphysics to be God, al-Farabi believed that it was concerned primarily with being qua being (that is, being in of itself), and this is related to God only to the extent that God is a principle of absolute being.

Al-Farabi’s cosmology is essentially based upon three pillars: Aristotelian metaphysics of causation, highly developed Plutonian emanational cosmology and the Ptolemaic astronomy. In his model, the universe is viewed as a number of concentric circles; the outermost sphere or “first heaven”, the sphere of fixed stars, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury and finally, the Moon. At the centre of these concentric circles is the sub-lunar realm which contains the material world. Each of these circles represent the domain of the secondary intelligences (symbolized by the celestial bodies themselves), which act as causal intermediaries between the First Cause (in this case, God) and the material world. Furthermore these are said to have emanated from God, who is both their formal and efficient cause. This departs radically from the view of Aristotle, who considered God to be solely a formal cause for the movement of the spheres, but by doing so it renders the model more compatible with the ideas of the theologians.

The process of emanation begins (metaphysically, not temporally) with the First Cause, whose principal activity is self-contemplation. And it is this intellectual activity that underlies its role in the creation of the universe. The First Cause, by thinking of itself, “overflows” and the incorporeal entity of the second intellect “emanates” from it. Like its predecessor, the second intellect also thinks about itself, and thereby brings its celestial sphere (in this case, the sphere of fixed stars) into being, but in addition to this it must also contemplate upon the First Cause, and this causes the “emanation” of the next intellect. The cascade of emanation continues until it reaches the tenth intellect, beneath which is the material world. It should be noted that this process is based upon necessity as opposed to will. In other words, God does not have a choice whether or not to create the universe, but by virtue of His own existence, He causes it to be. This view also suggests that the universe is eternal, and both of these points were criticized by al-Ghazali in his attack on the philosophers.

In his discussion of the First Cause (or God), al-Farabi relies heavily on negative theology. He says that it cannot be known by intellectual means, such as dialectical division or definition, because the terms used in these processes to define a thing constitute its substance. This would suggest that the more philosophically simple a thing is, the more perfect it is. Each succeeding level in this structure has as its principal qualities multiplicity and deficiency, and it is this ever-increasing complexity that typifies the material world.

Epistemology and eschatology:

Human beings are unique in al-Farabi’s vision of the universe because they stand between two worlds: the “higher”, immaterial world of the celestial intellects and universal intelligibles and the “lower”, material world of generation and decay; they inhabit a physical body, and so belong to the “lower” world, but they also have a rational capacity, which connects them to the “higher” realm. Each level of existence in al-Farabi’s cosmology is characterized by its movement towards perfection, which is to become like the First Cause; a perfect intellect. Human perfection (or “happiness”), then, is equated with constant intellection and contemplation.

Al-Farabi divides intellect into four categories: potential, actual, acquired and the Agent. The first three are the different states of the human intellect and the fourth is the Tenth Intellect (the moon) in his emanational cosmology. By thinking, al-Farabi means abstracting universal intelligibles from the sensory forms of objects which have been apprehended and retained in the individual’s imagination.

This motion from potentiality to actuality requires the Agent Intellect to act upon the retained sensory forms; just as the Sun illuminates the physical world to allow us to see, the Agent Intellect illuminates the world of intelligibles to allow us to think. This illumination removes all accident (such as time, place, and quality) and physicality from them, converting them into primary intelligibles, which are logical principles such as “the whole is greater than the part”. Because the Agent Intellect knows all of the intelligibles, this means that when the human intellect knows all of them, it becomes associated with the Agent Intellect’s perfection and is known as the acquired Intellect.

And it is by choosing what is ethical and contemplating about what constitutes the nature of ethics that the actual intellect can become “like” the active intellect, thereby attaining perfection. It is only by this process that a human soul may survive death, and live on in the afterlife.

According to al-Farabi, the afterlife is not the personal experience commonly conceived of by religious traditions such as Islam and Christianity. Any individual or distinguishing features of the soul are annihilated after the death of the body; only the rational faculty survives (and then, only if it has attained perfection), which becomes one with all other rational souls within the agent intellect and enters a realm of pure intelligence.

Psychology, the soul and prophetic knowledge:

In his treatment of the human soul, al-Farabi draws on a basic Aristotelian outline, which is informed by the commentaries of later Greek thinkers. He says it is composed of four faculties: The appetitive (the desire for, or aversion to an object of sense), the sensitive (the perception by the senses of corporeal substances), the imaginative (the faculty which retains images of sensible objects after they have been perceived, and then separates and combines them for a number of ends), and the rational, which is the faculty of intellection. It is the last of these which is unique to human beings and distinguishes them from plants and animals. It is also the only part of the soul to survive the death of the body.

Special attention must be given to al-Farabi’s treatment of the soul’s imaginative faculty, which is essential to his interpretation of prophet hood and prophetic knowledge. Therefore what makes prophetic knowledge unique is not its content, which is also accessible to philosophers through demonstration and intellection, but rather the form that it is given by the prophet’s imagination.

Practical philosophy (ethics and politics):

The practical application of philosophy is a major concern expressed by al-Farabi in many of his works, and while the majority of his philosophical output has been influenced by Aristotelian thought, his practical philosophy is unmistakably based on that of Plato. In a similar manner to Plato’s Republic, al-Farabi emphasizes that philosophy is both a theoretical and practical discipline; labeling those philosophers who do not apply their erudition to practical pursuits as “futile philosophers”. Al-Farabi compares the philosopher’s role in relation to society with a physician in relation to the body; the body’s health is affected by the “balance of its humors” just as the city is determined by the moral habits of its people. The philosopher’s duty, he says, is to establish a “virtuous” society by healing the souls of the people, establishing justice and guiding them towards “true happiness”.

Of course, al-Farabi realizes that such a society is rare and will require a very specific set of historical circumstances in order to be realized, which means very few societies will ever be able to attain this goal. Ignorant societies have, for whatever reason, failed to comprehend the purpose of human existence, and have supplanted the pursuit of happiness for another (inferior) goal, whether this be wealth, sensual gratification or power. Al-Farabi also makes mention of “weeds” in the virtuous society; those people who try to undermine its progress towards the true human end.

Al-Farabi rightly earned the coveted title of al-Mu ‘allim al-Thani (The Second Teacher) with Aristotle being al-Mu’allim al-awwal (The First Teacher). The great Jewish philosopher and theologian Musa bin Maimon (better known as Maimonides) once told one of his friends that al-Farabi’s works on logic were ‘finer than flour’ and urged him not to bother consulting the works of other logicians.

Unlike al-Ghazali and many other prominent Islamic thinkers, al-Farabi considered philosophy to be entirely unified. He argued that both Plato and Aristotle expounded the same truth. As a devout Muslim and also a practicing Sufi, al-Farabi focused more on the spiritual, than on the practical, dimension of things.

Al-Farabi was in his early seventies when political instability began to spread across Baghdad, and this prompted him to move to Damascus in 942. Here he worked as a gardener for a period before moving to Egypt, only to return to Damascus again in 949. A year later, he died at the age of eighty and was buried in Damascus following a simple funeral led by Sayf al-Dawlah himself. Al-Farabi’s works influenced prominent Jewish and Christian thinkers like St Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus, Musa bin Maimon (Maimonides) and Leo Strauss among others.

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Al-Hafiz, Amin (1921-2009): Syrian politician, president 1963-1966. The son of a Sunni policeman in Aleppo. Hafiz became a noncommissioned officer in the French Syrian Social Forces during the Second World War. After his release from jail in June 1967 he went into exile in Lebanon. When the Afaw led faction of the Baath party seized power in Iraq about a year later, he moved to Baghdad. Hafiz continued his anti Assad activities, later heading the National Alliance of the Liberation of Syria, an umbrella body of various anti Assad factions.

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Al Hakim, Tawfiq (1898-1987): Egyptian writer Born of a Turkish father and an Egyptian mother in Alexandria al Hakim secured a law degree from Cairo University. In 1925 he went to Paris to obtain a doctorate in law. Instead of concentrating on his studies, he soaked himself in the cultural, artistic and theatrical life of the city. By then his literary career was well established. Having attempted light entertainment in Ali Baba, al Hakim opted for authoring intellectual plays fill of ideas and philosophic reflections. At the time of the 1952 revolution, al Hakim was director of the National Library in Cairo He supported the new regime. After Nasser’s death in 1970 al Hakim criticized him in his booklet. The return of consciousness (1975).

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Al-Hallaj (858-922): The origin of Sufism (or the mystical dimension of Islam) is often traced back to the Qur’an and the normative practice (sunnah) of the Prophet by its adherents. Thus, far from being an alien intrusion into the Muslim world, Sufism embodies the very heart and soul of Islam as a religion and way of life. Like the Prophet and his close companions, the early Sufis, like Hasan al-Basri, Ja’far al-Sadiq and Rabi’a al-Adawiyyah renounced worldly pleasures and engaged in devotional activities and did so without wearing the label of Sufi. Scores of outstanding Sufi personalities like Dawud al-Ta’s, Shaqiq al-Balkhi, Habib al-Ajami, Ibrahim ibn Adham, Maruf al-Karkhi, Hasan al-Basri and Rabi’a al-Adawiyyah emerged to warn both the rulers and the people of the dangers of excessive materialism. Al-Hallaj was probably one of the most prominent exponents of this strand of Sufism.

Abul Mughith Hussain ibn Mansur ibn Muhammad al-Hallaj was born at Tur near al-Bayda in the Persian province of Fars. According to one account, his ancestors were originally Zoroastrians (followers of Zoroaster, the ancient Persian prophet and sage). His father, Mansur, was a devout Muslim who earned his living as a wool-carder; hence the title ‘al-Hallaj’. Encouraged by his father, young al-Hallaj committed the entire Qur’an to memory as a child and then pursued further education in Arabic and traditional Islamic sciences. Thereafter, he travelled to the Iraqi city of Wasit where he completed his higher education under the tutelage of its leading scholars. Founded in 702 by Hajjaj ibn Yusuf, the governor of the Umayyad ruler Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan, Wasit became a prominent center of Islamic learning and scholarship in Iraq.

After completing his higher education, al-Hallaj left Wasit and moved to Basrah, which was also the home of Hasan al-Basri and Rabi’a al-Adawiyyah, and there he married the daughter of a local Sufi. From Basrah, he went to Makkah where he became renowned for his devotional and ascetic practices. After completing the sacred hajj (pilgrimage), he went to Baghdad which at the time was one of the Muslim world’s foremost centers of Islamic learning and spirituality. Here he became a student of Abul Qasim al-Junayd al-Baghdadi (also known as al-Junayd al-Baghdadi), who was a Sufi scholar of considerable influence.

Al-Hallaj left Baghdad and became a wandering Sufi. During his travels in and around Khurasan he gathered around him a sizeable following and eventually went to Makkah to perform his second pilgrimage. From Makkah he went to Turkistan and from there he reportedly travelled to India and as far as the borders of China. He became familiar with the Hindu mystical concepts of ‘self-annihilation’ and ‘extinction’ which, in turn, influenced his own mystical views. He returned to Baghdad when he was about fifty and a large following gathered around him. He became such an outspoken exponent of Sufism that even the Mu’tazilites considered him to be an opportunist and charlatan. This prompted the ruling Abbasid elites to expel him from Baghdad, after which he again returned to Makkah and performed yet another pilgrimage. After completing this third pilgrimage, he returned to Baghdad completely transformed.

Al-Hallaj ignored the advice of his fellow Sufis and began to advocate the need for spiritual and moral reformation in Baghdad. He was eventually apprehended by the Abbasid authorities and imprisoned for nine years. The Abbasid elites promptly put him on trial charged with blasphemy and treason. The trial was no more than a show; thus everyone expected him to be found guilty. Mocked, vilified and branded a heretic by the orthodox religious scholars, and also shunned and excommunicated by his fellow Sufis, al-Hallaj was sentenced to death by hanging.

As one of the Muslim world’s most radical and controversial mystical thinkers, al-Hallaj’s life and thoughts are riddled with contradictions, paradoxes, and unusual insights into Islamic spirituality and gnosis. Following in the footsteps of Abu Yazid al-Bistami (who was one of the first Sufi thinkers to argue that ‘self-annihilation and extinction’ represented the peak of mystical experience), al-Hallaj became one of the most eloquent and bravest revealers of mystical secrets and truths. Central to al-Hallaj’s mystical philosophy was the concept of love (mahabbah). Like Rabi’a al-Adawiyyah, he advocated the pursuit of disinterested love, that is to seek the Beloved only for His sake, rather than out of fear of eternal damnation or promise of reward. Al-Hallaj’s expression of spontaneous, disinterested love proved hugely controversial because he claimed to have experienced the ‘essence of union’ (Ayn al-jam), where the lover and the Beloved became one (ittihad); thus he blurred the crucial distinction between the Creator and His creation.

Al-Hallaj expressed his mystical ideas and experiences in beautiful, unforced and refreshing poetic couplets. He composed around forty-six books and treatises on different aspects of Islamic mysticism.

‘I do not cease swimming in the seas of love, rising with the wave, then descending; now the wave sustains me, and then I sink beneath it; love bears me away where there is no longer any shore.’ (Diwan al-Hallaj). (Kitab al-Tawasin): ‘I have seen my Lord with the eye of my heart, and I said: ‘Who are you?’ He said: ‘You.’

Taken literally, these mystical utterances and outburst are indeed heretical and blasphemous. Al-Hallaj argued that he was neither a heretic nor a blasphemer; rather he was an exponent of mystical experience in its highest form.

He was sentenced to death at the age of sixty-four for preaching ‘heretical’ ideas. His persecutors severely tortured and flogged him, before amputating his limbs one by one. His body was then cremated and his ashes scattered in the Tigris.

Other equally renowned Islamic scholars and Sufis, like Abu Bakr al-Shibli, Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani, Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, Fakhr Rumi and Sir Muhammad Iqbal, have exonerated him of the charge of self-deification and belief in monism. True to form, nearly eleven centuries after his death, al-Hallaj continues to polarize the Sufis, Islamic philosophers and theologians to this day.

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Al-Hamid I: to the throne of the Ottoman Empire (Turkey). He suffered severe defeats in the second of the Russo-Turkish Wars with Catherine II, but suffered no major territorial losses when peace was made at Jassy in 1792. An ardent reformer, Selim set out to rebuild the Turkish navy on European lines, to reform the army, and to curb the Janissaries. In 1798 Selim joined the second coalition against France in the French Revolutionary Wars. Turkish forces lost Jaffa to Napoleon Bonaparte, who had invaded (1799) Syria after taking Egypt, but they held out at Acre and forced Napoleon to retreat. In 1801 the French left Egypt, which was restored to the sultan. In 1804 the Serbs under Karageorge revolted.

In 1806 war with Russia broke out again. A revolt of the Janissaries and conservatives who opposed his reforms led to Selim’s deposition and imprisonment in 1807. Mustafa IV was placed on the throne. A loyal army marched on Constantinople to restore Selim. It entered the city in 1808, just after Selim had been strangled on Mustafa’s orders. Mustafa was executed and another of Selim’s cousins, Mahmud II, was put on the throne. During Selim’s reign Egypt became virtually independent under Muhammad Ali, as did Albania under Ali Pasha. Selim’s well-intentioned and efficient reforms came too late to arrest the decay of the Ottoman empire

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Al Husseini, Faisal (1940-2001): Born in Baghdad to Abdul Qadir, the field commander during the 1936-39 Arab Revolt in Palestine during the time his family took refuge there al Hussein grew up in Cairo where he obtained a university degree. In 1979 he opened the Arab Studies Center in East Jerusalem which the Israeli authorities regarded as a front for coordinating PLO activities in the Occupied Territories. In the preliminary talks that led to the Middle East Peace Conference in Madrid in October 1991 he acted as a bridge between US secretary of State James Baker and Arafat. During his trip to Kuwait to repair the damaged relations between the emirate and the PLO al Hussein died of a heart attack.

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Al-Husseini, Hajj Muhammad Amin (1897-1974): Palestinian religious and political leader. Born into a prominent religious family in Jerusalem al Hussein received his secondary education in the city, studied for a year at al Azhar University in Cairo and then enrolled at the Ottoman school of administration in Istanbul. As the leader of an Arab nationalist group in Jerusalem, the Arab Club he considered Palestine to be part of Greater Syria and opposed Jewish immigration into Palestine. In December sir Herbert ordered the establishment of a five member Supreme Muslim Council charged with running religious endowments and courts and mosques to be elected indirectly. He insisted demand that restrictions on Jewish immigration should be coupled with the establishment of an Arab national government made him the most significant political leader of Arab Palestinians.

In April 1936, as his behest, various Arab groups united to form the Arab Higher Committee under his leadership. Al Husseini took refuge in the Muslim shrines of Jerusalem and then managed to flee, first to Lebanon and then Syria From there he continued to direct the Arab revolt, which ended in March 1939 with a death toll of 3,232 Arabs 329 Jews and 135 Britons. soon after the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939 al Husseini arrived in Baghdad as a political refugee and began rallying anti Zionist and anti British sentiments in Iraq. At the end of the war al Husseini was arrested by the French forces but soon managed to escape to Cairo. After the Palestine War his attempts to form a government of all Palestine in the Egyptian occupied Gaza Strip were cold shouldered by Cairo. He moved to Beirut in 1959.

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Al-Idrisi (1100–1166): Moroccan traveler, cartographer and geographer, educated in Cordoba, Spain, famous for an important geographical work on the Seven Climes (1154) for Roger II of Sicily. It contains one map for each clime (i.e. climatic zone); the maps of later manuscripts suggest that those in the autograph were colored. Also, he produced the first map of the world for Roger, the Norman King of Sicily. al-Idrisi also wrote the Book of Roger, a geographic study of the peoples, climates, resources and industries of all the world known at that time. In it, he incidentally relates the tale of a Moroccan ship blown west in the Atlantic and returning with tales of faraway lands.

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Al Iryani, Abdul Rahman (1908-1998): Yemeni politician; president of North Yemen, 1967-74, Born into a notable Zaidi family in Saada, Iryani received religious education and trained as an Islamic judge. Having failed to strike a deal with the royalists, Nasser freed Sallal in September 1966. On his return home Sallal purged his rivals, including Iryani, who now found himself under house arrest in Cairo. He was overthrown in a bloodless coup by Col. Ibrahim Hamdi in June 1974. He went into Exile to Lebanon and then to Syria. He was allowed to return home in October 1981.

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Al-Jazari, Badi’al-Zaman Abu al-’Izz Isma’il ibn al-Razāz (1136-1206): was an Arab or a Kurdish Muslim polymath: a scholar, inventor, mechanical engineer, craftsman, artist, and mathematician from Jazirat ibn Umar (current Cizre), who lived during the Islamic Golden Age (Middle Ages). He is best known for writing the Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices in 1206, where he described fifty mechanical devices along with instructions on how to construct them.

Biography:

Little is known about al-Jazari and most of that comes from the introduction to his Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices. He was named after the area in which he was born (the city of Jazirat ibn Umar). Like his father before him, he served as chief engineer at the Artuklu Palace, the residence of the Mardin branch of the Turkish Artuqid dynasty which ruled across eastern Anatolia as vassals of the Zangid rulers of Mosul and later Ayyubid general Saladin. He was born in the Kurdish city of Tor, now located in the district of Cizre in south-Eastern Turkey.

His Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices appears to have been quite popular as it appears in a large number of manuscript copies, and as he explains repeatedly, he only describes devices he has built himself. According to Mayr, the book’s style resembles that of a modern “do-it-yourself book.

Some of his devices were inspired by earlier devices, such as one of his monumental water clocks, which were based on that of a Pseudo-Archimedes. He also cites the influence of the Banu Musa brothers for his fountains, al-Asturlabi for the design of a candle clock, and Hibat Allah ibn al-Husayn (d. 1139) for musical automata. Al-Jazari goes on to describe the improvements he made to the work of his predecessors, and describes a number of devices, techniques and components that are original innovations which do not appear in the works by his predecessors.

Mechanisms and methods:

While many of al-Jazari’s inventions may now appear to be trivial, the most significant aspect of al-Jazari’s machines are the mechanisms, components, ideas, methods, and design features which they employ.

Camshaft:

The camshaft, a shaft to which cams are attached, was first introduced in 1206 by al-Jazari, who employed them in his automata, water clocks (such as the candle clock) and water-raising machines. The cam and camshaft later appeared in European mechanisms from the 14th century.

Crankshaft and crank-slider mechanism:

The eccentrically mounted handle of the rotary hand mill in 5th century BC Spain that spread across the Roman Empire constitutes a crank. The earliest evidence of a crank and connecting rod mechanism dates to the 3rd century AD Hierapolis sawmill in the Roman Empire. The crank also appears in the mid-9th century in several of the hydraulic devices described by the Banū Mūsā brothers in their Book of Ingenious Devices.

In 1206, al-Jazari invented an early crankshaft, which he incorporated with a crank-connecting rod mechanism in his twin-cylinder pump. Like the modern crankshaft, Al-Jazari’s mechanism consisted of a wheel setting several crank pins into motion, with the wheel’s motion being circular and the pins moving back-and-forth in a straight line. The crankshaft described by al-Jazari transforms continuous rotary motion into a linear reciprocating motion, and is central to modern machinery such as the steam engine, internal combustion engine and automatic controls.

He used the crankshaft with a connecting rod in two of his water-raising machines: the crank-driven Baqqiya chain pump and the double-action reciprocating piston suction pump. His water pump also employed the first known crank-slider mechanism,

Escapement mechanism in a rotating wheel:

Al-Jazari invented a method for controlling the speed of rotation of a wheel using an escapement mechanism.

Mechanical controls:

According to Donald Routledge Hill, al-Jazari described several early mechanical controls, including “a large metal door, a combination lock and a lock with four bolts.“

Segmental gear:

A segmental gear is “a piece for receiving or communicating reciprocating motion from or to a cogwheel, consisting of a sector of a circular gear, or ring, having cogs on the periphery, or face.” Professor Lynn Townsend White, Jr. wrote:

Segmental gears first clearly appear in al-Jazari, in the West they emerge in Giovanni de Dondi’s astronomical clock finished in 1364, and only with the great Sienese engineer Francesco di Giorgio (1501) did they enter the general vocabulary of European machine design.

Water-raising machines:

Al-Jazari invented five machines for raising water, as well as watermills and water wheels with cams on their axle used to operate automata, in the 12th and 13th centuries, and described them in 1206. It was in these water-raising machines that he introduced his most important ideas and components.

Saqiya chain pumps:

The first known use of a crankshaft in a chain pump was in one of al-Jazari’s Baqqiya machines. The concept of minimizing intermittent working is also first implied in one of al-Jazari’s Baqqiya chain pumps, which was for the purpose of maximizing the efficiency of the Baqqiya chain pump. Al-Jazari also constructed a water-raising Baqqiya chain pump which was run by hydropower rather than manual labor, though the Chinese were also using hydropower for chain pumps prior to him. Saqiya machines like the ones he described have been supplying water in Damascus since the 13th century up until modern times, and were in everyday use throughout the medieval Islamic world.

Double-action suction pump with valves and reciprocating piston motion:

Citing the Byzantine siphon used for discharging Greek fire as an inspiration, al-Jazari went on to describe the first suction pipes, suction pump, double-action pump, and made early uses of valves and a crankshaft-connecting rod mechanism, when he invented a twin-cylinder reciprocating piston suction pump. This pump is driven by a water wheel, which drives, through a system of gears, an oscillating slot-rod to which the rods of two pistons are attached. The pistons work in horizontally opposed cylinders, each provided with valve-operated suction and delivery pipes. The delivery pipes are joined above the centre of the machine to form a single outlet into the irrigation system. This water-raising machine had a direct significance for the development of modern engineering. This pump is remarkable for three reasons:

• The first known use of a true suction pipe (which sucks fluids into a partial vacuum) in a pump.

• The first application of the double-acting principle.

The conversion of rotary to reciprocating motion, via the crank-connecting rod mechanism,al-Jazari’s suction piston pump could lift 13.6 meters of water, with the help of delivery pipes. This was more advanced than the suction pumps that appeared in 15th-century Europe, which lacked delivery pipes. It was not, however, any more efficient than a noria commonly used by the Muslim world at the time.

Water supply system:

Al-Jazari developed the earliest water supply system to be driven by gears and hydropower, which was built in 13th century Damascus to supply water to its mosques and Bipartisan hospitals. The system had water from a lake turn a scoop-wheel and a system of gears which transported jars of water up to a water channel that led to mosques and hospitals in the city.

Automata:

Al-Jazari built automated moving peacocks driven by hydropower. He also invented the earliest known automatic gates, which were driven by hydropower. He also created automatic doors as part of one of his elaborate water clocks, He also invented water wheels with cams on their axle used to operate automata. According to Encyclopedia Britannica, the Italian Renaissance inventor Leonardo da Vinci may have been influenced by the classic automata of al-Jazari.

Mark E. Rosheim summarizes the advances in robotics made by Arab engineers, especially Al-Jazari, as follows:

Unlike the Greek designs, these Arab examples reveal an interest, not only in dramatic illusion, but in manipulating the environment for human comfort. Thus, the greatest contribution the Arabs made, besides preserving, disseminating and building on the work of the Greeks, was the concept of practical application. This was the key element that was missing in Greek robotic science.

The Arabs, on the other hand, displayed an interest in creating human-like machines for practical purposes but lacked, like other preindustrial societies, any real impetus to pursue their robotic science.

Drink-serving waitress:

One of al-Jazari’s humanoid automata was a waitress that could serve water, tea or drinks. The drink was stored in a tank with a reservoir from where the drink drips into a bucket and, after seven minutes, into a cup, after which the waitress appears out of an automatic door serving the drink.

Hand-washing automaton with flush mechanism:

al-Jazari invented a hand washing automaton incorporating a flush mechanism now used in modern flush toilets. It features a female humanoid automaton standing by a basin filled with water. When the user pulls the lever, the water drains and the female automaton refills the basin.

Peacock fountain with automated servants:

Al-Jazari’s “peacock fountain” was a more sophisticated hand washing device featuring humanoid automata as servants which offer soap and towels. Mark E. Rosheim describes it as follows:

Pulling a plug on the peacock’s tail releases water out of the beak; as the dirty water from the basin fills the hollow base a float rises and actuates a linkage which makes a servant figure appear from behind a door under the peacock and offer soap. When more water is used, a second float at a higher level trips and causes the appearance of a second servant figure — with a towel!

Musical robot band:

Al-Jazari’s work described fountains and musical automata, in which the flow of water alternated from one large tank to another at hourly or half-hourly intervals. This operation was achieved through his innovative use of hydraulic switching.

Al-Jazari created a musical automaton, which was a boat with four automatic musicians that floated on a lake to entertain guests at royal drinking parties. The drummer could be made to play different rhythms and different drum patterns if the pegs were moved around.

Clocks:

Al-Jazari constructed a variety of water clocks and candle clocks. These included a portable water-powered scribe clock, which were a meter high and half a meter wide, reconstructed successfully at the Science Museum (London) in 1976. Al-Jazari also invented monumental water-powered astronomical clocks which displayed moving models of the Sun, Moon, and stars.

Candle clocks:

According to Donald Routledge Hill, al-Jazari described the most sophisticated candle clocks known to date. Hill described one of al-Jazari’s candle clocks as follows:

The candle, whose rate of burning was known, bore against the underside of the cap, and its wick passed through the hole. Wax collected in the indentation and could be removed periodically so that it did not interfere with steady burning. The bottom of the candle rested in a shallow dish that had a ring on its side connected through pulleys to a counterweight. As the candle burned away, the weight pushed it upward at a constant speed. The automata were operated from the dish at the bottom of the candle. No other candle clocks of this sophistication are known.

Al-Jazari’s candle clock also included a dial to display the time and, for the first time, employed a bayonet fitting, a fastening mechanism still used in modern times.

Elephant clock:

The elephant clock was described by al-Jazari in 1206 is notable for several innovations. It was the first clock in which an automaton reacted after certain intervals of time (in this case, a humanoid robot striking the cymbal and a mechanical robotic bird chirping) and the first water clock to accurately record the passage of the temporal hours to match the uneven length of days throughout the year.

Castle clock:

Al-Jazari’s largest astronomical clock was the “castle clock”, which was a complex device that was about 11 feet (3.4 m) high, and had multiple functions besides timekeeping. It included a display of the zodiac and the solar and lunar orbits, and an innovative feature of the device was a pointer in the shape of the crescent moon which travelled across the top of a gateway, moved by a hidden cart, and caused automatic doors to open, each revealing a mannequin, every hour. Another innovative feature was the ability to re-program the length of day and night in order to account for their changes throughout the year. Another feature of the device was five automaton musicians who automatically play music when moved by levers operated by a hidden camshaft attached to a water wheel. Other components of the castle clock included a main reservoir with a float, a float chamber and flow regulator, plate and valve trough, two pulleys, crescent disc displaying the zodiac, and two falcon automata dropping balls into vases.

Weight-driven water clocks:

Al-Jazari invented water clocks that were driven by both water and weights. These included geared clocks and a portable water-powered scribe clock, which were a meter high and half a meter wide. The scribe with his pen was synonymous to the hour hand of a modern clock. al-Jazari’s famous water-powered scribe clock was reconstructed successfully at the Science Museum (London) in 1976.

Miniature paintings:

Alongside his accomplishments as an inventor and engineer, al-Jazari was also an accomplished artist. In The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices, he gave instructions of his inventions and illustrated them using miniature paintings, a medieval style of Islamic art.

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Al-Khursani, Abu Muslim Abd Rahman ibn Muslim (700-755): Or al-Khurasani AKA Behzādān pour Vandād Hormozd was an Abbasid general of Persian origin, who led the first major and organized liberal movement against the Umayyad dynasty.

Life and Origin:

His original name was Behzadan, prior to his father Vandad Hurmoz’s conversion to Islam, who adopted the name of ‘Moslem’ for himself. His birthplace remains obscure, though the oldest historical reference, the 11th century Al-Mahasin al-Isfahan written by Mafzal Ibn-Sa’d Maforukhi Esfahani, claims he was born in the town of Fereidan in the central Iranian province of Isfahan. It is also claimed he was born in the village of Sanjerd or Makhowan near the city of Merv in what is now Turkmenistan.

Crushing a Shiite rebellion in Bukhara:

There was an Arab by the name Sharik ibn Shaikh al-Mahri in Bukhara, who wanted to spread Shi’a Islam firmly and oppose anyone against him. Soon, he got the support of several local rulers and many local people.

When this news reached Abu Muslim (Khurasani), he along Ziyad ibn Salih came there to find out what the details, and soon they got involved in a fight. Abu Muslim fought Sharik ibn Shaikh al-Mahri and his Shiite supporters for thirty-seven days with no victory, everyday Abu Muslim’s side was losing soldiers and several taken as prisoners. After that, all of a sudden Sharikh ibn Shaikh (Shiite leader) died, and his supporters started to crumble & fear, but they were still hostile. The rebellion was eventually crushed and most of the Shi’a supporters were hanged.

Rise and revolution:

Abu Muslim was a major supporter of the Abbasid cause, having met with their Imam Ibrahim ibn Muhammad in Mecca, and was later a personal friend of Abu al-’Abbas Al-Saffah, the future Caliph. He observed the revolt in Kufa in 736 tacitly. With the death of the Umayyad Caliph Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik in 743, the Islamic world was launched into civil war. Abu Muslim was sent to Khorasan by the Abbasids initially as a propagandist and then to revolt on their behalf. He took Merv in December 747 (or January 748), defeating the Umayyad governor Nasr ibn Sayyar, as well as Shayban al-Khariji, a Kharijite aspirant to the caliphate. He became the de facto Abbasid governor of Khorasan, and gained fame as a general in the late 740s in defeating the peasant rebellion of Bihafarid, the leader of a syncretic Persian sect that were Mazdaism. Abu Muslim received support in suppressing the rebellion both from purist Muslims and Zoroastrians. In 750, Abu Muslim became leader of the Abbasid army and defeated the Umayyads at Battle of the Zab. Abu Muslim stormed Damascus, the capital of the Umayyad caliphate, later that year.

His heroic role in the revolution and military skill, along with his conciliatory politics toward Shi’a, Sunnis, Zoroastrians, Jews, and Christians, made him extremely popular among the people. Although it appears that Abu al-’Abbas trusted him in general, he was wary of his power, limiting his entourage to 500 men upon his arrival to Iraq on his way to Hajj in 754. Abu al-’Abbas’ brother, al-Mansur (r. 754-775), advised al-Saffah on more than one occasion to have Abu Muslim killed, fearing his rising influence and popularity. It seems that this dislike was mutual, with Abu Muslim aspiring to more power and looking down in disdain on al-Mansur, feeling al-Mansur owed Abu Muslim for his position. When the new caliph’s uncle, Abdullah ibn Ali rebelled, Abu Muslim was requested by al-Mansur to crush this rebellion, which he did, and Abdullah was given to his nephew as a prisoner. Abdullah was ultimately executed.

Relations deteriorated quickly when al-Mansur sent an agent to inventory the spoils of war, and then appointed Abu Muslim governor of Syria and Egypt, outside his powerbase. After an increasingly acrimonious correspondence between Abu Muslim and al-Mansur, Abu Muslim feared he was going to be killed if he appeared in the presence of the Caliph. He later changed his mind and decided to appear in his presence due to a combination of perceived disobedience, al-Mansur’s promise to keep him as governor of Khorasan, and the assurances of some of his close aides, some of whom were bribed by al-Mansur. He went to Iraq to meet with al-Mansur in Madain in 755. Al-Mansur proceeded to enumerate his grievances against Abu Muslim, who kept reminding the Caliph of his efforts to enthrone him. Against al-Muslim were also charges of being a Zendic or heretic. Al-Mansur then signaled five of his guards behind a portico to kill him. Abu Muslim’s mutilated body was thrown in the river Tigris, and his commanders were bribed to acquiesce to the murder.

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Al-Khwarizmi (780-847): The origin of all the physical sciences can, one way or another, be traced back to mathematics. According to the historians, archaeological excavations carried out in the Nile Valley and Mesopotamia have shown that counting was familiar to both ancient Egyptians and the Babylonians. The Chinese and Indians also devised their own distinctive ways of counting, just as the Arabs used the positions of their fingers to help them count during the time of the Prophet Muhammad.

Though the zero-based number system was known to the ancient Indians, it was the Muslims who invented the word ‘zero’. Derived from the Arabic sifr, meaning ‘nothing’ or ‘nil’. When the Muslim mathematicians were busy conducting complex and sophisticated mathematical equations in their research laboratories in Baghdad, Damascus, Cairo and Merv, the Europeans were struggling to perform simple mathematical calculations using Roman numerals. By contrast, the introduction of Arabic numerals represented nothing short of a major revolution in mathematical study and research. No other mathematician played a more pivotal role in the development of algebra and Arabic numerals that al-Khwarizmi. That is why he is today considered to be one of the greatest mathematical geniuses of all time.

Abu Abdullah Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi was born in Khwarizm, in the Central Asian province of Khurasan. Al-Khwarizmi’s family migrated to the district of Qurtrubulli, located on the outskirts of Baghdad, when he was still a child. The students who were considered to be most capable and gifted by their tutors were then encouraged to pursue research in medicine, astronomy, alchemy and mathematics, thereby widening their intellectual horizons.

When al-Khwarizmi’s reputation as an accomplished religious scholar, scientist and mathematician reached the corridors of power in Baghdad, the reigning Abbasid Caliph, Abdullah al-Ma’mun, invited him to join his celebrated bait al-Hikmah (The House of Wisdom) in Baghdad around 820; he was around forty at the time. Originally founded by Harun during his reign as Caliph, the bait al-Hikmah became one of the Muslim world’s most famous and influential libraries and centers of research under Caliph al-Ma’mun’s patronage. As expected, al-Khwarizmi occupied a prominent position in bait al-Hikmah, where he studied and conducted research in a host of disciplines including astronomy, geography, history, music and mathematics, which was his favorite subject. He authored an influential book on history entitled Kitab al-Tarikh (The Book of History), which later inspired celebrated Muslim historians like Abul Hasan al-Mas’udi and al-Tabari to produce their own works on the subject.

The Muslim scientists and mathematicians not only translated and preserved ancient Greek intellectual heritage (such as Euclid’s Elements, Ptolemy’s Almagest and the vast corpus of Aristotelian logic for the benefit of posterity), they also explored and analyzed the intellectual and cultural contribution of other ancient civilizations, including those of Persia, India and China. According to some historians, al-Khwarizmi’s quest for knowledge took him all the way to India, where he mastered traditional Indian science and mathematics. It was also during his stay in India that he became familiar with the zero-based decimal system for the first time. During this period al-Khwarizmi discovered that the ancient Indians used a blank space to denote ‘nothing’ or ‘nil’ (Sunya), which inspired him to coin the Arabic word sifr meaning ‘nothing’, just as its Latin equivalent, ciphrium, later came to denote ‘zero’. His discovery of the concept of ‘zero’ enabled him to lay the foundations of a new decimal system, which is today widely known as Arabic numerals, and in so doing he revolutionized the study of mathematics forever.

Al-Khwarizmi’s complete mastery of Greek, Indian and Babylonian mathematics enabled him to critically evaluate the contribution of the ancients before he went on to develop his own fresh ideas and thoughts on the subject. The originality of his mathematical contribution is most evident from the fact that the word ‘algebra’ was derived directly from the title of his famous book on the subject, entitled Kitab al-Mukhtasar fi Hisab al-Jabr wa’l Muqabalah (The Summarized Treatise on the Process of Calculation for Transposition and Cancellation). He used around eight hundred different demonstrative equations to show how calculations of integration and equation could be performed.

Al-Khwarizmi’s book on arithmetic entitled Kitab al-Jam’ wa’l Tafriq bi’l Hisab al-Hindi (The Book of Aggregation and Division in Indian Mathematics) was not only a pioneering mathematical contribution, it also be came a hugely influential book. After Bon Compagni translated it into Latin in 1157, it became a popular textbook on arithmetic throughout medieval Europe. Al-Khwarizmi’s scholarship had such a pervasive influence on Western science and technology that he became known as ‘Algorithm’ across Europe, and throughout the centuries his Latinized name became synonymous with the word ‘arithmetic’ in the West. Without al-Khwarizmi’s seminal contributions in arithmetic, algebra, trigonometry and other branches of mathematics, it would not have been possible for Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Newton and others to achieve as much as they did in the fields of astronomy, physics, mathematics and chemistry.

Al-Khwarizmi was also a brilliant astronomer and geographer. He not only accurately measured and determined the sphericity of the earth, he also suggested ways in which the process could be made easier in the future, by improving the device he had invented. Towards the end of his life he authored a book on geography entitled Kitab Surat al-Ard (The Book on the Shape of the Earth). In this book, he went to great lengths to correct Ptolemy’s misconceptions about different aspects of geography, geology and other related sciences.

In total, al-Khwarizmi authored more than a dozen books on all the sciences of his time. He died at the age of sixty-seven and was laid to rest in Baghdad.

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Al-Kindi (801-873): Rescued from being a footnote in history by the Prophet Muhammad, the Arabs embraced learning, culture and civilization like never before. It was al-Kindi, that hugely influential Islamic philosopher – known in the West as the ‘philosopher of the Arabs’ (faylasuf al-Arab) - who played a central role in the development of philosophical thought in the Muslim world.

Abu Yusuf Yaqub ibn Ishaw al-Kindi, known in the Latin West as Alkindus, was born in the Iraqi city of Kufah. Along with Basrah, Baghdad, Damascus, Makkah and Madinah, Kufah was one of the foremost centers of Islamic learning at the time.

After completing his formal education in Kufah, al-Kindi moved to Baghdad, the political capital of the Islamic world, to pursue advanced training in the religious and philosophical sciences. After the death of Harun al-Rashid in 809, his son al-Ma’mun – having defeated al-Amin – became the Caliph and vigorously promoted the study of the rational sciences, including Greek philosophy and science, across the Muslim world. In Baghdad, al-Kindi enjoyed the patronage of Caliph al-Ma’mun who encouraged him to pursue his studies at the bait al-Hikmah (House of Wisdom), the celebrated library and research center originally founded by Harun al-Rashid. At the bait al-Hikmah, al-Kindi devoted all his time and energy to the study of mathematics, astronomy, chemistry, musical theory and philosophy.

Along with other luminaries of the time, including al-Khwarizmi the great mathematician and scientist, and al-Farghani the renowned astronomer, al-Kindi became a prominent member of bait al-Hikmah. Given al-Kindi’s intellectual brilliance and great linguistic abilities, Caliph al-Ma’mun became very fond of him and asked him to spearhead the pioneering task of translating Greek, Persian and Indian philosophical, mathematical and scientific works into Arabic for the benefit of the Muslim scholars and researchers. Thanks to al-Kindi and his colleagues, the study of comparative thought became one of the foremost intellectual preoccupations of the early Muslim philosophers and scientists.

Al-Kindi was appointed chief astrologer at the Caliphal court in Baghdad when he was only thirty-two years old. However, it was in the fields of optics, music and philosophy that he made some of his most original contributions. For the first time in the history of optics, al-Kindi fully explained the principle of rectilinear progress of light emerging from a luminous object. Using a lit candle, hence becoming known as the ‘candle experiment’, al-Kindi was able to demonstrate that light progressed in a straight line. His contribution in the field of musical theory was equally remarkable. Since musical songs formed an important part of Arab culture, he was keen to develop a theoretical understanding of music – a branch of learning which the Muslims later exported to the West.

Though al-Kindi’s contributions in optics and musical theory were nothing short of remarkable, today he is most famous for his philosophical originality and writings. The author of twenty-two books on philosophy, he became a towering figure in this subject both in the Muslim world and in the West, where he became widely known as the ‘philosopher of the Arabs’. To al-Kindi, philosophy consisted of three parts, ranked in order of importance: theology, mathematics and physics.

Al-Kindi remained a devout Muslim all his life. He considered religion and philosophy to be compatible in the same way that reason and revelation are harmonious. According to him, philosophy relates to the nature of God, Divine Attributes, creation and time. Unlike many other great Muslim philosophers, such as Ibn Sina, he believed that creation was not eternal; rather he considered time, space and the chain of causality to be finite. Only God was infinite, he argued, because He was the first cause which was not an effect. Al-Kindi was quick to point out that perfect order and harmony in creation was a further indication of the existence of God, although al-Ghazali later thoroughly discredited the teleological argument for the existence of God.

Al-Kindi authored exactly two hundred and forty-two books and treatises on all the sciences of his day. The vast majority of all his books are no longer extant. Influential European thinkers like Roger Bacon considered him to be one of the world’s greatest minds. In the Muslim world he became known as the ‘father of Islamic philosophy’. Al-Kindi died at the age of seventy-two.

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Al-Mahdi, Muhammad ibn Al-Hasan (869-941): Muhammad ibn al-Hasan al-Mahdi (born c. July 29, 869 (15 Sha’aban 255 AH), in Occultation since 941) is believed by Twelver Shi’a Muslims to be the Mahdi, an ultimate savior of humankind and the final Imam of the Twelve Imams. Twelver Shi’a believe that al-Mahdi was born in 869 and did not die but rather was hidden by God in 941 (this is referred to as the Occultation) and will later emerge with Isa (Jesus Christ) in order to fulfill their mission of bringing peace and justice to the world. He assumed the Imamate at 5 years of age. Some Shi’ite schools do not consider ibn-al-Hasan to be the Mahdi, although the mainstream sect Twelvers do.

Sunnis believe that the Mahdi has not yet been born, and therefore his exact identity is only known to Allah. Aside from the Mahdi’s precise genealogy, Sunnis accept many of the same Hadiths Shi’as accept about the predictions regarding the Mahdi’s emergence, his acts and his universal Khilafat. Sunnis also have a few more Mahdi Hadiths which are not present in Shi’a collections.

Birth and early life according to Twelver Shi’a:

In Shi’a sources even in historical works of Ibn Babuya the birth of Imam was miraculous which must be considered as hagiography. Aside from Shi’as works almost nothing is known about the life of this Imam. According to Yaan Richard some even cast doubt on his actual existence.

Even though, most scholars say Al Mahdi was born in 869 AD. His mother is Narjis. There are a couple of narrations regarding the origin of his mother. One is that his mother, Narjis was a Byzantine slave. Another narration says she was a black slave from Africa. Other narration says that she was a Byzantine Princess who pretended to be a slave so that she might travel from her kingdom to Arabia. Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi, in Encyclopedia of Iranica, suggests that the last version is “undoubtedly legendary and hagiographic”.

To support Imam Mahdi’s claim, Twelver Shi’as along with some other Muslim sects quote the following Hadith: “I and `Ali are the fathers of this nation; whoever knows us very well also knows Allah, and whoever denies us also denies Allah, the Unique, the Mighty. And from `Ali’s descendants are my grandsons al-Hasan and al-Husayn, who is the masters of the youths of Paradise, and from al-Husayn’s descendants, shall be nine: whoever obeys them obeys me, and whoever disobeys them also disobeys me; the ninth among them is their Qa’im and Mahdi.”

The eleventh Imam of the Twelve Imams Hasan al-Askari died on 1 January 874 AD (8th Rabi’ al-awwal, 260 AH) and since that day, his son Mahdi is believed by Shi’as to be the Imam, appointed by Allah, to lead the believers of the era. The most popular account of al-Mahdi in Shi’a literature is taken from his father’s funeral. It is reported that as the funeral prayer was about to begin, al-Mahdi’s uncle, Ja’far ibn Ali approached to lead the prayers. However, al-Mahdi approached and commanded, “Move aside, uncle; only an Imam can lead the funeral prayer of an Imam. “ Ja’far moved aside, and the five-year-old child led the funeral prayer for his father. It is reported that it was at this very moment that al-Mahdi disappeared and went into Ghaybat, or occultation

In a Hadith widely regarded as authentic, Muhammad said,

“Even if the entire duration of the world’s existence has already been exhausted and only one day is left before the Day of Judgment, Allah will expand that day to such a length of time, as to accommodate the kingdom of a person out of Ahl al-Bayt who will be called by my name and my father’s name. He will then fill the Earth with peace and justice as it will have been filled with injustice and tyranny before then”

The Occultation:

Twelver Shi’as believes that for various reasons, Allah concealed the twelfth and current Imam of the Twelve Imams, al-Mahdi, from mankind.

Period:

The period of occultation (Ghaybat) is divided into two parts:

• Ghaybat al-Sughra or Minor Occultation (874–941), consists of the first few decades after the Imam’s disappearance when communication with him was maintained through deputies of the Imam.

• Ghaybat al-Kubra or Major Occultation began 941 and is believed to continue until a time decided by Allah, when the Mahdi will reappear to bring absolute justice to the world.

Minor Occultation:

During the Minor Occultation (Ghaybat al-Sughra), it is believed that al-Mahdi maintained contact with his followers via deputies (Arab. an-nuwāb al-arba‘a literal: the four leaders).

Also, during the oppressive rule of the later Abbasid caliphs, the Shi’a Imams were heavily persecuted and held prisoners, thus their followers were forced to consult their Imams via messengers or secretly.

Shi’a Tradition holds that four deputies acted in succession to one another:

1. Uthman ibn Sa’id al-Asadi

2. Abu Ja’far Muhammad ibn Uthman

3. Abul Qasim Husayn ibn Ruh al-Nawbakhti

4. Abul Hasan Ali ibn Muhammad al-Samarri

In 941 (329 AH), the fourth deputy announced an order by al-Mahdi, that the deputy would soon die and that the deputyship would end and the period of the Major Occultation would begin.

The fourth deputy died six days later and the Shi’a Muslims continue to await the reappearance of the Mahdi. In the same year, many notable Shi’a scholars such as Ali ibn Babwayh Qummi and Muhammad ibn Yaqub Kulayni, the learned compiler of al-Kafi also died.

Major Occultation:

According to the last letter of al-Mahdi to Ali ibn Muhammad al-Samarri “from the day of your death [the last deputy] the period of my major occultation (al ghaybatul kubra) will begin. Hence forth, no one will see me, unless and until Allah makes me appear.”^] Another view is that the Hidden Imam is on earth “among the body of the Shi’a” but “incognito.” “Numerous stories” exist of the Hidden Imam “manifesting himself to prominent members of the ulama.”

Reappearance:

Twelver Shi’as cite various references from the Qur’an and reports, or Hadith, from Imam Mahdi and the Twelve Imams with regard to the reappearance of al-Mahdi who would, in accordance with Allah’s command, bring justice and peace to the world by establishing Islam throughout the world.

At this time, Imam al-Mahdi will come wielding Allah’s Sword, the Blade of Evil’s Bane, Zulfiqar, the Double-Bladed Sword. He will also come and reveal the texts in his possession, such as al-Jafr and al-Jamia.

Shi’as believes that Jesus will also come (after Imam Mahdi’s re-appearance) and follow the Imam Mahdi to destroy tyranny and falsehood and to bring justice and peace to the world.

Titles:

The 12th Imam is known by many titles in Shi’a Islam, including:

• Al-Mahdi (the Guided one)

• Al-Muntathar (the Awaited one)

• Al-Qa’im (the Rising one)

• Sahab az-Zaman (the Master of the Age)

• Imam az-Zaman (the Leader of the Age)

• Wali al-’Asr (the Guardian of the Era or alternatively, the Guardian in the Twilight [of man])

• Al-Hujjah (the Proof [of Allah’s justice])

Sunni view:

The majority of Sunni Muslims do not consider the son of Hasan al-Askari to be the Mahdi nor to be in occultation. However, they do believe that the Mahdi will come from Muhammad’s family, more specifically from Al-Hasan’s descendants. Sunnis believe that the Mahdi has not yet been born, and therefore his exact identity is only known to Allah. Abu Sa’id al-Khudri narrated that Muhammad said:

Our Mahdi will have a broad forehead and a pointed (prominent) nose.

He will fill the earth with justice as it is filled with injustice and tyranny.

He will rule for seven years

—Abu Sa’id al-Khudri

Umm Salamah said:

I heard the Messenger of Allah say: “The Mahdi is of my lineage and family”

—Umm Salamah,

He would protect the Muslims from destruction and would restore the religion to its original position.

Sunnis also believe that Jesus will return alongside the Mahdi, with the only difference being that they disagree with the Shi’a regarding exactly who the Mahdi is.

Scholarly observations:

Some scholars, including Bernard Lewis also point out, that the idea of an Imam in occultation was not new in 873 but that it was a recurring factor in Shi’a history.

Consequence of occultation of Twelfth Imam:

The occultation of 12th Imam left a considerable gap in leadership of Shi’as. According to Shi’as beliefs the Imam was both the spiritual and political head of the community. After the greater occultation, the role of Imam as the head of community left vacant, which did not theoretically matter at the beginning of Occultation because Shi’as had no political power at that time. This problem has caused continuing tension between government and religion throughout the Shi’as history.

Muhammad Al-Mahdi Imam of Twelver Shi’a Islam

Rank	12th Twelver Imam
Birthplace	Samarra, Iraq
Buried	n/a – in Occultation
Life Duration	Before Imamate: 5 years (255 – 260 AH) Imamate: Occultation (260 AH – present) -Minor Occultation: 70 years (260 – 329 AH) -Major Occultation: ??? (329 AH – present)

Titles

• Al-Mahdi (Arabic for Guided One)

• Al-Qa’im (Arabic for One who Rises)

• Al-Hujjah (Arabic for The Proof)

• Sahib az-Zaman (Arabic for Master of the Era)

• al-Muntadhar (Arabic for the Awaited One)

• Hujjatullah (Arabic for Proof of Allah)

• al-Gha’ib (Arabic for The Unseen One)

• Sahib al-Amr (Arabic for Master of Command)

• Imam al-’Asr (Arabic for Imam of the Age)

• Onikinci Ali (Turkish for Twelfth Ali)

Father	Hasan al-’Askari
Mother	Narjis

Ali – Hasan – Husayn al-Sajjad – al-Baqir – al-Sadiq al-Kadhim – al-Rida – al-Taqi al-Hadi – al-Askari – al-Mahdi

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Al Maktum, Rashid ibn Said (1914-1990): ruler of Dubai emirate in the United Arab Emirates, 1990; vice president of the UAE 1990, prime minister of the UAE, 1971-79, 1990 Born in Dubai al Maktum was educated there and in Britain. After the death of Shaikh Rashid in October 1990, al Maktum took over his father’s positions; vice president and premier of the UAE, and the ruler of the Dubai emirate. Under his leadership, Dubai has been developed successfully as a tourist resort for Europeans. ruler of the Dubai emirate in the United Arab Emirates, 1958-90, vice president of the UAE 1971-90, prime minister of the UAE 1979-90 Born in Dubai al Maktum belonged to the Aal bu Falasa section of the Bani Yas tribe. Following the founding of the United Arab Emirates in July 1971, a Supreme Council of seven rulers was established, with Shaikh Zaid al Nahyan of Abu Dhabi as its president and al Maktum its vice president. At the behest of Shaikh Zaid the Supreme Council called on al Maktum to become the UAE’s prime minister in July 1979.

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Al-Mansur (914-1002): (Muhammad ibn Abi-Amir al-Mansur Billah), Moorish regent of Cordoba, known in Spanish as Almanzor. He became steward to Princess Subh, wife of the caliph Hakim II, and under her patronage and by clever manipulation he rose to become (978) royal chamberlain for Hakim’s successor, the young Hisham II. Al-Mansur kept Hisham in seclusion at his court and assumed complete control over the caliphate. A great warrior, he reorganized the army and undertook many campaigns against the Christian states of N Spain; he sacked Barcelona (985), razed the city of Leon (988), and destroyed the church and shrine of St. James at Santiago de Compostela (998). Before he died he appointed one of his sons as his successor.

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Al-Mansur (754-775):[Arab., the victorious], 2nd Abbasid caliph and founder of the city of Baghdad. His name was in full Abu Ja’far Abd-Allah al-Mansur. He was brother and successor of consolidated his empire even though it was threatened by internal strife and foreign wars. He could not prevent the secession of Muslim Spain, however, under the Umayyad prince Abd ar-Rahman I. Mansur lived at first, as his brother had, near Kufa, but in 762 he began to build a new city, Baghdad. Abbasid caliph (754-75). Strongly suppressed Shii dissidents and moved the capital of the empire to the new city of Baghdad.

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Al-Mansur, Abu Ja’far Abdallah Ibn Muhammad (714-775): Al-Mansur or Abu Ja’far Abdallah ibn Muhammad al-Mansur (95 AH – 158 AH (714 AD – 775 AD);^[1] was the second Abbasid Caliph from 136 AH to 158 AH (754 AD – 775 AD).

Biography:

Al-Mansur was born at the home of the ‘Abbasid family after their emigration from the Hejaz in 95 AH (714 AD). “His father, Muhammad, was reputedly a great-grandson of Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib, the youngest uncle of Mohammad; his mother, as described by 14^th century Moorish historian Ali Ibn-Abd Allah’s Roudh el Kartas was a “Berber woman given to his father.” He reigned from Dhu al-Hijjah 136 AH until Dhu al-Hijjah 158 AH (754 AD – 775 AD). In 762 he founded as new imperial residence and palace city Madinat as-Salam (the city of peace), which became the core of the Imperial capital Baghdad.

Al-Mansur was concerned with the solidity of his regime after the death of his brother, Abu’l `Abbas, who later become known as-Saffah (the blood spreader = bloody). In 755 he arranged the assassination of Abu Muslim. Abu Muslim was a loyal freed man from the eastern Iranian province of Khorasan who had led the Abbasid forces to victory over the Umayyads during the Third Islamic Civil War in 749-750. At the time of al-Mansur he was the subordinate, but undisputed ruler of Iran and Transoxiana. The assassination seems to have been made to preclude a power struggle in the empire.

During his reign, literature and scholarly work in the Islamic world began to emerge in full force, supported by new Abbasid tolerances for Persians and other groups suppressed by the Umayyads. Although the Umayyad caliph Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik had adopted Persian court practices, it was not until al-Mansur’s reign that Persian literature and scholarship were truly appreciated in the Islamic world. Shu’ubiya was a literary movement among Persians expressing their belief that Persian art and culture was superior to that of the Arabs; the movement served to catalyze the emergence of Arab-Persian dialogues in the eighth century.

Perhaps more importantly than the emergence of Persian scholarship was the conversion of many non-Arabs to Islam. The Umayyads actively tried to discourage conversion in order to continue the collection of the jizya, or the tax on non-Muslims. The inclusiveness of the Abbasid regime, and that of al-Mansur, saw the expansion of Islam among its territory; in 750, roughly 8% of residents in the Caliphate were Muslims. This would double to 15% by the end of al-Mansur’s reign.

In 756, Al-Mansur sent over 4,000 Arab mercenaries to assist the Chinese in the An Shi Rebellion against An Lushan. After the war, they remained in China. Al-Mansur was referred to as “A-p’u-ch’a-fo” in the Chinese T’ang Annals.

Al-Mansur died in 775 on his way to Mecca to make hajj. He was buried somewhere along the way in one of the hundreds of graves that had been dug in order to hide his body from the Umayyads. He was succeeded by his son, al-Mahdi.

According to a number of sources, the Imam Abu Hanifah an-Nu’man was imprisoned by al-Mansur. Imam Malik ibn Anas, the founder of another school of law, was also flogged during his rule, but al-Mansur himself did not condone this – in fact, it was his cousin, who was the governor of Madinah at the time, who did so. Al-Mansur, in turn, punished his cousin, and reattributed Imam Malik.

Character:

Al-Masudi in Meadows of Gold recounts a number of anecdotes that present aspects of this caliph’s character.

A very impressive aspect of this caliph’s character is that when he died he left in the treasury six hundred thousand Dirhams and fourteen million dinars.

Al-Mansur : Abbasid

Sunni Islam titles

Preceded by Caliph of Islam Succeeded by As-Saffah754 – 775 Al-Mahdi

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Al-Ma’mun (786-833): (Abu al-Abbas Abd Allah al- Ma’mun), Abbasid caliph (813-33); son of Harun al-Rashid. He succeeded he brother al-Amin after a bitter civil war, but was unable to enter Baghdad until 819. He was himself one of the Mu’tazilites, holding that the Qur’an was created in time, i.e., that it was not an uncreated eternal existent. He persecuted the orthodox bitterly, Al-Ma’mun’s reign was one of great cultural achievement, and he was especially interested in the work of scientists, particularly of those who knew Greek. He established (830) in Baghdad the House of Wisdom, an institution that translated Greek works into Arabic.

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Al-Mutanabbi (915-968): Like Aramaic and Hebrew, Arabic is a Semitic language. However, unlike the other Semitic languages, Arabic is today a global language. As the lingua franca of the Arab world, Arabic is the official language of almost all the Middle Eastern and North African countries. Although the Abbasid era is generally considered to be the Golden Ago of Islamic science, philosophy and literature, it was during the reign of Harun al-Rashi and his son, al-Ma’mun, that Baghdad became the world’s foremost center of philosophical, scientific and literary activities. The Arabs soon became the messengers of knowledge, wisdom and literature. Widely considered to be the greatest of all Arabic poets, al-Mutanabbi lived and thrived during this Golden Age of Arabic literature and poetry.

Abul Tayyib Ahmad ibn Hussain al-Jufi, better known as al-Mutanabbi (the ‘would-be prophet’), was born in the southern Iraqi city of Kufah. He experienced considerable social and economic hardship as a child. His family was forced to leave their home and stay away for about two years on the outskirts of Samawa due to the Qarmatian insurrection.

When al-Mutanabbi was about twelve, his family returned to Kufah where he began to compose poetry. He was a voracious reader of Arabic poetry and became thoroughly familiar with the works of his illustrious predecessors like Hasan ibn Hani (better known as Abu Nuwas), Habib ibn Aws (also known as Abu Tammam), and Walid ibn Ubayd al-Buhturi. These celebrated Arabic poets lived and thrived in and around Baghdad during the early Abbasid period.

Al-Mutanabbi began his poetic career in Kufah where he became popular after composing his early poems. After leaving Kufah, he moved to Baghdad in 928. Lack of response from the locals forced him to leave Baghdad and go to Syria, where he stayed for about two years. Here he earned his livelihood working as a freelance singer and entertainer, but his failure to attain instant success had a profoundly negative psychological impact on him.

Al-Mutanabbi began to sympathize with the plight of this religious sect. Like the latter, he was a passionate activist and a pessimistic thinker whose philosophy of life was gloomier than even the Qarmatians. He eventually became a fully-fledged member of this group.

Later, when the Syrian authorities arrested a group of Qarmatians and threw them into prison, al-Mutanabbi happened to be one of them. It was Badr al-Kashani, the incumbent governor of Damascus, who recognized al-Mutanabbi’s poetic talent and recruited him into his court. Soon his fame reached the Hamdanid ruler Sayf al-Dawlah, who recruited him to his famous court in Aleppo.

The Hamdanid dynasty was established during the early part of the tenth century by Abu al-Haji Abdullah and their rule extended all the way from northern Iraq and Syria, to Armenia in the north. Al-Mutanabbi stayed with the Hamdanid ruler for nearly a decade and during this period he regularly accompanied him on his military campaigns.

As a master of the Arabic language, al-Mutanabbi composed poetry for all occasions and to suit all tastes. His way with words, emotional spontaneity and, especially, his ability to capture the mood of the moment has remained unrivalled in the history of Arabic poetry. And although it is true that outstanding classical Arabic poets like Zuhayl ibn Abi Sulma, Tirimmah ibn Hakim, Bashshar ibn Burd, Abu Nuwas and Abu Tammam laid the foundations of early Arabic poetry, it was in the works of al-Mutanabbi that Arabic poetry reached its peak and greatest glory. As a Muslim and proud Arab, he was very fond of the history and symbolism of pre-Islamic Arabia, its culture and heritage. His poetry reflected nationalistic, philosophical, mystical, romantic as well as cultural themes.

After a decade at Sayf al-Dawlah’s court in Aleppo, al-Mutanabbi moved to Egypt for a period, before returning to his native Kufah. From Kufah he went to Baghdad and eventually settled in the Persian city of Shiraz, where he graced the court of the Buwayhid (or Buyid) ruler Adud al-Dawlah for a long time. Ambushed by a group of desert bandits, al-Mutanabbi died at the age of fifty-three while he was on his way to Baghdad.

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Al-Mu’tasim, Abu Ishaq Abbas (794-842): Abu Ishaq ‘Abbas al-Mu’tasim ibn Harun (Arabic: Isāq al-Mu’tasim ibn Harun) (794 – January 5, 842) was an Abbasid caliph (833-842). He succeeded his half-brother al-Ma’mun. In Arabian communities, al-Mu’tasim is an example of the magnanimity because of the famous incident “Wa Mu’tasimah”.

Early life:

Abu Ishaq was born to a Turkic slave mother. His father was then caliph Harun al-Rashid, Abu Ishaq led the pilgrimage in A.H. 200 (815-816) and in 201. Abu Ishaq defeated these Kharijites

In A.H. 214 (829-830) Abu Ishaq subdued Egypt and executed some leading rebels. He returned in 215 to join al-Ma’mun in a campaign against the Byzantines. Abu Ishaq commanded forces that captured thirty Byzantine strongholds.

Caliphate:

Al-Tabari records that al-Mu’tasim was hailed caliph on August 9, 833. He promptly ordered the dismantling of al-Ma’mun’s military base at Tyana. He sent Ishaq ibn Ibrahim ibn Mu’sab against a Khurramite revolt centered near Hamadhan. Ishaq soundly defeated the rebels. Their survivors, under Nasr, fled to the Byzantines.

One of the most difficult problems facing this Caliph, as faced his predecessor, was the uprising of Babak Khorramdin. Babak first rebelled in A.H. 201 (816-817) and overcame a number of caliphate forces sent against him. Finally, al-Mu’tasim provided clear instructions to his general al-Afshin Khaydhar ibn Kawus. Following these al-Afshin patiently overcame the rebel, securing a significant victory of this reign. Babak was brought to Samarra in A.H. 223 (837-838). He entered the city spectacularly riding on a splendid elephant. He was executed by his own executioner and his head sent to Khurasan. His brother was executed in Baghdad.

In that same year of Babak’s death, the Byzantine emperor Theophilus launched an attack against a number of Abbasid fortresses, Al-Mu’tasim launched a well planned response. Al-Afshin met and defeated Theophilus on July 21, 838, known as Battle of Anzen. Ankara fell to the Muslim army of 50,000 men (with 50,000 camels and 20,000 mules) and from there they advanced on the stronghold of Amorium. A captive escaped and informed the caliph that one section of Amorium’s wall was only a frontal façade. By concentrating bombardment here, al-Mu’tasim captured the city.

On his return home, he became aware of a serious conspiracy centered on al-Abbas ibn al-Ma’mun. A number of senior military commanders were involved. Al-Abbas was executed, as were, among others, al-Shah ibn Sahl, Amr al-Farghana, ‘Ujayf ibn ‘Anbasa and Akhmad ibn al-Khalil.

The ghilman (sing, Ghulam) were introduced to the Caliphate during al-Mu’tasim’s reign. The ghilman were slave-soldiers taken as prisoners of war from conquered regions, in anticipation of the Mamluk system and made into caliphal guard. The ghilman, personally responsible only to the Caliph, were to revolt several times during the 860’s, killed 4 caliphs and be replaced by the Mamluk system, based on captured Turkish children, trained and molded within the Islamic lands.

The ghilman, along with the Shakiriya which had been introduced in the reign of al-Ma’mun, had irritated the Arab regular soldiers of the Caliph’s army. The Turkic and Armenian ghilman agitated the citizens of Baghdad, provoking riots in 836. The capital was moved to the new city of Samarra later that year, where it would remain until 892 when it was returned to Baghdad by al-Mu’tamid.

The Tahirid dynasty, which had come to prominence during al-Ma’mun’s reign after the military province of Khurasan was granted to Tahir bin Husain, continued to grow in power. They received the governorships of Samarqand, Farghana and Herat. Unlike most provinces in the Abbasid Caliphate, which were closely governed by Baghdad and Samarra, the provinces under the control of the Tahirids were exempted from many tributes and oversight functions. The independence of the Tahirids contributed greatly to the decline of Abbasid supremacy in the east.

In A.H. 224 (838-839) Mazyar ibn Qarin who detested the Tahirids rebelled against them. Previously he had insisted on paying the taxes of his Caspian region directly to al-Mu’tasim’s agent instead of to Abdallah ibn Tahir’s. Al-Afshin, desiring to replace Abdallah as Khurasan’s governor, intrigued with Mazyar. Mazyar imprisoned people from Sariya, demolished Amul’s walls and fortified Tamis, causing apprehension in Jurjan.

Abdallah and al-Mu’tasim dispatched forces to quell the uprising. Abdallah’s commander Hayyan ibn Jabalah convinced Mazyar’s Qarin ibn Shahriyar to betray Mazyar. Qarin sent Hayyan Mazyar’s brother and other commanders Qarin had taken by surprise. The people of Sariyah rose against Mazyar. Al-Quhyar ibn Qarin betrayed Mazyar. He was brought, along with his correspondence, some implicating al-Afshin, to al-Mu’tasim. Mazyar’s commander al-Durri was defeated, captured and executed.

When Mazyar entered Samarra on a mule, al-Afshin was arrested and killed in May or June 841. The Khurramiyyah were never fully suppressed, although they slowly vanished during the reigns of succeeding Caliphs. Near the end of al-Mu’tasim’s life there was an uprising in Palestine. Al-Mu’tasim sent Raja ibn Ayyub al-Hidari to restore order. Al-Hidari defeated the rebels and captured their leader Abu Harb al-Mubarqa.

The great Arab mathematician al-Kindi was employed by al-Mu’tasim and tutored the Caliph’s son, al-Kindi had served at the Bayt al-Hikma, or House of Wisdom. He continued his studies in Greek geometry and algebra under the caliph’s patronage.

Ideologically, al-Mu’tasim followed the footstep of his half-brother al-Ma’mun. He continued his predecessors support for heretical (agreed upon by the majority of scholars) Islamic sect of Mu’tazilah, applying his brutal military methods for torturing Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal.

Death:

Al-Tabari states that al-Mu’tasim fell ill on October 21, 841. His regular doctor had died the previous year and the new physician did not follow the normal treatment and this was the cause of the caliph’s illness. Al-Mu’tasim died on January 5, 842 (p. 207). This caliph is described by al-Tabari as having a relatively easy going nature, being kind, agreeable and charitable. He was succeeded by his son, al-Wathiq.

Sunni Islam titles

Preceded by Caliph of Islam Succeeded by

Al-Ma’mun833-842 Al-Wathiq

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Al-Mutawakkil, Ala Allah Ja’far ibn (821-861): Al-Mutawakkil ‘Alā Allāh Ja’far ibn al-Mu’tasim (March 821 – December 861) was an Abbasid caliph who reigned in Samarra from 847 until 861. He succeeded his brother al-Wāthiq and is known for putting an end to the Mihna “ordeal”, the Inquisition-like attempt by his predecessors to impose a single Mu’tazili version of Islam.

Life:

While al-Wathiq was caliph, the vizier, ibn Abd al-Malik, had poorly treated al-Mutawakkil. On September 22, 847, al-Mutawakkil had him arrested. The former vizier’s property was plundered and he was tortured in his own iron maiden. He finally died on November 2. The caliph had others who had mistreated him in the previous reign punished.

In A.H. 235 (849) al-Mutawakkil had the prominent military commander Itakh al-Khazari seized in Baghdad. Itakh was imprisoned and died of thirst on December 21. One Mahmud ibn al-Faraj al-Nayshapuri arose claiming to be a prophet. He and some followers were arrested in Baghdad. He was imprisoned, beaten and on June 18, 850 he died.

In A.H. 237 (851-852) Armenians rebelled and defeated and killed the Abbasid governor. Al-Mutawakkil sent his general Bugha al-Kabir to handle this. Bugha scored successes this year and the following year he attacked and burned Tiblis, capturing Ishaq ibn Isma’il. The rebel leader was executed. That year (A.H. 238) the Byzantines attacked Damietta.

In A.H. 240 (854-855) the police chief in Homs killed a prominent person stirring an uprising. He was driven out. Al-Mutawakkil offered another police chief. When the next year saw a revolt against this new police chief, al-Mutawakkil had this firmly suppressed. As Christians had joined in the second round of disturbances, the caliph had Christians expelled from Homs.

Also in 241 occurred the firm response to the revolt by the Bujah, people of African descent just beyond Upper Egypt. They had been paying a tax on their gold mines. They ceased paying this, drove out Muslims working in the mines and terrified people in Upper Egypt. Al-Mutawakkil sent al-Qummi to restore order. Al-Qummi sent seven ships with supplies that enabled him to persevere despite the very harsh terrain of this distant territory. He retook the mines, pressed on to the Bujah royal stronghold and defeated the king in battle. The Bujah resumed payment of the tax.

On February 23, 856, there was an exchange of captives with the Byzantines. A second such exchange took place some four years later.

Al-Mutawakkil’s reign is remembered for its many reforms and viewed as a golden age of the Abbasids. He would be the last great Abbasid caliph; after his death the dynasty would fall into a decline.

Al-Mutawakkil continued to rely on Turkish statesmen and slave soldiers to put down rebellions and lead battles against foreign empires, notably the Byzantines, from who Sicily was captured. His vizier, Al-Fath bin Khaqan, who was Turkish, was a famous figure of Al-Mutawakkil’s era.

His reliance on Turkish soldiers would come back to haunt him. Al-Mutawakkil would have his Turkish commander-in-chief killed. This, coupled with his extreme attitudes towards the Shi’a, made his popularity decline rapidly.

Al-Mutawakkil was murdered by a Turkish soldier on December 11, 861 CE. Some have speculated that his murder was part of a plot hatched by his son, al-Muntasir, who had grown estranged from his father. Al-Muntasir feared his father was about to move against him and struck first.

Accomplishments:

Al-Mutawakkil was unlike his brother and father in that he was not known for having a thirst for knowledge, but he had an eye for magnificence and a hunger to build. The Great Mosque of Samarra was at its time, the largest mosque in the world; its minaret is a vast spiraling cone 55 m high with a spiral ramp. The mosque had 17 aisles and its wall were paneled with mosaics of dark blue glass.