Documents for "North African History: Biographies":

• 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...

• Abd al-Aziz IV 1880-1943, sultan of Morocco (1894-1908), son of Hassan. His weak control was evident after the death (c.1900) of the regent Ba Ahmed. His submissiveness to foreign influence, his indulgence in...

• Abd al-Hafiz 1875?-1937, sultan of Morocco (1908-12). Placed on the throne by the revolution that deposed his brother Abd al-Aziz IV, he was soon confronted with uprisings and the demands of European...

• Abd al-Kader c.1807-1883, Algerian military and religious leader. Although born to an anti-Turkish family, he was chosen emir of Mascara to fight the French invaders who had just defeated the Turks. From 1832...

• Abd Allah ibn Yasin see Almoravids.

• Abd al-Mumin d. 1163, founder of the empire of the Almohads. He was the favorite of the Almohad religious reformer Ibn Tumart and became (1130) his successor. Even before his rise to leadership, he had attacked the Almoravids. After long campaigns in Morocco and NW Algeria, he was able to destroy (1147) the Almoravid empire. In 1158 he invaded the Muslim states of Tunisia and NE Algeria, which had been weakened from...

• Abd al-Qadir see Abd al-Kader.

• Abd ar-Rahman 1778-1859, sultan of Morocco (1822-59). He sought, unsuccessfully, to take advantage of the overthrow of Turkish rule in Algeria in order to extend his territory. Later he allied himself with the...

• Abd el-Krim 1882?-1963, leader of the Rif tribes of Morocco, called in full Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Karim al-Khattabi. An important figure in the administration of the Spanish Zone until 1920, he took up arms...

• Ahmad al-Mansur [al-Mansur,=the victorious], d. 1603, emir of Morocco (1578-1603). Proclaimed ruler after his brother's death at the battle of Ksar el Kebir , he gained prestige from the victory over Portugal. In addition, the ransom of the Portuguese captives made him wealthy. He was able to give Morocco a quarter-century of relative peace and...

• Banna, Hasan al- 1906-49, Egyptian religious and political leader; founder of the Muslim Brotherhood. He was involved with traditional Islamic education in Egypt. In 1928 he formed the Society of the Muslim Brothers, which sought a return to original religious precepts. As the organization grew...

• Barbarossa [Ital.,=red-beard], surname of the Turkish corsair Khayr ad-Din (c.1483-1546). Barbarossa and his brother Aruj, having seized (1518) Algiers from the Spanish, placed Algeria under Turkish...

• Baybars I 1223-77, Mamluk sultan (1260-77) of Egypt and Syria. Once a Turkish slave, Baybars became a commander of the Ayyubid and then Mamluk armies. In 1260 he led Mamluk troops to victory against the Mongols at the Battle of Ayn Jalut. When reporting to the sultan, Baybars killed him with a sword and became the fourth Mamluk sultan. His reign was marked by continuous military campaigns against Persian...

• Ben Bella, Ahmed 1919-, Algerian statesman. After World War II he joined the Algerian nationalist movement and soon became a leader of its terrorist faction. He later (1952-56) served as director of the movement...

• Boumedienne, Houari 1932?-78, president and prime minister of Algeria (1965-78). While studying in Cairo during the early 1950s he joined a group of expatriate Algerian nationalists that included Ahmed Ben Bella...

• Bourguiba, Habib 1903-2000, Tunisian statesman, president of Tunisia (1957-87), b. Monastir. Early active in the Destour party, he was at first an advocate of close cooperation with France. Later, however, he...

• Bouteflika, Abdelaziz 1937-, Algerian political leader. He fought against the French in the National Liberation Army and was appointed minister of youth, sports, and tourism shortly after independence (1962). As...

• Farouk 1920-65, king of Egypt (1936-52), son and successor of Fuad I. After a short regency he acceded (1937) to the throne. A constitutional monarch, Farouk was frequently at odds with the Wafd , the largest...

• Fatimid or Fatimite , dynasty claiming to hold the caliphate on the basis of descent from Fatima , a daughter of Muhammad the Prophet. In doctrine the Fatimids were related to other Shiite sects. The dynasty's founder, Said ibn Husayn of NE Syria, was long engaged in religious activity. A...

• Fuad I (Ahmed Fuad Pasha) , 1868-1936, first king of modern Egypt, son of the khedive Ismail Pasha. Educated in Europe, Fuad returned to Egypt in 1880. He was particularly concerned with military and cultural affairs and...

• Gadhafi, Moammar El- see Qaddafi, Muammar al-.

• Hassan d. 1894, sultan of Morocco (1873-94). He brought the weak and disorganized country firmly under his control and held in check attempts by European powers at domination. He placed (1877) the...

• Hassan II 1929-99, king of Morocco (1961-99). Formerly crown prince Moulay Hassan ben Mohammed Alaoui, he ascended the throne on the death (1961) of his father, Muhammad V. A graduate of the Univ. of Bordeaux, Hassan became chief of staff of the Moroccan army in 1957. In 1965 political unrest in Morocco caused him to assume full executive and legislative control, but...

• Idris I 1890-1983, king of Libya (1951-69). A grandson of the founder of the Sanusi Muslim sect, he became leader of the group in 1917. He was acknowledged (1920) by the Italians as emir of Cyrenaica but had to flee to Egypt in 1922 after quarreling with the Italian Fascists. He...

• Idrisids two historic Muslim families. 1 An Arab Shiite dynasty of Morocco (788-974), founded by Idris I, a descendant of caliph Ali. It was the first Shiite dynasty in the history of Islam. Having failed in an anti-Abbasid rebellion in...

• Ismail 1646?-1727, sultan of Morocco (1672-1727). He organized corps of Sudanese to subdue the revolts that followed his accession. He attacked Christian strongholds in Morocco, regaining Larache and...

• Ismail Pasha 1830-95, ruler of Egypt (1863-79), son of Ibrahim Pasha. He succeeded his uncle Said Pasha as ruler. Ismail used the Egyptian cotton crop, enormously enhanced in value by the American Civil War,...

• Khair ad-Din see Barbarossa.

• Muhammad Ahmad see Mahdi.

• Muhammad Ali 1769?-1849, pasha of Egypt after 1805. He was a common soldier who rose to leadership by his military skill and political acumen. In 1799 he commanded a Turkish army in an unsuccessful attempt to...

• Muhammad V (Sidi Muhammad ibn Youssef), 1910-61, king of Morocco (1957-61). He succeeded his father, Moulay Youssef, as sultan in 1927. An ardent nationalist, he was deposed and exiled (1953) by the French...

• Mustafa Nahas Pasha see Nahas Pasha.

• Nahas Pasha (Mustafa Nahas Pasha) , 1876-1965, Egyptian statesman, leader (1927-52) of the Wafd party. He was premier five times between 1928 and 1952. During World War II the British forced (1942) King Farouk to appoint Nahas as head of a government favorable to the Allies. When he became...

• Nasser, Gamal Abdal 1918-70, Egyptian army officer and political leader, first president of the republic of Egypt (1956-70). A revolutionary since youth, he was wounded by the police and expelled (1935) from...

• Nimeiry, Muhammad Gaafur al- 1930-, Sudanese army officer and politician. Early active in the Sudanese nationalist movement, he was temporarily expelled from high school (1948) after leading a student strike against British...

• Obaidallah see Fatimid.

• Qaddafi, Muammar al- 1942-, Libyan political leader. He graduated from the Univ. of Libya in 1963 and became an army officer in 1965. In 1969 he formed, along with a group of fellow officers, a secret revolutionary...

• Sadat, Anwar al- 1918-81, Egyptian political leader and president (1970-81). He entered (1936) Abbasia Military Academy, where he became friendly with Gamal Abdal Nasser and other fellow cadets committed to Egyptian nationalism. A German agent during World War II, he was imprisoned (1942) by the British but escaped after two years in jail. He was again jailed...

• Saladin Arabic Salah ad-Din, 1137?-1193, Muslim warrior and Ayyubid sultan of Egypt, the great opponent of the Crusaders, b. Mesopotamia, of Kurdish descent. He lived for 10 years in Damascus at the court of Nur ad-Din , where he distinguished himself by his interest in Sunni theology. He accompanied his uncle, Shirkuh (or Shirkoh), a lieutenant of Nur ad-Din, on campaigns (1164, 1167, 1168) against the Fatimid...

• Slatin, Rudolf Carl, Freiherr von known as Slatin Pasha , 1857-1932, Austrian adventurer in British and Egyptian service. Called to Egypt by C. G. Gordon, Slatin became governor of Dara (1879) and governor-general of Darfur (1881). In the Mahdist War he...

• Sonni Ali see Songhai.

• Tewfik Pasha (Muhammad Tewfik) , 1852-92, khedive of Egypt (1879-92). He acceded to office when his father, Ismail Pasha, was deposed. In 1880, Tewfik accepted joint French-British control over the nation's finances. This act...

• Ubaidallah see Fatimid.

• Yakub I 1160?-1199, ruler of Morocco (1184-99) and Moorish Spain. He was known as Yakub al-Mansur [the victorious] after his victory over Alfonso VIII of Castile at Alarcos (1195). One of the most...

• Yusuf ibn Tashfin d. 1106, ruler in the dynasty of the Almoravids (c.1059-1106). A Muslim, he led the Berbers in N Africa, continued the conquest of Morocco, took Algeria, and founded (1062) Marrakech, which became his capital. When the petty Moorish kings of...

• Zaghlul Pasha, Saad c.1850-1927, Egyptian nationalist leader, founder of the Wafd party. He suffered both arrest (1882) and exile (1919) for his attempts to end foreign domination in Egypt. Having founded (1919) the Wafd party, he became premier in 1924, but the opposition of...