Islamic leaders, their biographies and accomplishments. Saul Silas Fathi

      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