Thursday, September 21, 2023

2023: Zeferina - Zeroual

 Zeferina

Zeferina.  Yoruba slave woman, the leader of a runaway settlement formed by black Yoruba slaves outside the city of Bahia, Brazil.  In 1826, she organized a revolt against the plantation masters.  The uprising was put down by government troops, and Zeferina and her people were imprisoned.



Zengi
Zengi (Imad ad-Din Zengi) (Imad ad-Din Atabeg Zengi al-Malik al-Mansur) (ʿImad al-Din Zangi ibn Aq Sonqur) (Zangi) (Zengui) (Zenki) (Zanki) (İmadeddin Zengi) (b. c. 1084/1085 - d. September 14, 1146, Damascus, Syria [Mosul, Iraq]). Turkish general who founded a state in Mosul in the twelfth century.

ʿImad al-Din Zangi ibn Aq Sonqur (Zangi or Zengi) was an Iraqi ruler who founded the Zangid dynasty and led the first important counterattacks against the Crusader kingdoms in the Middle East.

When Zangi’s father, the governor of Aleppo, was killed in 1094, Zangi fled to Mosul. He served the Seljuq dynasty, and in 1126 the Seljuq sultan, Maḥmud II, appointed Zangi governor of Basra. When the ʿAbbasid caliph al-Mustarshid rebelled in 1127, Zangi supported the sultan, and the victorious Maḥmud II rewarded Zangi by giving him the governorship of Mosul. Next, the key city of Aleppo submitted to Zangi’s authority to secure military protection against a possible Frankish Crusader conquest.

Zangī thus came to exercise authority over a considerable geographic area, but he wanted to create a kingdom that would also include Syria and Palestine. He was charged by the sultan with the duty of defeating the Christian Crusaders, and he saw himself as the champion of Islam. He was opposed, however, by Muslim princes who refused to accept his authority as well as by the Crusaders. To both Zangi reacted with equal harshness. By diplomacy, treachery, and warfare he steadily extended his authority, with the immediate goal of securing control of Damascus—a goal he never achieved. He did, however, capture Edessa, an important focal point of Frankish authority, in 1144 — the Crusaders’ first serious setback. But Zangi could not press his advantage. Returning to Iraq to repress a revolt there, he was killed by a servant who bore him a personal grudge.

Though he continued his attempts to take Damascus in 1145, Zengi was assassinated by a Frankish slave named Yarankash in 1146. The Christian chronicler William of Tyre said that he was killed by a number of his retinue while he lay drunk in his bed.

Zengi's sudden death threw his forces into a panic. His army disintegrated, the treasury was looted, and the crusader princes, made bold by Zengi's demise, plotted to attack Aleppo and Edessa. Mu'in ad-Din immediately recaptured Baalbek, Hims, and other territories lost to Zengi over the years.

Zengi was the founder of the eponymous Zengid dynasty. In Mosul, he was succeeded by his eldest son Saif ad-Din Ghazi I and in Aleppo he was succeeded by his second son Nur ad-Din.

Zengi was courageous, strong in leadership and a very skilled warrior according to all of the Islam chroniclers of his day. The conquest of Edessa being his greatest achievement. These same chroniclers, however, also describe Zengi as being a very violent, cruel, and brutal man. Muslims, Byzantines, and Franks all suffered at his hands.

Imad ad-Din Zengi see Zengi
Imad ad-Din Atabeg Zengi al-Malik al-Mansur see Zengi
ʿImād al-Dīn Zangī ibn Aq Sonqur see Zengi
İmadeddin Zengi see Zengi
Zangi see Zengi
Zenki see Zengi


Zeroual, Liamine
Zeroual, Liamine (Liamine Zeroual) (b. July 3, 1941, Batna, Algeria).  President of Algeria (January 31, 1994 - April 27, 1999).  Zeroual was appointed president by the Haut Comte de l’Etat, for a temporary period, and it was intended that he remain in this position until public elections were held.  When these elections were held on November 28, 1996, it was Zeroual who was elected.

Zeroual’s background was with the military, and he had a position as general until his appointment as president.  He was seen as a hardliner in the meeting with the Islamist groups, even though his government was in talks with the leaders of the FIS.

Following the elections, the new constitution of Algeria received seventy-five percent of the votes. The new constitution gave Zeroual a democratic mandate to keep out all political groups that defined themselves from religious and ethnic orientations.

Zeroual resigned from power in connection with the democratic elections (if not open for all candidates) of Algeria in 1999.  He was succeeded by Abdelaziz Bouteflika.

Zeroual joined the Algerian army at age 16 and fought against France during Algeria’s War of Independence. In 1965, Zeroual went to the Soviet Union for military training, after which he was posted to Sidi Bel Abbès, Algeria, to head an artillery unit. During the 1970s and ’80s, he rose steadily through the army’s ranks, commanding three of Algeria’s key military regions before being named land forces chief in 1989. That same year Zeroual resigned from the army after a dispute with President Chadli Bendjedid. He later served (1990–91) as ambassador to Romania, and he was named Algeria’s defense minister in 1993.

Following his appointment as president by the High Security Council in January 1994, Zeroual attempted on two occasions to broker peace negotiations with the Islamic Salvation Front (Front Islamique du Salut - FIS), Algeria’s main opposition party. Although both attempts ended in failure, Zeroual continued to express an openness to future negotiations on the condition that the FIS would renounce the use of violence.

With his easy victory in Algeria’s first multi-candidate presidential elections on November 16, 1995, Zeroual legitimized his status as Algeria’s head of state. Stressing peace and reconciliation as the twin themes of his presidency, he declared as his goal a broad-based government in which both secular and Islamic parties would work together toward implementing democracy. Although the FIS rejected Zeroual’s blueprint for constitutional reform, most of Algeria’s legal opposition parties voted in favor of the reforms at a national conference held in September 1996. The new constitution was approved by referendum in November. As part of a pact aimed at ending Algeria’s crisis and bloodshed, Zeroual also promised legislative elections in 1997. In September 1998, he announced his intention to resign from the presidency because of health issues, and, following the election of April 1999, he was succeeded by Abdelaziz Bouteflika.

Although some urged Zéroual to run in the 2009 presidential election, he said in a published statement on January 14, 2009, that he would not run, while also suggesting that it was not in the best interests of democracy for President Abdelaziz Bouteflika to run for a third term.

Liamine Zeroual
 see Zeroual, Liamine

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